5*>'3'sr'*^A 
 
New York 
 
 State College of Agriculture 
 
 At Cornell University 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 The 
 
 Professor Dwight Sanderson 
 
 Rural Sociology 
 
 Library 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BJ1311.E9 
 
 Evolutional ethics and animal psychology 
 
 3 1924 014 058 709 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014058709 
 
EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS 
 
 AND 
 
 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. EVANS 
 
 AUTHOR OF ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ECCLESIASTICAL 
 ARCHITECTURE, THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AND 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT OF ANIMALS, ETC. •:• •:• 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1898 
 
COPTttlOHT, 1897, 
 
 By D. APPI/ETON AND COMPANY. 
 
TO MY WIFE, 
 
 ELIZABETH B. EVANS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAQB 
 
 Introduction: Animal psychology as the foundation 
 op animal's eights in the historical evolution 
 of ethics 1 
 
 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 I. — The ethics of tribal society 19 
 
 II. — Religious belief as a basis of moral obliga- 
 tion 58 
 
 III. — Ethical relations of man to beast .... 82 
 
 IV. — Metempsychosis 105 
 
 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 V. — Mind in man and brute 165 
 
 VI. — Progress and perfectibility in the lower ani- 
 mals 197 
 
 VII. — Ideation in animals and men 222 
 
 VIII. — Speech as a barrier between man and beast . 270 
 IX. — The .esthetic sense and religious sentiment in 
 
 animals 333 
 
 Bibliography 359 
 
 Index 369 
 
 v 
 
EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OP ANI- 
 MALS' EIGHTS IN THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF 
 ■ETHICS. 
 
 Eeoent enlargement of mental science. Close connection between 
 evolutional ethics and animal psychology. Modern survivals 
 of mediaeval metaphysics and anthropocentric ethics. "Zo- 
 ophily." Personification of inanimate objects by primitive 
 peoples. Example from the Kalewala. Observation of ani- 
 mals by hunters and herdsmen in early society. Superstitious 
 fear of animals and the rise of zoolatry. Survivals of animal 
 worship in the cults of civilized races. Human appreciation 
 of the lower animals as the result of their domestication. 
 Their position as members of the tribe or family. Their 
 worth recognised by primitive legislation. The dog in the 
 Avesta. Zarathustra's care for cattle. Buddha's precepts in 
 respect to animal life. The doctrine of evolution taught by 
 Greek philosophers. The Ionic school of naturalists. Aris- 
 totle and Theophrastus. Greek speculation from Thales to 
 Proclus. Celsus and Origen. Advanced views of Nemesius. 
 His superiority to St. Augustine. Thomas Aquinas and the 
 scholiasts. Beasts as types and symbols of spiritual truths. 
 Their equality with man before the law. The principle of 
 animals' rights asserted by evolutionists and generally op- 
 posed by theologians. Lotze's theory of soul and body. Psy- 
 chical faculties as affected by the physical organism. Their 
 coetaneous development and peculiar interdependence in the 
 pithecoid stage of man's evolution. The starting point of 
 
2 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 humanity. General intelligence in the simplest organisms. 
 Observations of Darwin and Romanes. Growth of instincts 
 analogous to formation of habits. The measure of man's duty 
 to the lower animals determined by the degree of their mental 
 development. 
 
 These are scarcely any topics which excite^such gen- 
 eral interest, and are so frequently discussed nowadays, 
 as the origin and evolution of ethical conceptions as re- 
 vealed in the history of civilization, and the growth and 
 development, the outward manifestations and essential 
 qualities* of mind in the lower animals, to the study of 
 which the most recent researches in comparative phi- 
 lology, biology, psychology, and kindred branches of 
 natural and mental, science have given a fresh impulse 
 and new 'direction, and opened up a broader and clearer 
 field of view. 
 
 The intimate connection between evolutional ethics 
 and animal psychology must be apparent to all who 
 carefully consider the influence necessarily exerted by 
 a proper appreciation j of animal intelligence upon the 
 recognition of man's moral relations and obligations 
 to the 1 creatures with whom he is so closely associated, 
 and who are so, largely subject to his dominion*. The 
 main argument urged by mediaeval and modern 
 scholiasts against the doctrine of the rights of animals 
 is based upon the assumption that they are utterly de- 
 void of those .psychical powers which constitute per- 
 sonality even in the most restricted sense of this term. 
 " Brute beasts," says the Eev! Joseph Eickaby, an Eng- 
 lish Jesuit and author of a work on moral philosophy, 
 "not having, understanding, and, therefore, not being 
 persons, can not have rights. The conclusion is clear. 
 They are not autocentric. They are of the number 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 3 
 
 of things which are another's." He infers from these 
 premises that " we have no duties of any kind to the 
 lower animals, as neither to stocks nor stones " ; " not 
 of justice . . . and not of religion . . . not of fidel- 
 ity .. . no duties of charity." * Father Rickaby and ; 
 the Eev. Prof. Tyrrell represent a large class of dogmatic 
 divines and belated schoolmen, who postulate an abso- 
 lute and abysmal chasm between man and all other sen- 
 tient organisms, and found upon this gratuitous assump- 
 tion a narrow system of anthropocentric ethics at vari- 
 ance alike with the deductions of modern science and the 
 finer feelingsvof humanity; In order to meet on their 
 own ground these followers of St. Thomas Aquinas, the 
 "angelic doctor," whose metaphysical quillets and 
 quodlibets received the sanction of the Council of Trent 
 and still rank as quasi-articles of faith in th& Catholic 
 Church, it is only necessary to show that the supposed 
 chasm has no real existence as a fixed, final, and im- 
 passable barrier, and in the light of modern anthropo- 
 logical and psychological research has resolved itself 
 into a wavering, indeterminable, and almost evanescent 
 line of demarcation. ^ Aa- T\fiss Cobbe b aa ver y pflrti- 
 nently remarked: " The whole sub ject of our mora Lre- 
 Jatipns jto the, l ower animals is undoubtedly a most ob- 
 jure, jypj gjffjnnlt, ngn^. . . Some revision of the 
 
 'Person and Thing' philosophy is, however, the first 
 thing to be achieved; some reconstruction of the meta- 
 physical and ethical systems of bygone times in better 
 accordance with our present anthropolgy and psycholo- 
 
 * Quoted by Prances Power Cobbe in The Ethics of ZoSphily, 
 a paper published originally in the London Contemporary Review 
 (November, 1895), in refutation of similar views expressed by the 
 Rev. George Tyrrell, also a disciple of Loyola. 
 
4 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 gy. . . . The elephant and the butterfly can not be 
 boxed together nowadays, except in a child's Noah's 
 Ark. A Fuegian who eats his grandmother and can 
 barely count his fingers can not be pigeonholed a ' Per- 
 son/ and at the same time Landseer's dog a ' Thing,' 
 except in a mediaeval mind, which has somehow sur- 
 vived preternaturally into the Darwinian period." (lb., 
 p. 10.) 
 
 In tracing the history of the evolution of ethics 
 we find the recognition of mutual rights and duties 
 confined at first to members of the same horde or tribe, 
 then extended to worshippers of the same gods, and 
 gradually enlarged so as to include every civilized 
 nation, until at length all races of men are at least 
 theoretically conceived as being united in a common 
 bond of brotherhood and benevolent sympathy, which 
 is now slowly expanding so as to comprise not only 
 the higher species of animals, but also every sensitive 
 embodiment of organic life. 
 
 But while the primitive man regarded all human 
 beings who were not his kinsmen as his enemies, his 
 classification of the lower animals in their relations 
 to himself was by no means so simple. In the child- 
 hood of the race, as of the individual, the imagination 
 easily spans the gulf that separates the animate from 
 the inanimate, and attributes consciousness and per- 
 sonality even to lifeless and formless objects. A strik- 
 ing illustration of this tendency, as it survives in poetry, 
 is the manner in which Lemminkainen, in the Finnic 
 epos Kalewala, accosts the roadways which seem to 
 come to meet her as she goes in search of her lost son: 
 
 " Roadways, ye whom God hath shapen, 
 Have ye not my son beholden, 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 5 
 
 Nowhere seen the golden apple, 
 Him my darling staff of silver ? " 
 Prudently they gave her answer, 
 Thus to her replied the Roadways : 
 "For thy son we can not plague us, 
 We have sorrows, too, a many, 
 Since our own lot is a hard one 
 And our fortune is but evil, 
 By dogs' feet to be run over, 
 By the wheel-tire to be wounded, 
 And by heavy heels down- trampled." 
 
 The same naive and "vigorous fancy that could thus 
 transform an ensemble of dust and clods into a living, 
 thinking, and speaking entity would be still less cog- 
 nizant of the spiritual disparity between man and beast, 
 and would scarcely feel the ahsence of the "missing 
 link," which modern anthropologists are making such 
 strenuous efforts to discover. The grazing of flocks 
 and herds, or the exciting perils of the chase, would 
 lead to a close observation of the habits and peculiari- 
 ties of different animals and give rise to strange con- 
 jectures and theories concerning their relationship to 
 the human race, which in general qualities they so 
 strongly resemble, and in special senses, such as sharp- 
 ness of sight, keenness of scent, quickness of hearing, 
 and swiftness of foot, they so far excel. The percep- 
 tion of these manifold capacities would suggest and 
 enforce the recognition of an analogue of the soul 
 underlying and controlling this complex of thoughts, 
 feelings, impulses, and passions. Metaphysics had not 
 yet woven its intricate raddle hedge of verbal defini- 
 tions round the provinces of reason and instinct; the 
 boundaries of the two spiritual realms were not so fixed, 
 nor the distinctions so radical but that transitions from 
 
6 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 one state to the other were accepted as possible and 
 even ordinary occurrences. Hence the popular belief 
 in werewolves and other metamorphoses of men into 
 beasts and beasts into men, which prevails in the 
 primitive history, and survives among the lower classes 
 of all nations, and plays so prominent a part in fairy 
 tales and folklore, and forms the basis of the wonder- 
 ful doctrine of metempsychosis. 
 
 Hence, too, arose a vague superstitious fear of the 
 lower animals, not merely on account of their superior 
 physical strength and. natural ferocity, but also as em- 
 bodiments of mysterious powers, and especially as re- 
 incarnations of deceased chieftains and warriors. This 
 feeling is the source of totemism and the worship of 
 deified ancestors in the forms of beasts and birds and 
 even reptiles, which is probably the basis of all zoolatry. 
 Survivals of this primitive cult are found in the my- 
 thologies' of the most highly cultivated peoples, as, for 
 example, in the eagle of Jupiter, the owl of Minerva, 
 and the- serpent of iEsculapius, where the animal, that 
 was originally the real object of adoration, has become, 
 in the evolution of religious ideas, simply the emblem 
 of an anthropomorphic deity. Even Christianity, with 
 all its ^spiritual aims and aspirations, shows distinct 
 vestiges of zoolatrous worship in the conception of the 
 Holy Spirit as a dove, of Christ as a lamb, of Satan as 
 a dragon or a serpent, in the symbolism of the fish 
 and. lion, in the monsters of the Apocalypse, and the 
 attributes of the evangelists borrowed from the vision 
 of the prophet Ezekiel. 
 
 In this connection, however, our chief concern is 
 not in the psychological explanation and historical 
 evolution of zoolatry, but in its ethical influence as af- 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 
 
 fecting man's treatment of the lower animals. The 
 law of enmity is older and more universal than that of 
 friendship. The earliest and strongest emotion in the 
 breast of the savage is that of hatred and hostility to 
 other men, as well as to all beasts of the field and of 
 the forest. Indeed he makes no moral distinction 
 between them, but regards them indiscriminately as 
 foes, whom it is his imperative duty to destroy. If he 
 recognises their superiority, he tries to flee from them 
 or seeks to avert their wrath and win their favour by 
 reverential submission and propitiation. In no case 
 are they to him objects of affection; if he flatters them, 
 it is not fondness but fear that is the motive of his 
 conduct. The element of love does not enter into the 
 religion of the primitive man, who adores and appeases 
 by offerings and adulation only the beings he dreads. 
 
 The first feeling of genuine human sympathy with 
 the lower animals grew out of their subjection and 
 domestication, whereby they, like captives of war, were 
 recognised as members of the family or tribe with which 
 they were united by ties, not of actual affinity, but of 
 adoption and common interest. They were reared and 
 cherished because they contributed to the comfort and 
 general welfare of the community, and this association 
 during successive generations gradually led to the 
 growth of permanent and traditional sentiments of 
 kindness and benevolence toward them, and a natural 
 desire to promote their happiness. The Sanskrit word 
 for cattle (pasu) signified a creature " bound " to serv- 
 ice, whether men, Mne, horses, goats, or sheep, and the 
 Eoman familia included both domestic animals and 
 slaves. The transition from the life of hunters to that 
 of herdsmen, and finally from these nomadic stages to 
 
8 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICSi 
 
 that of sedentary tillers of the soil, resulted in a more 
 intimate knowledge and higher appreciation of the 
 lower animals and a clearer conception of their mental 
 and moral qualities. Man began to discover in them 
 not only a remarkable capacity to understand him, 
 but also a readiness and eagerness to execute his com- 
 mands. This was especially true of his most faithful 
 friend and constant companion, the dog, for whose 
 proper nurture, protection, and kind treatment the 
 sacred books of the ancient Persians contain the strict- 
 est injunctions with the severest penalties for their 
 violation. These prescriptions, as well as those en- 
 joining considerate care and compassion for cattle of 
 every kind, although proclaimed as a revelation of the 
 Good Mind (Vohu-man6) and embodied by Zara- 
 thustra in the Iranian religion, in order to invest them 
 with supreme authority, were really based upon a per- 
 ception of the intrinsic worth of the creatures them- 
 selves and their usefulness to man. This is evident 
 from the distinction made between beneficent and 
 baneful creatures, the latter being products and agents 
 of the Evil Mind (Akem-man6 emanating from the 
 Hurtful Spirit Angr6-mainyush), which it is the sacred 
 duty of the worshippers of the Living God (Ahura- 
 mazda, the personification of the Bountiful Spirit 
 Spent6-mainyush) to exterminate. This dualism of god 
 and devil is practically applied in the story of creation 
 as recorded in the first fargard of the Vendidad, and 
 furnishes the foundation of the most reasonable and 
 equitable system of animal ethics developed by any 
 Oriental people. Buddha forbade his followers to kill 
 any animal whatsoever, and this absolute prohibition 
 in the countries in which Buddhism prevails and 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 9 
 
 ravenous beasts and poisonous reptiles abound, if con- 
 scientiously observed, would necessarily prove highly 
 detrimental to the human inhabitants. But religious 
 precepts, arbitrarily imposed, do not always suffice to 
 curb the brutal instincts of the natural man, and the 
 torture of animals, unwittingly through ignorance or 
 wilfully through malice, is not unknown even in Bud- 
 dhistic lands. In this, as in every department of ethics, 
 the conduct of the individual depends upon the degree 
 of his mental enlightenment and moral development, 
 and is influenced by the religious creed he happens to 
 profess only so far as the latter may incidentally 
 modify his personal character. As a rule, its effect 
 in restraining inborn propensities is very slight, espe- 
 cially when the religion is handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation as a sacred heirloom of the race and 
 the performance of the duties it inculcates becomes 
 perfunctory. 
 
 The metaphysical principle underlying this tender 
 regard for all sentient organisms taught by Brahmans 
 and Buddhists is the coessentiality of men and ani- 
 mals, from which the doctrine of metempsychosis is 
 logically deduced. Many of the early Greek philoso- 
 phers entertained the same theory, which was first fully 
 developed by the Ionic school of naturaUsts and physi- 
 ologists, one of whom, Anaximander, held the idea of 
 evolution and even asserted the descent of man from 
 the lower animals. It formed also the cosmo-theo- 
 logical basis of a system of animal ethics, most clearly 
 and completely formulated, perhaps, in the writings of 
 Aristotle's celebrated pupil Theophrastus. In fact, it 
 pervades all Greek speculation for more than ten centu- 
 ries, from Thales to Proclus, and is strongly emphasized 
 
10 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 by Plutarch, Plotinus, and Porphyria, and other repre- 
 sentatives of Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism, 
 who made a practical application of it in urging absti- 
 nence from the use of flesh as an article of food. In- 
 deed, this psychical homogeneity was so generally ac- 
 cepted by leading thinkers in the first and second centu- 
 ries of our era as an unquestionable and quite axiomatic 
 truth that the eclectic philosopher Celsus did not hesi- 
 tate to adduce the denial of it as one of his most serious 
 charges against Christianity. In replying to this acute 
 and subtile, though rather superficial pagan polemic, 
 Origen admits the correctness of the accusation, but is 
 not at all disturbed by it; on the contrary, he main- 
 tains that the anthropocentric standpoint of Chris- 
 tianity is impregnable. All things, he declares, includ- 
 ing animals, were created for man; the harmless ones 
 being designed to be subjected to his will in order that 
 they may minister to his convenience and comfort, 
 while the hurtful ones contribute to the development 
 of his thinking faculties and his sensibilities. How 
 these latter effects are produced it is difficult to under- 
 stand, unless it be by sharpening his wits in the strug- 
 gle for existence against noxious creatures and by cul- 
 tivating at the same time his patience and powers of 
 endurance. So far as the animals themselves are con- 
 cerned, Origen affirms that they have neither under- 
 standing nor will, but are mere mechanisms skilfully 
 constructed and kept in operation by the hand of God 
 working through "all-mother Nature." This was the 
 theory held by nearly all the Fathers of the Church and 
 early Christian theologians, about the only notable 
 exception being Nemesius, who was Bishop of Emesa 
 in Syria during the latter half of the fourth century, 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. \\ 
 
 and who seems to have believed with Ealph Waldo 
 Emerson that 
 
 A subtle chain of countless rings 
 The next unto the farthest brings ; 
 
 And, striving to be man, the worm 
 Mounts through all the spires of form. 
 
 In other words, this remarkably clear-minded and 
 sharp-sighted ecclesiastic, in his work on The Nature 
 of Man (irepl <puaeo><; avSpatrov), appears to have 
 discovered the principle of organic evolution fifteen 
 centuries before Darwin made it the keystone of mod- 
 ern science, just as he anticipated Harvey by nearly 
 thirteen centuries in describing the action of the heart 
 and the circulation of the blood, and left on record some 
 striking observations as regards the functions of the 
 liver and the bile. He also maintained, in opposition 
 to the current superstition of his day, that insanity is 
 due to brain disease and not to demoniacal possession. 
 
 Nemesius, however, was endowed with a degree of 
 insight and intelligence rare among his contemporaries 
 and seldom shown even by the most enlightened of his 
 coreligionists, among whom St. Augustine holds the 
 first rank, not owing to superior learning, but on ac- 
 count of his uncommon intellectual aeuteness, winning 
 personality, and fiery zeal. As the chief exponent of 
 the doctrine of predestination, the Bishop of Hippo 
 robbed man of free agency and rendered him the 
 wretched victim of divine decrees; but this affected only 
 his relation to God and his eternal destiny, and did not 
 diminish his dominion over " every living thing that 
 moveth upon the earth " ; an authority which patristic 
 2 
 
12 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 theologians, and especially mediaeval scholiasts, with 
 Thomas Aquinas at their head, claimed to be absolute 
 and unrestrained by any recognition of rights or even 
 sense of moral obligation on the part of man, except 
 such humaneness and general benevolence as might 
 spring from the vague and variable conception of his 
 own worthiness. 
 
 Christian theologians and exegetists began also at a 
 very early period to use the real or fabulous charac- 
 teristics of animals for the illustration and enforce- 
 ment of religious dogmas and moral duties. In this 
 way it was possible to reconcile the existence of raven- 
 ous beasts and venomous reptiles with the omnipotence 
 and beneficence of the Creator and Euler of the world, 
 since they were designed to serve as types and symbols 
 of spiritual truths, and therefore held an important 
 place in the system of redemption and consequently 
 in the economy of the universe.* Still more interesting 
 and inexplicable from a psychological point of view is 
 the fact that not only rude tribes, but also highly civi- 
 lized pagan and Christian nations have treated animals, 
 otherwise deemed irrational, as though they were re- 
 sponsible for their actions, by placing them on a footing 
 of equality with human beings as malefactors. Accord- 
 ing to the Mosaic law, an ox that gored a man or woman 
 that they die was stoned, and this enactment has been 
 often cited as a precedent by Christian tribunals in 
 mediaeval and even modern times in order to justify the 
 execution of homicidal beasts. In Montenegro and other 
 countries of eastern Europe horses, pigs, and horned cat- 
 
 * This subject has been fully treated in the author's Animal 
 Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture, published by William 
 Eeinemann in London and Henry Holt & Co. in New York. 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 13 
 
 tie have been tried for murder and condemned to death 
 by criminal courts within the last half century. The 
 highest ecclesiastical authorities have deigned to put 
 the meanest vermin under ban, and not deemed it 
 derogatory to their dignity to hold the terrors of ex- 
 communication over pernicious and disobedient locusts 
 and slugs and vine-fretters.* This treatment of the 
 lower animals would necessarily imply that their actions 
 were regarded as justiciable, and that they stood in cer- 
 tain legal and therefore moral relations to mankind; 
 for all law is ultimately based upon a more or less im- 
 perfect recognition of ethical principles, of which it 
 aims to be the statutory expression. 
 
 But if animals may be rendered liable to judicial 
 punishment for injuries done to man, one would natu- 
 rally infer that they should also enjoy legal protection 
 against human cruelty. It was a long time, however, 
 before even the most enlightened nations reached this 
 conclusion and began to form societies for its enforce- 
 ment, and to give it practical efficiency by legislative 
 enactments. It' was in 1780 that Jeremy Bentham, 
 in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and 
 Legislation and Principles of Penal Law, urged the 
 duty of recognising and maintaining the rights of ani- 
 mals and asked, "Why should the law refuse its pro- 
 tection to any sensitive being? The time will come," 
 he added, " when humanity will extend its mantle over 
 everything which breathes. We have begun by attend- 
 ing to the condition of slaves; we shall finish by soften- 
 
 * For authentic accounts of such proceedings, see the author's 
 work on The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of 
 Animals, published by William Ileinemann in London and Henry- 
 Holt & Co. in New York. 
 
14 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ing that of all animals which assist our labours or sup- 
 ply our wants." 4 The ethical corollaries to Darwin's 
 doctrine of the origin of species and to his theory of 
 development through descent under the modifying in- 
 fluences of environment and natural selection have 
 already passed these bounds of beneficence not only by 
 demanding the mitigation of cruelty to slaves, but also 
 by the abolition of slavery, and not only by inculcating 
 the kind treatment of animals by individuals, but also 
 by asserting the principle of animals' rights and the 
 necessity of vindicating them by imposing judicial pun- 
 ishments for their violation. Penal laws having this 
 object in view, but at first confined to the protection 
 of neat cattle, were enacted in England as early as 
 1822; a little later they were made to include all do- 
 mestic animals, and have been now greatly enlarged 
 and adopted by nearly all civilized nations. 
 
 Only in countries like Spain, which are still gov- 
 erned by the antiquated metaphysical teachings and 
 narrow moral theories of a mediaeval hierarchy, has the 
 jus animalium as yet found no place in codes of ethics 
 or systems of jurisprudence. Even in Protestant lands, 
 notwithstanding the distinctively humanitarian tenden- 
 cies of the revival of learning and the reformation of 
 religion in the sixteenth century, the clergy as a body 
 has opposed every attempt to vindicate the rights of ani- 
 mals on scientific and zoopsychological grounds as con- 
 trary to the teaching of Scripture. The German theo- 
 logian Hettinger, in his Apology for Christianity, does 
 not hesitate to denounce all such efforts to restrict 
 the tyranny of man over the brute creation as the 
 "ogling of materialists with beasts, which they seek 
 to elevate merely for the purpose of degrading hu- 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 15 
 
 inanity." No accusation could be more absurd; a cor- 
 rect conception of the origin and evolution of man 
 and his kinship with the lower forms of life is essential 
 to the proper appreciation of his dignity and destiny, 
 and the full comprehension of his peculiar place in 
 Nature. In this process of development it is impos- 
 sible to separate psychical forces from physical factors, 
 and to determine how far the faculties of the soul are 
 dependent for their existence and exercise upon the 
 structure of the body, inasmuch as we have no knowl- 
 edge of the former except in organic association with 
 the latter. According to the Neoherbartian philoso- 
 pher Hermann Lotze, "all souls, considered as purely 
 spiritual entities, are perfectly congenious or like- 
 natured in perception, emotion, and will; but if the 
 soul is incarnated in the body of an ape, it becomes an 
 ape-soul, while in the body of a man it becomes a man- 
 soul and mounts up to humanity. Souls are not dif- 
 ferent in themselves, but only in the degree of their 
 development, and this depends upon the sum of the 
 combined and varied excitations, which are conveyed 
 to them. The more completely endowed and mani- 
 foldly equipped is the physical organism, the more 
 perfect will be the soul, and this different grade of 
 perfection constitutes the specific difference of the 
 soul." This statement would seem to imply the creation 
 and arbitrary distribution of souls, the exhibition of 
 whose powers is dependent upon the physical condi- 
 tions in which they chance to be placed. It would be 
 more correct to assume that the soul gradually creates 
 these conditions and produces a vehicle more highly 
 organized, and therefore better suited to give line and 
 scope to its full and free activity by diminishing the 
 
16 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 number and force of the predispositions and prede- 
 terminations, to which, the nervous system of the lower 
 animals is subjected. The immense intellectual dis- 
 parity between a man of genius and a catarrhine ape 
 is due to the accumulation of anatomical variations, 
 so slight in their beginnings as to be hardly percep- 
 tible. This is especially true of the brain as the cen- 
 tral organ of the nervous system, the increase of the 
 surface of which through the multiplication of the folds 
 and the deepening of the furrows marks the growth of in- 
 telligence and measures the increase of mental capacity. 
 Other physical changes contribute to the same result: 
 the assumption of an erect posture through the 
 straightening of the legs and the formation of the firm, 
 but elastic arch of the foot, thereby giving greater 
 freedom of movement to the head and also to the hands 
 as organs devoted exclusively to tact and prehension; 
 the wider range and finer discrimination of the senses 
 of sight, hearing, taste, and smell; and the superior 
 flexibility of the glottis essential to articulate speech, 
 all of which enable man to attain a more complete 
 and exact knowledge — first, of his own body and sec- 
 ondly of the outer world — than it is possible for any 
 lower animal to acquire. 
 
 But it would be wholly foreign to the purpose of 
 this introduction to discuss the origin and nature of 
 spiritual endowments, and the extent of their causal 
 connection or correlation with physical characteristics; 
 it suffices to show that the development of the former 
 proceeds pari pasu with the development of the latter. 
 In the primitive or pithecoid stage of humanity pre- 
 hension was undoubtedly a more valuable and indis- 
 pensable aid to comprehension than it is to-day; and 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 17 
 
 the synonymy of a thin skin with a sensitive soul is the 
 metaphorical survival of the actual workings of cause 
 and effect in the earliest history of the race. But 
 whatever may be the nature and extent of the inter- 
 dependence between these physical and psychical ele- 
 ments, the development is everywhere a continuous 
 one, with no break in the series of countless concatena- 
 tions and marvellous adaptations of means to ends, 
 by which the grand result is attained. The turning 
 point in this endless and uninterrupted process of evo- 
 lution, the point at which the beast ceases and the 
 man begins, is where the soul is no longer the me- 
 nial, but asserts its supremacy as the master of the 
 body. 
 
 Eesearches in comparative psychology, taken in its 
 widest sense as comprizing mental processes in the lower 
 animals as well as in the lowest races of mankind, prove 
 conclusively that even the simplest organisms are en- 
 dowed with a certain degree of consciousness and so- 
 called "general intelligence," as is evident from the 
 analogy of their actions with those of human beings. 
 Darwin affirms that "even the headless oyster seems 
 to profit by experience," and Eomanes maintains that 
 the movements of an animalcule like the amoeba in- 
 dicate an intentional adaptation of means to ends; but 
 the exercise of this power implies rationality as distin- 
 guished from that unconscious and involuntary im- 
 pulse to action known as instinct. That the trans- 
 formation of actions implying free intelligence into 
 instinctive actions resulting in hereditary tendencies is 
 constantly going on, and plays an important part even 
 in the earliest stages of psychical evolution, there can 
 be no question. In this respect the growth of instincts 
 
18 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 in the lower animals is analogous to the formation of 
 habits in man. 
 
 This subject, however, has been so fully treated 
 in the second part of the present volume that it is 
 hardly necessary to make further reference to it here, 
 except to point out its moral bearings. The measure 
 of our duty towards lower organisms is determined by 
 the degree of their mental development, or, as the 
 German philosopher Krause has expressed it, "every 
 creature endowed with a soul is also endowed with 
 rights." The only firm foundation of animal ethics 
 is animal psychology. It is through the portal of 
 spiritual kinship, erected by modern evolutional sci- 
 ence, that beasts and birds, "our elder brothers," as 
 Herder calls them, enter into the temple of justice 
 and enjoy the privilege of sanctuary against the wanton 
 or unwitting cruelty hitherto authorized by the as- 
 sumptions and usurpations of man. 
 
 It may be stated, in conclusion, that the contents of 
 the present volume consist chiefly of articles which were 
 originally printed in The Popular Science Monthly, The 
 Atlantic Monthly, and The Unitarian Eeview, and 
 which, after having been thoroughly revised and consid- 
 erably expanded, are now offered to the public in a 
 more convenient and more permanent form. A bibli- 
 ography is appended, embracing the principal sources of 
 information, and including also a number of works op- 
 posed to the author's views. The reader is thus aided 
 in extending his studies, and by acquainting himself with 
 the results of the latest researches enabled to form an 
 independent judgment. 
 
I. 
 EVOLUTIONAL ETELC8. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE ETHICS OF TEIBAL SOCIETY. 
 
 Limitations of the world of the primitive man. Relativity of geo- 
 graphical ideas. Survival of these conceptions in language. 
 Ethnocentric ethics. The brotherhood of blood. Lactantius's 
 theory of duty compared with the cosmopolitanism of Menan- 
 der, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius. General outlawry of aliens 
 mitigated by the sacredness of hospitality. Spartan distrust 
 and hatred of strangers. Tokens and tallies of friendship 
 among Greeks and Romans. Supposititious kinship of tribal 
 chiefs as a second stage in the growing conception of human 
 brotherhood. Outcroppings of tribal ethics in the lower strata 
 of civilized society. Clannish perversion of justice in Swit- 
 zerland. Traces of this spirit in ancient French and German 
 legislation. Old English alien laws a relic of savagery. Grad- 
 ual recognition of the rights of foreigners in modern states. 
 Insularism in British treaties of extradition. The tribe older 
 than the family as shown by the social organization of anthro- 
 poid apes. Transition from nomadic to sedentary life. In- 
 fluence of woman in effecting this change. Dwarfs and crip- 
 ples as inventors. Why artificers in mythology are lame. 
 Remarks of Mr. Maine on the supersession of tribal by terri- 
 torial sovereignty. The Indo-Aryan as a " nigger." Weak- 
 ness of race feeling in the United States. Strongest mani- 
 festations of it in the least cultivated portions of the country, 
 toward the negroes in the South and Chinese in the West. 
 The right of voluntary expatriation. Appeals to ethnic an- 
 19 
 
20 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tipathies for political purposes : Latin Union, Panslavism, 
 Fanteutonism, and Anti-Semitism. Marriage of kin among 
 the ancient Persians and Hebrews. Long survival of it as the 
 sacred privilege of priests and kings. 
 
 The world of the primitive man was bounded by 
 the circle of his vision. He regarded the horizon as 
 a fixed line which separated the earth from the sky, 
 and which it would be possible for him to reach by 
 going far enough. He did not deem it less real because 
 it unfortunately always eluded his search, like the 
 fabulous pot of gold which, according to popular su- 
 perstition, lies buried at the point where the rainbow 
 rests on the ground. In like manner the barbarian of 
 to-day has no conception of the fact that the line of 
 junction of earth and sky has no real existence, but 
 is " all in his eye." 
 
 Indeed, it is but recently that man has learned to 
 appreciate aright the wholly subjective character and 
 significance of the terms north, south, east, and west 
 as applied to places on the globe, and to recognise the 
 relativity of all his geographical ideas, inasmuch as 
 these are dependent for their accuracy and exactness 
 upon the position of the speaker. It is one of the rare 
 achievements of high culture, and has always been 
 the prerogative of exceptionally thoughtful minds, to 
 be able to distinguish between the apparent and the 
 actual, to keep mental conceptions free from the in- 
 fluences of optical illusions, and not to be deceived 
 by the surprises and sophistries of the senses. 
 
 An old English legend entitled The Lyfe of Adam, 
 which has been preserved in a manuscript of the four- 
 teenth century, relates how " Adam was made of oure 
 lord god in the place that Jhesus was borne in, that 
 
THE ETHICS OF TEIBAL SOCIETY. 21 
 
 is to seye in the cite of Bethleem, which is the myddel 
 of the erthe." It then goes on to state that the first 
 man was made out of dust taken from the four corners 
 of the earth, which meet in Bethlehem, and that he was 
 called by a name composed of the four principal planets: 
 thus he was formed as a microcosm, the miniature 
 counterpart and organic epitome of the universe, the 
 synopsis and symbol of all created things. 
 
 There is a tendency in every savage tribe and iso- 
 lated people to regard the portion of the earth which 
 it happens to inhabit, and especially the spot which is 
 the cradle of the race or around which its sacred 
 traditions cluster, as not only the political and religious 
 but also as the physical center of the world. Such 
 were Jerusalem to the Jews and imperial and papal 
 Rome, urbs et orbis, to the ancient Romans and medi- 
 aeval Romanists; such has Benares been from time 
 immemorial to multitudes of Hindus, and such is 
 Mecca to-day to millions of Moslems. Before the dis- 
 coveries of the Western hemisphere, made by Colum- 
 bus and his compeers, not even the most enlightened 
 peoples had any proper sense of their relations to the 
 rest of mankind, either morally or geographically. 
 International ethics and comities began with the growth 
 of clearer and more correct ethnical notions, and have 
 always kept pace with it. The knowledge of the ro- 
 tundity of the earth gave a strong and permanent im- 
 pulse in this direction, and has contributed not a little 
 to the recognition of the equal rights of all races of 
 mankind. 
 
 The language of every civilized nation contains 
 curious survivals of the primitive conceptions which 
 sprung out of what might be called the self-conceited 
 
22 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 and self-centered spirit of the savage. It is interest- 
 ing to note how a single people, emerging from barba- 
 rism and taking the lead in civilization at an early 
 period, imposes its forms of speech, and especially its 
 geographical terms, upon after ages and upon remote 
 races of men for whom they have really no meaning. 
 We still speak of certain countries as the Levant and 
 the Orient, the AvaroKri of the Greeks, but these desig- 
 nations have no significance except for the dwellers 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean, with whom they 
 originated. So, too, Asia means etymologically - the 
 land of the rising sun and Europe the land of the set- 
 ting sun, and these names expressed the actual posi- 
 tion of the two continents in their relation to the 
 Greeks. But to an American, and especially to a Cali- 
 fornian, Europe is an Eastern and Asia a "Western con- 
 tinent, and these strictly ethnocentric appellations 
 would be wholly unsuitable and extremely confusing 
 were it not for the fact that their etymology has become 
 obscured and their primitive signification been forgot- 
 ten, or is at least lost sight of and ignored, so that they 
 are now mere arbitrary terms or distinguishing signs, 
 with no suggestion of the geographical direction or 
 situation of the regions to which they are applied, 
 just as we speak of Chester, Edinburgh, Oxford, Ber- 
 lin, or Munich without thinking of a Eoman camp, 
 King Edwin's castle, a ford for oxen, a frontier fortress, 
 or a community of monks; and christen a child George, 
 Albert, or Alexander without intending him to be a 
 tiller of the soil, or wishing to imply that he is of 
 noble birth, or will distinguish himself as a defender 
 of men. All such proper names denote particular 
 places or persons, but have wholly ceased to connote, 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 23 
 
 as the scholastic philosophers were wont to say, the 
 qualities or attributes which were at first associated 
 with them and brought them into use. 
 
 The Chinese call their country the middle realm 
 (Chung-hue) or the flower of the middle (Chang-hua), 
 thus characterizing it as the central and choicest por- 
 tion of the earth, in distinction from the savage wastes 
 inhabited by savage men outside of the Great Wall 
 (Warv-li-ch'ang-ch'ing). The Jews looked upon them- 
 selves as the chosen people, set apart as Yisrael, or 
 champions of the true God, and lumped all other tribes 
 of men together as go'im, gentiles, poor pagan folks, 
 who had no rights which a child of Abraham was 
 bound to respect. The Greeks divided all mankind 
 into two classes, Hellenes and barbarians; the latter 
 were also called ar/kayrroi — i. e., tongueless — because 
 they did not speak Greek. Aristophanes applied the 
 term fiapfiapoi even to birds, on account of the inar- 
 ticulateness and unintelligibleness of their chirpings 
 and chatterings. It is from Greek usage that we have 
 come to designate any corruption of our own language 
 by the introduction of foreign or unfit words as a 
 barbarism. The persistence of this primitive tribal con- 
 ceit is shown by the fact that a people in many respects 
 so cosmopolitan as the English can pronounce no severer 
 censure and condemnation of the manners, customs, 
 and opinions of other nations than to call them un- 
 English, and really fancy that an indelible stigma at- 
 taches itself to this epithet. Not long since several 
 British tourists in Italy actually protested against some 
 foolish, perhaps, but otherwise harmless features of the 
 Roman carnival, and demanded their suppression on the 
 ground that they were "thoroughly un-English," thus vir- 
 
24 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tually assuming that no amusements should be tolerated 
 on the Tiber which were not customary on the Thames. 
 It is due to the same feeling that the word " outland- 
 ish " has gradually grown obsolete in its original sense, 
 and is now used exclusively as an expression of con- 
 tempt. Slavonic (sbvene) is derived from slovo (speech), 
 and means people with articulate language; whereas 
 the Slavic nations call the Germans Nernici, which 
 signifies speechless, dumb, and therefore barbarian. 
 
 Geocentric astronomy and ethnocentric geography 
 have been relegated long ago to that " limbo large and 
 broad" which is the predestined receptacle of all ex- 
 ploded errors and illusions engendered by human vanity 
 and ignorance; but from the bondage of ethnocentric 
 ethics, manifesting itself in national prejudices and 
 prepossessions, and often posing as a paragon of virtue 
 in the guise of patriotism, even the most advanced 
 and enlightened peoples have not yet fully emancipated 
 themselves. The Hebrews thought they were doing 
 the will of their tribal god (the personification of the 
 tribal conscience) by borrowing jewels and fine raiment 
 from their too-obliging Egyptian acquaintances and then 
 running away with them. That this mean abuse of 
 neighbourly confidence and civility was not a mere 
 momentary freak of fraudulence or sudden succumb- 
 ing to temptation, but the outcome of settled prin- 
 ciples of morality and a general rule of policy, is evi- 
 dent from the approval with which it is recorded, as well 
 as from the laws subsequently enacted, which permitted 
 them to take usury of aliens and to sell murrain meat 
 to the strangers in their gates. 
 
 This is the kind of ethics which finds expression 
 in the legislation of all barbaric and semi-civilized races, 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 25 
 
 from the Eskimos to the Hottentots. The Balantis of 
 Africa punish with death a theft committed to the 
 detriment of a tribesman, but encourage and reward 
 thievery from other tribes. According to Caesar's state- 
 ment (De Bello Gallico, lib. vi, c. 23), the Germans did 
 not deem it infamous to steal outside of the precincts 
 of their own village, but rather advocated it as a means 
 of keeping the young men of the community in train- 
 ing and rendering them vigilant and adroit. But we 
 need not go to African kraals or American wigwams 
 or primeval Teutonic forests for illustrations of this 
 rule of conduct. Quite recently a Frenchman suc- 
 ceeded as commis-voyageur in swindling a number of 
 German tradesmen out of large sums of money, and was 
 applauded for his exploit by Parisian shopkeepers, who 
 readily condoned his similar but slighter offences 
 against themselves on account of the satisfaction they 
 derived from the more serious injury done to their 
 hereditary foes on the Rhine. This incident proves 
 how easy it is for the primitive feeling of clanship, 
 euphemistically styled patriotic sentiment, to put in 
 abeyance all the acquisitions of culture and set the 
 most elementary principles of honesty and morality 
 at defiance. International conscience is a product of 
 modem civilization, but it is still a plant of very feeble 
 growth — a sickly shrub, whose fruits are easily blasted, 
 and for the most part drop and decay before they 
 ripen. 
 
 Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in his Lectures on the 
 Early History of Institutions, has shown with admi- 
 rable force and suggestiveness that rude and savage 
 tribes uniformly regard consanguinity as the only basis 
 of friendship and moral obligation and the sole cement 
 
26 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of society. The original human horde was held together 
 by the same tie of blood-relationship that produces 
 and preserves the consciousness of unity in the animal 
 herd or causes ants and bees to lead an orderly and 
 mutually helpful life in swarms. In all these com- 
 munities the outsider is looked upon as an outlaw; 
 whoever is not a kinsman is a foe, and may be assailed, 
 despoiled, enslaved, or slain with impunity. Indeed, 
 it is considered not only a right but also an imperative 
 duty to injure the alien by putting him to death or re- 
 ducing him to servitude. The instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion asserts itself in this form with gregarious mam- 
 mals and insects; and all primitive associations of men 
 are founded upon this principle and cohere by force 
 of this attraction. 
 
 A superstitious regard for blood pervades all early 
 ideas and institutions of mankind. The ancient He- 
 brews were forbidden to eat the blood of a slaughtered 
 animal, because the blood is the life; and the ortho- 
 dox Israelite still clings to this notion and will not 
 partake of butcher's meat that is not gosh or cere- 
 monially clean — i. e., from which the blood has not 
 been carefully drained off, although he knows that this 
 process of ritual purification deprives the flesh of much 
 of its succulence and nutritive value as food. 
 
 It is a widely diffused belief among aboriginal and 
 lower races that the blood is the seat of the soul; hence 
 blood-relationship is synonymous with soul-relationship. 
 The child was also recognised as a blood-relation of the 
 mother, but not of the father. Out of this concep- 
 tion of consanguinity arose the custom of descent in 
 the female line, whereby the children of a man's sister 
 became his heirs to the exclusion of his own offspring. 
 
THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 27 
 
 Curiously enough, this notion is confirmed, to some 
 extent, by modern science, which would ascribe to the 
 female the function of conserving and transmitting 
 the permanent qualities and typical characteristics of 
 the race, whereas the influence of the male in propaga- 
 tion is variable, innovating, and revolutionary, and 
 tends to produce deviations from the hereditary norm. 
 
 Cannibalism, too, as a tribal rite, originated in the 
 belief that the soul resides in the blood, and that by 
 drinking the blood of the bravest foeman their courage, 
 cunning, and other distinctive and desirable traits may 
 be acquired and thus serve to increase the fighting force 
 and efficiency of the tribe. 
 
 Brotherhood was also created artificially or cere- 
 monially by mingling a few drops of the blood of two 
 persons in a cup of wine and drinking it. Each re- 
 ceived into his veins a portion of the other's blood, 
 and thus they became blood-related and were bound 
 by the same mutual obligations as they would have 
 been if the same mother had given them birth. The 
 heroes of old German sagas are represented as drink- 
 ing brotherhood in this manner; it is thus that Gun- 
 ther and Siegfried swear inviolable friendship and 
 fidelity in Wagner's Gotterdammerung; and German 
 students, in the festive enthusiasm of a Commers, are 
 fond of imitating their mythical forefathers in the 
 solemn celebration of this mystic rite. 
 
 It is interesting to note the rhetorical and meta- 
 phorical survivals of this once strong conviction. In 
 referring to political parties in France the Journal 
 des D6bats recently remarked: "It is not true that 
 our nation consists of two nations — the heirs of the 
 Emigration and those of the Eevolution. This dis- 
 3 
 
28 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tinction no longer exists. The last vestiges of it have 
 been obliterated on the battlefields, where all French- 
 men have mingled their^blood. France is henceforth 
 one and indivisible." 
 
 The noble sentiment expressed by the Greek comic 
 poet Menander and handed down to us in the lan- 
 guage of Terence, his Eoman imitator, "I am a 
 man, and regard nothing human as alien to me," 
 was doubtless shared by many individual thinkers of 
 antiquity, especially among the Greek Stoics and their 
 Eoman disciples. Cicero, who may be taken as one 
 of the most eminent representatives of this ethical 
 school, lays great stress upon "love of mankind" 
 (caritas generis humani), in distinction from the love 
 of kindred or countrymen. " A man," he says, " should 
 seek to promote the welfare of every other man, who- 
 ever he may be, for the simple reason that he is a 
 man " ; and declares that this principle is the bond 
 of universal society and the foundation of all law. He 
 returns to this topic again and again, and never tires 
 of enforcing this doctrine as fundamental in his treatises 
 on duties (De Officiis), on the highest good and evil 
 (De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum), and on laws (De 
 Legibus). That he regarded this broad, cosmopolitan 
 view as a new departure in ethics is evident from his 
 remark that " he whom we now call a foreigner (peregri- 
 num) was called an enemy (hostis) by our ancestors." 
 
 The distinguished Christian apologist Lucius Lac- 
 tantius bases the duty of human kindness upon the 
 hypothesis of human kinship, thus reviving and am- 
 plifying the old tribal notion which limits moral obli- 
 gation to those who can claim a common progenitor. 
 " For, if we all derive our origin from one man, whom 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 29 
 
 God created, we are plainly of one blood; and there- 
 fore it must be deemed the greatest wickedness to hate 
 a man, even though he be guilty." He adds that " we 
 are to put aside enmities and to soothe and allay the 
 anger of those who are inimical to us by reminding 
 them of their relationship. . . . On account of this 
 bond of brotherhood God teaches us never to do evil, 
 but always to do good." He also quotes a passage from 
 the Epicurean Lucretius to the effect that "we are 
 all sprung from a heavenly seed and have all of us 
 the same father " ; and draws from this statement the 
 conclusion that "they who injure men are to be ac- 
 counted as savage beasts." 
 
 Lactantius has been surnamed the Christian Cicero, 
 but the fundamental principle of his ethics, as formu- 
 lated in his Divine Institutions, is in its motive char- 
 acter and moral elevation far below the height attained 
 four centuries earlier by his pagan prototype. The re- 
 sults of their teachings, practically applied, were equally 
 cosmopolitan; inasmuch as Lactantius based his theory 
 of duty on the Hebrew legend of the origin and descent 
 of man, and thus enlarged his essentially tribal system 
 of ethics so as to embrace the whole human race. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius defines his own ethical and hu- 
 manitarian standpoint with his wonted epigrammatic 
 terseness: "As an Antonine, my country is Rome; as 
 a man, it is the world." Unfortunately, the liberal 
 spirit of the philosopher, even when he happens to sit 
 upon a throne, seldom exerts any direct and decisive 
 influence in liberalizing the minds of the masses of 
 mankind. Homer praises the kind and sympathetic 
 heart of him who treats the stranger as a brother. But 
 this fine sentiment does not change but rather con- 
 
30 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 firms the fact that, as a rule, strangers were not thus 
 treated in the Homeric age. As a general statement 
 it remains true that in ancient times aliens had no legal 
 rights whatsoever, and that international relations, so 
 far as they existed at all, were relations of hostility. 
 
 But this outlawry de jure was mitigated de facto by 
 investing the rite of hospitality with a certain sacred- 
 ness. Such is still the case with all savage and semi- 
 civilized tribes, as, for example, with the Bedouins, 
 who hold the person of a guest inviolable, even though 
 he may be their deadliest foe. This custom originated 
 in the defenceless and helpless condition of the stranger, 
 whose alienage placed him beyond the pale of law 
 and the sphere of sympathy; it furnished a sort of com- 
 pensation for the lack of all natural or conventional 
 claims to protection, and thus supplied a temporary 
 modus vivendi, without which intertribal intercourse 
 would have been absolutely impossible. 
 
