152 HtTMBLE CREATURES. 



being. Indeed, it is well known that amongst bar- 

 barous nations the sympathy and affinity existing be- 

 tween man and his domesticated companions amongst 

 the higher animals are so great, that he not only 

 lavishes upon them as much tenderness as upon his 

 blood-relatives, but that his very conception of heaven 

 is allied with the expectation of there meeting his 

 four-footed associates, just as we hope to be retmited 

 hereafter with those departed friends whom we have 

 loved on earth. 



Let it, however, be clearly understood, that although 

 we believe the higher vertebrata, and more especially 

 the domesticated animals, to be endowed with a cer- 

 tain amount of reason such as we find in ourselves, 

 and transmitted through the human race, yet we 

 would not for an instant encourage the doctrine that 

 their natures are akin to our own ; or that man does 

 not possess an infinitely higher degree of intelligence 

 than do these valuable creatures. The attempt thus to 

 raise their nattire would involve just as grave an error 

 as if we were to delude ourselves with the idea that 

 we are Deity because we have been honoured by our 

 Creator with the possession of some divine attributes. 



The dog may be said to stand at the head of the 

 animal races, so far as his psychical properties are 

 concerned, and the high degree of his instinctive in- 

 telligence bears the same relation to the lower phase 

 of that quality, exhibited in the untutored brutes, as 

 does the rational instinct of the higher insect races 

 to the animal or natural instinct in the lower inver- 



