OF THE BRUTE CREATION. 
663 
active, conscientiousness prescribes a limit to their indulgence; it 
permits defence, but no malicious aggression. When this faculty 
is very powerful in the dog, the poor animal, as in the instance of 
the circumstance related by Mr. Youatt, will carry his restraint so 
far as not to touch any of the delicious fare around him, although 
exhausted with fatigue and hunger. But the following anecdote 
will more fully illustrate this faculty. 
“ An officer of Holstein returned from a day’s shooting ex- 
tremely fatigued. He hastily placed the game in his chamber, 
locked the door, and unconsciously shut in his dogs. He was al- 
most immediately afterwards dispatched on business, and departed, 
forgetting his game. He was absent many days. On his return 
he hastened to his chamber, where he found the faithful dogs 
stretched by the side of the game, and dead. Several partridges 
and hares were strewed around them, but they had not touched 
one of them, nor had they cried to be released, which would have 
been immediately heard in the chateau, because they imagined 
that they were placed there by their master to guard the produce 
of their day’s excursion.” But this is the consequence of educa- 
tion, some of my readers will exclaim. Be it so; still it is the 
same God-like faculty which man possesses, that regulates our 
feelings, and points out the limit which they must not pass. 
We are fully aware of the prejudices which we now encounter 
from the general belief that man is the only religious animal, and 
that the Deity has given him a conscience, which inward monitor 
warns him of his errors ; and, when properly heeded, so regulates 
his conduct, that he cannot deviate from the paths of rectitude and 
honour. Let us analyze this. The various and contradictory 
systems of ethics that have prevailed in different ages, and in dif- 
ferent communities of men, prove that no religious sentiments are 
instinctive. The standard of right has been as various as the differ- 
ent societies have been numerous. Moral error in one place has 
been religious and political expediency in another. Crimes that 
incur the full penalty of the law in one country have been tolerated 
in another. The moral character of man is the result of accident 
and chance ; he is almost a factitious animal, — like a block of mar- 
ble exposed to the varying chisel of the statuary. 
Man brings nothing with him into this world. He is moulded 
and formed according to the artificial standard of that society in 
which he happens accidentally to be situated. The same man that 
bends at Loretto would have been a pious pilgrim at Mecca, or a 
fervent adorer on the banks of the Ganges. We do every thing 
from breeding and education, and so likewise do our domesticated 
animals ; and it is these that form the character in both cases, 
and without which there would be neither conscience nor judg- 
