216 The Moral Faculties of Brutes. 



fundamental principles. As one who has hope in Christ I 

 experience no shock when I discover traces of moral life in 

 the brute, and rather feel a desire to praise God for having so 

 multiplied his mercies as to give to these humbler sharers with 

 me of physical existence a capacity for more happiness than is 

 comprised in merely eating and drinking. I praise Him for 

 making their breasts the abodes of sensations that lift them 

 somewhat above the level of dead matter; and if it be his 

 will that certain races, as horses and dogs for instance, shall 

 improve morally, as well as physically and intellectually, I still 

 see that man is to be the agent of their advancement, and that 

 every step of their progress will be accompanied with benefits 

 to the human race. Eeligion appeals most strongly and directly 

 to the moral nature ; but we may suppose at least that we 

 possess a monopoly of religion, for we ourselves avow it to be 

 revealed, and, if revealed, then the moral nature, whether in 

 its crude elementary condition as in the brute, or its more 

 finished, yet still imperfect (and how imperfect ! ) condition as 

 in man, cannot educe the doctrine by any spiritual generation 

 within itself. There may be the germ of some sort of adora- 

 tion in the mind of the dog looking full in his master's face 

 with a gaze of absorption, but it is of the same kind as the 

 gaze of a savage at a fetish, and after all the dog worships the 

 man ; but it is man's privilege to worship his Maker, and to 

 hope for everlasting union with the Divine Essence. There 

 then is a distinction and a difference; but, while we take such 

 comfort to ourselves, let us not trifle with the serious truths 

 of nature, or take refuge in a purposeless pride when we 

 have parted company with reason. A fair recognition of the 

 relationships that exist between ourselves and the brutes may 

 perhaps tend to the cultivation of a spirit of mercy in all our 

 dealings with them, and help forward the day when man shall 

 be at peace with himself and all around him. 



