That principle which remembers, abstracts, imagines, and reasons, is _Mind_.
The principle called _Instinct_ remembers, abstracts, imagines, and reasons. Therefore, this principle is Mind.
The general deduction follows, that the same thinking intellectual principle pervades all animated existences; created by the DEITY, and bestowed in such measures upon the different species as appeared in His wisdom requisite for the destiny and happiness of each; thus establishing a scale from man to the lowest orders of animalculæ; and the successive steps downward from the man of the highest intellectual range to the man of the lowest, are no farther than from the latter to the most intelligent animal; and from him successively to the lowest in the scale of intelligence. All endued with that wonderful principle, which in man, rising above the office of providing for physical wants, expends its powers on the highest subjects of knowledge, though the final cause of this knowledge is the benefit of himself or his species, while in animals, being more limited in its range, but perhaps more delicate in some of its powers, it may be employed, for aught we know, on important subjects of knowledge, tending to promote their own happiness, of a character so minute and intricate as to be beyond the utmost appreciation of the human mind; but yet as essential to their welfare as the most common principles of philosophy are essential to ours.
There is nothing unnatural in this theory; so far from it, it appears to be suggested by nature itself. We all have a living existence, and that existence to sustain and enjoy. The history of animals and men exhibits so many characteristics in common, and those more powerful characteristics which we have discovered only in men, merely serving to establish endowments stronger in degree, without warranting a fundamental distinction, a scale of intelligence from man to the most inferior animal, appears to result as naturally as a scale of intelligence among men, founded on their different characteristics. It may be said, perhaps, that some of these facts and arguments can be employed as well to prove a moral as an intellectual nature. Admitting this for a moment, it is by no means certain that they have not to some extent a moral sense; although our inquiry has no reference to this branch of the subject. Their endowments, like those of the tribes of Africa, neither improve nor degenerate materially; and who is prepared to say that a Goth or a Hun exhibited a nicer sense of right and wrong than a tiger or an elephant does? We know nothing concerning their secret relations. The order and harmony of the bee-hive, the ant-hill, the families of beavers, and flocks of birds; the apparent recognition by some animals of the right of property; will perhaps ever remain an enigma. Animals, on the other hand, of the same species, oppress each other no more than man does his fellow-man; and those of different species cannot act with greater ferocity toward each other, than they can find an example for in human conduct. We tread upon them without concern, and hunt them down for mere amusement. We prepare them for slaughter with a degree of indifference to their sufferings and death that is shocking in the last extreme. Let us not boast too much of our moral qualities, although the Deity did design that we should subsist in part upon flesh; although we have the marks of this design upon us, the same as the bear and the wolf, and have the sanction of the Scriptures; for although the final cause of this is wise, it is no excuse for cruelty; and probably an enlightened moral sense would teach us to abstain entirely from animal food, if we can live without it. We can no more say that animals were made for our convenience exclusively, than that the hare was made for the lion, or that the Deity would wish man should uproot every other species, than that the tiger should. The simple truth is, we are all alike creatures of the Deity, and subjects of His will. He designed all existence; He bestowed it; and His beneficent protection is extended alike over all His works; from man, the noblest of His creation, to the young ravens, whose cry He has admonished us He deigns to hear.
