. Our species, in this sense,
is morally nicked; and it costs us no effort to be on a level with human
kings. We hold, with you, that the brain is the seat of reason, while
the animal is in what we call the human probation, but that it is a
reason undeveloped, imperfect, and confused; cased, as it were, in an
envelope unsuited to its functions; but that, as it gradually oozes
out of this straitened receptable towards the base of the animal,
it acquires solidity, lucidity, and, finally, by elongation and
development, point. If you examine the human brain, you will find it,
though capable of being stretched to a great length, compressed in a
diminutive compass, involved and snarled; whereas the same physical
portion of the genus gets simplicity, a beginning and an end, a
directness and consecutiveness that are necessary to logic, and, as has
just been mentioned, a point, in the monikin seat of reason, which,
by all analogy, go to prove the superiority of the animal possessing
advantages so great."

"Nay, sir, if you come to analogies, they will be found to prove more
than you may wish. In vegetation, for instance, saps ascend for the
purposes of fructification and usefulness; and, reasoning from the
analogies of the vegetable world, it is far more probable that tails
have ascended into brains than that brains have descended into tails;
and, consequently, that men are much more likely to be an improvement on
monkeys, than monkeys an improvement on men."

I spoke with warmth, I know; for the doctrine of Dr. Reasono was new to
me; and by this time, my esprit de corps had pretty effectually blinded
reflection.

"You gave him a red-hot shot that time, Sir John," whispered Captain
Poke at my elbow; "now, if you are so disposed, I will wring the necks
of all these little blackguards, and throw them out of the window."

I immediately intimated that any display of brute force would militate
directly against our cause; as the object, just at that moment, was to
be as immaterial as possible.

"Well, well, manage it in your own way, Sir John, and I'm quite as
immaterial as you can wish; but should these cunning varments ra'ally
get the better of us in the argument, I shall never dare look at Miss
Poke, or show my face ag'in in Stunin'tun."

This little aside was secretly conducted, while Dr. Reasono was drinking
a glass of eau sucre; but he soon returned to the subject, with the
dignified gravity that never forsook him.

"Yo