72 THE CAMEL 



away abashed with his tail between his legs, that he 

 knows and feels himself guilty. This may be put down 

 to fear ; but as a rule, when you understand a dog's 

 character, you can easily analyse the two, and dis- 

 criminate between them ; and I feel sure that his 

 conduct on these occasions is as often due to conscience 

 as to fear, dependent in a very great measure on the 

 character, breeding, and bringing up of the dog. The 

 better these, the more conscientious and sensitive the 

 animal. Of course it is a variable and elastic tendency, 

 but in comparison, or relatively, no more so with them, 

 I do believe, than it is with humanity. 



Darwin's Darwin only touches on this point, but he says 



enough to show that he was a believer in canine con- 

 science, i.e. c Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit 

 other qualities connected with the social instincts which 

 in us would be called moral ; and I agree with Agassiz 

 that dogs possess something very like a conscience.' That 

 all these social instincts so closely resemble what in us 

 are moral qualities, and that they are the outcome of 

 mental affinity and contact with man, and that the dog 

 is the only animal who seems to approach us in this 

 respect, seems to me evident enough. But that some 

 of these self-same animals evince in certain qualities a 

 depth and intensity almost human, and that it is only 

 through want of inferior reasoning power that they 

 cannot distinguish as we do the finer moral distinctions, 

 is also clearly evident. As Darwin says, ' I fully sub- 

 scribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain 

 that of all the differences between man and the lower 

 animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the 

 most important. 



