When we see brutes thus using means to obtain their ends as well as ourselves, must we not conclude that they reason? When the cat watches for hours in silent expectation of its prey; when the hound traverses a wide extent of country in the chase; when the meanest insect that we tread on drags its wounded frame to a safe retreat; they shew as much persevering voluntarily as man can boast. No animal manducates its food, or laps its drink, from the mere pleasure of the motions. It uses them as means “ for an end; and if hunger and thirst were not felt, they would be considered as labours, and would not be performed. "Animals (says Mr. Stewart, nearly in the words of Hume) are left to make some small acquisitions by experience, as sufficiently appears in certain tribes, from the sagacity of the old when contrasted with the ignorance of the young, and from the effects which may be produced on many of them by discipline and education."* "It seems as evident to me (says Locke) that some animals do in certain instances reason, as that they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they received them from the senses. They are, the best of them, tied up within those narrow bounds, and have not, as I think, the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction." + The observations which Mr. Locke makes in this part of his work on the faculties of the brutes, as compared with ours, are in general just and worthy of perusal. But does not the fact concerning the crow and the cat, as stated above, contradict this last mentioned opinion; and shew, that the crow could not have acted as she did without some degree of abstrac tion? But I must not multiply citations, as I do not wish to be accused of unnecessary prolixity, or to have it thought that I depend too much on the authority of great names in a matter in which common observation and common sense are sufficient to enable us to form a correct opinion, if we will only take the trouble of thinking a little on the daily phenomena that surround us. That an animal can be capable of gratitude and affection for its master without reasoning, can, in my opinion, hardly be main. tained. From the master's protection and kindness it infers that it is under obligations to him, which it owes not to another. Before I conclude this subject, I may quote one instance of the af fection of a dog, which I think has never been surpassed. But I do it the more readily, as the circumstance has been very poeti cally described by an author who, with all his undoubted poetical merit, seldom writes better than on this very affecting and interesting VOL. I. NO. II. * Outlines of Moral Philosophy, Part I. Lect, 18. ✦ Book II, Chap. XI. Sect, 11. resting occasion. The instance to which I allude is peculiarly interesting, from the incident to which it relates, the death of au unfortunate young gentleman of promising talents, who perished by losing his way, in the spring of 1805, on the mountain Hell vellyn. His remains were found three months afterwards, guarded still by a faithful terrier bitch that had long been the companion of his solitary rambles. This last circumstance in particular, is very finely alluded to by Mr. Scott, in his stanzas on the subject, to which he has given the name Hellvellyn : "Dark green was the spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather, How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber; -- As these few instances which I have now stated are in my opinion sufficient, and speak fully for themselves, I shall neither add to the number nor stop to make any further comments upon them. Those who are not able to anticipate all that I could offer on this point, are not likely to be much benefited by such observations. But, it has been asked, rather triumphantly I think, if we allow reason to the lower animals, in what does the difference between them and man consist? Do their faculties and ours differ in degree or in kind? To this question I have not the vanity to think that I am able to give a satisfactory answer: I may, however, state a few remarks. We see that animals learn much from experience and observation as well as ourselves; it is thus they learn the nature or the properties of the objects that surround them, such as heights, depths, distance, &c.—“A horse (says Mr. Hume) that has been accustomed to the field, be comes acquainted with the proper height which he can leap, and will never attempt what exceeds his force and abilities. An old greyhound will trust the more fatiguing part of the chase to the younger, and will place himself so as to meet the hare in her doubles; nor are the conjectures which he forms on this occasion founded upon any thing but his reason and experience." By training and education we can teach even our domestic animals much more more than they would ever learn if left to themselves and their own observation. If we put them in new situations, we see that their acquired knowledge is much increased and improved, and that, by a proper and strict discipline, we can train them up to a mode of acting directly contrary to their instincts or natural propensi ties. If these observations be just, (and for my part, I cannot see how they can be questioned), it follows, that instinct in the lower animals is susceptible of very great and striking modifica. tions. To produce these however, strict culture, as I have just said, and discipline are necessary; without which I do not think that their own experience and observation would ever teach them to deviate much from the line of acting chalked out to them by their instincts or original propensities. And, accordingly, I agree with the remark of Hume, "that though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing by the longest practice and experience."