is possessed by some animals below the grade of man; but because this view of animated nature, is full of intrinsic interest. The demonstrations of intelligence to which I have alluded, are by no means extraordinary, as your own memory will bear me witness, but they are none the less conclusive; the more closely you observe the actions of the brute creation, with the more force, will the conviction be pressed upon you, that they Do remember, compare, reflect, and profit by experience, as well as love and hate, exhibit gratitude, and seek revenge; and the more deeply you will feel the injustice, of that wholesale slander which it has become so fashionable to cast upon four fifths of our fellow tenants of the earth. Leaving every

other consideration out of the account, an enlightened selfrespect would assign to each its appropriate place, how elevated soever, knowing that man would still be the crowning work of omnific Power.

CHAPTER VI.

Difference between intelligence and reason-The young human being-Its helplessness-Its improvement-The internal world-Rapidity of thought-What is worthy of the name of Self-The relation which intelligence and reason sustain to language Classification.

I have already attempted to distinguish between intelligence as possessed by the brute creation, and that birth-right of man, a living soul. The latter collects and presents images drawn from real life, rapidly following each other like the pictures in a magic lantern; this is fancy, but we do not at

tribute it to the most sagacious brute. Man unites ideas; breathes into them as if the breath of life; makes them human; combines as by some chemical power, elements the most heterogeneous; this is imagination; but who supposes a dog endowed with such a gift? Man has a conscience; perceives the moral quality of actions, as right or wrong; but a brute has no such possession or perception. The lioness may destroy her young, but we do not view her with that feeling of abhorrence, that we should the human mother performing a similar act; there is a moral quality in the one, which does not exist in the other.

As in plants we find instinct; in the sponge, instinct and sensation; in the elephant, instinct, sensation and intelligence, so, in the man, we find all these, crowned with reason and a soul. But with all these possessions, what is a young human being? The most helpless of creatures. The chick bursting its prison walls, runs off, tortoise-like, with the shell upon its back. The kitten frisks upon the hearth, in the exuberance of a new and delightful existence. Throw it from the table, upon which, from stool to chair it has clambered. Do you kill it? It scampers away, evidently well pleased with the adventure. Not so with the infant. Caress or handle it with maternal tenderness; its feeble accents are only those of pain and weakness. Even the glad light of the morning, is a source of pain, and we forsooth must blanket out the day to insure its comfort. Withdraw the supporting arm, and it falls helpless to the ground. Let the vernal breezes, so bracing, so full of life to beast, bird, insect and flower, blow upon it. Do they invigorate its little frame? They rather rack it with an ague. Turn its face toward the most beautiful landscape. It does not see it, (but let the tongs jingle in the corner, and its at

tention is quickly arrested,) and if perchance a tiny copy is pictured upon the magic canvas of its eye, it receives no pleasure. What! no pleasure in the beauties of nature, the handiwork of God! Is it then a little brute? Stay your judgment and look again. Its first birth-day has gone by; perhaps its second. Now a smile lights up its countenance. Give it a rattle or a toy; it tosses its little arms about, as though it would perform some wondrous feat, and crows with very glee. Its clear, blue eye beams with something like intelligence. It has learned to balance itself, and exulting in its newly acquired powers, it attempts a little journey from the cradle to the chair. The experiment is a perilous one; still it totters on, and now a cry of delight, announces the suc cess of its enterprise. Frown upon it. Inquiry is mirrored in its eyes, and wonder is depicted on its parted lips. Speak a harsh word. Ah! you have gone too far; those spirit-windows are dimmed, and its cheeks suffused with tears.

All this is interesting; but do not some other animals display abilities almost equal? Need we seek a more extended or copious language for the young child, than for the dog? Cannot every feeling of the former find a sound, a look or a gesture to express it, in the vocabulary of the latter? Such a sentiment may conflict with the foolish pride of the heart, but it is nevertheless true. Will the natural language of cries, looks and gestures be adapted to the capacities of this being, when it shall have attained its full stature, during subsequent periods of its existence? Let us see. A few more birth-days have been celebrated by the fond parents of that blue-eyed, laughing child. A child no longer; a man now, he loves to contemplate nature. He looks, where beast or bird has never looked through nature, up to God." That frail thing, > that a few years ago, was laid moaning on the downy pillow,

enshrines an ever-living soul-"an embryo God;" a soul like your own, noble in its origin, powers and destiny. His mind immortal as its Author, has gone forth, and from the material Universe, has gathered a universe of his own; a world of thought, as wonderful as that system which surrounds him; of thought, all living like itself, his spirit endowed with almost creative power, has formed and peopled it. What a being that mind of yours is! Are you not conscious of what I tell you? How often, when the curtains of night have been drawn around you, and you have closed your eyes, but not to sleep, have images of the past, and thoughts of the future, occupied that part of you which thinks; when the sports of the day have been renewed with heightened pleasure; companions seemed dearer to you than ever; and you have been as interested and delighted, as you ever were in beholding the most beautiful scenery of earth. This is what I mean by an internal world. I presume you have sometimes seen, in your rambles in the field or forest, tall trees, stripped of their bark, and perhaps riven throughout the whole extent of their huge trunks. You knew that such could only be the effects of lightning. But did you ever see its splintered-fire, bursting from the cloud, strike some distant tree or spire? Now, let loose from its dark magazine, and almost before another now, the object wrapped in flame? What can outstrip the lightning? Nothing, do you say? Yes, you possess that which can leave the winged arrows of Heaven far behind. Do you ask what it is? I answer, thought. When you saw that bolt descending, did you not think of some giant oak, which you had often passed, and as often admired, on your way to school; or of the dwelling of a neighbor whom you loved, situated in that direction, which might be injured or destroyed? Did not the accounts which you had heard or read,

of loss of property and life, flash upon your mind, and all this, before the loud, sharp thunder betokened the stroke? How many times, think you, your mind could travel from earth to heaven and return, before the lightning reached its destined mark? In a clear evening, do you not sometimes fix your eye upon a distant star, that shines away up in the blue sea of space? Doubtless you do, and as you continue gazing, and begin to realize that the "lucid point," is not "a needle's puncture, to let God's glory through," but a vast world, which, "Perhaps illumes some system of its own,

With the strong influence of a radiant sun;"

and as a vast chronometer* of Heaven, poised and propelled by God's own hand, gilded with living light, beats ages in its ceaseless swing. Do not your thoughts fly up, where your eyes can scarcely see? But did you ever wait for them to make their journey there? You readily answer "no;" and yet the very light that meets your eye and apprises you of that star's existence, though flying at the rate of one hundred and ninety-three thousand miles in a single second, may have "left its far-fountain, twice-three years ago."

Perhaps your thought, escaping the visual bound even of the far-seeing telescope, embarked from that far island in the noble Archipelago† of God, to travel on as near as thought can go, to that incalculable Centre around whom all systems wheel—to Him, "with whom is neither parallax‡ nor shadow of change." How wonderful is thought! What a birthright is mind; a birthright "created in God's own image." Take this from man, and he becomes a brute; deprive him of sen

* A time measurer, as a clock.

+ Literally, chief sea; in a general sense, "sea of many isles;" employed in this latter sense here, calling the stars, islands.

+ Variation.