What is this bird, who makes its nest in a semicircle when he attaches it to a wall; and in a circle on a tree--this bird does all in the same blind manner! The hound, which you have disciplined for three months, does he not know more at the end of this time than he did before? Does the canary, to which you play an air, repeat ft directly? Do you not employ a considerable time in teaching it? Have you not seen that he sometimes mistakes it, and that be corrects himself? Is it because I speak to you that you judge I have sentiment, memory, and ideas? Well, suppose I do not speak to you; you see me enter my room with an afflicted air, I seek a paper with disquietude, I open the bureau in which I recollect to have shut it, I hid it and read it with joy. You pronounce that I have felt the sentiment of affliction and of joy; that I have memory and knowledge. Extend the same judgment to the dog who has lost his master, who has sought hum everywhere with grievous cries, and who enters the house agitated and restless, goes upstairs and down, from room to room, and at last finds in the closet the master whom he loves, and testifies his joy by the gentleness of his cries, by his leaps and his caresses. Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table and dissect him living to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in him the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves, and is he incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in mature. But the masters of this school ask, what is the soul of beasts? I do not understand tins question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its fibres the sap which circulates, of evolving its buds, its leaves, and its fruits. You will ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has received these gifts. The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts; who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun. The souls of beasts are _substantial forms_, says Aristotle; and after Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and after the Sorbonne, every one in the world. The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. They cannot get out of this circle.