Chapter III: Part 3

The difficulty about this solar myth theory is that it proves too much; it is too powerful a solvent; it would dissolve all history. How easy it would be, in a few centuries, to turn General Washington and the American Revolution into a solar myth! Great Britain, a region of clouds and rain, represents the Kingdom of Darkness; America, with more sunshine, is the Day. Great Britain, as Darkness, wishes to devour the Young Day, or dawn of light, which America is about to diffuse over the earth. But Washington, the solar hero, arrives. He is from Virginia, that is, born of a virgin. He was born in February, in the sign of Aquarius and the Fishes,--plainly referring to the birth of the sun from the ocean. As the sun surveys the earth, so Washington was said to be a surveyor of many regions. The story of the fruitless attempts of the Indians to shoot him at Braddock's defeat is evidently legendary; and, in fact, this battle itself must be a myth, for how can we suppose two English and French armies to have crossed the Atlantic, and then gone into a wilderness west of the mountains, to fight a battle? So easy is it to turn history into a solar myth.

The character of Sakya-muni must be learned from his religion and from authentic tradition. In many respects his character and influence resembled that of Jesus. He opposed priestly assumptions, taught the equality and brotherhood of man, sent out disciples to teach his doctrine, was a reformer who relied on the power of truth and love. Many of his reported sayings resemble those of Jesus. He was opposed by the Brahmans as Jesus by the Pharisees. He compared the Brahmans who followed their traditions to a chain of blind men, who move on, not seeing where they go.[11] Like Jesus, he taught that mercy was better than sacrifices. Like Jesus, he taught orally, and left no writing. Jesus did not teach in Hebrew, but in the Aramaic, which was the popular dialect, and so the Buddha did not speak to the people in Sanskrit, but in their own tongue, which was Pâli. Like Jesus, he seems to have instructed his hearers by parables or stories. He was one of the greatest reformers the world has ever seen; and his influence, after that of the Christ, has probably exceeded that of any one who ever lived.

But, beside such real resemblances between these two masters, we are told of others still more striking, which would certainly be hard to explain unless one of the systems had borrowed from the other. These are said to be the preëxistence of Buddha in heaven; his birth of a virgin; salutation by angels; presentation in the temple; baptism by fire and water; dispute with the doctors; temptation in the wilderness; transfiguration; descent into hell; ascension into heaven.[12] If these legends could be traced back to the time before Christ, then it might be argued that the Gospels have borrowed from Buddhism. Such, however, is not the fact. These stories are taken from the Lalita Vistara, which, according to Rhys Davids,[13] was probably composed between six hundred and a thousand years after the time of Buddha, by some Buddhist poet in Nepaul. Rhys Davids, one of our best authorities, says of this poem: "As evidence of what early Buddhism actually was, it is of about the same value as some mediæval poem would be of the real facts of the gospel history."[13] M. Ernest de Bunsen, in his work on the "Angel Messiah," has given a very exhaustive statement, says Mr. Davids, of all the possible channels through which Christians can be supposed to have borrowed from the Buddhists. But Mr. Davids's conclusion is that he finds no evidence of any such communications of ideas from the East to the West.[14] The difference between the wild stories of the Lalita Vistara and the sober narratives of the Gospels is quite apparent. Another writer, Professor Seydel,[15] thinks, after a full and careful examination, that only five facts in the Gospels may have been borrowed from Buddhism. These are: (1) The fast of Jesus before his work; (2) The question in regard to the blind man--"Who did sin, this man, or his parents"? (3) The preëxistence of Christ; (4) The presentation in the Temple; (5) Nathanael sitting under a fig-tree, compared with Buddha under a Bo-tree. But Kuenen has examined these parallels, and considers them merely accidental coincidences. And, in truth, it is very hard to conceive of one religion borrowing its facts or legends from another, if that other stands in no historic relation to it. That Buddhism should have taken much from Brahmanism is natural; for Brahmanism was its mother. That Christianity should have borrowed many of its methods from Judaism is equally natural; for Judaism was its cradle. Modern travelers in Burma and Tartary have found that the Buddhists hold a kind of camp-meeting in the open air, where they pray and sing. Suppose that some critic, noticing this, should assert that, when Wesley and his followers established similar customs, they must have borrowed them from the Buddhists. The absurdity would be evident. New religions grow, they are not imitations.

It has been thought, however, that Christianity was derived from the Essenes, because of certain resemblances, and it is argued that the Essenes must have obtained their monastic habits from the Therapeutæ in Egypt, and that the Therapeutæ received them from the Buddhists, because they could not have found them elsewhere. This theory, however, has been dismissed from the scene by the young German scholar,[16] who has proved that the essay on the Therapeutæ ascribed to Philo was really written by a Christian anchorite in the third or fourth century.

