FIDO FIDES. 
273 
man, as to the possession of intellect, the supposed 
“ consequences” of the concession cannot be aggravated 
by the concession of mind to the whole animal kingdom. 
Dr. Cromwell, indeed, in his recent work on the “ Future 
Life,” puts it as a case for consideration, whether vege¬ 
tables think. Let us here deal with certainties; let us 
admit that animals are endowed with reasoning faculties, 
and, for the sake of truth, brave all possible “ conse¬ 
quences.” 
When this admission has been frankly made, the gra¬ 
dations of intelligence in the animal kingdom are seen to 
follow pretty nearly the order of organic development. 
It may be very hard to discover any traces of intelligence 
in a rotifer or starfish; but among the vertebrata, the 
degree of intelligence is evidently related to the degree 
of perfection of the nervous system. As we ascend the 
scale of animated nature, we see intellect acquiring more 
and more strength, and instinct declining, to make way 
for it. The conformations of the nervous system are in 
every case parallel to the degree of intelligence, and the 
brain is, in bulk and quality, the measure of the mind. 
Thus an observer, skilled in the dissection of the nervous 
centres, familiar with the various dispositions of the 
interlacing fibres (first fully demonstrated by Dr. Ma¬ 
cartney), and experienced in the observation of the 
psychical peculiarities of various orders of the vertebrata 
—an observer so fitted for the task could predicate, from 
an investigation of the brain of an animal, its place in 
the intellectual scale of being, as accurately as the phy¬ 
sical place of an animal can be determined by an inves¬ 
tigation of a few bones or a tooth. Mere size of brain 
T 
