Section VI.

An Answer to the Supposed Objection, that the Preceding Arguments, if Solved, Will Prove that Brutes Have Immaterial and Immortal Minds.

So far as we have argued from the properties of matter, we admit that it must follow that brutes have connected with their organism an immaterial spiritual nature. They clearly possess some mental traits in common with man, and where there is mind, there is something more than matter. But they are not necessarily immortal. It has not been argued that the human soul is immortal simply because it is immaterial.

If the objection be well founded, it does not prove our arguments unsound. We shall, not deny ourself a soul lest we should give one to our faithful dog. We shall not reason our own soul out of existence lest we should reason one into a brute. We would sooner embrace a theory which would elevate brutes to men, by giving them souls, than one which would degrade men to brutes, by taking away their souls. Is there anything more frightful in supposing that men and brutes are so far alike as to both have souls, than there is in supposing that they are so far alike as neither to have souls The objector appears alarmed at the idea that a horse should be so much like a man as to have a soul; and yet he contends that a man is so precisely like a horse, as not to have a soul. We would rather a horse should have a soul, than not to have one ourself. The arguments in question, prove to our entire satisfaction, the immateriality of the human soul, and if any one can prove from them that beasts have souls, we shall not do violence to the reason which God has given us to escape the consequences. But we cannot see that any such consequences follow from our arguments; we believe our arguments prove the immateriality of the human mind, without proving that beasts have souls, like the souls of men, yet did the conclusion follow, we should not shrink from the consequences. Some eminent divines have held that brutes will have a future existence, but we differ from them, and trust we shall prove before we get through, that the doctrine does not follow from our arguments.

The objection, if admitted, would involve the objector in precisely the same difficulty, in relation to his own theory, which he charges upon us, in view of our theory. We suppose his objection to allowing that beasts have souls, is, that it would give them a relation to the spirit-world, and a future existence. This we charge back upon himself; for whether you raise brutes to a level with men, by giving them souls, or degrade men to a level with brutes, by denying that they have souls, the result, in this particular, is the same, as it is admitted on both sides that men do sustain a relation to the future world. Let it be noted that the objection is not founded upon a denial of the powers and susceptibilities of the human mind, upon which we have founded our arguments, but upon the assumption that brutes possess the same powers and susceptibilities, or that they exhibit the same mental phenomena. If brutes do not exhibit the same mental phenomena as that upon which we have based our arguments, then the arguments can prove nothing concerning brutes, and the objection falls to the ground. If beasts do exhibit the same mental phenomena, then they must possess the same intellectual and moral character, sustain the same relation to God's moral government, and be equally entitled to a resurrection and a future existence. The objector may take which horn of the dilemma he pleases; if he takes the former, his objection falls; if he takes the latter, he involves himself in it, and must fall under it.

We deny that brutes ever exhibit those mental phenomena which we have made the basis of our arguments. If this can be sustained, the objection falls, and our arguments will bear the souls of men upward to the immortal world, without carrying with them the spirits of brutes that go downward to the earth. Our arguments are founded exclusively upon the intellectual and moral phenomena of the human mind, which brutes never exhibit. That brutes have some sort of mind, we admit; and that where there is mind, there is something more than matter, something superior to matter, we affirm. Some spirits are of a higher order than others, and hence the fact that brutes have minds, and per-consequence have associated with their material organization an inferior spiritual nature, neither proves them immortal, or invalidates the argument by which we have proved man's spiritual nature from his mental phenomena, and his immortality from his spiritual nature. We will now enter upon our main defence, after stating the points.

