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for his reception, but to form a graduated | be witnessed in every-day life. How would

scale of instinct and intelligence, which should unite matter to mind, and all things to himself."* While mind presents points of resemblance, it is also susceptible of the great est distinctions. We know so little of the world of mind, that we are almost completely ignorant as to what are its first elements and conditions of existence. There may be, and doubtless is, as much difference in the mental world as in the material. The question discussed, we conceive, embraces all these considerations: it does not merely ask, What is the difference between man and brutes? but, Do the latter possess any faculties in common with man, by which they exercise the power of reason? The negative to this seems to be taken for granted by "Persona." We agree with him in thinking that, without reason and its adjuncts, knowledge and education, man would be "viler and more helpless than any of the lower animals;" with it, and without speech and language, what would he have become, we again ask? The idea that reason is one constituent of man's immortality, or rather, "that man's capacity for immortality is due to its action," is ventured by " Persona," and is again alluded to near the close of his article, where the fact of man's immortality is established by a way of reasoning not appreciable, we fear, by all his readers. As this point was adverted to by "Taliesin," we shall venture only a few remarks upon it. Man's immortality cannot be inferred from his possession of reason; if it could, how was it that the ancients were in such doubt as to their own future existence? Man is immortal, but he would not have known it to a certainty but for revelation. "Life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel." As we sufficiently showed in our opening paper, there is a 66 discriminated degree" between man and brutes. The Creator of all could surely bestow upon one what he denies to another of his creatures, without our supposing that he is merely guided by what appears to us an "arbitrary rule."

"Persona's": 'sneer at the "thousand and one" anecdotes of the intelligence of animals is no argument, and our opinion still is, that a reference to instinct alone does not account for many actions of the higher animals which may

*Edwards "On the Intelligence of the Animal Creation."

"Persona" argue the rationality and saneness of another man except by observing his actions? So with respect to the inferior creation; we are not conscious of the feelings which animate them, but must observe and judge from their actions. From what has been advanced in the course of this debate by writers on both sides, it is evident that animals are endowed with the faculties of perception, comparison, imagination, memory, judgment, affection, comprehension, and volition, and which they evidently make use of, as occasion requires, in an intelligent and rational manner. This assertion could be borne out by authentic facts, had we space to refer to them. "Taliesin" records an interesting tale of a swallow, from " Chambers' Journal," and we also refer our readers to the same publishers' varied publications for many interesting anecdotes to the same purport."

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Persona" calls our attention to three distinguishing characteristics" of man, viz., "conscience, character, and progressiveness," and asserts that "reason is a primary cause of each!" We wonder in what school he learnt his mental philosophy? We understand conscience to be the "moral sense," exclusively an attribute of a moral being, without which man could not be a moral agent, and it is such a distinguishing attribute of man, that we should be quite at sea" if we looked for it among the brutes. "Character, as the result of free will, modified and acted out by reason," and we may add, illustrated by action, so far from being confined to man, is surely evidenced by the faithful dog and the affectionate horse. Progressiveness is certainly the exclusive attribute of man, and one great distinction between him and the lower creation, and this we referred to before (p. 290, col. 2): "Were there only that wonderful property of progression, by which every generation of man may surpass the former, leaving animal intelligence to its original restrictions, it would be sufficient to demonstrate that, though we even shared with it in genus, we stood at the greatest possible distance from it in species."†

*In one of their " Papers for the People," the tract recording some "Memorabilia of the Seventeenth Century," will be found an account of a remarkable battle of starlings, fought over the city of Cork, in 1621.

Dr. Hamilton, "Congregational Lectures," 12th series, lect. i.