The result, then, of our investigation, is this: There is no probability that the analogies between Christianity and Buddhism have been derived the one from the other. They have come from the common and universal needs and nature of man, which repeat themselves again and again in like positions and like circumstances. That Jesus and Buddha should both have retired into the wilderness before undertaking their great work is probable, for it has been the habit of other reformers to let a period of meditation precede their coming before the world. That both should have been tempted to renounce their enterprise is also in accordance with human nature. That, in after times, the simple narratives should be overlaid with additions, and a whole mass of supernatural wonders added,--as we find in the Apocryphal Gospels and the Lalita Vistara,--is also in accordance with the working of the human mind.

Laying aside all such unsatisfactory resemblances, we must regard the Buddha as having been one of the noblest of men, and one whom Jesus would have readily welcomed as a fellow worker and a friend. He opposed a dominant priesthood, maintained the equal religious rights of all mankind, overthrew caste, encouraged woman to take her place as man's equal, forbade all bloody sacrifices, and preached a religion of peace and good will, seeking to triumph only in the fair conflict of reason with reason. If he was defective in the loftiest instincts of the soul; if he knew nothing of the infinite and eternal; if he saw nothing permanent in the soul of man; if his highest purpose was negative,--to escape from pain, sorrow, anxiety, toil,--let us still be grateful for the influence which has done so much to tame the savage Mongols, and to introduce hospitality and humanity into the homes of Lassa and Siam. If Edwin Arnold, a poet, idealizes him too highly, it is the better fault, and should be easily forgiven. Hero-worshipers are becoming scarce in our time; let us make the most of those we have.

WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST[17]

What is meant by "Free Religion"? I understand by it, individualism in religion. It is the religious belief which has made itself independent of historic and traditional influences, so far as it is in the power of any one to attain such independence. In Christian lands it means a religion which has cut loose from the Bible and the Christian Church, and which is as ready to question the teaching of Jesus as that of Socrates or Buddha. It is, what Emerson called himself, an endless seeker, with no past behind it. It is entire trust in the private reason as the sole authority in matters of religion.

Free Religion may be regarded as Protestantism carried to its ultimate results. A Protestant _Christian_ accepts the leadership of Jesus, and keeps himself in the Christian communion; but he uses his own private judgment to discover what Jesus taught, and what Christianity really is. The Free Religionist goes a step farther, and decides by his own private judgment what is true and what false, no matter whether taught by Jesus or not.

Free Religion, as thus understood, seems to me opposed to the law of evolution, and incompatible with it. Evolution educes the present from the past by a continuous process. Free Religion cuts itself loose from the past, and makes every man the founder of his own religion. According to the law of evolution, confirmed by history, every advance in religion is the development from something going before. Jewish monotheism grew out of polytheism; Christianity and Mohammedanism out of Judaism; Buddhism out of Brahmanism; Protestant Christianity out of the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus himself said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The higher religions are not made; they grow. Of each it may be said, as of the poet: "Nascitur, non fit." Therefore, if there is to arrive something higher than our existing Christianity, it must not be a system which forsakes the Christian belief, but something developed from it.

According to the principle of evolution, every growing and productive religion obeys the laws of heredity and of variation. It has an inherited common life, and a tendency to modification by individual activity. Omit or depress either factor, and the religion loses its power of growth. Without a common life, the principle of development is arrested. He who leaves the great current which comes from the past loses headway. This current, in the Christian communion, is the inherited spirit of Jesus. It is his life, continued in his Church; his central convictions of love to God and to man; of fatherhood and brotherhood; of the power of truth to conquer error, of good to overcome evil; of a Kingdom of Heaven to come to us here. It is the faith of Jesus in things unseen; his hope of the triumph of right over wrong; his love going down to the lowliest child of God. These vital convictions in the soul of Jesus are communicated by contact from generation to generation. They are propagated, as he suggested, like leaven hidden in the dough. By a different figure, Plato, in his dialogue of Ion, shows that inspiration is transmitted like the magnetic influence, which causes iron rings to adhere and hang together in a chain. Thoughts and opinions are communicated by argument, reasoning, speech, and writing; but faith and inspiration by the influence of life on life. The life of Jesus is thus continued in his Church, and those who stand outside of it lose much of this transmitted and sympathetic influence. Common life in a religious body furnishes the motive force which carries it forward, while individual freedom gives the power of improvement. The two principles of heredity and variation must be united in order to combine union and freedom, and to secure progress. Where freedom of thought ceases, religion becomes rigid. It is incapable of development. Such, for instance, is the condition of Buddhism, which, at first full of intellectual activity, has now hardened into a monkish ritual.

