lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or a bear, or a squirrel, or a goat, or a
horse, or an ass, or a rat, or a cat, or a hog, or a dog; and whatever
is physiologically predicted of any individual lion, tiger, wolf,
bear, squirrel, goat, horse, ass, hog, or dog, will be found to hold
true of all lions, tigers, wolves, bears, squirrels, goats, horses,
asses, hogs, and dogs, whatsoever. Now, in man, the very reverse of
this appears to be the case; for he has so few distinct and
characteristic marks which hold true of all his species, that
philosophers in all ages have found it a task of infinite difficulty
to give him a definition. Hence one has defined him to be a
_featherless biped_, a definition which is equally applicable to an
unfledged fowl: another to be _an animal which forms opinions_, than
which nothing can be more inaccurate, for a very small number of the
species form opinions, and the remainder take them upon trust, without
investigation or inquiry.

"Again, man has been defined to be _an animal that carries a stick_:
an attribute which undoubtedly belongs to man only, but not to all men
always; though it uniformly characterises some of the graver and more
imposing varieties, such as physicians, oran-outangs, and lords in
waiting.

"We cannot define man to be a reasoning animal, for we do not dispute
that idiots are men; to say nothing of that very numerous description
of persons who consider themselves reasoning animals, and are so
denominated by 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,