ON THE NON-IMMORTALITY OF ANIMALS. 
621 
man, the elephant, and the bug, is perfect in its kind. The know¬ 
ledge of the latter is of a different kind from the former, as they 
possess faculties which would laugh our boasted intellect to scorn: 
and yet man need not be jealous of them; for truly did the Poet 
exclaim, when he looked round on the face of creation, 
“ Where all is formed 
With number, weight, and measure; all designed 
For some great end! 
Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank 
Important in the plan of Him who framed 
This scale of beings; holds a rank, which, lost, 
Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap 
Which Nature’s self w'ould rue.” 
Thus the difficulty of believing animaculaB to possess an imma¬ 
terial principle, when it is confronted and examined, vanishes, and 
it proves to be simply a question between magnitude and paritude. 
It would be foolish to speculate on the feelings of the Infusoria, 
as many of them change frequently the shape of their minute 
bodies, all apparently the actions of spontaneous volition. Their 
external configurations greatly differ from those of the rest of ani¬ 
mated nature; but it is a pleasing proof that one Creator has made 
the whole, and upon one grand general system of construction. 
They may appear to those who estimate importance by size to 
be insignificant things; but magnitude is no criterion of either 
life or mind. The trees of the forest spring from the little corcu- 
lum in their seeds. In that small spot their living principle, or¬ 
ganization, and qualities, are abiding. Animals likewise emerge 
from the larger space of the maternal ova, so that the Infusoria, 
which the natural eye cannot see, are not very much less than that 
speck in the embryo of the elephant or the man, which the imma¬ 
terial principle and soul of both first occupy and animate. This is 
as great a mystery as it is a certainty. We see this fact, however 
incompetent we may be, in our present ignorance, to comprehend 
or explain it. Mind can exist in a point as well as in the giant 
Ibrm into which that vital spark gradually enlarges. 
Here I should probably have left the question to be decided by 
our veterinary brethren; but, having propounded a query which 
is rather beyond my capacity to answer in a direct manner, I must 
even do it indirectly :—How is a lion or a tiger to employ himself 
in a future state of being 1 
I believe that, in the design of that immense goodness which 
manifests itself to us by displays so various and so numerous, the 
ultimate destination of the lion or tiger was not to thirst after blood 
and live by carnage, any more than I can be persuaded that the 
human body is so organized and adapted for purposes which can 