* Yet, notwithstanding this susceptibility of improvement by culture and education in the lower animals, we can never observe in them any thing approaching to the knowledge and sagacity of man. They do not like him heap observation upon observation; they do not improve by the experience of the past, nor manifest any indications of a regard to futurity; their manufactures are always stationary, and all their acquisitions perish with the individual. They never learn the arts of man: for instance, though often as fond of arti ficial heat as we are, not one of them has been ever known to lay a piece of coal or of wood upon the fire, to keep it from going All this may be owing to the want of language: but it seems strange that they possess not this art, as some of them seem to have organs of articulation as perfect as ours. They use means, it is true, for obtaining their ends sometimes, but these, in general, are very simple and obvious. They reason too on some occasions; but the want of language, or of general signs, puts it out of their power to reason but in particular facts. The powers of classifying objects, of abstract reasoning, of using artificial signs as instruments of thought and of mutual communication, seem to be almost altogether peculiar to man. From these considerations, and several others relating both to the intellectual and moral faculties of man as contrasted with those of the lower animals, it has been inferred, that the scale of being, which is every where else visible on our globe, fails entirely here, out. z 2 * Essays, Vol. II, here, and that their faculties differ from ours not in degree, but in kind. Thus then we see that animals perform certain operations that are neither rational, habitual, or mechanical; and although it cannot be doubted that some of them reason in several instances, still, even from the short details now before us, I cannot allow that their natural operations are performed with a view to conse quences. Nor ought these effects of instinct (the labours of birds and bees for instance) appear extraordinary to us, if we consider what astonishing effects habit, which has been happily called a second nature, enables us to produce. For instances we need go no farther than reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, all of which we learn by great attention, pains, and study; and most of all, perhaps, correct extemporary eloquence, And surely, when the effects of an acquired principle are so un. common, it cannot be deemed strange, that an original principle of the constitution of animals should perform works still greater or more astonishing. PHILOSOPHICUS. ART. VII.-On the Easiest Mode of Learning the Greek and Latin Languages, with occasional Strictures on the Greek and Latin Grammars taught in Public Schools. TO THE EDITOR OF THE REFLECTOR. SIR, BEING in company not long since with several gentlemen engaged in business, I heard one complain of not having received a classical education in his youth; and another did me the honour to request, that I would point out in writing how this defect, as it was represented to be, might be most easily supplied. I consented; and the more readily, because I have met with several gentlemen, and ladies too, who have been similarly circumstanced; and because, if the principles here to be laid down are true, they will be found of use in learning other languages; and, for the same reason, I prefer a periodical publication, as the channel of my thoughts, to one more private. This attempt shall be made independently of any previous questions relative to the expediency or non-expediency of learning the Greek and Latin languages at all; or the consideration, whether the time spent in learning what have been called, some what what inaccurately, the dead languages,* might not be better occupied in acquiring the living; or the allowedly more useful studies of the arts and sciences, without the trouble of learning any language but our own. And, as a ground for the dismissal of such questions, it may be just premised, that they must necessarily take too wide a range to enter into a discussion like the present. Latin has been made not only the vehicle for conveying down to us the writings of the old Roman poets, philosophers, and historians, but, for many centuries, of all the literary inquiries that were carried on in Europe, and it is still much used in our universities and in the learned professions. As to Greek, it is allowed to be of all other languages the most varied, elegant, rich, and perfect. The phi losophical and metaphysical ideas of ancient Greece for many centuries held the whole world in admiration; the few remains of Grecian art formed after some of the critical writings of ancient Greece, are still considered by the moderns as the best models for imitation; and to say nothing of other poems, the Iliad, as. cribed at least to Homer, is deemed of so transcendant a character, as still to stand, like his own king Agamemnon, without a rival. Whether, therefore, it would be desirable that all those writings should be swept away, and the space which they have occupied be considered a blank, and other inquiries connected with them? are questions not to be proposed in a cursory manner, nor to be settled by incidental hints. There are many persons of the description above mentioned, who wish for some acquaintance with the classic writers. Whether, therefore, the value of those writers be great or small, an attempt to meet such a wish will not be deemed impertinent, nor will an apology be thought necessary. It is scarcely necessary to hint, that the phrase classic authors, which may sometimes occur in this essay, must be considered as synonomous to the best writers of Greece and Rome, such at least as fashion or learned authorities have stamped with credit, and placed in the classes of our public schools; nor to request the reader to keep in mind what description of people this essay addresses, z 3 * The Hungarians, though they have a distinct language, converse much in Latin. The Italian and French, the Spanish and Portuguese languages, have in them a great deal of Latin. That of the modern Greeks, in the Morea and the Greek Isles, has the same characters as the old, and notwithstanding its various mixtures, retains, even as spoken among the vulgar, much of its original. The learned Greeks read the ancient Greek with some modern corruptions. These circumstances, together with the use that has been, and still is, made of the two languages in many civilized countries, will at least justify the cautious language used in the text, |