294 SENSITIVENESS. 



insult, and can readily be rendered so experimentally by man. 

 In various ways they resent it. The dog treats insult as 

 man does, in the most opposite ways, either by contempt or 

 punishment (Cobbe). The horse is apt to repay it with 

 revenge (Low). In the preacher, Guereza and other monkeys, 

 intentional or experimental insult by man gives rise at once 

 to various degrees and exhibitions of rage or passion (Darwin). 

 Birds insult each other (White) ; and the camel deliberately 

 offers insult to man by that most unmistakable of all 

 modes used by man himself to brother man spitting in his 

 face. 



On the other hand, animals have a sense of personal dig- 

 nity, and in a certain way they assert or exhibit it. Thus the 

 military horse shows in its gait and general behaviour the 

 sense of its own rank, which is involved in an appreciation 

 of that of its master, while dogs and other animals illustrate 

 the dignity of parental authority. 



Of certain of his setters and pointers, Berkeley says ib 

 is ' offensive to their sensitive minds to call in extra assist- 

 ance ' in picking up game : it is felt to be a slur upon 

 either their capacity or willingness to discharge their duty. 



The sense of degradation, disgrace, humiliation, failure 

 in or futility of effort, non-success, ignominy, dishonour, ser- 

 vitude, manifests itself in diverse forms, in deposed chiefs, 

 in animals that have suffered defeat or discomfiture in the 

 fight, in others condemned to slavery or to labour which 

 they consider unworthy or undignified. Pliny long ago 

 pointed out that elephants deprived of their insignia of 

 rank in pageantry are apt to die of chagrin or melan- 

 cholia. 



In song birds beaten in rivalry, silence is a significant 

 expression of their sense of inferiority, their mortified pride 

 (' Percy Anecdotes '). The feeling of being superseded caused 

 a dog to refuse food, and no persuasion or inducement could 

 prevent his leaving his home at once and for good (Watson). 

 The wild horse shows its sense of disgrace when punished 

 by its fellows ( ( Percy Anecdotes'), and punishment produces 

 the same effect in other animals. A common result of defeat, 

 a frequent expression of the sense of defeat, is dejection 



