The bird building its nest does not follow an invariable rule, but accommodates itself to circumstances, to the materials of the locality, to the requirements of defence, as man does with his own habitations. There is no proof that the bird builds untaught by its elders, or that it does not improve by practice. Since wasps have been known to construct their nest out of paper, itself a fabric of human invention, it is impossible they can have chosen their material by an original instinct. The cells which various bees construct attain to various degrees of perfection, and imperfections may be found in the most perfect. It has indeed been a curious fancy for men so long to entertain, that though they were created in the image of God to have dominion over the lower creatures, yet those creatures without reason, without teaching, without the God-likeness, should be able to surpass them, by a miracle or a mystery, in the accuracy or perfection of their works.
The pursuit which man in a low state of civilization has ever thought most noble is that of war. The essence of war lies in the combination of forces and the choice of opportunity. Of both these the lower animals are known to be capable. Their armies resemble human armies in following leaders, in posting sentinels, in carrying off captives, in making slaves. Creatures that are very weak combine not unfrequently to repel or to destroy an antagonist immensely too strong for their individual efforts. That rooks and other animals try, and execute justice upon, offenders against the laws and customs of their society is probable, if it cannot be absolutely proved.
The objection is sure to be urged that if the dumb animals have the progressive plastic intelligence which is thus claimed for them, it ought, in the innumerable generations which have existed, to have attained to something far higher than there is any pretence for thinking it to have done. But this objection leaves important considerations out of sight. It is true here, as in so many cases, that to him that hath shall more be given. The intelligence of man reached a point not all at once but by degrees, at which it was able to invent helps and appliances for its own benefit and improvement, and thenceforward its strides were more rapid and its distinction from lower intelligences more marked. Cancel the art of printing, cancel the signs of the alphabet, cancel the forms of articulate language, and with each one of these steps you will thrust back and degrade, not perhaps every single human intellect, but certainly the whole mass and average of human intelligence. There is no need to ask or answer the question whether thought without language is possible: without language thought cannot move, it has no grasp upon the world; it may flicker for a moment in the mind that kindles it, as a light under a bushel, but it cannot shine before men that they may see its goodness and glorify their Father in heaven. We see the proof of this in races of men that have no printed books, no symbols for writing, and but feeble imperfect languages. Civilization is wanting to them; their worship is degraded; in their habits and general morality they rise but little above the brute creation. Moreover, century after century they continue without making any apparent improvement or advance. Contrast or compare with these the lower animal creation, and it will be found, if not in its separate members, still in the whole group, not to fall so infinitely below humanity as human beings have long been pleased to imagine: for the lower animals can be taught to recognize man as their superior and friend, though his mind is beyond their comprehension, and a similar recognition is exactly what we men have to attain to in regard to God; they can be taught by pleasure and pain, motives by which we ourselves both in childhood and in age are taught, motives by which God Himself declares that He teaches us, if we are to believe His word.
That they are capable of our virtues has been shown in a notable instance; that they are capable of our follies is clear in the conspicuous vanity of the peacock; and no weakness cleaves more pertinaciously to the human mind than this of vanity, which is often found combined even with the noblest intellect. That they are influenced by feelings like ours may be learned from the gay plumage of the bird of Paradise, acquired under the same influence of the preference and admiration of others, for which fair women wear fair raiment, and for which the soldier, at extra risk to his life, is clad in scarlet.
According to a principle now well known, the earlier the period of life the greater the resemblance is likely to be between creatures akin to one another. Hence we may explain the phenomenon that some children, throughout their childhood prone to causeless mischief and stubborn resistance, become at length reasonable and self-controlled men. As for the child, so for the brute, a future of enlightened reason and self-control may be in store. The largest and most generous minds are now beginning to contemplate the possibility of an immortal destiny for all animals whatsoever. To my own mind, as doubtless to many of yours, such a conception has often seemed fanciful and ridiculous, as the greatest and best notions often do to minds that are narrow or unexpanded by a wisdom higher than their own. So it was that the gossips and philosophers of Athens mocked when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, though St. Paul was preaching only the resurrection of human beings. To extend this belief in the resurrection to all the animate creation is to extend our conception of the power and the goodness of God, to make easy many things that otherwise seem appallingly difficult in regard to His justice and His mercy. Does it seem a thing impossible with you that God should raise the dead? Is the Lord’s arm shortened that it cannot save, whether it be man, or the worm that Scripture deems his fitting emblem? Or, as the Jews were jealous that the Gentiles should be saved, are we jealous that for creatures which we slaughter, trample on, enslave, and crowd out of existence, happiness and life should yet be in store as well as for ourselves?
Be willing to believe that language, reason, spiritual insight, which is the reason elevated to the capacity of knowing God—be willing to believe that these have been gradual acquisitions to humanity, and the whole course of God’s Providence will at once stand out in a clearer, purer light. Supposing the soul of man thousands of years back to have been precisely what the soul of man is now, its requirements and its aptitudes must have been the same then as they are to-day, so that if the doctrine of the Trinity is essential now, it must have been essential then, when it had not been revealed. On the same supposition, too, either the record of God’s will in the earliest portion of the Bible is incredibly defective, or the record of it in the completed canon of Scripture must be charged with bewildering superfluity.
But God has not dealt so with His children. He has given them their heavenly food as they were able to bear it. First by allegory and parable He unfolds His will, as a father tells his little ones the stories which they love to hear, minding ever within the stories and by means of the stories to present the truth, the lessons of the beautiful and the upright. The earliest revelation of God presents Him in the simplest form, the easiest for us to understand, as the Great Patriarch of mankind. Along with this revelation came simple commands and prohibitions, the requirements of external sacrifice, the promise and warning of temporal rewards and punishments. The law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, seems brutal now, but it is the beginning of a noble education. It says indeed, ‘Do to others as they have done to you,’ but then in regard to injuries it bids you exact no more than you have suffered, instead of taking a brutal revenge by repaying the injury tenfold: and in regard to benefits it bids you never forget to be grateful. From it springs the higher and better law, of doing to others, not as they have done to you, but as you would have them do to you. Without these beginnings the human mind could never have comprehended or received the highest education—that we are not only to forgive but to love our enemies. The system of material sacrifices trained men to a capability of understanding and of offering the sacrifice of the heart; the outward cleansings demanded by the law led them by degrees to recognize the need of inward purity. By the law came the knowledge of sin. Not till man knew that sin was sinful could he either wish for or receive a Saviour. Hence it was that Christ came not at the beginning, but only in the fulness of time. The gift of the Holy Ghost was not outpoured till men in part were ready to receive it. That it is still bestowed with so sparing a hand is not the fault of God’s liberality, but of our backwardness to believe in God, to commune with Him, and thereby to grow up into His likeness. We are the mirror in which the divine image shines, if only the mirror can be made to receive the requisite brightness.
To know that sin is sinful is to become conscious of the will of God, to become conscious of a good and perfect will to which our own ought to be conformed. Not to know this will is to be still brutish; to know it only by the teaching of others is to be still among the things of a child; to know it of oneself, which is in other words to know it by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, who alone can implant the doctrine with unfailing demonstration and enable us to receive His discipline,—this at length is to be a man made in the image of God. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil that is understanding; and to love God with all the heart and all the understanding and all the soul and all the strength, is the single aim as it is the crowning effort of the highest and purest intelligence. To be able to pray to God is the glory of reason; to do it, is the safeguard of life.