But, under man's influence, the domestic and most useful animals do progress in proportion to himself; as this has been referred to by "Thor" (p. 329, col. 2), we leave it, and passing "Persona's" somewhat curious phrase of a "negative or retrograde" "progression," and which he explains by the "relations they sustain to the right standard of reason," we arrive at his à priori argument, when he ventures his opinion that the "image of God," into which man was created," consists in the free will and intellectual faculties with which he is endowed, answering respectively to the divine love and the divine wisdom, which are the revealed will and intellect of Deity." How, or in what sense, the "free will and intellectual faculties of man answer to the divine love and the divine wisdom," we are at a loss to comprehend, neither are we any more enlightened by the expression that the "divine love and the divine wisdom is the revealed will and intellect of Deity." Such a comparison is too fanciful, and is too loose and irreverent a manner of speaking about the Divine Being, to merit more of our attention. The phrase 'Image of God," we think, indicates the purity and holiness of man as a moral being, when he came from the hands of his Maker, and this moral character was the "image of God," as being a transcript or reflection of the holiness and purity of the Divine Being. If man's intellectual faculties only are meant by the phrase "fallen man," then fallen angels still possess that image, and who will affirm this? if they do not, what have they lost, according to "Persona's" view? Like a noble temple, majestic even in its ruins, man still exhibits the traces of his original glory, but yet everywhere appears to be dispossessed of something to guide and direct him aright; and this loss explains how it is that man, unblessed with the light of revelation, degenerates more and more every successive generation, until, in some instances, his condition seems to be but a few degrees removed from that of the beast.

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We must now hasten to consider the somewhat abstruse article of "Threlkeld," who, in the first place, calls our attention to a distinction between "reason" and "understanding." Granting what he affirms of such a distinction, we ask, What does it prove relative to the question before us? Nothing but what, in our opening article, we expressly

affirmed as belonging exclusively to man, viz., the power of reasoning abstractedly on propositions that are evident to the mind only (p. 289, col. 2), while brutes reason in an inferior degree, and solely on things presented to their mind through the limited avenues of their senses, and which may not inaptly be termed the "faculty" or reason "judging according to sense." That profound philosopher, Locke, after expressing his opinion that brutes do not, in any great degree, possess the faculties of comparison and composition, remarks:-"If it may be doubted whether brutes compound and enlarge their ideas that way to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.

It seems as evident to me, that they do, some of them, in certain instances, reason, as that they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they received them from their senses.' Man is able to form abstract ideas of moral or other truths, which rest only on probable evidence, or on that derived from his own conceptions of the nature and necessity of things, and so do not require to be demonstrated by any appeal to the outer senses. Man also possesses the faculties of reflection and contemplation, which are doubtless denied to the inferior creation in any great degree. That animals possess the " faculty judging according to sense," "Threlkeld," in the first part of his article, appears to admit, and this is nearly all that we claim on their behalf: it is, therefore, evident that any distinction between reason, as exercised in its higher degree by man, and the understanding, or inferior power of reasoning they possess, is in this present question uncalled for, and practically useless, as the distinction is admitted by both pro and con. It is evident to any who have read Threlkeld's" article, that he feels the difficulties of his position, and apparently only half apprehends his subject; as in a subsequent part of his article he first denies, and then immediately affirms, what we had previously inferred from the former part,

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"Essay on the Human Understanding," book ii., chap. 11, sect. 10 and 11.

viz., that understanding is possessed by the inferior creation (p. 327, col. 2). We do not understand how the " purposes of the animal" (which yet "vary") " are all predetermined by its organization;" can this be possible, since we see that animals similar in organization do not always all act the same in similar circumstances? While some are stupid, others are fully alive to their position, and act according as duty or danger appears to dictate. How there can be "selection but not choice, volition rather than will," we do not know. Our friend winds up this somewhat illogical argument by asserting that the degree of understanding possessed by animals requires the "co-existence of reason, consciousness, and free will to be identical" with the intelligential faculties of man. Whether animals have reason, is the question under consideration: consciousness they have of all their powers and capabilities, as animals, not as moral beings; they have also a will, which they freely exercise.

We assure our friend, J. F., that he is entirely mistaken if he supposes that we argue from what animals possess in common with man, "analogous to what man possesses in common with angels and the Deity," and that, therefore, animals are "an inferior species of man." The pride of rational man is somewhat touched by the supposition that animals possess any reason; but we demur to such a caricature of the conclusion to which our argument leads as that given by J. F. Animals are not men, and have not our essential characteristics; but this does not necessarily include the idea that man only can be rational, and that animals are mere automata, impelled by blind agency, over which they have no control. J. F. merely propounds an absurdity, and to men an impossibility, when he asks, If the human mind were effaced from the world, could we restore it from the animal creation? We do not claim such prerogative of the Deity. None but the Omnipotent could give to an inferior the attributes of a superior creature. In answer to J. F.'s other queries, we remark that we have already shown, in our opening article, what we take to be some of the peculiar characteristics of man, and which would be sufficient, were there nothing else, to demonstrate that man hath preeminence over the beast; we do not make reason alone the chief "hecciety" of man, and

how many genera or species possess intelligence we know not, but rather suppose that every animated being, however low in the mental scale, has a degree of intelligence proportionate to its need and the circumstances in which it is placed.