Free Religion sacrifices the motive power derived from association and religious sympathy for the sake of a larger intellectual freedom. The result is individualism. It founds no churches, but spends much force in criticising the Christian community, its belief, and its methods. These are, no doubt, open to criticism, which would do good if administered sympathetically and from within, but produce little result when delivered in the spirit of antagonism. Imperfect as the Christian Church is, it ought to be remembered that in it are to be found the chief strength and help of the charities, philanthropies, and moral reforms of our time. Every one who has at heart a movement for the benefit of humanity appeals instinctively for aid to the Christian churches. It is in these that such movements usually originate, and are carried on. Even when, as in the antislavery movement, a part of the churches refuse to sympathize with a new moral or social movement, the reproaches made against them show that in the mind of the community an interest in all humane endeavor is considered to be a part of their work. The common life and convictions of these bodies enable them to accomplish what individualism does not venture to undertake. Individualism is incapable of organized and sustained work of this sort, though it can, and often does, coöperate earnestly with it.

The teaching of Jesus is founded on the synthesis of Truth and Love. Jesus declares himself to have been born "to bear witness to the truth," and he also makes love, divine and human, the substance of his gospel. The love element produces union, the truth element, freedom. Union without freedom stiffens into a rigid conservatism. Freedom without union breaks up into an intellectual atomism. The Christian churches have gone into both extremes, but never permanently; for Christianity, as long as it adheres to its founder and his ideas, has the power of self-recovery. Its diseases are self-limited.

It has had many such periods, but has recovered from them. It passed through an age in which it ran to ascetic self-denial, and made saints of self-torturing anchorites. It afterward became a speculative system, and tended to metaphysical creeds and doctrinal distinctions. It became a persecuting church, burning heretics and Jews, and torturing infidels as an act of faith. It was tormented by dark superstitions, believing in witchcraft and magic. But it has left all these evils behind. No one is now put to death for heresy or witchcraft. The monastic orders in the Church are preachers and teachers, or given to charity. No one could be burned to-day as a heretic. No one to-day believes in witchcraft. The old creeds which once held the Church in irons are now slowly disintegrating. But reform, as I have said, must come from within, by the gradual elimination of those inherited beliefs which interfere with the unity of the Church and the leadership of Christ himself. The Platonic and Egyptian Trinity remaining as dogma, repeated but not understood,--the Manichæan division of the human race into children of God and children of the Devil,--the scholastic doctrine of the Atonement, by which the blood of Jesus expiates human guilt,--are being gradually explained in accordance with reason and the teaching of Jesus.

Some beliefs, once thought to be of vital importance, are now seen by many to be unessential, or are looked at in a different light. Instead of making Jesus an exceptional person, we are coming to regard him as a representative man, the realized ideal of what man was meant to be, and will one day become. Instead of considering his sinlessness as setting him apart from his race, we look on it as showing that sin is not the natural, but unnatural, condition of mankind. His miracles are regarded not as violations of the laws of nature, but anticipations of laws which one day will be universally known, and which are boundless as the universe. Nor will they in future be regarded as evidence of the mission of Jesus, since he himself was grieved when they were so looked upon, and he made his truth and his character the true evidence that he came from God. The old distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" will disappear when it is seen that Jesus had a supernatural work and character, the same in kind as ours, though higher in degree. The supreme gifts which make him the providential leader of the race do not set him apart from his brethren if we see that it is a law of humanity that gifts differ, and that men endowed with superior powers become leaders in science, art, literature, politics; as Jesus has become the chief great spiritual leader of mankind.

Men are now searching the Scriptures, not under the bondage of an infallible letter, but seeking for the central ideas of Jesus and the spirit of his gospel. They begin to accept the maxim of Goethe: "No matter how much the gospels contradict each other, provided the Gospel does not contradict itself." The profound convictions of Christ, which pervade all his teaching, give the clue by which to explain the divergences in the narrative. We interpret the letter by the light of the spirit. We see how Jesus emphasized the law of human happiness,--that it comes from within, not from without; that the pure in heart see God, and that it is more blessed to give than to receive. We comprehend the stress he lays on the laws of progress,--that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted. We recognize his profound conviction that all God's children are dear to him, that his sun shines on the evil and the good, and that he will seek the one lost sheep till he find it. We see his trust in the coming of the Kingdom of God in this world, the triumph of good over evil, and the approaching time when the knowledge of God shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. And we find his profound faith in the immortal life which abides in us, so that whoever shares that faith with him can never die.

The more firmly these central ideas of Jesus are understood and held, the less importance belongs to any criticism of the letter. This or that saying, attributed to Jesus in the record, maybe subjected to attack; but it is the main current of his teaching which has made him the leader of civilized man for eighteen centuries. That majestic stream will sweep on undisturbed, though there may be eddies here or stagnant pools there, which induce hasty observers to suppose that it has ceased to flow.

"Rusticus expectat dum defluit amnis, at ille
Volvitur et volvetur, in omne volubilis ævium."

I sometimes read attacks on special sayings of the record, which argue, to the critic's mind, that Jesus was in error here, or mistaken there. But I would recommend to such writers to ponder the suggestive rule of Coleridge: "Until I can understand the ignorance of Plato, I shall consider myself ignorant of his understanding;" or the remark of Emerson to the youth who brought him a paper in which he thought he had refuted Plato: "If you attack the king, be sure that you kill him."

