VII.

The Brute World a Mystery.

How can any one, asks Madame de Staël, reflect upon

the animal creation, and not be lost in the astonishment excited by their mysterious existence? A poet has called these our fellow-lodgers, les rêves de la nature, dont l'homme est le réveil. To what end have they been created? What mean those looks of theirs, seemingly covered by an obscure cloud, from behind which some idea would fain find an opening? What are their relations to us-wards? "A bird lives longer than a man of genius, and an indescribable feeling of bizarre despair seizes upon the heart when, after losing one we love, we see the breath of life still animating an insect, that still moves on the earth, whence the nobler being has disappeared."

There were nations of old, and those, as Montaigne phrases it, "some of the most ancient and noble," who "not only received brutes into their society, but gave them a rank infinitely above them, esteeming them familiars and favourites of the gods." In one place the crocodile received adoration; in another the serpent-eating ibis; the monkey was honoured with a statue of gold; here a fish and there a dog were objects of votive veneration. Montaigne-fond as he was of his cat

"But when,

—had no disposition to go any of these lengths. amongst the more moderate opinions," he adds, "I meet with arguments that endeavour to demonstrate the near resemblance betwixt us and animals, how much they share in our greatest privileges, and with how great plausibility we are put into comparison with them, I abate a great deal of our presumption, and willingly resign the title of that imaginary sovereignty which some attribute to us over other creatures." Perhaps Pascal had Montaigne in his mind-as indeed he so frequently had—when he indited this among his other Thoughts: "It is dangerous to make a man see too particularly how near is his equality with the brutes, without also showing him his greatness. It is dangerous, again, to make him see so much of his greatness as to overlook his degradation. It is still more dangerous to leave him ignorant of both. But it is extremely advantageous to call his attention to both." Pascal gladly merged speculative difficulties in practical improvement-leaving the problem of the brute-world to be attempted, not solved, by Descartes and others whom it perplexed, while he allured to brighter worlds, and led the

way.

Charron insists in his peculiar and paulo-post-Montaigne way, on the "grand voisinage et cousinage" between Man and the other animals. We presume that no less freely than Mephistopheles talks of "my aunt the snake," would Charron allude-though in the patronising tone, perhaps, usually adopted towards poor relations-to his cousin the beaver, badger, or bear; and especially his first cousin the baboon. But Charron is more serious than Montaigne, and has far less of irony and chuckling laisser aller in his ruminations. He seriously regards the brute creation as having so many advantages over man that, at times, he all but accords their con

dition his entire preference. There are moods and tenses in many a man's mind, when this notion of preference is dallied with, as having something in it after all. Misanthropy then exalts the quadruped and his destiny at the expense of the featherless biped. Cynicism then extols the lot of grovelling content to the prejudice of the sons of men, disquieted in vain. Even Wordsworth's grey-haired man of glee, old Matthew, could envy the blackbird among leafy trees, the lark above the hill: 66 with nature never do they wage," he says,

a foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.

But we are press'd by heavy laws
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy because
We have been glad of yore.

In one of the latter-day volumes of really readable and quite noteworthy verse, which the world has received and welcomed, we find meditations to the same effect on those creatures "so sound, and so robust in heart,"

The patient beasts, that bear their part
In this world's labour, never asking
The reason of its ceaseless tasking.

And looking upwards, the questioner then asks-,

Hast thou made man, tho' more in kind,

By reason of his soul and mind,

Yet less in unison with life,

By reason of an inward strife,

Than these, Thy simpler creatures, are,
Submitted to his use and care?

For these, indeed, appear to live

To the full verge of their own power,

Nor ever need that time should give
To life one space beyond the hour.
They do not pine with what is not;

Nor quarrel with the things which are ;
Their yesterdays are all forgot;

Their morrows are not fear'd from far:
They do not weep and wail and moan
For what is past, or what's to be,
Or what's not yet, and may be never;
They do not their own lives disown,
Nor haggle with eternity

For some unknown For ever.

And in another of his poems occur these stanzas, pitched in the same mournful minor:

Why must the soul thro' Nature rove,
At variance with her general plan?
A stranger to the Power whose love
Soothes all save Man?

Why lack the strength of meaner creatures?
The wandering sheep, the grazing kine,
Are surer of their simple natures

Than I of mine.

For all their wants the poorest land

Affords supply; they browse and breed;
I scarce divine, and ne'er have found,
What most I need.

We are here reminded, however, per contra, of some remarks by the father of this poet. In one of the elder author's earliest and, though not most popular, yet ablest and most thoughtful works, the "New Phoedo," we find it alleged that, miserable as too often are the short and simple annals of the poor, no peasant lives so wretched a life as the less noble animals, whom we are sometimes tempted to believe more physically happy. In how large a proportion of creatures, he

contends, is existence composed of one ruling passion-the most agonising of all sensations-Fear! Bearing in mind that his death-doomed Ambitious Student is the speaker, we quote the following quantum valeant reflections: "Observe how uneasily this poor squirrel looks around him. He is subject to perpetual terror from a large Angola cat, which my housekeeper chooses to retain in our domestic service, and which has twice very nearly devoured my nervous little hermit.” . . . "No; human life is but a Rembrandt kind of picture at the best; yet we have no cause to think there are brighter colours in the brute world. Fish are devoured by intestinal worms; birds are subject to continual diseases, some of a very torturing nature. Look at yon anthill, what a melancholy mockery of our kind—what eternal wars between one hill and another-what wrong-what violence! You know the red ants invade the camps of the black, and bear off the young of these little negroes to be slaves to their victors." The fact may at first sight wear the look of a paradox, that whereas impugners of revelation, of a certain school, will be found to argue in favour of animal happiness, the defenders of it lay stress on animal sufferings. Wollaston, for instance, says that unless there is a future state, which implies the most extended of all schemes of Providence, the pleasures of brutes, though but sensual, are more complete than ours; "they go wholly into them," he says; "their sufferings are not heightened by reflections; they are not perplexed by cares of families and posterity, are not anxious about a future state, have no disappointment; and at last some sudden and unforeseen blow finishes them, before they even knew they were mortal." On the other hand, those who, like Professor Rogers, insist on the dark side of Nature, as an insoluble problem to mere benevolent theism, bid us con