 We have an indication and illustration of this pe- 
 culiarity of primitive society in the story of Cain, who, 
 as a fratricide, was not only guilty of murder (a matter 
 of comparatively small moment in the eyes of the 
 aboriginal man), but also of treason against the tribe 
 by violating the law of brotherhood fundamental to 
 its constitution and essential to its existence; and when, 
 by reason of this crime, he was driven out of the 
 sheltering circle and sanctuary of his own kith and 
 kin and became a fugitive and vagabond in the earth, 
 his first feeling was the fear lest he should be slain 
 by any stranger who might chance to meet him. The 
 Lord is also represented as recognising the possibility 
 of such a catastrophe, and as setting a mark upon him 
 in order to avert it. 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 31 
 
 The stipulation contained in the Hebrew code, as 
 well as in the code of other Eastern nations, which 
 made it the duty of a man to wed his brothers widow, 
 provided the first union was childless, and to raise up 
 seed to the deceased, was only a modification of poly- 
 andry and differed from the conjugal relations still 
 in vogue among the Thibetans in the fact that the 
 possession of the same wife was successive instead of 
 simultaneous. Both of these matrimonial customs are 
 survivals of the earliest form of marriage, which was 
 not individual, but tribal. We have a relic of this 
 primitive kind of wedlock among the Californian In- 
 dians, who practised promiscuous sexual intercourse, 
 so far as the members of the same tribe were con- 
 cerned; the woman was regarded as faithless or adulter- 
 ous only when she cohabited with a man belonging 
 to another tribe. 
 
 The Greeks, with all their superior culture, never 
 became as a people sufficiently enlightened to lay aside 
 their deep distrust and depreciation of foreigners. 
 Sparta was notoriously hostile to strangers (e^joo^evos, 
 or guest-hating), and how impossible it was for even 
 a cultivated Athenian to look at the world at' large 
 from any but a strictly Hellenic point of view is curi- 
 ously and comically illustrated in the drama in which 
 iEschylus glorifies the battle of Salamis, where the 
 Persians are made to speak of themselves as barbarians 
 balked of their purpose, and to describe their lamenta- 
 tions over their defeat as dismal barbaric wailings. 
 
 It is a somewhat surprising and quite significant 
 concession to Greek arrogance that Plautus should use 
 the phrase vortere iarhare in the sense of turning or 
 translating into Latin. It is possible, however, that 
 
32 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 he may have borrowed this phrase from Philemon and 
 other Greek playwrights, whose comedies he imitated 
 with more or less freedom, but always with a touch 
 of native genius. Still, we know that the Eomans 
 were uniformly called barbarians, and seem to have 
 recognised the correctness of this appellation down to 
 the age of Augustus, when the term began to be ap- 
 plied chiefly, if not exclusively, to the Germans. As 
 our earliest information concerning the Germanic peo- 
 ples was derived from Greek and Eoman sources, we 
 have been misled by the use of this depreciatory desig- 
 nation to think of them as wild and lawless hordes, 
 and to form a wholly false conception of the grade 
 and quality of their civilization. 
 
 When individuals of different race or nationality 
 formed friendships they were wont to confirm the pact 
 by an exchange of tokens, which remained as heirlooms 
 in their respective families, and were prized by their 
 descendants as pledges of mutually kind and hospitable 
 treatment. The duty of helpfulness was, in such cases, 
 quite as imperative as is the vow of vendetta, which 
 passes as a precious inheritance of hatred from Corsican 
 father to son. These tokens were called by the Greeks 
 avfij3o\a, and by the Eomans tesserce hospitales, and, 
 although they were eventually superseded by better 
 and more comprehensive methods and ended by play- 
 ing only the frivolous part of a sentimental pastime in 
 social life, like the modern philopena, they had original- 
 ly a more serious purpose and were of no small im- 
 portance as means of promoting intertribal intercourse 
 and thus encouraging trade and leading to the estab- 
 lishment of commercial treaties. 
 
 Another step toward the realization of the con- 
 
THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 33 
 
 ception of human brotherhood was the custom estab- 
 lished at a very early period whereby chiefs of tribes 
 came to address each other as kinsmen and members 
 of one family. This assumption of consanguinity, 
 which originated in the desire of dynasties to strengthen 
 their position and to perpetuate their power, naturally 
 led to increase of friendly intercourse and to frequent 
 intermarriages, so that they finally became in fact what 
 they at first claimed to be by a polite and politic fiction. 
 Traces of this usage are found in the oldest records 
 of royalty. Among the treasures of the Berlin and 
 British Museums are preserved two hundred and forty- 
 one tablets of cuneiform inscriptions containing letters 
 written to Amenophis III and Amenophis IV of Egypt 
 by Burnaburiash, Bang of Babylonia, and Dushratta, 
 King of Mesopotamia, which show that, at. least six- 
 teen centuries before the Christian era, " dear brother " 
 was the ceremonial title of salutation which monarchs 
 were wont to use in their epistolary correspondence. 
 This feigning of a common lineage still survives among 
 crowned heads, and the vilest plebian adventurer who, 
 by force or fraud, gets himself proclaimed king or 
 emperor is admitted to the select circle of sovereigns 
 and greeted as " dear cousin." 
 
 Principles, once grown obsolete, are denounced as 
 prejudices; religious beliefs, which have been sup- 
 planted by superior creeds, are scoffed at as supersti- 
 tions; and dethroned deities haunt the imagination 
 of their former worshipper as demons. In like man- 
 ner, the lower classes of civilized communities cor- 
 respond, in a measure, to the lower races, and reflect 
 atavistically the ideas and passions of primitive man; 
 and in periods of great social and political upheaval 
 
34 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 we are often rudely brought face to face with tumultu- 
 ous masses of these strata of palaeozoic humanity vio- 
 lently and unpleasantly thrown to the surface. It 
 crops out in the English boor, who at the sight of a 
 stranger is ever ready to "'eave 'arf a brick at 'ha," 
 and would deem the neglect of this duty a treasonable 
 lack of local patriotism and loyalty to time-honored 
 tradition; in the Cretan herdsman, who instinctively 
 seizes his cudgel whenever a traveller in trousers passes 
 by; and in the Egyptian fellah, who teaches his chil- 
 dren, to spit at every man with a hat on and cry out: 
 "Yd nasraniy! Yd khinzir! you Nazarene! 
 you pig! " 
 
 The publican, in some parts of southern Italy, is 
 still disposed to reckon with the foreigner as a foe, a 
 forlorn vagabond, whom it is his native-born privilege 
 to spoil. The blood of his ancestor, the brigand, courses 
 in his veins, and his first impulse is to plunder the 
 wayfarer. Prudence and the police may curb this pro- 
 genital, predatorial proclivity; but the self-restraint al- 
 ways costs an effort, and, as a compromise with his 
 instinctive feelings, instead of relieving the guest of 
 his purse by force, he robs him of an undue portion 
 of its contents by adding two or three hundred per 
 cent to the usual price of fare and lodgment. 
 
 In many cantons of Switzerland, and especially 
 in the Bernese highlands, we have the spectacle of a 
 whole people apparently born and bred to consider 
 mountain passes, romantic valleys, glaciers, and water- 
 falls as so many traps for curious and unwary tourists, 
 and to prize sublime scenery merely as a ready-made 
 snare to catch coots, dupes, gulls, boobies, and other 
 varieties of too confiding summer birds of passage, 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 35 
 
 which the categorizing mind of the German has re- 
 duced to two essentially distinct but closely connected 
 classes, Bergfexen and Sommerfrischler. 
 
 This clannish spirit even invades and desecrates the 
 courts of justice, and the Helvetian Themis is espe- 
 cially notorious for her propensity to blink the legal 
 rights of the case and to tip the balance in favour of 
 her cantonal or federal compatriots as opposed to the 
 stranger within her gates. 
 
 In France the droit d'aubaine or jus albinagii con- 
 fiscated to the crown the property of all aliens who 
 died within the limits of the realm, to the exclusion 
 of the natural heirs, unless these happened to be the 
 king's subjects. This barbarous law was abolished by 
 a decree of the National Assembly on the 6th of August, 
 1790, but was re-enacted twelve years later and incor- 
 porated in the Code Napoleon, modified, however, by 
 a clause making the testamentary capacity of aliens 
 dependent upon reciprocity; in other words, it was 
 stipulated that the will of a foreigner should be de- 
 clared valid in France, provided the laws of the said 
 foreigner's country placed on the same footing the 
 will of a Frenchman deceased within its jurisdiction. 
 On the 14th of July, 1819, the droit d'aubaine was 
 finally abrogated throughout the entire kingdom, after 
 having been already considerably mitigated and par- 
 tially annulled by the municipal authorities of Lyons 
 and other industrial and commercial cities, which found 
 this relic of mediaeval legislation a serious obstruction 
 to foreign trade. 
 
 Akin to this system of right was the German 
 WildfangsrecM or jus wildfangiatus, also known as jus 
 Tcolhekerlii, which, as the term implies, accorded to 
 
36 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 human beings the privilege which game laws guarantee 
 to the quarry, namely, that of being legally hunted. 
 Kolhenrecht is equivalent to club law. An old and often 
 quoted proverb, Kolbengericht und FaustrecM ward nie 
 schlecht-^the law of the strong was never yet wrong — is 
 the cynical expression of protesting submission to the 
 inevitable, recognised as outrageous. It is the same 
 bitter sarcasm that mocks at unjust and irresistible 
 power in the popular saying, " Might makes right " ; 
 it is despair taking refuge and finding relief in ironical 
 humour, which turns the first principles of ethics topsy- 
 turvy. 
 
 Wildfangsrecht was originally applied to fugitive 
 serfs and to strangers, but was soon extended to bastards 
 and bachelors, gleemen and professional champions in 
 ordeals by battle, all of whom lived more or less in a 
 state of outlawry as to their persons and property, and 
 could, under certain circumstances, be reduced to the 
 condition of chattels. Foreigners who could prove 
 the place of their nativity were subjected to a poll 
 tax (chevage) for the protection vouchsafed to them 
 by the reeve or Vogt, and were therefore called Vogt- 
 leute. In the Canton de Vaud and elsewhere in Switzer- 
 land this pollage is still levied as permis d'etdblissement, 
 a lingering vestige of mediaeval extortion which the 
 most enlightened European governments have now 
 abolished. Persons of unknown origin were treated 
 as waifs (epaves), the mere flotson and waveson on the 
 drifting tide of humanity, and were liable to be seized 
 and envassaled by any petty lord on whose territory 
 they chanced to strand. Perhaps a diligent study of 
 these old laws might suggest to American legislators 
 some drastic means of purging the country of tramps. 
 
THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 37 
 
 In " the good old time " in England any alien could 
 be arrested and punished for the crimes and misde- 
 meanors of other aliens, although having no complicity 
 with them. They 1 were all lumped together as a class, 
 any individual of which was liable to be apprehended 
 and held accountable for. the debts incurred or for the 
 offences committed by any other individual of the class. 
 
 The idea of justice implied by such a proceeding 
 corresponds to that entertained by the aboriginal Aus- 
 tralian or American, who, when his wife dies, feels 
 himself in duty bound to kill the wife of some member 
 of another tribe, and avenges an injury inflicted upon 
 him by a white man by slaying the first white man 
 he happens to meet. The loss or offence, whatever it 
 may be, is tribal, and is satisfied with tribal expiation 
 or retaliation. 
 
 A case of this kind occurred quite recently in Da- 
 kota. A Sioux Indian, on the death of his squaw, went 
 forth from his lodge with his gun and shot a missionary 
 who was passing by. The red man had no grudge 
 against the white man as an individual; on the con- 
 trary, he was personally fond of his victim, from whom 
 he had received many acts of kindness; but the vow 
 of vengeance was as sacred as that made by Jephthah 
 the Gileadite, and had to be as religiously kept. 
 
 The old English custom, just referred to as a sur- 
 vival of the earliest and crudest conception of tribal 
 ethics, prevailed at least as late as the reign of Edward 
 III — i. e., till about the middle of the fourteenth century; 
 and long after this period it was exceedingly difficult 
 to enact and almost impossible to enforce laws for the 
 protection of foreigners, so deeply rooted and intense 
 was the prejudice against them. Even far down into 
 
38 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 the eighteenth century they continued to he regarded 
 with extreme suspicion, and were often subjected to 
 gross indignities, independently pf any personal quali- 
 ties or any peculiar conduct on their part. The mere 
 fact of their alienage'' sufficed to kindle against them 
 the anger of the populace and turn the masses into an 
 unruly mob. Quite recently a Frenchman and his wife, 
 who were attending a theatre in London near the Strand, 
 went to an eating house close by t-Q take some refresh- 
 ment during a pause in the play. Very soon they were 
 attacked by several persons of the lower class and se- 
 verely beaten until they were finally rescued by the 
 police. The sole provocation to this sudden assault was 
 that they spoke a foreign tongue. This is still the men- 
 tal attitude of the cockney, and cockneyism is only a 
 local form of philistinism by no means confined to the 
 precincts of Bow Bells. 
 
 The laws of Venice, as expounded by Portia in the 
 case of Shylock vs. Antonio, discriminated against aliens 
 as opposed to citizens in a manner extremely fatal to 
 the plaintiff and exceedingly characteristic of medi- 
 a3val legislation. 
 
 Under the influence of the political panic caused by 
 the excesses of the French Revolution, Lord Grenville 
 succeeded, in 1793, in persuading the British Parlia- 
 ment to pass an alien bill, in which the spirit of feudal- 
 ism reasserted itself; and since the abolition of this 
 retrogressive law, which was effected chiefly through 
 the enlightened energy of George Canning, the leaders 
 of the Tory party have repeatedly endeavoured to re- 
 enact it. In every age and every country landed 
 aristocracies have always shown a marked tendency to 
 narrowness, provincialism, and distrust in their inter- 
 
TEE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 39 
 
 national relations. Indeed, from time immemorial, 
 agricultural communities have teen excessively con- 
 servative in this respect and hostile to progress; whereas 
 commercial states and cities, whose prosperity is in 
 proportion to their cosmopolitanism and dependent 
 upon it, are naturally philallogeneal (to coin a word 
 from the Greek' of the Alexandrian patriarch Cyril, 
 who unfortunately seldom exemplified in his conduct 
 the virtue expressed by the epithet), or friendly to for- 
 eigners and easily accessible to influences from with- 
 out. 
 
 Even in America, where all portions of the popula- 
 tion are more mobile and undergo more rapid and radi- 
 cal changes than in other lands, the farmers are noto- 
 riously tenacious of old ideas and suspicious of reforma- 
 tory movements of all kinds, following their traditions 
 and clinging to their prejudices long after artisans 
 and other handworkers of the manufacturing centers 
 and large cities have cast aside these notions as obsolete 
 and injurious. 
 
 All European governments appear to be periodically 
 or epidemically affected with spasms of antipathy to 
 aliens. France suffered from a particularly severe at- 
 tack of this sort just before the Napoleonic coup d'etat, 
 and now betrays serious symptoms of a relapse, which 
 it is to be hoped do not portend an imperial restoration. 
 As a rule, such manifestations may be regarded as evi- 
 dences of internal derangement, which is pretty sure 
 to break out sooner or later in some violent disorder. 
 Knownothingism in the United States was the symp- 
 tom of such a crisis, although its indications were at 
 that time only partially understood. 
 
 It is but recently, in fact, that civilized nations 
 
40 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 have rid themselves of the most obnoxious relics of 
 ethnocentric prejudice in their legislation — such, ,f or ex- 
 ample, as the gdbella hereditaria, which discriminated 
 against foreigners in matters of inheritance; and the 
 detractus personalis, which virtually' punished emigra- 
 tion by the imposition of a heavy fine. These vestiges 
 of vassalage were removed from the statute-books of 
 the German states in relation to each other by the acts 
 of federation of 1815, and have been successively abol- 
 ished between Germany and other countries by inde- 
 pendent treaties. 
 
 The English law of extradition with other Euro- 
 pean powers still refuses to deliver up or to prosecute 
 an Englishman who has committed a felony in a foreign 
 land, unless the crime has been committed against one 
 of his own countrymen. Some years ago a case of this 
 Mnd occurred in Zurich, and still more recently in 
 Munich. In the latter instance, one of the burglars, 
 although residing in London, proved to be an American 
 by birth, and was therefore handed over to the Bavarian 
 police, and finally sentenced to ten years' imprison- 
 ment, while his English confederate in crime was set 
 at liberty. Here we have, as the result of insularism, 
 a survival of ethnocentric ethics in its crassest and most 
 offensive form, such as one would expect to find only 
 among a people still in the tribal stage of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 In the volume already cited, Sir Henry Sumner 
 Maine not only shows kinship to have been the original 
 basis of society, but also indicates the process by which 
 mankind may have gradually grown out of this primi- 
 tive condition. The head of the family soon became 
 through natural increase the head of a clan or tribe. 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 41 
 
 The patriarch possessed the authority and exercised 
 the functions of a chieftain over his lineal and collateral 
 descendants, who were known as his men and were 
 called by his name. He was honoured and obeyed 
 as their first man> Fiirst, or prince, their stem-sire or 
 king, an appellation which has nothing to do with per- 
 sonal "canning" or cunning, as Carlyle, in his exces- 
 sive admiration of human force and faculty, would 
 fain make us believe, but refers solely to race Qtuni). 
 The ruler was an ethnarch in the strictest sense of the 
 term, and held his position by virtue of his primo- 
 genitureship or procreative seniority. 
 
 The correctness of this theory, so far as the genetic 
 connection of the tribe with the family is concerned, 
 may be questioned. Instead of the former being an 
 aggregation or expansion of the latter, it is highly 
 probable that the primitive tribe is older than the family 
 and the product of promiscuous sexual relations, and 
 that families originated in a subsequent process of 
 domestic differentiation. Polyandry and the custom of 
 tracing descent exclusively in the female line would 
 seem to point in this direction. The institution of the 
 family, even in its polygamous form, presupposes a 
 certain ethical element, which can hardly be predicated 
 of primeval barbarism. 
 
 So, too, the most prominent feature in the social 
 organization of the anthropoid apes and in all simian 
 communities is the troop or tribe under the leadership 
 of the most powerful male. A band of orang-outangs is 
 doubtless an association of blood-relations, but there is 
 no recognition of patriarchal authority as such and 
 no evidence of distinct divisions into families. The 
 community is a gregarious group of individuals joined 
 
42 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 in affinity, but not yet separated into single pairs with 
 clearly recognised and jealously defended conjugal 
 rights; and sovereignty is simply the assertion of su- 
 perior force, although this constitution of the simian 
 tribe does not entirely exclude the existence and exer- 
 cise of moral qualities in the mutual relations of its 
 members. 
 
 It is, however, a matter of no moment for the fur- 
 ther evolution of society, whether, at the beginning, 
 the family expanded into the tribe or was gradually 
 differentiated out of it. The fact remains that the 
 tribe was held together by the cement of consanguinity, 
 and that the authority of the tribal head was derived 
 primarily from the respect and reverence due to him 
 as common progenitor, aided, of course, by his ability 
 to enforce his claims to rulership in case an ambitious 
 and rebellious Absalom should be disposed to question 
 them. So strong and persistent is this sentiment that, 
 even now, the number of a man's noble ancestors is 
 supposed to entitle bim, by the grace of God, to sover- 
 eignty, or to confer upon him some exceptional privi- 
 lege and power. 
 
 With the transition from a nomadic to a sedentary 
 social state, an important change takes place. No 
 sooner has a people acquired fixed habitations and 
 established permanent settlements than there arises 
 the idea of ownership in the soil, and the chief of the 
 tribe becomes the lord of the land. He is no longer 
 merely the head of an organized body of roving men, 
 but he also claims and exercises jurisdiction over a 
 more or less definitely circumscribed district or domain 
 and over all persons dwelling within its borders. Tribal 
 sovereignty or chieftainship is thus superseded by ter- 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 43 
 
 ritorial sovereignty or dominion, and with this trans- 
 formation the state, in the modern sense of the term, 
 really begins. 
 
 At this early stage, however, proprietorship in land 
 was not individual, but communal. It was the realiza- 
 tion, to some extent, of the socialistic ideal of collective 
 or governmental ownership of landed property, the 
 return to which a modern school of reformers would 
 fain persuade themselves and others to regard as a step 
 in advance. 
 
 It is also interesting to note that this most impor- 
 tant and epoch-making transition from pasturage to 
 tillage was due to the initiative and activity of women. 
 Everywhere in the growth of society women have been 
 the first agriculturists. "While the men were leading 
 the life of hunters or herdsmen, with frequent epi- 
 sodes of pillage and predatory warfare, women began 
 to cultivate the soil and to rear domestic fowls, to spin 
 and to weave, and to develop, in a rude way, various 
 kinds of industry. This is the condition in which 
 we still find all savage and semi-civilized tribes. He- 
 rodotus (vol. vi) says of the Thracians, " They regard 
 tillage as the most degrading and pillage as the most 
 honourable occupation." The savage looks upon all 
 forms of manual labour, and especially husbandry, 
 as ignoble, and therefore leaves such work to his squaw. 
 
 At first, her efforts in this direction were quite 
 ignored and often thwarted by the sudden removal of 
 the tribe to another place before she could reap the 
 fruits of her toil. The little patch of ground which 
 she had planted was deemed of small account, compared 
 with the pleasures and products of the chase, and was 
 frequently abandoned without hesitation before the 
 
44 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 meager harvest was ripe. For this reason barley was 
 the earliest grain cultivated, because it is the hardiest 
 of all grains and matures soonest. It was a long time 
 before the fields tilled by women became of sufficient 
 importance, as supplying means of subsistence, to keep 
 the tribe settled for a whole season in one spot, or even 
 to induce them to return thither in the autumn and 
 remain there until the crop was gathered. This semi- 
 nomadism was the first step toward a sedentary life 
 and the starting point of a higher civilization, and 
 woman was the chief agent in its accomplishment, al- 
 though unconscious of the immense change which her 
 humble efforts were effecting. 
 
 For a similar reason the weakest male members of 
 the tribe were the first artificers and mechanical in- 
 ventors. Men who were crippled or otherwise incapable 
 of waging war and following the chase, if they had not 
 been left to perish at their birth, remained at home 
 and made hunting implements and weapons of war for 
 their more vigourous and valorous tribesmen, and thus 
 acquired skill in handicraft, sharpened their wits, and 
 developed their inventive faculties. In mythology, the 
 gods of the smithy, Hephaestus, Vulcan, and Veland, 
 are represented as lame, and the experts in ores and 
 workers in metals are dwarfs, gnomes, and creatures 
 of stunted growth. These physical peculiarities are not 
 mere mythopceic whimseys and creations of the fancy, 
 but correspond to real facts in the primitive history 
 of the race, and point to the class of persons who were 
 the earliest promoters of the arts. 
 
 The supersession of tribal by territorial sovereignty, 
 although radical and permanent, was gradual and 
 scarcely perceptible in its character, and did not begin 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 45 
 
 to express itself in language till many centuries after 
 the change had been fully accomplished. Mediaeval 
 and modern history furnish numerous illustrations of 
 this process of social evolution and the manner of 
 its operation. As Mr. Maine has remarked, there had 
 been kings of England and of France long before John 
 the Landless and Henry IV assumed respectively these 
 official titles; although their predecessors had always 
 been styled kings of the English and of the French. 
 The Czar, who, while bearing sway as a territorial 
 sovereign, preserves more than any other European 
 ruler the peculiarities of a tribal chieftain, still calls 
 himself Samodershez, or Autocrat of all the Bussians, 
 and it was perfectly in keeping with the character and 
 career of Napoleon I, as a condottiere on a colossal 
 scale, that he took the title of "Emperor of the 
 French." His interest was centered wholly in the 
 army, which he loved and fostered in the same spirit 
 that Tamerlane cherished his Mongolian hordes and Fra 
 Diavolo his band of brigands. The King of Prussia bears 
 the title of "German Emperor" (Deutscher Kaiser), 
 not Emperor of Germany, since the latter would be 
 inconsistent with the political existence and integrity 
 of the other German states and a manifest usurpation 
 of the rights and prerogatives (Hoheitsrechte) of the 
 confederated princes and potentates. His imperial 
 sovereignty is, therefore, essentially tribal; he is, so 
 to speak, the chief of the German confederated mon- 
 archs, and exercises territorial sovereignty only as King 
 of Prussia. There has been a long succession of Koman- 
 German and German emperors, but never an Emperor 
 of Germany. 
 
 A nomadic people, wandering from place to place, 
 
46 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 is not associated in any sense with the soil; the tribe 
 remains the same, put not the territory it occupies. 
 With the beginning of agriculture and sedentariness 
 this relation is reversed. The conception of a nation, 
 nowadays, implies fixed or at least well-defined geo- 
 graphical boundaries. Changes may take place in the 
 character of the inhabitants and in the constitution 
 of the government as the result of emigration and 
 revolution; individuals and families may disappear 
 and be superseded by others of a different stock, but the 
 nation remains, as it were, adscripta glebce within cer- 
 tain territorial limits and is not destroyed by any ad- 
 mixture of foreign with native elements in the popu- 
 lation. Mr. Maine states this point very clearly and 
 concisely when he says: " England was once the coun- 
 try which Englishmen inhabited. Englishmen are now 
 the people who inhabit England." An East Indian 
 by blood may be an Englishman in the modern sense 
 of the term as well as an Anglo-Saxon of purest lineage, 
 however earnestly Lord Salisbury may deprecate the 
 idea that a Hindu or any other "black man," even 
 though he may be, like Dadabhoi Naoroji, a gentleman 
 and a scholar, and the peer of the Tory premier him- 
 self in political wisdom and ability, should be sent 
 to the British Parliament by an English constituency. 
 It would seem, therefore, that, even at this late day, 
 a man may be her British Majesty's first minister of 
 state and yet entertain the notion, which prevailed 
 in the days of Warren Hastings and still lingers among 
 the subalterns of the colonial service, that an East In- 
 dian is a " nigger." 
 
 Nowhere is national feeling stronger and race feel- 
 ing weaker than in the United. States, where the negro, 
 
,THB ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 4.7 
 
 notwithstanding the prejudice growing out of his 
 former condition .of servitude, is as truly an American 
 and as fully sensible of this fact as any scion of the 
 Pilgrim fathers. It is unquestionable that the old 
 Puritan stock is rapidly disappearing from New Eng- 
 land, partly through natural extinction and partly 
 through westward migration, and is being supplanted 
 by Irish and Canadian French; but this circumstance 
 does not blot New England from the map nor convert 
 it into New Ireland or New France. On the contrary, 
 the descendants of the Celtic immigrant are assimilated 
 and transmuted by their environment and become New- 
 Englanders. The consciousness of what might be called 
 common territoriality tends not only to bind together 
 and to blend diverse races into that " unity of a people " 
 which constitutes a nation, but also to attenuate and 
 to loosen the social and political unions, which are based 
 upon common descent, and finally ruptures them alto- 
 gether. 
 
 It is also in the United States that the antithesis 
 to tribalism has found its strongest expression in legis- 
 lation. In an act of Congress, approved July 27, 1868, 
 the right of voluntary expatriation is declared to be " a 
 natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable 
 to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness," and any denial or restriction of 
 this right, or question of its validity, is affirmed to be " in- 
 consistent with the fundamental principles of the re- 
 public." In fact, this enactment is only a reiteration 
 and general application of the "self-evident truth" 
 upon which the Declaration of Independence was based, 
 and to the vindication of which by force of arms our 
 Government owes its existence. It is the abrogation of 
 
48 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 the doctrine of personal and perpetual allegiance to the 
 sovereign of one's native land, which is a survival of the 
 notion, still prevailing among many savage nations, 
 that the chieftain is the absolute owner of the mem- 
 bers of his tribe and can dispose at will of their serv- 
 ices, their property, and their lives. A strenuous effort 
 to maintain this pbsiton and to induce other powers to 
 accept this principle has always been one of the chief 
 features of the foreign policy of the United States, and 
 in a few cases the Department of State has even carried 
 the assertion of it to the verge of war. It was partially 
 or conditionally acknowledged in the treaty of February 
 22, 1868, between the United States and the North 
 German Confederation, and fully avowed in the so- 
 called Burlingame treaty formed a few months later 
 between the United States and China, the fifth article 
 of- which explicitly declares that both the sovereign 
 powers "cordially recognise the inherent and inalien- 
 able right of man to change his home and allegiance." 
 
 In utter disregard of the principle involved in these 
 treaty, stipulations Congress has since then passed two 
 acts practically denying the right of expatriation by re- 
 fusing to accept its logical consequences — namely, the 
 right of the individual thus^xpatriated to settle, labour, 
 and become naturalized in the country to which he 
 chooses, to emigrate. The first of these acts was that 
 of 1875 forbidding foreigners to enter the United States 
 under contract to labour, and the second was that of 
 1882 excluding Chinese frdm the privilege of American 
 citizenship. In both cases the abrogation of this "in- 
 herent and inalienable right of man" and "funda- 
 mental principle of the republic " was the result of 
 demagogic pandering to the passions and prejudices of 
 
THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 4.9 
 
 the lowest classes of the people, who still worship " the 
 idols of the tribe " and show their faith by their works 
 in burning negroes at the South and mobbing Mon- 
 golians in the far West. It is especially in remote and 
 sparsely populated regions of the nominally civilized 
 world that primitive barbarism survives and bears sway.* 
 
 The aborigines of British America, who can not re- 
 gard human beings otherwise than from a tribal point of 
 view, still speak of the English as King George's men; 
 but the inhabitants of Canada consider themselves 
 Canadians irrespectively of their ancestral origin, and 
 the same readiness to sink the claims of lineage when 
 they conflict with territorial interests manifests itself 
 even in the more recent colonies of Australia and New 
 Zealand. Geographical contiguity proves, in such cases, 
 stronger than genealogical connections; the old proverb, 
 that blood is thicker than water, does not hold true of 
 oceans. 
 
 The appeals that have been made in recent times to 
 ethnic antipathies and ethnic sympathies for the pur- 
 poses of political propagandism or the promotion of per- 
 sonal ambition are anachronistic attempts to resuscitate 
 the tribal spirit under new forms and on a larger scale 
 by a perverse and pseudo-scientific application of the 
 results of comparative philology to public affairs. The 
 hobby of Napoleon III concerning the unity of the 
 Latin nations, and the necessity of their closer con- 
 federation under the hegemony of Prance, was, like 
 his Life of Caesar, an act of historical self-justification, 
 a desperate endeavour to explain his own raison d'etre, 
 
 * Cf. An Abandoned Position in The Nation, vol. lvii, No. 1485, 
 p. 443. 
 
50 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 and thus set up a temporary prop to a rickety and root- 
 less dynasty. 
 
 Panslavisin may continue, for a time, to please the 
 imagination and to fire the zeal of a people so peculiarly 
 subjected, in many respects, to primitive social condi- 
 tions and so powerfully swayed by primitive ideas as are 
 the Eussians; but Germany has long since outgrown 
 the swaddling-clout of Panteutonism, and no ranting 
 of anti-Semitic agitators and men of that ilk about 
 ur-deutsch and rein-deutsch can permanently affect the 
 public mind or elicit a favourable response in legis- 
 lative enactments. 
 
 There is no cry so foolish or pernicious that it will 
 not find a ringing echo in the empty brain-pan of some 
 fanatic, no whimsey so silly and absurd that it will not 
 be caught up and preached as a new gospel of universal 
 redemption by a few pamphleteering demagogues or 
 ill-balanced apostles of reform. Impecunious owners 
 of poorly furnished and tenantless garrets are only too 
 ready to let them to the first vagrant that knocks at 
 the door, however seedy his appearance and doubtful his 
 repute. Even the anti-Semitic crusade, so far as it has 
 succeeded in getting a hearing and making any head- 
 way among sensible persons, has done so by appealing 
 to the liberal spirit of the age and representing itself 
 as a protest against the tribal exclusiveness of Judaism. 
 
 The constitution of the aboriginal tribe as a com- 
 pact body of kinsmen, animated by feelings of hostility 
 toward all other tribes, necessitated the intermarriage 
 of blood-relations. If, on account of scarcity of females, 
 or for any other reason, a man desired to wed a woman 
 of another tribe, instead of wooing her as a friend, he 
 waylaid her as a foe, stunned her with a blow of his 
 
THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. gl 
 
 war-club, and carried her off as booty rather than beauty 
 to his camp, where she served him henceforth, not so 
 much as his companion and helpmate as his slave and 
 beast of burden. 
 
 Even after this tribal exclusiveness and isolation 
 had ceased and a certain amount of amicable intertribal 
 intercourse had grown up, it was still deemed more 
 virtuous or, as we would say, more patriotic for a man 
 to marry his own kin than to take his wife or wives 
 from an alien people. The tribal religion also lent its 
 special sanction to such nuptials. Survivals of this 
 sentiment are found in the ancient customs and in the 
 sacred Scriptures and traditions of many nations, espe- 
 cially in the Orient. 
 
 Thus, in the Avesta, a marriage of next of kin 
 (quaetvadatha) is declared to be particularly praise- 
 worthy and well-pleasing to Ahuramazada, the Good 
 Spirit (Visparad, iii, 18). This "kinship-union" is a 
 prominent article of faith in the Mazdayasnian creed 
 (Yasna, xiii, 28); and in the Book of Arda, Viraf (ii, 
 1, 2) Viraf is said to have had seven sisters, who were 
 to him as wives (chigun neshmari), and this circum- 
 stance is adduced as evidence of his extraordinary piety. 
 The connubial relations of this model of a religious 
 man were both polygamous and incestuous. 
 
 Herodotus states (iii, 88) that Cambyses, the son and 
 successor of Cyrus, was wedded to his own sister Atossa; 
 and when, in the Hebrew story, Tamar rebukes Amnon 
 for his guilty passion and tells him that " no such thing 
 ought to be done in Israel," she refers solely to her 
 brother's folly and wickedness in seeking a secret and 
 illicit connection, and suggests that, if he will only 
 speak to the king on the subject, there would be no 
 
52 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 obstacle to their union. That such marriages were com- 
 mon in the earlier history of the Jews is evident from 
 the fact that Abram took to wife his half-sister Sarah, 
 and this event is not recorded as an unusual occurrence. 
 Among the Persians this custom seems to have been 
 confined, for the most part, to priests and kings, who 
 constitute always and everywhere the two most con- 
 servative classes of society. Thus it came to be re- 
 garded as a mark of distinction or an enviable privi- 
 lege, of which wealthy persons of inferior rank some- 
 times endeavoured to avail themselves; but there is no 
 evidence that it remained, within historical times, a law 
 for the entire nation or was generally practised by the 
 people at large. The Magians continued to wive their 
 sisters in conformity to ancient usage and holy tradition, 
 for the same reason that stone knives and hatchets are 
 used in sacrificial rites and fire for the altar is kindled 
 by laboriously rubbing two sticks together long after 
 these clumsy methods have been superseded in secular 
 life by steel implements and lucif er matches. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MOBAL OBLIGA- 
 TION. 
 
 The bond of blood superseded by the bond of belief. Theooentrio 
 attraction superior to ethnocentric attraction. The fiction of 
 sacramental kinship in the Catholic Church. Religion as the 
 cement of primitive society. Tribal religions nonproselytiz- 
 ing. Religious antagonisms in old Aryan society. Zarathus- 
 tra's mission and creed. The worship of Ahuramazda and 
 the holiness of agriculture. Inculcation of thrift and frui- 
 tion by the Ahuryan religion. Condemnation of asceticism 
 and celibacy. The begetting of sons as a means of salvation. 
 The legend of Yima and the transition from pastoral to agri- 
 cultural life. Antagonism between the good spirit and the 
 evil mind. Modern examples of this enmity : Dards, Cos- 
 sacks, Bedouins, and Mormons. Sinfulness of lending money 
 on interest. Effects of this primitive notion in mediaeval and 
 modern times. Gradual growth of more enlightened views. 
 Tribal spirit of Jewish burglars in Prussia. Uses of the 
 Schabbesgoi'. Brutality of the higher toward the lower races. 
 Relapses into savagery through emigration. Moral restraint 
 resulting from rapid international intercourse. 
 
 Following the primitive period of tribal ethics 
 comes a second stage of social and moral development, 
 which Mr. Maine calls the supersession of the bond of 
 blood by the bond of belief. Ethnocentric attraction 
 gives way to what might be called theocentric attrac- 
 tion, and a broader and more spiritual sort of associa- 
 
 53 
 
54 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tion is formed, having for its basis, not consanguinity, 
 but conformity in religious conceptions. The god takes 
 the place of the human progenitor of the tribe, ;6r rather 
 grows out of his deification in the evolution of ancestor 
 worship, which is probably the oldest of cults. 
 
 Nevertheless, in this ease, the fundamental princi- 
 ple of primitive society, which makes friendship coex- 
 tensive with kinship, is not abrogated, but only en- 
 larged in its application, causing those who worship the 
 same deities or propitiate the same demons to enter 
 into fraternal relations and call themselves brethren. 
 
 The canonical prohibition of marriage between per- 
 sons connected merely by the artificial ties of a reli- 
 gious rite, such as sponsors and baptized infants, god- 
 fathers, godmothers, and godchildren, proves how in- 
 timately the idea of ritual relationship was associated 
 with that of real relationship in the minds of those 
 who established and perpetuated this institution. This 
 fiction of sacramental kinship was at one time carried 
 so far in the papal Church as to forbid the sponsor 
 ' to be joined in wedlock even to the parent of a god- 
 child. Cohabitation between a patrinus and a matrina 
 was regarded as incest until the Council of Trent re- 
 moved the ecclesiastical bar to such unions. The fact 
 that they had assumed the position of spiritual parents 
 to one infant prevented them from becoming the real 
 and lawful parents of another infant. The importance 
 attached to the name-day, which in most Catholic coun- 
 tries quite supplants the birthday as an anniversary, 
 is also additional evidence of the vigour and vitality 
 of primitive conceptions as embodied in ecclesiastical 
 institutions. 
 
 Eeligion is, in fact, as Schelling observes, the strong- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 55 
 
 est cement of primitive society, and the influence which 
 contributes more than any other to the evolution and 
 organization of the nation and state out of the tribe. 
 Plutarch says: " Methinks a man should sooner find 
 a city built in the air, without any ground to rest upon, 
 than that any commonwealth altogether void of re- 
 ligion should be either first established or afterward 
 preserved and maintained in that estate. For it is this 
 that contains and holds together all human society and 
 is its main prop and stay." Hegel expressed the same 
 idea when he asserted that " the idea of God forms the 
 general foundation of a people." Herbart calls atten- 
 tion to the pedagogical and disciplinary value of re- 
 ligion in the early stages of man's development, since 
 it teaches him to subordinate present desires to future 
 welfare, to look to the remote results of his conduct, 
 and to sacrifice momentary pleasures here to perma- 
 nent advantages hereafter. 
 
 But the ordinary experiences of life, especially in 
 a cold climate, are quite as effective in inculcating thrift 
 and enforcing the first elementary principle of domestic 
 and political economy — that a man can not eat his pud- 
 ding and keep it too. Stress of hunger emphasizes the 
 necessity of laying up stores of provisions against time 
 of need, and teaches foresight and forehand more di- 
 rectly and more forcibly than any hypothetical relation 
 of man to the gods could do. 
 
 Originally the tie of religion must have been iden- 
 tical with the tie of relationship, and the brotherhood 
 of belief coextensive with the brotherhood of blood, 
 since all members of the same family or tribe would 
 naturally adore the same domestic or tribal deities. 
 Without this acceptance of the tribal theology and 
 
56 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 traditions by every individual of the tribe, the public 
 peace would be constantly disturbed and the very ex- 
 istence of primitive society imperilled. 
 
 With the lapse of time and the increase of intelli- 
 gence, however, vague wonder .and ignorant worship 
 would give place in more thoughtful minds to obstinate 
 questionings, blank misgivings, and stubborn scepti- 
 cisms, leading logically and inevitably to open schisms, 
 and resulting in the formation of new communities of 
 faith, crystallizing around the nucleus of a vital re- 
 ligious conviction. It was then proved, what all later 
 history confirms, that spiritual affinities have a stronger 
 cohesive attraction than natural affinities, and that, in 
 every case of tension, the latter are sure to yield and 
 be rent asunder. 
 
 Even the founder of Christianity, who professed to 
 proclaim a gospel of peace on earth and good will to 
 man, foresaw and did not hesitate to declare that this 
 sundering of the closest consanguineous connections and 
 division of families into hostile factions would be the 
 necessary consequence of his teachings. He spoke of 
 his doctrines as a sword destined to sever the nearest 
 ties of natural affection and affinity, setting the son 
 at variance against the father, and the daughter against 
 the mother, and converting the members of a man's 
 household into his bitterest foes. 
 
 The centre of cohesive attraction, which binds the 
 new community so firmly together and so relentlessly 
 ruptures all older associations, is the creed, or what is 
 known in Christian theology as the symbol, the same 
 term that, as we have already seen, was used by the 
 Greeks to denote the token or pledge of hereditary hos- 
 pitality and friendship between families, which fur- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 57 
 
 nished a basis for the formation, of treaties of amity 
 and commerce between tribes. 
 
 Strictly tribal religions never proselytize. Instead 
 of seeking to share with alien tribes the favour and 
 protection of their gods, they wish to monopolize what- 
 ever power and patronage may be derived from this 
 source as a means of rendering themselves superior to 
 their enemies. This was the case with the ancient 
 Hebrews, who never thought of sending missionaries 
 into other lands to make converts to Jehovah, but would 
 have condemned such a procedure as treasonable. It 
 is true that Jesus, in his denunciation of the Phari- 
 sees, declared that they " compass sea and land to make 
 one proselyte " ; but this reproof referred to their zeal 
 as a political party in winning adherents among their 
 own countrymen, in order to supplant the more liberal- 
 minded and less rigidly ritualistic Sadducees in the 
 Sanhedrin. 
 
 Jesus himself evidently never intended to break 
 away from Judaism and to become the founder of a new 
 religion. According to his own statement, he was " not 
 sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
 His mission was not to destroy, but to fulfil; not to 
 abrogate, but to accomplish the law. He sought to 
 give a spiritual interpretation to ancient precepts and 
 injunctions; to revivify and rehabilitate the moral sen- 
 timent, hitherto dwarfed and deformed under the heavy 
 burden of a perfunctory ceremonialism; and to enforce 
 the commandments of God free from all incrustations 
 of the traditions of men. 
 
 Curiously, and yet naturally enough, it was out of 
 the very strictest sect of the Pharisees, so severely re- 
 buked on account of their proselytic spirit, that the 
 
58 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 great proselyte Paul came — the man whose breadth of 
 view and energy of purpose changed a local reforma- 
 tory movement, which seemed to have been practically 
 suppressed by the crucifixion, into a world-wide religion, 
 by emancipating it from the fetters of Mosaic formal- 
 ism, taking it out of the narrow ghetto of tribalism, 
 and imparting to it a universal character. In this 
 bold effort to turn apparent disaster into permanent 
 victory, by breaking through the barriers of Judaism 
 and preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, he met with 
 the most determined opposition from the near kin and 
 personal friends of Jesus, as well as from the principal 
 disciples in Jerusalem. 
 
 To this process of development — by which Chris- 
 tianity, whose " field is the world," rose out of Judaism, 
 the special cult of a privileged race — we have a parallel 
 in the historical evolution of Buddhism, as a religion 
 of pure humanity aspiring to universality, out of the 
 narrow exclusiveness of Brahmanism with its rigor- 
 ous politico-ethnological system of hereditary caste. 
 
 If, however, we go back to an earlier period, we 
 meet with a most striking example of the workings 
 of these conflicting forces in the disintegration and re- 
 construction of old Aryan society, thirty centuries ago, 
 in the highlands of Bactria. The nature of this epoch- 
 making movement, which took place as the result of 
 Zarathustra's teachings and under his leadership, and 
 the deep and enduring enmity it excited between people 
 of the same blood, are perceptible in the solemn pledge 
 or confession of faith by which the proselyte was re- 
 ceived into the fellowship of the Iranian community. 
 
 This remarkable document, written in the ancient 
 Gatha dialect, which is surmised to have been the ver- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 59 
 
 nacular of Zarathustra's native province and the mother- 
 tongue of the prophet, begins with an abjuration of the 
 ancestral deva worship and a vow of devotion to the 
 glorious and munificent Ahuramazda, and then pro- 
 ceeds to a renunciation of all evil works, and especially 
 of those deeds of violence peculiar to nomadic free- 
 booters: " I choose the beneficent Armaiti (earth), the 
 good. May she be mine! I detest all fraud and injury 
 done to the spirit of the earth, and all damage and de- 
 struction to the homes of the Mazdayasnians. I permit 
 the good spirits, which dwell on the earth in the form 
 of good animals (such as sheep and kine), to roam un- 
 disturbed according to their pleasure. I praise, besides, 
 all offerings and prayers to promote the growth of life. 
 I will never do harm or hurt to the habitations of the 
 Mazdayasnians, neither with my body nor with my soul. 
 I forsake the devas, the wicked and malicious workers 
 of iniquity, the most baneful, most malignant, and 
 basest of beings. I forsake the devas and their like, 
 the wizards and their allies, and all creatures whatso- 
 ever of such kind. I forsake them in thought, in word, 
 and in deed. I forsake them hereby publicly, and de- 
 clare that all their deceits and lies shall be put away." 
 After further asseverations in the same strain, and after 
 renouncing anew the devas, and entering into covenant 
 with the waters, the woods, and the living spirit of Na- 
 ture, and accepting the creed of the fire-priests, the dif- 
 fusers of light and of truth, the convert concludes by 
 avowing himself to be a disciple of Zarathustra, an 
 adherent of the pure Ahuryan religion, and a member 
 of the righteous brotherhood. Henceforth he is a 
 sworn foe of the evil-doing, ancestral deities, and a 
 zealous co-worker with Ahuramazda in promoting good 
 5 
 
60 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 thoughts, good words, and good deeds — humata, hukhia, 
 huvarshta. 
 
 With this proclamation of a purer religion the pro- 
 mulgation of a higher law of social life and a superior 
 form of civilization was genetically connected — namely, 
 the sacred duty of fostering and gladdening the spirit 
 of the earth (personified as the goddess or angel. Ar- 
 maiti), by tilling the soil and making it fruitful. .Hus- 
 bandry is holiness to the Lord. In the third fargard 
 of the Vendidad this conception of agriculture as a 
 sacred calling is particularly enlarged upon and en- 
 forced. The earth is there compared to a beautiful 
 woman, who fails to fulfil her noblest functions so long 
 as she remains virgin and barren. " He who cultivates 
 barley cultivates righteousness, and extends the Maz- 
 dayasnian religion as much as though he resisted a 
 thousand demons, made a thousand offerings, or recited 
 a thousand prayers." Indeed, the best way to fight 
 evil spirits is to redeem the waste places which they are 
 supposed to inhabit. The spade and the plough are more 
 effective than magic spells and incantations as means 
 of exorcism. An old Avestan verse, which is quoted 
 in inculcation and encouragement of tillage, and may 
 have been sung by Iranian husbandmen as they sowed 
 the seed and reaped the harvest, celebrates the influ- 
 ence and efficacy of their toil in discomfiting and driv- 
 ing out devils: 
 
 The demons hiss when the barley's green, 
 The demons moan at the thrashing's sound ; 
 The demons roar as the grist is ground, 
 
 The demons flee when the flour is seen. 
 
 [These lines have also in the original a sort of rude 
 rhyme or assonance peculiar to ancient poetry: 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 61 
 
 Yadh yav6 dayat aat daeva gls'en, 
 Yadh s'udhus day at aat daeva tus'en ; 
 Yadh pistro dayat aat daeva uruthen, 
 Yadh gund8' dayat aat da6va perethen. 
 
 Vendidad, iii, 105-108, Spiegel's ed]. 
 
