THE MORAL SENSE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 347 



dence of facts to concede to these other animals, or certain of them, 

 the possession of morality akin to that of man. Agassiz, for instance, 

 grants them morals ; Froude speaks of their principles of morality ; 

 Brodie refers to the moral sentiments as occurring in gregarious ani- 

 mals ; Shaftesbury allows to them a sense and practice of moral rec- 

 titude ; Watson gives instances of their moral feeling, and Wood of 

 their conscience. And certain animals have even been described as 

 possessing a moral law and codes of morals. 



The dog, at least, frequently exhibits a knowledge of right and 

 wrong, making a deliberate choice of the one or the other, perfectly 

 aware of and prepared for the consequences of such a selection. The 

 animal has occasionally the moral courage to choose the right and to 

 suffer for it, to bear wrong rather than do it (Elara). Not only does 

 this frequently noble animal know the right, but it dares to do it, en- 

 during the expected, the inevitable, consequent suffering. One of the 

 many evidences that the dog is sensible of right doing is to be found 

 in the familiar fact that when it performs an action which to it seems 

 meritorious, or which it has reason to believe its master will deem so 

 — when it saves a life, or successfully defends a trust, or resists some 

 great temptation — it looks at once for some sign of the said master's 

 approhation, perhaps for some reward. There are both the self-appro- 

 bation or self-satisfaction of the mens conscia recti and an expectation 

 of man's approval. The animal is gratified if such approval is in any 

 form vouchsafed, disappointed if it be withheld. 



It must also distinguish between the right and the expedient — 

 what would be most for its own interest to do. In other words, it is 

 just as apt as man is, and not more so, to take a selfish view of all af- 

 fairs — to consider how they are likely to affect its own personal inter- 

 ests. The choice that is finally made between the right, the expedi- 

 ent, and the wrong is determined by a variety of considerations — by 

 conflicting emotions, by the balancing of probabilities and inclina- 

 tions, by the degree or kind of temptation, by the presence or absence 

 of witnesses, especially human, by other specialties of an animal's 

 position, by the nature and extent of its moral training, by the char- 

 acter of the rewards and punishments offered on previous occasions. 

 In the dog there is sometimes obviously the same kind of conflict and 

 collision between virtue and selfishness, between a sense of what is 

 right — which is too generally also what is painful, what calls for ter- 

 rible self-denial and suffering, including the physical pangs of hunger 

 and thirst, as well as the moral pangs, say, of unsatisfied revenge — 

 and a sense of what is simply pleasant and profitable. 



Temptation frequently begets in the dog, cat, and other animals 

 the same kind of mental or moral agitation, and the same sort of 

 result, as in man. Sometimes we can see — in the dog, for instance — 

 the whole play of the animal's mind — the battle between its virtuous 

 and vicious propensities, its promptings to the right and its endeavors 



