XIII 

 MARY'S LITTLE LAMB 



THIS is the history of a pet lamb that differed 

 mentally from other lambs I have known. One 

 does not look for anything approaching to marked 

 individuality in that animal, yet sheep do show it 

 on occasions though not in the same degree as 

 cats and dogs. Goats exhibit more character than 

 sheep, probably because we do not compel them to 

 live in a crowd. Indeed, when we consider how 

 our poor domesticated sheep is kept we can see 

 that they have little chance of developing in- 

 dividuality of mind. A sheep cannot " follow his 

 own genius," so to speak, without infringing the 

 laws we have made for his kind. His condition in 

 this respect is similar to that of human beings 

 under a purely socialistic form of government: 

 for example, like that of the ancient civilised 

 Peruvians. In that state every man did as he was 

 told: worked and rested, got up and sat down, 

 ate, drank, and slept, married, grew old and died 

 in the precise way prescribed. And I daresay if 

 he tried to be original or to do something out of 

 the common he was knocked on the head. So 



123 



