SUPREMACY OF MAN. 121 



debased races of mankind.' 1 Scripture itself sends man to 

 certain of the lower animals the ant, locust, spider, and 

 coney for lessons in such essential virtues as industry, 

 forethought, perseverance, and co-operation. Miss Cobbe 

 describes the nobleness of the dog's general character, or of 

 many of its higher impulses, as at least comparable with 

 man's highest. Poets and novelists writers of almost every 

 class have concurred in bearing testimony to the moral worth, 

 as well as to the high intelligence, of the same animal the 

 dog. The horse, the mule, and even the despised ass are 

 frequently man's superiors in sagacity as in amiability. The 

 elephant gives to man important lessons in reflection, deli- 

 beration, ingenuity, perseverance, politeness, obedience, and 

 affection. The beaver, the e busy bee,' and many other ani- 

 mals practically teach him diligence, industry, and providence. 

 Ants show him their model societies, and make him feel, if 

 he is at all sensitive and sensible, his own real littleness, 

 moral and mental, compared with their real greatness. And, 

 in general terms, animal humanity and animal sagacity may 

 well be studied and emulated by only too many men. 



On the other hand, the evidence of facts has compelled 

 many competent and frequently unwilling authorities to 

 regard many men as not only brutes, but as morally and 

 intellectually inferior to many brutes. Thus the Veddas of 

 Ceylon are, according to Hartshorne, ' so little looked upon 

 as human beings that, when a Vedda was tried and sentenced 

 at Kandy for killing another Yedda .... the jury prayed 

 for mercy for the criminal as being only an animal ; and he 

 was fastened up like a caged monkey.' 2 These Veddas, 

 indeed, as they have been described by Sir Emerson Tennent 

 and other residents or travellers in Ceylon prior to Mr. 

 Hartshorne's fuller account in 1875, are scarcely to be dis- 

 tinguished, even zoologically, from the monkeys of the jungle 

 in which and among whom they live. The South African 

 Bushmen are by the Eev. Mr. Eicherer (a missionary) and by 

 other travellers said to be ' lower than the beasts around 

 them in moral qualities, intelligence, and foresight.' The 



1 Rev. J. F. Moor, M.A., in 'Animal World,' February 1876, p. 20. 



2 Daily Telegraph,' August 30, 1875. 