 If the Mazdayasnian religion, as revealed in the 
 Avesta, illustrated in a remarkable manner the Bene- 
 dictine maxim laborare est orare, it had no sympathy 
 with the melancholy salutation memento mori, with 
 which the Trappist greets the members of his silent 
 brotherhood. As taught by the Iranian prophet and 
 still practised by the modern Parsis, it is pre-eminently 
 a religion of thrift, and enjoins as a sacred duty the 
 honest accumulation and hearty enjoyment of wealth. 
 Poverty and asceticism have no place in its list of vir- 
 tues. Voluntary abstinence from the pleasurable 
 things of the good creation is an act of base ingrati- 
 tude and treason toward the bountiful giver of them. 
 He who despises them is a contemner of Ahuramazda 
 and an ally of the devas, and contributes thus far to the 
 triumph of evil in the world. The righteous man 
 should not dwell upon the idea of death, but banish it 
 from his thoughts and earnestly strive after the realiza- 
 tion of a fuller and richer life. It is the height of folly 
 to suppose that mortifications of the flesh can further 
 spiritual growth. Whatever fosters the health of the 
 body favours the health of the soul; but the emaciation 
 of the body impoverishes the soul. The notion which 
 underlies what is known as "muscular Christianity" 
 pervades the entire Avesta and finds a naive and pithy 
 expression in the following text of the Vendidad, which 
 the tiller of the soil is directed always to bear in mind 
 and frequently to repeat: 
 
62 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Who eateth not for naught hath strength, 
 No strength for robust purity, 
 No strength for robust husbandry, 
 No strength for getting robust sons. 
 
 [Here, too, we have a bit of old poetry passed into 
 a proverb. In the original the only trace of rhyme 
 (and thi8 we have preserved in the rendering) is 
 the assonance of the second and third lines: 
 
 Na&chis aquarentam tva, 
 N6it ughram ashyam, 
 N6it ughram vas'tryam, 
 N6it ughram putr6istem. 
 
 Vendidad, iii, 113-115. 
 
 The editorial bracketing of the last line by Prof. 
 Spiegel, as a possible interpolation, indicates an excess 
 of critical suspicion, since this line not only fills out 
 the verse, but also finishes up the thought, rounding 
 and completing the expression of the sentiment with 
 a climax.] 
 
 In another passage Ahuramazda declares: "Verily 
 I say unto thee, Spitama Zarathustra! the man who 
 has a wife is far above him who begets no sons; he 
 who has a household is far above him who has none; 
 he who has children is far above the childless man; he 
 who has riches is far above him who is destitute of them. 
 And of two men, the one who fills himself with meat 
 is filled with the good spirit (vohu mano) much more 
 than he who goes hungry; the latter is all but dead; 
 the former is above him by the worth of a kid (as'pe- 
 rena), by the worth of a sheep, by the worth of an ox, 
 by the worth of a man. [As'perena, usually rendered 
 weight or coin, is derived from a + s'par, and means 
 not walking or not grown, a young animal, a kid or a 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 63 
 
 lamb. Cf. Sanskrit sphar or sphur, to expand or to 
 swell.] Such, a person can resist the onsets of As'to- 
 vidhotus (the demon of death); can resist the self- 
 moving arrow; can resist the winter fiend, even though 
 thinly clad; can resist and smite the wicked tyrant; 
 can resist the assaults of the ungodly Ashemaogho (the 
 destroyer of purity) who does not eat." (Vend, iv, 
 130-141.) 
 
 According to Herodotus (i, 136), the Persian king 
 gave prizes to those of his subjects who had the great- 
 est number of children. Vigorous procreation was one 
 of the most effectual means of grace. It is stated in the 
 Sad-dar that " to him who has no child, the Chinvad 
 bridge (leading to paradise) shall be barred. The first 
 question the angels who guard this narrow passage 
 will ask him is whether he has left in this world a like- 
 ness of himself; if he answers in the negative, they 
 will leave Mm standing at the head of the bridge, full 
 of sorrow and despair." In the same work that con- 
 tains this piece of eschatology it is also written: 
 " There are those who strive to pass a day without 
 eating and who abstain from meat; we, too, have our 
 strivings and abstainings, namely, from evil thoughts, 
 and evil words, and evil deeds. Other religions pre- 
 scribe fasting from bread; ours enjoins fasting from 
 sin." 
 
 The Brahmans maintained that- the man who died 
 without a son went to perdition, because there was no 
 one to pay him the traditional family worship; hence 
 the necessity of adopting a son in case he had none 
 of his own. The Levitical law, as we have already seen, 
 compelled a man to take the wife of a deceased brother, 
 who died childless, and raise up seed to him. In the 
 
64: EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Persian Bivayats, or collections of traditions, similar 
 matrimonial prescriptions are given. Thus, if a man 
 over fifteen years of age .dies childless and unmarried, 
 his relations are to provide a maiden with a dowry and 
 marry her to another man. Half of the children result- 
 ing from this union are to belong to, the dead man and 
 half of them to his proxy, the" actual husband, and she 
 herself is to be the dead man's wife in the next world. 
 This kind of wife is called satar, "adopted." Again, 
 if a widow, who has no children by her first husband, 
 marries again, half of her children by the second hus- 
 band are regarded as belonging to the first husband, 
 and she also belongs to him in the future life; such 
 a wife is called 'chakar, " serving." The first child of 
 an only daughter belongs to her parents, if they have 
 no -sons, and they give her one third of their property 
 in compensation. This kind of wife is called yuhan, 
 or " only child " wife. (Dr. E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, 
 in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. v, p. 143.) All 
 these laws and customs show the vital importance at- 
 tached to the possession of male offspring and to the 
 preservation of an unbroken succession in the line of 
 descent. 
 
 There are strong indications that the transition from 
 pastoral to agricultural life in old Aryan society pre- 
 ceded the transformation of religious conceptions, and 
 that the latter grew up gradually as a means of con- 
 centrating and more completely consolidating the 
 former. In the second fargard of the Vendidad a 
 curious account is given of Yima, who lived before 
 Zarathustra and is spoken of as a king rich in herds 
 and a man of renown in Airyana-Vaejo, the Eden of 
 the race. It was this exalted personage whom Ahura- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 65 
 
 mazda is said to have first chosen to be the promul- 
 gator of the true faith. But Yima, the son of Vivangh- 
 aht (a name derived perhaps from vangh, to dwell or 
 abide, and meaning settler or dweller in fixed habita- 
 tions), excused himself, on the plea of unfitness for 
 the prophetic office. He may have been, like Moses, 
 a man of deeds rather than of words, " slow of speech 
 and of a slow tongue." Then said Ahuramazda, " If 
 thou wilt not be the bearer and herald of the faith, then 
 shalt thou inclose my habitations and become the pro- 
 tector and preserver of my settlements." Thereupon 
 he gave him a golden ploughshare and a goad decorated 
 with gold as insignia of his royal office. [The word 
 s'ufra I prefer to translate " ploughshare " rather than 
 "sword" with Haug, or "lance" with Spiegel. It 
 means literally a cutting instrument. In the Avesta, 
 ploughing is called " cutting the cow " ; and in the 
 Vedic hymns the phrase "cut the cow" is equivalent 
 to " make fertile the earth." " The soul of the cow " 
 (geush urvd) means the spirit of the earth or the ani- 
 mating, energy of Nature. In the Pahlavi translation 
 of this passage s'ufra is rendered by sulak-hortiand, 
 " having holes " or " sieve," and might therefore cor- 
 respond to the Sanskrit s'urpa, "winnowing tray." 
 The Pahlavi for ploughshare is suldk, and the close 
 resemblance of this word to suldk, "hole," modern 
 Persian suldkh and surdkh, may have led to a confusion 
 and interchange of terms, both of which involve the 
 idea of piercing or perforating.] 
 
 And Yima bore sway three hundred years; and 
 the land " was filled with cattle, oxen, men, dogs, birds, 
 and red blazing fires," until there was no more room 
 for them therein. Then Yima went southward (lit- 
 
66 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 erally, "toward the stars on the noonday path of the 
 sun"), and, invoking the bounteous Armaiti, touched 
 the earth with the golden ploughshare and pierced 
 it with the goad; and, in obedience to his behest, the 
 earth expanded and became one third larger than be- 
 fore. This process he repeated, according to the Zand, 
 after six hundred years and again after nine hundred 
 years, with a constantly increasing extension of the 
 earth, which finally became about thrice its original 
 size, and thus afforded ample space for men and kine. 
 
 It is not difficult to discover the meaning of this 
 legend. It is the mythical statement of the effect of 
 agriculture in practically enlarging the surface of the 
 earth by increasing its capacity for supporting animal 
 life, and thus rendering it possible for a greater num- 
 ber of persons to subsist on the products of the same 
 area of soil. A tract of country which would furnish 
 precarious food for a single hunter, or pasturage for a 
 score of herdsmen, would, even under rude tillage, 
 easily supply sustenance for a hundred husbandmen. 
 Indeed, it has been estimated thatjone acre of arable 
 land will bring forth as much food and consequently 
 sustain as many inhabitants as two thousand acres of 
 hunting ground. 
 
 In the fulness of time Yima was succeeded by the 
 man who, like Aaron, could " speak well," and in the 
 first Gatha we find an address which Zarathustra de- 
 livered to his countrymen congregated around the 
 sacred fire. It begins as follows: "I will now reveal 
 to you who are here assembled the wise words of Mazda, 
 the worship of Ahura, the hymns in praise of the good 
 spirit, the sublime truth, which I see rising out of the 
 sacred flames." He then appeals to them as the " off- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 67 
 
 spring of renowned ancestors" to rouse their minds 
 and give heed to his divine message: " To-day, men 
 and women, you should choose your creed." 
 
 After this brief exordium, he plunges at once into 
 his subject and offers his solution of the old and ever- 
 puzzling problem of good and evil, which he personi- 
 fies as twin spirits, counter-workers in the creation of 
 the world, each exercising its peculiar activity and con- 
 tributing its characteristic element, and promoting re- 
 spectively the happiness and the misery of mankind. 
 It may also be safely asserted that, from a theistic point 
 of view, no more logical and satisfactory solution of 
 the difficulty has ever been presented. He earnestly 
 exhorts his hearers to follow after the good and to 
 eschew the evil. " Choose between these two spirits, 
 for ye can not serve both." " Be pure and not vile." 
 " Let us be such as help the life of the future." " Obey, 
 therefore, the commandments which Mazda has pro- 
 claimed and enjoined upon mankind; for they are a 
 snare and perdition to liars, .but prosperity to the be- 
 liever in the truth and the source of all bliss." 
 
 The whole aim of this discourse, of which these 
 extracts suffice to indicate the drift, is to persuade his 
 hearers to renounce or to confirm them in their re- 
 nunciation of the old Aryan polytheism and worship 
 of the devas, as we find it in the Vedas, and to adopt 
 monotheism or the adoration of the one great and good 
 but by no means omnipotent being, Ahuramazda. As 
 a philosophical system, his doctrine was dualistic and 
 recognised the existence of two original and independ- 
 ent principles in the universe; as a cult, it was mono- 
 theolatrous and worshipped only one of these powers. 
 
 It may be added that long before the close of the 
 
68 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Vedic period the Indo-Aryans had also begun to devote 
 themselves to husbandry, although their chief wealth 
 still consisted in herds. The burden of their hymns 
 and prayers to the gods is for much cattle and a large 
 family of vigorous sons. The foes which they now had 
 mostly to contend with were the Dasyus or aborigines 
 of India. The occasional mention of Aryan enemies 
 may be partly reminiscences or records of an earlier 
 time and partly references to intertribal warfares, of 
 which there was evidently no lack. It must be borne 
 in mind that all the Vedic hymns appear to have been 
 composed in northern India, and principally in the 
 region now kown as the Panjab. In none of these 
 poetical productions do we find any distinct remem- 
 brance of a trans-Himalayan origin or any definite 
 allusion to a former residence outside of India. This 
 circumstance proves that at the time of the supposed 
 migration from the North the ancestors of the Indo- 
 Aryans must have been rude barbarians, destitute not 
 only of written records, but also of the ability to pre- 
 serve and transmit from generation to generation tra- 
 ditions of great events in their own tribal or national 
 history. The savage has a short memory for whatever 
 lies beyond the sphere of his individual experience. 
 
 One of Zarathustra's chief injunctions was to " listen 
 to the soul of the earth," and to " succour and foster 
 the life of Nature." This is to be done by cultivating 
 and fertilizing the soil; since the increase of its pro- 
 ductivity augments the sum of vitality in the world 
 and contributes to the ascendency of the vdhumano or 
 good mind, synonymous with vis vitalis or living force, 
 and aids in securing the supremacy of Ahuramazda. 
 Instead of bowing down in servile fear before the phe- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 69 
 
 nomena of Nature, the Mazdayasnians are directed to 
 revere and cherish her kindly and beneficent spirit, 
 so that "the wilderness and the solitary place shall 
 be glad for. them, and the desert shall rejoice and blos- 
 som as the rose." 
 
 Angro-Mainyush and his satellites, the devas, on 
 the other hand, are constantly striving to resist and 
 to thwart this purpose and to keep the earth in her 
 native state of virginal wildness and ruggedness by 
 investing her with the dread sanctities and supersti- 
 tions of a crude polytheistic physiolatry, by assaulting 
 and ravaging the cultivated settlements of the Ahuryan 
 agriculturists, and by fomenting and fostering the spirit 
 of primeval savagery, personified as Akemmano, or the 
 evil mind. In the sacred books and traditions of both 
 factions, and more especially in those of the reforma- 
 tory party, are frequent traces of this social rupture 
 and religious schism, and of the deadly hostility natu- 
 rally existing between nomadic hordes, that still ad- 
 here to a life of pasturage and pillage, and men of more 
 advanced ideas, who dwell in fixed habitations (gaethas) 
 and devote themselves to husbandry. 
 
 I am well aware that M. James Darmesteter and 
 other representatives of what might be called the 
 meteorological school of Avestan scholars deny the 
 historical reality of a religious schism of the kind here 
 described, and would reduce Zarathustra and all the in- 
 cidents of his life to a series of solar myths. It is, how- 
 ever, only on the theory of a religious schism that the 
 fact that the deities of Brahmanism are the devils of 
 Zoroastrianism, and vice versa, can be adequately ex- 
 plained. To assert that this antagonism is the result of 
 an " accidental selection " of gods is no explanation at 
 
tO EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 all. The religious history of mankind is not a record of 
 casualties or mere chapter of accidents. 
 
 Besides, we have a modern example of a similar 
 enmity growing out of the transition from nomadic to 
 sedentary life in the mythology of the Dards, who are, 
 perhaps, one of the oldest races and most primitive 
 peoples of the East, and who believe in the existence 
 of demons called yatsh (bad), which, like the Homeric 
 Cyclops (the barbarous aborigines of the Sicilian coast), 
 are of gigantic stature, and have only one eye, set in 
 the middle of their forehead. These demons haunt 
 the mountains and the wilderness, and are exceed- 
 ingly hostile to agriculturists, whom they vex and harm 
 in every possible manner, stealing and destroying the 
 crops, and even carrying off the husbandmen to their 
 gloomy caverns. In this scrap of mythology we have 
 the survival of the old strife between barbarism and 
 civilization, which began with man's first efforts to 
 improve his condition. 
 
 The barbarian is, in fact, the most uncompromising 
 incarnation and typical representative of conservatism; 
 and it is the survival of the barbarian temper of mind 
 that constantly hampers progress and hinders reform 
 in modern times. His daily life is the dullest routine 
 and would be unbearable, were it not the outcome and 
 expression of the general rigidity and sterility of his 
 intellect. He treads religiously in the footsteps of his 
 forefathers, generation after generation, the whole 
 mass moving on bodily and mentally in single file, as is 
 the custom with savages. He is the stubborn foe of 
 all innovations, and punishes as treason against the 
 tribe every deviation from the beaten trail. Under 
 such circumstances no social transformation can be ef- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. ?1 
 
 fected without fierce battle and bloodshed. In the 
 primitive history of mankind, as in the early physical 
 history of the globe, great changes are uniformly the 
 result of great convulsions. 
 
 It is not merely the love of booty that leads nomadic 
 tribes to attack and lay waste the permanent settlements 
 of husbandmen, but the instinct of self-preservation re- 
 sisting the encroachments of a new form of social or- 
 ganization which imperils the old. For this reason 
 hunters are hostile to herdsmen, and herdsmen to tillers 
 of the soil; since pasturage diminishes the extent and 
 value of hunting grounds, and agriculture diminishes 
 the area of pasturage. 
 
 Mr. D. Mackenzie Wallace gives a striking illustra- 
 tion of this antagonism in the history of the Cossacks 
 of the Don, who, so long as they lived by sheep-farming 
 and marauding, prohibited agriculture under pain of 
 death. This severe interdict of a peaceful pursuit origi- 
 nated, not as some have supposed in the desire to foster 
 the warlike spirit of the people, but rather in a percep- 
 tion of the fact that " the man who ploughed up a bit 
 of land infringed thereby on his neighbour's right of 
 pasturage." By this act he became in a certain sense 
 guilty of treason against pastoral society, the very foun- 
 dations of which, the green sod, he broke up and de- 
 stroyed with his ploughshare. He not only restricted 
 and reduced the actual area of grazing, but also struck 
 a blow at the life of a cattle-rearing community. The 
 practical workings of this crude and clannish concep- 
 tion of patriotism are recorded, as Mr. Wallace observes, 
 on the pages of Byzantine annalists and old Eussian 
 chroniclers, who describe the periodical havoc of farm- 
 steads committed by the nomadic tribes which from 
 
72 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 time immemorial had roamed the vast plains north of 
 the Black and Caspian Seas, razing the houses, ravaging 
 the fields, and leaving the bodies of the husbandmen 
 as food for vultures. 
 
 The roving Bedouins, dwellers in the desert, as their 
 name implies, despise the cultivators of the soil and 
 call them contemptuously fellahin (ploughers, boors); 
 and their kinsmen the Anasis (anasi, men) hover on 
 the borders and levy blackmail on the villages of 
 Syria. It is also significant for the persistency of this 
 primitive point of view that the Arabic word for agri- 
 culture (falahat), should also mean " fraudulent traffic," 
 as though the permanent possession of a piece of land 
 and the exclusive use or sale of the products of the 
 soil were in themselves swindling operations. 
 
 These facts of to-day suffice to show the kind of 
 opposition which Zarathustra had to face in his efforts 
 to establish the Iranians in fixed settlements and to 
 accustom them to the acquisition and proper utiliza- 
 tion of landed property. In order to accomplish this 
 purpose it was necessary to teach the holiness of hus- 
 bandry and to invest seedtime and harvest with the 
 sanctity of religion. 
 
 The Mormons, after their migration to Salt Lake, 
 where the very existence of the community depended 
 upon converting the desert into a garden, inaugurated 
 the same policy, declaring through the mouth of their 
 prophet that the human race could be redeemed and 
 paradise regained only by means of tillage and making 
 agriculture a sacred vocation and the pursuit of it a 
 prominent part of their creed. 
 
 The priests of the old deva cult, the progenitors 
 of the Brahmans, on the other hand, denounced Zara- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MOKAL OBLIGATION. 73 
 
 thustra as a schismatic and a renegade, a contemner 
 of the gods and blasphemer, a scorner of ancient cus- 
 tom and subverter of social order. They therefore 
 opposed the innovation and fought for the faith of their 
 fathers with such clumsy weapons as they were most 
 skilled in wielding, looting the homesteads, uprooting 
 and trampling down the green blades of wheat and 
 barley, which stood as representatives of the growing 
 heresy, and, with a logic peculiar to theological zealots 
 and ecclesiastical inquisitors in all ages, refuting the 
 new doctrine and resisting the reformatory movement ■ 
 by greater energy and assiduity in the ancient and 
 honourable calling of cattle-lifting. 
 
 As we have already seen, the duty of a man to 
 shield and sustain a tribesman against an alien under 
 all circumstances is imperative. Acts of extortion, 
 treachery, or violence, which would be punished by 
 death if committed against a member of the same tribe, 
 are regarded as indifferent or laudable when the in- 
 jured person is a foreigner. The same tendency to 
 approve or to extenuate the bad conduct of " brethren " 
 enters also more or less into the ethics of all communi- 
 ties or collective bodies which are held together by the 
 bond of belief. 
 
 All people in a low state of civilization have a strong 
 prejudice against lending money on interest, and look 
 upon all such transactions as sinful. The same notion 
 still prevails among the lower classes of civilized nations, 
 whose superstitions are in most cases mere survivals of 
 savage life. So strong is this feeling, inculcated and 
 consecrated by religious teachings and traditions, that 
 a certain stigma attaches to the money broker even in 
 the minds of otherwise intelligent persons. "Many 
 
74 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 lend money on interest," says Cato, "but it is not 
 honourable to do so. Our ancestors enacted in their 
 laws that the thief should restore twofold, but the 
 taker of interest fourfold, from which we see how much 
 worse a usurer was thought to be than a thief." 
 
 In general, however, usury, like every other sup- 
 posed crime, was regarded as wrong only when applied 
 to kindred or tribesmen. The Jews were forbidden 
 to " take a breed of barren metal " from those of their 
 own faith, but might exact it from Gentiles. Curious- 
 ly enough, in the middle ages this privilege was granted 
 to the Jews, not in the spirit of favouritism, but as a 
 necessity to sovereigns and to society and from feelings 
 of utter scorn and contempt. As neither government 
 nor trade could do without this vilely esteemed voca- 
 tion, the Jews were selected to carry it on, because 
 they were considered a vile people incapable alike of 
 improvement or of deeper degradation. The state and 
 the Church, which felt an interest in the spiritual wel- 
 fare and safety of the Christian, were wholly indif- 
 ferent to the future fate of the Jew. That sweet saint, 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, surnamed the honey-flowing 
 teacher (doctor mellifluus), urged the rulers of his day 
 to tolerate the Jews, not because he hated persecution, 
 but in order that Christians might not be constrained 
 to imperil the salvation of their souls by the sin of 
 usury. The Israelitic pariahs of mediaeval society 
 rendered the same service to Christian virtue that pro- 
 fessional prostitutes do to female chastity. We have 
 a striking illustration of this point of view in a decree 
 issued in 1219, by the German emperor Frederick III, 
 permitting the Jews to dwell in Nuremberg and to take 
 a percentage for the use of money. Inasmuch as this 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 75 
 
 business, he said in justification of his edict, is essential 
 to the growth of commerce and the prosperity of the 
 city, it will be a lesser evil and wrong for Jews to prac- 
 tise usury than for Christians, since the former are a 
 stubborn and stifEnecked race, and, if they persist in 
 their perversity, as they probably will do, are doomed 
 to be damned anyhow.* We have a relic of this primi- 
 tive prejudice in the efforts of modern governments 
 to establish a fixed rate of interest for the use of money 
 and to punish as usury any higher compensation for it. 
 All such attempts have uniformly proved to be not only 
 futile, but also productive of evil to both borrower and 
 lender, and especially to the former; and as the result 
 of more enlightened views of financial and economical 
 science they are gradually sharing the fate of sumptu- 
 ary laws and similar regulations and disappearing from 
 the statute books. The value of money, like that of any 
 other marketable commodity, can not be positively pre- 
 scribed by legislative enactments, but must be deter- 
 mined by the natural law of supply and demand. 
 
 The Hebrew, on the other hand, heartily recipro- 
 cated the Christian's contumely, and could hardly con- 
 ceal, under the prudent disguise of mock humility, his 
 disdain for the upstart Nazarene. He not only deemed 
 it a religious duty to cheat him in money matters, but 
 thought it perfectly right to use him as an agent in 
 base or criminal transactions which a good Israelite 
 could not conscientiously perform. 
 
 This mental and moral attitude, which even the 
 
 * We have referred to this characteristic decree in a work en- 
 titled Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture (London : 
 William Heinemann ; New York : Henry Holt & Co., 1896, p. 293) 
 for the purpose of illustrating another subject. 
 & 
 
76 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 modern Hebrew still maintains, is strikingly exempli- 
 fied by the following incident: Between 1820 and 1830 
 a band of burglars, numbering over one hundred per- 
 sons and consisting entirely of Jews, made property 
 so unsafe as to create a panic among the inhabitants 
 of the Prussian provinces of Posen and Brandenburg. 
 The chief of the band was a certain Loewenthal in Ber- 
 lin, and all the members of it were extremely devout 
 attendants of the synagogue and strict observers of 
 every jot and tittle of the Levitical law. They never 
 broke into the houses of Jews and never stole on the 
 Sabbath, since such an act would be a desecration of 
 the sacred " day of rest " ; but, rather than let an ex- 
 ceptionably favourable opportunity escape, they some- 
 times employed a so-called schablesgo'i [schabbesgoi (Sab- 
 bath-Gentile) is a Jew-German term for the Christian 
 attendant or servant who does for an Israelite on the 
 Sabbath the things which his religion forbids him to 
 do for himself] to commit the crime for them, and, 
 if necessary, did not hesitate to have some one of their 
 own number accompany him on his burglarious ex- 
 pedition a couple of thousand yards or so, the limits 
 of a Sabbath day's journey. In case one of the band 
 was suspected of any particular offence and arrested, 
 the surest and speediest way of clearing himself was 
 to prove an alibi by the testimony of two witnesses, 
 as the law required. But the pious Hebrew regards 
 perjury with peculiar abhorrence, and fears above all 
 things to take a false oath. Shylock was eager to cut 
 the heart out of his hated enemy, but he would not 
 lay perjury upon his soul — no, not for Venice! The 
 burglars kept, therefore, in their pay two Christians, 
 who were as ready to forswear themselves as any Tarn- 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 77 
 
 many Hall politician at the polls, and who made the 
 requisite false oaths at fixed rates. 
 
 These examples serve to show the natural tendency 
 of mankind to look upon compatriots and coreligion- 
 ists from a different moral standpoint from that with 
 which they regard persons who are not connected 
 with them by such ties, and to whom they not only at- 
 tribute a lower standard of right and wrong, but also 
 act upon it as a rule of conduct in dealing with 
 them. 
 
 Great dissimilarity in physical characteristics inten- 
 sifies the ethical estrangement caused by differences of 
 blood and of belief. The more any tribes of men devi- 
 ate from ourselves in form and feature, the less we 
 are inclined to think of them as endowed with the same 
 powers and passions, the same kind of sympathy and 
 sensibility as ourselves, or as entitled to the same rights 
 that we possess. A people with black skin, woolly hair, 
 flat noses, and countenances of a strongly prognathous 
 character do not enlist our kindly feelings and awaken 
 our affections in the same manner and degree as repre- 
 sentatives of a fair-complexioned and finely featured 
 type would do. The schemes of European governments 
 and of private individuals and corporations for the ex- 
 ploration, partition, and colonization of Africa are 
 based upon the assumption that the Africans themselves 
 have no claim to the continent which they inhabit. 
 The only African colony that has ever been founded on 
 principles of common justice and with a full recognition 
 of the rights of the natives is the Eepublic of Liberia, 
 established more than sixty years ago under the aus- 
 pices of the United States, and this was done solely 
 for the sake of getting rid of an undesirable popula- 
 
78 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tion of free negroes at home. All the other enter- 
 prises of this sort are morally and legally no ^better than 
 buccaneering expeditions. ",*■" 
 
 The ethical maxims which we are wont to accept as 
 axiomatic in our mutual relations as civilized individ- 
 uals and nations are too easily set aside as inconvenient 
 and inapplicable to our dealings with the so-called 
 lower races. The fatal facility with which under such 
 circumstances enlightened Europeans of the nineteenth 
 century may revert to primitive savagery as soon as 
 the outward restraints of civilization are removed is 
 seen in the early settlers of Australia, who did not 
 scruple to shoot the defenceless and harmless aborigines 
 as they would any game, and feed the carcasses to their 
 hounds. The inoffensive and rather feeble-bodied 
 Negritos were treated as beasts of venery, which could 
 be hunted without danger and furnished plentiful sup- 
 plies of dog's meat, costing the sportsman nothing, not 
 even a pang of conscience, only the price of a cartridge. 
 (Cf. Schaafhausen, in The Anthropological Eeview, 
 London, 1869, p. 368.) 
 
 More recent and even more revolting exemplifica- 
 tions of this tendency to relapse into barbarism are the 
 atrocities committed by Major Barttelot, and the con- 
 duct of Mr. Jameson, of Stanley's Emin-Eelief Expedi- 
 tion, who purchased a young negro girl and gave her to 
 a horde of cannibals in order to make sketches from life 
 of the manner in which she was torn in pieces and 
 devoured. 
 
 The atrocities still committed by the officials of the 
 Belgian Government in Congo are a disgrace to a 
 civilized people. Scores of natives have their hands cut 
 off or are otherwise mutilated simply because they are 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 79 
 
 unable to supply ivory and rubber enough to satisfy the 
 insatiate greed of traffickers in those*' articles. Soldiers 
 in the serviceof the State are permitted to eat the bod- 
 ies of those who have fallen in battle, since human flesh, 
 thus obtained, furnishes the cheapest rations for the 
 army. As the result of this policy races, who were not 
 cannibals when they first came in contact with white 
 men, have gradually become so through intercourse with 
 cannibal troops under the command of Belgian officers. 
 Thus the increase of cannibalism on the Congo is due 
 to the domination of a European sovereign acting as the 
 representative of the European powers. 
 
 There are also instances on record of Englishmen, 
 Dutchmen, and Frenchmen who in their warfare with 
 Indians adopted from their savage foes the custom of 
 scalping and torturing their captives. In fact, as Waitz 
 has shown in his Anthropology (iii, 174), there is scarce- 
 ly a vice of barbarous tribes which Europeans when 
 removed from the restraints of civilization have not 
 practised. In the South Sea islands they have in some 
 cases become anthropophagous. 
 
 Here we are suddenly brought face to face with the 
 depressing fact that men, who are heirs to ages of in- 
 tellectual culture and armed with all the powers 
 and possibilities of good and evil which modern 
 science has put into their hands, yet relapse morally to 
 the level of rude cave dwellers and contemporaries 
 of the mammoth in making their superiority of men- 
 tal endowment and material equipment minister to 
 deeds and passions worthy of the lowest stage of bar- 
 barism. 
 
 All emigration to wild regions is, in a greater or less 
 degree, atavistic in its effects, and, by loosening or re- 
 
80 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 moving the many leading strings of association by 
 which the average man is kept in an upright position 
 and a straightforward course, Jets him fall back and 
 retrograde, and thus tends to bring him nearer to his 
 flint-chipping neolithic ancestor. It throws each in- 
 dividual upon his own ethical resources by releasing 
 him from the constant though hardly .conscious so- 
 cial pressure of an environment which is the result- 
 ant of long periods of human progress, and by which 
 alone the masses of so-called civilized- nations are pre- 
 vented from relapsing into the original condition of the 
 race. & 
 
 Happily, however, such extreme cases of moral re- 
 version as those of the early emigrants to Australia 
 and the recent explorers of Africa are only sporadic, 
 and the ubiquity of humane and enlightened public 
 opinion arising from greater frequency and rapidity 
 of international intercourse, and causing its immedi- 
 ate influence to be felt in the remotest and roughest 
 border lands of savage and civilized life, will render 
 them still rarer in the future. The telegraph and the 
 telephone are making it daily more difficult and will 
 eventually make it impossible for the most pushing 
 pioneer wholly to lose communication with the advanc- 
 ing body of organized forces behind him, or to break 
 away from the control of that community of impulses 
 and purposes, and that consensus of moral ideas and 
 perceptions, which we call public conscience. This 
 influence is beginning to penetrate even the darkest 
 regions of Central Africa and to protect the unknown 
 barbaric tribes against the ravages of Arab slave traders 
 and the arbitrary authority of European adventurers. 
 Each nation that joins in this combined movement is 
 
BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 81 
 
 doubtless seeking, first of all, to further its own com- 
 mercial and colonial interests; but it suffices as an illus- 
 tration of the prevailing spirit of the age that the basis 
 on which they profess to unite is the broad principle 
 of a common humanity. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 ETHICAL EELATIONS OE MAN TO BEAST. 
 
 Anthropocentrio psychology and ethics. Teleological inferences 
 from this postulate. Illustrations from Bernardin de Saint- 
 Pierre and Gennadius. Its influence in checking the growth 
 of science and the progress of hygiene. Natural phenomena 
 regarded as portents. Astrology and horoscopy. Comets as 
 ■warnings to mankind. Increase Mather's view. Bayle's ridi- 
 cule of this theory. Notion that fruits and flowers exist only 
 for man. The wasteful prodigality of Nature. Gray's senti- 
 ment on the subject. The real function of the colour and Odour 
 of plants. Schopenhauer on the anthropocentric principle in 
 Judaism and Christianity. The Hebrew cosmogony. Man's 
 dominion and its. practical effects according to Shelley and 
 Burns. Observation of Mrs. Jameson. Celsus's stricture in- 
 dorsed by Dr. Thomas Arnold. Paley's defective definition 
 of virtue. Bishop Butler on the immortality of animals. 
 Opinion of Barclay. Philozoic philosophy of Henry Hallam. 
 Denial of animals' rights by Catholic theologians and by 
 Protestant writers on ethics. Influence of such theories upon 
 •Jnodern legislation. Exposure by Samuel Plimsoll and Henry 
 Bergh of the horrors of cattle transportation. " Horses cheap- 
 er than oats." American extravagance and recklessness. 
 Erasmus Darwin's doctrine of the greatest possible happiness 
 set aside by the science of evolution. 
 
 Ethnocentric geography, which caused each petty 
 tribe to regard itself as the centre of the earth, and 
 geocentric astronomy, which caused mankind to regard 
 the earth as the centre of the universe, are conceptions 
 
 82 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 83 
 
 that have been gradually outgrown and generally dis- 
 carded — not, however, without leaving distinct and in- 
 delible traces of themselves in human speech and con- 
 duct. But this is not the case with anthropocentric 
 psychology and ethics, which treat man as a being 
 essentially different and inseparably set apart from all 
 other sentient creatures, to which he is bound by no 
 ties of mental affinity or moral obligation. Neverthe- 
 less, all these notions spring from the same root, having 
 their origin in man's false and overweening conceit 
 of himself as the member of a tribe, the inhabitant of a 
 planet, or the lord of creation. 
 
 It was upon this sort of anthropocentric assumption 
 that teleologists used to build their arguments in proof 
 of the existence and goodness of God as shown by the 
 evidences of beneficent design in the world. All their 
 reasonings in support of this doctrine were based upon 
 the theory that the final purpose of every created thing 
 is the promotion of human happiness. Take away this 
 anthropocentric postulate, and the whole logical struc- 
 ture tumbles into a heap of unfounded and irrelevant 
 assertions leading to lame and impotent conclusions. 
 
 Thus Bernardin de Saint-Pierre states that garlic, 
 being a specific for maladies caused by marshy exhala- 
 tions, grows in swampy places, in order that the anti- 
 dote may be easily accessible to man when he becomes 
 infected with malarious disease. Also the fruits of 
 spring and summer, he adds, are peculiarly juicy, be- 
 cause man needs them for his refreshment in hot 
 weather; on the other hand, autumn fruits, like nuts, 
 are oily, because oil generates heat and keeps men 
 warm in winter. It is for man's sake, too, that in lands 
 where it seldom or never rains there is always a heavy 
 
84 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 deposition of dew. If we can show that any product or 
 phenomenon of Nature is useful to us, we think we have 
 discovered its sufficient raison d'etre, and extol the wis- 
 dom and kindness of the Creator; but if anything is 
 harmful to us we can not imagine why it should exist. 
 How much intellectual acuteness and learning have been 
 expended to reconcile the fact that the moon is visible 
 only a very small part of the time, with the theory that 
 it was intended to illuminate the earth in the absence 
 of the sun, for the benefit of its inhabitants! 
 
 Gennadius, a Greek presbyter, who flourished at 
 Constantinople about the middle of the fifth century, 
 remarks in his commentary on the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis, that God created the beasts of the earth and the 
 cattle after their kind on the same day on which he 
 created man, in order that these creatures might be 
 there ready to serve him. 
 
 But it would be superfluous to multiply examples 
 of the influence of this anthropocentric idea as it has 
 worked itself out in the history of mankind. Every 
 science has had to encounter its opposition, and it has 
 been a stumbling-block in the way of every effort to 
 enlarge human knowledge and to promote human hap- 
 piness. It has tended to check the progress of hygienic 
 research and sanitary reform; for if man is of such 
 exceptional importance that his conduct or misconduct 
 can bring down epidemics upon whole communities and 
 vast continents as visitations of divine wrath, whoever 
 seeks to ward off or to stay these punishments is guilty 
 of a sacrilegious attempt to parry the blow aimed at the 
 wicked by the arm of the Almighty, and, by thus set- 
 ting himself in antagonism to God, becomes in fact 
 an ally and adversary of the devil. Thus vaccination 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 85 
 
 was denounced, not on the ground taken by its present 
 opponents, that it is useless as a preventive of small- 
 pox and a prolific source of other diseases, but on 
 account of its real or supposed prophylactic effective- 
 ness, since it impiously wrenched from the hand of the 
 Deity one of his most fatal weapons of retribution. 
 
 To what absurdities of presumption the anthropo- 
 centric conception has paved the way is evident from 
 the belief, once universally entertained, that the sun, 
 moon, and stars were placed in the firmament with ex- 
 press reference to man, and exerted a benign or bale- 
 ful influence upon his destiny from the cradle to the 
 grave. Owen Glendower's bombastic boast — 
 
 ... At my nativity 
 The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, 
 Of burning cressets ; and at my birth 
 The frame and huge foundation of the earth 
 Shaked like a coward — 
 
 was well answered by Hotspur: " Why, so it would have 
 done at the same season if your mother's cat had but 
 kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born." And 
 yet this fulsome brag of the Welsh swashbuckler was 
 only an extravagant statement of what the captious 
 Henry Percy and his contemporaries all held to be 
 virtually true. Poe embodies the same sentiment in 
 his youthful poem, Al Aaraaf, and would fain preserve 
 this brighter world of his fancy from the contagion 
 of human evil — 
 
 Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man. 
 
 Astrology and horoscopy, from which even the keen 
 intellects of Kepler and Tycho de Brahe could not dis- 
 entangle themselves, and to which the still more modern 
 
86 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 genius of Goethe paid a characteristic tribute in. the 
 story of his nativity, were only this anthropocentric 
 conceit masquerading as science, and leaving vestiges 
 of itself in such common words as "ill-starred" and 
 " lunatic." 
 
 Comets were universally regarded as portents of dis- 
 asters, sent expressly as warnings for the reproof and 
 reformation of mankind; tempests and lightnings were 
 feared as harbingers of divine wrath and instruments 
 of punishment for human transgression. According 
 to the Eev. Increase Mather, God took the trouble to 
 eclipse the sun in August, 1672, merely to prognosticate 
 the death of the President of Harvard College and of 
 two colonial governors, all of whom " died within a 
 twelvemonth after." This is but a single example of 
 the wide prevalence and general acceptance of a popular 
 superstition constantly tested and easily proved by 
 the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. Bayle, 
 in his Divers Thoughts on Comets (Pensees Diverses 
 sur les Cometes), ridicules the foolish pride and vanity 
 of man, who imagines that "he can not die without 
 disturbing the whole course of Nature and compelling 
 the heavens to put themselves to fresh expense in order 
 to light his funeral pomp." 
 
 Not only were the fruits of the earth made to grow 
 for human sustenance, but the flowers of the field were 
 supposed to bud and blossom, putting on their gayest 
 attire and emitting their sweetest perfume, solely as a 
 contribution to human happiness; and it was deemed 
 one of the mysteries and mistakes of Nature, never too 
 much to be puzzled over and wondered at, that these 
 things should spring up and expend their beauty and 
 fragrance in remote places untrodden by the foot of 
 
ETHICAL KELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 87 
 
 man. Gray expresses this feeling in the oft-quoted 
 lines: 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 Science has finally and effectually taken this con- 
 ceit out of man by showing that the flower blooms not 
 for the purpose of giving him agreeable sensations, but 
 for its own sake, and that it presumed to put forth 
 sweet and beautiful blossoms long before he appeared 
 on the earth as a rude cave-haunting and flint-chipping 
 savage. 
 
 The colour and odour of the plant are designed 
 not so much to please man as to attract insects, which 
 promote the process of fertilization and thus insure 
 the preservation of the species. The gratification of 
 man's assthetic sense and taste for the beautiful does 
 not enter into Nature's intentions; and although the 
 flower may bloom unseen by any human eye, it does 
 not on that account waste its sweetness, but fully ac- 
 complishes its mission, provided there is a bee or a 
 bug abroad to be drawn to it. That the fragrance 
 and variegated petals are alluring to a vagrant insect 
 is a condition of far more importance in determining 
 the fate of the plant than that they should be charming 
 to man. 
 
 Plants, on the other hand, which depend upon the 
 force of the wind for fructification, are not distin- 
 guished for beauty of colour or sweetness of odour, 
 since these qualities, however agreeable to man, would 
 be wasted on the wind. This is an illustration of the i 
 prudent economy of Nature, who never indulges in su- 
 perfluities or overburdens her products with useless 
 attributes; but the test of utility which "great creat- 
 
88 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ing Nature " sets up in such cases is little flattering to 
 man, and has no reference to his tastes and suscepti- 
 bilities, but is determined solely by the serviceableness 
 of certain qualities to the plant itself in the struggle 
 for existence. 
 
 According to Schopenhauer, anthropocentric ego- 
 ism is a fundamental and fatal defect in the psycho- 
 logical and ethical teachings of both Judaism and 
 Christianity, and has been the source of untold misery 
 to myriads of sentient and highly sensitive organisms. 
 " These religions," he says, " have unnaturally severed 
 man from^the animal world, to which he essentially 
 belongs, and placed him on a pinnacle apart, treating 
 all lower creatures as mere things; whereas Brahman- 
 ism and Buddhism insist not only upon his kinship 
 with all forms of animal life, but also upon his vital 
 connection with all animated Nature, binding him up 
 into intimate relationship with them by metempsycho- 
 sis." 
 
 In the Hebrew cosmogony there is no continuity 
 in the process of creation, whereby the genesis of man 
 is in any wise connected with the genesis of the lower 
 animals. After the Lord God, by his fiat, had produced 
 beasts, birds, fishes, and creeping things, he ignored all 
 this mass of protoplastic and organic material, and 
 took an entirely new departure in the production of 
 man, whom he formed out of the dust of the ground. 
 Science shows him to have been originally a little higher 
 than the ape, out of which he was gradually and pain- 
 fully evolved; Scripture takes him out of his environ- 
 ment, severs him from his antecedents, and makes him 
 a little lower than the angels. Upon the being thus 
 arbitrarily created absolute dominion is conferred over 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OP MAN TO BEAST. 89 
 
 every beast of the earth and every fowl of the air, 
 which are to be to him " for meat." They are given 
 over to his supreme and irresponsible control, without 
 the slightest injunction of kindness or the faintest 
 suggestion of any duties or obligations toward them. 
 
 Again, when the earth is to be renewed and re- 
 plenished after the deluge, the same principles are 
 reiterated and the same line of demarcation is drawn 
 and even deepened. God blesses Noah and his sons, 
 bids them "be fruitful and multiply," and then adds, 
 as regards the lower animals: " The fear of you and 
 the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth 
 and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth 
 upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into 
 your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing 
 that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green 
 herb have I given you all things." 
 
 This tyrannical mandate is not mitigated by any 
 intimation of the merciful manner in which the human 
 autocrat should treat the creatures thus subjected to 
 his capricious will. On the contrary, the only thing 
 that he is positively commanded to do with reference 
 to them is to eat them. They are to be regarded by him 
 simply as food, having no more rights and deserving 
 no more consideration as means of sating his appetite 
 than a grain of corn or a blade of grass. 
 
 The practical working of this decree has been 
 summed up by Shelley, with his wonted force and suc- 
 cinctness, when he says, "The supremacy of man is, 
 like Satan's, a supremacy of pain." Burns regrets the 
 fatal effect of the sovereignty thus conferred upon 
 the human race in destroying the mutual sympathy 
 and confidence which should exist between the lord 
 
90 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of creation and the lower animals in the lines addressed 
 To a Mouse, on turning her up in her Nest with the 
 Plough, November, 1785: 
 
 I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken Nature's social union, 
 An' justifies that ill opinion 
 
 Which makes thee startle 
 At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 
 
 An' fellow-mortal. 
 
 In the subsequent annals of the world we have ample 
 commentaries on this primitive code written in the 
 blood of helpless, innocent, and confiding creatures, 
 which, although called dumb and incapable of record- 
 ing their sufferings, yet 
 
 . . . have long tradition and swift speech, 
 Can tell with touches and sharp-darting cries 
 Whole histories of timid races taught 
 To breathe in terror by red-handed man. 
 
 Indeed, ever since Abel's firstlings of the flock were 
 more acceptable than Cain's bloodless offerings of the 
 fruits of the fields, priests have performed the func- 
 tions of butchers, converting sacred shrines into 
 shambles in their endeavours to pander to the gross ap- 
 petites of cruel and carnivorous gods. Cain's offering 
 was rejected, says Dr. Kitto, because "he declined to 
 enter into the sacrificial institution." In other words, 
 he would not shed the blood of beasts to gratify the 
 Lord — a refusal which we can not but regard as ex- 
 ceedingly commendable in Adam's first-born. 
 
 " I do not remember," observed Mrs. Jameson, " ever 
 to have heard the kind and just treatment of animals 
 enforced on Christian principles or made the subject 
 of a sermon." George Herbert was a man of gentle 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OP MAN TO BEAST. 91 
 
 spirit and ready hand for the relief of all forms of 
 human distress, and in his book entitled A Priest to 
 the Temple, or the Country Parson, lays down rules 
 and precepts for the guidance of the clergyman in all 
 relations of life, even to the minutest circumstances 
 and remotest contingencies incident to parochial care. 
 But this tender-hearted man does not deem it necessary 
 for the parson to take the slightest interest in animals, 
 and does not utter a word of counsel as to the manner 
 in which his parishioners should be taught their duties 
 toward the creatures so wholly dependent upon them. 
 Indeed, no treatise on pastoral theology ever touches 
 this topic, nor is it ever made the theme of a discourse 
 from the pulpit, or of systematic instruction in the 
 Sunday school. 
 
 Neither the synagogue nor the church, neither 
 sandedrin nor ecclesiastical council, has ever regarded 
 this subject as falling within its scope, and sought 
 to inculcate as a dogma or to enforce by decree 
 a proper consideration for the rights of the lower 
 animals. One of the chief objections urged by Celsus 
 more than seventeen centuries ago against Chris- 
 tianity was that it " considers everything as having 
 been created solely for man." This stricture is in- 
 dorsed by Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Eugby, who also 
 animadverts on the evils growing out of the anthropo- 
 centric character of Christianity as a scheme of redemp- 
 tion and a system of theodicy. "It would seem," he 
 says, " as if the primitive Christian, by laying so much 
 stress upon a future life in contradistinction to this life, 
 and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of hope, 
 placed them at the same time out of the pale of sym- 
 pathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter dis- 
 
92 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 regard of animals in the light of our fellow-creatures. 
 The definition of virtue among the early Christians 
 was the same as Paley's — that it was good performed 
 for the sake of insuring eternal happiness — which 
 of course excluded all the so-called brute creatures. 
 Kind, loving, submissive, conscientious, much-enduring, 
 we know them to be; 'but because we deprive them of 
 all stake in the future, because they have no selfish, 
 calculated aim, these are not virtues; yet if we say ' a 
 vicious horse,' why not say ' a virtuous horse ' ? " 
 
 We are ready enough, adds Dr. Arnold, to endow 
 animals with our bad moral qualities, but grudge them 
 the possession of our good ones. The Germans, whose 
 natural and hereditary sympathy with the brute cre- 
 ation is stronger than that of any other Western people, 
 speak of horses as " fromm" pious, not in the religious, 
 but in the primary and proper sense of the word, mean- 
 ing thereby kind and docile. The English "gentle" 
 and the French " gentil," which are used in the same 
 connection, refer to good conduct as the result of fine 
 breeding. 
 
 Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue, to which Dr. 
 Arnold adverts, is essentially anthropocentric and in- 
 tensely egoistic. "Virtue," he says, "is the doing 
 good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, for 
 the sake of everlasting happiness." In order to be 
 virtuous, according to this extremely narrow and wholly 
 inadequate conception of virtue, we must, in the first 
 place, do good to mankind, our conduct toward the brute 
 creation not being taken into the account; secondly, 
 our action must be in obedience to the will of God, thus 
 ruling out all generous impulses originating in the 
 spontaneous desire to do good; thirdly, we must have 
 
ETHICAL KELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 93 
 
 an eye single to our own supreme personal advantage — 
 in other words, our conduct must be utterly selfish, 
 spring not merely from momentary pleasure or tem- 
 porary profit, but from far-seeing calculations of the 
 effect it may have in securing our eternal happiness. 
 Thus the virtuous man becomes the incarnation of the 
 intensest self-love and self-seeking, and virtue the 
 synonym of excessive venality. From a moral point of 
 view, there is no greater merit in " otherworldliness " 
 than in worldliness, and no reason why the endeavour to 
 attain personal happiness in a future life should differ in 
 quality from 'the effort to make everything minister 
 to our personal happiness in the present life. 
 
 " The whole subject of the brute creation," says Dr. 
 Arnold, "is to me one of such painful mystery that I 
 dare not approach it." The mental distress experienced 
 in such cases arises from the fact that the subject is ap- 
 proached from the wrong side and surveyed from a 
 false point of view. Traditional theology and an- 
 thropocentric ethics are brought into conflict with the 
 better impulses of a broad and generous nature and the 
 sharp antagonism could hardly fail to be a source of 
 perplexity and pain. " Charity," says Lord Bacon, 
 " will hardly water the ground, where it must first 
 fill a pool " ; and of all pools the hardest to fill is that 
 which is dug in the dry, gravelly soil of human egot- 
 ism. 
 
 Theocritus, the father of Greek idyllic poetry, rep- 
 resents Hercules as exclaiming, after he had slain the 
 Wemean lion, " Hades received a monster soul " ; and 
 he saw nothing incongruous in the spirit of the dead 
 beast joining the company of the departed spirits of 
 men in the lower world. Sydney Smith says, in speak- 
 
9i EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ing of the soul of the brute, " To this soul some have 
 impiously allowed immortality." Why such a belief 
 should be deemed impious it is difficult to discover. 
 The question which the psychologist has to consider 
 is not whether the doctrine is impious, but whether 
 it is true. No scientific opinion has ever been ad- 
 vanced that has not seemed impious to some minds, 
 and been denounced and persecuted as such by ecclesi- 
 astical authorities. 
 
 Bishop Butler, on the contrary, in his work on The 
 Analogy of Eeligion, Natural and Bevealed, to the 
 Constitution and Course of Nature, declares that " we 
 can not find anything throughout the whole analogy 
 of Nature to afford us even the slightest presumption 
 that animals ever lose their living powers." He ad- 
 mits that his argument in support of the doctrine of 
 a future life proves the immortality of brutes as well as 
 that of man, and thus recognises their spiritual kin- 
 ship. 
 
 An eminent Scotch physician and anatomist, Dr. 
 John Barclay, in his Inquiry into the Opinions, An- 
 cient and Modern, concerning Life and Organization 
 (1825), urges the probable immortality of the lower 
 animals, which, he thinks, are "reserved, as forming 
 many of the accustomed links in the chain of being, 
 and by preserving the chain entire, contribute in the 
 future state, as they do here, to the general beauty 
 and variety of the universe, a source not only of sublime 
 but of perpetual delight." The author seems to infer 
 the continued existence of the brute creation from the 
 fact that it forms an essential part of universal being, 
 and that its total disappearance would mar the per- 
 fection of the next world, which should be more per- 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 95 
 
 feet than this world. He assumes, however, that the 
 lower animals are endowed with immortality, not so 
 much from psychological necessity or for their own 
 sake as sentient and intelligent creatures, as for man's 
 sake, in order that their presence may minister to his 
 pleasure by forming an attractive feature in the heaven- 
 ly landscape. It is, therefore, solely from anthropo- 
 centric considerations that they are granted this lease 
 of eternal life; just as "the poor Indian" is repre- 
 sented by the poet as looking forward to the possession 
 of happy hunting fields after death, where he may fol- 
 low with keener enjoyment his favourite pursuit, and 
 " his faithful dog shall bear him company." 
 
 More than fifty years ago Henry Hallam made the 
 following observations, which are remarkable as an an- 
 ticipation of the ethical corollary to the doctrine of 
 evolution: "Few at present, who believe in the im- 
 mortality of the human soul, would deny the same to 
 the elephant; but it must be owned that the discov- 
 eries of zoology have pushed this to consequences which 
 some might not readily adopt. The spiritual being of 
 a sponge revolts a little our prejudices; yet there is 
 no resting place, and we must admit this or be content 
 to sink ourselves into a mass of medullary fibre. Brutes 
 have been as slowly emancipated in philosophy as some 
 classes of mankind have been in civil polity; their souls, 
 we see, were almost universally disputed to them at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, even by those who 
 did not absolutely bring them down to machinery. 
 Even within the recollection of many, it was common 
 to deny them any kind of reasoning faculty, and to solve 
 their most sagacious actions by the vague word in- 
 stinct. "We have come in late years to think better of 
 
96 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 our humble companions; and, as usual in similar cases, 
 the preponderant bias seems rather too much of a level- 
 ling character." During the half century that has 
 elapsed since these words were written, not only has 
 zoology made still greater progress in the direction 
 indicated, but a new science of zoopsychology has sprung 
 up, in which the mental traits and moral qualities -of 
 the lower animals have been, not merely recorded as 
 curious and comical anecdotes, but systematically in- 
 vestigated and philosophically explained. In conse- 
 quence of this radical change of view, human society 
 in general has become more philozoic, not upon re- 
 ligious or sentimental but upon strictly scientific 
 grounds, and developed a sympathy and solidarity with 
 the animal world, having its sources less in the tender 
 and transitory emotions of the heart than in the pro- 
 found and permanent convictions of the mind. 
 
 In an essay published a few years ago in The Dub- 
 lin Eeview (October, 1887, p. 418), the Eight Rev. 
 John Cuthbert Hedley, Bishop of Newport and Menevia, 
 asserts that animals have no rights, because they are not 
 rational creatures and do not exist for their own sake. 
 " The brute creation have only one purpose, and that 
 is to minister to man, or to man's temporary abode." 
 This is the doctrine set forth more than six centuries 
 ago by Thomas Aquinas, and recently expounded by 
 Dr. Leopold Schutz, professor in the theological semi- 
 nary at Trier, in an elaborate work entitled The So- 
 called Understanding of Animals or Animal Instinct. 
 This writer treats the theory of the irrationality of 
 brutes as a dogma of the Church, denouncing all who 
 hold that the mental difference between man and beast 
 is one of degree, and not of kind, as " enemies of the 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO, BEAST. 97 
 
 Christian faith " ; whereas those who cling to the old 
 notion of instinctive or automatic action in explain- 
 ing the phenomena of animal intelligence are extolled 
 as " champions of pure truth." 
 
 In an article on The Lower Animals, in the Catholic 
 Dictionary of W. B. Addis and T. Arnold, published 
 in 1884, it is maintained that "the brutes are made 
 for man, who has the same right over them which he 
 has over plants and stones," and that it is lawful for 
 him to put them to death and to torment them " even 
 for the purposes of recreation." A similar view is taken 
 by Philip Austin in a volume on Our Duty to Animals 
 (London, 1885), in which the author, treating the sub- 
 ject "in the light of Christian philosophy," comes to 
 the conclusion "that kindness to the brutes is a mere 
 work of supererogation." 
 
 If it was the Creator's intention that the lower ani- 
 mals should minister to man, the divine plan has proved 
 to be a failure, since the number of animals which, after 
 centuries of effort, he has succeeded in bringing more 
 or less under his dominion is extremely small. Millions 
 of living creatures fly in the air, crawl on the earth, 
 dwell in the waters, and roam the fields and the forests, 
 over which he has no control whatever. Not one in 
 twenty thousand is fit for food, and of those which 
 are edible he does not actually eat more than one in 
 ten thousand. In explanation of this lack of effect- 
 iveness in the enforcement of a divine decree, it has 
 been asserted that man lost his dominion over the lower 
 world to a great extent when he lost dominion over 
 himself; but this view is wholly untenable even from 
 a biblical standpoint, inasmuch as the promise of uni- 
 versal sovereignty was renewed after the deluge 
 
98 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 and expressed in even stronger terms than before the 
 fall. 
 
 Dugald Stewart admits " a certain latitude of action, 
 which enables the brutes to accommodate themselves 
 in some measure to their accidental situations." In 
 this arrangement he sees a design or purpose of " render- 
 ing them, in consequence of this power of accommoda- 
 tion, incomparably more serviceable to our race than 
 they would have been if altogether subjected, like mere 
 matter, to the influence of regular and assignable 
 causes." Of the value of this power of adaptation to 
 the animal itself in the struggle for existence the 
 Scotch philosopher had no conception. 
 
 In the great majority of treatises on moral science, 
 especially in such as base their teachings on distinctive- 
 ly Christian tenets, there is seldom any allusion to 
 man's duty toward animals. Dr. Wayland, who has 
 perhaps the most to say on this point, sums up his 
 remarks in a note apologetically appended to the body 
 of his work. He denies them the possession of "any 
 moral faculty," and declares that in all cases " our right 
 is paramount and must extinguish theirs." We are to 
 treat them kindly, feed and shelter them adequately, 
 and "kill them with the least possible pain." To 
 inflict suffering upon them for our amusement is wrong, 
 since it tends to harden men and render them brutal 
 and ferocious in temper. 
 
 Dr. Hickok takes a similar view and broadly asserts 
 that "neither animate nor inanimate Nature has any 
 rights," and that man is not bound to it " by any duties 
 for its own sake. ... In the light of his own worthi- 
 ness as end, ... he is not permitted to mar the face 
 of Nature, nor wantonly and uselessly to injure any 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OP MAN TO BEAST. 99 
 
 of her products." Maliciously breaking a crystal, de- 
 facing a gem, girdling a tree, crushing a flower, paint- 
 ing flaming advertisements on rocks, and worrying and 
 torturing animals are thus placed in the same category 
 as acts tending to degrade man ethically and aesthet- 
 ically, rendering him coarse and rude, and making him 
 not only a very disagreeable associate, but also, in the 
 long run, " an unsafe member of civil society." These 
 things are considered right or wrong solely from the 
 standpoint of their influence upon human elevation 
 or degradation. "Nature possesses no product too 
 sacred for man. All Nature is for man, not man for it." 
 
 The same opinion is held by the Jesuit, Victor 
 Cathrein, who, in a recently published review of Bregen- 
 zer's Thier-Ethik (Stimmen aus Marien-Lach, February 
 7, 1895, p. 164), denies that man has any duties toward 
 the lower animals, and asserts that any cruelty he 
 may inflict upon them involves no moral wrong differ- 
 ent in kind from that which he commits in wantonly 
 tearing or dirtying his own clothes. According to this 
 doctrine, animals have no more rights than inanimate 
 objects, and it is no worse from an ethical point of 
 view to flay the forearm of an ape or lacerate the leg 
 of a dog than to rip open the sleeve of a coat or rend 
 a pair of pantaloons. The plain statement of such a 
 theory is its sufficient refutation, and we doubt whether 
 even such a severe dogmatist and uncompromising cham- 
 pion of Catholic principles as Victor Cathrein, S. J., 
 would be able to witness all these operations with equal 
 equanimity. 
 
 Man is as truly a part and product of Nature as any 
 other animal, and this attempt to set him up on an iso- 
 lated point outside of it is philosophically false and 
 
100 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 morally pernicious. It makes fundamental to ethics a 
 principle which once prevailed universally in politics 
 and still survives in the legal fiction that the king can 
 do no wrong. Louis XIV of France firmly believed 
 himself to be the rightful and absolute owner of the 
 lives and property of his subjects. He held that his 
 rights as monarch were paramount and extinguished 
 theirs, that they possessed nothing too sacred for him, 
 and the leading moralists and statists of his day con- 
 firmed him in this extravagant opinion of his royal 
 prerogatives. All the outrages which the mad Czar, 
 Ivan the Terrible, perpetrated on the inhabitants of 
 Novgorod and Moscow, man has felt and for the most 
 part still feels himself justified in inflicting on domestic 
 animals and beasts of venery. 
 
 It is only within the last century that legislators 
 have begun to recognise the claims of brutes to just 
 treatment and to enact laws for their protection. Tor- 
 turing a beast, if punished at all, was treated solely as 
 an offence against property, like breaking a window, 
 barking a tree, or committing any other act known 
 in Scotch law as " malicious mischief." It was regarded, 
 not as a wrong done to the suffering animal, but as an 
 injury done to its owner, which could be made good 
 by the payment of money. Not until a little more than 
 a hundred years ago was such an act changed from a 
 civil into a criminal offence, for which a simple fine 
 was not deemed a sufficient reparation. It was thus 
 placed in the category of crimes which, like arson, bur- 
 glary, and murder, are wrongs against society, for which 
 no pecuniary restitution or compensation can make 
 adequate atonement. 
 
 Even this legislative reform is by no means universal. 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 101 
 
 The criminal code of the German Empire still punishes 
 with a fine of not more than fifty thalers any person 
 " who publicly, or in such wise as to excite scandal, ma- 
 liciously tortures or barbarously maltreats animals." 
 This sort of cruelty is classified with drawing plans of 
 fortresses, using official stamps and seakj and putting 
 royal or princely coats of arms on signs without per- 
 mission, making noises which disturb the public peace, 
 and playing games of hazard on the streets or market 
 places. The man is punished, not because he puts the 
 animal to pain, but because his conduct is offensive 
 to his fellow-men and wounds their sensibilities. The 
 law sets no limit to his cruelty, provided he may prac- 
 tise it in private. 
 
 Again, in all enactments regulating the transporta- 
 tion of live stock our legislation is still exceedingly de- 
 fective. The great majority of people have no con- 
 ception of the unnecessary and almost incredible suffer- 
 ing inflicted by man upon the lower animals in merely 
 conveying them from one place to another in order 
 to meet the demands of the market. It is well known 
 that German shippers of sheep to England often lose 
 one third of their consignment by suffocation, owing 
 to overcrowding and imperfect ventilation. Beasts are 
 still made to endure all the horrors to which slavers 
 were once wont to subject their cargoes of human chat- 
 tels in stifling holds on the notorious " middle passage." 
 (Some conception of the cruelties involved in this 
 traffic may be obtained by reading Samuel Plimsoll's 
 little volume entitled Cattle Ships, published in London 
 in 1890.) 
 
 The late Henry Bergh states that the loss on cattle 
 by " shrinkage " in transporting them from the West- 
 
102 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ern to the Eastern portion of the United States is from 
 ten to fifteen per cent. The average shrinkage of an 
 ox is one hundred and twenty pounds, and that of a 
 sheep or hog from fifteen to twenty pounds; and the 
 annual loss in money arising from this cause is estimated 
 at more than forty million dollars. The amount of 
 animal suffering which these statistics imply is fearful 
 to contemplate. Here and there a solitary voice is heard 
 in our legislative halls protesting against the horrors 
 of this traffic, but so powerful is the lobby influence 
 of wealthy corporations that no law can be passed to 
 prevent them. Not a word ever falls from the pulpit 
 inrebuke of such barbarity; meanwhile the railroad mag- 
 nates pay liberal pew rents out of the profits, and listen 
 with complacency one day in the week to denunciations 
 of Jeroboam's idolatry and the wicked deeds of Ahab 
 and Ahaziah, as recorded in the chronicles of the kings 
 of Israel. 
 
 The horse, one of the noblest and most sensitive of 
 domestic animals, is put to all kinds of torture by dock- 
 ing, pricking, clipping, peppering, and the use of bear- 
 ing reins solely to gratify human vanity. As a reward 
 for severe and faithful toil he is often fed with un- 
 wholesome and insufficient fodder on the economical 
 principle announced by the manager of a New York 
 tramway that "horses are cheaper than oats." It is 
 an actual fact, verified by Henry Bergh, that the horses 
 of this large corporation were fed on a mixture of meal, 
 gypsum, and marble dust, until the Society for the Pre- 
 vention of Cruelty to Animals interfered and finally 
 succeeded in putting a stop to the practice. 
 
 The Americans, as a people, are notorious for the 
 recklessness with which they squander the products of 
 
ETHICAL RELATIONS OP MAN TO BEAST. 103 
 
 Nature, of which their country is so exceedingly pro- 
 lific. This extravagance extends to all departments of 
 public, social, and domestic life. No land less rich in 
 material resources could have borne for any length of 
 time the wretched mismanagement of its finances to 
 which the United States has been subjected ever since 
 and even before the close of the civil war. There is not 
 a government in Europe that would not have been 
 broken down and rendered bankrupt by the tremendous 
 and wholly unnecessary strain put upon it by crass igno- 
 rance of the most elementary principles of finance and 
 demagogical tampering with the public credit. The 
 same wasteful spirit involves also, as we have seen, 
 immense suffering to animals on the part of soulless 
 and unscrupulous corporations, in which intense greed 
 of gain is not mitigated by the influence of individual 
 kindness, and by which horses are treated as mere 
 machines, to be worked to their utmost capacity at the 
 smallest expense, and neat cattle as so much butcher's 
 meat to be brought to market in the quickest and cheap- 
 est manner. 
 
 Erasmus Darwin, in his Phytologia, or the Philoso- 
 phy of Agriculture and Gardening (London, 1800), en- 
 deavours to vindicate the goodness of God in permitting 
 the destruction of the lower by the higher animals on 
 the ground that "more pleasurable sensation exists in 
 the world, as the organic matter is taken from a state 
 of less irritability and less sensibility and converted 
 into a greater." By this arrangement, he thinks, the 
 supreme sum of possible happiness is secured to sentient 
 beings. Thus it may be disagreeable for the mouse to 
 be caught and converted into the flesh of the cat, for 
 the lamb to be devoured by the wolf, for the toad to 
 
104 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 be swallowed by the serpent, and for sheep, swine, and 
 kine to be served up as roasts and ragouts for man; 
 but in all such eases, he argues, the pain inflicted is far 
 less than the amount of pleasure ultimately procured. 
 But how is it when a finely organized human being, 
 with infinite capabilities of happiness in its highest 
 forms, is suddenly transmuted into the bodily substance 
 of a boa constrictor or a tiger? No one will seriously 
 assert that the drosera, Dioncea muscipula, and other 
 insectivorous and carnivorous plants are organisms 
 superior in sensitiveness to those which they devour, 
 or that this transformation of animal into vegetable 
 structure increases the sum of pleasurable sensation 
 m the world. The doctrine of evolution, which regards 
 these antagonisms as mere episodes in the universal 
 struggle for existence, has forever set aside this sort 
 of theodicy and put an end to all teleological attempts 
 to infer from the nature and operations of creation the 
 moral character of the Creator. 
 
CHAPTBE IV. 
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 Universality of the belief in the transmigration of souls. Concep- 
 tion of immortality among primitive tribes. Strong faith of 
 the savage. Filial affection as exemplified by parricide. Per- 
 sistence of the dogma of metempsychosis. Traces of it in Ju- 
 daism and Christianity. Elect Israelitic souls. Metempsy- 
 chosis taught by the Manichseans and used by Origen to 
 explain divine predestination. Pre-existence held by Pytha- 
 goras, Plato, and other Greek philosophers and assumed to be 
 true by Jesus. Augustine's commentary on the Golden Ass of 
 A ppuleius. Goethe's confession. Appuleius and Czeslav Czyn- 
 ski as hypnotizers. Relation of zo51atry to metempsychosis. 
 Animals as incarnations of ghosts and demons. Metempsy- 
 chosis as the metaphorical expression of human aspiration and 
 evolution. The spiritual law of like seeking like in the prede- 
 termination of character. Indian conception of fate and free 
 will illustrated by modern statistics of crime, suicide, and 
 other social phenomena. Plato's theory of the origin of intui- 
 tive knowledge. " Essential spissitude." Lessing on the pos- 
 sibility of more than five senses in man. Neo-Lamarckism. 
 Pervading influence of pantheism in the Orient. Indian athe- 
 ists. Brahmanical and Buddhistic eschatology : absorption 
 and extinction of the individual soul as the radical cure of 
 egotism. Paul and Nanak. The pantheistic compared with 
 the Christian scheme of salvation from an ethical point of 
 view. Transmigration of souls and transmutation of species. 
 Conservation of force and imperishableness of spirit. Thomas 
 Aquinas's untenable distinction between human and sub- 
 human souls. Moral bearing of metempsychosis. Orientals 
 in their treatment of animals not alwavs true to their religious 
 105 
 
106 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 precepts. Protection of animals as property. Panpsychic 
 philosophy. Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. 
 Hospitals for beasts in India. Monier Williams's description 
 of the Panjara Pol. Mantegazza's account of such an insti- 
 tution. The "Bai Sakarbai." King Thibo and Barnum. 
 European hospitals for animals. The New York Veterinary 
 Hospital. Lecky's observations. Oriental and Occidental 
 treatment of animals contrasted. Lack of pertinent biblical 
 texts. Quandary of a Protestant parson. Deficiencies of He- 
 brew and Christian Scriptures. Animals in hagiology. Eccle- 
 siastical excommunication of animals. Festivals of St. An- 
 thony in Borne and of St. Leonard in Tolz. Legends of St. 
 Francis of Assisi. Indifference of the Catholic Church to the 
 sufferings of animals. Dictum of Pius the Ninth. Its prac- 
 tical application by Italians. Spanish bullfights and the 
 popes. Beneficent influence of evolutionary science and com- 
 parative psychology upon the humane treatment of animals. 
 
 It is especially in man's conception of his relations 
 to the lower animals and of the character and degree 
 of their psychical development and mental endowment 
 that anthropocentric prejudices and prepossessions con- 
 tinue to exert a perverting and pernicious influence. 
 
 Opposed to this tendency, both as a philosophical 
 principle and in its bearings on practical ethics, is the 
 doctrine of the transmigration of souls. If the truth 
 of a tenet may be determined by the majority of suf- 
 frages in its favour, if the validity of a theory bears any 
 proportion to the number of persons who have ac- 
 cepted it and found comfort and consolation in it, if 
 the famous test quod semper, quod ubique, quod db om- 
 nibus, which the Eomish Church has made the cri- 
 terion of its own claim to catholicity, has any force or 
 fitness as furnishing a ground of belief, it would be 
 difficult to discover among the multiform creeds of 
 mankind any doctrine resting upon a broader and firmer 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 107 
 
 foundation than that which is known as metempsy- 
 chosis. 
 
 Indeed, if such indorsement is to be regarded as 
 any proof of genuineness, this theory may be said, with- 
 out exaggeration, to be stamped with the seal of almost 
 universal consent, since it has been found to be inherent 
 in or engrafted upon nearly every known school of 
 philosophy and system of religion, and to have been 
 held, in some of its varied forms, by men in all ages, 
 in all lands, in all conditions of life, and in all stages 
 of barbarism and civilization. 
 
 The belief in the transmigration of souls and in 
 their progressive improvement through successive stages 
 of incarnation is common to the aboriginal tribes of 
 every land, and may be regarded as the earliest and 
 most general form in which the conception of immor- 
 tality takes expression. To the mind of the primitive 
 man the idea of the continued existence of the soul 
 in a disembodied state is utterly incomprehensible, and 
 would be equivalent to its permanent extinction. After 
 having come in contact with Europeans and learned 
 to appreciate their superiority, the negro's ideal of im- 
 mortality is to animate, after death, the body of a 
 white man. One of the strongest incentives of the 
 savage to distingtiish himself in battle is the hope of 
 being rewarded for his prowess by being born again 
 into a higher tribal position as a mighty chieftain or 
 a powerful medicine man. So firm is his conviction 
 of this possibility, that he often courts danger and craves 
 death in order to better his condition by a new birth. 
 
 Culture is critical and sceptical in its relations to 
 the unseen world and touching all that lies beyond 
 the bourn of the present life. Only barbarism is capable 
 8 
 
108 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of begetting the intense and implicit faith that never 
 questions the words of the priest or suspects the wiles 
 of the wizard. This crass credulity is characteristic of 
 infant intelligence, and disappears with the mental 
 growth and maturity of the race. Where it exists in full 
 force it always produces a fearlessness bordering on 
 fanaticism, as in the soldiery of the Sikh Guru and 
 the Mohammedan Mahdi, or as in the case of the 
 Congo, negress, who put such perfect confidence in the 
 protecting power of her fetiches, that she unhesitat- 
 ingly placed her foot on a block and permitted it to 
 be struck off with an ax, and could hardly believe that 
 amulets and charms had failed to prevent the natural 
 effects of the blow. The same amount of superstitious 
 assurance in a civilized man would be regarded as con- 
 clusive proof of his insanity. "We have an example 
 of this kind in the sect known as the " peculiar people," 
 who, not having outgrown the healing methods en- 
 joined and employed by the Christian Church in the 
 first century, are constantly coming into conflict with 
 the hygienic regulations established and enforced by 
 Christian governments in the nineteenth century. 
 
 With what unwavering trust the old German war- 
 rior had his weapons, his wives, his horses, and his 
 slaves buried in his dolmen, never doubting that they 
 would go with him and be ready for his service in the 
 next world! He was the best and foremost man of his 
 time; but should one of his descendants of to-day at- 
 tempt to express in like manner his firm faith in the 
 immortality of the soul, he would be denounced as a 
 dangerous religious " crank," and summarily arrested 
 by the police. In Polynesia it was thought to be the 
 duty of the child to put the parents to death as soon 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. ,109 
 
 as the physical powers began to show symptoms of 
 decay. The purpose of the parricide was not to rid 
 himself of a burden, but sprung solely from f eelings of 
 filial affection and prescriptive obligation, and from 
 the desire that his parents might escape the infirmities 
 of old age and enter in full vigour upon the future 
 life. The parents consented to the act and were happy 
 in the prospect of speedy rejuvenation in the realms 
 of the blest. So, too, among the Battas of Sumatra, 
 a gentle and kindly race, the father, when he feels the 
 signs of approaching old age, begs his sons to kill and 
 eat him. On the day appointed for the performance 
 of this filial duty, the old man climbs up into a tree, 
 round which his sons stand, beating upon the trunk 
 and singing a sort of dirge, the burden of which is: 
 " The season has come, the fruit is ripe and must fall." 
 Thereupon the old man descends, and is solemnly slain 
 and lovingly devoured. But where is the Christian, 
 however zealous and sincere, who would run so great 
 a risk, or whose faith in the resurrection of the dead 
 and the life everlasting would stand such a terrible 
 test? If he could be found, his proper place would be, 
 not in the sanctuary of the saints, but in an asylum for 
 the insane. 
 
 Metempsychosis is not merely a dogma of the past 
 or lingering survival of primitive beliefs. It is still a 
 living psychological principle and practical precept of 
 religion, and numbers its adherents by millions, includ- 
 ing all grades of enlightenment, from the African or 
 Australian savage to the Oriental sage, and all degrees 
 and developments of spiritual aspiration, from the 
 rudest rubbish worship of the Loango fetiehist to the 
 most refined mysticism of the European philosopher. It 
 
HO EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 appears with the earliest dawn of Indian speculation, and 
 pervades the whole vast, subtile, and complicated web 
 of Brahmanieal metaphysics. It is the central and 
 sustaining root of that widespreading banyan of Bud- 
 dhistic ethics, which extends its ample and hospitable 
 6hade over the entire realm of animated nature, and 
 gives impartial shelter and protection to every form 
 of animal life. It constituted an integral part of the 
 priestly wisdom of Egypt, fragments of which have 
 been preserved and transmitted to us in the so-called 
 Book of the Dead. The custom of embalming the de- 
 ceased grew out of the belief that the souls of the de- 
 parted would, after long wanderings and numerous 
 transformations, return to re-inhabit their human 
 bodies, and undergo again in this form various trials 
 and purifications preparatory to a final and eternal 
 union with Osiris. According to Herodotus (ii, 123), 
 this transmigration embraced in its circuit the prin- 
 cipal animals of the earth, the sea, and the air, and took 
 three thousand years for its accomplishment. Plastic 
 and pictorial illustrations of this doctrine are found on 
 Egyptian monuments and papyri, as, for example, where 
 the soul of a glutton is represented as being borne to 
 Hades in the form of a hog. 
 
 Even the Jews, notwithstanding the essential in- 
 consistency of the theory of transmigration with their 
 cosmogony and the prevailing spirit of their sacred 
 scriptures, borrowed it, together with the conception 
 of a future life, from their conquerors during the Baby- 
 lonian captivity; and a tenderer feeling toward the 
 lower animals is clearly perceptible among them in 
 consequence of their long and intimate contact with 
 Assyrian and Persian ideas and habits of thought. It 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. HI 
 
 finds, therefore, as one would naturally expect, its 
 most frequent expression and fullest unfolding in the 
 apochryphal and exegetical literature of the Hebrews, 
 while in the so-called canonical writings there are only 
 faint and comparatively few traces of it. Thus the 
 author of the Book of Wisdom says of himself: " I was 
 a well-conditioned child and had received a good soul; 
 and, since I was still good, I went into an immaculate 
 body." The Cabala declares still more emphatically 
 that "all souls are subject to the trials of transmigra- 
 tion." The Talmud reiterates the same thought. Many 
 of the most eminent rabbis taught that the souls of men 
 are sometimes condemned to inhabit the bodies of 
 women as a punishment for sins of effeminacy and for 
 mean and unmanly deeds, thus producing such mon- 
 strosities as amazons and viragoes. They also ascribed 
 barrenness in women to the penal possession of a male 
 soul, in which case she was enjoined to entreat the 
 Lord to pardon her offence, committed in a former 
 body, and graciously to grant her the power of child- 
 bearing by endowing her with scintillations of a female 
 soul. They maintained, furthermore, that in the be- 
 ginning God created a certain number of Jew souls 
 as his elect, and that these souls constantly return to 
 animate the bodies of successive generations of the 
 chosen people, and will remain a select source of spirit- 
 ual supply as long as the seed of Abraham continues 
 to dwell upon the earth. This is also supposed to ac- 
 count for the rare persistency of race peculiarities 
 which characterizes Israelites. According to this theory, 
 Jew souls never stray into Gentile bodies, though they 
 are frequently made to atone for their sins by becom- 
 ing incarnate in beasts. It is also stated that when 
 
112 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 this process of transmigration and purification is com- 
 plete, and every Jew soul animates the body of a just 
 Jew, then the end of the world will come. It might 
 seem to many that to make this final event dependent 
 upon such a remarkable concurrence of circumstances 
 and happy condition of things would be equivalent to 
 its indefinite postponement. 
 
 Of all Christian sectaries, the Manichaeans were 
 most considerate and careful of the lower animals, and 
 this kindly attitude of mind was due, in a large meas- 
 ure, to the strong admixture of Oriental ideas in their 
 system of belief. They held that the souls of men 
 undergo transformations,, passing successively into the 
 bodies of beasts and birds and reptiles, partly as a 
 method of punishment and partly as a means of growth 
 and a process of purgation from the spiritually con- 
 taminating lusts of the flesh. Finally, after having 
 been bathed in the sacred water of the moon and 
 burned in the sacred fire of the sun and thus cleansed 
 from all traces of material pollution, they become fit 
 for admission, as pure spiritual essence, into the world 
 of everlasting light. 
 
 Metempsychosis was also taught by Origen, who 
 found in this doctrine a convenient master-key to the 
 hidden meaning of many strange events and difficult 
 passages of Scripture. Thus he explains the prenatal 
 struggle of Esau and Jacob in the womb of Eebekah as 
 the revival and continuation of a pre-existent enmity 
 between them. The Lord likewise ordained Jeremiah 
 to be a prophet unto the nations, while he was yet un- 
 born, because, as is expressly stated, he had known 
 and tried him in a previous state of being. Predestina- 
 tion, in Origen's opinion, could be brought into har-. 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 113 
 
 mony with divine justice only on the same principle. 
 God's discrimination between persons before their 
 birth, foreordaining the one to everlasting life and the 
 other to everlasting death, he held to be an outrageous 
 wrong and an act of unpardonable favouritism, unless 
 justified by their known character and antecedent con- 
 duct and their good or evil propensities as manifested 
 in a former existence. To this most genial and thought- 
 ful theologian of the Eastern church the rigorous 
 dogma of the divine decrees, as implied in Paul's meta- 
 phor of the potter and the clay, was tyrannous and 
 atrocious, and he took refuge from it in the intricate 
 mazes of Buddhistic psychology and ethics. 
 
 This view of predestination would relieve it, in a 
 certain degree, of its arbitrary and unjust character 
 and establish a causal connection between the past 
 conduct of the person, rewarded or punished, and his 
 future condition. The divine decree would resolve itself 
 into fate, and a man's fate, says an Indian sage, is the 
 resultant of his deeds committed in a former body. 
 
 Origen held, too, that the story of the garden of 
 Eden is an account of the life of our first parents in 
 a previous state of existence, in which they fell into sin 
 through disobedience and were condemned to dwell in 
 human bodies. The passage in which God is said 
 to have made " coats of skins " for Adam and Eve 
 "and clothed them," means that he vestured them 
 with mortal flesh as a punishment for their transgres- 
 sion. According to this theory, which is as radically 
 pessimistic as any tenet of Buddhism, man became in- 
 carnated and, as it were, incarcerated in his present 
 physical form in consequence of a curse, and his whole 
 life on earth is that of a convict in a penal colony, and 
 
114 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 the chief end of his endeavours and aspirations should 
 be to obtain pardon and redemption by winning the 
 favour of the Almighty ; King who placed him in this 
 durance vile. 
 
 Pythagoras claimed to have' a distinct recollection 
 of his pre-existent actions and experiences. Socrates 
 maintained that all acquisition of knowledge or learn- 
 ing is nothing but remembering — 9 /uadijcns 6vk aAAo n fj 
 &vdiu/i}<ns. Plato would condemn all cowardly and effemi- 
 nate men, such as dandies and dudes, to be re-born as 
 women; frivolous and nighty and feather-brained per- 
 sons, to become birds; v those who neglect the study 
 of philosophy and seek only sensual indulgence, to be 
 transformed into beasts; and the dull and foolish, to 
 descend to the lower jLevel of fishes and mollusks. "He 
 states, however, that Orpheus reappeared as a swan, 
 and Thamyfis as a nightingale at their own request 
 a thousand years after their death. Aristotle held that 
 the souls of poets are fond of taking bodily form again 
 as cygnets; and Horace celebrates in an ode (ii, 20) 
 his own apokyknosis or swan re-incarnation, and re- 
 joices in the prospect of putting on feathers and soar- 
 ing through the argent fields of v air on the twofold 
 pinions of bird and bard. 
 
 Jesus and his disciples seem to have assumed, at least 
 on one occasion, that a person might suffer afflictions in 
 this body as a punishment for sins committed by him 
 before his birth or in a former state of conscious and 
 responsible existence. Thus, we are told that as they 
 passed by and saw a man that was blind from his birth, 
 "his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, 
 this man or his parents, that he was born blind? " (John 
 ix, 2). In his reply Jesus admits implicitly that both 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 115 
 
 of these hypotheses are legitimate and adequate to ac- 
 count for the given phenomenon, and only denies their 
 applicability to this particular case of physical infirmity. 
 In the same connection, Jesus asserts concerning him- 
 self that he existed before Abraham was. The state- 
 ment in this passage and in others of a similar char- 
 acter, which have been usually interpreted as referring 
 to his eternal Godhead, could be far more easily and 
 rationally explained as expressions of his belief in the 
 pre-existence of the soul. 
 
 St. Augustine maintained that men might be 
 changed into beasts by sorcery, and even suggested, 
 not sarcastically, but seriously, that the Golden Ass of 
 Apuleius might be autobiographical, the author de- 
 scribing his adventures in that state, whereinto, by the 
 evil arts of an enchantress, he had been actually " trans- 
 lated," like Bottom in the play. "In certain districts 
 of Italy," he adds, "such occurrences are quite fre- 
 quent. The women, who tend the herds, prepare with 
 magic rites a- kind of cheese, which they give to travel- 
 lers to eat and thus change them into beasts of burden, 
 in which shape they are made to bear heavy loads and 
 perform other onerous tasks." 
 
 According to one tradition, Apuleius wished to 
 become a creature with wings, but the malicious witches 
 Meroje and Panthia, who seem to have been fond of 
 playing practical jokes at others' expense, rubbed him 
 with an ointment which changed him into an ass, doubt- 
 less thinking that this would be the easiest and most 
 natural metamorphosis of a man who could make such 
 a request. Lucian, from whom Apuleius derived most 
 of the material for his famous romance, imagines him- 
 self in one of his satirical dialogues undergoing a like 
 
116 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 transformation through the conjurations of a Thes- 
 salian sorceress; and Boethius, in his Consolation of 
 Philosophy, describes similar metamorphoses: " One 
 man," he says, " takes the form of a boar, another that 
 of a Marmarian lion, others become howling wolves 
 and fierce tigers." 
 
 Appuleius himself was a Platonist with a strong 
 tendency to mysticism, and had the reputation of being 
 a powerful magician. He was once brought to trial on 
 the charge of having exercised this occult and uncanny 
 faculty in what the Scotch would call an exceedingly 
 canny way, by " enchanting " a rich widow and induc- 
 ing her to marry him, to the great detriment and in- 
 tense disgust of the heirs presumptive, who instituted 
 a suit for damages. The court decided that, however 
 irresistible may have been the influence he exerted in 
 winning the affections of the lady, there was no ground 
 for supposing that he had resorted to wizardry or any 
 forbidden form of fascination. Romantic sentiment, 
 in the opinion of the learned judge, sufficed to account 
 for the attachment without the intervention of necro- 
 mantic arts. 
 
 Perhaps the charm might have been explained, as 
 Goethe, in a letter to Wieland, was fain to account for 
 the ascendency gained over him by Frau von Stein, 
 on the theory of metempsychosis: " Yes," he exclaims, 
 " we were formerly man and wife." If this be so, one 
 may naturally wonder what fatal act it was of his in 
 that previous life that prevented the renewal of this 
 pre-existent union and condemned him here to the 
 conjugal care and companionship of Christine Vulpius. 
 
 A case quite similar to that recorded of Apuleius 
 occurred in December, 1894, at Munich, Bavaria, 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. H7 
 
 where a Polish adventurer and itinerant practitioner 
 of hypnotism and magnetism was accused, as the in- 
 dictment runs, of having " inspired a lady with irresisti- 
 ble love through post-hypnotic suggestion in hypnotic 
 sleep, and thus enabled himself to enter into the most 
 intimate relations with her, and then by the same 
 means deprived her of all recollection of what had taken 
 place, thus causing her to deny that she had ever 
 been hypnotized by him." The lady was Baroness von 
 Zedlitz, a wealthy spinster of thirty-eight, whose prop- 
 erty the defendant, Czeslav CzynsM, who had a wife 
 still living, attempted to get into his possession by a 
 sham marriage, at which a certain Stanislaus Wartalski 
 officiated as priest under the name of Simon Werthe- 
 mann, D. D., signing and sealing the marriage certifi- 
 cate and carrying the feint and fraud so far as to toast 
 the newly wedded couple as " duke " and " duchess " 
 at the wedding dinner, which immediately followed 
 the ceremony. The trial lasted several days and ended 
 in the condemnation of Czynski to three years' im- 
 prisonment and five years' infamy, not, however, on 
 the main accusation, of which the jury acquitted him, 
 but on the collateral charges of instigation to an offence 
 against public order by the assumption of a public office 
 and the use of a forged public document. 
 
 It is interesting and instructive to note how ex- 
 tensively the idea of metempsychosis permeates and 
 impregnates popular tales and superstitions. Mytholo- 
 gy and folklore are full of stories of such transforma- 
 tions and transmigrations, the human soul entering 
 into a flower, a shrub, a tree, a butterfly, a bird, a beast, 
 or a reptile. In the Song of Eoncesvalles a blackthorn 
 is said to spring from the body of each painim who 
 
118 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 fell in battle, and a white flower of heavenly perfume 
 from the head of every Christian warrior slain. The 
 belief that the souls of the dead inhabit various plants, 
 especially the rose, the lily, the linden, and the elder, 
 is as old and widely diffused as the Aryan race. 
 
 Zoolatry or animal worship stands in intimate rela- 
 tion to metempsychosis. The primitive man was puz- 
 zled by the mysterious origin and nature of the lower 
 animals and by the equally mysterious phenomenon 
 of death and by the thoughts to which this event gave 
 rise touching the departure and destiny of the soul. 
 These two great mysteries were made to explain each 
 other, the spirit of the man passing into the body of 
 the animal, whose chief qualities he shared and to 
 which he would, therefore, be drawn by the strongest 
 ties of affinity. Beasts of prey, which feed on human 
 flesh, were especial objects of worship, because they were 
 supposed to be habitations of the spirits of the persons 
 whom they had devoured, and it was deemed desirable 
 to propitiate and appease these angry ghosts. 
 
 The Dakota Indian eats the liver of the dog in 
 order to acquire the fleetness, courage, and hunting 
 sagacity of this animal. Cannibalism, wherever it exists 
 as an established custom or tribal institution, and not 
 merely as a temporary refuge from stress of famine, 
 originated in the conception of the possibility of trans- 
 ferring the spiritual attributes of animals and persons 
 to those who consume their bodies and thus make them 
 a part of themselves. The soul is not squeamish and 
 migrates readily from one organism to another through 
 the stomach. 
 
 A vague feeling of awe and mental awkwardness is 
 awakened by the thought of a vagrant disembodied 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. HQ 
 
 spirit; and the crude and crass imagination of the 
 savage, not knowing what else to do with it, puts it 
 into that other enigmatical incarnation of life, the 
 beast. This is the lowest and grossest form of metem- 
 psychosis or metasomatosis. The beast, in which the 
 human soul is thus re-embodied, becomes thereby an 
 object of peculiar fear and reverence, and is supposed 
 to be endowed with a certain mystical and supernatural 
 power of doing good or evil, aside from the infliction 
 of physical harm. The transmigration, in such cases, 
 was not regarded as a punishment or degradation, but 
 rather as a promotion to a higher plane of existence, 
 a sort of apotheosis and deification. The tendency of 
 the primitive man was to look upon the wild beasts of 
 the chase, not as inferior, but as superior beings, whose 
 force and faculty he viewed with envy, and to which 
 he paid a ceremonial homage even in the act of killing 
 them. The gods of rude peoples are, for the most part, 
 zoomorphic, revealing themselves in brute forms. The 
 natives of Africa adore the elephant, the hyena, and 
 the crocodile, but have no representatives of the an- 
 thropoid race, such as apes and gorillas, in their pan- 
 theon; and the North American aborigines render 
 divine honours to the owl, the beaver, the eagle, the 
 bear, and the rattlesnake, but in no instance are their 
 deities anthropomorphic. Survivals of this belief are 
 found in the religions of the most highly civilized peo- 
 ples. Even in Christianity the third person of the 
 Trinity is symbolized as a dove. When a European ap- 
 peared for the first time with an ass among the Quaquas, 
 they at once made a god of the long-eared and loud- 
 braying brute, watching every movement as ominous, 
 and interpreting every harsh hee-haw as the voice of 
 
120 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 an oracle. The ass was a greater mystery to them than 
 the white man, and they obeyed the universal law which 
 governs the expression of religious feeling by prostrat- 
 ing themselves before it. The first impulse of the 
 primitive man is to regard any strange creature as 
 the embodiment of an evil spirit, a demonic incarnation, 
 that may do him harm if not properly propitiated. The 
 same feeling, directed toward inanimate objects, gives 
 rise to hylozoism as an ontological theory and to fetich- 
 ism as a religious cult. 
 
 With the assignment of the beast to its proper 
 place in the order of evolution and the recognition of 
 it as a creature lower than man in the scale of being, 
 but having a genetic connection with him, the doctrine 
 of the transmigration of souls acquired a deeper pur- 
 pose and significance, less as a means of punishment 
 arbitrarily applied than as a process of spiritual 
 growth and progressive transformation. According to 
 this more philosophical modification of the original 
 theory, every living creature in the vast and compli- 
 cated system of Nature is the embodiment of certain 
 passions and affections suited to its degree of develop- 
 ment, and every individual passes at death into the 
 bodily organism of the animal which he has striven 
 most assiduously and persistently to imitate while 
 he was still humanly incarnated. Swedenborg states 
 that one day, after having eaten more heartily than 
 usual, he perceived a sort of vapour issuing from the 
 pores of his skin and filling the room, until at length 
 it began to descend and turned into hideous reptiles 
 as soon as it touched the floor. The apparition of 
 snakes would lead one naturally to infer that the Swed- 
 ish seer had partaken too freely of that sweetly delusive 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 121 
 
 and exceedingly heady beverage known as Swedish 
 punch. But whatever may have been the immediate 
 cause of this startling vision, he regarded it as prophetic 
 of what a man must necessarily come to by indulging 
 low animal appetites and thus attaining through the 
 rigorous and immutable law of cause and effect the 
 goal of his conscious or unconscious aspirations. 
 
 Metempsychosis is only applied metaphor, or meta- 
 phor literally interpreted and practically insisted upon, 
 as when we speak of a gluttonous, rapacious, tricky, 
 cruel, or generally offensive person as a hog, a vulture, 
 a fox, a tiger, or a skunk. Death merely releases the 
 soul from corporeal restraints and enables it to seek 
 a habitation better suited to the gratification of its 
 cherished desires, in obedience to the law of spiritual 
 affinity and attraction. Thus Nature is constantly en- 
 deavouring to rectify incongruities and to produce per- 
 fect harmony in all her works. The soul is everywhere 
 the plastic and creative principle, which moulds the 
 physical elements to its own ideal, as the poet Spenser 
 says: 
 
 For of the soul the body form doth take, 
 For soul is form and doth the body make. 
 
 Plato tells us that the pure soul, when it is set free 
 from the body, is drawn to what is pure, and the base 
 soul to what is base, like seeking like. Thus each in- 
 dividual predetermines in the formation of his char- 
 acter his fate and future associations, working out his 
 own salvation in a profounder and more philosophical 
 sense than is commonly attached to these words in mod- 
 ern pulpit phraseology. 
 
 In the Institutes of Manu and Yajnavalkya, fate 
 (daivam) and human effort (purusJikara) are harmo- 
 
122 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 nized by resolving the former into the latter on the theo- 
 ry of the pre-existence of the soul, fate being only the 
 natural sequence of past actions or of rt deeds done in 
 a former body." "The accomplishment of an act," 
 says the Indian lawgiver, "depends upon fate and 
 human exertion; but what is here called fate is mani- 
 festly the resultant of acts performed in a previous 
 stage of existence. Some expect success from fate or 
 from the inherent nature of the thing, from time or 
 from human agency; others, of superior perception, 
 seek it in the union of all these factors. For as with a 
 single wheel there can be no progress of a chariot, so 
 fate without human effort can not be carried into ef- 
 fect." (Yajnavalkyadharma-3astra, i, 348-350.) 
 
 According to this theory, the element of fore-ordi- 
 nation, so far as it enters into a man's character and 
 controls his conduct, does not result from the arbitrary 
 decree of a higher power, but is the natural and neces- 
 sary outcome of a universal law, and springs directly 
 from the operations of his own will, which is the 
 source of all the forces that predetermine his career 
 and shape his destiny. Modern science also tends more 
 and more to confirm this view. To what fearful ex- 
 tent man is the helpless creature and melancholy 
 victim of prenatal influences and external circum- 
 stances, and how largely his nature is subdued to his 
 moral and physical environment is evident from the 
 startling light which statistics has thrown upon the 
 operation of his so-called free will and power of self- 
 determination in relation to suicides, murders, acci- 
 dental deaths, marriages, and other social phenomena. 
 Whether or not the world be the play and jugglery of 
 the Absolute, and 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 123 
 
 . . . the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit. 
 
 be in reality only the " unsubstantial pageant," to which 
 Prospero compares it, and man the helpless toy of 
 destiny, it is certain that our criminal codes show a 
 constantly increasing tendency to admit the extenuat- 
 ing force of circumstances in judging of human actions, 
 and our schemes of philanthropy and reform, discard- 
 ing in a great measure the old machinery of moral 
 appeal and hortatory homily, are directed more and more 
 to the counteraction of hereditary propensities and the 
 improvement of the external conditions of human life 
 as the most efficient means of eradicating vice, dimin- 
 ishing crime, and elevating mankind. 
 
