Enjoyment—Suffering— Fear, 19S 



observe, will be, that animals have great capacity 

 for physical suffering and enjoyment ; and that this 

 capacity is greatest in those animals that are the 

 companions of man, depending upon him for much 

 of their enjoyment, and receiving from him, through 

 ill temper, thoughtlessness, or neglect, the cause of 

 almost the entire sum of their suffering. So per- 

 fectly adjusted do their powers seem to be, that, 

 were they treated as well as we know how to treat 

 them— though much remains to be learned of their 

 proper treatment, as well as of our own,— their 

 Uves would be almost uninterrupted scenes of en- 

 joyment ; and they would contribute far more to 

 the aid of man, than they now can. But let us now 

 consider what may be called the psychological ef- 

 fects of sensations, as manifested, or made known 

 to us, through the muscular and nervous systems. 



An object known to man to be dangerous to 

 him, or supposed to be dangerous, causes fear ; and 

 the emotion of fear has its natural language, which 

 the whole body speaks. The emotion is manifest- 

 ed by a certain action of the muscles, producing a 

 peculiar movement or fixedness of the eye, trem- 

 bling, and unusual tones of voice. These same ef- 

 fects are all produced upon animals, by objects eith- 

 er dangerous to them, or to which they are unac- 

 customed. They are frightened, under exactly the 

 same conditions as men are frightened; in many 

 cases, by the same objects ; and the effect of the 

 fright upon them, as manifested by the muscular 

 and nervous systems, is precisely the same as upon 

 man,— and the actions of the animal, when he is 



