Obligations to Dumb Dependents 231 



would be lacking and he would become worse than 

 the aboriginal but for them. Unassisted by them 

 agriculture and commerce would be impossible. 



There is a very general reluctance to admit that 

 animals have the power of reasoning, as tending to 

 place the brute upon too hig-h a plane, and to destroy 

 the dominant birthright of man. The same nervous 

 system holds sway, however, in both, whatever may 

 be alleged regarding the spiritual or intellectual 

 faculties. 



The organs of sight, smell (or scent), and hearing 

 are far more powerfully developed in the brute than 

 in man, as more essential to his safety and to his 

 sustenance, and as thus preparing him the more per- 

 fectly for our uses. His faculties and powers are 

 exactly graded, and closely limited to the position 

 he must fill, and it is for us to appreciate the fact 

 and recognise the limitations. This very inferiority 

 constitutes their strongest claim to our merciful 

 consideration and patient cultivation. The faculty 

 of concentration — and its preliminary and essential 

 factor, attention — is a most striking attribute of 