 Plato also maintains, or at least suggests, that the 
 puzzling problem of the origin of a priori notions, in- 
 nate ideas, intuitions, axioms, necessary postulates, and 
 universal affirmations of the reason, may be most easily 
 and satisfactorily solved by regarding them as survivals 
 of knowledge acquired in a previous state of existence, 
 the winnowed and garnered fruits of prenatal experi- 
 ence. These inherent truths and intuitional percep- 
 tions thus constitute the sum of man's permanent and 
 imprescriptible intellectual acquisitions prior to the 
 present period of his incarnation, and represent, so to 
 speak, the consolidated spiritual capital, which survives 
 the dissolution of the body and with which he begins 
 another and higher stage of embodiment. " The 
 mind," says Spinoza, " can not be absolutely destroyed 
 with the body, but somewhat of it remains which is 
 eternal. . . . There are rare minds, of which the prin- 
 cipal part is eternal; so that they have scarce any- 
 thing to fear from death." 
 9 
 
124 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Leasing held that the possession of fire senses is 
 only peculiar to our present temporary state of being, and 
 that in the past we may have had less and in the future 
 may become endowed with more than five senses. Even 
 now we know of persons who go in and out among us, 
 eating, drinking, merry-making, and marrying like ordi- 
 nary mortals, yet who claim to have won for themselves 
 the faculty of conceiving and perceiving four dimen- 
 sions. Is this a prophecy of what is in store for us all, 
 the isolated and individual foreshadowings of a future 
 four-dimensioned existence for the race? The old 
 mystic Henry More recognised the existence of a fourth 
 dimension which he called essential spissitude (spis- 
 situdo essentia), and regarded it as an attribute of 
 spirits: Ubicunque vel plures vel plus essentia in aliquo 
 uhi continetur, quam quod amplitudinem hujus adce- 
 quat, ubi agnoscitur quarta hcec dimensio quam appello 
 spissitudinem essentialem. (Enchiridion Metaphysicum, 
 pars i, cap. 28, § 7.) 
 
 Lessing's theory as set forth in his dissertation on the 
 possibility of man's having more than five senses (Dass 
 mehr als fiinf Sinne fur den Menschen sein konnen) 
 is based upon the doctrine of evolution or the gradual 
 development of man out of a lower and less perfect 
 organism. The substance of his a priori and meta- 
 physical argument is as follows: The soul is endowed 
 with infinite powers of apprehension and conception, 
 which it attains, not at once, but in an infinite succes- 
 sion of time. Nature never goes by leaps, but byjsteps, 
 which are often so small and slow as to be almost im- 
 perceptible; and since Nature contains many substances 
 and forces incognizable by any of the senses, which 
 now serve the soul as physical organs for the acquisition 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 125 
 
 of knowledge, it is : necessary to assume that there 
 will be future stages of existence in which the soul will 
 have senses capable of perceiving all the substances and 
 forces of Nature. With our present number of senses 
 we are unable to perceive a great variety of objects 
 which are either too small for us or too large, too near, 
 too far, or too subtile, so that we are constantly hemmed 
 in and hindered in our pursuit of knowledge by bodily 
 limitations and imperfections, and thus only partially 
 comprehend the real relations and qualities of things. 
 But it would be irrational to suppose that the soul is 
 destined to grope forever in fruitless search after that 
 which, through the want of proper or sufficient organs, 
 it is incompetent to grasp. " This system of mine," 
 adds Lessing, "is certainly the oldest of all philosophical 
 systems; since it is, in fact, no other than the system 
 of metempsychosis, or the doctrine of the pre-existence 
 and transmigration of the soul, which was not only a 
 subject of speculation with Pythagoras and Plato, but 
 also engaged the attention of Egyptians, Chaldeans, and 
 Persians, and, indeed, of all the sages of the East. This 
 circumstance ought to produce a prepossession in its fa- 
 vour; for, in matters of pure speculation, the first and 
 oldest opinion is always the most probable, because it was 
 at once suggested by common sense." It is also interest- 
 ing to note that this theory of the possible genesis of ad- 
 ditional senses through the striving of the soul after 
 knowledge corresponds, in a remarkable manner, to one 
 of the chief factors in the modern doctrine of evolution, 
 as expounded and emphasized by the Neolamarckian 
 school of scientists, namely, the originary influence of 
 mental effort in producing new bodily organs and facul- 
 ties and effecting important modification of species. 
 
126 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Lessing would have regarded the recent discovery of 
 the so-called X-rays by Prof. Eontgen as an excellent 
 illustration and quasi-eonfirmation of his views, for here 
 we have to dp with vibrations or undulations ' in ether 
 akin to light, and yet wholly imperceptible to the human 
 eye. Owing to the imperfection of our senses the ex- 
 istence of these occult forces in Nature, of whose mys-' 
 terious and manifold workings we are just beginning 
 to form a vague and extremely limited conception, has 
 hitherto escaped the keenest scientific observation. Even 
 now we perceive the marvellous and almost magical 
 effects, but the cause is hidden from our sight. 
 
 In pantheism there is, strictly speaking, no place 
 for independent finite beings, since the Infinite is every- 
 thing. Even the postulated all-god of this system of 
 religion is not a personality outside of the universe, 
 but a power immanent in the life of every part of it 
 and subject to its immutable laws. So powerful and 
 pervasive is this tendency in Eastern thought, that not 
 even the hard, narrow, and anthropopathic monotheism 
 of the Arabian prophet has been able to resist its dis- 
 integrating and transforming influence. In India, the 
 Vedanta, with its indigenous and exuberant growth of 
 ages of exegetical and metaphysical speculation, has 
 completely overrun and metamorphosed the gaunt body 
 of alcoranic divinity; and in Persia a highly mystical 
 and poetical sofism has grown up in the very bosom 
 of Mohammedanism. 
 
 In the Orient, the two chief representatives of 
 pantheism and atheism, as organized cults sacerdotally 
 and ceremonially equipped and clothed, as it were, in 
 full canonicals, are Brahmanism and Buddhism. 
 
 There is another class of Indian atheists who are 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 127 
 
 called Sunyavddinah (i. e., affirmers of emptiness or 
 nonexistence) and whose doctrines are most distinct- 
 ly embodied in a didactic poem entitled Sunisar (i. e., 
 iSunyasara, the essence of emptiness). Unlike the 
 Buddhists, instead of making nothing of this world 
 they make everything of it. They despise all religious 
 rites and are thoroughly materialistic and sensualistie 
 in their ideas. Their generosity springs from selfish- 
 ness and their altruism is a refined and far,-sighted ego- 
 tism. Like the Sadducean author of Ecclesiastes 
 (hi, 19-22; iv, 2-6), jthey believe only in the present 
 life, arid in getting the greatest possible sum of pleas- 
 ure out of it before they " all turn to dust again." 
 " Take and enjoy the good things of the world, and give 
 also to others their share, since thereby your own en- 
 joyment is increased. . . . Men die and pass away like 
 leaves on the trees; new ones shoot forth as the old 
 decay. Fix not your heart upon a withered leaf, but 
 seek the shade of the green foliage. The horse that 
 cost a thousand rupees, when dead is worthless, but 
 the live nag bears you on your way. Trust not in the 
 dead, but in the living; for he that is dead will never 
 be alive again. This is a truth which all men know: 
 of all those that have died not one has come back again 
 or brought tidings of the rest. . . . The living care 
 not for heaven or hell, and when the body is turned to 
 dust what distinction is there between an ass and an 
 ascetic?" 
 
 Curiously enough, the highest good or supreme 
 bliss, which is the aim and aspiration of the mighty 
 opposites, Brahmanism and Buddhism, is the same, 
 namely, final and eternal exemption from the pain- 
 ful process of transmigration through the extinction 
 
128 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of personal^ existence: the Brahman looking forward 
 with cheerful hope to absorption in the universal spirit, 
 and the Buddhist striving Jay suppressing evil passions 
 and by seeking the "path of the law" or of duty 
 (dhampiapadam) to render himself worthy of attain- 
 ing individual annihilation and of passing into the sin- 
 less- and endless tranquility of Nirvana. 
 
 Egotism is the essence of individuality, and in 
 egotism every form of evil has its root. Neither aus- 
 terities, nor ritual J observances, nor almsgiving, nor 
 good works of any kind have power to purge human 
 nature of this universal taint. The only radical cure 
 of self-love and self-assertion, the pride and naughti- 
 ness of the heart, is the utter extinction of individual 
 existence, since ; these qualities are inherent in self- 
 hood. The Apostle Paul says, "Though I bestow all 
 my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body 
 to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me 
 nothing." But the Sikh prophet Nanak declares, 
 " Though I give my body as an offering to the fire, or 
 cause ij; to be sawn asunder, or let it perish in the 
 Hiniialaya, yet will the malady still cling to my mind; 
 and though I bestow in charity castles of gold and ex- 
 cellent horses and elephants and land and much cattle, 
 yet'Will egotism abide within me." That " respect unto 
 the recompense of the reward," which Paul praises 
 in the conduct of Moses as one of the fruits of faith, 
 is denounced by Nanak as a product of egotism. " Spot- 
 less," he says, " is the religion of that man who worketh 
 and looketh not to the future reward." 
 
 According to this doctrine, the man who restrains 
 his passions and rejects the pleasures of sense, leading 
 a holy, virtuous, and beneficent life, with no hope or 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 129 
 
 desire of personal remuneration either in this world 
 or in the world to come, acts from higher and purer 
 motives, and gives freer scope to the development of 
 a morality untainted by selfishness, than he who con- 
 soles himself with the belief that his self-denial here 
 will be compensated for by a thousandfold greater posi- 
 tive happiness hereafter, the light affliction, which is 
 but for a moment, working for him a far more exceed- 
 ing and eternal weight of glory. Here surely is more 
 room for a system of moral duties than in a religion 
 that offers to its votaries the allurements of a Christian 
 heaven or a Mohammedan paradise as a reward for 
 right conduct. The Buddhist believes that the effects 
 of his good deeds are hot dissipated by his death, but 
 that, although he may cease to exist as a personal entity, 
 his virtues live after him, entering into and increasing 
 the moral inheritance of the race, perfecting, magnify- 
 ing, and glorifying the great being — le Grand Stre — 
 humanity, easing the burdens of life for others, and 
 mitigating the common misery of the sentient world 
 long after his own individual consciousness has found 
 the blissful end of all its strivings and wanderings in 
 the eternal rest and peace of Nirvana. "Do unto 
 others as ye would that others should do unto you" 
 is the golden rule; but far purer and more precious 
 than gold is the injunction to do good without any 
 reference to self, and to cultivate a morality that does 
 not reflect the faintest tint, nor involve the slightest 
 implication of self-love. 
 
 The alleged defect in the pantheistic scheme of 
 salvation is the difficulty of harmonizing the decrees 
 of fate, which are written on every man's forehead, with 
 the constant appeals which are made to him as a free 
 
130 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 agent, accountable for his deeds. But what system of 
 theology has ever succeeded in reconciling the sharp 
 antitheses of fore-ordination and predetermination with 
 personal responsibility? Surely not Milton's Stygian 
 group of metaphysicians, who 
 
 . . . reasoned high 
 Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
 Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 
 And found no end, in wandering mazes lost; 
 
 nor the Greek poets and philosophers, with their notions 
 of the influence of fwlpa upon the destinies of gods 
 and men; nor Paul with his theory of " the election of 
 grace " ; nor Augustine and Calvin with their dogma 
 of the arbitrary predestination of men to eternal hap- 
 piness or endless woe, a dogma which even the stern 
 Genevan himself admitted to be a doctrina horribilis. 
 Supralapsarian and Infralapsarian, Pelagian and Semi- 
 Pelagian, the objective necessity of Thomas Aquinas, 
 and the subjective necessity of Duns Scotus, after all 
 their hair-splitting and logic-chopping, come no nearer 
 to a satisfactory solution of the puzzling problem, and 
 appear even more inconsistent and inconsequent in 
 their reasonings about it than the Hindu pantheist, 
 who regards all finite beings as mere modes and mani- 
 festations of the Supreme Being, just as waves are but 
 fleeting forms of water, rising out of and remerging 
 into the sea. Indeed, as we have already seen, the pan- 
 theistic identification of fate with the exercise of free 
 will in a former state of existence comes nearer to a 
 reconciliation of these conflicting forces than any other 
 system of metaphysics or scheme of theodicy. 
 
 Again, from an ethical point of view, the inequalities 
 of human conditions, the seemingly capricious dis- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 131 
 
 tribution of good and evil, the pleasures enjoyed and 
 the pains endured hy men independently of any obvious 
 relation to their respective characters or acknowledged 
 deserts, can be best explained on this hypothesis, which, 
 unlike the current orthodox theodicy, is at least com- 
 petent to 
 
 . . . assert eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways of God to men, 
 
 without diabolizing the Divine Being and utterly sub- 
 verting our common conceptions of justice. It is surely 
 more moral, as well as more intelligible, to suppose 
 that the ills we suffer in this world are due to our own 
 individual antecedent sins and shortcomings than that 
 they are attributable to the transgressions of one far- 
 off, reputed progenitor and federal head, for whose 
 conduct no subtilty of casuistry can make us feel in 
 the slightest degree responsible, or that our eternal 
 destiny is determined by the arbitrary decree of a 
 being, 
 
 Wha, as it pleases best hissel', 
 Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 
 A' for his glory. 
 
 The proofs of personal immortality derived from the 
 emotions or from the principle of compensation and 
 retribution may be urged with equal cogency in sup- 
 port of transmigration. For this theory puts it into 
 the power of every human being, and indeed of every 
 living creature, to determine what form and feature 
 the future life shall assume. Man is the maker of his 
 own destiny in more than the proverbial sense of the 
 phrase, elevating or degrading himself in the scale of 
 sentient existence by his own acts. Each new incarna- 
 
132 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 tion that awaits him, like the maiden of heavenly 
 beauty or hideous aspect, who meets the soul of the 
 Parsi at the Chinvad bridge, is the personification of 
 his own thoughts, words, and deeds. He grows into 
 the complete embodiment of the propensities which 
 he fosters, and fondly cherished tendencies take root 
 in him as instincts, until by imperceptible gradations 
 his 
 
 . . . nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 
 
 The recent progress of the physical sciences has 
 also lent additional interest and importance, not to 
 say probability, to the ancient doctrine. Metempsy- 
 chosis would seem to be the spiritual counterpart 
 of metamorphosis, the transmigration of souls being 
 logically and analogically suggested as a corollary to 
 the transmutation of species. The one does not neces- 
 sarily involve the other, but both lie in the same line 
 of thought. There is, furthermore, no reason why 
 the theory of the conservation and persistence of force 
 should not be applicable to mental or psychical, as well 
 as to mechanical or physical forces. No impulse ever 
 ceases, no motion is ever lost, no atom can be disturbed 
 without disturbing every atom in the universe. If a 
 sparrow fall to the ground, the momentum of its falling 
 body is imparted to and affects every particle of the 
 globe. But what . becomes of the vital force which 
 animated the bird and impelled it through the air? 
 
 It is, furthermore, an axiom of science that force 
 is an essential attribute of matter. "Both," we are 
 told, "are mutable, both indestructible, and both, so 
 far as we know, quite incapable of existing alone." 
 Mental operations are dependent upon material pro- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 133 
 
 cesses, which modern physiologists have succeeded, to 
 some extent at least, in tracing. Of the one apart from 
 the other we have no experience, and therefore no 
 knowledge. Force isolated from matter and matter 
 devoid of force are alike inconceivable. The material- 
 ist, then, should not, and in fact does not, deny the 
 existence, but, on the contrary, emphatically asserts 
 the eternity of spiritual force: he denies only the pos- 
 sibility of its existence, except as inhering in some 
 material form, some solid, liquid, gaseous, visible or 
 invisible, palpable or impalpable, ponderable or im- 
 ponderable body. There would seem, therefore, to be 
 little or no difference between the mere declaration of 
 the immortality of the soul and the affirmation of the 
 indestructibility of psychic force. The only question 
 in dispute is as to the conditions under which this 
 sentient principle, this thinking and conscious energy, 
 survives and continues to operate. Does spirit remain 
 forever a distinct personal entity, disembodied or re- 
 embodied, or is it, too, convertible into other forces, 
 manifesting itself in manifold and interchangeable 
 forms, like light, heat, magnetism, electricity, motion, 
 and gravity? Science clearly indicates the latter; faith 
 and the cravings of human affections cling to the 
 former. 
 
 But whatever may be the nature and essence of the 
 scintilla animce divince, and whatever transformations it 
 may undergo, we have never known it and can not con- 
 ceive of it, except in connection with some more or less 
 highly organized collocation of material atoms. This 
 is true of both " celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial." 
 The apostle can not describe them nor the imagination 
 picture them otherwise than as substance, differing 
 
134 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 only in degrees of refinement and subtilty, as the sun 
 differs from the moon or "star differs from star in 
 glory." We can not, even in thought, disassociate force 
 from something forcible, nor imagine wisdom or virtue 
 as existing apart from the wise or the virtuous. Not 
 only in actuality, but also in ideation, the abstract pre- 
 sents itself to us always and everywhere as the con- 
 crete. 
 
 From a purely speculative standpoint, therefore, the 
 assumption that soul force is essentially distinct from 
 all other forces, never being converted into any of them, 
 but always preserving its individuality as a thinking 
 entity, and the scientific axiom that all force is inde- 
 structible and inseparable from matter, would, when 
 taken together and logically formulated, lead inevitably 
 to the doctrine of metempsychosis. The beast soul has 
 been characterized by Thomas Aquinas as substantia 
 incompleta ratione subsistentiw et natures, i. e., an entity 
 which exists only as aided and supplemented by matter; 
 but it is a question whether this dependence upon mat- 
 ter does not hold true of all souls. 
 
 "We have no knowledge or experience of any force 
 as an entity, but only as a phenomenon. We recognise 
 it solely in some physical manifestation. What we call 
 metaphorically the flame of life, the vital spark, may 
 be the result of a combustion of gases, like any other 
 flame, and when this chemical action ceases the flame 
 goes out. The flame has, in fact, no real, but only a 
 phenomenal existence; it is the visible effect of a pro- 
 cess. Death is brought about by the operation of the 
 same forces that produce and sustain life. There is 
 nothing that leaves a person's body at death that has 
 not been leaving it ever since his birth; only the loss, 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 135 
 
 so to speak, is greater than the supply. The change 
 is one which has always been going on, but in different 
 degrees and relations. The debit begins to exceed the 
 credit in the ledger of life; the balance keeps on fatally 
 accumulating on the wrong page; the organism be- 
 comes painfully conscious of a deficit, until all further 
 transactions are impossible, vital processes cease, and 
 bankruptcy is inevitable. 
 
 It is not our present purpose to discuss the theory 
 of the transmigration of souls as a tenet of philosophy, 
 but merely to call attention to its beneficent influence 
 as a code of morals and especially to its effect upon 
 the relation of man to the lower animals and his kind 
 and considerate treatment of them. The recognition 
 of an original affinity between man and beast, how- 
 ever remote the kinship may be, or whether it be based 
 upon the ancient dogma of metempsychosis or the mod- 
 ern doctrine of evolution, necessarily creates a current 
 of sympathy extending even to the most insignificant 
 members of the great and widely diversified family of 
 sentient beings, and rendering it impossible willfully 
 to neglect or maltreat the "poor relations," to whom 
 we are united by the warm and living ties of blood. 
 
 In a few bold lines already quoted and written half a 
 century ago Emerson anticipates the most radical deduc- 
 tions from Darwinism in his poetic conception of how, 
 
 . . . striving to be man, the worm 
 Mounts through all the spires of form. 
 
 A clear perception and abiding consciousness of this 
 truth would cause even the most heedless wayfarer 
 to take heed to his feet and step aside, rather than tread 
 upon the humble embodiment of such lofty aspirations. 
 
136 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 It would be unreasonable to suppose tbat no cruelty 
 to anima,ls occurs in Oriental countries, where metemp- 
 sychosis" is the prevailing speculative opinion. The 
 observations of Ernst Hackel (Indische Beisebrief e), W. 
 Heine (Eine Weltreise), Graul (Reise nach Ostindien), 
 and J. Lockwood Kipling (Man and Beast in India) suf- 
 fice to dissipate any illusion of this kind. Unfortunate- 
 ly the conduct of men is not always consistent with the 
 religious precepts and philosophical principles by which 
 they profess to be governed, and the strictest injunc- 
 tions to kindness and compassion are often of little 
 avail in resisting the primitive instincts and impulses 
 of brutality inherent in human nature. The absolute 
 prohibition of the destruction of animals, prescribed 
 by Buddhism and Jainaism, is especially absurd in India, 
 where savage beasts and venomous reptiles abound 
 and put the inhabitants in daily peril of their lives. Far 
 more sensible in theory, as well as more salutary in 
 practice, is the discrimination of the Parsi between 
 useful animals, creations of the beneficent spirit, which 
 are to be carefully cherished, and noxious animals, cre- 
 ations of the hurtful spirit, which are to be conscien- 
 tiously exterminated. The religious duty of preserva- 
 tion or destruction is in each case equally imperative. 
 
 But, notwithstanding its marked deficiencies and 
 manifold disadvantages, the doctrine in question has 
 undoubtedly produced in the East a tenderer regard for 
 the rights of domestic and wild animals than is gen- 
 erally prevalent in the West, where, until quite recently, 
 only such beasts and birds as were the property of man 
 were thought to be entitled to any human sympathy 
 or legal protection whatever. Cruelty was prohibited 
 and punished solely as an infringement of the rights 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 13? 
 
 of the owner, for which the imposition of a fine would 
 fully compensate him, but no consideration was given 
 to the sufferings of the animal itself, which was re- 
 garded merely as an animated and automatic machine. 
 It is also a significant circumstance that the earliest 
 European advocates of animals' rights based their argu- 
 ments and appeals upon panpsychism, or the essential 
 unity of all forms of sentient existence, and upon the 
 assumption that beasts are, like men, emanations from 
 the infinite source of being and parts of the general 
 soid of the universe. This is true of the Ionic school, 
 the oldest group of Greek philosophers, of whom An- 
 aximander anticipated the latest inferences from the 
 doctrine of evolution concerning the descent of man, 
 of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Theophrastus, the Stoics, 
 Plotinus and Porphyry, and the Neoplatonists and 
 Neopythagoreans in general. In modern times the 
 same theory has been held by Hamann, Herder, Schleier- 
 macher, Krause, Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, 
 Lotze, Wundt, Paulsen, the materialists Ludwig Feuer- 
 bach, Moleschott, and Biichner, not to mention many 
 less noted writers, and, so far as it affects the ethical 
 relations of man to the lower animals, is elucidated 
 and confirmed by the newest developments of biology 
 and zoology, which began with the publication of Dar- 
 win's Origin of Species. With the disappearance of the 
 crude hypothesis of special creations from the domain 
 of natural history, the anthropocentric conception of 
 the universe has ceased to be tenable and has been aban- 
 doned by the majority of scholars in every field of 
 investigation, including even the best thinkers in the 
 province of theology. The influence of this change 
 of view in enlarging the scope of ethical inquiry so as 
 
138 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 to bring not only the lower races of mankind, but also 
 the lower animals within its range, is especially observ- 
 able, arid has been most fruitful of happy results by 
 awakening feelings of compassion and a sense of jus- 
 tice in individual minds and giving expression to them 
 in municipal and national legislation. 
 
 A striking manifestation of this newly awakened 
 sympathy is the organization and legal recognition of 
 societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. These 
 benign and strictly secular institutions are of compara- 
 tively recent origin, and furnish, by the sad necessity of 
 their existence, a confession and confirmation of a 
 radical deficiency in Christian teaching, which they en- 
 deavour to supply. Such associations would be su- 
 perfluous in Brahmanical or Buddhistic lands, where 
 men are taught from their infancy to hold all life in- 
 violably sacred, and kind and sympathetic treatment 
 of the lower animals constitutes an essential element 
 of religion and religious education. It is true that in 
 every country and every community there are persons 
 who are wholly unamenable to such instruction or to 
 any sort of moral suasion, and on whom ethical teach- 
 ing can be inculcated only by judicial punishment. In 
 the conduct of life their sole criterion is the criminal 
 code; whatever it prohibits and punishes they regard 
 as wrong, and whatever it permits they assume to be 
 right. The perfect man is, in their eyes, one who has 
 never been guilty of a misdemeanour, for which he 
 could be fined or sent to prison. Upon this class of 
 individuals, which is much larger than it is generally 
 supposed to be, penal legislation exerts an educational 
 influence, serving as a permanent preventive of crime 
 by elevating the average standard of public morality 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 139 
 
 rather than as a temporary deterrent by appealing to 
 the principle of fear. Thus lawgivers and courts of 
 justice exercise correctional functions in a moral and 
 didactic as well as in a purely punitive sense of the 
 term; and it is especially in the extension of the sphere 
 of criminal jurisprudence to the protection of animals 
 against the capricious cruelty of man that its ethical 
 value, as a means of moulding popular sentiment and 
 moralizing public opinion, has been most perceptible. 
 
 In India hospitals for diseased and decrepit beasts 
 have existed from time immemorial, and still consti- 
 tute a universally recognised object of public charity 
 and private munificence. Thus we find established 
 in Bombay a flourishing institution of this kind, known 
 as Panjara Pol, founded and supported by wealthy Jaina 
 merchants and other Hindu sects, especially the votaries 
 of Vishnu. It is richly endowed and situated in a 
 street outside of the fort and covers several acres of 
 ground. Prof. Monier Williams, who visited it, says: 
 '" The animals are well fed and well tended, though it 
 certainly seemed to me that the great majority would 
 be more mercifully provided for by the application 
 of a loaded pistol to their heads." This remark is 
 doubtless correct, and would apply with equal force and 
 pertinency to many suffering and incurably diseased 
 persons. Savage tribes are wont to give expression to 
 their compassionate feelings in this summary and ef- 
 fective manner. To the Greeks and other nations of 
 antiquity it seemed as absurd to prolong the life of a 
 decrepit man as it does to Prof. Williams to prolong 
 the life of a decrepit beast. But a sense of the sacred- 
 ness of human life prevents Englishmen of to-day from 
 showing kindness to the aged and infirm by killing 
 10 
 
140 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 them, and a still stronger feeling of the same kind pre- 
 vents Jainas from treating old and sickly ? animals in 
 the same way. The difference consists merely in a 
 narrower or broader application of the Ahinsa com- 
 mandment: Thou shalt not kill. " A large proportion 
 of space," continues our informant, "was allotted to 
 stalls for sick and infirm oxen, some with bandaged 
 eyes, some with crippled legs, some wrapped up in 
 blankets and lying on straw beds. One huge, bloated, 
 broken-down old bull in the last stage of decrepitude 
 and disease was a pitiable object to behold. Then I 
 noticed in other parts of the building singular speci- 
 mens of emaciated buffaloes, limping horses, mangy dogs, 
 apoplectic pigs, paralytic donkeys, featherless vultures, 
 melancholy monkeys, comatose tortoises, besides a 
 strange medley of cats, rats, and mice, small birds, rep- 
 tiles, and even insects, in every stage of suffering and 
 disease. In one corner a crane, with a kind of wooden 
 leg, appeared to have spirit enough left to strut in a 
 stately manner among a number of dolorous-looking 
 ducks and depressed fowls. The most spiteful animals 
 seemed to be tamed by their sufferings and the care 
 they received. All were being tended, nursed, phys- 
 icked, and fed, as if it were a sacred duty to prolong 
 the existence of every living creature to the utmost 
 possible extent. It is even said that men are paid to 
 sleep on dirty woollen beds in different parts of the 
 building, that the loathsome vermin with which they 
 are infested may be supplied with their nightly meal 
 of human blood." This last statement is doubtless 
 the invention of some itinerant wag hailing from the 
 home of Douglas Jerrold or the land of Mark Twain, 
 although it must be confessed that the Oriental has the 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 141 
 
 courage of his opinions very strongly developed and 
 seldom shrinks from the logical application of his prin- 
 ciples, no matter to what extremities they may reduce 
 him. The first of the five commandments, which con- 
 stitute the moral code of the Jamas and correspond 
 almost exactly to the panchasila of the Buddhists, in- 
 culcates a tender regard for all forms of life. That 
 this nohle feeling should be carried to ridiculous excess 
 and impose a number of absurd prescriptions, such as 
 to strain water before drinking it, never to eat or drink 
 anything in the dark, lest an insect might be inad- 
 vertently swallowed, to sweep the ground with a soft 
 brush before sitting down lest an insect might be 
 crushed, not to walk in the wind without wearing a 
 piece of muslin over the mouth lest an insect might be 
 blown into it, not to leave a liquid uncovered lest an 
 insect might be drowned — these and many other equally 
 preposterous precautions may travesty but can not de- 
 stroy the beauty and worth of the fundamental idea. 
 One can imagine the depths of horror and despair to 
 which a conscientious Jaina would be consigned by a 
 microscopic examination of his daily food and drink. 
 
 The feelings with which a visit to the Panjara Pol 
 inspired the Oxford professor do not differ essentially 
 from those which would be excited in any refined and 
 sensitive mind by a walk through the wards of an 
 ordinary hospital. We have already left far behind 
 us the primitive barbarism, which would have laughed 
 at our anxiety to promote the comfort and to preserve 
 the lives of old and useless persons as foolish senti- 
 mentalism. Perhaps, when we have fully outgrown 
 our anthropocentric ideas and traditions, we may also 
 discover in a hospital for old and worn-out animals 
 
142 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 something really commendable and not utterly and 
 irredeemably comical. 
 
 The Italian physiologist Prof. Mantegazza, in the 
 record of his travels in India, describes a similar estab- 
 lishment, and seems to have been greatly disgusted 
 with what he witnessed. One could hardly expect that 
 such tender regard for subhuman infirmities would ex- 
 cite any other than loathsome feelings in the mind of 
 the man who invented a new kind of rack, called the 
 " tormentor," for the express purpose of inflicting upon 
 animals the most excruciating pain of which he could 
 possibly conceive. Day after day and month after 
 month he contemplated, as he confesses, "with much 
 delight and extreme patience " (con molto amore et 
 pazienza moltissima), the sufferings of dogs and other 
 exceedingly sensitive creatures stretched upon his horrid 
 engine and enduring prolonged agonies, which, if we 
 may judge from the meagre scientific results in his 
 publications, served no purpose whatever except the 
 gratification of a morbid and insensate curiosity. 
 
 On the 5th of March, 1890, there died in Bombay, 
 at an advanced age, a Parsi woman, named Lady Sa- 
 karbai, whose husband had appropriated five years before 
 a considerable sum of money to found a hospital for ani- 
 mals, which he called " Bai Sakarbai " in honour of his 
 wife, and which was to remain a monument to her mem- 
 ory. During the rest of her life the now deceased lady 
 took a lively interest in this philozoic foundation and 
 left it in a flourishing condition. 
 
 Institutions of the kind just described are both 
 charitable and educational. The compassion manifested 
 in such cases not only alleviates the actual suffering of 
 the beast, but it also exerts a wholesome reflex infra- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 143 
 
 ence upon man, ennobling and humanizing his charac- 
 ter, cultivating his affections and sympathies for the 
 lower animals, and teaching children especially not 
 to indulge in thoughtless cruelty toward any sentient 
 creature. 
 
 When King Thibo, of Siam, sold a white elephant to 
 Mr. Barnum, he stipulated in the contract or bill of sale 
 that " the rich man who has bought the elephant agrees 
 to love and cherish it, to make its life pleasant, and to 
 keep it safe from all pain or injury." Tender consid- 
 eration of this sort is a sentiment quite foreign to 
 Christian civilization, and would be sneered at by the 
 European, who does not scruple to send his broken- 
 down horses to the knacker to be cut up into dog's meat, 
 or to sell them for a song to a low and brutal carter 
 to be driven and beaten to death in their old age. 
 
 Notwithstanding the ridicule which Prof. "Williams 
 heaps upon the Panjara Pol of Bombay, it has been 
 deemed necessary to found a similar Animals' In- 
 stitute in. London, for the purpose of relieving the 
 sufferings of sick or wounded animals by proper medi- 
 cal or surgical treatment. How urgent was the need 
 of such an institution is evident from the fact that 
 soon after it was opened for the reception of patients, 
 the hospital was found insufficient to accommodate 
 all the horses, dogs, cats, and other animals for which 
 admission was sought. It was also thought advisable 
 to establish, as supplementary to the hospital, a sani- 
 tarium in the suburbs of the city for convalescents 
 and for cases requiring prolonged treatment, careful 
 dietary, and rest. Although the animals of the poorer 
 classes, as well as waifs and estrays, are treated gratuit- 
 ously, the number of paying patients promises to make 
 
144 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 the institution self-supporting after the preliminary 
 expenses have been covered. 
 
 Very different from this retreat for unfortunate 
 animals is the veterinary hospital recently established 
 in New York under the charge of four surgeons, the 
 chief of whom also drives out to visit his patients in 
 their homes like an ordinary medical practitioner. The 
 principal patrons of this institution are wealthy ladies, 
 whose pampered pugs, high-bred cats, and other pets 
 suffer from indigestion caused by too rich and abundant 
 food. Horses are frequently operated upon, but the 
 cost of treatment is so great that it does not pay unless 
 the animal has a value of several hundred dollars. From 
 a general philozoic point of view this establishment 
 has no practical value whatever, since it affords no relief 
 to the thousands of maimed and sick creatures who 
 stand in most pressing need of it. 
 
 In some of the other larger European cities we also 
 find occasional asylums for stray and famished dogs and 
 homes for houseless cats, such as the refuge founded 
 by Ellen M. Gifford at Brighton, in England, for the 
 succour and sustenance of. needy animals, Miss Lindo's 
 hospital for consumptive and home for weary horses 
 near London, and the Countess De la Torres's asylum 
 for cats at Hammersmith. The pound, which exists 
 in most towns, or the parish pinfold, is an establish- 
 ment of a wholly different nature, inasmuch as its pur- 
 pose is not to provide a refuge for beast, but to give 
 protection to man, corresponding, in this respect, not 
 so much to a hospital or almshouse as to what the bed- 
 lam or the madhouse used to be before the discovery 
 of more rational and scientific methods of treating the 
 insane. 
 
" METEMPSYCHOSIS. 14.5 
 
 "In Egypt," says Lecky, "there are hospitals for 
 superannuated cats, and the most loathsome insects are 
 regarded with tenderness; but human life is treated 
 as if it were of no account, and human suffering scarcely 
 elicits a care. The same contrast appears more or less 
 in all Eastern nations." Also some of the men most 
 conspicuous for their activity during the Eeign of Ter- 
 ror in France were very fond of pet animals. Couthon 
 was strongly attached to a spaniel; Fournier lavished 
 his love on a squirrel; Panis kept two gold pheasants; 
 Chaumette had an aviary; and the sanguinary Marat 
 was devoted to doves. The psychological problem pre- 
 sented in all these cases is to reconcile so much kindness 
 to the lower animals with so great indifference or such 
 excessive cruelty to human beings. It would be a mis- 
 take to suppose that the terrorists of the French Revo- 
 lution did not love their fellow-men. On the contrary, 
 so all-absorbing was their enthusiasm for humanity and 
 so intense their affection for the race, that, as is often 
 the case with philanthropists, they lost sight of the 
 rights and were deaf to the woes of individuals. All 
 other consideration were swallowed up in fanatical devo- 
 tion to certain fixed ideas. "We have an example of this 
 perversion of feeling in readers of fiction, who waste 
 their emotions in weeping over the trials and afflictions 
 of imaginary personages and turn away with dry eyes 
 and cold hearts from the misery of men and women 
 in real life. The Oriental, whose extreme carefulness 
 of beasts renders him careless of mankind, illustrates 
 the same emotional limitations of human nature nar- 
 rowed and intensified by religious superstition. This 
 principle is exemplified on a smaller scale by the Ger- 
 man lady who advertised in a Berlin paper for " well- 
 
146 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 mannered and well-dressed children to be employed 
 for several hours each day to amuse a sickly cat " ; and 
 by the American lady who ordered a rosewood coffin 
 lined with satin and inlaid with silver for the obsequies 
 of a deceased lapdog. Peoples, as well as persons, may 
 have their sympathies warped and drawn awry and thus 
 develop into " cranks." 
 
 As a rule, in Occidental countries the first and pre- 
 vailing impulse of the police authorities, as well as of the 
 public in general, is to knock all stray and helpless 
 animals on the head, and in most cases this summary 
 method of proceeding is adopted. Mrs. Jameson gives 
 the following account of what she once saw in Vienna 
 at a time when there was a great dread of hydrophobia, 
 and orders were issued to massacre all unclaimed or 
 unmuzzled dogs found within the precincts or in the 
 suburbs of the city. The men employed for this pur- 
 pose were armed with a short heavy club, which they 
 hurled at the proscribed animal with such force as to 
 kill or cripple it at a single blow. " It happened one 
 day that, close to the edge of the river, near the Ferdi- 
 nand's Briicke, one of these men flung his stick at a 
 wretched dog, but with such bad aim that it fell into the 
 river. The poor animal, following its instincts or its 
 teaching, immediately plunged in, redeemed the stick, 
 and laid it down at the feet of its owner, who snatching 
 it up, dashed out the creature's brains." And yet 
 Christian legislation, the civilization which claims to be 
 based on a religion of mercy and compassion, has no law 
 to punish such a monster of cruelty and base ingrati- 
 tude, but rewards him for his ignominious deed. In 
 fact, the conduct of this vile fellow was only the logical 
 outcome and rude application of our current anthropo- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 147 
 
 centric ethics, as its effects are necessarily exhibited in a 
 coarse and common nature. "A ruffian in the midst 
 of Christendom," says Father Taylor, " is the savage 
 of savages." But here the development of ruffianism 
 is due directly to the influence of Christian zoopsy- 
 chology and the brutal exercise of what Shelley calls 
 the " terrible prerogative " which it confers upon man. 
 
 It is for these reasons that charitable foundations 
 for animals are usually regarded and often ridiculed 
 as the amiable idiosyncrasies of eccentric individuals, 
 or as the manifestations of a mild and harmless mono- 
 mania peculiar to old maids and withered beldames, 
 who, having found no worthier outlet for their loving 
 natures, are content to pour the flood of their pent-up 
 affections into this channel. It is, in sooth, a curious 
 circumstance, and quite significant of the character of 
 our civilization, that endowments of this kind are not 
 with us, as in the East, the normal and legitimate ex- 
 pression of a humane and benevolent spirit, but rather 
 serve incidentally as the waste pipe of suppressed and 
 soured emotions, having their real source in a generous 
 and sensitive nature perverted by pessimistic and mis- 
 anthropic views of life. Thence it comes that, with us 
 Occidentals, the love of animals, instead of being the 
 proper expansion of philanthropic sentiment, too often 
 springs directly from intense and morbid hatred of man- 
 kind. It was this feeling that made Schopenhauer 
 shun the society of his fellow-men during life, and in 
 dying bequeath his property to his poodles. "Men," 
 he declared, "are the devils of the earth, and ani- 
 mals are the souls which they take pleasure in torment- 
 ing. This state of things is the consequence of that 
 installation scene in the garden of Eden." Solomon, 
 
148 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 too, in one of his spleeny and cynical moods, when 
 he "hated life," and, surfeited with its pleasures, de- 
 nounced them all as "vanity and vexation of spirit," 
 affirmed that " a man hath no pre-eminence above a 
 beast " ; but in making this remark his purpose was 
 not to elevate the beast, but to degrade the man. Both 
 are reduced to the same plane of transitory existence 
 by a process, not of levelling up, but of levelling down. 
 " All go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn 
 to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man, whether 
 it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it 
 goeth downward to the earth?" The implication of 
 the passage is that however gross and grovelling a beast 
 may be, man is no better. 
 
 In many portions of the East it is customary for 
 Brahmans and Buddhists to express their joy and grati- 
 tude on recovering from sickness or on receiving any 
 good fortune, not by chanting a Te Deum, but by going 
 to the market place, where wild birds are exposed for 
 sale by Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian fowlers, 
 purchasing a number of them, carrying them to the 
 city gates, opening their cages, and restoring to the 
 captives their former liberty. Under similar circum- 
 stances a European would most probably return thanks 
 by inviting his friends to eat birds with him — just as 
 the typical Englishman thinks the best use he can 
 make of a fine day is to go out and kill something. 
 There can be no doubt that this general attitude of 
 mind is, in a great degree, the result of our current 
 religious ideas and traditions and the early training 
 that grows out of them. We are ourselves hardly con- 
 scious how deeply ingrained are our prejudices on this 
 point, and how very difficult it is to escape the insen- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 149 
 
 sible pressure of these moral influences which inclose 
 us like an atmosphere. 
 
 Not long ago a German Protestant parson, when 
 asked to preach a sermon in support of a society for 
 the prevention of cruelty to animals, replied that, al- 
 though heartily sympathizing with the cause, he could 
 not accede to the request, since the Bible did not furnish 
 him with any text appropriate to such a discourse. As 
 a humane man, he would be willing to make a speech 
 in favour of it outside of the pulpit; but as a clergy- 
 man and divinely commissioned expounder of the 
 sacred Scriptures, he was forced to pass it over in 
 silence. Evidently the good parson was not well versed 
 in the cunning arts of modern homiletics, and had little 
 skill in the marvellous exegetic jugglery which easily 
 conjures into passages of Holy Writ ideas and prin- 
 ciples of which the writers never dreamed; otherwise 
 he might have simply cut the Bible for his text, as was 
 the practice of ancient sortilege, and preached from 
 any passage thus selected a sermon suitable to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 Some years since the Thierschutzverein of Munich 
 issued an appeal to the public, stating the aims and ob- 
 jects of the association, and seeking to rouse the 
 lethargic Bavarians to a more earnest appreciation of 
 its usefulness and to greater liberality in its behalf. In 
 addition to purely secular considerations and motives 
 of mere morality, the appeal was also urged on religious 
 grounds, and sustained by the following quotations 
 from the Bible: " A righteous man regardeth the life 
 of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are 
 cruel" (Prov. xii, 10). "He giveth to the beast his 
 food, and to the young ravens which cry " (Ps. cxlvii, 
 
150 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 9). " He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
 herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth 
 food out of the earth " (Ps. civ. 14). " Who provideth 
 for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto 
 God, they wander for lack of meat " (Job xxxviii, 41). 
 "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one 
 of them shall not fall on the ground without your 
 Father " (Matt, x, 29). 
 
 There could be no better illustration of the poverty 
 of our Holy Scriptures on this subject, and the little 
 thought given to it by their authors than the citation 
 of these texts, not one of which (except, perhaps, the 
 first) has the slightest relevancy or was meant to teach 
 kindness to animals, and to inculcate the principles 
 advocated in the Munich circular. Even the passage 
 from the Proverbs is a mere statement of fact, designed 
 to illustrate the character of the righteous man, who 
 regardeth even the life of his beast, and is contrasted 
 with the wicked, whose bowels (as it ought to be trans- 
 lated) are cruel. There is no recognition of the rights 
 of the beast, and no injunction to respect them. The 
 whole reference is to man and the sense of his own 
 worthiness as his standard of conduct. In the other 
 verses, cattle, ravens, and sparrows are mentioned sim- 
 ply to show the watchful care and providence of God 
 toward man. Here and there we meet with an isolated 
 intimation of compensatory justice or tender feeling, 
 as in the paragraph of the Mosaic law prohibiting the 
 muzzling of the ox when it treadeth out the corn, and 
 the sentimental or sanitary scruple about seething a 
 kid in its mother's milk. It was the same crude and 
 rudimentary conception of compensation that led the 
 Greeks to decree that the asses which bore the stones 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 151 
 
 for building the temple of Eleusis should be permitted 
 to graze with impunity within the sacred grounds. 
 
 The Jews were also forbidden to take the parent 
 bird while " sitting upon the young or upon the eggs/' 
 although they were permitted to rob her of the young. 
 This provision was unquestionably a wise one, intended 
 to prevent the reckless destruction and consequent 
 diminution of the supply of birds. But there is no 
 element of kindness or compassion in it, any more than 
 there is in modern laws for the preservation of game, 
 which are designed solely to insure and increase the 
 pleasures of the chase, protecting animals in order to 
 enhance the sport of hunting and killing them. The 
 regulation was of a purely prudential and economical 
 character, like that contained in the same code, for- 
 bidding the husbandman to sow divers seeds in his 
 vineyard and thus deteriorate the quality of the grapes. 
 The lawgiver was not moved by mercy to enact the 
 former provision of the law any more than the latter. 
 
 In like manner William Cowper says: 
 
 I would not enter on my list of friends 
 
 (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, 
 
 Tet wanting sensibility) the man 
 
 "Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
 
 But this assertion does not imply on the part of 
 the poet any high appreciation of the worth of worms, 
 such as Darwin shows in describing the important func- 
 tions which they perform in the economy of Nature, 
 but instances them on account of their supposed worth- 
 lessness, in order to emphasize his estimation of sensi- 
 bility as an ornament of human character. 
 
 Throughout the Old and New Testament animals 
 
152 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 are always regarded from an anthropocentric point of 
 view, or in some satellitic relation to man. They are 
 pronounced clean or unclean, not on account of their 
 own habits and propensities, but according to an arbi- 
 trary standard of ceremonial purity, intended to secure 
 his ritual or constructive cleanliness. He classifies 
 them, like fungi, into edible and inedible, or "the 
 beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not 
 be eaten." They are made the scapegoats of his in* 
 iquities; and minute descriptions are given of their 
 sacrificial qualities and uses, whereby their innocent and 
 untainted blood is shed in expiation of human trespasses 
 and sins. They are punished for his offences. Because 
 the Israelities were incredulous and disobedient, God 
 not only laid waste their vines and their sycamore trees, 
 but " he gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their 
 flocks to hot thunderbolts." Peter looks upon them 
 merely as " natural brute beasts made to be taken and 
 destroyed." 
 
 This spirit which everywhere prevails in the Jewish 
 Scriptures and the Gospel records is predominant in 
 patristic literature and mediasval hagiology. It is said 
 of Cardinal Bellarmine that he used to let bugs and 
 insects bite him undisturbed, on the plea that " we shall 
 have heaven to reward us for our temporal sufferings, 
 but these poor creatures have nothing to look forward 
 to except the enjoyment of the present life." Accord- 
 ing to his fellow-Jesuit and biographer Fuligatti, his 
 object, however, was not so much to gratify and regale 
 the vermin, as to exercise his own patience and pre- 
 pare his soul for paradise. " For this reason he would 
 not brush away flies from his face, although they are 
 wont to be very annoying, especially at Eome in sum- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 153 
 
 mer." It was less an act of kindness than a lazy and 
 nasty means of grace and of sanctification. 
 
 The same penitential path to holiness was pursued 
 by St. Macarius, of whom an old chronicler relates: 
 " It happed on a tyme that he kylled a nee that bote 
 hym; and when he sawe the blode of this flee, he re- 
 pented hym, and anone unclothed hym, and wente 
 naked in the deserte vi. monethes and suffred hym- 
 selfe to be byten of flyes." 
 
 The lives of the saints are full of legends concern- 
 ing their friendly and familiar relations with wild ani- 
 mals, and these stories are adduced as proofs of the 
 power of holiness even over the brute creation. Thus 
 the beasts and birds of the forest are said to have come 
 at the call of St. Columbanus, flocking and frolicking 
 about him like kittens (ludentes laetitia, velut catuli), 
 and squirrels descended from the trees and sat on his 
 shoulders or nestled in the folds of his mantle. A pack 
 of wolves passed by him as he was kneeling in prayer, 
 and did him no harm; and at his command a trouble- 
 some bear, which infested a valley near Anegray, quit 
 the country and never returned. A mischievous raven 
 stole his mittens (tegumenta manum aut wantos); but 
 the saint threatened that all its callow young should 
 die unless the mittens were immediately restored, which 
 was done accordingly. St. Gall spoke to a bear in 
 Latin, ordering it to bring a stick of wood for the fire, , 
 and Bruin, whose available knowledge of this language 
 was evidently superior to that of many a modern pro- 
 fessor, obeyed forthwith. St. Goar bade the hinds 
 (cervas) come, out of the wood and be milked, and, un- 
 like the spirits which Glendower could call from the 
 vasty deep, they came when they were summoned. The 
 
154: EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 same holy man, on paying a visit to the bishop, hung 
 his hat on a sunbeam which came in through the win- 
 dow. Whether the hat would still remain suspended 
 in the air or fall to the floor, if the sun should chance 
 to go under a cloud, is a point left undecided by the 
 hagiologist. 
 
