The dividing Line.—Now it is just here that we are compelled to place the line of division between the brute and man, between instinct and intellect. The brute has senses, as man; in some respects, indeed, more perfect than his. Objects external make impressions upon his senses; his eye, his ear, his various organs of sense, respond to these impressions. In a word, he has sensations, and those sensations are accompanied, as all sensations in their nature are, and must be, with consciousness, that is, they are felt. But this does not necessarily involve what we understand by consciousness in its higher sense, or self-consciousness. The brute has, we believe, no knowledge of himself as such, no self-consciousness, properly speaking; does not distinguish between self as perceiving, and the object as perceived, has no conception of self as a separate existence distinct from the objects around him, has, strictly speaking, no ideas, no thoughts, no intelligent comprehension of objects about him; has sensations, but no perceptions in the true sense of the word, since perception involves the distinction of subject and object, or self-consciousness. These distinctions are lost to the brute, blindly merged in the one simple consciousness of physical sensation. He feels, but does not think, does not understand. Sensation takes the place of understanding and reason with him. It is his guide. To the impressions thus received, his nature blindly responds, he knows not how or why. He is so constituted by his wise and benevolent Maker, that sensation being awakened, the impulses of his nature at once spring into play, and prompt irresistibly to action, and to such action as shall meet the wants of the being. There is no need for intelligence to supervene, as with man. The brute feels and acts. Man feels, thinks, and acts. The Creator has provided, for, the former, a substitute which takes the place of intellect, and secures by blind, yet unerring impulse, the simple ends which correspond to his simpler necessities, and his humbler sphere.
Man's Superiority.—Herein lies man's mastership and dominion over the brute. He has what the brute has not, intellect, mind, the power of thought, the power to understand and know. Just so far as he fails to grasp this high prerogative, just so far as he is governed by sensation and its corresponding impulses, rather than by intelligence and reason, just in such degree he lays aside his superiority, and sinks to the sphere of the brute. Thus, in infancy and early life, there is little difference. Thus, many savage and uneducated races never rise far above the brute capacity, are mere creatures of sensation, impulse, instinct.
In one Respect inferior.—In one respect, indeed, man, destitute of intelligence or failing to govern himself by its precepts, sinks below the brute. He has not the substitute for intelligence which the brute has, has not instinct to guide him, and teach him the true and proper bounds of indulgence, but giving way to passion and inclination, without restraint, presents that most melancholy spectacle on which the sun, in all his course, ever looks down, a man under the dominion of his own appetites, incapable of self-government, lost to all nobleness, all virtue, all self-respect.
Memory in the Brute.—It may still be asked, does not the brute remember? It is the office of memory to replace or represent what has been once felt or perceived. It simply reproduces, in thought, what has once passed before the mind. It originates nothing. Whatever, then, of intelligence was involved in the original act of perception and sensation, so much and no more is involved in the replacing those sensations and perceptions. If in the original act there was nothing but simple sensation, without intellectual apprehension of the object, without self-consciousness or distinction of subject from object, then, of course, nothing more than this will be subsequently reproduced. Mere images or phantasms of sensible objects may reappear, as shadows flicker and dance upon the wall, or as such images flit before us in our dreams. The memory of the brute is, probably, of this nature, rather a sort of dream than a distinct conception of past events. What was not clearly apprehended at first, will not be better understood now. Failing, in the first instance, to distinguish self from the object external, as the source of impressions, there can be no recognition of that distinction when the object reappears, if it ever should, in conception. The essential element of memory, which connects the object or event of former perception with self as the percipient, must, in such a case, be wanting.
The Brute associates rather than remembers.—What is usually called memory in the brute, is not, however, so much his capacity of conceiving of an absent object of sense, as his recognition of the object when again actually present to his senses. The dog manifests pleasure at the appearance of his master, and the horse chooses the road that leads to his former home. This is not so much memory as association of ideas or rather of feelings. Certain feelings and sensations are associated, confusedly blended, with certain objects. The reappearance of the objects, of course, reawakens the former feelings. Thus, the whip is associated with the sensation experienced in connection with it. So, too, a horse which has once been frightened by some object beside the road, will manifest fear on subsequently approaching the same place, although the same object may no longer be there. The surrounding objects which still remain, and which were associated with the more immediate object of fear in the first instance, are sufficient to awaken, on their reappearance, the former unpleasant sensations.
A being endowed with intelligence and reason would connect the recurring object, in such a case, with his own former experience as the perceiving subject, would recall the time and the circumstances of the event and its connection with his personal history. This would be, properly, an act of memory.
But there is no reason to suppose that such a process takes place with the brute. We have no evidence of any thing more, in his case, than the recurrence of the associated conception or sensation, along with the recurrence of the object which formerly produced it. Given, the object a, accompanied with surrounding objects b, c, d, and there is produced a given sensation, y. Given, again, at some subsequent time, the same object a, or any one of the associate objects b, c, d, and there is at once awakened a lively conception of the same sensation y.
Summary of Results.—This is, I think, all we can, with any certainty, attribute to the brute. He has sensations, and so far as mere sense is concerned, perceptions of objects, as connected with those sensations, but not perception in the true sense as involving intellectual apprehension. These sensations and confused perceptions recur, perhaps, as images or conceptions, in the absence of the objects that gave rise to them, and as thus reappearing, constitute what we may call the memory of the brute; but not, as with us, a memory which connects the object or event with his own former history, and the idea of a personal self as the percipient. Let the object, however, reappear, and the previous sensation associated therewith, is reawakened.
This, I am aware, is not the view most commonly entertained of brute intelligence. We naturally conceive of the brute as possessing faculties similar to our own. The brute, in turn, were he capable of forming such a conception, would, probably, conceive of man, as endowed with capacities like his own. In neither case is this the right conception.