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Show 1'72 l\t.ENTAL CON~TITUTION OF AN. MAL!. this great system of things we are only beginning to ba"e a right conception. It has been found that simple electricity~ artificially produced, and sent along the nerves of ~ dead body, excitea muscular action. The brain of a newly .. killed animal being taken out, and replaced by a £ubstance which produces electric action, the operation of digestion, which had been interrupted by the death of t.he animal, was resum~d, showing the absolute ioentiry of the brain with a galvanic battery. Nor is this a very startling idea, when we reflect that electricity is almost as metaphysical as ever mind ·was supposed to be. It is a thing perfectly intangible, weightless. Metal may be magnetized, or heated to seven hundred of Fahrenheit, without becoming the hundredth part of a grain heavier. .And yet electricity is a real thing, an actual existence in nature, as witness the effects of heat and light in vegetation- the power of the galvanic current to reassemble the particles of copper from a solution, and make them again into a solid plate-the rending force of the thund'erbolt as it strikes the oak~ see also how both heat and light observe the angle of incidence in reflection, as exactly as does the grossest stone thrown obliquely against a '"·all. So mental action may be imponderable, intangi· ble, and yet a real existence, and ruled by the Eternal through his laws.* · Common observation sho~s a great general superiority of the human mind over that of the inferior animals. Man's mind is almost infinite in device; it ranges over all the world; it forms the n10st wonderful combinations; it seeks back into the past, and stretches forward into the future; while the animals generally appear to have a narrow range of thought and action But so also has an in· fant but a ~imited range, and yet it is mind which works • If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought -that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and willmay 1e presttmed to have been hrought to an exact measurement. The speed of light has long been known to be about 19:2,000 miles J>er second, and the expPriments of Wheatstone have shown that the electric agent travels (i1 I may so speak) at the same rate, thus showing a likelihood that one law rules the movements of all the "imponderablP. bodies." Mental action may accordingly be presumed to have a rapidity equal to one hundred and ninety· two thousand miles in the second-a rate evidently far beyond what is necessary to make the design and execution < f any of our ordinary muscular movements apparently identical .in point of ,._me, which they are. M:ENT AL CONSTITUTION OJ' ANIMALS. 1'73 t~ere, as well as in t~e ~ost accomplished adults. The ~1ffer~nce betw~en mind In the lower animals and in man IS a difference Ill degree only; it is not a specific differe. nce. All who have studied animals by actual observation, and e_ven ~hose who have given a candid attention to th~ ~UbJect I~ books, must attain more or less clear con_v1cbon~ of. this truth, notwithstanding all the obscurity wh1c~ pr~JudiCe. rna~ have engendered. . We see animals capab~e of affectwn, Jealousy, envy· we see them quarrel and c<?nduct _quarrels, in the very :Oanner pursued by th~ more Hn{lulstve of. our <?Wn race. We see them liable to flattery, Inflated With pride, and dejected by sharne. We see theiD: as tender to their young as human parents are, and as faithful to a trust as the most conscientious of hu! Dan set·vants. . The horse is startled by marvellous obJ~ cts, as a man IS. The dog and many others show tena· CIO~ls m_em~ry. The dog· also prov~s himself possessed of ImagLnat~on, by the act of rlreaming. Horses, finding themselves In .want of a shoe, have of their own accord gone to ~ farner.'s shop where they were shod before. qats, ~losed up 1n. rooms, will endeavor to obtain their hberatw~ by pulling a latch or ringing a bell. It has several times been observed that in a field of cattle when on~ _or two were .~ischievous, and persisted -long' in annoying or tyranmztng over the rest, the herd, to all ap ... pearance, consulted, and then, making a united effort, dr<?ve the troublers off the ground. The members of a ~ookery have also been observed to take turns in supplyIng the needs of a family reduced to orphanhood. All o! t~1ese are acts of reason, in no res'pect different from stm~lar acts of men. Moreov~r, although there is no he~1tage of accu~ulated knowledge amongst the lower animals_, as there IS amongst us, they are in s01ne degree susceptible of those modifications of natural character ~nd c~pable ,of those. accomplishments, which we cali educatwn. fhe taming and domestication of anirnals and the changes !hus prodnced upon their nature in th~ c.ourse of generations, are results identical with civilizab? n amongst ~urselves ;_ 3:nd the quiet, servile steer is p1obably as :unlike the ong1nal wild cattle of this country as the English gentleman of the present day is unlike the rude baron of the age of King John. Between a youn u~broken hor~e and .a trained one, there is, again, all thg~ ihtference whiCh exists between a wild yonth reared at • |
