Machinery of the oyster, and of the cat and dog.
God gives to every animal just such machinery as its mind can use. If it knows a great deal, that is, if it has a great deal of mind, he gives it a great deal of machinery; but if it has but little mind, he gives it but little machinery; for if he gave it much, it would not know how to work it. An oyster, as I have told you, knows but little as it lies covered up in its shell. It knows how to do only a few things, and so it has but little machinery. A dog or a cat knows a great deal more than an oyster, and therefore it has paws, claws, teeth, etc., as machinery for its mind to use. And as your mind knows so much more than that of a dog or cat, it has that wonderful machine, the hand, to do what it knows how to do.
The mind of man knows so much that it will contrive, when there are no hands, to use other things in place of them. I once saw a man who had no hands write, and do various other things very well with his toes. You know that we generally use the right hand most, making the left hand rather the helpmeet of the right. But when the right hand is lost in any way, the mind sets the left to work to learn to do as the lost one did. I once had to cut off the right arm of a very bright little girl. But her busy mind did not stop working because it had lost the best part of its machinery. In less than a fortnight I saw her sewing with her left hand, fastening her work with a pin instead of holding it as she used to do.
Machinery in the face.
There is some other machinery, besides the hand, that you have which animals have not. It is the machinery that is in the face. I have told you about this before, in the chapter on the muscles. A dog, when he is pleased, looks up at you and wags his tail; but he can not laugh or even smile; neither can he frown. Why? Because there is none of the smiling, and laughing, and frowning machinery there. And so it is with other animals.
Variety of expression in the face.
The variety of work that this machinery of expression does in the face of man is very great, as you can see if you watch the varied expressions of countenance in persons engaged in animated conversation. But there is very little variety of expression in the face of an animal. Now why is it that they have not the same muscles of expression that we have? It is for the same reason that they have not hands. The mind of man has a great many more thoughts and feelings than the mind of an animal has. It needs, therefore, more machinery to express these thoughts and feelings. The wagging of the dog’s tail answers very well to express his simple feeling of pleasure; but you have so many different pleasant thoughts and feelings that you need the varied play of the muscles of the face to express them.
The wolf.
Why we have no snarling muscles.