LUT 
the Lutherans. Aided by tlie invention 
of printing, the genuine principles of rea- 
son, jihilosophy, and revelation began to 
make rapid progress. The doctrines of 
justification by faith alone, and of abso- 
lute unconditional election and reprobation, 
could no more prevent the spread of know- 
lege than the worship of images, or the in- 
vocation of saints. Luther had taught the 
religious world, that the mind of man can- 
not be subjected to the imperious decrees 
of fallible councils and human power, and 
the result was glorious. The human mind, 
delivered from the external constraint im- 
posed upon it by hierarchical despotisms, 
and from the internal constraint of the 
apathy in which it was kept by a blind 
superstition, soon found itself emancipated 
from guardianship, and began to make a 
free, energetic, and proper use of its facul- 
ties. The documents of religion were sub- 
jected to a profound criticism ; and, as the 
study of the fathers and of councils were 
connected with the decretals of antiquity, 
history, and languages, the great objects 
of classical learning began to assume a new 
aspect, and to be illuminated by a new 
light. The scholastic philosophy found in 
the Lutherans most formidable adversaries, 
who unveiled its vices, and attacked its 
weak sides. The torch of reason, which 
had too long smothered in the recessgs of 
the cloister, and glimmered in the cells of 
the monks, was no sooner admitted to the 
re-animating atmosphere of freedom and 
philosophy, than it began to shine fortli in 
its native lustre. The empty science of 
the casuists vanished before the morality 
of the gospel. In short, the human mind, 
thus liberated from the fetters of priest- 
craft and tyranny, shook off the corruptions 
which it had gathered during the middle 
ages, and without fear of the inquisition 
here, or the terrors of eternal damnation 
hereafter, began to di.sp!ay its native ac- 
tivity, to probe the foundations of totter- 
ing societies, the rights of mankind, the 
laws of empires, and the governments of 
churches. May the happy influence of the 
reformation, thus brought into action by 
the fearless, though priestly Luther, con- 
tinue to spread itself till the whole world 
is freed from the shackles of superstition, 
and the glorious empire of truth, reason, 
and religion, shall be established in every 
country, and its mild laws be written on 
every heart 1 
LUTRA, the otter, in natural history, 
a genus of mammalia of the order Ferae. 
Generic character ; six cutting teeth rather 
LUT 
shaip; canine teeth longer; feet webbed. 
There are eight species, of which we shall 
notice only tlie following. 
L. vulgaries, or the common otter, is met 
with in almost all tire countries of Europe, 
and throughout the north of Asia. It is 
not considered as completely amphibious, 
but can subsist a long while under water, 
lives principally upon fish, and takes its 
prey with great facility in rivers and lakes, 
in the banks of which it generally fixes its 
habitation, forming it with extreme elabo- 
rateness and precaution w’ith respect to 
danger. When unable to procure fishes, it 
destroys and devours the smaller quadru- 
peds. It is highly fierce, and when pursued 
by dogs will defend itself with uncommon 
vigour and perseverance, uttering no sounds 
of pain or fear though almost torn to pieces 
by its assailants, but employing its last ef- 
forts of existence in inflicting upon them in 
return tlie most dreadful wounds and lace- 
rations. The female produces four or five 
young in the spring. Otters have been so 
successfully tamed, notwithstanding all their 
fierceness, as to accompany their owners 
like dogs, and obey calls and signals with the 
same promptitude. Mr. Bewick relates 
that Mr. James Campbell possessed a young 
otter of this decriptioii, and which had been 
trained by him with such success to catch 
fish, that in a single day it would some- 
times take ten salmon. When wearied 
with its hunt it would decline further exer- 
tion, and receive its reward in an ample 
repast on the fish it had taken, and fall al- 
most instantaneously to sleep, being gene- 
rally conveyed home in that state. It 
would fish in the sea as well as in rivers. 
Otters are sometimes seen in Guinea in 
large companies and of immense size, weigh- 
ing not less than one hundied pounds, 
and so savage as to be highly dangerous. 
Otters are remarked for eating only the 
head and upper parts of the fishes which 
they take unless particularly pressed by 
hunger, and appear to have a propensity 
to destruction itself like the pole-cat, al- 
ways killing many more animals than it 
can devour. See Mammalia, Plate XVI. 
fig. 6. 
L. Marina, or the sea-otter, is about four 
feet and a quarter in its whole length, and 
is found almost solely between the forty, 
fourth and sixtieth degree of N. latitude, 
and the one hundred and twentieth and 
one hundred and fiftieth degree of E. 
longitude. Its skin is an important ar- 
ticle of commerce between the Russians 
<md the Chinese, and a single fim of tlii^ 
