212 The Moral Faculties of Brutes. 



tiling like morality in the animal kingdom, and it is surely 

 worth an endeavour to ascertain what that morality is like. 



If I call my pretty Fido, having perhaps missed him from 

 my side for half an hour, I can tell by his reply if he is 

 engaged in mischief, fun, or duty. Those who can hold con- 

 versation with animals can best judge what is likely to be the 

 range of their moral feelings ; but the most careless observers 

 may take part in the investigation of this subject, for every- 

 body has heard of and seen a "naughty dog." Now Fido 

 knows exactly, as if he had learnt by heart a concise dog's 

 catechism, what is (for him) right and what wrong. I have 

 called him, and he has answered, not with a joyous snap and 

 a bound to follow, but with a tardy snuffle and a slow approach, 

 with his chin scrubbing the ground and his tail doubled the 

 wrong way, and I know thereby that he has found my best 

 carpet slippers and made a beginning of tearing them to pieces. 

 Fido knows he has done wrong ; he knows that I shall frown 

 and scold, and that shame will follow upon misdeeds. I repu- 

 diate the word instinct while pondering on this event. There 

 is nothing in it that agrees with the definitions of instinct, but 

 I do see in it the glimmerings, and strong glimmerings too, 

 of a power to distinguish between right and wrong ; and when 

 I have sufficiently punished Fido, I ask myself why punish him 

 at all if he is not a responsible agent ? He wanted amuse- 

 ment, and found it by gnawing the red roses and white lilies 

 out of my fancy slippers, that were worked for me with so 

 much care by somebody who loves Fido as much as I do ; just 

 as, when a boy, I found amusement in robbing Captain King's 

 orchard, knowing all the while that I was doing wrong, and 

 anticipating while I did it the nature of the punishment to be 

 endured. But such general indications of moral sense will 

 not satisfy those who come to the consideration of this subject 

 with a burden of prejudices or a spirit of sceptical pride, and 

 so I must ask such to believe that when I am sad Fido is sad, 

 when I am in a spirit of rejoicing Fido's eyes sparkle as if 

 with fire, and he catches my vein of humour and is ready to 

 roll in the moss, gallop wildly through mire and brake, and by 

 every look and gesture exhibit a thorough sympathy with all 

 my moods, and sometimes somewhat of an anxiety to read my 

 thoughts, as L try hard to read his, and natter myself that I 

 have succeeded perfectly. Now this sympathy between man 

 and brute is ten everyday fact: tho timid rider puts the hunter 

 out of heart, and he fails fo leap fences that, with a confident 

 rider, would be nothing to him. It is the strong sympathy 

 subsisting between the Bhepherd and his dog, combined with 

 flu' stern sense of duty which education has made a ruling 

 passion in tho breast of that dog, that arc tho secrets of their 