When the Christian world really takes Jesus _himself_ as its leader, instead of building its faith on opinions _about_ him, we may anticipate the arrival of that union which he foresaw and foretold--"As thou, father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Then Christians, ceasing from party strife and sectarian dissension, will unite in one mighty effort to cure the evils of humanity and redress its wrongs. Before a united Christendom, what miseries could remain unrelieved? War, that criminal absurdity, that monstrous anachronism, must at last be abolished. Pauperism, vice, and crime, though continuing in sporadic forms, would cease to exist as a part of the permanent institutions of civilization. A truly Catholic Church, united under the Master, would lead all humanity up to a higher plane. The immense forces developed by modern science, and the magnificent discoveries in the realm of nature, helpless now to cure the wrongs of suffering man, would become instruments of potent use under the guidance of moral forces.

According to the law of evolution, this is what we have a right to expect. If we follow the lines of historic development, not being led into extreme individualism; if we maintain the continuity of human progress, this vast result must finally arrive. For such reasons I prefer to remain in the communion of the Christian body, doing what I may to assist its upward movement. For such reasons I am not a Free Religionist.

HAVE ANIMALS SOULS[18]

To answer this question, we must first inquire what we mean by a soul. If we mean a human soul, it is certain that animals do not possess it,--at least not in a fully developed condition. If we mean, "Do they possess an immortal soul?" that is, perhaps, a question difficult to answer either in the affirmative or the negative. But if we mean by the soul an immaterial principle of life, which coördinates the bodily organization to a unity; which is the ground of growth, activity, perception, volition; which is intelligent, affectionate, and to a certain extent free; then we must admit that animals have souls.

The same arguments which induce us to believe that there is a soul in man apply to animals. The world has generally believed that in man, beside the body, there is also soul. Why have people believed it? The reason probably is, that, beside all that can be accounted for as the result of the juxtaposition of material particles, there remains a very important element unaccounted for. Mechanical and physical agency may explain much, but the most essential characteristic of vital phenomena they do not explain. They do not account for the unity in variety, permanence in change, growth from within by continuous processes, coming from the vital functions in an organized body. Every such body has a unity peculiar to itself, which cannot be considered the result of the collocation of material molecules. It is a unity which controls these molecules, arranges and rearranges them, maintains a steady activity, carries the body through the phenomena of growth, and causes the various organs to coöperate for the purposes of the whole. The vital power is not merely the result of material phenomena, but it reacts on these as a cause. Add to this that strange phenomenon of human consciousness, the sense of personality,--which is the clear perception of selfhood as a distinct unchanging unit, residing in a body all of whose parts are in perpetual flux,--and we see why the opinion of a soul has arisen. It has been assumed by the common sense of mankind that in every living body the cause of the mode of existence of each part is contained in the whole. As soon as death intervenes each part is left free to pass through changes peculiar to itself alone. Life is a power which acts from the whole upon the parts, causing them to resist chemical laws, which begin to act as soon as life departs. The unity of a living body does not result from an ingenious juxtaposition of parts, like that of a watch, for example. For the unity of a living body implies that which is called "the vital vortex," or perpetual exchange of particles.

A watch or clock is the nearest approach which has been made by man to the creation of a living being. A watch, for instance, contains the principle of its action in itself, and is not moved from without; in that it resembles a living creature. We can easily conceive of a watch which might be made to go seventy years, without being wound up. It might need to be oiled occasionally, but not as often as an animal needs to be fed. A watch is also like a living creature in having a unity as a whole not belonging to the separate parts, and to which all parts conspire,--namely, that of marking the progress of time. Why, then, say that a man has a soul, and that a watch has not? The difference is this. The higher principle of unity in the watch, that is, its power of marking time, is wholly an effect, and never a cause. It is purely and only the result of the arrangement of wheels and springs; in other words, of material conditions. But in man, the principle of unity is also a cause. Life reacts upon body. The laws of matter are modified by the power of life, chemical action is suspended, living muscles are able to endure without laceration the application of forces which would destroy the dead fibre. So the thought, the love, the will of a living creature react on the physical frame. A sight, a sound, a few spoken words, a message seen in a letter, cause an immense revulsion in the physical condition. Something is suddenly told us, and we faint away, or even die, from the effect of the message. Here mind acts upon matter, showing that in man mind is not merely a result, but also a cause. Hence men have generally believed in the existence of a soul in man. They have not been taught it by metaphysicians, it is one of the spontaneous inductions of common sense from universal experience.

But this argument applies equally to prove a soul in animals. The same reaction of soul on body is constantly apparent. Every time that you whistle to your dog, and he comes bounding toward you, his mind has acted on his body. His will has obeyed his thought, his muscles have obeyed his will. The cause of his motion was mental, not physical. This is too evident to require any further illustration. Therefore, regarding the soul as a principle of life, connected with the body but not its result, or, in other words, as an immaterial principle of activity, there is the same reason for believing in the soul of animals that there is for believing in the soul of man.

