e already said, namely, that in the lower animals natural instinct is
sufficient to explain all the wonders I have told: that memory leads the
animal to repeat over and over again the actions it has made before and
found successful.

We, as human beings, do differently. Our wills decide for us; not the
bestial aim, nor the instinct. I walk, I speak, I feel in me a certain
force, an intelligent principle which all my bodily mechanism obeys.
This force is distinct from anything connected with my body. It is
indeed more easily conceived than is the body itself, and of all our
movements it is the supreme controller. But how does the body conceive
and understand this intelligent force? That is the point! I see the tool
obeying the hand; but what guides the hand? Who guides the planets in
their rapid courses? It may be some angel guide controls the whirling
planets; and in like manner some spirit dwells in us and controls all
our machinery. The impulse is given--the impression made--but how, I do
not know! We shall only learn it in the bosom of God; and to speak
frankly, Descartes himself was no wiser. On that point we all are
equals. All that I know is that this intelligent controlling spirit does
not exist in the lower animals. Man alone is its temple.

Nevertheless, we must allow to the beasts a higher plane than that of
plants, notwithstanding the fact that plants breathe.

Is there any explanation to what I shall now relate? Two rats who were
seeking their living had the good fortune to find an egg. Such a dinner
was amply sufficient for folks of their species, they had no need to
look for an ox. With keen delight and an appetite to match they were
just about to eat up the egg between them, when an unbidden guest
appeared in the shape of Master Reynard the fox. This was a most awkward
and vexatious visitation. How was the egg to be saved from the jaws of
him? To wrap it up carefully and carry it away by the fore paws, or to
roll it, or to drag it, were methods as impossible as they were
hazardous. But Necessity, that ingenious mother, furnished the
never-failing invention. The sponger being as yet far enough away to
give the rats time to reach their home, one of them lay upon his back
and took the egg safely between his arms whilst the other, in spite of
sundry shocks and a few slips, dragged him home by the tail.

After this recital, let any one who dare maintain that animals have no
powers of reason.

For my