The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 6, December 1843

by Various

Let us proceed with this inquiry to another point. It is a well-established principle of philosophy, that all pain and pleasure are in the mind, including of course the emotions and passions. We know that animals experience not only physical pleasures and pains, but passions both pleasant and painful; as attachment, courage, fidelity; anger, cowardice, and jealousy. Their manifestation of these pleasant and painful feelings is analogous to the manifestation of the same feelings by the human species; and it proves that they are endowed with a principle corresponding to mind, which we have seen is susceptible, like mind, of such feelings.

Some of the endowments of animals are delicate, even beyond our comprehension. The bee, for instance, is never caught in a shower; but by what agencies it arrives at the knowledge of an approaching storm, we are unable to determine; and therefore we call it pure instinct, leaving the subject as blind as we found it. The solution, however, of this question, will probably be found in the superior acuteness of its senses. We are generally sensible ourselves of a coming rain, by a change in the atmosphere; then, on the supposition that the bee has the sense of touch to a very delicate degree, the apparent enigma will be unravelled. We know also that our own senses convey to us imperfect knowledge, and that our minds serve to correct and supply their deficiencies: on the other hand, animals having reasoning powers of an inferior degree, a superior delicacy of the senses supplies to some extent the difference. They undoubtedly possess a knowledge of lesser things beyond the utmost reach of human intellect; while man possesses knowledge of a higher character, and as far above their comprehension; leaving degrees of intelligence above us, and below them, equally remote from each; for there are yet as many subjects of knowledge in the infinitely small as in the infinitely great. Nature retains her perfection, whether we descend to the atom or ascend to the universe; and the analogies of nature go to prove that the animalcule whose dimensions are below the power of the microscope, has as perfect an organization, and lives as completely, as man.

Animals seem to be as amply endowed with capacities by the Creator, for their sphere of existence, as man appears to be for his; and the Deity as evidently designed their happiness, as man's. He has framed them after the same great outline, and with no greater difference in this respect than is consistent with difference of species. He has endued them with senses, and a principle to take knowledge of the impressions they were designed to convey; and He has placed the means of happiness within their reach, as well as given the power to reach them. This much is self-evident. As to the proof that the principle commonly known as instinct manifests memory and reason, the arguments employed may be obscure; but the facts themselves, on reflection, carry conviction to the mind. To account for these manifestations on any other hypothesis, would be impossible; and to draw any other inference from the facts would be equally impossible; and to pronounce all these phenomena the workings of instinct, a name without a tangible meaning; a designation that prohibits inquiry, because it pretends to furnish an explanation of itself; would be to rest for ever in profound ignorance of the whole subject, when truth might be reached by investigation.

All the intellectual manifestations of mind are treated under four general divisions. One of them is memory; and all we know of it is, simply that there is a principle within us that remembers. Animals likewise have a principle that remembers. If then this principle is a unit in man, and (by parity of reason) in animals, why does not the proof of this one quality carry the whole subject? Can it be asserted that any other principle remembers than the one that reasons? Can any distinction be taken between the dog's remembrance of his master on his return, and the remembrance of the wife? One is as absolute as the other. It is no matter how feeble the endowments of a man may be, he still possesses mind; its memory may be weak, and its reasoning power be confined to the most simple processes; but yet the principle is within him, and as no radical distinction can be made between the memory of the feeble and the powerful intellect, so none can be made between the memory of an animal and of a man.

That principle which remembers, abstracts, imagines, and reasons, is Mind.

The principle called Instinct remembers, abstracts, imagines, and reasons. Therefore, this principle is Mind.

The general deduction follows, that the same thinking intellectual principle pervades all animated existences; created by the Deity, and bestowed in such measures upon the different species as appeared in His wisdom requisite for the destiny and happiness of each; thus establishing a scale from man to the lowest orders of animalculæ; and the successive steps downward from the man of the highest intellectual range to the man of the lowest, are no farther than from the latter to the most intelligent animal; and from him successively to the lowest in the scale of intelligence. All endued with that wonderful principle, which in man, rising above the office of providing for physical wants, expends its powers on the highest subjects of knowledge, though the final cause of this knowledge is the benefit of himself or his species, while in animals, being more limited in its range, but perhaps more delicate in some of its powers, it may be employed, for aught we know, on important subjects of knowledge, tending to promote their own happiness, of a character so minute and intricate as to be beyond the utmost appreciation of the human mind; but yet as essential to their welfare as the most common principles of philosophy are essential to ours.

There is nothing unnatural in this theory; so far from it, it appears to be suggested by nature itself. We all have a living existence, and that existence to sustain and enjoy. The history of animals and men exhibits so many characteristics in common, and those more powerful characteristics which we have discovered only in men, merely serving to establish endowments stronger in degree, without warranting a fundamental distinction, a scale of intelligence from man to the most inferior animal, appears to result as naturally as a scale of intelligence among men, founded on their different characteristics. It may be said, perhaps, that some of these facts and arguments can be employed as well to prove a moral as an intellectual nature. Admitting this for a moment, it is by no means certain that they have not to some extent a moral sense; although our inquiry has no reference to this branch of the subject. Their endowments, like those of the tribes of Africa, neither improve nor degenerate materially; and who is prepared to say that a Goth or a Hun exhibited a nicer sense of right and wrong than a tiger or an elephant does? We know nothing concerning their secret relations. The order and harmony of the bee-hive, the ant-hill, the families of beavers, and flocks of birds; the apparent recognition by some animals of the right of property; will perhaps ever remain an enigma. Animals, on the other hand, of the same species, oppress each other no more than man does his fellow-man; and those of different species cannot act with greater ferocity toward each other, than they can find an example for in human conduct. We tread upon them without concern, and hunt them down for mere amusement. We prepare them for slaughter with a degree of indifference to their sufferings and death that is shocking in the last extreme. Let us not boast too much of our moral qualities, although the Deity did design that we should subsist in part upon flesh; although we have the marks of this design upon us, the same as the bear and the wolf, and have the sanction of the Scriptures; for although the final cause of this is wise, it is no excuse for cruelty; and probably an enlightened moral sense would teach us to abstain entirely from animal food, if we can live without it. We can no more say that animals were made for our convenience exclusively, than that the hare was made for the lion, or that the Deity would wish man should uproot every other species, than that the tiger should. The simple truth is, we are all alike creatures of the Deity, and subjects of His will. He designed all existence; He bestowed it; and His beneficent protection is extended alike over all His works; from man, the noblest of His creation, to the young ravens, whose cry He has admonished us He deigns to hear.

Aquarius.

October, 1843.