XXIV 
THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 
No person can give a careful and loving study to 
animal life for a long period without meeting with 
species exhibiting aptitudes of which a great deal 
might be made in a domestic state, and which, 
together with their beauty and cleanly habits, 
seem specially to fit them for companionship with 
man in a greater degree than those which we now 
possess. For it is an undoubted fact that some 
animals are more intelligent than others, slight 
differences in this respect being perceptible even 
among the species of a single group or genus. We 
measure the animal mind by ours; and _ looking 
down from the summit of our mountain the earth 
beneath us at first seems level; but it is not quite 
level, as we are able to see by regarding it atten- 
tively. Even more important are the differences 
in temper, ranging from the morose and truculent 
to the placable and sweet; more important, 
because compared with this diversity in disposition 
that which we find in intelligence is not great. 
There are also animals solitary by nature, and 
almost or quite incapable of any attachment 
265 
