DEONTOLOGY. 297 
A very interesting part of the Paper was that which traced the 
sense of duty in animals and compared it with the sense of duty in 
man. I did not feel that I was quite able to follow Mr. Clarke in 
the distinction he made between the sense of duty in man as a 
pneumatic idea, whereas in animals he affirmed it to be only a 
psychic idea. The great difference between animals and man is, 
of course, that animals do not and cannot recognise duty in the 
abstract, but they only recognise concrete duties when trained to 
doso. They can be taught to recognise a number of duties, but 
those duties will be independent of the general idea of duty, and 
will vary according to the impulse that is given to the animals by 
a higher will. A poacher’s dog will recognise it as his duty to 
poach. A sheep-stealer’s dog will recognise it as his duty to worry 
the sheep and kill them and carry them off. A shepherd’s dog 
recognises it as his duty to guard the sheep, and on no account to 
injure them. But the difference between the cultivated and Chris- 
tian sense of duty and the sense of duty in animals is not merely 
that. Man can form an abstract idea of duty whether he has a 
perception of the Supreme Being or not. He can generalise his 
ideas of duty in all systems of philosophy, whether Stoic or Utili- 
tarian. When his duty is generalised, it to that extent becomes 
crystallised and fixed. In order, however, to get the highest 
standard of duty you must not only generalise the duties into one 
sense of duty but you must perceive that the duty is owed not toa 
changeful and uncertain will or a number of changeful or uncertain 
wills, as in the case of the lower animals to man, when they come 
in contact with him, but to the one Infinite and Changeless Will. 
When we get that idea, we get the idea of duty not merely genera- 
lised as far as ourselves are concerned, but also, so to speak, 
generalised at the other end of the cord, and it is then absolutely 
changeless and fixed. I think, however, upon the whole, that perhaps 
the most interesting part of the Paper, if I may be allowed to draw 
a comparison, was that which referred to man’s consciousness of the 
degradation involved in his fall—his aspirations after something 
higher, and his demoniacal downfall, if in spite of this conscious- 
ness he allows himself to become the slave of his animal passions. 
If he falls, when he has the power of rising higher, he falls lower 
than the animals ! 
Rev. C. R. Panter, M.A., LL.D.—Although I agree with 
the Author of this Paper in his arguments, I am not quite 