 Legendary literature records " a deal of skimble- 
 skamble stuff" of this sort, which it would be tedious 
 to repeat. All the glory of these acts haloes round the 
 brows of the saints, whose kindly fellowship with the 
 lower animals, although the natural result of a solitary, 
 anchoretic life in regions remote from human habita- 
 tions, is regarded as something miraculous, and has 
 therefore failed to influence the conduct of ordinary 
 mortals to any great extent. It is said that until the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century it was deemed 
 sacrilegious to kill a hare in the parish on the Tanat, 
 in which was the shrine of St. Monacella, the protec- 
 tress of hares. As a rule, however, such saintly guard- 
 ianship contributes very little to the security of the 
 creatures under their tutelary care. 
 
 St, James of Venice, a saint of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, used to buy and release the birds tied up and 
 tortured by Italian boys, and Leonardi da Vinci was ac- 
 customed to purchase caged birds and set them free. 
 It is also related of Pythagoras that he once bought 
 the entire draught of a fisherman's net near Metapontus 
 and restored the fish to their native element. But these 
 isolated exhibitions of tender charity have not dimin- 
 ished the slaughter nor prevented the caging of small 
 birds in Italy, nor have they saved the eyes of a single 
 thrush from the hot iron with which the Italians are 
 wont to destroy the sight of these songsters, in order 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 155 
 
 that the perpetual darkness and loneliness of their 
 lives may not only increase the quantity of their song, 
 hut also impart to it a peculiar quality and sweet strain 
 of sadness. 
 
 St. Anthony of Padua preached the gospel to the 
 fishes; but whatever effect his sermons may have had 
 in saving them in the future life from the devil's toast- 
 ing fork, they were of no avail in rescuing a single 
 finny denizen of the deep from the frying pan in this 
 world. The sole object of the story is to illustrate and 
 glorify the moving eloquence of the saint, who, after 
 delivering his homily, may have gone back to his cloister 
 and dined on his parishioners from the pond with as 
 much relish as a backsliding Fiji neophyte would en- 
 joy a sparerib of his proselyter and pastor. Pious 
 Christians and good Catholics do not deny themselves 
 the exciting pleasures of deerstalking, because St. 
 Hubert had a vision of the cross between the antlers 
 of a stag, and gave himself up to a life of religious 
 meditation; on the contrary, the canonized Bishop of 
 Liege has become the patron of hunters and the pro- 
 tector of the chase. The legend of the wolf of Gubbio, 
 which, at the injunction of St. Francis, abstained from 
 mutton and obtained its food by going from house to 
 house in the village, like a begging friar, has had no 
 reformatory effect on wolves in general, nor was it in- 
 tended to indicate a possible or desirable change of 
 lupine habits, but solely to exhibit the power of the 
 saintliness capable of working such a miracle. The 
 practical ethical value of all these myths is simply 
 null. 
 
 As the records of ecclesiastical excommunication 
 show, it is only over noxious animals, for the purpose 
 11 
 
156 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of cursing them, that the Church has claimed juris- 
 diction, or eared to assert it. In hehalf of the count- 
 less beasts which toil out their blameless lives in the 
 service and at the mercy of man, she never utters a 
 word of authority, nor lifts her crooked fingers in the 
 form of beriediction. True, she assigns a place in the 
 calendar to St. Anthony, the patron and nominal pro- 
 tector of animals; and from the 17th to the 23d of 
 January Komans of all classes — princes, peasants, car- 
 dinals, cabmen, and campagnuoli — used to bring their 
 horses and asses to be blessed and sprinkled with holy 
 iwater before the old church of S. Antonia Abbate in 
 the Piazza di S. Maria Maggiore. But in most cases, 
 where some merciful intervention was actually needed 
 in favour of overworked and much-abused hacks and 
 cart horses,- this festa proved to be a holiday for the 
 beast far less than for its owner, who rode through the 
 streets arrayed in his best apparel, and adorned with 
 feathers and ribbons of: brilliant hues, and spent the 
 day in careering from one wine shop to another and 
 carousing with his friends. The ceremony, which al- 
 ways seemed to be performed perfunctorily, as though 
 it were deemed an indulgent concession to the sancta 
 simplicitas of the old Franciscan, was accepted as a joke 
 and utilized as a lark, and never exerted any appreciable 
 influence in restraining violence or inspiring kindness 
 toward the lower animals. Indeed, the tutelar saint is 
 seldom invoked during the rest of the year, except in 
 maledictions. " May St. Anthony smite you! " is still 
 the popolano's favourite imprecation on his horse or don- 
 key; and fearing lest the request should not be granted, 
 or willing to show his faith by his works, he plies the 
 lash or wields the cruel pungolo in the saint's stead. 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 157 
 
 A similar festival is celebrated in the highlands 
 of Bavaria and especially at Tolz, on the 6th of Novem- 
 ber, in honour of St. Leonhard, the local patron of 
 horses and neat cattle, which on that occasion are curi- 
 ously adorned with many-coloured fillets and flags and 
 driven in procession, attended by priests with the sacred 
 emblems of the altar and holy banners and all the 
 cheap pomp and tinsel trappings of the Church. In 
 this corso (Leonhardfahrt) each peasant strives to outdo 
 the other in gaudiness of equipment, and thinks more 
 of his own bravery than of the comfort of the quad- 
 rupeds for whose welfare the feast is supposed to have 
 been instituted. Whatever benefit may accrue to the 
 brute is purely incidental and wholly secondary to the 
 pride and pleasure of the owner. 
 
 The mystic and visionary pater seraphicus, Francis 
 of Assisi, sang his Cantico delle Creature, in which he 
 thanked the Lord for brother sun, and sister moon, 
 and mother earth proline of fruits and flowers. He 
 even greeted the wind and the fire as brothers, and 
 the water and bodily death as sisters, but passed over, 
 in significant silence, all sentient creatures and recog- 
 nised no kinship with beast, or bird, or creeping thing. 
 On another occasion, it is true, as he was taking a walk 
 near Beragna, he addressed the birds as his "winged 
 brothers," and bade them praise their Creator and love 
 Him with all their heart. And the birds, it is added, 
 came to him and perched on his hand and let him 
 stroke their plumage and would not depart from him 
 until he made the sign of the cross over them and dis- 
 missed them with his blessing. In the neighbourhood 
 of Greccia he freed a hare from a snare and the grate- 
 ful creature took refuge in his bosom and refused to 
 
158 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 leave him. Little lambs are also said to have followed 
 after him, which, however, is by no means a marvellous 
 thing for little lambs to do. He reproached a butcher, 
 „ asking, "Why do you hang up and torture the lambs, 
 my brothers, in this manner? " To this naive and utter- 
 ly idle question the butcher might have replied that 
 his "sin's not accidental, but a trade," and that if it 
 is a crime to slaughter sheep, then the eater of mutton 
 chops must be regarded as particeps criminis. Again, 
 he expressed his sympathy for some turtle doves in a 
 cage, saying: " Why have you, my dear sisters, simple, 
 innocent, and chaste creatures, allowed yourselves to be 
 caught?" — a remark that would seem to censure the 
 foolishness of the birds, rather than the ruthlessness of 
 the fowler. Indeed, all this cheap commiseration of 
 suffering creatures remained a barren sentiment, which 
 did not contribute one jot or one tittle to the allevia- 
 tion of their present distress, nor tend in the least to 
 prevent its recurrence. There is no evidence that the 
 example of the soft-hearted saints ever converted a 
 single hard-hearted sinner from the error of his ways 
 and led him henceforth to treat the lower animals 
 with tenderer care and consideration. Nor is there 
 any necessity of discarding these strange stories as mere 
 pious fictions. Wild animals might easily be attracted 
 to a gentle hermit in the solitude of the forest, par- 
 ticularly as they were, in most cases, unaccustomed to 
 human beings and had not yet learned to- fear them. 
 Birds and beasts on islands uninhabited by man have 
 uniformly shown the most perfect confidence in the 
 discoverers of these islands and only learned by experi- 
 ence that man was to be avoided as their enemy. Some 
 individuals have a certain magnetic influence over ani- 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 159 
 
 mals. Hawthorne ascribes this peculiar power to the 
 faunlike Donatello, and Thoreau could put himself 
 into relations of sympathy with the mute, cold-blooded, 
 and unsocial fish and make it swim into his hand. 
 King Ludwig I of Bavaria used to admire and envy 
 an old woman, to whom the birds in the Court Garden 
 at Munich would come in flocks, fluttering about her 
 head and perching on her shoulders. His Majesty en- 
 deavoured to inspire them with the same confidence, 
 but no calling or coaxing could induce them to ap- 
 proach him. He could not understand why they should 
 prefer to light on a plebeian rather than on a royal 
 hand; and finally in despair of their vulgar taste de- 
 sisted from all further efforts to win their favour and 
 settled a pension for life on the old hag who could" 
 work such witchery. 
 
 " Fromm waren die Miinchener zu jeder Zeit," says 
 one of their most quaint and genial chroniclers; and 
 there are few cities in Europe where the priests are 
 more zealous or exert a greater influence over the popu- 
 lace, or where the authority of the Church is more re- 
 spected than in Munich. Yet no voice of warning or 
 reproof was ever heard from chancel or confessional 
 against the cruelty to animals, which used to disgrace 
 the Bavarian capital. Veal is the favourite food of the 
 inhabitants, and is consumed in enormous quantities; ' 
 and it is no exaggeration to affirm that, before the erec- 
 tion of the slaughterhouse outside of the city, every 
 calf carried to the shambles was made to suffer in 
 transitu the tortures of a man crucified with his head 
 downward. An archiepiscopal Hirtenhrief would have 
 sufficed to check this brutality toward beasts; but un- 
 fortunately no such writ of mercy, no pastoral letter 
 
160 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 of pity, ever issued from the palace in Promenaden- 
 strasse. The late pope, ninth of Piuses and first of 
 infallible pontiffs, decided ex-cathedra that animals have 
 no soul, and that, therefore, we are not bound to them 
 by any of those moral duties and sacred obligations 
 which we owe, in general, to our fellow-men, and in 
 |Sarticular to them that are of the household of faith 
 and are united to us by ties of religion. This opinion 
 is fully indorsed and practically exemplified by the 
 Italian donkey driver, who, to every remonstrance 
 against the wanton beating and bruising of his patient 
 beast of burden, retorts " Non e cristiano," at the same 
 time dealing a succession of vigorous thwacks with a 
 heavy cudgel by way of adding emphasis to his dog- 
 matic assertion. Thus, the bipedal brute continues to 
 maul and maim the quadrupedal beast in the spirit 
 of the Vaticanic dictum, and in accordance with a 
 religious principle so clear and simple as to be com- 
 prehensible to the dullest asinaio: the poor creature 
 is not a Christian, and therefore has no rights which 
 a good Catholic is bound to respect.* 
 
 " Non e cosa oattezzata " (it is not a baptized thing) 
 is the Italian peasant's justification of any suffering 
 he may wantonly inflict upon the lower forms of life. 
 In England the cruel pastime of "cock-throwing," 
 formerly practised by men and especially by schoolboys 
 on Shrove Tuesday, has claimed a religious origin and 
 consecration by being brought into causal connection 
 with Peter's denial of Christ, as the poet Sedley sings: 
 
 * It is interesting to note that in Sheffield, England, " Chris- 
 tian " is popularly used to signify a man in distinction from a 
 brute beast. 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 161 
 
 Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter's crime, 
 And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime. 
 
 Since the crowing of the cock served as a rebuke 
 to the recreant apostle and caused him to repent of 
 his treachery, it is difficult to see why this valiant and 
 vigilant fowl should be held responsible for his cow- 
 ardice. On the contrary, one would imagine that all 
 cocks would henceforth be as highly honoured and 
 fondly cherished in Christendom as the descendants 
 of the geese, which saved the Capitol, were by the an- 
 cient Eomans. But it is the fatality of all vicarious 
 schemes of retribution to reverse our natural and un- 
 perverted conceptions of justice and to make the in- 
 nocent expiate the misdeeds of the guilty. 
 
 The efforts of some of the popes to suppress the 
 Spanish bullfights were due, not to any pity for the 
 tortured animals, but solely to the desire to prevent 
 the destruction of human life; and these disgusting 
 spectacles, which are the favourite sport of the most 
 Christian nation of Europe, still take place under the 
 auspices of the Church, a chapel, in which mass is read 
 before the massacre begins, being connected with the 
 arena. There the picador says his prayers and the 
 functions of religion are most incongruously mixed up 
 with funciones de tons. That the weekly proceeds of 
 these holiday butcheries in Madrid should be devoted 
 to the general hospital is a most striking example of 
 anthropocentric selfishness and an unconscious satire 
 on Christian charity. Indeed, when a society for the 
 prevention of cruelty to animals was first established 
 at Madrid, the Spaniards, whom foreign influences and 
 fashion had brought into sympathy with the move- 
 ment, proposed that a grand bullfight should be ar- 
 
162 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ranged in order to raise funds for the newly organized 
 and merciful institution. 
 
 The idea of blood-relationship, which, as we have 
 already shown, formed the basis of primitive society 
 and of which the doctrine of humanity is but a wider 
 development, has received still further extension 
 through recent scientific researches tending to estab- 
 lish a genealogical connection between man and the 
 lower animals. There can be no doubt that the gen- 
 eral acceptance of the theory of evolution would exert 
 upon the Western mind a wholesome influence in 
 favour of greater consideration for all forms and em- 
 bodiments of life, corresponding to the benign effect 
 which the belief in metempsychosis has produced upon 
 the less positive and more mystical and metaphysical 
 mind of the East. 
 
 Wer sich selbst und Andre kennt 
 
 Wird auch hier erkennen ; 
 Orient und Occident 
 
 Bind nicht mehr zu trennen. 
 
 Who knows his own and others' bent 
 
 Will here, too, clearly see 
 That Orient and Occident 
 
 Can no more severed be. 
 
 Not only is the present drift of scientific research 
 strongly set in this direction, but minds of the high- 
 est culture in every department of thought share in the 
 same movement. Thus comparative psychology, as will 
 be shown in a subsequent chapter, is gradually over- 
 turning one barrier after another, which a narrow and 
 obsolescent metaphysics had erected between man and 
 beast in respect to their mental faculties and moral 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 163 
 
 qualities, and even the comparative study of languages 
 is rapidly removing from this field of investigation 
 artificial obstacles of a like character, which an anti- 
 quated philology had declared to be fixed and impass- 
 able. These points are fully discussed elsewhere and 
 are referred to here only to indicate their ethical bear- 
 ings upon the question of animals' rights and to show 
 the practical agreement, in this respect, between the 
 results of Oriental speculation and of modern evolu- 
 tionary science. 
 
 The metempsychosist holds that the scintilla animm 
 divinw or divine spark wanders through eight million 
 four hundred thousand creatures before it is fit to 
 animate a human being. Still every incarnation is an 
 essential and sacred link in the unbroken chain of 
 existence that connects the mollusk with man and 
 slowly lifts the whole out of the mirage of phenomena 
 and the illusions of selfhood to ultimate reunion with 
 the Supreme and Eternal Spirit, from which it ema- 
 nated, and which is the only reality. The evolutionist 
 teaches that the struggle for existence and the sur- 
 vival of the fittest through natural selection went on 
 millions of years through successive ages before the 
 principle of life or intelligence found its highest em- 
 bodiment in man. According to both of these theories 
 man is not an isolated product of Nature, called into 
 existence by a divine fiat, but a part of the general 
 order of things with no break in the continuity of his 
 development out of the lowest organisms from the 
 protoplasmic cell upwards. 
 
 It is evident that our moral and religious instruc- 
 tion, based upon the anthropocentric assumptions of 
 Judaism and Christianity, has been hitherto lamentably 
 
164 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 defective. Perhaps, with the introduction of more 
 rational views of cosmogony and anthropology, and 
 broader and more generous principles of psychology 
 into our elementary text-hooks, through the union of 
 a sounder physics with a larger metaphysics, our chil- 
 dren's children may finally learn that there are in- 
 alienable animal as well as human rights, and that, 
 in respect to the ties of moral obligation and the claims 
 to kind and just treatment which they imply, not 
 only "all nations of men," as Paul affirmed on Mar's 
 Hill, but, as the Indian sage declared, "all living 
 creatures are of one blood." To the Hebrew decalogue 
 and the Christian beatitudes must be added the first of 
 Buddha's ten commandments: 
 
 Kill not for Pity's sake, nor dare to slay 
 The meanest creature on its upward way. 
 
n. 
 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MIND IN MAN AND BETJTE. 
 
 Oriental speculation and Occidental science. Metempsychosis and 
 evolution. Psychical kinship of man and brute. Automatic 
 and volitional mental action. Freedom of the will in man 
 and the lower animals. Consciousness in the lowest organ- 
 isms. Protoplasm and protista. Chemical fabrication of 
 products of vital forces. Berzelius and Wohler. Schneider's 
 classification of animal impulses. The nutritive impulse and 
 its final purpose. Oken's classification. Impulses of sensa- 
 tion, perception, conception, and thought in the order of their 
 development. Conjoint action of these impulses in the men- 
 tal activity of the lower animals. Interesting experiment of 
 Mobius with a pike. Incorrect inferences. How a horse 
 learns the meaning of " whoa." Pains taken by parent birds 
 to teach their young. Heine's lizard. Untenable distinctions 
 between men and brutes. Too great importance attached to 
 man's ability to look upward. Herbart's exact and concise 
 statement of the grounds of man's superiority. Influence 
 of infancy on human progress. Form and flexibility of the 
 hand. Mental operations the spiritualizations of manual op- 
 erations. Didactic value of mechanical labour. 
 
 If we compare the latest achievements of Western 
 thought with the results of Eastern speculation, we 
 find in the doctrine of evolution a striking confirma- 
 
 165 
 
166 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tion of the genetic and essential unity of organic nature, 
 which, the theory of metempsychosis assumes. Occi- 
 dental science has firmly established what Oriental 
 metaphysics only vaguely dreamed of. The seemingly 
 fantastic and extravagant assertions of Indian sages 
 concerning the transmigrations of the soul, and the 
 countless ages of its successive reincarnations in its 
 upward strivings toward the goal of complete emanci- 
 pation from material existence, are but lengthened 
 foreshadowings and grotesque adumbrations of the 
 doctrine of natural selection and progressive develop- 
 ment through the struggle for existence, involving 
 perpetual adaptations to changes of environment that 
 have been going on for millions of years, and produc- 
 ing organisms in which the intellectual faculty frees 
 itself more and more from the bondage of material con- 
 ditions, and asserts with constantly increasing emphasis 
 its supremacy over mere brute force.* 
 
 Modern scientific research has not only discovered 
 a multitude of physical correspondences — analogical 
 and homological — between man and brute — but it has 
 
 * Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya school of philosophy, may 
 thus be regarded, in a certain sense, as the Indo- Aryan prototype 
 of Darwin. The problems which they endeavour to solve are much 
 the same, and their methods differ only as the poetic and mystic 
 genius of the Hindu differs from the positive and matter-of-fact 
 genius of the Englishman. In Kapila's writings, the Sfinkhya 
 Pravachana Sutra and SSnkhya KfirikS,, there are many thoughts 
 and expressions that would fit admirably into the Origin of Spe- 
 cies. This famous muni discarded revelation and recognised no 
 other final cause than great creating nature (m&laprakriti) ; and 
 his philosophical system is characterized by native scholiasts as 
 nirisvcvra, usually translated "atheistic," but really signifying 
 " agnostic." 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 167 
 
 also detected and brought to light many irrefragable 
 proofs of their psychical kinship. The more exact and 
 extended our knowledge of animal intelligence be- 
 comes , the more remarkable does its resemblance to 
 human intelligen ce appear. The attempt to discrimi- 
 nate between them by referring all operations of the 
 former to instinct and all operations of the latter to 
 reason is now generally abandoned. Automatic mental 
 action is known to characterize men far more, and the 
 lower animals far less, than psychologists formerly sup- 
 posed. In an hypnotic state the conscious psychical 
 activities of the individual, as regards the exercise of 
 his rational and volitional powers, are almost wholly 
 suspended and superseded by automatic movements and 
 alien impulses of suggestion, over which he has no 
 control. 
 
 Indeed, there is strong presumptive evidence that 
 consciousness, which is indicated by the simplest exer- 
 cise of choice, and may be regarded as the distinctive 
 peculiarity and fundamental element of Mind, mani- 
 fests itself in the lowest forms of life, and is present 
 even in protoplasmic and protozoic organisms. From 
 this starting point the process of development is grad- 
 ual, but continuous, from the amoeba to man. 
 
 No psychologist has as yet been able to draw a hard 
 and fast line between volitional, instinctive, and reflex 
 actions, or to determine with any degree of precision 
 what activities are attributable to each. It is highly 
 probable that the so-called self-determinations of the 
 will are as mechanical in their origin, and as definitely 
 fixed in their operation under the influence of motives 
 of various kinds, as are reflex actions under the influ- 
 ence of their appropriate stimuli. If we could trace 
 
168 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 all the complex incitements and impulses which lead 
 the assassin to lift his arm and strike the fatal blow, 
 we should doubtless find the necessity of the action 
 as absolute and inevitable as the movement by which 
 the decapitated frog raises its leg to scratch an irritative 
 drop of nitric acid from its side. The argument in 
 favour of human freedom, based upon an appeal to con- 
 sciousness, has no validity whatever, since the forces, 
 of which the act of willing is the resultant, lie outside 
 of the sphere and beyond the cognizance of conscious- 
 ness. Back of the mere recognition of the fact that an 
 action is performed in obedience to the will — and this 
 is as far as the power of consciousness extends or can 
 claim any authority — is the profounder and more mys- 
 terious problem of the origin and constitution of the 
 will itself, of which consciousness can have no imme- 
 diate knowledge and furnish no satisfactory solution. 
 "What a man may will to do, when acted upon by cer- 
 tain inducements or temptations, was prearranged long 
 before his birth, not by the arbitrary decree of a vin- 
 dictive deity, but by prenatal influences and hereditary 
 tendencies, facts of organization which may be subse- 
 quently modified by the social and moral environment 
 into which he is born and the effects of early educa- 
 tion. This is the truth which is symbolically expressed 
 by the dogma of predestination, a doctrina horribilis, 
 as Calvin himself admitted it to be, that loses nothing of 
 this awful character by being transferred from the 
 province of theology to that of physiology. 
 
 It is true that we perceive an immense disparity 
 between the highest human and the lowest animal in- 
 telligence; but, in both cases, the manifestations of 
 mental activity are, from a physiological point of view, 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 169 
 
 the products of like nervous processes and molecul ar 
 change s. If the operations of mind in man appear to 
 us so variable as to be incalculable, and to render it 
 often quite impossible to predict what they may be in 
 any particular case, this uncertainty is due to our 
 ignorance of all the factors and countless impulses 
 which combine to produce them. In this respect, a 
 mental resultant does not differ essentially from a me- 
 chanical resultant, and would be found on analysis to 
 be the exact equivalent of all the motive energies which 
 enter into its composition. But these energies are so 
 manifold in their complexity and so mysterious in their 
 workings that it would be impossible for any intelli- 
 gence, not endowed with omniscience, to detect and 
 determine them. The fact that mental actions are un- 
 foreseeable is therefore no proof that they are not fixed 
 and inevitable. Man is a free agent when he acts with- 
 out constraint upon the exercise of his will; but there 
 is no such thing as free agency, if this term is used as 
 referring to the origination of the will itself. The in- 
 dividual is conscious of acting according to his wishes; 
 but be is not, and never can be, fully conscious of the 
 forces which cause him to wish one thing rather than 
 another, since these are often prenatal proclivities and 
 idiosyncrasies, hereditary peculiarities of temperament 
 running in the blood and remote from the domain of 
 consciousness, or inbred predispositions, which in many 
 cases he can neither know nor resist. 
 
 An appeal to consciousness as a means of explaining 
 the real nature of psychical phenomena is as superficial 
 and fallacious as an appeal to the senses as a means 
 of explaining the real nature of physical phenomena. 
 Whether applied to the microcosm or to the macro- 
 
170 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 cosm, the method is the same, and the inferences are 
 in both cases equally unsafe and delusive. The psy- 
 chologist who asserts that he is free, because he feels 
 himself to be so, is, in his logical processes of thought, 
 a survival of the physicist who maintained that the 
 earth is a flat and stationary body round which the 
 sun revolves, because he saw it to be so. To accept such 
 evidence as final and irreversible is as fatal to the 
 progress of psychology to-day as it was for many centu- 
 ries to the progress of astronomy. 
 
 It is foreign to my present purpose to discuss the 
 question of human freedom or human necessity. / 1 sim- 
 ply desire to show that whatever considerations may 
 be adduced in favour of either hypothesis apply alike 
 to man and to the lower animals. If Descartes declared 
 brutes to be mere machines, La Mettrie had no diffi- 
 culty, by following the same line of reasoning, in push- 
 ing his argument to its legitimate conclusion, and prov- 
 ing the same to be as true of human beings. 
 
 In plants, too, we not only detect rudiments of con- 
 sciousness and indications of something like volition, 
 but also discover traces of nervous organization mani- 
 festing itself in sensitiveness to irritation. Infusoria, 
 polyps, sea-anemones, holothures, and other radiates 
 distinguish between edible and inedible, or palatable 
 or unpalatable objects, in their selection of food. Their 
 power of choice, so far as it goes, does not differ in the 
 manner of its exercise from that of the most fastidious 
 gourmand. The sea pudding is, in this respect, the 
 peer of the daintiest diner-out that ever stretched his 
 elegant legs under the mahogany. 
 
 The eminent zoopsychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, af- 
 firms, as one of the points which modern science has 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 171 
 
 settled beyond a peradventure, the fact that the faculty 
 of perception in the lower animals differs from that of 
 man only in degree. He discovers between man and 
 brute no broader and deep/Si- chasm than between brutes 
 themselves. AH animated organisms form a chain of 
 homog e neous beings, which are firmly linked together 
 and in which there is no break . Even the immen se 
 intellectual changes which man has undergone, corre- 
 spondin g to the growth of his brain in size and stru c- 
 t ural complex ity, are theresults of gradual develop - 
 ment, and not due, in any sense, to a new departure. 
 An obsolete psychology, with its arbitrary divisions 
 of the mental faculties into many categories, has always 
 been fond of drawing fanciful lines of demarcation 
 between them; but now that we have come to recog- 
 nise all spiritual life as a continuous whole, we must 
 accept every living thing as a constituent part of this 
 great whole. Drawing conclusions and forming judg- 
 ments are elementary psychical processes, and belong 
 to the very earliest stages of conscious life as the factors 
 of the highest intellectual powers. 
 
 Descending still lower in the scale of animate and 
 organic existence, we find that the closest microscopic 
 observation, with the help of the most powerful mag- 
 nifying lenses, has not yet enabled the naturalist to 
 establish a clear and precise boundary line between the 
 animal and vegetable kingdoms, or to set up a criterion 
 for determining with any degree of certainty what 
 organisms belong to each. This difficulty has led to 
 the recognition of a third group of organisms, or vital 
 substances, called protista, which are neither animals 
 nor plants, but form, as it were, the homogeneous and 
 protoplasmic material out of which both are evolved. 
 12 
 
172 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 But even here the lines of separation between protista 
 and plants, on'the one hand, and aninfals, on the other 
 hand, are by no means distinct and well denned, prov- 
 ing how gradually and imperceptibly the realms of Na- 
 ture, as we call them, all merge into each .other, and 
 have really no existence except as modes of thinking in 
 the mind of man. -s, 
 
 These most primogenial of all creatures, the protista, 
 although apparently mere clots of, albumen without 
 organs of sense or any sort of nervous system, are not 
 only perceptibly affected by light, but are also attracted 
 by different substances, selecting those which .they prefer 
 for nutriment, and showing .remarkable activity and 
 even considerable energy and ingenuity in procuring 
 their food. 
 
 There are 'organisms Which begin their, life as plants 
 and finally develop into animals; and there are others 
 which undergo a reverse transformation from animals 
 into plants, "*being at first endowed with locomotion, 
 and afterward becoming stationary and taking root. 
 Infusoria are thus metamorphosed into Mgee. 
 
 How a structureless mass of matter. becomes endowed 
 with sensation . and the power of propagation, and is 
 thus 'changed from a chemical compound into a living 
 creature, is a mystery which neither the dogma of divine 
 creation nor • the doctrine of spontaneous generation 
 suffices to clear up and make perfectly comprehensible. 
 Only analogy can throw any light upon the .genesis 
 and evolution of organic life. We know that environ- 
 ing influences induce inorganic of amorphous sub- 
 stances to crystallize: why may not favouring influ- 
 ences also vitalize them? We observe that changes 
 of environment ' cause many species of animals and 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 173 
 
 plants to thrive, to decline, and even to become ex- 
 tinct: why may not environment, heat, light, moisture, 
 and other propitious conditions have originated the 
 first germs of life? If living beings were produced 
 arbitrarily by a creative fiat, there is no reason why they 
 should ever undergo transformations of any kind in 
 consequence of changes in their external conditions, 
 or should ever die out except in obedience to a de- 
 structive fiat. The fact that they do suffer variations 
 and become extinct and are superseded by other organ- 
 isms, as the_ result of a change of environment, would 
 naturally suggest that they began their existence as 
 products of environment; in other words, that they 
 spontaneously appeared when the proper originary con- 
 ditions were realized. It is also in, accordance with 
 the theory of the spontaneous generation of organic 
 life that there should be no .break in the continuity of 
 its development from the lowest to the highest forms. 
 
 Given a piece of protoplasm, and_ science is com- 
 petent to derive from it all living organisms from the 
 monad to man. The problem now presented to the 
 biologist for solution is the production of protoplasm, 
 or the discovery of the circumstances and conditions 
 under which a chemical compound becomes sensitive 
 and reproductive. 
 
 "We have already seen that amorphous matter, when 
 acted upon by certain f orees — such as light, heat, cold, 
 or sudden movement — becomes crystalline, and that 
 these crystals have the ¥ power of reproducing them- 
 selves. "Water, if perfectly at rest, may be reduced to 
 a temperature below the freezing-point, and still remain 
 fluid; but the slightest, jar will crystallize it into ice. 
 This phenomenon df crystallogenic attraction is a mys- 
 
174 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tery, but, nevertheless, a well-recognised fact. Again, 
 if a crystal is brought into contact with amorphous 
 matter under proper conditions, it propagates, itself, 
 converting the mass into crystals after' its kind. The 
 physicist understands the nature and process of crystal- 
 lization as little as the biologist does the nature and 
 process of primitive germination. If the conditions 
 are present in the one case, the crystal appears; and, 
 if the conditions are present in the other case, the germ 
 appears. This is all that can be said about it. But the 
 inexplieability of either process can not be urged as 
 an argument- against its actuality. 
 
 That a plant or an animal may assimilate elements 
 from the water, earth, and air, and use them to build 
 up its own peculiar cell-structure, is neither more nor 
 less intelligible than that a crystal, when placed in a 
 proper solution, should change it into crystalline struc- 
 ture similar to its own. The gradual development of 
 a living organism? out of undifferentiated plasma in 
 response to appropriate stimuli, such as heat, light, 
 moisture, and electrical energy, is as easily conceivable 
 as that two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, should com- 
 bine in the form of water, which again, under the 
 action of heat, vaporizes and disappears as steam. 
 
 In 1827 the Swedish chemist Berzelius declared that 
 "we shall never be able to make in the laboratory 
 any of the products of vital forces." Shortly after- 
 ward his pupil, Wohler; disproved this so positive as- 
 sertion by the chemical production of urea; and since 
 that time quite a number of the products of vital force, 
 such as indigo, salicine, and alizarine, have been fabri- 
 cated chemically, and sometimes in so great quantities 
 and with so little expense as almost wholly to super- 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 175 
 
 sede the natural products as articles of commerce. The 
 synthetic chemist can even produce some of the crystals 
 (quartz, rubies, spinels, and'simili distinguishable from 
 real diamonds only by experts) which in Nature's labora- 
 tory it took ages to form and to endow with their pecul- 
 iar structure and marvellous beauty. These facts show 
 the progress which science has made during the last 
 half century in discovering the secrets of Nature and 
 in imitating her mysterious processes; and there is no 
 apparent reason why the creation of the products of 
 vital force should not be followed by the production 
 of vital force itself, and the artificial genesis of the 
 germs of life. 
 
 Not only are the physical antecedents of psychical 
 phenomena, but also the impulses and adjustive move- 
 ments resulting in mental activity, the same in the 
 lower animals and in man. Perhaps the most com- 
 prehensive classification of these impulses is that given 
 by Dr. G. H. Schneider (Der thierische Wille, Leipzig, 
 1880), who distributes them into four categories: im- 
 pulses of sensation (Empfindungstriebe), impulses of per- 
 ception (Wahrnehmungstriebe), impulses of conception 
 (Vorstellungstriebe), and impulses of thought (Gedanken- 
 triebe), or ideation. 
 
 Back of them all, however, lies the great original 
 source and efficient cause of organic activity and in- 
 tellectual life in its multiform manifestations; namely, 
 the nutritive impulse (Ernahrimgstrieb), or the craving 
 for food. Every expression of feeling, every exercise 
 of the will, every exhibition of intelligence in the lower 
 animals and in man, can be traced to hunger as its 
 fountain-head. From the pressure of hunger and the 
 desire to prevent its recurrence spring the love of ac- 
 
176 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 quisition, the systematic accumulation of wealth, the 
 idea of ownership in things, or the general conception 
 of personal property, which is the strongest cement 
 of social and domestic life, codes of laws and systems 
 of morals, discoveries, inventions, industrial and com- 
 mercial enterprises, scientific researches, and the high- 
 est achievements of culture and civilization. 
 
 It is true that, as a man rises in the scale of intelli- 
 gence, other and nobler incentives to activity come 
 into operation and act even more powerfully than the 
 primal nutritive impulse. The latter, however, always 
 asserts and insists upon the priority of its claims; and 
 not until these have been satisfied and the stress of 
 hunger relieved, and in some degree permanently 
 guarded against, does the individual think of devot- 
 ing his energies to higher pursuits. Spinoza had to 
 secure his subsistence by grinding his stent of lenses 
 before he could gratify his love of philosophy and find 
 leisure to work out the ethical and metaphysical prob- 
 lems in the solution of which all his intellectual powers 
 were engaged. It was the chief grievance of Xantippe 
 that her husband would waste his time in getting up, 
 according to what has since been known as the Socratic 
 method, unprofitable " corners " in speculative ques- 
 tions which brought in no pecuniary returns, and 
 neither kept the pot boiling nor contributed to^the ali- 
 mentary worth of its contents. Still, it is highly prob- 
 able that the nutritive impulse would have been stronger 
 in the Grecian sage if he had been thrown upon his 
 own resources for subsistence, and had not relied upon 
 the sufficient persistency of this natural instinct in his 
 spirited spouse to supply the wants of a modest Athe- 
 nian household. 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 177 
 
 Parallels to this feature of the conjugal life of Soc- 
 rates are found in many a New England village of 
 to-day, where we see the exuberant practical energy of 
 the wife repressing the easy-going, wool-gathering hus- 
 band, and reducing him first to a domestic nullity, and 
 finally to a confirmed loafer and peripatetic philosopher, 
 sententious and seedy, wise and worthless, loved and 
 laughed at by all men. 
 
 The final purpose of the nutritive impulse and of 
 the various subsidiary impulses which minister to it 
 is the preservation of the species. Seeking food, fight- 
 ing foes, forming friendships, sexual attraction, care 
 of offspring, social feeling, love, hatred, fear, jealousy, 
 cruelty, kindness, revenge, deceit, "all thoughts, all 
 passions, all delights," are subservient to this one 
 great end. 
 
 Not only is the preservation of the species the aim 
 of all the energies developed by animal organisms in 
 their present state of being, but it is also the genesis 
 of the belief in a life to come. The doctrine of the im- 
 mortality of the soul springs from man's unwillingness 
 to give up the struggle for existence, even after the 
 dissolution of his physical frame. It is the expression 
 of his antipathy to annihilation and his longing to live 
 and to develop to a still higher degree his spiritual 
 powers. The soul is the ideal of individuality in its 
 purest form, just as the gods of a people are its ideals 
 of humanity in its purest form, although it may be, 
 as Dr. Svoboda remarks, that " a soul which no one 
 remembers is as devoid of reality as a god which no one 
 worships." 
 
 Impulses of sensation are produced by immediate 
 contact of the living organism with external objects; 
 
178 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 impulses of perception are called forth by seeing ob- 
 jects at a greater or less distance; impulses of con- 
 ception originate in the presentation of real but absent 
 objects to the mind by the power of memory; impulses 
 of thought may arise out of the mere imagination of 
 objects or the simple apprehension of things not actually 
 existing. There is, however, no break in this series 
 of cognitive movements, from the most automatic re- 
 flex action to the most complex processes of abstraction 
 and generalization; nor is it possible to determine how 
 far they are due to mental and to non-mental factors, 
 or to draw a boundary line defining the limits of each. 
 We know that thought and emotion are always con- 
 nected with certain molecular movements in the brain. 
 Whether the cerebral movements are the cause or mere- 
 ly the concomitants of the mental manifestations we 
 can not tell. All that we can assert is that, within 
 the limits of our experience, the latter are inseparable 
 from the former, and wholly dependent upon them. 
 
 In the lower animals the lower impulses are pr e- 
 dominantj and this predominance is used by Schneider, 
 in a general way, as the basis of psychological classifi- 
 cation. Thus he regards protozoa and radiates as sen- 
 sation animals; the mollusks and articulates as per- 
 ception animals; the vertebrates, with exception of 
 the human species, as conception animals; and ma n 
 as pre-eminently a thought animal . Nevertheless, i t 
 is to be observed that man acts in obedience to all 
 these impulses, a nd that the lower animals, _ whi ch 
 are usually governed by impulses of sensation, percep - 
 tion, or conception, may and do exercise thought, and 
 are influenced by imagination and , re ason. 
 
 Oken regarded the life of the lower animals as a sort 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 179 
 
 of mesmeric state, due to the ascendency of the sleeping 
 soul located in the liver over the waking soul with its 
 seat in the brain, and classified them according to 
 their supposed temperaments into melancholy, sanguine, 
 and choleric. The first class comprises fishes and rep- 
 tiles; the second, birds; and the third, mammals. Ani- 
 mals of the first class have memory and sensation only; 
 those of the second class have perception, conception, 
 and concrete ideas; those of the third class have under- 
 standing, intelligence, and reason, but not self-con- 
 sciousness, which is the sole attribute of man. This 
 classification, although superficially suggestive of that 
 proposed by Schneider, is loose and unscientific; and, 
 instead of being based upon accurate observation, it 
 is made to suit certain mystical notions and metaphys- 
 ical theories. 
 
 Children, savages, and the rude and ignorant classes 
 of civilized society yield more readily than highly devel- 
 oped races and individuals to the lower impulses of sen- 
 sation and perception, as is evident from their lack of 
 self-restraint when excited by the presence of desirable 
 objects, and their disposition to gratify their appetites 
 Iwithout thought of the future. 
 
 Schneider maintains that squirrels, hamsters, and 
 woodehueks, in collecting and storing food, act solely 
 in obedience to the impulses of perception and concep- 
 tion. Thus the perception of a nut causes them to 
 pick it up; the conception of their hole or burrow im- 
 pels them to carry off the nut; and, when they have 
 reached their abode, the perception of the place induces 
 them to lay it down or store it. Such an explanation, 
 however, really explains nothing, and is wholly inade- 
 quate to account for the animal's conduct. It does 
 
180 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 not furnish any sufficient motive for the action, and 
 therefore leaves it as unintelligible as it was before. 
 If these creatures exercise no foresight, and have no 
 notion that the nut is to serve them as food in the com- 
 ing winter, they would, if hungry, eat it at once; if 
 not hungry, they would let it alone; they surely would 
 not store it for future use. No squirrel is tempted by 
 a fair exterior to try his teeth on a hollow nut, or to 
 add worthless material of this sort to his winter supply 
 of provisions. But, if he were governed solely by the 
 aforesaid impulses, he would not be capable of such 
 discrimination. The mental process which leads him 
 to discard every nut that has not a sound kernel in it 
 is not confined to a simple impulse of perception. The 
 fact, too, that he does not merely pick up the nuts 
 which he happens to find in his wanderings, but sets 
 out in search of them, proves that the action is due 
 to the exercise of thought, and that the agent is clearly 
 conscious of the purpose for which it is performed. 
 
 The propensity of the carrion fly, on the other hand, 
 to lay its eggs in putrefying flesh, which will supply 
 its young with proper nourishment, is stimulated and 
 directed wholly by the impulse of perception, and espe- 
 cially by the sense of smell, since it often lays its eggs 
 on plants which have the odour of carrion, but not its 
 nutritive qualities, so that the young perish from lack 
 of food as soon as they are hatched. Again, the 
 tumblebug, on perceiving a small, round object, is 
 seized with an irresistible impulse to roll it, although 
 it may be a piece of wood or stone instead of a ball 
 of dung containing its eggs. But this sort of fatuity 
 is, unfortunately, not confined to tumblebugs. One 
 meets with many persons in daily life who are easily 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 181 
 
 deceived by outward semblances, think they know a 
 round and Tollable thing when they see it, and are con- 
 stantly engaging in all sorts of foolish and unfruitful 
 enterprises. In forming ties of friendship, love, and 
 matrimony, and in entering into a great variety of 
 social relations, young people are especially apt to be 
 led by mere impulses of perception and conception, 
 so-called fancies, which are often blind and irrational 
 whimseys of the most delusive and pernicious char- 
 acter. 
 
 When a fox sees the bait of a trap, there are two 
 distinct impulses immediately excited in Eeynard's 
 breast — the impulse due to perception, which tempts 
 him to seize the tempting morsel, and the impulse due 
 to conception, which suggests the danger of being 
 caught; and his safety depends upon the comparative 
 strength of these two impulses. Under such circum- 
 stances, a young animal will probably yield to the 
 perception impulse, and fall into the snare: whereas 
 an older and wilier fox will most likely be governed 
 by the conception impulse, whereby the sense of peril 
 overrules the strength of appetite, and will thus escape. 
 
 Feigning death in the presence of danger implies 
 not only a clear conception of the impending peril, 
 but also a remarkable degree of cunning and self-con- 
 trol in evading it. The theory of Prof. Preyer that 
 this simulation is simply a state of catalepsy produced 
 by the paralyzing effects of fear is wholly inadmissible, 
 and will never be accepted by any one who has seen 
 an opossum " playing 'possum " or read Audubon's 
 vivid description of such a performance. Kb disciple 
 of George Fox ever developed the power of passive re- 
 sistance possessed by the opossum. The female 
 
182 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 didelphys is a heroic mother, and will calmly suffer 
 martyrdom for the safety of her offspring. She can 
 open at will the pouch in which she keeps her young, 
 hut no amount of torture can force her to do so. To 
 get them out is as difficult as to get a joke into a 
 Scotchman's head, and can be effected only by the same 
 means — a surgical operation. Hypocrisy (that is, 
 " acting ") is a trait shown by all weak animals in self- 
 defence. Dogs are adepts in putting on an air of inno- 
 cence when they are fully sensible of having done 
 wrong, and in craving pardon by expressions of mingled 
 contrition and flattery when their guilt has been de- 
 tected and exposed. 
 
 Birds and mammals, which live in flocks and herds, 
 post sentinels, when they are feeding or sleeping or en- 
 gaged in any perilous enterprise, in order to warn the 
 community of the approach of an enemy. Flamingoes, 
 wild geese, turkeys, gulls, bustards, crows, ravens, storks, 
 prairie hens and prairie dogs, monkeys, zebras, wild 
 horses, chamois, beavers, otters, walruses — in short, all 
 gregarious animals — have this habit. The sentinels also 
 show great discrimination in the discharge of their duty, 
 paying no heed to harmless animals like a sheep or a 
 cow, but sounding an alarm at the approach of a beast 
 of prey or a man. Before migrating to any particular 
 place, spies are sent out to ascertain whether the change 
 would be desirable or attended with danger. In Siberia 
 deputations of squirrels go on such missions, usually 
 in August, crossing dreary wastes, swimming rivers, 
 and enduring all sorts of hardships until they reach 
 the high plateaus of the pine forests. In a few weeks 
 they return, report on the prospects of the cone harvest, 
 and toward the end of September guide the whole squir- 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 183 
 
 rel community to the most favourable spot. The zeal 
 of these emissaries in the performance of their task 
 is shown by the bruised and blistered condition of their 
 feet; and they appreciate the importance of their office 
 as fully as did the men whom Moses, sent to spy out the 
 land of Canaan. 
 
 It is also a curious fact that snipes, stilts, and other 
 birds which frequent the river banks and the seashore 
 do not keep sentry themselves, but rely for security on 
 the vigilance of the plover, which is quick to signal 
 any danger. For the same reason zebras are fond of 
 feeding near ostriches, where they are free from all 
 anxiety, knowing that the ostriches are always on the 
 alert and quick to scent the slightest suspicion of an 
 approaching foe. 
 
 That these actions are performed with a full con- 
 sciousness of the object to be attained is undeniable, 
 and can be explained on no other theory. Stationing 
 sentinels indicates not only a high degree of foresight 
 and forethought, but also gives evidence of remarkable 
 moral qualities, as the expression of individual self- 
 sacrifice for the common good, or what in human so- 
 cieties would be called public spirit or patriotic senti- 
 ment. Sentinels and spies expose their lives for the 
 safety of the flock or herd. It makes no difference 
 whether they undertake this service voluntarily or are 
 compelled to perform it: the existence of such an office 
 marks a high development of the moral sense in the 
 perception of the obligations of the individual to the 
 community of which he is a member. 
 
 Even cold-blooded sea creatures know how to profit 
 by associations of this kind. Little sea crabs seek pro- 
 tection in the vicinity of the polyp from their arch- 
 
184: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 enemy, the squid. In like manner the, pilot fish is safe 
 from the attacks of the tunny in the neighbourhood 
 of the shark. Here it is self-preservation, and not 
 friendship, that forms the bond of association. It is the 
 same with finches and sparrows, which take refuge from 
 falcons in the eyries of eagles. In such cases, the weaker 
 animal is protected by the mere presence of the stronger, 
 but there is no evidence that the latter derives any ad- 
 vantage from the companionship. 
 
 Usually, however, the relation is one of mutual bene- 
 fit, as, for example, in what might be called the love 
 of the hermit crab for the sea anemone. The hermit 
 crab takes up its abode in the abandoned shell of a 
 mollusk to which a sea anemone is attached. If it wishes 
 to change its habitation, it takes the sea anemone with 
 it; or, if it finds a suitable shell without a sea anemone, 
 it goes in search of this companion, who both adorns 
 and protects its home — adorning it like a flower of rosy 
 hue, and protecting it with its mesenteric filaments 
 that sting whatever they touch, and thus ward off the 
 assaults of fish which would otherwise drag the hermit 
 crab from its shell and devour it. In return for this 
 kindness the hermit crab provides the sea anemone with 
 food. In this union each seeks its self-interest and 
 secures its highest good. 
 
 A queer kind of fish is the stargazer, or uranoscope, 
 so called because its eyes are on the top of its head and 
 are therefore always looking heavenward. On account 
 of this sanctimonious look it is also known as the " sea 
 parson." This fish, which Hippocrates prized as whole- 
 some food, probably because its flesh is especially offen- 
 sive, and Konrad Gessner more than two centuries ago 
 characterized as "very dreary and dreadful to look 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 185 
 
 upon," lives for the most part buried in the mire or 
 sand, with nothing visible but its staring eyes and ver- 
 tical mouth, from which projects a long, cylindrical, 
 cartilaginous flap that wriggles like a worm. No sooner 
 does one of the fry of little fish that gather round this 
 supposed worm bite at it than it is seized by the treach- 
 erous flap, and disappears in the pitlike mouth of the 
 hidden stargazer. 
 