The reader will bear in mind that we have not, and do not argue that the human soul will necessarily always exist, because it is an immaterial spirit. We only argue that it may exist forever, and that it will exist forever if left to the operations of the laws of its own elemental nature, and further, that it cannot be destroyed by the action of material agents. We have not, and do not deny that God can annihilate the human soul, we insist that he can, but we insist at the same time, that should God annihilate the soul, it would not be by an exertion of power upon it, but by simply withdrawing from it that power which created it, and which sustains it, leaving it to vanish from existence. When we say that God could do this, we mean no more than that it is physically possible; we do not believe he could do it consistently, because he has given to man a nature which sustains a relation to the future world, and the principles of his moral government require that man should meet the retributions of that world. Here then is the point, the phenomena of the human mind, upon which we have based our arguments, clearly ally man to a future state; while brutes are so clearly wanting in all those mental qualities which ally man to a future state, as to prove as clearly that they can sustain no relation to the future world. We think the argument turns on this one question. Is the intelligence of men and brutes the same in kind, the difference being only in the circumstance that a man has more of the same thing than a brute; or is the intelligence of men and brutes essentially different in nature We take the latter position, and upon this do we rest our main defence against the objection under consideration. We deal frankly with opponents, and admit that if the minds of men and brutes are the same in nature only differing in degree, we must yield to the objection, and give up the immortality of the human soul, or admit the immortality of brutes. So, on the other hand, if we can show that the minds of men and brutes differ essentially in nature, the objection must fall. We have now narrowed the subject down to a single point, which is the difference between human intelligence and brute intelligence. This difference, we affirm, lies not in degree, but in nature.

It is not denied that men and brutes have some things in common. They both possess sensation and perception, and brutes possess the first of these in as high a state of perfection as man; they can feel, see, hear, taste, and smell as acutely as men. But these constitute their entire mental powers and susceptibilities, and are the basis of all mental phenomena they exhibit. To these man has added reason, involving consciousness, will, memory, conscience, hopes and fears, which brutes have not; and these alone can constitute a moral agent, sustaining a relation to the retributions of a future state.

Sensation and perception, without reason amount only to instinct, which we admit brutes have. Instinct is that power and disposition of mind by which animals are spontaneously led to do whatever is necessary for their preservation, and the continuance of their kind, independent of instruction and experience. This, and not reason, leads the bee to form her comb, the spider to weave his web, and the beaver to build his house; it is this that impels the infant, in whom reason is not yet developed, to draw its first nutriment with as perfect skill as it ever can, and with a skill which, in nine cases out of ten, is lost in after years beyond the power of reason to recall. But all this differs widely from reason, which distinguishes men from brutes, and we will now state some of the principal points, with their bearing on the subject.

(1.) Instinct never improves, while it is the very nature of reason to progress. Animals acting from instinct, perform the same acts in the same way for ten thousand generations in succession; while men, acting from reason, vary their plans, improve their skill, and push their results onward towards perfection. Reason is that faculty which discovers resemblances, compares, judges and deduces conclusions. This results from what some call perception, that is, pure thought. Animals have sensation and perception, but they never think; their mental operations are limited to the sphere of sensation and perception, while men abstract themselves from all that is external, and operate within by what is purely a thinking process; they think of things far away, of things they never saw, heard, felt, tasted, or smelt; they think of thoughts and compare thought with thought, and thing with thing. This is a mental process by which annuals are clearly incapable; and it is this that lays the foundation of improvement; hence, men progress onward, and still onward to a higher destiny, while animals remain the same from age to age. Again, animal instinct never imparts to its fellow animal, the limited education it is capable of receiving from the more skilful hand of man. Some years since the gullible portions of community, gaped with wonder at the performance of a learned pig, but one learned pig never educated his fellow pig in the arts of his profession, but the human mind under the influence of the higher endowments of reason, imparts its acquisitions to fellow minds. Thus the human mind is capable of improving itself, while each can impart its own acquisitions, and receive the acquisitions of others, marking the race distinctly and undeniably as destined for, and capable of perpetual improvement, which indicates a preparation for a higher state of existence, and allies the race to some future destiny. On the other hand, as animals have not the mental e1ements of intellectual improvement, as none have conceived and developed philanthropic schemes for the improvement of their respective species, and as none ever have improved and broken the chain which bound them to the sphere and destiny of an instinctive brute ancestry ; they are not only separated from man by a chasm, so wide that no art of reasoning can link them o to human destiny, but they are distinctly marked as designed only for their present sphere, exhibiting no elements, suited to, and making no preparation for a higher destiny.

