ISi 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ANIMAL DEPRAYITY. 



" TT is of no use to talk about reason," said a 

 -L friend with whom we had been discussing the 

 subject. " If you wish to establish man's kin- 

 ship with brutes, you must prove that they, too, 

 are capable of vice, his imagined prerogative." 

 We could not deny that this was sound counsel. 

 In sermons and platform orations, and in leading 

 articles, man declaims, indeed, in favor of " vir- 

 tue." But listen to him in his more confidential 

 moments, when he flings aside his disguises. You 

 will find that he then pronounces such of his own 

 species as make some apparent approach to this 

 official standard "nincompoops or hypocrites." 

 The faint praise with which he damns goodness 

 but half hides the underlying sneer. Scarcely 

 can you, in the German language, speak of a man 

 in terms which convey a lower estimate of his 

 abilities or his energies than when you call him 

 " eine gute Haut," or " eine gute Seele." On the 

 contrary, " ein bciser Kerl " is always understood 

 to be clever and plucky. Even the virtuous 

 English, senior wranglers in the school of hy- 

 pocrisy, have similar idioms. "A good boy," 

 " a moral young man," " a very good sort of 

 fellow,". " a man with no harm in him," are 

 terms used by no means in a complimentary 

 sense. Of all the literary diseases of the day 

 "goody-goodyism " is the one most despised by 

 cultivated men of the world. On the other hand, 

 when a woman is particularly well pleased with 

 her lover does she not always call him a " naugh- 

 ty man ? " Do all these phrases spring from a 

 secret conviction that human vices are restrained 

 less by conscience and high principle than by 

 weakness or cowardice? Does the world sus- 

 pect that the good man has often merely " noth- 

 ing in him ? " 



But when we attempt to treat of the morals 

 of brutes in order to find whether in that region 

 lies the much-talked-of but evanescent boundary- 

 line — when we seek to show that vice is, after all, 

 not man's exclusive attribute, we are met at once 

 with the objection — "Animals have, and can 

 have, no moral life, as has man. They have no 

 perception of right and wrong, but simply follow 

 their propensities, and obey the laws of their 

 being, from which, indeed, they have no power 

 to depart. 1 This is, I think, a tolerably fair 



1 "Animals, as a rule, do no more than follow their 

 natural instincts."— (Rev. G. Henslow, " Theory of 

 Evolution of Living Beings.") 



specimen of the language which demi-savants 

 habitually use when treating of the lower ani- 

 mals. " The kingdoms of freedom and of Na- 

 ture " is an antithesis common in their mouths — 

 the " kingdom of freedom," forsooth, signifying 

 mankind ! It is, of course, exceedingly con- 

 venient to have some imaginary a priori reason 

 which renders any appeal to facts superfluous, 

 or rather altogether impertinent. Being neither 

 lunatics, metaphysicians, Calvinists, nor fallen 

 angels, 1 we shall not enlarge upon "freedom;" 

 we will merely declare that if men's vaunted free- 

 dom relates to action it is shared by the gorilla. 

 He is perfectly free to rise up or sit down, to 

 come or go, to crack a nut, or to crush the skull 

 of a " man and a brother," just as he may think 

 proper. That he is " free " to love or to hate, 2 

 to fear or hope, to believe or disbelieve, or in 

 short to experience any emotion, passion, feeling, 

 sentiment, or frame of mind, we deny, just as we 

 deny it of man. Now to the more immediate 

 question. 



In the first place we must judge every animal 

 from what may be called its own point of view, 

 not with reference to man and his notions of ad- 

 vantage or convenience. He calls the wolf and 

 the tiger cruel, the viper malignant, and the spi- 

 der treacherous. This is idle talk. The wolf 

 can only subsist upon animal food, and is no 

 more to be censured for devouring the lamb — for 

 which he may further plead man's conduct in 

 precedent — than is the lamb for devouring grass. 

 Why, moreover, should the vegetarian — brute or 

 human — presume to denounce the flesh-eater as 

 cruel ? Have plants no rights ? Are we sure 

 that, if they could be consulted, they would con- 

 sent to be plucked and eaten ? They have, it is 

 true, no demonstrable nervous system. But in 

 view of the manifold ways by which in creation 

 we see one and the same end accomplished — in 

 view, too, of the facts on vegetal sensitiveness 

 now ascertained — can we accept this as conclu- 

 sive evidence ? A Society for the Emancipation 

 of Vegetables should be formed at once, and be- 

 gin soliciting subscriptions. Such a movement 

 would not be more unreasonable than certain 

 other phases of modern British humanitarianism. 



1 Milton most happily represents his devils dis- 

 cussing on free-will. 



2 " It lies not in our power to love or hate."— (Mar- 

 lowe.) 