 -Now, as to the mental process here involved, Schnei- 
 der maintains that the stargazer buries itself in the 
 slime in obedience to an impulse of perception, stretches 
 out its squirming flap in obedience to an impulse of 
 conception (i. e., of its prey), and draws it in again with 
 the captured minnow in obedience to an impulse of 
 sensation, but that it has no consciousness of the pur- 
 pose for which it performs all these actions. The natu- 
 ralist deems himself justified in this summary treat- 
 ment of the psychology of the subject, simply because 
 he is dealing with a creature of low organization, and 
 is unwilling to admit that its thoughts can be as his 
 thoughts, even when there is a striking resemblance 
 in their external acts. The most accomplished angler 
 that ever whipped a stream obeys a mere impulse of 
 sensation when he hooks his fish, although he may exer- 
 cise his reason in resisting this impulse, and not respond 
 to every nibble at the bait as an inexperienced fisher 
 would do. For aught we know, the stargazer may use 
 the same discretion. Eeptiles, birds, and mammals of 
 many kinds, toads, scorpions, crocodiles, herons, crakes, 
 dogs, cats, lions, tigers, and human beings lie in wait 
 for their prey. The man is well aware of the purpose 
 forwhich he lurks in ambush, and the same is true of the 
 tiger and the cat. Indeed, all the way down in the scale 
 
186 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of predatory animals, from the savage to the sea devil 
 and the stargazer, there is no point at which the action 
 ceases to be conscious and rational, and becomes purely 
 sensational and automatic. I n the higher organism s 
 the higher faculties predominat e, and in the lowe r 
 o rganisms the lower facultie s: but in all of them, from 
 t he highest to th p 1r>w pB *r t he action is the resultant 
 of impulses of sensation, p erception, conception, and 
 thought variously combined and inextricably Mende d. 
 
 •A typical illustration of the illogical inferences 
 drawn by psychologists as to the mental powers of the 
 lower animals is furnished by an interesting experiment 
 made by Mr. Amtsberg, of Stralsund, and reported by 
 Dr. Mobius to the Society of Natural Science for Schles- 
 wig-Holstein, in 1873. A large pike, which was wont to 
 devour the small fish in an aquarium, was finally sepa- 
 rated from them by a plate of glass, so that, whenever 
 he attempted to seize his prey, he struck his snout so 
 violently against the transparent barrier as to be quite 
 stunned by the blow. Nevertheless, he kept up these 
 attacks for some time. At length, however, they be- 
 came rarer, and finally, after three months of dis- 
 heartening effort, ceased altogether. After the lapse 
 of six months the glass plate was removed, and the pike 
 swam about freely among the other fish without at- 
 tempting to eat them. But no sooner was a strange 
 fish put into the aquarium than he gobbled it up. 
 
 In the opinion of Dr. Mobius and other scholars 
 who have accepted his interpretation of the phenomena, 
 the conduct of the pike " was not based on judgment," 
 but was the result merely of "the establishment of a 
 certain direction of the will in consequence of a series 
 of uniformly recurring sensuous impressions." But this 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 187 
 
 holds true of all discipline, and is precisely the process 
 by which the judgments of children, and indeed of the 
 great majority of adults, are formed. There are hosts of 
 persons who go through life constantly bumping their 
 heads against invisible walls and learning wisdom — if 
 they learn it at all — only by hard knocks. Very many 
 lack even the perception shown by the pike, and do not 
 know when a spiritual barrier has been taken away 
 and the sphere of their intellectual activity enlarged, 
 but continue to move along the line of the old partition 
 wall, and never dare to go beyond it. 
 
 In the case of the pike, the glass plate was simply 
 the means of inculcating a definite idea; namely, that 
 certain fish were not to be eaten. Every blow against 
 the unseen barrier was an admonition and injunction on 
 this point, and a vigorous enforcement of the lesson 
 to be taught, just as a wilful child learns to let forbid- 
 den things alone by a smart slap on the fingers. To 
 affirm that " the pike acted without reflection," or that 
 it was "a machine with a soul, which has this advan- 
 tage over soulless machines, that it can adapt itself 
 to unforeseen circumstances," and that "the plate of 
 glass was to the organism of the pike one of these un- 
 foreseen circumstances," is to make a terrible pother of 
 words without sense, and to give an explanation that 
 explains nothing. A machine with a soul is a contra- 
 diction in terms, since an organism with a soul ceases 
 by virtue of this endowment to be a machine. 
 
 Nor was it a " mark of stupidity " that the pike did 
 not eat the fish after the plate of glass had been re- 
 moved, but rather an indication of docility and dis- 
 crimination. The ability to distinguish between the 
 fish that were not to be eaten and those that might be 
 13 
 
188 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 eaten shows close observation and the power of com- 
 paring objects and discerning their relations and proper- 
 ties; and what is this but judgment? A certain associa- 
 tion of ideas was established in the pike's mind by the 
 intervening plate of glass, just as it may be established 
 in a child's mind by an intervening slap. The law of 
 mental action is in both cases identical. In the in- 
 stance adduced, it required months of discipline to estab- 
 lish this association of ideas, but it was so firmly fixed as 
 never afterward to be broken. The lesson once learned 
 was not forgotten, and in this particular the pike's edu- 
 cation was complete. He was trained up in the way 
 he should go, and did not depart from it. It is precisely 
 in this manner — namely, by threats and blows — that a 
 cat is taught not to touch caged birds. The natural- 
 ist Lenz tells of an old tabby which, having been thus 
 trained, imparted the instruction to her kittens in the 
 some way, cuffing them whenever they approached the 
 cage with the feline stealth indicative of felonious in- 
 tent. 
 
 By an application of the same principle, a horse is 
 taught to stop at the word " whoa " ; namely, by attach- 
 ing a rein to the animal's foot and pulling the foot 
 clear of the ground every time the word "whoa" is 
 uttered. The horse is thereby forced to stop, and thus 
 learns what " whoa " means, and acts accordingly. It 
 is not necessary to suppose that such an absolute con- 
 nection is established between the sound "whoa" and 
 the pulling of the forefoot from the ground as to make 
 the horse think of the act whenever he hears the word. 
 If this were the case, the animal, on hearing the word, 
 would not only stop, but also lift the forefoot. 
 The procedure is purely didactic. The horse learns 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 189 
 
 what his master means by " whoa," and obeys, but no 
 longer thinks of how he came to learn the lesson, any 
 more than a man, who in his youth was compelled to 
 study Latin by the application of the rod, thinks of " the 
 threatening twigs of birch" whenever he reads a Ho- 
 ratian ode or a Virgilian eclogue. 
 
 Few persons have any conception of the pains taken 
 by a parent bird to teach her little ones how to get 
 their living and to make their way in the world. Thus, 
 for example, a mother sparrow may be often seen, at the 
 proper season seated with her fledgelings on the ridge 
 of a roof and letting a pea, berry, or round piece of 
 bread roll down into the eaves-trough. She repeats this 
 performance until one of the most precocious and alert 
 of the brood takes part in the game, and very soon the 
 whole family join in the sport, hopping after the roll- 
 ing object and vying with each other in securing it. 
 The mother now varies the performance by catching 
 the thing before it reaches the gutter. After a time 
 the young birds succeed in this more difficult exploit, 
 and thus take their first lesson in the art of seizing 
 moving objects. C'est le premier pas qui coute. The 
 skill acquired in capturing a rolling bread-crumb is 
 easily applied to a flying bug. 
 
 The way in which many psychologists talk about 
 the mental faculties of animals recalls Heine's interview 
 with the old lizard at Lucca. In the discussion which 
 ensued, the poet dropped the words "I think." 
 " Think! " cried the lizard, with a sharp, aristocratic 
 tone of profound contempt; "think! which of you 
 thinks? For three thousand years, wise sir, I have in- 
 vestigated the spiritual functions of animals, and have 
 made men and apes the special objects of my study. 
 
190 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 I have devoted myself to these queer creatures with 
 as great zeal and diligence as Lyonnet to his caterpil- 
 lars; and, as the result of my researches, I can assure 
 you that no man thinks. Now and then something 
 occurs to him; and these accidentally occurring some- 
 things he calls thoughts, and stringing them together 
 he calls thinking. But you can take my word for it, 
 no man thinks; no philosopher thinks; neither Schell- 
 ing nor Hegel ever thought; and, so far as their philos- 
 ophy is concerned, it is mere air and water, like vapours 
 in the sky. I have already seen countless successions 
 of these clouds floating proudly and securely over my 
 head, and the next morning's sun dissolved them into 
 their original nothingness. There is, in reality, but 
 one true philosophy, and that is engraven in eternal 
 hieroglyphics on my own tail." This lordly and dis- 
 dainful attitude of the venerable saurian toward the 
 human race is a witty persiflage of the anthropocentric 
 conceit which perverts man's views of his relations to 
 the lower animals. 
 
 If a writer, with the critical acumen of Gervinus, 
 asserts that the nations of antiquity "took no delight 
 in Nature," and Schiller affirms that " Nature in- 
 terested the understanding and excited the curiosity 
 of the Greeks, but did not awaken in them any moral 
 feeling," if keen thinkers thus fail to get a clear and 
 correct appreciation of the mental and emotional ca- 
 pacities of their fellow-men in earlier epochs and more 
 primitive stages of intellectual development, how much 
 more difficult must it be to analyze and estimate aright 
 the psychical phenomena of animal life that lie still 
 remoter from our own! 
 
 It is a significant circumstance that metaphysicians 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 191 
 
 have never made any valuable contributions to zoopsy- 
 chology. This is because they have always discussed 
 the mental constitution of animals without having ade- 
 quately observed their habits, or have endeavoured to 
 make such facts as came within their range of observa- 
 tion fit into some preconceived theory, discarding as 
 worthless whatever could find no place in the systems 
 of thought they were pledged to uphold. Wild specu- 
 lation on a small amount of real capital is apt to prove 
 as disastrous in the province of philosophy as on the 
 stock exchange. 
 
 Aristotle, who was perhaps less liable to this re- 
 proach and dealt more with positives than any of his 
 contemporaries, maintained, nevertheless, that heart- 
 beating is a phenomenon peculiar to man, " because 
 he alone is moved by hope and expectation." The pro- 
 cess of reasoning which led the Stagirite to this absurd 
 conclusion seems to have been something as follows: 
 Fearful or pleasurable anticipation causes the heart to 
 beat, and this pulsation can occur only where such 
 feelings exist. The lower animals, however, live wholly 
 in the present, do not look forward to the future, and 
 are not agitated by pleasant or painful presentiments: 
 therefore, their hearts do not beat. Such is the vicious 
 circle in which the greatest logician and clearest thinker 
 of antiquity allowed himself to be caught, through ex- 
 cessive confidence in the validity of syllogisms and the 
 lack of a little observation. An Athenian boy with a 
 bird in his hand would have put him to shame, and 
 laughed his logic to scorn. Cassiodorus held that the 
 life of the lower animals resides in the blood, whereas 
 the anima, or soul, is a principle peculiar to man, and 
 distinct from the blood, and based this fanciful theory 
 
192 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 on a false etymology: anima quasi avaifia, id est a 
 sanguine longe discreta, which would identify spirituality 
 with anmmia. 
 
 Lactantius, in discussing the origin of error (Inst. 
 Div. Lib. II. cap 10), makes a still more subtile and 
 strained distinction between men and brutes. "For 
 we/' he says, "being a heavenly and immortal race, 
 make use of fire, which is given to us as a proof of im- 
 mortality, since fire is from heaven; and its nature, in- 
 asmuch as it rises upward, contains the principle of life. 
 But the lower animals, inasmuch as they are alto- 
 gether mortal, make use of water only, which is a cor- 
 poreal and earthly element, and because of its unstable 
 nature and downward tendency, shows a figure of death. 
 Therefore, the cattle do not look up to heaven, nor do 
 they entertain religious sentiments, since the use of 
 fire is removed from them." Elsewhere in the same 
 apology (II. 1) he states as a significant fact that the 
 Greeks called man avdpunros because he looks upward. 
 It is strange how much stress has been laid upon this 
 false etymology (for the word means man-faced, and 
 contains no suggestion of looking upward), what far- 
 reaching physiological inferences have been drawn from 
 it, and for how many centuries poets have not ceased 
 to ring changes upon it. Looking upward is, as we 
 have already seen, a physiological peculiarity of the 
 stargazer and the sea devil, but not of man, who 
 naturally looks straightforward, and can look upward, 
 as Galen remarked more than sixteen centuries ago, 
 only by painfully bending back his head. The goose 
 is infinitely his superior in the ease with which it can 
 turn its eyes heavenward. 
 
 Yet Ovid says — 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 193 
 
 Pronaque cum spectent animal ia cetera terram, 
 Os homini sublime dedit, ccBlumque tueri 
 Jussit; et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. 
 
 Less than a century later Silius Italicus, in his epic of 
 the Second Punic War (xv.), amplified the verses of 
 his precursor and prototype as follows: 
 
 Nonne vides hominum ut celsos ad sidera vultus, 
 Sustulerit Deus, ac sublimia finxerit ora? 
 Cum pecudes, volucrumque genus, formasque ferarum, 
 Segnem atque obscenam passim stravisset in alvum. 
 
 Eacine repeats the same thought in the lines — 
 
 L'homme eleve un front noble et regarde les cicux, 
 
 and Milton embodies it in his description of creation 
 in still fuller and more poetic form: 
 
 There wanted yet the master-work, the end 
 Of all yet done ; a creature who, not prone 
 And brute as other creatures, but endued 
 With sanctity of Reason, might erect 
 His stature, and upright with front serene 
 Govern the rest, self -knowing ; and from thence, 
 Magnanimous, to correspond with heaven. 
 
 Cowper sings the same strain: 
 
 Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone 
 And eyes intent upon the scanty herb 
 It yields them, 
 
 as though the hungry savage were any less "intent" 
 upon the food with which he gluts his maw. 
 
 Birds not only stand erect, but also, by the power 
 of flight, free themselves more than mammals from 
 bondage to the earth. "But," says Steinthal, "how- 
 ever high they may soar, they still belong to the earth." 
 The same is true of man, however far 
 
194 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 His piercing eyes erect appear to view 
 Superior worlds, and look all Nature through. 
 
 The ant is not inferior to the bee in intelligence be- 
 cause it crawls on the ground instead of hovering in 
 the air. The owl surpasses man in the facility and free- 
 dom with which it can turn its head in every direction, 
 but this flexibility of its neck does not contribute in 
 any degree to the enlargement of its mental horizon. 
 Steinthal compares the brute to a piece of cloth fast- 
 ened at all four corners to the ground, whereas man is 
 like a piece of cloth attached at only two points, so 
 that the greater part of it flutters in the air. " The 
 influence of this power of free motion," he adds, "in 
 promoting the development of intellectuality is incal- 
 culable." This rather vulgar comparison of man to a 
 flapping sheet, recalling somewhat ludicrously the pos- 
 sibility of his being "two sheets in the wind," does 
 not illustrate in the least the point in question. 
 
 Man's superiority of bodily structure and constitu- 
 tion in respect to his mental development was very 
 succinctly stated by Herbart nearly a century ago, as 
 follows: "He has hands; he has speech; he lives 
 through a long, helpless childhood." (Er hat Hande; 
 er hat Sprache; er durchlebt eine lange, hiilflose Kind- 
 heit. Werke, vi. p. 206.) The last-mentioned point 
 has been taken up and most fully and satisfactorily 
 worked out by Mr. John Fiske. Animals without 
 hands, or prehensile organs that may by use be con- 
 verted into hands, derive no intellectual advantage 
 whatever from an upright position. The penguin may 
 have the habit of standing erect on its feet and flop- 
 ping its quill-less wings for countless generations with- 
 out adding in the least to the size or complexity of 
 
MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 195 
 
 its brain. The assumption and permanent maintenance 
 of an upright posture marked an epoch in the evolu- 
 tion of the human race, only as contributing to the 
 differentiation of the hand from the foot, and to the 
 development of the former as an organ of investigation 
 instead of a means of locomotion. 
 
 The form and flexibility of the hand and the ex- 
 treme delicacy of the sense of touch, especially in the 
 tips of the fingers, are the chief sources of man's in- 
 tellectual progress, so far as this is dependent upon 
 his physical structure. The capability of grasping an 
 object with firmness and precision and holding it with 
 ease and exactness in a variety of positions not only 
 renders possible the use of tools, the acquisition of me- 
 chanical skill, and the growth of the arts, but also exerts 
 a direct influence upon the intellect by cultivating the 
 powers of close observation and intense concentration 
 of thought. It is by no means a mere accidental coin- 
 cidence that many words used to denote operations of 
 the mind are spiritualizations of the functions of the 
 hand; as, for example, when we speak of grasping or 
 handling a subject, seizing a point, catching an idea, 
 and comprehending a proposition. These expressions, 
 now employed as simple figures of speech, are records 
 of real facts and natural processes in the early educa- 
 tional history of mankind, since it was by the frequent 
 repetition of the manual action that the higher and 
 fuller mental life of the individual was developed and 
 the progress of the race promoted. 
 
 The mental and moral value of mechanical labour 
 as a discipline for the young is now just beginning to 
 be appreciated and to be assigned its proper place in 
 pedagogics. The boy who has learned to draw a straight 
 
196 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 line has learned a lesson in rectitude; and in making 
 a box or a table he builds up his own character,, and 
 gives it additional symmetry and stability. The in- 
 fluences which civilized the race in its infancy are still 
 the most efficient agencies in civilizing each individual; 
 for, notwithstanding the hereditary transmission of 
 culture, as yet every healthy child is born into the world 
 more or less a savage. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 PEOGEESS AND PEBFECTIBILITY IN THE LOWEE 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 Animal and human institutions. Domestic and social life of 
 beasts and birds. Bee colonies. Improvements in nest build- 
 ing. Architectural skill of ants and termites. Destructive 
 energy of the latter. Immense size of their mounds. Artifi- 
 cial comb foundation for bees. Perfectibility of the species. 
 Effects of specialization in training. Influence of domes- 
 tication. Schutz's theory of animals as puppets of higher 
 powers. 
 
 What we call institutions are only organized and 
 hereditary instincts, and are common to man and the 
 lower animals. The original social character of ani- 
 mals, which forms the hasis of their institutions, is 
 also the quality that renders them capable of domes- 
 tication. Man simply takes advantage of this quality, 
 and turns it to his own account hy bringing the ani- 
 mal into his own domestic circle and service and mak- 
 ing it a member of his household. 
 
 In birds, for example, the conjugal instinct is re- 
 markably strong, or, as we would say in speaking of 
 human relations, the institution of marriage, either in 
 its monogamous or polygamous form, is firmly estab- 
 lished and highly developed, and forms the founda- 
 tion of a well-ordered domestic and social life. 
 
 197 
 
198 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 The paternal fox trains his young with as much 
 care and conscientiousness as any human father; the 
 beaver constructs his habitation with the foresight of a 
 military engineer and the skill of an experienced archi- 
 tect; the bee lives in well-regulated communities, forms 
 states, and founds colonies; and the ant not only cul- 
 tivates the soil, plants crops, gathers in the fruits of 
 his labour and stores them for future use, and keeps 
 other insects as domestic cattle, but shares also the 
 vicious propensities and domineering disposition of man, 
 waging war on creatures of his own species and holding 
 his prisoners as slaves. 
 
 These habits or customs have the same origin and 
 character in the lower animals as in man, being in 
 both cases products of evolution and undergoing modi- 
 fications from generation to generation. Animal, not 
 less than human, societies are governed by their laws 
 and traditions, and preserve a sort of historical con- 
 tinuity by which past and present are bound together 
 in a certain orderly sequence. Beehives which suffer 
 from over-population rear a new queen and send forth 
 with the old one a swarm of emigrants to colonize, 
 and the relations of the mother-hive to her colonies are 
 known to be much closer and more cordial than those 
 which she sustains to apian communities with which 
 she has no genetic connection. Here the ties of kin- 
 ship are as strong and clearly recognised as they are 
 between consanguineous tribes of men. 
 
 Again, the statement that animal habits are fixed, 
 and human customs variable and improvable, is true 
 only to a very limited extent. Closer observation has 
 shown the latter to be more stable and the former more 
 mutable than is generally imagined, especially if we 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 199 
 
 compare the highest orders of animals with the lowest 
 human tribes. In primitive society and among savage 
 races customs remain the same for countless genera- 
 tions, and seem to be quite as persistent and incapable 
 of change as animal instincts. 
 
 Not only do animals, often in the course of a com- 
 paratively short period, undergo marvellous transforma- 
 tions both of mind and body, through the force of 
 natural selection or by careful interbreeding, but they 
 are also led by circumstances and through forethought 
 to make conscious and intentional changes in their 
 manner of life. 
 
 It is curious to note the variety of characteristics 
 distinguishing members of the same family or genus. 
 Thus, the European cuckoo lays her eggs in the nests 
 of other birds, and leads the life of a shiftless parasite 
 and shameless polyandrous vagabond. The American 
 cuckoo, on the contrary, has not yet learned to shirk 
 her maternal duties and domestic responsibilities, but, 
 like an honest and thrifty housewife and conscientious 
 mother, hatches her own eggs and rears her own young. 
 The South African and Australasian representatives of 
 the cuculincB follow, in this respect, the habits of the 
 European bird. There is also a species of molothrus, 
 which sometimes begins but seldom finishes a nest, like 
 the hypothetical man in the parable, who would fain 
 build without first sitting down to count the cost. 
 She is seized occasionally with a spasm of virtuous en- 
 deavour in this direction, but soon yields to the greater 
 comfort and convenience of imposing upon others the 
 burden of brooding and nurturing her offspring. Evi- 
 dently she turns the matter over in her mind, and, like 
 Eousseau, reasons herself into the belief that it is 
 
200 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 better not to assume any family cares, but to cast her 
 children as foundlings upon the bosom of public charity. 
 " There are the goldfinches, thrushes, fly-catchers, car- 
 dinal grossbeaks, and other fussy motherly fowl," she 
 seems to say, "willing enough to undertake the 
 charge; why not gratify their low philoprogenitive pas- 
 sion, and thus enable me to devote myself to more 
 congenial pursuits! " Still another kind of molothrus 
 leads the life of a squatter, never building a nest of 
 her own, but brooding in the abandoned nest of some 
 other bird. 
 
 Many birds have, within the memory of man, made 
 considerable advances in architectural skill, and adopted 
 new and improved methods of constructing their nests. 
 This progress has been observed especially in the swal- 
 lows of California since the settlement of that country, 
 and in all cases the young profit from the knowledge ac- 
 quired by their parents, and the improvement becomes a 
 permanent possession of the race. In places where they 
 are particularly exposed to the attacks of pugnacious 
 sparrows, they have been known to close the opening in 
 front of their nests and make the entrance on the back 
 near the wall. In some instances this purely precau- 
 tionary and defensive change of structure, after its 
 efficiency had been tested in a single nest, has been 
 adopted by the swallows of an entire district. Orioles, 
 according to the observations of Dr. Abbott, finding 
 that the bough from which they have suspended their 
 nest is too slight to sustain the weight of the full brood, 
 attach it by a long string to the branch above, fasten- 
 ing it securely "by a number of turns and a knot." 
 It would be difficult to say in what respect the mental 
 process leading to the adoption of such a mechanical 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 201 
 
 contrivance differs from that which causes an architect 
 to buttress a weak wall. 
 
 The Baltimore oriole also adapts the texture and 
 structure of its nest to the exigencies of climate. In 
 the Southern States it selects a site on the north side 
 of a tree, and builds of Spanish moss loosely put to- 
 gether and without lining, so as to permit a free circula- 
 tion of air. Farther north it seeks a sunny exposure, 
 builds more compactly, and uses some soft material 
 for lining. The impulse to build is instinctive, but 
 conscious intelligence is exercised in modifying the 
 methods of building to suit circumstances. 
 
 The same bird now uses yarn and worsted instead 
 of vegetable fibre for its nest, but it always selects for 
 this purpose the least conspicuous colours, such as gray 
 and drab; and yet the bird's gorgeous plumage is proof, 
 according to the theory of sexual attraction, that bright 
 colours are pleasing to it. Here we have an example 
 of aesthetic pleasure being subordinated to considera- 
 tions of safety; the prudent oriole, notwithstanding 
 its fondness for resplendent hues, choosing those colours 
 which render its nest less visible and more difficult to 
 discover, and rejecting those which, in other respects, 
 are more gratifying to its fancy. 
 
 The tailor-bird of East India used to stitch the 
 leaves of its nest together with fine grass, horsehair, 
 and threads, which it twisted out of wool; since the 
 introduction of British manufactures it uses sewing 
 thread and the filaments of textile fabrics, except in 
 remote regions, where the ingenious bird still works 
 on in the primitive way. So, too, in America, birds in 
 constructing their nests everywhere turn to their ac- 
 count the products of human industry and keep abreast 
 
202 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 with the progress of the age. The materials employed 
 correspond to the contemporary state of civilization, 
 and mark the periods of industrial development through 
 which the human race has passed. The wagtails, in a 
 watch-making district of Switzerland, have learned to 
 build their nests of fine steel shavings; a nest of this 
 kind, if preserved, would indicate to the inhabitants 
 of that country a thousand years hence the kind of 
 industry that was carried on by their ancestors. Spar- 
 rows, which usually build in chinks of walls or under 
 roofs, if forced to build their nests in trees or other 
 unsheltered places, cover them with a sort of hood to 
 keep out the rain. Buff on, who records this fact, adds: 
 L'instinct se manifest done id par un sentiment presque 
 raisonne et qui suppose au moins la comparaison de 
 deux petites idees. In the presence of such clear mani- 
 festations of thought and reflection, it seems absurd 
 to speak of a "sentiment almost reasoned," or to in- 
 dulge in condescending baby-talk about "two little 
 ideas." 
 
 Apiarists now provide their hives with artificial comb 
 foundation on which the bees build and are thus re- 
 lieved of some of the labour performed by their pred- 
 ecessors.* Instead of gathering propolis from the 
 buds of plants, the workers stop their hives with the 
 mixture of resin and turpentine with which the arbori- 
 culturist salves wounded trees, and readily substitute 
 oatmeal or the flour of wheat and rye for pollen, if 
 they can not easily procure the latter. In countries 
 where the flowers blossom late these surrogates are 
 
 * A very superior kind of comb foundation is manufactured by 
 Gustav Ad. Friderich in Greifswald, Germany. 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 203 
 
 often provided by apiarists and placed before the hives 
 in the early spring. In Cuba the bees pillage the sugar 
 plantations, and in North Germany, near Stettin, the 
 numerous sugar refineries are subject to the same 
 depredations. In Barbadoes, where these sources of 
 supply are accessible during the whole year, the bees 
 gradually cease to gather honey from flowers and ap- 
 propriate the products of human industry. They also 
 visit cellars, in which kegs of syrup are stored, for the 
 same purpose, and indulge in stolen sweets to such ex- 
 cess that they fall to the ground and perish, so that 
 the apiarists suffer considerable loss. Huber gives an 
 interesting account of the manner in which honeybees 
 rob humblebees in times of scarcity, carrying on this 
 spoliation systematically for several weeks until noth- 
 ing is left.* 
 
 In a work entitled A Modern Bee Farm, Mr. S. 
 Simmins describes the "sweating" methods by which 
 practical apiarists turn the industrial virtue of bees 
 to the best account. Large fields of white clover, 
 borage, and sanfoin planted near the hives enable the 
 bees to gather honey with the least possible loss of 
 time, and it is estimated that seventy-five acres of these 
 flowering herbs will occupy one hundred hives profit- 
 ably for three months (June, July, and August), and 
 produce ten thousand pounds of honey in a single sea- 
 son. The triumph of the "sweater's" art, says Mr. 
 Simmins, is in inducing the bees to fetch this enormous 
 quantity of honey, without neglecting the arrange- 
 ments for storing it in the hives. The honey, being 
 
 * See Ludwig Btlchner, Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere, 4th 
 ed. Thomas: Leipzig, 1896, pp. 323-334. 
 14 
 
204 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 liquid, must be bottled, and tbe bees will only put it 
 into comb of the exact size and texture, which in- 
 stinct has taught them to make. As comb-making is 
 much lighter and safer work than honey-gathering, 
 with its dangers from storms, wasps, and birds, it is 
 generally assigned to young bees, while their elders go 
 afield. In order that as few bees as possible may remain 
 in the hive for this purpose, the bee-keeper provides 
 ready-made foundations for the cells, stamped in real 
 wax and of the natural size. He also removes the 
 combs full of honey, spins them round in a tin churn, 
 and replaces them in the hive empty — a hint which 
 the bees take as as invitation to refill them. The bees 
 seem delighted to make the most of the opportunities 
 so thoughtfully provided for them. By using the me- 
 chanically stamped " foundations " for their cells, they 
 make a more perfect and symmetrical comb than is 
 often constructed without help. The bottoms being 
 regular, no " crooked comb " is ever built upon it. The 
 size stamped is also uniformly that of worker cells; 
 thus, there is no room for drone cells, producing bees 
 which can not be " sweated " or made profitable in 
 any way. Mr. Simmins thinks that the trial of this 
 system for another twenty years "may possibly show 
 certain strains developing a tendency to forget how to 
 construct comb foundation, just as some breeds of fowls 
 are forgetting how to hatch their eggs. We can not 
 suggest an improvement in the architecture of the cells 
 because they are mechanically perfect in economy of 
 material and space. But the readiness with which 
 the honeybee has accepted and incorporated in its 
 comb the materials supplied by man would seem to 
 indicate the possibility of further experiments to de- 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 205 
 
 termine how far its mechanical instinct is capable of 
 modification." It is a mistake to attribute the hexagonal 
 structure of the cells to mechanical instinct, since it is 
 due solely to external pressure. The melipona or native 
 American bee constructs long and round cells which 
 show no approach to the hexagonal form, except when 
 they are in close contact, so that the whole is filled 
 without interstices. Indeed this is the shape which 
 all soft and pliable balls or cylinders take when they 
 are pressed uniformly together. Thus, if water be 
 poured into a bottle filled with peas, the latter, as 
 they swell and press against each other, will gradually 
 change from spheres into hexagons. In like manner 
 soap bubbles produced by blowing into a basin of 
 suds are six-sided so long as they remain in contact, 
 but become spherical when they float off singly into 
 the air. The originally round cells of the human 
 body become hexagonal when pressed together in the 
 mucous membrane, in tumours, cancerous formations, 
 and other morbid growths. Although bees are re- 
 markably conservative, it is evident that their meth- 
 ods of work may be considerably modified by human 
 agency. 
 
 The facts already mentioned, and many others 
 which might be adduced, suffice to prove that animals 
 avail themselves of new discoveries and easier methods 
 in order to increase the comforts and conveniences of 
 life. 
 
 Haeckel asserts that the rude aboriginal ants, which 
 lived many thousand years ago, perhaps as early as in 
 the Chalk period, had as little idea of the advanced 
 division of labour prevailing in the different modern 
 ant states as our forefathers of the Stone age had of 
 
206 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the culture of the nineteenth century. Both ants and 
 men have worked themselves up to their present stage 
 of development on the slow and painful path of pro- 
 gressive evolution. Even now there are varieties of 
 ants which know nothing of the exact and elaborate 
 system of division of labour found in civilized formican 
 communities, and which bear the same relation to the 
 latter that the rude aborigines of Africa and Australia 
 do to the civilized nations of the present day. The 
 same is true of the hymenoptera and arachnida, in 
 whose habitations there is traceable a process of archi- 
 tectural evolution analogous to that which has taken 
 place in the history of mankind. This is evident from 
 a comparison of the nests of wasps and humblebees 
 and the cells of the native American bee (Melipona) 
 with the perfectly formed comb of the European honey- 
 bee, or the habits of ordinary earth spiders with those 
 of trapdoor spiders. 
 
 Ant hills are very complicated structures. They 
 are partly under the earth and partly above it, and con- 
 sist often of twenty to forty stories, thus relatively sur- 
 passing in size the sky-scraping edifices of modem 
 American cities. They are constructed of pieces of 
 wood, earth, pebbles> leaves, stems of plants, pine- 
 needles, and other materials apparently lying promiscu- 
 ously in heaps, but found on closer examination to be 
 arranged so as to form halls, corridors, and rooms 
 adapted to the wants of the inhabitants. It is also 
 curious to note how they make changes in these dwell- 
 ings to suit their needs. Sometimes the work of one 
 ant will be torn down and rebuilt by others in a differ- 
 ent manner after due consultation; thus mistakes are 
 corrected and improvements introduced. Interesting 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 207 
 
 observations of this kind are recorded in the notebooks 
 of Pierre Huber.* 
 
 Still more remarkable as architects are the termites 
 or white ants of the tropics; they are also more ad- 
 vanced than the emmet in their social and, political 
 organization. In Africa their habitations begin with a 
 series of pyramids about a foot high, which increase in 
 size and number with the growth of the community, 
 and are finally joined together and covered over with 
 a cupola consisting of a firm coating of clay. The fin- 
 ished domelike structure often attains the height of 
 ten and even twenty feet, and is made of clay, stones, 
 pieces of wood, and similar materials cemented to- 
 gether with the mucilaginous spittle of the termites. 
 The cone-shaped hillocks resemble haystacks, and at a 
 distance are easily mistaken by travellers for the huts 
 of the natives. Indeed, at first sight a termite village 
 can hardly be distinguished from a negro village. They 
 are so solidly built that they not only resist storms and 
 the assaults of foes, but also sustain the weight of a 
 man and do not yield to the pressure of a heavily laden 
 wagon. It is said that gazelles, buffaloes, and even ele- 
 phants are seen standing on them, and using them as 
 points of observation, f 
 
 Some species of termites build in the form of 
 truncated columns or gigantic fungi with a round roof 
 projecting about two or three inches and resting on a 
 
 * Both Francois Huber and Darwin have noticed a like liabil- 
 ity to error on the part of bees in building comb cells, thus proving 
 that they are not always guided by unerring instinct. To err is 
 apian as well as human, and the tendency is due in both cases to 
 the same cause — namely, fallibility of the reasoning faculties. 
 
 f Btichner, pp. 226-228. 
 
208 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 cylindrical base some four or five feet high. In regions 
 subject to inundations their dwellings are constructed 
 like barrels round the trunks of dead trees and com- 
 municate with the ground By means of corridors or pas- 
 sageways bored through, the wood. • 
 
 Blanchard, in his Kagport sur les Travaux Scien- 
 tifiques des Departements en 1868, describes the elab- 
 orate interior arrangement of the termite mounds .with 
 their myriads of rooms, cells, nurseries,' storehouses, 
 sentry chambers, passages, halls, arcades, and other 
 large or small spaces set apart for particular purposes 
 and forming parts of a well-considered plan. In the 
 centre is what he calls the " royal residence " with' a 
 high-arched ceiling resembling an old-fashioned oven. 
 Here the royal pair dwell, or rather are kept captive, 
 since the entrance is so narrow that it is impossible 
 for them to go out and in. They are well fed and as- 
 siduously served by the workers, but never leave the 
 apartment and are virtually prisoners of state, treated 
 with respect, like the mysterious man in the iron mask, 
 but nevertheless restrained of their liberty. The pro- 
 lific queen assumes enormous dimensions, becoming two 
 or three thousand times as large as an ordinary termite. 
 Adjoining this lying-in room (for such is its essential 
 character) are nurseries for rearing the young, chambers 
 for servants or attendants of the queen, barracks for 
 soldiers, closets or cupboards filled with gums, resin, 
 dried juice of plants, seeds, fruits, and other edibles 
 or condiments. 
 
 In the centre of the termite mound is a large space 
 with passages leading to it from all sides, which, in 
 the opinion of Bettzieh-Beta, serves the purpose of a 
 forum or place of public meetings, held, as he as- 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 209 
 
 siimes, for the discussion of questions of general in- 
 terest. Others maintain that, it is intended to promote 
 ventilation.* 
 
 Dr. H. Hageri states that some termites, in order to 
 get at a sack of meal standing on the floor and effectu- 
 ally protected against their, direct encroachments, 
 gnawed a hole through the ceiling just above the sack 
 and. built a tube downward through the air until they 
 reached the object of their desire. But finding it impos- 
 sible to carry the meal up through this straight and 
 perpendicular passage, they constructed another by the 
 side of it with a spiral ascent like that of the campanile 
 of St. Mark's in Venice. By thus taking advantage 
 of the principle of the inclined plane, which plays such 
 an important part in modern engineering and road- 
 making over mountains, they easily succeeded in secur- 
 ing the meal. 
 
 Blanchard also compares these insects to skilful 
 engineers, and confirms the observations of other natu- 
 ralists as regards the ability with which they design 
 and construct tubular bridges from one point to another 
 in the form of an arch or succession of arches. In the 
 cellar of the prefecture of La Bochelle, in southern 
 France, they made hollow columns as large as a thick 
 straw from the ceiling to the floor, using them as lines 
 of transit and transportation to the upper stories of 
 the building. He adds that they always take the short- 
 est cut to their destination even when working under- 
 ground. They are, therefore, suspected of sending out 
 explorers by night, who survey the ground and indicate 
 by signs on the surface of the earth the direction of 
 
 * BUchncr, p. 229. 
 
210 J ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the projected subterranean passage. This supposition 
 is regarded by Biiehner (p. 23(3) as highly probable. 
 
 Smeathman describes the effect of making a breach 
 in the mound of the termites. Immediately the soldiers 
 rush out im the greatest rage in obedience to a signal 
 given by a single sentinel or officer, who first appears 
 in order to ascertain the, nature of the attack. If the 
 disturbance is hot renewed the soldiers retire and the 
 workers reappear and begin to repair the damages, only 
 a few?' of' the former remaining stationed here and 
 there as a guard. If the mound is again disturbed, the 
 workers vanish and the soldiers come out in force. 
 There seems to be an- exact assignment of duties to 
 each class, the workers never fighting and the soldiers 
 never working. 
 
 The workers are undeveloped females and the sol- 
 diers may be undeveloped males, although this is by no 
 means certain. ''At any rate they are both classified as 
 sexless and are both blind, the lack of sight being sup- 
 plemented by, a delicate sense of touch, i which, as they 
 live in the dark, serves them better than vision. They 
 are distinguished from each other chiefly by the form 
 and armament of the head; that of the worker being 
 round and smooth and provided with a mouth adapted 
 to the elaboration of materials for building purposes, 
 while that of the ,soldier is very large and armed with 
 pincers, pikes, or tridents, and long jaws with saws or 
 sabres serving as weapons for assault. The proportion 
 ofe soldiers to workers in a mound is about one per cent, 
 so that the standing-* armies are relatively much smaller- 
 than those which have so often been a burden to Euro- 
 pean powers. In other words, ninety-nine hundredths 
 of the population devote themselves to industry and 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 211 
 
 only one hundredth to arms, thus indicating an ad- 
 vanced state of termitic civilization. • 
 
 The termites are as energetic and ingenious in their 
 destructive as in their constructive labours. Perhaps 
 the most dangerous of these creatures (at least so far 
 as we know) is the Termes lucifugus or light-shunning 
 termite, which was introduced into Europe on exotic 
 plants imported from Brazil. In southern France, espe-> 
 cially in La Kdchelle, Eochefort, and Bordeaux, they 
 have eaten up furniture, caused wooden buildings to 
 collapse, and ships of war to fall to pieces. They enter 
 the foot of a table through the floor and gradually eat 
 out the whole inside of it, so that it has the appearance 
 of being perfectly solid when it is only a mere shell,, 
 which the slightest shock or pressure causes to crumble 
 into a heap of dust and splinters. In consuming the 
 corks of bottles they always leave a thin layer at the 
 lower end sufficient to prevent the wine from flowing 
 out and submerging them. In South America, India, 
 and Egypt they have been known to destroy whole vil- 
 lages and compel the inhabitants to migrate. Curiously 
 enough in consuming a house they spare the principal 
 pillars, whose destruction would cause the whole build- 
 ing to fall; or when they, devour the inside of these 
 pillars, they fill the hollow with clay, which hardens 
 and renders them stronger than ever. This remarkable 
 foresight contributes to their self-preservation. But 
 how should the insects know on which pillars or col- 
 umns the edifice mainly rests? * 
 
 Bastian f states that the cities of the termites in East 
 
 * Cf. Dr. Hagen, cited by Btichner, p. 241. 
 f Die V51ker des Oestlichen Indiens. 
 
212 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 India are as tall as a man, some of them being simple 
 massive mounds, and others resembling a regular castle 
 with battlements, pinnacles, and turrets. In the savan- 
 nas of Senegambia in western Africa the countless hills 
 of the termites furnish an admirable material, out of 
 which the aborigines as well as the canny Scotch mission- 
 aries construct their houses. They are also made into 
 ovens by being hollowed out and the interior plastered 
 with loam. These structures are relatively much larger 
 than any reared by man. A pyramid bearing the same 
 proportions to the size of its builders would be at least 
 three thousand feet high, and a subterranean canal 
 would be three hundred feet in the clear. In com- 
 parison with them old Koman and modern American 
 edifices and aqueducts are insignificant affairs.* 
 
 Even instincts, which seem firmly rooted and are 
 regarded as characteristic of the class, are by no means 
 so persistent as is commonly supposed. The individual 
 inherits, but soon loses them if they are not brought 
 into early exercise. A duck or gosling, if reared in the 
 house until it is two or three months old, has no 
 greater liking for the water than a chicken, and if 
 thrown into a pond will scramble out, showing signs of 
 great fear of the element to which its web-feet are par- 
 ticularly adapted. An artificially hatched chicken does 
 not attach itself to a hen more than to any other animal, 
 but follows its first associate, a child, a eat, or a dog. 
 
 Buffon denies that animals are susceptible of what 
 he calls " the perfectibility of the species." " They are 
 to-day," he says, "what they always have been, and 
 
 * For facts and authorities see Biichner's Aus dem Geistesleben 
 der Thiers, Leipzig, 1896. 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 213 
 
 always will be, and nothing more; because, as their 
 education is purely individual, they can only transmit 
 to their young what they themselves have received from 
 their parents. Man, on the other hand, inherits the 
 culture of ages and gathers and conserves the wisdom 
 of successive generations, and may thus profit by every 
 advance of the race, and, in turn, aid in perfecting it 
 more and more." 
 
 This assertion has been repeated by scientists of the 
 old school as though it were an axiom of natural his- 
 tory, instead of an arrogant anthropocentric assumption 
 refuted by scores of well-authenticated facts. The 
 whole process of domestication, which is to the lower 
 animals what civilization is to man, and the possibility 
 of producing and propagating desirable qualities in the 
 race, run counter to Buffon's theory. The value of a 
 horse's pedigree depends upon the transmissibility of 
 distinctive characteristics which were originally peculiar 
 to some individual horse, idiosyncrasies which com- 
 mended themselves to man as worthy of preservation, 
 or such as in the natural struggle for existence would 
 assert and propagate themselves. 
 
 If the descendants of blood-horses do not inherit the 
 individual training of their sires, neither are the chil- 
 dren of scholars or musicians born with a knowledge 
 of books or the ability to play on musical instruments. 
 What is inherited in both cases is some particular dis- 
 position or endowment, a superior aptitude for the 
 things in which their progenitors excelled. Indeed, 
 this heritage is handed down in horses with surer and 
 steadier increase,, or, at least, with smaller loss and 
 depreciation than in human beings, since they are 
 mated with sole reference to this result; and there is 
 
214 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 no room left for the play of personal fancy and caprice, 
 or for social, sentimental, or pecuniary considerations, 
 which exert a baneful influence upon marriage from a 
 physiological point of view, and contribute to the de- 
 terioration of the race. This is strikingly perceptible 
 in some portions of Europe, where the struggle for 
 existence, and especially for high social position, is ex- 
 ceedingly intense, and a large dower suffices to cover up 
 all mental and physical deficiencies in the bride. 
 
 The scientific swine-breeder keeps genealogical 
 tables of his pigs, and is as jealous of any taint in a pure 
 porcine strain as any prince of the blood is of plebeian 
 contamination. In both cases the vitiation bars succes- 
 sion, the one condition of which is purity of lineage. 
 It is by the selection not only of the finest stock, but 
 also of the choicest individuals for breeding, that ani- 
 mals are " progressively improved " both bodily and in- 
 tellectually. This is, perhaps, most clearly observable 
 in hunting dogs and race horses, which have under- 
 gone quite remarkable modifications within the pres- 
 ent century owing to the* extraordinary pains taken 
 to develop and perfect their peculiar characteristics. 
 In some instances unusual births or freaks of nature 
 are preserved, and by persistently propagating them- 
 selves form the starting point of new species. A 
 striking example of this perpetuation of individual 
 peculiarities is the short-legged and long-backed Ancon 
 sheep, a comparatively recent product of Nature ren- 
 dered permanent by the care of man. A pointer, grey- 
 hound, or collie inherits and transmits to its offspring 
 not only race attributes, but also acquired aptitudes 
 in the same manner and to the same degree as a human 
 being does who is distinguished for some special faculty. 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 215 
 
 There are prodigies of dogs which do not beget prodi- 
 gies of puppies, just as there are men of genius whose 
 children are by no means eminent for their intellectual 
 endowments. 
 
 If the conceptual world of the lower animals is 
 limited and fragmentary, so is that of savages and of 
 ignorant and uncultivated men, who live for the most 
 part in the present and the immediate past, and have 
 a relatively narrow range of thoughts and experiences. 
 Long-lived animals, such as parrots, ravens, and ele- 
 phants, have an advantage over short-lived animals in 
 the development of intelligence. Civilized man, how- 
 ever, not only lives his own individual life, and profits, 
 like other animals, -from the wisdom of his parents 
 and the influences of his environment, but also, by 
 means of written records, lives the life of the race, of 
 which he enjoys the selectest fruits garnered in history. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind that dogs are and 
 always have been bred for special purposes, such as point- 
 ing, retrieving, running, watching, and biting, but not 
 for general intelligence. Mr. Galton, who calls atten- 
 tion to this fact, suggests that it would be interest- 
 ing as a psychological experiment to mate the cleverest 
 dogs generation after generation, breeding and educat- 
 ing them solely for intellectual power and disregarding 
 every other consideration. 
 
 In order to carry out this plan to perfection and to 
 realize all the possibilities involved in such a compre- 
 hensive scheme, it would be necessary to devise some 
 system of signs by which dogs would be able to com- 
 municate their ideas more fully and more clearly than 
 they can do at present, both to each other and to man. 
 That the invention of such a language is not impossi- 
 
216 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ble is evident from what has been already achieved 
 in the training of dogs for exhibition, as well as from 
 the extent to which they have learned to understand 
 human speech by mere association with man. Prof. 
 A. Graham Bell believes that they may be taught to 
 pronounce words, and is now making scientific experi- 
 ments in this direction. The same opinion was ex- 
 pressed two centuries ago by no less an authority than 
 Leibnitz, who adduced, some startling facts in support 
 of it. The value of such a language as a means of en- 
 larging the animal's sphere of thought and power of 
 conception, and of giving a higher development to its 
 intellectual faculties, is incalculable. 
 
 Every dog trained as a hunter or herder is a special- 
 ist, and is prized for one fine capacity attained in some 
 degree at the expense of mental proportion and sym- 
 metry; in miscellaneous matters outside of his province 
 he may be easily surpassed by any underbred and mon- 
 grel but many-sided village cur. Modern scholarship 
 shows a like tendency to psychical alogotrophy or one- 
 sided intellectual growth. As science deepens its re- 
 searches, each department of investigation becomes 
 more distinct, and the toiler in the mines of knowledge 
 is forced to confine his labours to a single lode if he 
 would exhaust .the treasures it contains. He sees clearly 
 so far as his lantern casts its rays; but all outside of 
 this small luminous circle is dense darkness. 
 
 If a race of superior beings had taken charge of 
 man's education for thousands of years and conducted 
 it on the same principle as that which has guided us 
 in domesticating and utilizing the lower animals, what 
 maimed specimens of humanity would have been the 
 result! Slavery has always tended to produce this 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 217 
 
 effect; but the slave, however degraded his condition, 
 speaks the same language as his master, thereby profit- 
 ing from his intercourse with those who are placed over 
 him, and sharing in the general progress of society 
 more fully than any dumb animal could do. 
 