(2.) Men possess consciousness; brutes do not. As consciousness is that notice which the mind takes of itself, of its own operations and modes of existence, it involves a purely thinking process or reflection, which brutes cannot perform, they being only capable of sensation and perception as shown above. To explain; you may throw hot water upon a man, and a brute, and they both experience pain; this pain is called sensation. But at the same time, both learn that hot water will produce pain, and both the man and the brute will be afraid of hot water in future, wherever they meet with it. This knowledge or idea which they obtain of the quality of hot water is called perception, that is, they perceive the relation between the sensation, the pain and the external object, hot water, that produced the sensation, otherwise they would not avoid hot water the next time they met with it. But here the brute stops, never thinking about the sensation or perception, only as they are revived by the presence of hot water; while the man will a thousand times call them up and spend seasons in thinking about them, will review all the circumstances a thousand miles from the place where it happened, and without the presence of hot water to revive the sensation and perception. This is thought or reflection, and here comes in what is called consciousness of identity. While the brute never thinks of the sensation in the absence of the place and agent that produced it, nor of the perception of the quality of hot water, only when it is present; the man reflects on the whole matter away from the place, and in the absence of the agent that produced the sensation, and is conscious of his own identity; that is, he takes notice that the mind that now thinks, is the same mind that so many years ago in such a place, by contact with hot water received such a sensation, and obtained such a perception of the quality of the external object that produced the sensation. This is absolutely essential to a moral nature, and future accountability for present or past conduct, and as men possess it, they are allied to a future retribution; and as brutes have it not, they cannot be allied to a future retribution.

(3.) Men possess volition and will; brutes do not. Brutes exercise a kind of choice, as a horse prefers fresh grass to dry hay, and as an animal often exhibits obstinacy by preferring to go in one direction, rather than to be driven in another, but these are only the impulses of instinct. The will of man, which involves accountability, is a very different thing. A rational will supposes judgment, a power to compare different objects which operates as motives, and to determine their comparative value. Brutes are never influenced by motives addressed to the understanding. An ox will make a choice of two bundles of hay, founded upon the sense of smell or taste; but not upon a comparison of their relative nutriment or power to sustain life, nor even upon their comparative size, for this would require reflection, comparison and judgment which constitute the elements of reason, which brutes never exhibit.

(4.) Men possess the power of memory, which brutes have not. We know that superficial observers often affirm that animals have memory, but it is for want of discrimination that they affirm this. They mistake mere sensation and perception for memory. A horse may fall through a bridge, and when he approaches that bridge again, or perhaps some other bridge, he will be alarmed; but this is not memory; the philosophy is this, the presence of the bridge revives the painful sensation and the perception, that the bridge produced the sensation. To remember it, would be to retain a knowledge of it, and to make it a subject of thought and reflection ten years afterwards, a hundred miles from the place and object that produced the sensation. This men may do, but horses never.

A dog may be in the habit of committing depredations in the cellar, and you will not cure him by punishing him in the barn. To render punishment effectual, it must be inflicted in connection with the place where the mischief is done, or in connection with the thing injured, and then, though the animal has no memory of the transactions, beyond the mere sensation and perception, their presence revives them, and prevents a repetition of the fault.

(5.) Men have conscience but brutes have none. Some may have supposed that they have seen animals exhibit signs of conscience, upon the same principle that they have attributed to them the faculty of memory. The signs of compunction which they have thought them to exhibit, have grown out of the painful sensations of punishment for the same or similar offences, which have been revived by the sameness of the present offence or contiguity of place. This is clear from two circumstances. First, animals never exhibit what are called signs of conscious guilt, for offences for which they have never been punished. Secondly, these signs, when they appear, are never increased, but uniformly disappear under the influence of kind treatment. Kind treatment often awakens compunction in man, but never in an animal.

(6.) Men are the subjects of hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, beyond the influence of their present sensations, but brutes are not. Man looks back to the dawn of his being, and sorrows, and rejoices over what is past, while to the brute, the past has no existence, only so much as lives in present sensations. Man looks forward and experiences the joy of hope, and the torment of fear, gathered from periods far distant in the future, while, with brutes, futurity is all a blank beyond what is connected with their present sensations.

After perusing this defence, we will cheerfully submit it to the candid reader, whether the future existence of brutes follows from our argument, founded upon the phenomena of the human mind.