36 TRAINING THE HUNTING DOG 



lectuaily, morally and artistically, the animal must 

 be placed in a far higher position than was formerly 

 supposed, and that the germs and first rudiments 

 even of the highest intellectual faculties of man are 

 existent and easily demonstrable in much lower re- 

 gions. The pre-eminence of man over the animal 

 is therefore rather relative than absolute that is to 

 say, it consists in the greater perfection and more 

 advantageous development of those characteristics 

 which he possesses in common with animals, all the 

 faculties of man being as it were prophetically fore- 

 shadowed in the animal world, but in man more 

 highly developed by natural selection. On closer con- 

 sideration, all the supposed specific distinctive char- 

 acters between man and animals fall away, and even 

 those attributes of humanity which are regarded as 

 most characteristic, such as the intellectual and moral 

 qualities, the upright gait, and free use of the hands, 

 the human physiognomy and articulate language, 

 social existence and religious feeling, etc., lose their 

 value or become merely relative as soon as we have 

 recourse to a thoroughgoing comparison founded on 

 facts. In this, however, we must not, as is usual, 

 confine our attention to the most highly cultivated 



