we derive all our knowledge of mind, from looking within, and reflecting on the operations of our own. If we attempt to form conceptions of higher intelligences of those millions of spiritual beings who inhabit etherial space, we conceive of them after our own fashion, and only strip them of human infirmities and frailties, and deck them with brighter and more glorious faculties. Should we direct the flight of imagination still higher, and endeavour to form an idea of the Supreme Being, we venture, like Milton's ruined angel in his flight through chaos, upon a medium too rare, to support the most vigorous and indefatigable pinion.

It needs but a moment's reflection to convince us, that our imaginings, however brilliant on such subjects, are inadequate and erroneous-that the "great first cause," and the higher classes of created beings, must act in a manner of which we can form no idea; differing not in degree only, but essentially from the human mind; and, possessing powers which would render the slow process of reason, memory, or imagination entirely unnecessary.

The same limited power of conceiving what is mind, attends our speculations on the lower animals, and the scale is graduated upon the same principle, but applied in a different direction. Before we enlarge-now we diminish-and as often as we attempt to form an idea, of the intelligent principle, by which brutes are actuated, we are irresistibly compelled to adopt a circumscribed and mutilated notion of the human mind.

This notion perpetually presents itself in every attempt to conceive what instinct is-inclines us to compare its operations with those of reason-gives weight to slight resemblances-suggests them, when they do not exist; and vitiates them in their very source and principle. Opinions, therefore, derived from this mode of reasoning, carry distrust and doubt in their very nature, and the laws of the most approved logic, would compel us to banish them altogether.

The delusive nature of this analogical reasoning, may be illustrated by a few examples.

Birds, ornithologists inform us, exhibit extraordinary sagacity in every thing that relates to the production and care of their

young. They construct their nest with inimitable skill, and carefully turn their eggs, that every part of them may enjoy an equal portion of warmth. When the exact number of days have clapsed, necessary for the purpose, if their young do not appear, their solicitude is withdrawn, and their nest abandoned. There is, it may be said, an approximation in this, to the operations of reason, and there is nothing observable in the actions of animals, that goes to identify them more strongly. Yet, if the bird reason when it deserts its nest, after the limited number of days, it must possess the power of forming abstract numbers. To believe this, is impossible, when we reflect on another fact. The bird, it is well known, immediately abandons its nest, if deprived of all its eggs. If one be left, a number may be removed successively, and the parent is perfectly unconscious of its loss. Can the bird then know any thing of numbers, and can we ascribe its proceedings, at the period of incubation, to a process of reasoning which necessarily involves that idea? The same incapacity of distinguishing between one and many, appears in other animals.

A bitch is fondly attached to her young, and if she sees one taken from her, exhibits the most striking appearance of sorrow; but, in her absence, the greater proportion may be taken away, and she is utterly unconscious of her loss. Yet, how many actions of dogs, may be converted into trains of reasoning, including the ideas of number.

It is hardly necessary to advert to the allowance we should make for exaggeration in those writers, who furnish anecdotes to prove that animals possess the reasoning faculty.

Buffon states that the beaver, which is said to exhibit such striking sagacity in the wilds of America, betrays no appearance of it in France. Shall we conclude, that that animal requires solitude and a desert, to think with effect, or, that the observations of the great naturalist, were a better guide than his credulity? Granting the existence of this sagacity, however, in full force, it is attended with so many contradictory appearances, as to render it impossible to confound it with reason.

We are often amused at the care and bustling affection of the hen; with what assiduity she sits on her eggs; how care

ful she is not to expose them too long, and when her progeny appear, how sedulous she becomes to cover, to feed, to guard them against danger. Yet the same bird will sit on a lump of chalk for eggs, and is unable to distinguish between the young of her own species and that of another. It is interesting to observe the conduct of a hen with a brood of young ducks-the brood rushing, with instinctive eagerness, to the water, whilst the anxious and timid mother is hovering on the margin with every demonstration of distress and apprehension.

The skill of many birds, in constructing their nests, is admirable and inimitable.

The little sand-bird, of Carolina and Georgia, is inferior to none in this respect. She builds her nest like a ball, enters it by a small hole on one side, lines it with the softest materials; connects it by interweaving with it several of the upper leaves of the marsh, and suspends it in perfect security, a few inches above the reach of the highest spring tide. It is a performance we would in vain attempt to imitate. Yet it is a well known fact, that young birds build their nests with a skill equal to that of the old; and, if they be reared apart from the parent, they possess the same knowledge, and apply it in the same manner. It is, therefore, something very different from the process by which a man constructs a house. The one is learned laboriously and by degrees; the other is acquired without effort and at once. The one resembles the constrained movement of the arm or leg, the other, the spontaneous action of the intestines or heart.

