Certain theologians, and certain theosophists, as men who fancy themselves inspired sometimes affect to be called, had approached so nearly to the Doctor's hypothesis of progressive life, and propensities continued in the ascending scale, that he appealed to them as authorities for its support. They saw the truth, he said, as far as they went; but it was only to a certain point: a step farther and the beautiful theory would have opened upon them. “How can we choose, said one, but remember the mercy of God in this our land in this particular, that no ravenous dangerous beasts do range in our nation, if men themselves would not be wolves and bears and lions one to another!” And why are they so, observed the Doctor commenting upon the words of the old Divine; why are they so, but because they have actually been lions and bears and wolves? why are they so, but because, as the wise heathen speaks, more truly than he was conscious of speaking, sub hominum effigie latet ferinus animus. The temper is congenital, the propensity innate; it is bred in the bone; and what Theologians call the old Adam, or the old Man, should physiologically, and perhaps therefore preferably, be called the old Beast.
That wise and good man William Jones of Nayland has in his sermon upon the nature and œconomy of Beasts and Cattle, a passage which in elucidating a remarkable part of the Law of Moses, may serve also as a glose or commentary upon the Doctor's theory.
“The Law of Moses, in the xith chapter of Leviticus, divides the brute creation into two grand parties, from the fashion of their feet, and their manner of feeding, that is, from the parting of the hoof, and the chewing of the cud; which properties are indications of their general characters, as wild or tame. For the dividing of the hoof and the chewing of the cud are peculiar to those cattle which are serviceable to man's life, as sheep, oxen, goats, deer, and their several kinds. These are shod by the Creator for a peaceable and inoffensive progress through life; as the Scripture exhorts us to be shod in like manner with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. They live temperately upon herbage, the diet of students and saints; and after the taking of their food, chew it deliberately over again for better digestion; in which act they have all the appearance a brute can assume of pensiveness or meditation; which is, metaphorically, called rumination,1 with reference to this property of certain animals.
1 Pallentes ruminat herbas.
VIRGIL.
Dum jacet, et lentè revocatas ruminat herbas.
OVID.
It were hardly necessary to recal to an English reader's recollection the words of Brutus to Cassius,
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this,—
JULIUS CÆSAR.
or those of Agrippa in Antony and Cleopatra,
Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
By duty ruminated.
“Such are these: but when we compare the beasts of the field and the forest, they, instead of the harmless hoof, have feet which are swift to shed blood, (Rom. iii. 15.) sharp claws to seize upon their prey, and teeth to devour it; such as lions, tygers, leopards, wolves, foxes, and smaller vermin.
“Where one of the Mosaic marks is found, and the other is wanting, such creatures are of a middle character between the wild and the tame; as the swine, the hare, and some others. Those that part the hoof afford us wholesome nourishment; those that are shod with any kind of hoof may be made useful to man; as the camel, the horse, the ass, the mule; all of which are fit to travel and carry burdens. But when the foot is divided into many parts, and armed with claws, there is but small hope of the manners; such creatures being in general either murderers, or hunters, or thieves; the malefactors and felons of the brute creation: though among the wild there are all the possible gradations of ferocity and evil temper.