Читать книгу Intelligence in Plants and Animals онлайн

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Bishop Butler, in his “Analogy of Religion,” undoubtedly believed the lower animals capable of a future life. In speaking of them in this connection in the opening of his work, he says: “It is said these observations are equally applicable to brutes; and it is thought an insuperable difficulty that they should be immortal, and by consequence capable of everlasting happiness. And this manner of expression is both invidious and weak; but the thing intended by it is really no difficulty at all, either in the way of natural or moral consideration.” Referring then to the undeveloped powers and capacities of the so-called brutes, the Bishop could perceive no reason why they should not attain their development in an existence beyond the earth-life. It was in pursuance of this same train of thought that Rev. J. G. Wood was led to show in a work, entitled “Man and Beast Here and Hereafter,” that the lower animals do possess those mental and moral characteristics—the attributes of reason, language, memory, moral responsibility, unselfishness and love—which we admit in man as belonging to the immortal spirit, rather than to the perishable body. Having previously cleared away the difficulties which certain passages in the Old Testament seemingly interposed, and proved that the Scriptures do not deny futurity of life to lower animals, he very naturally concluded that as man expects to retain these qualities in the future life there is every reason to suppose that they may share his immortality in the Hereafter as in the Now they are partakers of his mortal nature.