CHAPTER XX. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 



ONE of the many absurdities committed by man, in his effort 

 to create artificial or arbitrary differences or distinctions 

 between man and other animals, is the allegation that the 

 lower animals possess no individuality, one dog or horse being 

 believed to be just like another in its character or disposi- 

 tion. The contrary, however, is the fact. Individuality is 

 quite as strongly marked frequently in other animals, or 

 certain of them such as the dog, cat, and cage birds as 

 in man. There is both the strongest force and the strangest 

 peculiarities of disposition, of both moral and intellectual 

 constitution ; and the behaviour may be so quaint or striking 

 that a dog, horse, cat, or parrot may be, quite as truthfully 

 as many men are, spoken of as itself a 'character' an 

 oddity by reason of its mental or moral peculiarity. These 

 peculiarities include remarkable differences in 



1. Temperament and temper, amounting to idiosyncrasy; 

 and in 



2. Behaviour, feeling, thought, amounting to eccentricity; 

 as this is illustrated by 



a. Singular likings and dislikes, attachments and 



aversions. 



b. Other forms of whim or caprice. 



3. Their special aptitudes including the capacity for 

 education and for the practical business of life. 



4. Action in emergency. 



We are referring at present to peculiarities of mental or 

 moral character that distinguish individuals of the same 

 species, whether these individuals be 



