[54] M. Chevreul has already defined the “Beautiful” as “the expression of causes whose influence has most force in moving mankind by appealing to their senses” (Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode, 1856, p. 169).
[55] [“Truth lies at the bottom of a well,” is an old saying, but our author does not seem to agree with it. We should be very sorry to think that truth was only to be found in science. This is, doubtless, the opinion of a great many learned men at the present day; but we must candidly own we do not agree with it, and certainly are not able to endorse M. Pouchet’s sentiment. We have ourselves not arrived at the point, and in this we are, doubtless, old-fashioned,—of referring everything to “reason,” as opposed to faith.—Editor.]
[56] Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1828, vol. ix, p. 10.
[57] Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iii, p. 29.
[58] We can compare this passage from the naturalist philosopher with the other quotations we made farther back. “Females are extremely curious about this spectacle (the fondness of a “mother” monkey for her young one), and doubtless their attention is caused by discovering therein a true manifestation of the feelings they have themselves experienced as mothers; they are, above all things, astonished to recognise in these ardent attentions the joy and pride of maternity, of which they believed themselves alone to be susceptible.” (É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Cours d’Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères, Paris, 1829, vol. i; Lesson, vi, p. 16).
[59] Proudhon has already laid down as a principle the establishment of a psychology among animals (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 279). Frederick Cuvier has done the same.
[60] Hom. iv in Acta Apostolorum. See Rechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, Erfurt, 1706, p. 1.
[61] Sometimes this restraint is openly avowed; and we see M. Maire, who is also engaged upon the same questions, admit that, without these influences, he would embrace the same ideas that we are endeavouring to bring forward. “Let us frankly avow,” he says, “if we had not continually before our minds the doctrines of a religion which we respect,—if we had not a sincere faith, this intuitive belief which tells us we must make a mistake,—we should dare to write thus. The more the organisation of the animal is perfected, the more the spiritual element produced by the action of the various functions is itself perfected.... There would then be only a hierarchical gradation of one and the same principle. The psychical fluid would be always the same in all individuals. The difference in its manifestations would refer to the difference in the organisations which produce them” (Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, p. 169, 1855-1856).
[62] [We cannot exactly see why it must necessarily have been offensive to Christianity. There is nothing injurious to religion in the theory of intellectual gradation.—Editor.]
[63] Jam vero nobis ostendendum est eam (bestia) habere rationem internam et intus conceptam. Videtur sane a nostra differre, non essentia sed gradu. Uti nonnulli existimant Deorum a nostra discrepare rationem, non differentia essentiali, sed quod illorum magis, nostra minus sit accurata. Et quidem quod ad sensum attinet et reliquam, tum instrumentorum sensus, tum carnis universæ, conformationem attinet, eam eodem nobiscum modo se habere in animalibus, ab omnibus fere conceditur.—Porphyrius, transl. by Holsteinius, De Abstinentiâ, 1655, p. 108. Is not unity of composition here conjectured, both for the intellect and the body?