350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stance (1), by the punishment of offenders, if not of offenses, as well 

 as (2) by the prevention of threatened wrong-doing or the defense of 

 the wronged, or (3) by the resentment or revenge of injury or injustice 

 of any kind. Thus various animals resent and revenge the wrongs 

 committed by man not only on themselves or their fellows, but even 

 on brother man ; and this sense of wrong or injury inflicted upon 

 others leads sometimes to their defetise of man against his fellow man. 

 A case happened recently in Ireland of a pet cow that defended its 

 mistress against the ill usage of its master, its mistress's husband ; and 

 many instances have been recorded of the dog, elephant, and horse 

 doing similar kindnesses to their human favorites. It ought to be not 

 a little humiliating to man's pride that the so-called " lower " animals 

 have so frequently to act as mediators in human quarrels — to defend 

 lordly man against his own species. 



In the same sense in which it can be said that the dog and other 

 animals are endowed sometimes with a perception of wrong, it may 

 also be said that they acquire a sense of the illegality of certain not 

 only of their own actions, but also of man's. Human tribunals have 

 apparently regarded sheep-stealing dogs as conscious of the illegality 

 of their deeds, as sensible of the nature of their nefarious employment, 

 as aware of the character of their offense or crime, as alive to the 

 chances of detection and of the necessity for secrecy or concealment, 

 for nocturnal operations, for the avoidance of being found associated 

 with any of the evidences of guilt, as feeling that they deserve punish- 

 ment and that they will receive it on capture or conviction. These 

 tribunals have, in other words, recognized the power the guilty animals 

 have possessed of selecting between the right and the wrong, and of 

 their having chosen the latter with full knowledge of consequences. 

 And in all these respects human judges have so far formed correct 

 conclusions or decisions, though they have erred in forgetting that the 

 criminality in such cases has been the evil fruit of man's education of 

 his animal accomplices. The dogs of the brigand, smuggler, or poach- 

 er, like those of the sheep-stealer, display a knowledge of the illegality 

 of the operations in which they are habitually engaged. They take all 

 means of avoiding custom-house officers or gamekeepers, deliberately 

 making use of all kinds of deception ; but to all this they are trained 

 by man. 



No doubt what is popularly spoken of as a sense of right or wrong, 

 of legality or illegality, in the lower animals may, or will if strictly 

 analyzed, be reduced to a distinction between what is forbidden and 

 what is permitted by man, who is recognized as a sufficient lawgiver 

 and administrator — what will bring punishment on the one hand and 

 reward on the other. But this is just the kind of feeling as to right 

 and wrong, legality and illegality, that exists in the savage adult, that 

 is generated at first in the civilized child, that is exhibited (if at all) 

 in the criminal, the lunatic, or the idiot. It can not be truthfully 



