214 The Moral Faculties of Brides. 



relative intelligence, is, to a great extent, a question of race — it 

 belongs to the blood; and as we can only hope to reclaim the 

 bull-dog by breeding away from the type, so it is with the 

 man — he will be a human bull-dog to the end of his days ; but 

 his children may be an improvement on the parent, and in the 

 course of a few generations the vicious element may be over- 

 come by something nobler. 



A Lavater among animals would find- it an easy matter to 

 arrange all the higher orders according to their several degrees 

 of moral excellence, according to their cerebral conformations, 

 according to a priori considerations, and make but few mis- 

 takes. In the elephant, horse, and dog we have the noblest 

 qualities and the noblest types of cerebral development. Faith- 

 fulness, courage, affection, and a spirit of unselfish honour are 

 evinced in a remarkable degree by the best examples of these 

 three subjects, and here we find the brain piled up above the 

 sinuses, and the merely animal faculties subordinated to the in- 

 tellectual, so that there is the capacity for sympathy with man, 

 and the ability also for eompanionship. Mere intellect would 

 not suffice to render these creatures so adapted for companion- 

 ship as they really prove themselves to be, any more than cold 

 wit without a spark of generosity will beget for any man much 

 of the love of his fellows. It happens, too, that, as among 

 men, the most intelligent races and the most intelligent indi- 

 viduals exhibit a higher average of virtue, so among animals 

 the quick-witted, easily taught, receptive examples are, for the 

 most part, more confidently trusted with our property and 

 lives. The race-horse, a delicate creature, with a skin like a 

 kid glove, and an organization so refined that he is almost 

 separated thereby from other breeds of horses, frequently ex- 

 hibits an ungovernable temper, except to the boy who strews 

 his litter, and to him ho is as a pet lamb, and may be coaxed 

 with a whisper and flattered by a touch of the hand. But see 

 him defying the strongest jockey at the starting-post to restrain 

 his ardour, and trembling with nervous delight at the plaudits 

 of the crowd, and who can deny that there are strong moral 

 impulses mingled with a quick intelligence in that most enthu- 

 siastic of ;ill animal natures ? 



It is not at all surprising that the animals on which man 

 has most ardently bestowed his energies for their improvement 

 should exhibit bigla moral qualities ami a, capacity for higher 

 things than have been accomplished yet. Morality is avowedly 

 an acquisition, though (he capacity for it is an essential part of 

 the nature. The rapacious tribes are evidently in a low moral 

 condition, and will over remain SO, as the necessity of their 

 organization and of the limited extent to which it is possible 

 for man to inlluenco them. 13uL, amongst those that have been 