But when we ask as to the nature of the animal soul, and how far it is analogous to that of man, we meet with certain difficulties. Let us see then how many of the human qualities of the soul are to be found in animals, and so discover if there is any remainder not possessed by them, peculiar to ourselves.

That the vital soul, or principle of life, belongs equally to plants, animals, and men, is evident. This is so apparent as to be granted even by Descartes, who regards animals as mere machines, or automata, destitute of a thinking soul, but not of life or feeling. They are automata, but living and feeling automata. Descartes denies them a soul, because he defines the soul as the thinking and knowing power. But Locke (with whom Leibnitz fully agreed on this point) ascribes to animals thought as well as feeling, and makes their difference from man to consist in their not possessing abstract ideas. We shall presently see the truth of this most sagacious remark.

Plants, animals, and men are alike in possessing the vital principle, which produces growth, which causes them to pass through regular phases of development, which enables them to digest and assimilate food taken from without, and which carries on a steady circulation within. To this are added, in the animal, the function of voluntary locomotion, perception through the senses of an outward world, the power of feeling pleasure and pain, some wonderful instincts, and some degree of reflective thought. Animals also possess memory, imagination, playfulness, industry, the sense of shame, and many other very human qualities.

Take, for example, Buffon's fine description of the dog ("Histoire du Chien"):--

"By nature fiery, irritable, ferocious, and sanguinary, the dog in his savage state is a terror to other animals. But domesticated he becomes gentle, attached, and desirous to please. He hastens to lay at the feet of his master his courage, his strength, and all his abilities. He listens for his master's orders, inquires his will, consults his opinion, begs his permission, understands the indications of his wishes. Without possessing the power of human thought, he has all the warmth of human sentiment. He has more than human fidelity, he is constant in his attachments. He is made up of zeal, ardor, and obedience. He remembers kindness longer than wrong. He endures bad treatment and forgets it--disarming it by patience and submission."

No one who has ever had a dog for a friend will think this description exaggerated. If any should so consider it, we will cite for their benefit what Mr. Jesse, one of the latest students of the canine race, asserts concerning it, in his "Researches into the History of the British Dog" (London, 1866). He says that remarkable instances of the following virtues, feelings, and powers of mind are well authenticated:--

"The dog risks his life to give help; goes for assistance; saves life from drowning, fire, other animals, and men; assists distress; guards property; knows boundaries; resents injuries; repays benefits; communicates ideas; combines with other dogs for several purposes; understands language; knows when he is about to die; knows death in a human being; devotes his whole life to the object of his love; dies of grief and of joy; dies in his master's defense; commits suicide; remains by the dead; solicits, and gives alarm; knows the characters of men; recognizes a portrait, and men after long absence; is fond of praise and sensible to ridicule; feels shame, and is sensible of a fault; is playful; is incorruptible; finds his way back from distant countries; is magnanimous to smaller animals; is jealous; has dreams; and takes a last farewell when dying."

Much of this, it may be said, is instinctive. We must therefore distinguish between Instinct and Intelligence; or, rather, between instinctive intelligence and reflective intelligence. Many writers on the subject of animals have not carefully distinguished these very different activities of the soul. Even M. Leroy, one of the first in modern times who brought careful observation to the study of the nature of animals, has not always kept in view this distinction---as has been noticed by a subsequent French writer of very considerable ability, M. Flourens.[19] The following marks, according to M. Flourens, distinguish instinct from intelligence:--

INSTINCT INTELLIGENCE

Is spontaneous, Is deliberate,
" necessary, " conditional,
" invariable, " modifiable,
" innate, comes from observation and experience,
" fatal, is free,
" particular. " general.

Thus the building faculty of the beaver is an instinct, for it acts spontaneously, and always in the same way. It is not a general faculty of building in all places and ways, but a special power of building houses of sticks, mud, and other materials, with the entrance under water and a dry place within. When beavers build on a running stream, they begin by making a dam across it, which preserves them from losing the water in a drought; but this also is a spontaneous and invariable act. The old stories of their driving piles, using their tails for trowels, and having well-planned houses with many chambers, have been found to be fictitious. That the beaver builds by instinct, though intelligence comes in to modify the instinct, appears from his wishing to build his house or his dam when it is not needed. Mr. Broderip, the English naturalist, had a pet beaver that manifested his building instinct by dragging together warming-pans, sweeping-brushes, boots, and sticks, which he would lay crosswise. He then would fill in his wall with clothes, bits of coal, turf, laying it very even. Finally, he made a nest for himself behind his wall with clothes, hay, and cotton. As this creature had been brought from America very young, all this procedure must have been instinctive. But his intelligence showed itself in his adapting his mode of building to his new circumstances. His instinct led him to build his wall, and to lay his sticks crosswise, and to fill in with what he could find, according to the universal and spontaneous procedure of all beavers. But his making use of a chest of drawers for one side of his wall, and taking brushes and boots instead of cutting down trees, were no doubt acts of intelligence.

