There is a perpendicular rock above the village of Shieldaig, on the summit of which a stag selected his form. He lay with his flank towards the precipice, and commanded a view of the surrounding country, and did not seem in the least degree alarmed at the approach of his boy, or even the cuttermen; but if the gamekeeper entered the ground, he bounded away directly.

We see that animals of various kinds, from the ant to the beaver, are enabled, not only to rival, but even to surpass, in works of ingenuity, prudence and precision, the human mechanic or mathematician, and we are called upon to account for this. If we grant that these little or great animal mathematicians work solely in dependance on the guidance of their own reason, we assign them a larger proportion of reason than falls to the lot of the human race and if we say that all proceeds from instinct, and define instinct to be an impression or impulse imparted from God to the animal mind, we go as far as to say that the whole work is, after all, performed by God Himself, the animal being moved mechanically through the whole of the operations by the immediate finger of God. But this

would be assigning to animals a more discernible and evident Providence than seems to govern or guide mankind; and thus we should exalt animals above ourselves, and hardly have room left for the smallest doubt that God would provide a hereafter for beings He had so formed, guided, and cherished on the earth: so that with either of these theories before them, the opponents of a soul and future life to animals only magnify their difficulties. But, suppose we assert of animals, as I imagine, we must assert of the human race, that they are gifted with instinct and endued with reason, and then we seem to make our path clear, and to be able to account for much that otherwise appears to be mysterious. We may well think that the Almighty, in consideration of the inferior reason granted to animals, would furnish them with a pattern in the first instance, from which they would have no freedom of superior reason to depart, but in the working after that pattern would give room for the exertion of individual reason, and due subordination of the abilities of some to those of others. In the building of a large palace, or in the operations on board of a man-of-war, the inferior workmen go on in their destined

allotments irrespective of the general issue or effect to be produced, whilst only a few master spirits know or understand the finished plan, and yet each man must exercise some degree of understanding in every thing he does, for mere idiots could not be mechanically moved to do the work. And thus we may think it happens with animals. If the pattern of the honeycomb, in the beaver's hut, or the ant's city, be uniformly the same, and of the same dimensions, we may grant that the pattern is of God, and the working of the details is assigned to the reason that is in them, for we see men performing the same operations confessedly under the influence of their reason or understanding; and why should not the same rule hold good in brutes, especially since all true philosophers allow that animals have powers of reason and understanding in other things? Those persons who hold the doctrine of irresistible grace as always acting on the mind in matters of religious conversion and feeling, may well imagine an irresistible instinct as the portion of animals; but all those who take another view, and observe that God's grace works in concert with our reason, and that God appeals to our reason, and eventually

moulds it with our consent to His will, would most likely see in the theory just laid down, whereby an admixture of instinct and reason is viewed, that which is most consonant to the wholesome views of God's power and kindness, and the animal's ability and responsibility.

Ever your true friend,

Penscellwood.

ACHILLES.

LETTER VIII.

My dear Patroclus,

Let us take a brief view of the history of animals as recorded in the Pentateuch. The Almighty, after having made due provision for the sustenance of animal life, called it into being (as geologists also observe) previous to the creation of man, and pronounced this previous animal creation to be good, (Gen. i. 21, 25); and so soon as man was created, the Almighty looked with evident satisfaction, not upon man only, but saw every thing He had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Gen.

i. 31). Here, then, we perceive the Creator pronouncing the whole creation, doubtless on account of the excellent gradation and harmony of all its parts, to be very good. What a joyous sight was this, when all animal life was called into happy existence, when each attuned its melodious powers of praise, the vocal gratitude of bird and beast rising in harmony with that of man, for then it was that the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy-yes, the angels in Heaven, and creation in its almost angelic state out of Heaven, lifted up the voice of gratulation before the Creator-the animal, according to its degree, equally with the angel and with man.

In the outset of creation, we see animals, certainly not on an equality with man, but still, according to their kind, good and equal, in the eye of God, with man himself. They were inferior to man because God rose with peculiar energy to the formation of man, (Gen. i. 26), made him in His own image, (v. 27), and subjected the brute creation to his power, (v. 28), but still, out of the ground, (Gen. ii. 19), was the beast formed equally with man; (Gen. iii. 19), the Almighty blessed them, and pro