ON THE FUTURE EXISTENCE OF BRUTES. 
749 
quadruped was only in degree, and not in kind. In the brute it 
may be compared to a seed in an ungrateful soil. It makes an 
effort to vegetate, it commences the operation ; but circumstances 
arrest its progress, and render fructification impossible : while the 
same seed in the mind of man springs to maturity, and bears 
fruit proportioned to its natural soil, and to the artificial cultivation 
bestowed upon it. 
“ Gradation is the most prevalent principle in the great scheme 
of creation. The three material kingdoms of nature, however re- 
mote their extremes, have points of close contiguity ; — bitumen 
and sulphur form the link between the earth and minerals, — vi- 
triols unite metals with salts, — crystallizations connect salts with 
stones — amianthi and lylophytes form a kind of tie between stones 
and plants ; the polypus unites plants to insects ; the tube- worm 
seems to lead to shells and reptiles ; the water-serpent and the eel 
form a passage from reptiles to fish ; the anas nigra is a medium 
between fishes and birds ; the bat and the flying squirrel link birds 
with quadrupeds; the monkey gives the hand to man; while 
man, in his turn, seems to be a link connecting a higher order of 
intelligences*.” The immaterial world appears in this respect to 
be very analogous to the material. “ The human subject lowest 
in intellectual cultivation, if we regard him for a moment as he 
really is, abstracted from his capacity of improvement, which, in 
fact, alone forms his real superiority, is very little above the 
highest intellectual quadruped. We may thus trace intellect, 
however restricted in development, as it passes, diminishing in 
degree through the whole of the encephalous animals. These fall 
into that division of the animal kingdom in which the medullary 
substance, no longer concentrated, is divided into portions, or spread 
throughout the system ; and in such the co-existence of intellect 
with mere sensation is uncertain, until, at last, it becomes evident, 
as in the zoophytes, that nothing but sensation is left, and we may 
well doubt whether even sensation can exist in matter without 
something like an immaterial connexion. Sensation, indeed, may 
be considered to be the lowest state of intellect, which seems to 
quit the creatures of this world in the vegetable zoophytes. 
We have adduced these facts in confirmation of our opinion, 
and likewise to shew the absurdity of an argument that has been 
repeatedly advanced by those who disbelieve in the future ex- 
istence of brutes. “ That if we extend our belief so far, we ought 
to carry it even to the vegetable kingdom, in whom the living 
principle is clearly distinguished.” We presume we have clearly 
shewn the difference between the living principle in plants and 
Herschelfs Natural Philosophy. 
