222 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



The first law of the jungle is: "Live, and let live." 



Leaving out of account the carnivorous animals who must 

 kill or die, aU the wild vertebrate species of the earth have learned 

 the logic that peace promotes happiness, prosperity and long life. 

 This fundamentally useful knowledge governs not only the 

 wild animal individual, but also the tribe, the species, and con- 

 tiguous species. 



Do the brown bears and grizzlies of Alaska wage war upon 

 each other, species against species? By no means. It seems 

 reasonably certain that those species occasionally intermarry. 

 Do the big sea-lions and the walruses seek to drive away or 

 exterminate the neighboring fur seals or the helpless hair seals? 

 Such warfare is absolutely unknown. Do the moose and 

 caribou of Alaska and Yukon Territory attack the mountain 

 sheep and goats? Never. Does the Indian elephant attack 

 the gaur, the sambar, the axis deer or the muntjac? The idea 

 is preposterous. Does any species of giraffe, zebra, antelope 

 or buffalo attack any other species on the same crowded plains 

 of British East Africa? If so, we have yet to learn of it. 



If the races and nations of men were as peace-loving, honest 

 and sensible in avoiding wars as all the wild animal species are, 

 then would we indeed have a social heaven upon earth. 



Now, tell me, ye winged winds that blow from the four 

 comers of the earth and over the seven seas, whence came the 

 Philosophy of Peace to the world's wild animals? Did they 

 learn it by observing the ways of man? "It is to laugh," says 

 the innkeeper. Man has not yet learned it himself; and there- 

 fore do we find the beasts of the field a lap ahead of the quarrel- 

 some biped who has assumed dominion over them. 



Day by day we read in our newspapers of men and women 

 who are moral lepers and utterly unfit to associate with horses, 

 dogs, cats, deer and elephants. Our big male chimpanzee, 

 Father Boma, who knows no wife but Suzette, and firmly repels 

 the blandishments of his neighbor Fanny, is a more moral 



