COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. 655 



the dog ; but we are desirous of pointing out how much has been 

 overlooked in all these comparisons between man and the lower 

 animals. It will be noticed that all those species of animals which 

 have for ages been in contact with man, have made great advances over 

 their wild progenitors, evidencing a capacity for education — mental 

 and moral — which is one of the best demonstrations of superiority. 



The assumption that man is only accidentally the superior of the 

 brute would but lead to confusion, for it must be admitted that there 

 is a scale, and that man ranks first. We are simply desirous of doing 

 the lower creation that justice which we feel assured has not yet been 

 allowed them, and of seeing the human family interested in those that 

 we think scientific investigation is proving constantly are much more 

 our fellow-creatures than has generally been supposed. 



If we compare the intelligence and general rectitude of behavior 

 of our best races of dogs with the same in any of their wild carnivor- 

 ous allies, we are astonished at the great difference in favor of the dog. 

 To what is this due '? Largely to what he has become by virtue of 

 association with man for hundreds if not thousands of years — that is, 

 to education, after a fashion. Nor is such influence confined to the 

 dog. Any observing person, of moderate experience in travel, can 

 call to mind numerous instances of members of different classes of 

 animals trained to the performance of many feats demanding intelli- 

 gence. But, while in an irregular way dogs have been trained to cer- 

 tain duties for the benefit of man for a considerable period, it can not 

 be said that any one of the tribes of the lower animals has ever been 

 subjected to any such mental or moral discipline as man receives and 

 has received for long ages. We have ample evidence, in the condition 

 not only of savage man, but in the neglected classes of large cities, as 

 to what man would be without such culture. Sufficient has been said, 

 it is believed, to show that we are not yet in possession of enough 

 facts to enable us to determine exactly the limit of mental and moral 

 capacity in the lower animals. As yet, we neither know adequately 

 what they are or of what they are capable. Both these subjects are 

 worthy of human investigation. Their elucidation must tend to give 

 man a better knowledge of himself, if only by contrast. 



To return to the question of the moral nature of animals. The 

 study of the dog alone, both in the light of observations accumulated 

 in the literature which are often true of special individuals in a degree 

 not of the average animal (a fact which does not, however, at all in- 

 validate their force), the study of any dog we may ourselves own, can 

 not but convince us that a sense of right and wrong is possessed by 

 that animal. It may be that the dog does not rise to these concep- 

 tions as understood by the learned divine discoursing from the pulpit ; 

 but neither does a large proportion of the congregation when transact- 

 ing the business of the week. It may be, and perhaps is, largely true 

 that the ri^ht with the dog means what is in accord with his master's 



