4 A BOOK OF MORTALS 



Nor have any the right to complain that by so doing 

 the question is begged. 



There is no alternative, and though it may tickle our 

 vanity as the " head and crown of things " to imagine that 

 such anthropomorphism must ever be in favour of the 

 beast, this is not really so in truth. 



Think of the widened horizon which must indubitably 

 result from the mere exaltation of the senses in animals ! 



" Never," writes a great authority, " with such a mean 

 nose as ours can we conceive of the infinite variety of rela- 

 tions and ideas started in a dog's mind by a single sniff! " 

 The sight of the eagle, the hearing of the cat, the touch of 

 a bat must every hour of their day bring up to the judgment 

 of their possessors a thousand factors in experience of which 

 we are ignorant. 



Surely this certainty should at the least make us more 

 careful than we are in the treatment we mete out to our 

 fellow mortals. 



Apart from this, it is not only unfair but foolish to use 

 our own experience as a means of apprehending the other- 

 wise incomprehensible actions — whether of man or of beast 

 — that we see around us, and then to deduce causes or 

 motives for such actions which are contrary to the experi- 

 ence by which alone we apprehend them. 



Let us avoid this error if we can, and judge of the 

 conduct of animals as we would of the conduct of men by 

 following them through life to death, and testing their 

 virtues and vices by the standard we set up for ourselves. 

 This can be done faithfully without trenching on that fair 

 field of scientific dispute where thrust of offence is parried 

 by thrust of defence over the conflicting claims of these 



