Certain theologians, and certain theosophists, as men who fancy themselves inspired sometimes affect to be called, had approached so nearly to the Doctor's hypothesis of progressive life, and propensities continued in the ascending scale, that he appealed to them as authorities for its support. They saw the truth, he said, as far as they went; but it was only to a certain point: a step farther and the beautiful theory would have opened upon them. “How can we choose, said one, but remember the mercy of God in this our land in this particular, that no ravenous dangerous beasts do range in our nation, if men themselves would not be wolves and bears and lions one to another!” And why are they so, observed the Doctor commenting upon the words of the old Divine; why are they so, but because they have actually been lions and bears and wolves? why are they so, but because, as the wise heathen speaks, more truly than he was conscious of speaking, _sub hominum effigie latet ferinus animus_. The temper is congenital, the propensity innate; it is bred in the bone; and what Theologians call the old Adam, or the old Man, should physiologically, and perhaps therefore preferably, be called the old Beast. That wise and good man William Jones of Nayland has in his sermon upon the nature and œconomy of Beasts and Cattle, a passage which in elucidating a remarkable part of the Law of Moses, may serve also as a glose or commentary upon the Doctor's theory. “The Law of _Moses_, in the xith chapter of _Leviticus_, divides the brute creation into two grand parties, from the fashion of their feet, and their manner of feeding, that is, from the _parting of the hoof_, and the _chewing of the cud_; which properties are indications of their general characters, as _wild_ or _tame_. For the dividing of the hoof and the chewing of the cud are peculiar to those cattle which are serviceable to man's life, as sheep, oxen, goats, deer, and their several kinds. These are shod by the Creator for a peaceable and inoffensive progress through life; as the Scripture exhorts us to be _shod_ in like manner _with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace_. They live temperately upon herbage, the diet of students and saints; and after the taking of their food, chew it deliberately over again for better digestion; in which act they have all the appearance a brute can assume of pensiveness or meditation; which is, metaphorically, called _rumination_,[1] with reference to this property of certain animals. [Footnote 1: Pallentes _ruminat_ herbas.—VIRGIL. Dum jacet, et lentè revocatas _ruminat_ herbas.—OVID. It were hardly necessary to recal to an English reader's recollection the words of Brutus to Cassius, Till then, my noble friend, _chew_ upon this,—JULIUS CÆSAR. or those of Agrippa in Antony and Cleopatra, Pardon what I have spoke; For 'tis a studied, not a present thought, By duty _ruminated_.]