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The "something" that animals have within them, "the subject of instinct, sagacity, and animal action," J. F. thinks "is not mind, and yet it cannot be called matter." Here is the difficulty which our opponents must always feel, if they will only follow up the question, and which they never have explained satisfactorily. J. F. goes on to term it "an instinctive subject," and farther on explains it as "matter imbued with a lower order of properties than those of the mind, but properties which seem to approximate thereto" (p. 369, col. 1). We wish J. F. had more fully explained what he considers these "properties" are, and in what respects they differ. Does this "instinctive subject" possess memory? Does it enable its possessor

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to understand the wish of its master? it teach it to hate, fear, hope, or love? Does it instruct how to know, by comparison, the difference of days or persons? Does it comprehend or perceive anything? If so, it cannot be blind. These are the attributes of mind; exercising them aright we call Reason. How, then, can it be confined to man? Again, the inferior creatures feel no necessity for such inventions and improvements as have been discovered by human ingenuity, and it would be absurd in the extreme to expect anything of the kind in their history.

Space forbids to notice at length the article of "Arhondhu," who, however, has introduced very little in addition to what has been advanced by others; yet, more candid than some of them, he admits that "animals have a kind of mind, not necessarily immortal" (an important admission, by the way), and that it possesses some faculties similar to man's; but he fails to explain how these mental faculties can be possessed and rightly used, even by an animal with only "some kind of mind."

"Arhondhu" thinks that a reference to their faculties of perception and memory, together with their passions and appetites, sufficiently explain the isolated wonderful tales of animal sagacity, but he has omitted to show how this is done. If animals have perception, memory, and volition, how can

they be merely influenced by a "blind something," termed "instinct;" a something, the impulse of which they must obey, but which they cannot direct? When they act intelligently, why are we to suppose that it is not also reasonably, rationally?

"Arhondhu" asks, if we suppose that only some, or every species of animals, possess reason? Our opinion is, that all do in exactly that degree limited by their intelligence, necessities, and peculiar habits of life. In our opening article, we forbore arguing our position from the facts discovered in the science of phrenology, but "Beta" has in some measure supplied the argument from this source; in addition to what he has advanced we observe, that the brain is evidently the organ of the mind, the "material instrument of thought," and without which "no mental act is possible in the present world," from the fact that, other conditions being the same, its size is a measure of power in its functions; small size in man indicates feeble and large size great mental power. Among animals the same fact is observable; those whose brain approaches nearest in form, structure, and size to man's, invariably stand the highest in the scale of animal intelligence, as the elephant and dog, whose brain presents these characteristics. Now, as these, among other facts, evidently prove that the brain in man is the organ of his perceptive and reasoning faculties, why should we object to the same use of that organ in animals, or to the belief that, in proportion to the development of this important organ in the same species, are their perceptive and reasoning faculties? If its use in the animal be not the same (in its degree) as in the human what is its use? Why should we suppose that one law obtains in the mental world of the animal, and another in the world of human mind?

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We demur to "Arhondhu's" remark, that the fact of speech and language being confined to man furnishes an argument that reason is also; for though animals have not speech, or a written language, there can be no doubt that they understand the language of men, and in their dumb way give appropriate answers to questions addressed to them. It is also evident that they possess some means of communicating ideas to each other, in proof of which many instances might be adduced.

In conclusion, let us endeavour to understand our position. Some of our opponents deny, in toto, that animals possess any kind of mind whatever; they refer everything to the refined organization of animal matter. It is hardly necessary to expose the materialism of such a theory, as it would conduct us to the same conclusion when applied to account for the actions of men. Others, as Descartes, refer the phenomena of animal life to the immediate operation of the Deity in them, as the moving power in a piece of machinery. The opposition of such a theory to scripture, from its elevating every animal to the dignity of a deity, is sufficient to induce our readers at once to reject it. Others, as J. F., refer all the actions of animals to "something" which is neither matter nor spirit, but something which they do not appear to understand very clearly. While "Persona" and J. F. define reason as the soul, or mind, "Threlkeld" supposes it to be a mental faculty exclusively given to man. While J. F. asserts that "animalshave no mind," and that "where there is mind there is reason," ""Arhondhu" thinks that "animals have some kind of a mind”— mind without reason!

