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HUMAN TRAITS IN THE ANIMALS 



THAT there is a deal of human nature in the 

 lower animals is a very obvious fact; or we 

 may turn the proposition around and say, with 

 equal truth, that there is a deal of animal nature in 

 us humans. If man is of animal origin, as we are 

 now all coming to believe, how could this be other- 

 wise? We are all made of one stuff, the functions 

 of our bodies are practically the same, and the 

 workings of our instincts and our emotional and 

 involuntary natures are in many ways identical. 

 I am not now thinking of any part or lot which the 

 lower orders may have in our intellectual or moral 

 life, a point upon which, as my reader may know, I 

 diverge from the popular conception of these mat- 

 ters, but of the extent in which they share with us 

 the ground or basement story of the house of life 

 — certain fundamental traits, instincts, and blind 

 gropings. 



Man is a bundle of instincts, impulses, predi- 

 lections, race and family affinities, and antago- 

 nisms, supplemented by the gift of reason — a gift 

 of which he sometimes makes use. The animal is 

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