MORAL SENSE. 117 



I saw a person pretending to beat a lady, who had a very 

 timid little dog on her lap, and the trial had never been 

 made before; the little creature instantly jumped away, but 

 after the pretended beating was over, it was really pathetic 

 to see how perseveringly he tried to lick his mistress' face, 

 and comfort her. Brehm * states that when a baboon in 

 confinement was pursued to be punished, the others tried 

 to protect him. It must have been sympathy in the cases 

 above given which led the baboons and Cercopitheci to 

 ^defend their young comrades from the dogs and the eagle. 

 I will give only one other instance of sympathetic and 

 heroic conduct, in the case of a little American monkey. 

 Several years ago a keeper at the Zoological Gardens showed 

 me some deep and scarcely healed wounds on the nape 

 of his own neck, inflicted on him, while kneeling on the 

 floor, by a fierce baboon. The little American monkey, 

 who was a warm friend of this keeper, lived in the same 

 large compartment, and was dreadfully afraid of the great 

 baboon. Nevertheless, as soon as he saw his friend in 

 peril, he rushed to the rescue, and by screams and bites so 

 distracted the baboon that the man was able to escape, 

 after, as the surgeon thought, running great risk of his 

 life. 



Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other quali- 

 ties connected with the social instincts, which in us would 

 be called moral; and I agree with Agassiz f that dogs 

 possess something very like a conscience. 



Dogs possess some power of self-command, and this does 

 not appear to be wholly the result of fear. As Braubach J 

 remarks, they will refrain from stealing food in the absence 

 of their master. They have long been accepted as the very 

 type of fidelity and obedience. But the elephant is like- 

 wise very faithful to his driver or keeper, and probably con- 

 siders him as the leader of the herd. Dr. Hooker informs me 

 that an elephant, which he was riding in India, became so 

 deeply bogged that he remained stuck fast until the next 

 day, when he was extricated by men with ropes. Under 

 such circumstances elephants will seize with their trunk? 

 any object, dead or alive, to place under their knees, to 



*" Thierleben," B. i, s. 85. 



f " De 1'Espece et de la Classe," 1869, p. 97. 



\ " Die Parwin'sclie Ayt-Lehre," 1869, s, 54, 



