The general conclusion of Smith, with regard to insects and animals, is the common one, that their instincts and faculties all relate to this world, and that they have, properly speaking, no souls to be saved. But this position he states, illustrates and defends with more than ordinary metaphysical acuteness. If the discussion were not so sparklingly conducted, it would strike the reader as very able analysis and reasoning; but the mirthful fancy with which the whole is adorned, satisfies of itself, and seems to claim no additional praise for the argument it illustrates. The delicious sympathy of the humorist for all grades of being peeps out on every page, and no insect or animal is referred to without being lifted into the comic ideal. Thus he remarks that nature seems on some animals to have bestowed vast attention, “_and to have sketched out others in a moment, and turned them adrift_. The house-fly skims about, perches upon a window or a nose, breakfasts and sups with you, lays his eggs upon your white cotton stockings, runs into the first hole in the wall when it is cold, and perishes with as much unconcern as he lives.” Again, in speaking of that superiority of man over animals which comes from his longevity, he remarks: “I think it is Helvetius who says he is quite certain we only owe our superiority over the ourang-outangs to the greater length of life conceded to us; and that, if our life had been as short as theirs, they would have totally defeated us in the competition for nuts and ripe blackberries. I can hardly agree to this extravagant statement; but I think in a life of twenty years the efforts of the human mind would have been so considerably lowered, that we might probably have thought Helvetius a good philosopher, and admired his skeptical absurdities as some of the greatest efforts of the human understanding. Sir Richard Blackmore would have been our greatest poet, our wit would have been Dutch, our faith French, the Hottentots would have given us the model for manners, and the Turks for government.” He then adds that man’s gregarious nature is another cause of his superiority over all other animals. “A lion lies under a hole in the rock, and if any other lion happen to pass by they fight. Now, whoever gets a habit of lying under a hole in a rock, and fighting with every gentleman who passes near him, cannot possibly make any progress.”