ngenious than others. Those which have claviculae, or
collar-bones, and thence use the forefeet as hands, as the
monkey, squirrel, rat, are more ingenious in seizing their
prey or escaping from danger. And the ingenuity of the
elephant appears to arise from the sense of touch at the
extremity of his proboscis, which has a prominence on one
side of its cavity like a thumb to close against the other
side of it, by which I have seen him readily pick up a
shilling which was thrown amongst the straw he stood upon.
Hence the excellence of the sense of touch in many insects
seems to have given them wonderful ingenuity so as to equal
or even excel mankind in some of their arts and discoveries;
many of which may have been acquired in situations previous
to their present ones, as the great globe itself, and all
that it inhabit, appear to be in a perpetual state of
mutation and improvement; see Additional Note IX.]

"Thy potent acts, VOLITION, still attend
The means of pleasure to secure the end;
To express his wishes and his wants design'd
Language, the _means_, distinguishes Mankind;
For _future_ works in Art's ingenious schools
His hands unwearied form and finish tools; 440
He toils for money _future_ bliss to share,
And shouts to Heaven his mercenary prayer.
Sweet Hope delights him, frowning Fear alarms,
And Vice and Virtue court him to their arms.

[Footnote: _Thy potent acts, Volition_, l. 435. It was before
observed, how much the superior accuracy of our sense of
touch contributes to increase our knowledge; but it is the
greater energy and activity of the power of volition, that
marks mankind, and has given them the empire of the world.

There is a criterion by which we may distinguish our
voluntary acts or thoughts from those that are excited by our
sensations: "The former are always employed about the means
to acquire pleasurable objects, or to avoid painful ones;
while the latter are employed about the possession of those
that are already in our power."

The ideas and actions of brutes, like those of children, are
almost perpetually produced by their present pleasures or
their present pains; and they seldom busy the