JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



33 



knows that his horse has thoughts 

 and that it often reads correctly the 

 thoughts of its driver. We might 

 have an American proverb, — horse 

 sense is good sense. 



Science teaches that man is an ani- 

 mal, that he is intimately related 

 to the other animals, and that he has 

 been slowly evolved from them. 

 When man first appeared on earth he 

 was little better than a savage brute 

 and his immediate progenitors were 

 absolutely such. Science teaches 

 that not only man's body but his 

 higher nature has been evolved from 

 the lower animals. Did the earliest 

 man have a soul and were his imme- 

 diate progenitors without it? Quite 

 a portion of the human race has made 

 little advance from the savage state. 

 The inhabitants of the Andaman Is- 

 lands, the natives of Australia and 

 the Bushmen of South Africa are ap- 

 parently inferior to the highest of the 

 lower animals and are not as inter- 

 esting. 



Missionaries do not find in these 

 races of men the noble instincts, the 

 affection and faithfulness to friends 

 that some of the higher animals pos- 

 sess. To compare civilized man with 

 the noblest of the lower animals let us 

 take concrete examples, — the poet 

 Hogg and his dog Sirrah. Consider 

 the dog's remarkable efficiency in 

 the service of his master. According 

 to the testimony of the poet the 

 dog was equal to twenty men in a 

 most difficult employment. Recall 

 to mind the two surprising feats 

 that have been described. This 

 capability was not all physical. 

 Great intelligence, judgment, fore- 

 thought and mental activit^'^ were 

 needed and must have been employ- 

 ed. This efficiency was not merely 

 physical and mental. It was moral. 

 Dogs like ease as much as men do. 

 What kept the dog up to such inten- 

 sity of earnestness in his master's ser- 

 vice? Was it not love of his master 

 and loyalty to his commands? What 

 have we to say of the poet in com- 

 parison? There was nothing in the 

 poet to respond to this surpassing 

 affection and faithfulness on the part 

 of the dog. The poet sold for three 

 guineas a most faithful friend in his 

 old age. You will remember that the 

 dog never recognized Hogg after this 

 transaction. The dog's righteous in- 

 dignation was almost sublime. Which 



of the twain was more worthy of 

 immortality? One was pure and per- 

 fect of his kind and the other was just 

 what he was. The question arises 

 with great force. Can love, God's 

 very nature, the definition of Himself 

 which he has chosen above all others, 

 ever really be lost? That many ani- 

 mals possess it in a remarkable de- 

 gree cannot be denied. Agassiz ex- 

 claims, "The nobility of the dog must 

 be immortal." Leibnitz writes, "I 

 found at last how the souls of animals 

 and their sensations do not at all in- 

 terfere with the immortality of hu- 

 man souls; on the contrary, nothing 

 serves better to establish our natural 

 immortality than to believe that all 

 souls are imperishable." 



The second class of believers in 

 the immortality of animals consists of 

 naturalists and animal lovers in gen- 

 eral, such as Agassiz and Olive 

 Thorne Miller, who think, if animals 

 are mortal, the future life would 

 lack something to make it as com- 

 plete, as satisfying and as happy as 

 they had supposed it would be from 

 the promises of the New Testament. 

 The important work of many natu- 

 ralists in which they had innocently 

 and seriously engaged while here 

 would be left a fragment and be al- 

 most in vain. 



The third class that believe in the 

 immortality of animals offer most 

 sei-ious and unanswerable objections 

 to the theory that all animal life ends 

 here. Mrs. Somerville, in her eighty- 

 ninth year, wrote as follows : "If ani- 

 mals have no future the existence of 

 many is most wretched. Multitudes 

 are starved, cruelly beaten and loaded 

 during life. Many die under a bar- 

 barous vivisection. I cannot believe 

 that any creature was created for un- 

 compensated misery; it would be 

 contrary to the attribute of God's 

 mercy and justice." Dr. Adam 

 Clarke says ,"That animals have no 

 compensation here, their afflictions, 

 labors and death prove. It is there- 

 fore obvious that the gracious pur- 

 pose of God has not been fulfilled in 

 them; and that as they have not lost 

 their happiness through their own 

 fault, both the benevolence and jus- 

 tice of God are bound to make them 

 reparation. Hence it is reasonable 

 to conclude that as, from the present 

 constitution of things, they cannot 

 have the happiness designed for them 



