ANIMAI. LIFE IN LITERATURE. 171 



This appreciation, this sympathy for the animal, began 

 independently of modern science, but has been powerfully 

 influenced by it. The habit of patient, impersonal obser- 

 vation has recreated the animal world for us. It has done 

 something more than to reduce natural objects to a classi- 

 fied order ; it has changed the point of view from one that 

 centers in man, his uses, needs and feelings, to one outside 

 man. 



Animals have a different kind of life, a life of their own, 

 and that life has its own rank and value entirely apart from 

 its relation to human life. Therefore must we nothing ex- 

 aggerate nor set down aught in scorn and pride or sup- 

 posed superiority. 



The third great change in the human attitude toward 

 the animal world as reflected in literature is the recogni- 

 tion of animal individuality, animal character. The de- 

 scription of a species, the anatomy of a vertebrate, does not 

 describe the personal creature. Animals are not chemical 

 products to be analj^zed, but creatures to become acquaint- 

 ed with, to be treated respectfully and truthfully. Strictly 

 speaking, science does not cross the line of individual 

 character in animals. Science is interested in the type, 

 in the classified specimen. The nature-student reverences 

 life, is interested in the diversity of the type, the potent 

 and wonderful law of individual variation. 



Thus in the very latest developments we are witnessing 

 almost a new creation in literature, a literature of the life 

 in field and forest. We seem to be coming round in the 

 spiral sweep of progress to something of the beautiful, true 

 friendliness which once existed between the human and the 

 animal. It is more perfect and more real ; it is a kind of 

 Klder-Brotherhood. 



This most delicate and sympathetic form of literature re- 

 quires high qualities of imagination, patience and re- 

 straint. Above all, it requires a fear of that exaggerated 



