It is strange that philosophers first show how one animal supports itself by destroying another, and then enter into discussions on the apparent admi… - Lewis Gompertz

In order to admire the goodness of God with the greatest force, we should endeavour to reach in imagination the improved state of the world, which it seems probable will be effected in the course of time. What may not be expected from the genius of man, which appears to gain fresh powers from every new idea that he gains from his fellows, and fresh means from all the inventions which the united efforts of the whole species bring forth? It is the extent of combination which chiefly raises man above brutes; and to combination are we to look to mature the views of Providence in forming society, and in regulating the affairs of life. Then will every animal within the reach of man feel the effects of his power, by his increase of happiness instead of his misery, and then only may man boast of his being lord of the creation, for which he will be fitted.

Suppose it were so; so much, then, the better, as we should not want then to show that the soul could become torpid and recover; because, then, it would never be torpid> and, consequently, would be immortal, which is all we want to prove. And this opinion, I believe, is that of the majority of thinking persons, but unfortunately mixed up with divers principles, not orthodox, some of them acknowledging a soul m man, but not in any other living being; others going one step further, and admitting a soul in other animals too, but imagining that it is a different sort of soul to that of man, instead of considering that one soul is similar to another, and that all the difference between one individual and another is corporeal,—the organization of the body or brain, by its variations, alone producing, it would appear, all the varieties of character, without any variation of soul, to which conclusion we are led by the fact that we cannot produce any thought or feeling in the mind but through the instrumentality of the body; and it seems only on the bodily organs, and physical agents upon them, that every perfection and defect of mind depends; an idiot, a philosopher, and a mouse, appearing to have quite similar souls, the difference only being in the organs of sense, which act upon the souls, and are in themselves different. No person can deny that different sensations are produced by bodily causes; why, then, must we look to something else to produce them—namely, to variations of the soul ? Bodily causes are enough, and we are not driven to seek for further causes. The soul is always, if I am correct, the same. It does not grow, it does not decay; and is as perfect in an infant as In a man—the improvement and growth of mind being only of the corporeal part.

It has been generally, but not always, the custom of naturalists to degrade the powers of dumb animals into mere instinct, and not to allow them reason; and on the other hand to elevate the qualities of man, by entirely disavowing the power of instinct in man, giving him the use of reason alone. It appears to me, that there is such a quality as instinct; by which I understand a desire to do any thing without knowing why, or without having the object in view which it is to reach. I am of opinion that both reason and instinct act in man and also in brutes; and I will even grant that the proportion of reason to instinct is greater in man than in other animals; but that the latter possess a great portion of reason would it seems be absurd to dispute.