d they are only a few, among multitudes,) can only be accounted for,
by maintaining, that these wonderful phenomena proceed from a degree of
knowledge acquired by these animals, and are the result of such
attainment; or that they are independently furnished with such
propensities by the Creator. If it can be demonstrated that the animals
displaying the greatest acts of intelligence, are unable to acquire the
rudiments of the arts they practise, and cannot comprehend the wisdom
they execute, there will remain but one conclusion--that they are the
immediate endowments of God. Man has his instincts, although they are
few, and these appear to fade as his reason advances; woman enjoys a
more bountiful supply. The intellectual difference of the sexes is
strongly pronounced: the female is more the creature of perception: man,
of reflection:--the duties imposed on her, require less of thought and
volition; and when she resembles man by their possession and exercise,
she becomes less amiable and attractive. But this is abundantly
compensated by the intenseness and constancy of her affections.

The gift of instinct to animals, does not exclude them from acquiring
knowledge by experience; for their minds are capable of improvement,
according to the extent of their capacities, and the intellectual organs
with which they are furnished. The instinct which is allotted to them is
mental possession which they could not have acquired, from the limited
nature of their faculties. All their instincts are processes of the
purest reasoning, but they do not originate from themselves; they are
not, as in man, the elaboration of thought, the contrivance founded on
the estimate of knowledge; but a boon,--an endowment, by which
experience is anticipated, and wisdom matured without its progress and
accumulation. Animals form an estimate of that which they can
accomplish: a horse will not voluntarily attempt a leap he cannot clear;
but his admeasurement is instituted solely by his eye: he is deficient
of the organ which man possesses;--nor can he measure by steps or paces,
as he is unable to numerate. An old hound will spare himself much
fatigue in the chace, by knowing, from experience, the doubles of the
hare. As man cannot reason independently of knowledge, nor beyond the
extent of his acquirements, neither can animals display this faculty
further than they possess the means.

The instinctive bounty of intellect to animals, of course, renders the