IN OTHER ANIMALS. 181 



on capture or conviction. These tribunals have, in other 

 words, recognised the power the guilty animals have pos- 

 sessed of selecting between the right and the wrong, and of 

 their having chosen the latter with full knowledge of con- 

 sequences. And in all these respects human judges have 

 so far formed correct conclusions or decisions, though, as 

 is pointed out in the chapter on 'Moral Responsibility,' 

 they have erred in forgetting that the criminality in such 

 cases has been the evil fruit of man's education of his animal 

 accomplices. The dogs of the brigand, smuggler, or poacher, 

 like those of the sheep-stealer, display a knowledge of the 

 illegality of the operations in which they are habitually 

 engaged. They take all means of avoiding custom-house 

 officers or gamekeepers, deliberately making use of all kinds 

 of deception ; but to all this they are trained by man. 



No doubt what is popularly spoken of as a sense of right 

 or wrong, of legality or illegality, in the lower animals may, 

 or will if strictly analysed, be reduced to a distinction be- 

 tween what is forbidden and what is permitted by man, who 

 is recognised as a sufficient lawgiver and administrator 

 what will bring punishment on the one hand and reward on 

 the other. But this is just the kind of feeling as to right 

 and wrong, legality and illegality, that exists in the savage 

 adult, that is generated at first in the civilised child, that is 

 exhibited (if at all) in the criminal, the lunatic, or the idiot. 

 It cannot be truthfully affirmed that abstract or refined ideas 

 of moral good and evil are common to all ranks of men, 

 or are innate even in civilised man. In our brother man, 

 and with all the help that spoken and written language can 

 give us, there can be no doubt of the difficulty, frequently 

 the utter impossibility, of knowing whether any and what 

 conceptions exist as to right or wrong, good or evil, justice 

 or injustice, honesty or dishonesty. It need, therefore, be 

 no matter of surprise if we cannot ascertain or demonstrate 

 the presence or absence of any sort of definite conceptions 

 on such subjects in the dogs, fowls, or other domestic ani- 

 mals that are so constantly under man's observation. Prac- 

 tically, however, as has been, and will be further (in the 

 sequel) -seen, as practically as in whole races of man, the 



