CHAPTER III. 



ANIMALS AS. FELLOW-CEEATUEES. 



If the dead animal body is to be regarded witb rever- 

 ence, still more is the living animal body to be 

 regarded with kindliness. The great lesson learnt 

 by the zoologist is that of the fundamental unity of 

 Life: there is something in the smallest creatures 

 which is akin to ourselves; and just as there is 

 always something in their physical structure which is 

 correlative with our own, so also there is something 

 which represents the germ of our highest intellectual 

 and moral faculties. Pleasure and pain, the misery of 

 cold and hunger, the enjoyment of warmth and food, 

 the smallest creatures share with ourselves ; and many 

 of the higher ones experience love, friendship, the un- 

 selfishness of a parent's duty, and even of a citizen's, 

 precisely as do human beings : possibly in a lesser 

 degree, but not always — for that some dogs have more 

 intelligence and more capacity for a noble friendship 

 than some men, no one will deny who has any wide 

 acquaintance with either species. The study of the 

 animal kingdom, as a whole, ought to impress us 

 strongly with a feeling of kinship to our poor relations, 

 the "lower animals," as they are called. While the 