One of our opponents imagines that we raise animals into "an inferior species of man:" we do no such thing-we merely propose an impartial inquiry into their mental capacity, as to its intelligence, &c. Our opponents say that our theory detracts from man's dignity; we do not think so. It may teach him humility when he is reminded of the links that unite him to all created existence. Man possesses sufficient to distinguish him. from the "brutes that perish," without doing them injustice. The progressive nature of his mighty intellect-his character as a moral, responsible, and immortal being—are his distinguishing traits, and his conduct as such a being determines his present and future happiness or misery. Not one of the positions we took up in our opening article has been, to our knowledge, overturned: the evidence, incomplete as it necessarily must be, is now before our readers, and they must pronounce upon the question. CLEMENT.

Note.-The writer of this article has recently seen a little work on the "Intelligence of the Animal Creation," by the Rev. W. Edwards, to which he is indebted for several ideas in the foregoing reply.

Bistory.

WAS MAHOMET AN IMPOSTOR? AFFIRMATIVE REPLY.

THE more we study the character of Mahomet, the more satisfied are we with the decision come to in our opening article. Were we convinced of the contrary by the writers on the negative side, we should be happy to confess it, believing, as we do, that "it is better to be inconsistent with" one's-self, "and change" one's " opinion, than, by pertinaciously adhering to it, to be inconsistent with truth."*

None, however, of our opponents have been able, we think, to exculpate their favourite from the heavy charge of imposture brought against him. A remark or two on their several productions must suffice.

We cannot understand the leading thought which "Republicola" wishes to bring out, unless it be this-that Mahomet's success proves that he was not an impostor. We honestly confess, however, that we are unable fully to gather up the writer's meaning. Cyclopean epithets are so often used that they bewilder the reader; while, at the same time, conflicting opinions are put forth in different parts of our friend's article. As an example of the latter we may note that, starting with the notion that Mahomet was an enthusiast, we find our friend afterwards saying "There is a truth in Mahomet, as there is a sublimer truth in Christ, else would human conscience-sole test of human virtue -reject his doctrine and forget his name." From this observation, and others unquoted, the reader might rationally infer that "Republicola" believes, not only in Mahomet's sincerity throughout, but likewise in his apostleship. Memory, however, should remind him that he previously stated that, in the case of Mahomet or any other enthusiast, "self-deception it may be, it more than probably is," to imagine "his genius" to be divine, his power derived from God." Here, then, are two opposite and contradictory grounds upon which "Republicola" seeks to rest his cause. With regard to the first of these, we may remark that we are not now

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* "British Controversialist," vol. v., p. 152.

called upon to discuss the truth of Mahometanism, for this question appears to assume the untruthfulness of Mahometanism, and simply asks, “Was Mahomet a deceiver or deceived?"

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Republicola's" argument from Mahomet's success is worthless, or it would follow that all true men must succeed in the world, which experience directly contradicts.

The theory put forth by "Threlkeld,” to account for the supposed revelations to Mahomet, is ingenious, and may possibly be somewhat correct; but we are slow to receive T. U.'s explanation, seeing that the founder of Islamism "did not like to be seen under such paroxysms," and that "his visions were not always preceded by such attacks" as "epileptic persons" are subject to. But we care not to tarry at this point. We are willing to admit that, whatever the cause, Mahomet seems to have been sincere when starting in his supposed prophetic course; but we firmly believe that subsequently worthless "alloy," and much of it, debased his spirit.

Whether G. F.'s definition of an impostor be correct or not, we think that Mahomet's imposture went further than our colleague in debate contends for. Such an impostor he might have been in the earlier part of his career; but we fear his sincerity left him with other of his praiseworthy characteristics. Probably the "worldly alloy" entered into the materials composing his character sooner than many imagine, but it did not manifest its effects till controlling circumstances were removed.

We stated, at the conclusion of our opening article, that we considered "ambition" to be Mahomet's "guiding star;" and ultimately, ambition and sensuality appear to have been his pre-eminent characteristics. Both these had unbridled sway during the latter part of his life. Hemmed up, as it were, before he gained power, they afterwards burst forth with greater violence. Not possessed of the ability to carry out his ambitious designs, nor of the opportunity to gratify his inordi

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