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the ox, or the sheep, that is considered the favourite of its master or owner,and is fed in green pastures every day, is the soonest to be sacrificed to his rapacious appetite. And man, while enjoying all the delicasies and comforts of life here; while the cup of prosperity bubbles over the brim, still he cannot boast of to-morrow, for even to-day his soul may be required of him, and that body he so much idolized and doated upon, given as a feast to the worms, or be indignantly trampled upon by some unthinking clown.

In the second place, Variety, to the mind of man, is absolutely necessary for completing its happiness, as we may see from the strange and disagreeable effect soon produced by a painter making choice even of his most precious and beautiful colour, when instead of painting his picture or canvas with a variety of objects and colours, he paints it all over with one colour and as one piece. It is the same with regard to music: for, let the most exquisite piece be selected, with all the pleasing symphony that the power of music can produce, still, if no other but itself be ever heard, how will it cloy the ear and the understanding!

We also know that, had there been no lower order of creatures on earth than man, he

would have considered himself the most miserable of beings. It is but by being exposed to the fury of a raging storm when the ocean is convulsed into a tempest that, we know the pleasures, or can contemplate the beauties of the mighty deep in a calm:-but by being cozened and deceived by a pretended friend that, we know there is such a thing as a true friend, and how to value him:-but by feeling the distresses created by poverty that, we can estimate properly the comforts of plenty: -but by feeling the craving and ravenous appetite of hunger that, we can appreciate or relish our ordinary food:-but by being subject, and occasionally overcome with sickness that, we can know the blessings of health: -but by solitary confinement in prison, or as a slave that, we know how to value liberty. It is, in short, but by comparison that, we know, or can distinguish between right and wrong, or evil from good. Many such like contrasts reconcile us to our present condition in life, and enable us to go through the world rejoicing.

Some hang and some drown, some run to despair,
By thinking that none are so wretched as they are :
'Twould ease them to look round, and see many other
That live worse, and yet ne'er make such a pother.

Brutes are by many counted void of reason, which is not the case, as we have, and shall farther prove to a demonstration,in the course of the present work, They are also counted incapable of religion, i. e. of serving or giving glory unto God their maker; this is incorrect: for we are told by the prophet Isaiah XLIII.20, The beasts of the field, the dragons and the owls shall honour God. And the divinely inspired David, Psalms CXLVIII. 10, calls upon the Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl, to praise the Lord.

Chrysostom, also, says, The true worship of God consisteth in spirit and truth.-Do not therefore, the winged tenants of the air, when they rise from their dewy bed at early dawn, and listlessly float through the blue æther on downy pinion, address their first song of thanksgiving and praise to the glory of the author of their existence? And, do. not their evening mattins spring from the same sourse of faith and love?

The subtil serpent had his moral rules:
Yes, who but fools imagine brutes were fools?
Some brutes e'n still express a moral mind,
At least to emulate-nay, shame mankind.

And Dr. Young says,

Less differs man from beast, than man from mán.

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Were we to analyze the best works of many of those who carry about with them the hu man form, we would find them destitute of that which characterizes the christian and virtuous person: and if put into the scale of gratitude and love with those of many of the brute species, we would find the balance preponderate in favour of the latter.

Philosophers have been much puzzled about the essential characteristics of brutes, by which they may be distinguished from man. Some define a brute to be an animal not risible, or a living creature incapable of laughter; others call them mute animals. The Peripatetics allowed them a sensitive power, but denied them a rational one. The Platonists allowed them reason and understanding, though in a degree less pure and refined than that of man. Lactantius allows every thing to brutes which men have, except a sense of religion, and even this has been ascribed to them by some. Descartes maintained that, brutes are mere inanimate machines, absolutely destitute not only of reason but of all thought and perception, and that all their actions are only consequences of the exquisite mechanism of their bodies. This system, however, is much old, r than Descartes; it was borrowed by him from

Gomez Pereira, a Spanish physician, who employed thirty years in composing a treatise which he entitled Antoniana Margarita, from the Christian names of his father and mother. It was published in 1454: but his opinion had not the honour of gaining partizans, or even being refuted; so that it died with him. Even Pereira seems not to have been the inventor of this notion; something like it having been held by some of the ancients, as we find from Plutarch and St. Augustin. Others who rejected Cartesian hypothesis, have maintained that brutes are endowed with a soul essentially inferior to that of men; and to this soul some have allowed immortality, others not. And, lastly, in a treatise published by one Bougeant a Jesuit, entitled, "A philosophical amusement on the language of beasts," he affirms that they are animated by evil spirits or devils.

The opinion of Descartes was probably invented, or at least adopted by him, to defeat two great objections: one against the immortality of the souls of brutes, if they were allowed to have any; the others against the goodness of God, in suffering creatures who had never sinned, to be subject to so many miseries. The arguments in favour of it may be stated as follows: 1. It is certain, that a

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