IN OTHER ANIMALS. 227 



entreaty, appeal, in many different forms, all of them more 

 or less eloquent. The true spirit of prayer of the suppli- 

 cant for mercy or pardon, of the petitioner for reconciliation 

 and restitution to favour is frequently contained in or 

 conveyed by the mere look or attitude of the dog. The 

 earnestness or sincerity of its prayer is equalled only by its 

 eloquence, while the same thing certainly cannot be said of 

 the bulk of man's ceremonial petitions, religious or other. 

 The power of appeal or request, however, belongs more 

 naturally and properly to the chapters on Language ' or the 

 expression of the desires. If qui laborat oral or laborare est 

 orare is true of man, it must be no less so in the case of 

 other animals, whose labour so frequently transcends that 

 of man in its disinterestedness and other good qualities. 

 Our own Montgomery, sometimes called distinctively the 

 Christian poet, in his well-known verses entitled 'What is 

 Prayer?' tells us, as beautifully as truly, that it is 



.... The soul's sincere desire, 

 Uttered or unexpressed : 



.... The burden of a sigh, 

 The falling of a tear, 

 The upward glancing of an eye. . . . 



All this is as strictly applicable to the dog as to man, 

 though its prayer, while not ' uttered,' may nevertheless be 

 even more eloquently ' expressed ' than by mere vocal or 

 verbal utterance. The dog's appeal to man is determined 

 obviously by a sense of the vainness of its own efforts of its 

 own powerlessness, and of the need of the help of a higher 

 being a subject that is discussed more fully, however, in the 

 chapter on 4 Self-submission to Medical and Surgical Treat- 

 ment by Man.' 



A parallel or equivalent to man's kneeling and bending 

 in prayer, to the various forms or degrees of his prostration 

 or grovelling before his idol or fetich, is to be found in the 

 dog's crawling to its master's feet an eloquent expression 

 of its abjectness, of its submission to the stronger will, the 

 superior being, the offended governor. Dr. John Brown de- 

 scribes the solicitation of pardon in and by his terrier Nipper 

 by crouching, grovelling, utter self-abasement. Again, a 



