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Moreover, if rational ideas are conceded to the brute, they must be granted in a more powerful and perfect form, rather than in a less perfect form than to man. The chicken, the young of many animals, almost immediately begin to successfully estimate all the relations of objects in space. They evince more mastery over them at the end of a few hours or days than does the child at the close of as many years. If, therefore, any judgments intervene in this process; if the perceptions do not directly, by an immediate transfer of stimulus, secure and guide the motion; if there is not the same spontaneous completeness in the action of the mind that there is in that of the body, what a marvelous, unaccountable rapidity of development should we have here. We must exalt in accuracy, ease and celerity the reflective processes of the animal far above those of man. This seems, to us at least, a reductio ad absurdum. But, if the sport of the lamb, its leaping and running; if the flight of the bird, and the ease with which it hits and rests on the spray, indicate no conscious recognition of space, the presumption is that other less astonishing powers have no basis in reasoning or in intuition.

We object, also though this consideration may have little weight with some minds to the character which this idea of reflection ascribes to the consciousness of the brute. A thoughtful animal would be one of the most unfortunate of beings, the incubus of its physical structure weighing down its destiny. Rational hope and fear to a being like this would be an unnecessary and cruel source of suffering; nor do animals often show apprehension and alarm except in the immediate presence of danger.

But it will be said, there are examples of sagacity on the part of animals which candor forbids us to refer to association, to anything short of reflection. To this we answer, these examples require more searching inquiry as