A large part of the wonderful procedure of bees is purely instinctive. Bees, from the beginning of the world, and in all countries of the earth, have lived in similar communities; have had their queen, to lay eggs for them: if their queen is lost, have developed a new one in the same way, by altering the conditions of existence in one of their larvæ; have constructed their hexagonal cells by the same mathematical law, so as to secure the most strength with the least outlay of material. All this is instinct--for it is spontaneous and not deliberate; it is universal and constant. But when the bee deflects his comb in order to avoid a stick thrust across the inside of the hive, and begins the variation before he reaches the stick, this can only be regarded as an act of intelligence.

Animals, then, have both instincts and intelligence; and so has man. A large part of human life proceeds from tendencies as purely, if not as vigorously, instinctive as those of animals. Man has social instincts, which create human society. Children play from an instinct. The maternal instinct in a human mother is, till modified by reflection, as spontaneous, universal, and necessary as the same instinct in animals. But in man the instincts are reduced to a minimum, and are soon modified by observation, experience, and reflection. In animals they are at their maximum, and are modified in a much less degree.

It is sometimes said that animals do not reason, but man does. But animals are quite capable of at least two modes of reasoning, that of comparison and that of inference. They compare two modes of action, or two substances, and judge the one to be preferable to the other, and accordingly select it. Sir Emerson Tennent tells us that elephants, employed to build stone walls in Ceylon, will lay each stone in its place, then stand off and look to see if it is plumb, and, if not, will move it with their trunk, till it lies perfectly straight. This is a pure act of reflective judgment. He narrates an adventure which befell himself in Ceylon while riding on a narrow road through the forest. He heard a rumbling sound approaching, and directly there came to meet him an elephant, bearing on his tusks a large log of wood, which he had been directed to carry to the place where it was needed. Sir Emerson Tennent's horse, unused to these monsters, was alarmed, and refused to go forward. The sagacious elephant, perceiving this, evidently decided that he must himself go out of the way. But to do this, he was obliged first to take the log from his tusks with his trunk, and lay it on the ground, which he did, and then backed out of the road between the trees till only his head was visible. But the horse was still too timid to go by, whereupon the judicious pachyderm pushed himself farther back, till all of his body, except the end of his trunk, had disappeared. Then Sir Emerson succeeded in getting his horse by, but stopped to witness the result. The elephant came out, took the log up again, laid it across his tusks, and went on his way. This story, told by an unimpeachable witness, shows several successive acts of reasoning. The log-bearer inferred from the horse's terror that it would not pass; he again inferred that in that case he must himself get out of the way; that, to do this, he must lay down his log; that he must go farther back; and accompanying this was his sense of duty, making him faithful to his task; and, most of all, his consideration of what was due to this human traveler, which kept him from driving the horse and man before him as he went on.

There is another well-authenticated anecdote of an elephant; he was following an ammunition wagon, and saw the man who was seated on it fall off just before the wheel. The man would have been crushed had not the animal instantly run forward, and, without an order, lifted the wheel with his trunk, and held it suspended in the air, till the wagon had passed over the man without hurting him. Here were combined presence of mind, good will, knowledge of the danger to the man, and a rapid calculation of how he could be saved.

Perhaps I may properly introduce here an account of the manifestations of mind in the animals I have had the most opportunity of observing. I have a horse, who was named Rubezahl, after the mountain spirit of the Harz made famous in the stories of Musaeus. We have contracted his name to Ruby for convenience. Now I have reason to believe that Ruby can distinguish Sunday from other days. On Sunday I have been in the habit of driving to Boston to church; but on other days, I drive to the neighboring village, where are the post-office, shops of mechanics, and other stores. To go to Boston, I usually turn to the right when I leave my driveway; to go to the village, I turn to the left. Now, on Sunday, if I leave the reins loose, so that the horse may do as he pleases, he invariably turns to the right, and goes to Boston. On other days, he as invariably turns to the left, and goes to the village. He does this so constantly and regularly, that none of the family have any doubt of the fact that he knows that it is Sunday; _how_ he knows it we are unable to discover. I have left my house at the same hour on Sunday and on Monday, in the same carriage, with the same number of persons in it; and yet on Sunday he always turns to the right, and on Monday to the left. He is fed at the same time on Sunday as on other days, but the man comes back to harness him a little later on Sunday than at other times, and that is possibly his method of knowing that it is the day for going to Boston. But see how much of observation, memory, and thought is implied in all this.

Again, Ruby has shown a very distinct feeling of the supernatural. Driving one day up a hill near my house, we met a horse-car coming down toward us, running without horses, simply by the force of gravity. My horse became so frightened that he ran into the gutter, and nearly overturned me; and I got him past with the greatest difficulty. Now he had met the cars coming down that hill, drawn by horses, a hundred times, and had never been alarmed. Moreover, only a day or two after, in going up the same hill, we saw a car moving uphill, before us, where the horses were entirely invisible, being concealed by the car itself, which was between us and the horses. But this did not frighten Ruby at all. He evidently said to himself, "The horses are there, though I do not see them." But in the other case it seemed to him an effect without a cause--something plainly supernatural. There was nothing in the aspect of the car itself to alarm him; he had seen that often enough. He was simply terrified by seeing it move without any adequate cause--just as we should be, if we saw our chairs begin to walk about the room.

