COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT ON THE EAETH. 153 



might be gradually trained to speak, after a 

 long course of careful hereditary training and 

 artificial selection with this express object. 



Nor are animals incapable of learning from 

 each other, as well as from man. When cats 

 are reared with dogs, they not unfrequently 

 learn to beg, a habit well known to be heredi- 

 tary with dogs. Darwin * also says that " there 

 is reason to believe that puppies nursed by 

 cats sometimes learn to lick their feet, and 

 thus to clean their faces ; it is at least certain 

 .... that some dogs behave in this manner." 



It is commonly assumed that animals are 

 mortal, but that men are immortal, never- 

 theless many European writers have strongly 

 advocated the immortality of animals ; and 

 it even forms a necessary portion of certain 

 systems of European philosophy (that of 

 Allan Kardec, for example) as well as of many 

 Oriental systems. It has always appeared to 

 the present writer that if animals or even 

 plants have no immortality in one sense or 

 other (what is quite another question), the 



doctrine of human immortality becomes utterly 







* " Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 44. 



