HUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE.[42]
A poor slave, named Androcles, escaped from his master into a sandy desert. While there a lion came suddenly upon him, and by signs made him understand that it was in an agony of pain. This the slave was able to relieve by extracting a large thorn from its paw and by gentle treatment of the wound. From this time the lion shared its prey with the man, till Androcles, pining for human society, and facing even death to regain it, at length gave himself up to his master. It so happened that the slave was sent to Rome to be exposed to wild beasts at the same time that the very lion which he had befriended was sent thither, among many others, to supply the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. The moment came when Androcles was to be torn in pieces. A huge famished lion rushed forth in fury upon him; then paused, crept gently towards him, and ended by fawning upon him with caressing movements. It was the lion he had known in the desert.
This is no fable, but a piece of well-known history; and the sequel is equally well-known, that the applause and admiration of all beholders at this wonderful instance of fraternity between man and beast, at this marvellous exemplification of the powers of memory and gratitude in a wild animal, secured the lives both of slave and lion.
Had this been recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, in that noble and reverent phraseology which so often leaves out of sight all secondary causes as by comparison insignificant, and ascribes all that is good and wonderful directly to God, there can be little doubt that it would have borne a striking resemblance to the miracles wrought in favour of Elijah and Daniel; when for the one God commanded the ravens to feed him, and the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening; and for the other God sent his angel and stopped the mouths of the lions even in their den, and they did him no hurt. Explain these miracles as you will, and the kindred one quoted by St. Peter, or accept them all without explanation as occurrences out of the course of nature and beyond our comprehension, it still follows from the language of the sacred writers that they at least supposed these brute creatures capable of intelligence, an intelligence sufficient to receive the divine commands and to avoid, so far as they might, opposition to God’s will. For how else could there be any moral teaching in the circumstance that ‘the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet?’ How else can the miracle seem anything else or anything better than a piece of puerile conjuring? But this faculty, which the sacred writers therefore attribute to the brutes, the faculty of hearing and obeying the voice of God, is the basis of the highest intelligence, the basis of all true morality and religion.
That which we are now concerned to prove is, that human reason is an outgrowth and development of a faculty common to the whole animal creation; that we are the heirs of the past in fact, as we are inheritors of the future in hope; that an incalculable multitude of small advantages acquired in successive generations has brought man to his present vantage-ground of superiority; and that this very footing of advantage has now become in its turn simply the starting-point for future improvement to an estate indefinitely higher and better. It may well be impossible in a few minutes’ discourse to do more than indicate the bare outline of the proof; and even this might seem inappropriate to the time and place, did we not hope to show further that these opinions, startling or even dangerous as they may seem to some, give support to high principles of humanity, and are in accordance with the course and progress of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind.
It is well established that the human body in all its parts corresponds to the structure of certain of the lower animals. When first discovered this was extremely shocking to the sentiments of mankind, shocking to their pride, but shocking also to their religious sentiment, because they had been accustomed to speak of the ‘human form divine,’ to represent the supreme God, ‘Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,’ as wearing the form and acting with the members of a man, and because in the writings sacred alike to the Jew and to the Christian, they found it written that God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him.’ They did not stop to enquire what sort of creation was intended or what sort of likeness. They failed to observe that the vague indefinite notion they entertained of a bodily likeness was inconsistent with the Christian’s cardinal doctrine of the Incarnation, according to which it is not man that wears the form of God, but God that took upon him the form of man.
It will now for a time perhaps seem equally shocking that the mind of man, which alone is left him for the divine resemblance, should notwithstanding have been developed from the mind of a brute creature, or if not developed, at any rate framed upon the same type and pattern.
A broad line has till lately been drawn between reason and instinct, instinct appearing in a large number of instances to do or even to surpass the work of reason, but within an exceedingly limited sphere, and according to a fixed invariable course. Ingenious and thoughtful men, however, taking their opinions not from hearsay and tradition, but founding them on careful observation of the works and ways of God in nature itself, have now shown the baselessness of this ancient estimate.