Modern chivalry :: :: University of Virginia Library

IT is a melancholy consideration to consider how
nearly the brutal nature borders on the human; because
it leads to a reflection that the difference may be in degree,
not in kind. But on the most diligent consideration
that I have been able to give the subject, it would
seem to me, that no reasonable doubt can exist of there
being a distinction in kind. The brutal creation is not improvable
beyond a certain limit; and that limit is reached
at an early period, without pains taken to inform. The
mind of a beast grows up to its size as naturally as its
body. And though the capacity of a man of a very heavy
nature may seem not a great deal beyond that of a
sagacious quadruped of some species; yet it is capable
of continual enlargement; and, at the latest years of his
life, until perfect superanuation, is susceptible of new impressions.
If the strength of judgment in comparing
objects, cannot be improved; yet the sphere of thinking
can be extended. His ideas can be infinitely increased
What carries with it the appearance of virtue, in a
faithful quadruped, seems to be the feeling of its nature,
and not the result of any reflex sentiment of duty and obligation.

Except certain noises, peculiar to their natures, and of
which all of the species are possessed, as soon as they receive
existence, and which is an untaught language, we
have no evidence of ideas in their minds annexed to
sounds. Much less is there a capacity of a variation of
articulation to any extent, worth mentioning. A traveller
of good sense, who has seen the Cafrarian; or whatever
other species, under the denomination of the creature
man, at the lowest grade, would not despair if
it was imposed on him as a condition to reserve himself
from slavery or death, that he must take a young person
from amongst that people, and teach it any language,
or science, or abstract principle of knowledge; but if it
was made the condition that he should take the seemingly
most intelligent of the quadrupeds of the countries he
has visited, and teach any thing like what is called a rational
acquisition, he would say the attempt is not worth

making, it is impossible. The seven wise masters
or mistresses of Greece, alluding to a popular book
under that title; the philosophers of antiquity, or of
modern times, employed for an indefinite space,
would never teach him more in reality than he possessed
in the woods from whence he came. He might
be taught to connect certain movements of the body with
those shewn him; and by imitation led to make them,
under fear of a whip, but that is all. It is humiliating to
think that brutes of whose post-existence we have no
hope, have even so near an approach to our natures.—
But it is consolatory that there seems to be something
like demonstration that they are so far behind: that it is
not in degree of intellect, but in kind, that they differ;
and that that difference is so immense, that it is not unreasonable
to entertain the idea of a totally different destination
This is reasoning from the laws of nature as to
the destination of the human mind, and on which the philosopher
must dwell with pleasure, as aiding what
those who believe in revelation adduce as the grounds of
their faith. For there can be no philosopher, who, whatever
doubts he may have of religion, can be without a
wish that it may be true. What is it more than being
certain of what, even supposing it not to be revealed, yet
the imagination of a man would contrive for himself as
painting his glory, and his happiness? What is that which
we call revelation, but a system of ideas representing a
prospect ennobling to our natures; and which, if not revealed,
must at least be the conception of great and good
minds intent on what would constitute the grandeur and
felicity of the creature man.

We have no means of getting at the exercise of the mind
of a beast; so that we cannot say what may be the limit of
their cogitations. But no one observing them has ever
been able to trace any thing like an idea of what they
have been; or a fear of what they may be. No uneasiness
of mind seems to hang upon them from this source.
Yet this anxiety is given so strong to our nature that it
is the constant subject of our thoughts: our reasonings
concerning it are infinite; our aerial castles which we
build, even where they are the mere effect of imagination,
are without end. We people all nature with beings
for ourselves, even where we are not. What
might have been the agonies anterior to the time of
Moses, in Egypt, and other parts of Africa, we cannot

ascertain; but from the history of the Jews, we have
considerable information relative to that of Syria; at least
of Palestine, the part of Syria, more immediately adjoining.

The heathen mythology, particularly so denominated,
presents an immense scope; and which, with the poets,
is yet preserved. It is a part of a learned, or even of a
polite education, to be made acquainted with this system
in order to understand the allusion of the fine writers
ancient and modern. What an immense exercise,
and employment of the human mind must it not have
been to build up such a system. However false we may
suppose this peopleing with celestial powers, or earthly
divinities, it cannot but be consolatory to reflect that it
makes a boundary at all times distinct, between the human
mind, however in darkness, and that of what we consider
the mere animal creation.

We have but partial and obscure information of the
systems of other nations, contemporary with the Greeks
and Romans. But we see in what we have of these, the
like evidence of activity, pressing beyond the bounds of
what we see before our eyes, and fashioning to our minds
images of existence. The nature of these, is usually a
proof of the duration and refinement of a people.

Where the imagination was limited by the doctrines of
revelation under the Mosaic, or Christian dispensation;
as to the unity of the deity, and ministers of good or
evil to man, how unlimited have been the excursions of
the fancy, and the subtleties of the intellect, in the subdivisions
of credence. The Talmud and the Targum of
the Jews present us an immense field. The polemic
divinity of the christian schools, is more within our knowledge;
taught in some section of the church, to the catechumeni
or propounded, in the pulpits. These disquisitions
shew the wonderfully metaphysical nature of the
human mind.

On the contrary, there seems to be no trace of hope or
fear, with regard to futurity, in the mind of a brute. I
have observed with great attention, and I could never discover
any symptom, in the smallest degree, of that horror
which is felt by man at the view of a dead body.
This horror arises from the ideas associated with the
view, that it is the remains of a man. The revulsion of
mind which is felt at being in the dark, especially with a
dead body, seems not in the most distant degree, participated

with any of the hairy or feathered tribes, neither in
respect of dead creatures of their own species, or of the
human. No shyness of a church yard, has ever been remarked.
Tales of apparitions, are told in the hearing
of domesticated animals, without the least symptom of
that fear of being left alone which afflict families where
there are nurses, whose memories are stored with relations
of this nature. Memoirs of the Fairy kingdom,
have no effect upon a dog, or a cat.

But where is the heaviest of the creature called human,
that is not affected? Nay, perhaps, liable to be
affected the most. There would, therefore, even
from this small ground of argument, be reason
to infer that whatever may be said, in figures of
speech, or however really man may degrade himself;
yet, in the scale of being, the lowest is by an infinite distance
in his nature, above a beast.

That gregarious animals are susceptible of a kind of
civil government, is certain. But their regulations seem
to be a law of their nature; at all times the same; without
changes in any country, or at any period. I do not
remark this, as refuting the reveries of the visionary philosopher,
but as going in deduction to the establishment
of the above position. As to the philosopher, I have
dwelt long enough upon his reverie, which I thought
might amuse young persons, and I omit what further occurred,
the contrivance of Harum Scarum, and Will
Watlin, to confirm him in his hypothesis. This was to
dress themselves in hair and bear skins, and to pass with
him by running upon all fours, for educated cubs that
had been taught languages. These were frolics of
which the governor did not approve; for it is not becoming
to be amused at the expense of persons deprived
either of the gifts of reason, or of the goods of fortune.—
It might not perhaps be blameable to be diverted at the
mistake of some weak people, who were imposed upon,
and became alarmed at the idea of their being candidates
for the legislature, at the next election, and sent forward
to take a seat. This was what the wags threatened in
their disguise; and when the caprice of suffrage was
considered, who could tell but that the apparent quadrupeds
might make good what they spoke.