The Moral Faculties of Brutes. 215 



most improved, there are differences of degree that sufficiently 

 prove the fact that brutes have not only a physical and an in- 

 tellectual, but a moral nature ; for with some rewards and 

 punishments are mighty engines for good and evil, and with 

 others there is comparative callousness to both. Those who 

 have travelled in old times by the diligence arriving at the 

 Messageries Hoyale, in Paris, will remember that the white 

 horses employed were of a very pugnacious breed, for no sooner 

 were they liberated from their harness than they fought 

 furiously, without a cause and without method, as Hibernian 

 revellers are said to fight at Donnybrook fair. So those who 

 have enjoyed an acquaintanceship with St. Bernard dogs will 

 have observed that the immense generosity of their natures is 

 such that they may be tormented by demoralized curs till their 

 passions are roused by positive suffering ere they will put forth 

 their strength in their own defence, and adopt the last resource 

 of a forgiving spirit, that of punishing an adversary already 

 completely in its power. 



But what, after all, are the qualities that render animals 

 useful to man as companions, protectors, servants, and friends, 

 but those which are strictly in the category of moral excel- 

 lencies, and capable of still more perfect development as races 

 improve and the effects of education become hereditary ? But 

 it is also of importance to recognize the relationship of man and 

 brute in this respect, first for the sake of truth, and second for 

 utility. If we love truth, we shall see in the dog a faint fore- 

 shadowing of the highest object of the moral nature of man, for 

 who can doubt that, in some sense, the dog worships his 

 master ? On the score of utility it is, at least, worth 

 observing that moral qualities are transmitted by descent, and 

 these should be thought of in selecting animals for the purposes 

 of breeding, no less than qualities purely physical. If it be 

 objected to the conclusions here so generally, and perhaps 

 vaguely, and certainly hastily drawn, that it tends to degrade 

 man to the level of the brute, the reply is, No : it cannot degrade 

 man to be just in his estimates of the capacities of the creatures 

 he makes subservient to his uses, for the first necessity of a 

 moral existence is an admission of a difference between right 

 and wrong, even though, in our mistaken judgment, what we 

 pronounce right may, in the end, prove to be wrong. It may 

 not be hurtful either to science or morality to humble those 

 who deny to brutes any better guiding principle than a blind 

 instinct, and it cannot exalt the brutes, for they are not yet so 

 far advanced in intelligence as to read what is written con- 

 cerning them. But if it be said that this doctrine is opposed 

 to the truths of religion, I again say, No : because religion, even 

 though it be paganism, has respect for truth as one of its 



