The Moral Faculties of Brutes. 213 



co-working so successfully in the arts of shepherding; and 

 were the dog a stranger to the monitions of the moral law, 

 the sheep must be his prey and not his charge, for the first 

 element of his life is a recognition of the distinction between 

 right and wrong. So all through, so far as man allows an 

 animal to share some part of his domestic life, there is a moral 

 bond of unity, less strong perhaps than that which binds us 

 together in the family and the city, but strong enough for the 

 purpose, and limited only by the contracted capacity of the 

 brute to appreciate the majesty of ideas. 



The workings of maternal affection afford a familiar ex- 

 ample of one of the finest moral qualities with which Almighty 

 Wisdom has endowed the brute creation. We may call it in- 

 stinct, but who can draw the line of distinction between the 

 love of a bird for its young and the love of a human mother ? 

 In what quality of parental tenderness does the superior 

 creature differ from the inferior ? We see in both an anxious 

 care — an anticipating of wants, assiduity which scarcely knows 

 fatigue, devotion which cannot be chilled, constancy unfailing. 

 They differ truly and vastly, but all the fine qualities of the 

 loving woman, which painters and sculptors will endeavour to 

 pourtray to the end of the world, have their counterparts in the 

 heart of the dove, and we may any day learn from the solicitude 

 of an animal for the welfare of its offspring something of the 

 morality of the brute creation. 



It would not be a difficult matter to enumerate all the 

 several requirements of the moral law, and point to examples of 

 their fulfilment, not adventitiously, but designedly and intel- 

 ligently, by animals. But why do we speak of an ' ' honest 

 dog" and a ' ' vicious horse" ? It is because we see virtue in the 

 one and vice in the other. But there are honest horses and 

 vicious dogs, and as among men, so among brutes, the beauty 

 of morality is illustrated by the ugliness of crime. All the 

 higher orders of the mammalia exhibit various types of moral 

 excellence as accompaniments to certain peculiarities of cere- 

 bral conformation. You know an honest dog the moment your 

 eyes meet his ; you will also know a scoundrel dog by his in- 

 ability to face you, and his skulking gait and downcast, 

 cunning look. Does the bull-dog betray any capability for 

 high moral qualities ? — his broad, flat head, his protruding 

 ears, and his forbidding muzzle proclaim him a genuine savage. 

 We should give up hopes of reclaiming such a brute were it not 

 observable that in some instances, in which man and dog are 

 inseparable companions, his master has the same type of head 

 and muzzle, and is also a savage, and if we hope to reclaim the 

 one, why should we not the other ? Some men are born crimi- 

 nals, and so are some dogs and horses. Relative morality, like 



VOL. IV. — NO. III. Q 