Our Newfoundland dog's name is Donatello; which, again, is shortened to Don in common parlance. He has all the affectionate and excellent qualities of his race. He is the most good-natured creature I ever saw. Nothing provokes him. Little dogs may yelp at him, the cat or kittens may snarl and spit at him: he pays no attention to them. A little dog climbs on his back, and lies down there; one of the cats will lie between his legs. But at night, when he is on guard, no one can approach the house unchallenged.

But his affection for the family is very great. To be allowed to come into the house and lie down near us is his chief happiness. He was very fond of my son E----, who played with him a good deal, and when the young man went away, during the war, with a three months' regiment, Don was much depressed by his absence. He walked down regularly to the station, and stood there till a train of cars came in; and when his friend did not arrive in it, he went back, with a melancholy air, to the house. But at last the young man returned. It was in the evening, and Don was lying on the piazza. As soon as he saw his friend, his exultation knew no bounds. He leaped upon him, and ran round him, barking and showing the wildest signs of delight. All at once he turned and ran up into the garden, and came back bringing an apple, which he laid down at the feet of his young master. It was the only thing he could think of to do for him--and this sign of his affection was quite pathetic.

The reason why Don thought of the apple was probably this: we had taught him to go and get an apple for the horse, when so directed. We would say, "Go, Don, get an apple for poor Ruby;" then he would run up into the garden, and bring an apple, and hold it up to the horse; and perhaps when the horse tried to take it he would pull it away. After doing this a few times, he would finally lie down on his back under the horse's nose, and allow the latter to take the apple from his mouth. He would also kiss the horse, on being told to do so. When we said, "Don, kiss poor Ruby," he leaped up and kissed the horse's nose. But he afterwards hit upon a more convenient method of doing it. He got his paw over the rein and pulled down the horse's head, so that he could continue the osculatory process more at his ease, sitting comfortably on the ground.

Animals know when they have done wrong; so far, at least, as that means disobeying our will or command. The only great fault which Don ever committed was stealing a piece of meat from our neighbor's kitchen. I do not think he was punished or even scolded for it; for we did not find it out till later, when it would have done no good to punish him. But a week or two after that, the gentleman whose kitchen had been robbed was standing on my lawn, talking with me, and he referred, laughingly, to what Don had done. He did not even look at the dog, much less change his tones to those of rebuke. But the moment Don heard his name mentioned, he turned and walked away, and hid himself under the low branches of a Norway spruce near by. He was evidently profoundly ashamed of himself. Was this the result of conscience, or of the love of approbation? In either case, it was very human.

That the love of approbation is common to many animals we all know. Dogs and horses certainly can be influenced by praise and blame, as easily as men. Many years ago we had occasion to draw a load of gravel, and we put Ruby into a tip-cart to do the work. He was profoundly depressed, and evidently felt it as a degradation. He hung his head, and showed such marks of humiliation that we have never done it since. But on the other hand, when he goes out, under the saddle, by the side of a young horse, this veteran animal tries as hard to appear young as any old bachelor of sixty years who is still ambitious of social triumphs. He dances along, and goes sideways, and has all the airs and graces of a young colt. All this, too, is very human.

At one time my dog was fond of going to the railway station to see the people, and I always ordered him to go home, fearing he should be hurt by the cars. He easily understood that if he went there, it was contrary to my wishes. Nevertheless, he often went; and I do not know but this fondness for forbidden fruit was rather human, too. So, whenever he was near the station, if he saw me coming, he would look the other way, and pretend not to know me. If he met me anywhere else, he always bounded to meet me with great delight. But at the station it was quite different. He would pay no attention to my whistle or my call. He even pretended to be another dog, and would look me right in the face without apparently recognizing me. He gave me the cut direct, in the most impertinent manner; the reason evidently being that he knew he was doing what was wrong, and did not like to be found out. Possibly he may have relied a little on my near-sightedness, in this manœuvre.

That animals have acute observation, memory, imagination, the sense of approbation, strong affections, and the power of reasoning is therefore very evident. Lord Bacon also speaks of a dog's reverence for his master as partaking of a religious element. "Mark," says he, "what a generosity and courage a dog will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God--which courage he could not attain, without that confidence in a better nature than his own." Who that has seen the mute admiration and trust in a dog's eye, as he looks up at his master, but can see in it something of a religious reverence, the germ and first principle of religion?

What, then, is the difference between the human soul and that of the animal in its highest development?

