wonderful power by which the bee builds up a structure that is not
exceeded in accuracy, and regularity, and economy of space, by the best
geometry of Athens or of Rome; by which the beaver, after having chosen
the very best possible location for it on the stream, constructs a dam
that outlasts the work of the human engineer; by which the faithful dog
contrives to perform many acts of affection, in spite of obstacles, and
in the face of unexpected discouragements,--the _instinct_, we say, of
the brute creation, as exhibited in a remarkably wide range of action and
contrivance, and in a very varied and oftentimes perplexing conjuncture
of circumstances, seems to bring man and beast very near to each other,
and to furnish some ground for the theory of the materialist, that there
is no essential difference between the two species of existences. But
when we pass beyond the mere power of acting, to the additional power of
_surveying_ or _inspecting_ an act, and of forming an estimate of its
relations to moral law, we find a faculty in man that makes him differ in
kind from the brute. No brute animal, however high up the scale, however
ingenious and sagacious he may be, can ever look back and think of what
he has done, "his thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing him."

The mere power of performance, is, after all, not the highest power. It
is the superadded power of calmly looking over the performance, and
seeing _what_ has been done, that marks the higher agency, and denotes a
loftier order of existence than that of the animal or of material nature.
If the mere ability to work with energy, and produce results, constituted
the highest species of power, the force of gravitation would be the
loftiest energy in the universe. Its range of execution is wider than
that of any other created principle. But it is one of the lower and least
important of agencies, because it is blind. It is destitute of the power
of self-inspection. It does not know _what_ it does, or _why_. "Man,"
says Pascal,[1] "is but a reed, and the weakest in all nature; yet he is