If it is admitted that animals are actuated by reason, the argument would prove too much. It must be a faculty, not only not inferior to what man possesses, but, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which it labours, infinitely superior. Unlike our falacious reason, it operates, in most cases, with unerring certainty-never falls short of the object in view, and uniformly pursues its purposes, by the most direct and practicable route.

The bee forms its pentagonal cells with perfect accuracy, adjusts the bases of those on the opposite sides, so as to give them the greatest possible strength, and finishes the whole, with an attention to beauty and symmetry which cannot be

surpassed. If it be an operation of reason, do not those perfect mathematical forms involve in their formation, a knowledge of geometrical principles ?

The spider is also an admirable mathematician. Brush away his labours day after day, and yet unable to perceive that a change of place becomes necessary, he weaves his tissue of circles, and lines, and angles, with unwearied patience and skill. Do the bee and spider learn the arts they practice? Are they not born with the skill which a man would require a lifetime to attain ?

Many of the arguments in favour of brutes possessing the reasoning faculty, are founded on the adaption of circumstances observable in many of their actions. But their more important and complicated operations exhibit such indications as to prove that they arise from some other principle. Are we to conclude then that they reason on matters of minor importance, and exercise another and a stronger principle in their more complicated contrivances.

If accommodation to circumstances--the adaptation of means to an end, necessarily and without further investigation, prove a comparison of ideas, what shall we do with the phenomena exhibited by plants? It is well known that a plant in a cellar, will direct its growth to that part of it, where a portion of light may be admitted. If it be placed in a flower-pot, and turned down, it recovers its natural direction, and grows upward. The leaves and flowers of the pond-lilly, are never above or below the surface of every rise and fall of the water. Doctor Darwin describes the Diona Muscipula, as possessing leaves thick set with spikes surrounding the fruit and flowers. If an insect attempts to invade its treasures, the guardian leaves close on him, and destroy the intruder. Do not these plants indicate the adaptation of means to an end? We may call them machines, indeed, and refer their operations to irritability and stimuli; but let us not forget that more than one Physiologist has converted man into a kind of nervous machine, impelled by the same convenient agents. Are we then to believe, that vegetables are sentient, but extenuated and weakened to the proper standard? Or, is it not much safer to conclude, that we can form no correct infer

ence from the various and irreconcileable appearances in the actions of inferior animals. We see that they are actuated by an intelligent principle-a ştate of mind of which we can form no conception. By patient observation we may learn some of the laws, by which that principle is regulated. But here we must stop, the Rubicon can not be passed.

Amuse ourselves we may with theory and conjecture, supported by slight or plausible analogies; but let us not forget the vast difference between conjecture and knowledge. Similar boundaries limit the march of the human understanding in every direction. Newton could perceive the existence of gravity, and demonstrate the laws by which it is regulated, but neither his, nor any other human mind, was competent to explain its nature.

THE JEWELS OF CORNELIA.
By Dr. Drennan.

"SEE!" said the mother of the Gracchi to a Roman ladyshe happened to be a lady of high distinction, of a patrician family; so indeed was Cornelia, but she married a plebeian. The lady had called on Cornelia for the single purpose of dazzling her eyes with the display of a diamond neck-lace she had that morning received from her husband. She was the childless wife of the Edile Lucretius Vespillo. Cornelia at the time had two boys, Tiberius and Caius. The neck-lace had been disclosed. Cornelia requested her to stop for a little. The boys were sent for; they entered without bowing their heads; they ran to their mother.-Tiberius took her by the hand, and Caius clasped his arms around her neck. She pressed him to her happy heart, and "See," said the mother of the Gracchi, "these are my jewels. Lo! this is my neck-lace." The lady put up hers in the casket, and, with a sort of smile, hastily took her leave. Cornelia remained at home.

Happy, or hapless mother! which shall I call thee! Daughter, of Scipio, the first Africanus, mother-in-law of Scipio, the second Africanus, and, better than both, as the wish of thy heart is to be called, "Mother of the Gracchi;" but of thy twelve children, nine have died in infancy or early youth-and of those remaining, Tiberius shall be the buckler of the people, and thy Caius, now caressing thee, shall be the sword of the people-in

VOL. I.-No. 1.

4