Tlie Immortal Soul of My Dog. 73 



tions is always the same in Idnd but differing in degree, 

 we must assume that the animals below man have the 

 same kind of mind that we possess. By just two gifts 

 has man reached his high position in the organic world. 

 His spoken and written language has enabled him to 

 develope his mind so far in advance of his more lowly 

 animal friends. No other organic being on this earth 

 has this gift. It is true that all animals have sufficient 

 language to communicate with each other as far as their 

 more lowly life calls for. Then the second gift by which 

 man has reached his present position, and fully as im- 

 portant as the first, is his hands. Can you imagine your- 

 self without speech or hands? What could you do with- 

 out these superlatively important gifts? Think of a dog 

 with the brain of a Spencer or Fiske, but with his present 

 physical endowments. How much could he do that man 

 has done? 



I have already said that in all our study of mind 

 we always and invariably find it associated with brain. 

 Without brain, as far as we can know, there can be no 

 mind such as we possess. Any injury to the brain, either 

 by accident or disease, at once is shown in the manifes- 

 tations of the mind. This being the case, then we have 

 the right to and we must assume the possession of mind 

 by every organic being having a brain. All the verte- 

 brate animals below man have a brain, spinal cord and 

 nervous system as man has. The mammals are above 

 the birds, fishes and reptiles. These higher animals, the 

 mammals, are affected by narcotics, such as alcohol, 

 ether and chloroform, and can be hypnotized, just as is 

 the case with man. The mind of these highest placen- 

 tals such as the ape, elephant and dog, differs from that 

 of man onh^ in degree and not in kind, and the grad- 

 uated inter-val between those animals nearest to us in 

 intelligence and the lowest races of men is much less 

 than the corresponding interval between the lowest 

 races of men and the highest specimens of civilization, 

 such as Fiske, Spencer and Darwin. 



It is hard for us to overcome the prejudice inherited 

 from the past generations of men and look at this ques- 

 tion in the light of our greater knowledge of the present 

 time. Onlj^ a few centuries ago man, in his egotism. 