That there is a very marked difference between man and the highest animal is evident. The human being, weaker in proportion than all other animals, has subjected them all to himself. He has subdued the earth by his inventions. Physically too feeble to dig a hole in the ground like a rabbit, or to fell a tree like a beaver; unable to live in the water like a fish, or to move through the air like a bird; he yet, by his inventive power and his machinery, can compel the forces of nature to work for him. They are the true genii, slaves of his lamp. Air, fire, water, electricity, and magnetism build his cities and his stately ships, run his errands, carry him from land to land, and accept him as their master.

Whence does man obtain this power? Some say it is _the human hand_ which has made man supreme. It is, no doubt, a wonderful machine; a box of tools in itself. The size and strength of the thumb, and the power of opposing it to the extremities of the fingers, distinguishes, according to most anatomists, the human hand from that of the quadrumanous animals. In those monkeys which are nearest to man, the thumb is so short and weak, and the fingers so long and slender, that their tips can scarcely be brought in opposition. Excellent for climbing, they are not good for taking up small objects or supporting large ones. But the hand of man could accomplish little without the mind behind it. It was therefore a good remark of Galen, that "man is not the wisest of animals because he has a hand; but God has given him a hand because he is the wisest of animals."

The size of the human brain, relatively greater than that of almost any other animal; man's structure, adapting him to stand erect; his ability to exist in all climates; his power of subsisting on varied food: all these facts of his physical nature are associated with his superior mental power, but do not produce it. The question recurs, What enables him to stand at the head of the animal creation?

Perhaps the chief apparent distinctions between man and other animals are these:--

1. The lowest races of men use tools; other animals do not.

2. The lowest human beings possess a verbal language; other animals have none.

3. Man has the capacity of self-culture, as an individual; other animals have not.

4. Human beings, associated in society, are capable of progress in civilization, by means of science, art, literature, and religion; other animals are not.

5. Men have a capacity for religion; no animal, except man, has this.

The lowest races of men use tools, but no other animal does this. This is so universally admitted by science that the presence of the rudest tools of stone is considered a sufficient trace of the presence of man. If stone hatchets or hammers or arrowheads are found in any stratum, though no human bones are detected, anthropologists regard this as a sufficient proof of the existence of human beings in the period indicated by such a geologic formation. The only tools used by animals in procuring food, in war, or in building their homes, are their natural organs: their beaks, teeth, claws, etc. It may be added that man alone wears clothes; other animals being sufficiently clothed by nature. No animals make a fire, though they often suffer from cold; but there is no race of men unacquainted with the use of fire.[20]

No animals possess a verbal language. Animals can remember some of the words used by men, and associate with them their meaning. But this is not the use of language. It is merely the memory of two associated facts,--as when the animal recollects where he found food, and goes to the same place to look for it again. Animals have different cries, indicating different wants. They use one cry to call their mate, another to terrify their prey. But this is not the use of verbal language. Human language implies not merely an acquaintance with the meaning of particular words, but the power of putting them together in a sentence. Animals have no such language as this; for, if they had, it would have been learned by men. Man has the power of learning any verbal language. Adelung and Vater reckon over three thousand languages spoken by men, and any man can learn any of them. The negroes speak their own languages in their own countries; they speak Arabic in North Africa; they learn to speak English, French, and Spanish in America, and Oriental languages when they go to the East. If any animals had a verbal language, with its vocabulary and grammar, men would long ago have learned it, and would have been able to converse with them.

Again, no animal except man is capable of self-culture, as an individual. Animals are trained by external influences; they do not teach themselves. An old wolf is much more cunning than a young one, but he has been made so by the force of circumstances. You can teach your dog tricks, but no dog has ever taught himself any. Yet the lowest savages teach themselves to make tools, to ornament their paddles and clubs, and acquire certain arts by diligent effort. Birds will sometimes practice the tunes which they hear played, till they have learned them. They will also sometimes imitate each other's songs. That is, they possess the power of vocal imitation. But to imitate the sounds we hear is not self-culture. It is not developing a new power, but it is exercising in a new way a natural gift. Yet we must admit that in this habit of birds there is the rudiment, at least, of self-education.

All races of men are capable of progress in civilization. Many, indeed, remain in a savage state for thousands of years, and we cannot positively prove that any particular race which has always been uncivilized is capable of civilization. But we are led to believe it from having known of so many tribes of men who have emerged from apathy, ignorance, and barbarism into the light of science and art. So it was with all the Teutonic races,--the Goths, Germans, Kelts, Lombards, Scandinavians. So it was with the Arabs, who roamed for thousands of years over the deserts, a race of ignorant robbers, and then, filled with the great inspiration of Islam, flamed up into a brilliant coruscation of science, literature, art, military success, and profound learning. What great civilizations have grown up in China, India, Persia, Assyria, Babylon, Phœnicia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Etruria! But no such progress has ever appeared among the animals. As their parents were, five thousand years ago, so, essentially, are they now.

Nor are animals religious, in the sense of worshiping unseen powers higher than themselves. My horse showed a sense of the supernatural, but this is not worship.