the ironical courtesy of the world, who labour, nevertheless, under a very gross delusion, in that essential particular.
"It appears to me, that man may be correctly defined an animal, which, without any peculiar or distinguishing faculty of its own, is, as it were, a bundle or compound of faculties of other animals, by a distinct enumeration of which any individual of the species may be satisfactorily described. This is manifest, even in the ordinary language of conversation, when, in summing up, for example, the qualities of an accomplished courtier, we say he has the vanity of a peacock, the cunning of a fox, the treachery of an hyæna, the cold-heartedness of a cat, and the servility of a jackall. That this is perfectly consentaneous to scientific truth, will appear in the further progress of these observations.
"Every particular faculty of the mind has
