This education is more or less arduous, according to the medium and the circumstances in which each species is placed. That of fishing, for instance, is simple enough for the penguin, which, in her clumsiness, finds it difficult to conduct her brood to the sea; its great nurse attends the little one, and offers it the food all ready; it has but to open its bill. With the duck, this education or training is more complex. I observed one summer, on a lake in Normandy, a duck, followed by her brood, giving them their first lesson. The nurslings, riotous and greedy, asked but for food. The mother, yielding to their cries, plunged to the bottom of the water, reappearing with some small worm or little fish, which she distributed impartially, never giving twice in succession to the same duckling!
In this picture the most touching figure was the mother, whose stomach undoubtedly was also craving, but who retained nothing for herself, and seemed happy in the sacrifice. Her visible desire was to accustom her family to do as she did, to dive under the water intrepidly to seize their prey. With a voice almost gentle, she implored this action of courageous confidence. I had the happiness of seeing the little ones plunge in, one after another, to the depth of the black abyss. Their education was just on the eve of completion.
This is but a simple training, and for one of the inferior vocations. There remains to speak of that of the arts: of the art of flight, the art of song, the art of architecture. Nothing is more complex than the education of certain singing birds. The perseverance of the father, the docility of the young, are worthy of all admiration.
And this education extends beyond the family-circle. The nightingales, the chaffinches, while still young or unskilful, know how to listen to, and profit by, the superior bird which has been allotted to them as their instructor. In those Russian palaces where flourishes the noble Oriental partiality for the bulbul's song, you see everywhere these singing-schools. The master nightingale, in his cage suspended in the centre of a saloon, has his scholars ranged around him in their respective cages. A certain sum per hour is paid for each bird brought here to learn his lesson. Before the master sings they chatter and gossip among themselves, salute and recognize one another. But as soon as the mighty teacher, with one imperious note, like that of a sonorous steel bell, has imposed silence, you see them listen with a sensible deference, then timidly repeat the strain. The master complacently returns to the principal passages, corrects, and gently sets them right. A few then grow bolder, and, by some felicitous chords, essay to supply the harmony to the dominant melody.
An education so delicate, so varied, so complex, is it that of a machine, of a brute reduced to instinct? Who can refuse in this to acknowledge a soul?
Open your eyes to the evidence. Throw aside your prejudices, your traditional and derived opinions. Preconceived ideas and dogmatic theories apart, you cannot offend Heaven by restoring a soul to the beast.[26] How much grander the Creator's work if he has created persons, souls, and wills, than if he has constructed machines!
Dismiss your pride, and acknowledge a kindred in which there is nothing to make a devout mind ashamed. What are these? They are your brothers.
What are they? embryo souls, souls especially set apart for certain functions of existence, candidates for the more general and more widely harmonic life to which the human soul has attained.
When will they arrive thither? and how? God has reserved to himself these mysteries.
