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Show 1 '10 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS· tnight become defaulters to that amount, four to halt: the amount, and so on, without rendering the guarantee fu.nd insolvent. If it be tolerably well ascertained that the In- , stances of dishonesty (yearly) among such persons amo';lnt to one in five hundred, this club would continue to exist, subject to being in debt in a bad year to an amount which it would be able to discharge in good ones. The only question necessary to be asked previous to the formation of such a club would be,-may it not be feared that the motive to resist dishonesty would be lessened by the existence of the club, or that ready-made rogues, by belonging to it, might find the means of obtaining situations which they would otherwise have been kept out of by the impossibility of obtaining security among those who know them? Suppose this be sufficiently answered oy saying that none bu~ those who could bring sati~factory testimony to their previous good character should be allowP.d to join the club; that persons ·who may now hope that a deficiency on their parts will be made up and hushed up by the relative or friend who is security, will know very well that the club will have no rnotive to decline a proser.ution, or to keep the secret, and so on. It then Qnly remains to ask w hetber the sum demanded for the guarantee is sufficient* The philosophical principle on which the scheme proceeds, seems to be simply thie, that, atnongst a given (large) number of persons oJ good character, there will be within a year or considerable space of time, a determinate number of instanr.es in which moral principle and the terror of the consequences of guilt will be overcon1e by temptations of a determinate kind and amount, and thus occasion a periodical amount of loss which the association must make up. This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an individual; in the mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary to say, much less to argue, that mental action, being proved to be under lavv, passes at once into the category of natural things. Its old metaphysical character vanishes in a moment, and the distinction usually taken between physical and moral is annulled, as only an error in $Dublin Review, Aug. 1840. The Guarantee Society has since been established, and is likely to become a useful and prosperous institution MENTAL CONS'l'ITUTION OF' ANIMALS. 171 tu"!lls This view agrees with h t es, that mental 71henomena fl w d~ all observation teach .. They are seen (0 be rle end~~ uectly from the brain. and naturally c?nditione~ organs 0~n~at~rally co~stitu~ed all other organ 1c phenomena to 'I A uJ hobed1ent, hke must the constitution of this~ a';. bn °~' wondrous consciousness of thought and ptar~ usr e, whi?h gives us us familiar :wit~ the numberle~s t~i~~slo~, v.:hlch makes bles us to rise In conce ti d b 0 .eai th, and ena-c~ ls of G?d himself! I~ i~r:naa~te~o~::I~~Ion. to the coundium or Instrument-a little mass which foims the m~b ·u ts,o much common dust ; ye t.I n .t l. . 'decomposed, IS 1 s 1 v mg con sf t f d stgned, formt3d and sustained bv Ai . ht w· J u wn, a-admirable its character! how wrefl:~fve y f tl~ om. How ?le depths of that Power by wh. h .t 0 e unuttera- Is so sustained ! Ic I was so fo.rmed, and In the mundane economy t 1 . · as a me~ns of providing for ti1:in~ a ac~on tak.es its place th. e varwus relati.ons of ani. mal s eaecphe ns ent· exisbt e·n ce and ntshed accordino- to its s ecial ' .. pecies e~ng fur-of its various relations p 'fh necessities and the rlemands compl'ehensive term f~r its o~ ne~vous system~the ~ore ly developed in different 1 ganic ~ppara~us-Is variOusdifferent individuals, the ~~ises an. species, ~nd also in ral relation to the amount ~fme OI mass beanng a geneand crustacea we see sim 1 powe:. . In the mollusca the extent of the b d Pd! a g~nghonic cord pervading 0 y, an send1ng out 1 t . 1 fil In the vertebrata, we find a brain . h a ~I a aments. branching lines of nervous tissue. :nt a spinal cor~, and general structure ~f animals th But. he~e, as In the is observed. The brain of tl e gr~at pnnc~ple of unity expansion of one of th . 1e Vel tebrata IS merely an the moll usc a and crusfa~:~gh~n.s t~f the nervou~ cord of glion of the mollusca and ~rust r e corresponding ganthe rudiment of a brain •th ace.a may be regarded as ing as only ? further de~elo~:fr~{~~\horga~ t~us appearare many ;dcts which tend to . e In eno~·· There appa.J iltu; is of an electric nat~:. ove that t.he ac.twn of this surprisino- agent which t 1 e, a f?Odificatwn of that as other ~ubOl~dinate formas {e: :fagfnehhsm, heat, and light, ' n o w ose general scope in ~~ The ray, which is conside d tl I . or next to the crustaceans i/e le owes.t m the scale of fishes brain in certain scanty a~~ me:d~1fa first famt repr~sentation of ~ lllerely composed of enlarged orJ· oa-m· s roy f tmhea nsseersy, ews .l uch appear at |