 The influence of domestication on the mental de- 
 velopment of animals depends upon the purposes which 
 the domesticator has in view. If he regards them mere- 
 ly as forms of food, and his sole aim is to increase the 
 amount of their adipose tissue and edible substance 
 and thus get the maximum of meat out of them, then 
 domestication tends to stupefy them. The intellectual 
 training of the pig would naturally diminish the quan- 
 tity of lard it would produce. So far as man is con- 
 cerned, this latter function is the chief end of the 
 porker's existence, and it must not be tried and found 
 wanting in this respect, whatever may be its mental 
 deficiencies. It must be fat-bodied whether it be fat- 
 witted or not, and the natural qualities which do not 
 contribute to its gross weight and enhance its ultimate 
 value as victuals are systematically discouraged and 
 depressed. 
 
 In view of the treatment that the pig has received 
 for centuries at the hands of man, it is remarkable that 
 the animal has retained so much of its original cun- 
 ning and love of cleanliness as it now possesses. That 
 a creature so fond of bathing in pure running water 
 should be condemned to a filthy sty is an act of uncon- 
 scious cruelty discreditable to human discernment. If 
 the sow that has been washed returns to her wallow- 
 ing in the mire, it is as a last resort in hot weather; she 
 would much prefer a clear pond or limpid stream if she 
 could get access to it. 
 
218 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Being fed and protected by its owner in its domestic 
 state, the hog no longer needs to exercise the faculties 
 which were essential to the self-preservation of its 
 wild progenitors. The stimulus arising from the strug- 
 gle for existence ceases, and, as it is reared solely to be 
 eaten, its association with man does not call forth any 
 new powers. In China and Polynesia, where the dog 
 is esteemed chiefly as food, it is a sluggish and stupid 
 beast. On the other hand, the pig can be trained to 
 hunt, and not only acquires great fondness for the 
 sport, but also shows extraordinary sagacity in the pur- 
 suit of game. It has an uncommonly keen scent, and 
 can be taught to point better than the pointer. Curi- 
 ously enough, when the pig is used for hunting pur- 
 poses, the dogs, usually so eager for the chase, sullenly 
 retire from the field and refuse to associate with their 
 bristly competitor in venery. Possibly the hereditary 
 and ineradicable enmity between the dog and hog as 
 domestic animals may be a survival of the fierce an- 
 tipathy which is known to exist between the wolf and 
 the wild boar. In Burmah the ringed snake is trained 
 for the chase, and is especially serviceable in flushing 
 jungle-cock, since the reptile can penetrate the thickest 
 underbrush, where it would be impossible for a dog or 
 a falcon to go. 
 
 The tamability of an animal is simply its capability 
 of adapting itself to new relations in life, and depends 
 partly on its mental endowments, but still more upon, 
 its moral character. It is quite as much a matter of 
 temperament and social disposition as of quickness of 
 understanding. The elephant, dog, and horse among 
 quadrupeds, the beaver among rodents, and the daw 
 and raven among birds, are, for this reason, most easily 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 219 
 
 tamed, and show the most marked and rapid improve- 
 ment in consequence of their daily intercourse with 
 man. Intellectual acuteness without the social affec- 
 tions and kindred moral qualities rather resists than 
 facilitates domestication. Of all domestic animals the 
 cat was the most difficult to tame, and it needed the 
 patience and persistence so strongly characteristic of 
 the ancient Egyptians, sustained by religious supersti- 
 tion, in order to accomplish this result. Even now the 
 cat, although extremely fond of its home and capable 
 of considerable attachment to persons, has never been 
 reduced to strict servitude and become the valet of man 
 like the dog, but has always remained to a certain 
 degree what it originally was, a prowling beast of prey. 
 
 Barking in dogs is a habit due to domestication. 
 The wild dog never barks, but only howls, like the 
 Himalayan buansu, or merely whines, like the East 
 Indian colsum; and the domestic dog reverts from 
 barking to howling when it relapses into its primitive 
 state. Wagging the tail is another mode of expression 
 which the dog has acquired through association with 
 man. It is well known, too, that a dog which has been 
 reared by a cat adopts many of the habits of its foster- 
 mother, such as cleaning itself with its paw; by con- 
 tinuously pairing such dogs and rearing them under 
 like influences it would be possible to produce a canine 
 species with feline traits, which should become perma- 
 nent and transmissible. 
 
 • A recent writer, Dr. Leopold Schutz, professor in 
 the theological seminary at Trier, who may be taken 
 as an extreme representative of the old orthodox school 
 of zoopsychologists, maintains that animals do not 
 think, reflect, form purposes, or act with premeditation 
 15 
 
220 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of any kind, have no freedom, no choice, no emotional 
 or intellectual life of their own, but that a higher power 
 performs all these operations through them as cunning 
 pieces of mechanism. The bird sings, according to this 
 theory, without any personal pleasure or participation 
 in its song; it sings at a certain time and can not help 
 it, nor is it able to sing at any other time. The living 
 cuckoo is as automatic as the wooden cuckoo of a 
 Black Forest clock, and under the same mechanical 
 compulsion to sing its song when the appointed hour 
 arrives. Altum, in his book on bird life (Der Vogel 
 und sein Leben, Minister, 1868), infers from the fact 
 that a bird sings more in the pairing season than at 
 other seasons of the year, that its song is a "natural 
 necessity," in which it takes no individual pleasure. 
 But this conclusion by no means follows from the 
 premises. The song is a means to an end, and has for 
 its final object sexual attraction and selection. One 
 would surely not be justified in inferring that a woman 
 who dresses well, chiefly in order to gratify her husband 
 or her lover, finds no individual aesthetic satisfaction 
 in a fine gown; or that a man goes a-wooing from 
 "natural necessity," and gets no entertainment out of 
 courtship. 
 
 Prof. Sehutz's doctrine that animals are mere pup- 
 pets, whose movements are determined by the direct 
 intervention of higher powers, seems to have been 
 derived from what is recorded of the relations of these 
 creatures to holy men in the legends of the saints, 
 rather than from a scientific study of the book of 
 Nature; his point of view is not that of the zoopsy- 
 chologist, but that of the hagiologist. 
 
 The chief difficulty attending the investigation of 
 
PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 221 
 
 mental processes in animals is that they can not express 
 themselves in human language and explain to us their 
 thoughts and feelings and the motives underlying their 
 conduct. We are thus liable to misinterpret their 
 actions and deny them many endowments which they 
 really possess, just as the first explorers of new countries 
 fail to discover in savages ideas and conceptions which 
 are afterward found to characterize them in a remark- 
 able degree. 
 
 We have happily rid ourselves somewhat of the 
 ethnocentric prepossessions which led the Greeks, and 
 still lead the Chinese, to regard all other peoples as 
 outside barbarians; but our perceptions are still ob- 
 scured by anthropocentric prejudice which prevents 
 us from fully appreciating the intelligence of the lower 
 animals and recognising any psychical analogy between 
 these humble kinsmen and our exalted selves. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 
 
 Prantl's doctrine of " time sense " as a specifically human endow- 
 ment. Weakness of this theory. Examples of time sense in 
 animals. Their social instincts and moral sentiments. Stand- 
 ard of animal virtue according to Spinoza. Animal herd and 
 savage tribe. Criminal procedure of animals against delin- 
 quent members of the herd or flock. Civic life of ants and 
 bees. Anarchism and barbarism in the hires. Depraving in- 
 fluence of alcohol on bees. Agricultural ants. African driver 
 ants. "Cattle-lifting" ants. Formican slaveholders. Vol- 
 ume of brain in hymenoptera. Long and helpless infancy of 
 ants. Altruism in animals. Dr. McCook on honey ants. 
 Darwin's experiment. Use of tools by animals. Mechanical 
 skill of trapdoor spiders. Elephants as dam builders. Use 
 of implements by crows and cormorants. Wine-making apes 
 in China. Monkeys as miners. Use of fire as an index of civ- 
 ilization. The logical faculty in monkeys. The soko as a hu- 
 morist. Idea of personal property in animals. 
 
 The late Prof, von Prantl * takes the ground that 
 the lower animals are endowed with moral and intel- 
 lectual faculties, but adds: " They are destitute of any 
 logical apprehension and power of abstraction; for 
 while they comprehend objects and their optical, acous- 
 
 * In a paper on Reformgedanken zur Logik, read before the 
 Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and printed in its Proceed- 
 ings for March 6, 1875. 
 
 223 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 223 
 
 tic, and other efficient qualities in a certain abiding 
 manner, they have no conception of substance or at- 
 tribute, of coexistence or succession. Animals perceive 
 also an actual causal connection, and are therefore 
 capable of drawing causative conclusions, reasoning 
 forward and backward, from cause to effect and from 
 effect to cause, but not capable of a logical deduction; 
 they seek a cause, but not a logical ground or reason, 
 and are, by virtue of such endowment, wary and cau- 
 tious, but without foresight" (behutsam und vorsichtig, 
 aber ohne Voraussicht). In other words, " animals think 
 without logic, but not therefore illogically." 
 
 Again, " in order to formulate precisely the distinc- 
 tion between man and beast," he sums up this differ- 
 ence in the succinct statement, "man has time-sense." 
 Beasts have "space-sense," or the "sensual perception 
 of expansive being," but not " time-sense; that is to say, 
 the brain activity of man is competent to comprehend 
 also pure succession as such, and the pure intensity of 
 occurrence in general." 
 
 In proof of this proposition Prantl states that " man 
 can count." Even without the use of names or numerals 
 "he can fix the succession of days by marks, or ex- 
 press the number of objects lying before him gesticula- 
 tively with his fingers." This "sense of continuity, 
 denied to the whole world of lower animals," ren- 
 ders man "conscious of being the same in a later 
 as in a former time," and thus endows him with " im- 
 mutable ego-consciousness, or Kant's transcendental 
 apperception." It enables him to look before and 
 after, to bind together the past and the future, and thus 
 to create law and order, domestic, social, and political 
 institutions, ethics, art, religion, science, and history, 
 
224: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 and to make external things serve , his purposes and 
 supply his wants. "Man, and man only, fabricates 
 weapons and tools, kindles fire, plants seeds in the earth, 
 and is alone capable of self-renunciation and suicide." 
 "By virtue of this continuity of his self-consciousness 
 and his look into the future, he transforms the realities 
 around him and makes them minister to his ideals." 
 The sole and ultimate source of all these higher de- 
 velopments and ideal acquisitions of humanity, individ- 
 ual, social, political, industrial, and artistic, is to be 
 sought in " the far-reaching and fundamental postulate 
 that man is endowed with time-sense." 
 
 For this reason man alone is able to distinguish 
 between the subjective and the objective, to conceive 
 of the subject as an object, and to apprehend mathe- 
 matical truths and relations, which are purely ideal, as 
 real. "It would be ridiculous to ascribe mathematics 
 to animals; nevertheless the labours of the bee and 
 of the spider excite astonishment; but inasmuch as, 
 with genuinely animal limitations, they always appear 
 in a definite geometrical form, they show that they are 
 not products of spontaneous mathematical thinking." 
 
 Prantl also denies that expressions of sorrow, re- 
 morse, or gratitude on the part of animals furnish any 
 evidence that they act under the impulse of moral ideas, 
 but interprets them as having reference to their own 
 well-being or comfort. To talk of the " art-instinct of 
 animals" is, he thinks, a mere confusion of terms, 
 " since we demand of art that it shall realize an idea." 
 Still, after all his metaphysical distinctions, he admits 
 that the essential nature of man as distinguished from 
 that of the beast is " only the result of a progressive 
 upward evolution." If this conclusion be correct, and 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 225 
 
 it is all that the most advanced zoopsychologist has ever 
 claimed, then the distances (Abstande) between man 
 and beast are not impassable, and even " human speech " 
 (die menschliche Sprache) is but a higher development of 
 " animal utterance " (die thierische Kundgebung). 
 
 The weak point of these speculations concerning 
 the mental powers of animals is that they are too ex- 
 clusively metaphysical, constituting a logical and sys- 
 tematic exposition of conceptions or notions without 
 that accurate and exhaustive observation of facts which 
 no acuteness of analysis and no vigorous process of 
 pure thinking can supply. Not only is Prantl ignorant 
 of the habits and aptitudes of animals, denying them 
 capacities which they are known to possess, but he is 
 liable to an opposite error, equally fatal to his theories, 
 in his tendency to ascribe to the human race as a 
 whole faculties which are characteristic of man only 
 in a high state of civilization. He ignores the savage 
 and the boor, and compares beasts with the most culti- 
 vated and most highly developed human beings, over- 
 looking the long period which man existed on the earth 
 before he even learned how to chip flints. 
 
 As to the "ideal-sense," upon which Prantl lays 
 peculiar stress, there are low tribes in which it is wholly 
 wanting, and which are as destitute of historical annals 
 as any herd of apes. How much knowledge of the past 
 may he transmitted from generation to generation by 
 tradition in a community of monkeys it is impossible 
 to determine. The amount of information thus pre- 
 served and accumulated in simian hordes is probably 
 very small and exceedingly vague, since even human 
 hordes, not native to the countries they inhabit, soon 
 lose all recollection of the early migrations of their 
 
^26 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ancestors, and all traditions concerning the cradle of 
 their race. This is why savages always regard them- 
 selves as autochthones, even in eases in which it can be 
 clearly proved that they are not aboriginal to the soil, 
 and that their immigration is of comparatively recent 
 date. 
 
 There is no reason to believe that "time-sense," 
 which Prantl claims to be the exclusive attribute of man, 
 and from which he derives the superior mental evolu- 
 tion and equipment of the human race, is wholly lack- 
 ing in the lower animals, i^yery creature endowed 
 with personal consciousness and memory must know 
 that it is the same being to-day that it was yesterday, 
 or, in other words, that it exists in time. r \The__p_os- 
 -session of this knowledge does not imply the possi- 
 bility of indulging in philosophical reflections about 
 it any more than the possession of thoughts necessarily 
 involves the power of thinking about thoughts, al- 
 though it would be rash to affirm that animals may not 
 be capable of giving themselves up to meditation by re- 
 calling mental impressions and making them objects 
 of thought. 
 
 f' Time-sense is very highly developed in domestic 
 fowls and many wild birds, as well as in dogs, horses, 
 and other mammals, which keep an accurate account 
 of days of the week and hours of the day, and have, 
 at least, a limited idea of numerical succession and 
 logical sequenceTV A Polish artist, residing in Eome, 
 had an exceedingly intelligent and faithful terrier, 
 which, as he was obliged to go on a journey, he left 
 with a friend, to whom the dog was strongly attached. 
 Day and night the terrier went to the station to meet 
 every train, carefully observing and remembering the 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 227 
 
 time of their arrival, and never missing one. Mean- 
 while he became so depressed that he refused to eat, 
 and would have died of starvation, if the friend had 
 not telegraphed to his master to return at once if he 
 wished to find the animal alive. Here we have a strik- 
 ing exhibition of time-sense as well as an example of 
 all-absorbing affection and self-renunciation likely to 
 result in suicide. 
 
 QJo ve, gratitude, devotion, the sense of duty, and 
 the spirit of self-sacrifice are proverbially strong in 
 dogs^nd only a "hard-shell" metaphysician, who 
 neither knows nor cares anything about them, would 
 venture to deny them all moral qualities, and to assert 
 that they are governed solely by a regard for their own 
 individual well-being^ There are also many apparently 
 well-authenticated instances of animals deliberately tak- 
 ing their own lives; and without too credulously accept- 
 ing anecdotes of this sort, in which it is difficult to de- 
 termine whether the creature was a felo-de-se or the 
 victim of an accident, there is no pyschological reason 
 for rejecting them as old wives' fables. 
 
 Scorpions and serpents are especially prone to sting 
 themselves to death when kept in close confinement. 
 Some naturalists maintain that these creatures grow 
 crazy before committing the fatal act; but it is difficult 
 to determine whether the wounds are self-inflicted for 
 the purpose of putting an end to their existence or are 
 the result of attempts to defend themselves against an 
 imaginary enemy. Mr. Holden, of the Lick Observatory, 
 reports the case of a rattlesnake, which, after several 
 unsuccessful efforts to escape from captivity, bit itself 
 to death "in a most deliberate manner." He is con- 
 vinced that the suicide was intentional. 
 
228 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 (^According to Spinoza, benevolence in animals con- 
 sists in the exercise of friendly feelings toward their 
 kind, and this is all that we have a right to demand 
 of them?\i good cat, for example, is a cat that is good 
 to her kittens, however cruel she may he to birds and 
 mice. Indeed, her goodness, from a feline as well as 
 from a human point of view, is in direct proportion 
 to her destructiveness of the smaller rodents. A like 
 standard of virtue prevails among low races of men, 
 and constitutes the highest ideal of tribal ethics. The 
 best man among barbarians is the one who is most 
 terrible to their foes, and can put the greatest number 
 of them to death in the shortest time. Such manifesta- 
 tions of love of kin and love of country are only en- 
 largements of self-love; and it is a long way from this 
 primitive form of egotism to universal philanthropy, 
 and to the still broader benevolence which Buddhism 
 inculcates toward all sentient creatures. One is in- 
 dined to pardon the gruff cynicism of Dr. Johnson 
 in denouncing patriotism as " the last refuge of scoun- 
 drels," when one sees how much individual selfishness 
 finds a covert under this fine-sounding word, and what 
 fierceness of interdynastic and international strife it 
 is made to provoke and to palliate. 
 
 Not only the social instincts, but also the moral 
 sentiments growing out of social relations, are common 
 to man and to beast, fit is evident that germs of moral 
 ideas and perceptions of moral obligations enter into the 
 conjugal unions of beasts, and impart a certain stability 
 and sacredness to these ties. Many animals are strict 
 monogamists, and have thus attained what Aryan civ- 
 ilization now generally accepts as the highest and purest 
 form of sexual affection and associations With beasts, 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 229 
 
 too, as with men, it is the male which scruples least at 
 trangressing the monogamous principle, and makes light 
 of this breach of fidelity, treating it as a pardonable 
 peccadillo, j^ 
 
 The mandarin duck is proverbial for conjugal faith- 
 fulness, and the Chinese are accustomed to carry a 
 pair of these fowls in bridal processions, as an emblem 
 of connubial love and an example of constancy for the 
 newly wedded couple. Canaries are also characterized 
 by the same virtue, and the attempt to force them into 
 bigamy by keeping one male and two females in the 
 same cage is uniformly destructive of domestic bliss, 
 and frequently fatal to the young. Jealousies are quite 
 sure to arise in consequence of a preference of the male 
 for one of his mates; and the consort that feels ag- 
 grieved by marital neglect will take every opportunity 
 to avenge herself by pecking and pestering her favoured 
 rival, and destroying her nest with its contents of eggs 
 or callow brood. Even the young which are reared 
 under such circumstances are far inferior in beauty 
 and vigour, as well as in numbers, to the offspring of 
 a peaceful monogamous canary household. 
 
 Whether the family may be the originary nucleus of 
 the tribe, or, as is more probable, may have been de- 
 veloped through a process of differentiation out of a 
 primitive community, whose members lived in sexual 
 promiscuity,* the impulse to herd, as well as the pur- 
 poses it subserves, are the same in savages and in 
 beasts. Wolves hunt in packs; cattle, horses, and sheep 
 
 * We may state that Westermarck, in The History of Human 
 Marriage, takes a different view, but does not settle the question 
 definitely. 
 
230 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 unite for mutual protection; and this tendency remains 
 even alter their domestication, when it is no longer 
 essential to their safety, and becomes, as in man, a 
 purely social feeling. Birds of passage assemble for 
 their annual or semiannual migrations, and separate 
 into families as soon as they have reached their destina- 
 tion; still preserving, however, their larger and laxer 
 social organization as "birds of a feather," which en- 
 ables them to "flock together" again with facility, 
 whenever the general interest requires united action 
 of any kind. This sense of community is especially 
 strong in rooks and storks, which seem to have a regular 
 system of government, by means of which they enforce 
 discipline, reproving and correcting deviations from 
 their common standard of rectitude, and even inflicting 
 capital punishment for certain transgressions. In 
 such cases the family ceases to exercise jurisdiction 
 over its own members, and recognises the superior penal 
 authority of the commonwealth. 
 
 The instances recorded of animals holding courts 
 of justice and laying penalties upon offenders are too 
 numerous and well authenticated to admit of any doubt. 
 This kind of criminal procedure has been observed 
 particularly among rooks, ravens, storks, flamingoes, 
 martins, sparrows, and occasionally among some gre- 
 garious quadrupeds. It is as clearly established as 
 human testimony can establish anything that these 
 creatures have a lively sense of what is lawful or allow- 
 able in the conduct of the individual, so far as it may 
 affect the character of the flock or herd, and are quick 
 to resent and punish any act of a single member that 
 may disgrace or injure the community to which he 
 belongs.""^ 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 231 
 
 Sometimes an irascible husband may take the law 
 into his own hands, and summarily avenge himself 
 on a faithless wife and her guilty paramour without 
 bringing the case before a general assembly of his kind. 
 Usually, however, it is the whole body which, after 
 due deliberation, pronounces and executes judgment 
 and maintains the majesty of the law. The penalty 
 does not always involve the forfeiture of life, but varies 
 in rigour according to the turpitude of the offence; 
 the culprit being often condemned to a severe castiga- 
 tion, after which he resumes his position in society 
 a^sadder and wiser member of it. 
 
 (_ A general assembly of storks was held on June 25, 
 
 1896, on the meadows of Enzheim in Lower Alsatia, 
 and remained in session more than forty-eight hours. 
 On the first day there were one hundred and ninety-two 
 storks present, and on the second day one hundred and 
 eighty-nine. It was evidently a very lively conference 
 and their chatter could be heard at a great distance, 
 but there was nothing to indicate whether the meet- 
 ing was simply a social reunion or whether the delibera- 
 tions were of a judicial or political character. At any 
 rate, it was not accidental, and clearly had some definite 
 purpose in view.J> 
 
 Dr. Edmonson states that the hooded crows in the 
 Shetland Islands hold regular assizes at stated periods, 
 and usually in the same place. When there is a full 
 docket, a week or more is spent in trying the cases; at 
 other times, a single day suffices for the judicial pro- 
 ceedings. The capitally condemned are killed on the 
 spot. 
 
 The owner of a house near Berlin found a single 
 egg in the nest of a pair of storks, built on the chimney, 
 
232 ■ ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 and substituted for it a goose's egg, which in due time 
 was hatched, and produced a gosling instead of the 
 expected storkling. The male bird was thrown into 
 the greatest excitement by this event, and finally flew 
 away. The female, however, remained on the nest, 
 and continued to care for the changeling as though it 
 were her own offspring. On the morning of the fourth 
 day the male reappeared accompanied by nearly five 
 hundred storks, which held a mass meeting in an ad- 
 jacent field. The assembly, we are informed, was ad- 
 dressed by several speakers, each orator posting himself 
 on the same spot before beginning his harangue. These 
 deliberations and discussions occupied nearly the entire 
 forenoon, when suddenly the meeting broke up, and 
 all the storks pounced upon the unfortunate female 
 and her supposititious young one, killed them both, 
 and, after destroying the polluted nest, took wing and 
 departed, and were never seen there again. 
 
 It happens occasionally that the confidence of the 
 male stork in the virtue of his spouse is too strong to 
 be shaken even by the presence of such questionable 
 progeny; or, if he suspects her of frailty, he deems 
 it best to condone the fault. They then unite in ex- 
 terminating the bastard brood, and prudently keep the 
 mysterious episode of ciconian domestic life to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Prof. Carl Vogt tells the story of a pair of storks 
 which had lived together for many years in a village 
 near Soletta. One day, while the male was absent pro- 
 viding for his family, a younger suitor appeared, and 
 began to pay court to the wife. She received his ad- 
 dresses at first with indifference; but as the woman 
 who hesitates is lost, so she finally fell into the snares 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 233 
 
 of her passionate and persistent adorer. His visits 
 became more frequent, and at last he succeeded in so 
 completely fascinating the matron that she was per- 
 suaded to accompany him to a marshy meadow, where 
 her unsuspecting husband was engaged in catching 
 frogs, and to join her gay paramour in putting the old 
 stork to death. 
 
 A similar case occurred recently in north Germany. 
 A pair of storks had had their nest on the roof of a 
 barn for several seasons, without any apparent discord 
 in their domestic relations. Suddenly, early in the 
 spring, a powerful male stork made his appearance, 
 and violently attacked the husband, who bravely de- 
 fended himself; his spouse, strangely enough, taking 
 no part in the fray. The assailant withdrew toward 
 evening, his feathers dappled with blood, but renewed 
 the attack on the following morning. The proprietor 
 of the estate on which the scene took place resolved 
 to interfere and shoot the intruder, but unfortunately 
 aimed at the wrong bird and killed the husband. After 
 this mishap, the female remained quietly perched on 
 the roof by the side of the stranger, with whom she 
 soon began to chatter in a very lively manner. The 
 talk continued for about an hour, when both storks, 
 as with one accord, fell upon the nest, threw out the 
 eggs, tore it in pieces, and, after gazing for a moment 
 on the ruins, rose together into the air, and, mount- 
 ing in ever higher circles, vanished from view. Here 
 the wife was at least accessory to the crime after its 
 commission, and her conduct during the combat would 
 seem to indicate that the strange stork was her accepted 
 lover, and his coming preconcerted. Such occurrences, 
 however, are exceptional. As a rule, storks are distin- 
 
234 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 guished for conjugal fidelity no less than for their 
 superior intelligence and the strong ties of affection 
 which they form for human beings. 
 
 Eavens also have been known to destroy a nest in 
 which a young owl had been discovered, and to Mil 
 both the birds whose home had thus suffered contamina- 
 tion, being evidently determined that the ancient and 
 honourable race of Corvus corax should not be cor- 
 rupted; and cocks, in several cases, are said to have 
 killed hens which had hatched the eggs of ducks or par- 
 tridges. One would hardly suspect such susceptibili- 
 ties in a polygamous fowl, and least of all in our sultan 
 of the barnyard, who guards his harem with the fierce 
 jealousy of a Turk, but bears his paternal responsibili- 
 ties very lightly, leaving the brooding mothers and 
 their young for the most part to shift for themselves. 
 
 An unusally large number of ravens was recently 
 observed on the trees in the Treptow Park of Berlin. 
 They began to assemble about noon and continued to 
 arrive from all points of the compass until three o'clock. 
 After croaking together in loud tones for some time, 
 they all pounced upon one bird sitting apart on a lower 
 limb and belaboured it with their strong beaks until 
 it was covered with blood and fell dead to the ground. 
 Thereupon they all flew away in different directions. 
 It is evident that this corvine convention was precon- 
 certed, and that the purpose of it was to punish a guilty 
 member of the community; but it was only after a 
 thorough discussion of the matter that the sentence of 
 death was passed upon the culprit and immediately 
 executed. 
 
 0. Fliigel, in his volume Das Seelenleben der Thiere 
 (page 52), admits the truth of the stories about storks, 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 235 
 
 but doubts whether their conduct under the circum- 
 stances has been correctly interpreted. " How do we 
 know," he asks, " that the female stork is put to death 
 as a punishment for adultery? . . . Perhaps she was 
 sick and therefore unable to resist the suit of the male 
 stork, and was killed because she was sick, as often 
 happens in such cases. Perhaps, too, she was suffering, 
 not exactly from a disease, but from a bodily ab- 
 normity." It is quite as difficult to imagine storks 
 congregating for diagnostic as for judicial purposes. 
 A ciconian medical consultation is not less marvellous 
 and incredible than a ciconian court of justice. The 
 assumption that she was physically infirm, instead of 
 being a frail creature from a moral point of view, does 
 not simplify the matter or render the proceedings of 
 the storks more intelligible. If we begin to indulge 
 in hypotheses of this sort, we may as well suppose that 
 she was acting under the influence of hypnotic sug- 
 gestion or some other irresistible form of fascination. 
 
 Indeed, in another passage (page 59), Fliigel intro- 
 duces hypnotism as a means of explaining actions on 
 the part of animals, which might be far more satis- 
 factorily explained by simply assuming that they are 
 capable of practising deceit. Thus the opossum seeks 
 to escape danger by feigning death, and the partridge 
 pretends to be lame and limps off in an opposite direc- 
 tion in order to attract the attention of the pursuer 
 to herself, and thus divert it from her young. " Per- 
 haps," says Fliigel, "fear makes the fowl really lame 
 and throws the quadruped into an actual spasm or 
 kind of hypnotic state." It is very queer that no 
 amount of peril and terror should make the par- 
 tridge go lame except when her young are with her; 
 16 
 
236 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 and any one who has hunted opossums knows that in 
 feigning death they show no symptoms of paralysis, 
 but remain perfectly warm and limp, breathing natu- 
 rally, though scarcely perceptibly. Herr Fliigel is 
 determined not to concede to the lower animals the 
 exercise of rational faculties, and in order to avoid this 
 necessity does not hesitate to give rein to the wildest 
 conjectures. 
 
 As we have already seen, the impulses and motives 
 which lead to the commission of crime are essentially 
 the same in beasts and in man, and students of 
 penal jurisprudence are just beginning to learn that the 
 psychology of criminality in civilized society can never 
 be fully understood except by a careful scientific study 
 of it not only in savages, but also in the lower animals. 
 The incentives to deeds of violence are pretty much 
 the same in both. Many actions, such as the killing of 
 deformed or sickly infants and of old and infirm in- 
 dividuals, are common to barbarians and to beasts, and 
 are regarded as right because they contribute to the 
 collective strength and consequent safety of the tribe 
 or herd; but with the civilization of man and the do- 
 mestication of the brute this precaution is no longer 
 needed, and the primitive practice is abandoned. . Mice 
 take excellent care of their aged, blind, or otherwise 
 helpless kin, concealing them in safe places and pro- 
 viding them with food. It must be remembered, how- 
 ever, that the mouse has lived in a semidomestic state 
 as the companion of man from time immemorial. 
 
 In the development and organization of social and 
 civic life the bee and the ant hold the foremost place 
 among articulates, corresponding to that of man among 
 vertebrates. They stand respectively at the head of 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 237 
 
 their class, and represent the highest point attained 
 by insect and mammal in the process of evolution. As 
 regards form of government, it is a mistake to speak 
 of the bee state as a monarchy; it is, on the contrary, 
 the most radical of republics, or rather a democracy 
 of the most rigorous kind, with absolute power vested 
 in the working class. The claims of " labour " to the 
 exercise of supreme control in political affairs are here 
 fully recognised and practically realized. The so-called 
 queen is really the mother of the hive; her functions 
 are maternal rather than regal. If she may be said 
 to reign in a certain sense, the workers rule, deciding 
 all questions and performing all acts affecting the com- 
 mon weal. The existence of but a single queen leaves 
 no room for those dynastic enmities and rivalries which 
 have so often disturbed the peace of human empires, 
 and inflicted such untold misery upon mankind. If 
 perchance two queens are produced at the same time, 
 instead of forming factions in the state and exciting 
 civil war, they contend personally for sovereignty, until 
 one of them is killed. Sometimes the workers inter- 
 vene, and put the less desirable of the claimants to 
 death; or if the hive is populous and circumstances are 
 favourable, a portion of the inmates swarm and carry 
 off one of the contestants to found a new colony. In 
 all these operations the queen initiates nothing; she 
 is a passive instrument in the hands of the workers, 
 whose decisions she accepts, but does not influence in 
 the slightest degree. There is no "blue blood" in 
 her veins except such as may be produced by a process 
 of pampering; she is simply a worker, taken in a larval 
 state and fattened into regal favour and function by 
 what Huber calls " royal treatment; " that is, by reliev- 
 
238 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ing her from all toil and supplying her with richer 
 nutriment. If, on account of bad weather or for any 
 other reason, the bees do not wish to swarm, they do not 
 hesitate to throw all superfluous members of the royal 
 family out of the hive. The institution of appanage 
 is unknown to apian communities. But, in order to 
 provide for emergencies, several larvae are reared each 
 in a single cell, which the old queen is never permitted 
 to approach, since she is as jealous of these royal scions 
 as was ever Persian padishah of his next of kin. For 
 this reason they are kept in close confinement until 
 they are needed. 
 
 The conjugal relation of the queen to the drones 
 is polyandrous. " Her male harem," says Biichner, " is 
 larger than the female harem of any Oriental despot, 
 and consists often of six to eight hundred drones, who 
 are for the most part utterly useless members of the 
 community, since a single drone suffices to impregnate 
 the queen, and the drones neither work nor are they 
 armed with stings with which to defend the hive. They 
 constitute a sort of hereditary peerage, letting them- 
 selves be served by the industrious workers and con- 
 tributing nothing directly to the promotion of the 
 common weal, but leading a lazy and comfortable life 
 of leisure and pleasure from May to August, free from 
 care and from toil, and doubtless with no presentiment 
 of the fearful fate awaiting them in the autumn of 
 their existence." This superfluity of drones, so opposed 
 to the wise economy of Nature, is regarded by Biichner 
 as the survival of a period when the bees lived in small, 
 independent colonies and the drones, as they flew 
 abroad a-wooing, were exposed to greater dangers than 
 at present. The gathering of bees into hives under 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 239 
 
 the care of man has entirely changed this condition 
 of things, and thus left an excess of drones far above 
 the number necessary to the propagation of the race. 
 
 Doubtless the queen has certain constitutional 
 rights, but they are very limited. She is in the condition 
 of Queen Victoria with Mr. Gladstone as prime minis- 
 ter: she is not asked what ought to be done, but is 
 simply told what the cabinet intends to do, and is ex- 
 pected to indorse it, whether agreeable to her feelings 
 or not. But this relation does not prevent a strong 
 sentiment of loyalty toward her on the part of the 
 workers, who are ready to defend her at the risk of 
 their own lives. 
 
 On the other hand, they do not show the slightest 
 affection for the males, or drones, who are in the un- 
 enviable position of prince consorts, or mere propaga- 
 tors of the race. No provision is made for them when 
 the winter supplies of food are laid in; they fulfil their 
 mission in summer, flying abroad on wedding tours with 
 the queens of various hives and enjoying their honey- 
 moon; but with the early frosts they are thrust out 
 of the hives, and perish of hunger and cold. Mean- 
 while the queens preserve the sperm in a sac, and use 
 it at pleasure for fecundating the eggs; as the fecun- 
 dated eggs produce females and the unf ecundated males, 
 the numerical relation of the sexes can be easily regu- 
 lated. The workers, or neuters, are really females, 
 whose sexual organs remain rudimentary because ■ all 
 their energies are absorbed in labour. The ovary is 
 only partially formed, and they are incapable of laying 
 eggs; but it needs only a course of " royal treatment," 
 consisting of luxury and idleness, to develop any of the 
 larvse into queens. It is asserted that workers do some- 
 
240 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 times, though rarely, lay eggs; but this capability im- 
 plies some degree of development beyond the condition 
 of a " neuter " in the strict sense of the term, a change 
 which might easily escape the eye of the "practical 
 apiarist," who is usually less interested in the habits 
 of bees than in the market price of honey. The queen 
 has no heirs, either apparent or presumptive, and no 
 right of succession is recognised. Any larviform worker 
 can be metamorphosed into a queen, as every Ameri- 
 can schoolboy is a possible President of the United 
 States. 
 
 That this perfect social and industrial organization, 
 in which the principle of the division of labour is so ad- 
 mirably applied and a career opened to every talent, is 
 the result of gradual growth and evolution is evident 
 from the more primitive habits of other hymenoptera, 
 such as wasps, hornets, and humblebees. Tame honey- 
 bees also differ greatly in this respect from wild ones, 
 and are known to have changed their manner of life 
 and to have improved their methods of work to a con- 
 siderable extent within the memory of man. A Ger- 
 man writer states that when the European bee was im- 
 ported to Australia, after a few years' experience of 
 perpetual summer, it ceased to lay up winter stores of 
 honey, making only what it wanted to eat from day 
 to day. This fact, less edifying to the practical apiarist 
 than instructive to the zoopsychologist, furnishes the 
 basis of Eosegger's charming tale and socialistic satire 
 of anarchism in the hives. Here we have an example 
 of radical changes in the habits of bees within the 
 memory of the present generation as the result of new 
 climatic conditions and the modifying influence of en- 
 vironment. This "phenomenon is wholly inconsistent 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 241 
 
 with the assumption of an innate and irresistible labour 
 instinct. 
 
 Populous and powerful bee communities sometimes 
 relapse into barbarism, renounce the life of peaceful in- 
 dustry for which they have become proverbial, acquire 
 predatory habits, and roam about the country as free- 
 booters, plundering the smaller and weaker hives, and 
 subsisting on the spoils. These brigand bees seldom 
 reform: if they busily "improve each shining hour," 
 it is not to " gather honey all the day from every open- 
 ing flower," but to range the fields in looting parties, 
 and ransack the homes of honest honey-makers. Wey- 
 gandt (in the periodical Die Biene, 1877, No. 1, cited 
 by Biichner: Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere, p. 
 322) describes the evolution and exploits of these 
 "milking bees," as he calls them, and shows how the 
 successful raid of a few individual filibusters soon con- 
 verts the whole hive into a lawless band of depredators, 
 who live by plunder. Against these anarchists of apian 
 society and other foes the honeybees often fortify their 
 hives, barricading the entrance by a thick wall, with 
 bastions, casemates, and deep, narrow gateways. When 
 there seems to be no immediate danger of hostile at- 
 tack, these defensive works, which seriously interfere 
 with the ordinary industrial life of the hive, are re- 
 moved, and not rebuilt until there is fresh occasion for 
 alarm. Jesse (Gleanings in Natural History, i., 21) 
 states that the bees of one of his hives built a regular- 
 ly constructed fortress wall before the entrance, in 
 order to defend themselves more effectually against 
 the raids of wasps, and adds that a small number of bees 
 were thereby enabled to ward off these foes. The Swiss 
 naturalist Huber, who began to publish his observa- 
 
242 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tions on the habits of bees more than a century ago 
 and is generally recognised as a high authority, noticed 
 that his bees erected a wall against the inroads of the 
 death's-head moth in the spring of 1804, but removed 
 it in the spring of 1805, in which year no moths of this 
 kind were seen. In 1807, when the moths reappeared 
 in considerable numbers, the bees again fortified the 
 entrance and kept it in a state of defence till 1808. 
 These barricades were made of propolis. Biichner 
 (page 308) records other cases of a similar character in 
 Hungary, where the death's-head moth (Sphinx atropos) 
 frequently molests the hives. The common bee (Apis 
 mellifica) not only rifles the nest of the bumblebee 
 (Bombus), but numbers of them often surround one of 
 the latter and force him to give up the sacs of honey 
 he has gathered. The clumsy and not very courageous 
 bumblebee submits to the demands of these highway- 
 men, surrenders his treasure without much ado, and 
 then flies afield in search of more. 
 
 Biichner states that honest and industrious bees 
 degenerate into vagabonds and robbers through the use 
 of alcohol. If they are fed with a mixture of honey 
 and brandy, they become passionately fond of it, get 
 habitually drunk and disorderly, and gradually cease 
 to work. The pangs of hunger, the penalty of one vice, 
 drive them into another, and they take to theft and f ree- 
 bootery, as men do under similar circumstances. In- 
 stinct is not strong enough to resist the depraving in- 
 fluence of intoxicating liquors and save them from a 
 downward career of demoralization and criminality. 
 
 According to recent observations made by Mr. Law- 
 son Tait, wasps get drunk on the juice of plums, grapes, 
 and other fruits, which is converted into alcohol by the 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 243 
 
 process of decay. While in a state of intoxication, their 
 sting is uncommonly venomous and produces the symp- 
 toms of nerve poisoning. The wasps become so ad- 
 dicted to this fermented juice that they take to it again 
 as soon as they have slept off their drunkenness, and 
 thus pass in rapid succession from one paroxysm of in- 
 ebriety to another. Hens, too, which have access to 
 the refuse of distilleries, soon become habitual drunk- 
 ards, stop laying eggs, and show no desire to rear broods 
 of chickens. In December, 1896, an owner of poultry 
 in England brought a suit for damages against the 
 proprietor of a distillery, because owing to the corrup- 
 tion of a neighbouring stream his fowls had become 
 hopeless inebriates and thereby wholly worthless. 
 
 It is undeniable that, in the life of the honeybee, 
 a sort of historical connection exists between the 
 mother-hive and her colonies. This sense of kinship 
 extends to the colonies of colonies, and thus gives rise 
 to something like international relations between a 
 large number of apian communities, which share the 
 friendships and the hatreds of the original stock and 
 transmit them to their posterity. Lenz relates his own 
 experience on this point. Six of his hives were blown 
 down by the wind; he hastened to set them up again, 
 but the bees, rushing out and seeing him thus engaged, 
 regarded him as the cause of the disaster, and stung 
 him. For years afterward they pursued him whenever 
 he approached their hives, and this unjust antipathy 
 was inherited by all the swarms which issued from these 
 hives and founded colonies elsewhere. 
 
 Here we have a striking instance of hereditary 
 enmity, such as often characterizes families, tribes, and 
 clans, and takes the form of the vendetta. The bees 
 
244 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 that had suffered the supposed wrong never forget it, 
 and communicated their feelings to their descendants 
 by way of tradition.* 
 
 In order to test the intelligence and foresight of 
 bees Huber put them into a hive with a glass floor and a 
 glass ceiling. It is well known that bees have great 
 difficulty in building their cells on glass on account 
 of its smooth surface, and avoid doing so if possible. 
 In the present case they began to build their comb, 
 not from the top or the bottom, as usual, but on one of 
 the perpendicular sides over toward the opposite wall, 
 but before they had reached it Huber substituted for 
 it a glass plate. The result was that they ceased build- 
 ing in that direction, and, turning at a right angle, 
 extended their comb to the other wooden side and 
 fastened it there. They did not wait until they had 
 come in contact with the glass before changing their 
 plan, but foresaw and avoided the difficulty in the man- 
 ner described. 
 
 Prantl's assertion that animals do not plant seeds 
 in the earth and raise crops is merely one of many 
 a priori deductions from his assumption that they lack 
 time-sense, and therefore can have no appreciation of 
 the succession of seasons. All facts opposed to this 
 inference he would treat with a sceptical shrug of the 
 shoulders, or relegate with an incredulous smile to the 
 realm of fable. Nevertheless it is only by the care- 
 ful observation and critical sifting of facts that such 
 questions can be decided. 
 
 It has now been ascertained beyond a doubt that in 
 
 * Cf. Wundt, "Vorlesungen uber die Menseheu- und Thierseele, 
 ii, 196-200. Also article Bees in Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 245 
 
 Texas and South America, as well as in southern 
 Europe, India, and Africa, there are ants which not 
 only have a military organization and wage systematic 
 warfare, but also keep slaves and carry on agricultural 
 pursuits. Nineteen species of ants with these habits 
 have been already discovered, and their modes of life 
 more or less fully described. 
 
 Nearly half a century ago Dr. Linsecom began his 
 studies of the Texan agricultural ant (Atta malefaciens), 
 and after devoting some fourteen years to this subject 
 communicated the results of his researches to Mr. Dar- 
 win, who embodied them in a paper read before the 
 Linnean Society of London, April 18, 1861. This ant, 
 he informs us, " dwells in what may be termed paved 
 cities, and, like a thrifty, diligent, provident farmer, 
 makes suitable and timely arrangements for the chang- 
 ing seasons. ... It bores a hole, around which it 
 raises the surface three and sometimes six inches, form- 
 ing a low circular mound having a very gentle inclina- 
 tion from the centre to the outer border, which, on an 
 average, is three or four feet from the entrance. On low, 
 flat, wet land, liable to inundation, though the ground 
 may be perfectly dry at the time when the ant sets to 
 work, it nevertheless elevates the mound in the form 
 of a pretty sharp cone to the height of fifteen to twenty 
 inches or more, and makes the entrance near the sum- 
 mit. Around this mound, in either case, the ant clears 
 the ground of all obstructions, and levels and smooths 
 the surface to the distance of three or four feet from 
 the gate of the city, giving it the appearance of a hand- 
 some pavement, as it really is. Within this paved area 
 not a blade of anything is allowed to grow, except a 
 single species of grain-bearing grass. Having planted 
 
246 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 this crop in a circle around, and two or three feet from 
 the centre of the mound, the insect tends and cultivates 
 it with constant care; cutting away all other grasses 
 and weeds that may spring up among it, and all around 
 outside the farm circle to the extent of one or two feet 
 or more. The cultivated grass grows luxuriantly, and 
 produces a heavy crop of small, white, flinty seeds, 
 which under the microscope very closely resemble ordi- 
 nary rice. When ripe, it is carefully harvested, and car- 
 ried by the workers, chaff and all, into the granary 
 cells, where it is divested of the chaff and packed 
 away. The chaff is taken out and thrown beyond the 
 limits of the paved area. During protracted wet 
 weather, it sometimes happens that the provision stores 
 become damp, and are liable to sprout and spoil. In 
 this case, on the first fine day, the ants bring out the 
 damp and damaged grain, and expose it to the sun 
 till it is dry, when they carry back and pack away all 
 the sound seeds, leaving those that had sprouted to 
 waste." They also check the tendency of the seeds to 
 germinate by biting off the incipient sprouts, treat- 
 ing them as a farmer does his potatoes or onions under 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 In pasture lands, the grass cultivated by the ants is 
 liable to be cropped by cattle, and thus prevented from 
 bearing seeds and producing a harvest. In order to 
 avert such a disaster, the ants avoid the meadows, which 
 are given up to grazing, and establish themselves in the 
 fence corners of cultivated fields, along garden walks 
 or near gateways, or in other protected places, where 
 their crops run the least risk of being destroyed. 
 
 These observations, the truth of which is amply 
 confirmed by other writers, as, for example, by Dr. 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 247 
 
 Henry C. McCook in The Agricultural Ants of Texas, 
 are a complete refutation of Prantl's zoopsychology; 
 for no husbandman ever showed greater skill in adapt- 
 ing himself to circumstances, or manifested a higher 
 degree of intelligence and foresight in conducting his 
 agricultural operations, and in consulting for this pur- 
 pose the nature of the soil and the variety of the sea- 
 sons, than are exhibited by these marvellous insects. 
 
 Indeed, nearly all the institutions and gradations 
 of culture and civilization which the human race has 
 passed through, and of which we find survivals among 
 the different tribes of men, exist also among ants. Be- 
 sides the tillers of the soil just mentioned, there are 
 other species, like the Peruvian cazadores, which still 
 lead a nomadic life, having no permanent homes, but 
 wandering from place to place; entering the houses 
 of the natives by millions; killing rats, mice, snakes, 
 and all sorts of vermin; devouring offal; and perform- 
 ing in general the useful functions of itinerant scaven- 
 gers. On the approach of these hordes the inhabitants 
 quit their dwellings, and do not return until the in- 
 vading host has passed on. Dr. Hans Meyer, in an 
 account of his ascent of the Kilima-Njaro, in equatorial 
 Africa, states that his camp was one night attacked 
 by an army of driver ants, and had to be abandoned. 
 He describes the army as divided into three distinct 
 classes, or castes, superior officers, underofficers, and 
 the rank and file, each of which is provided with 
 mandibles of different size and efficiency as weapons, 
 and corresponding with the duties they have to per- 
 form. Other ants have advanced beyond this nomadic 
 life of pillage, and have acquired fixed habitations; 
 they do not cultivate the soil, but keep herds of aphides, 
 
248 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 or plant lice, which yield them a milky substance, and 
 are also slaughtered for food. 
 
 The desire to get possession of these aphides is often 
 the occasion of fierce raids of one community of ants 
 upon another, forcibly recalling the cattle-lifting forays 
 of Scotch clans, once so common on the northern border 
 of England. A recent observer, Mr. James Weir, Jr., 
 gives a graphic description of a predatory incursion of 
 this kind made by an army of black ants (Lasius niger) 
 into the domain of some yellow ants (Lasius flavus), 
 whose herd of aphides was feeding under guard. The 
 invading myrmidons "were marching in full battle 
 array, with a skirmish line in advance. They came 
 on with a rush, as if they intended a surprise. Some 
 outposts, or pickets, of Lasius flavus discovered them 
 when ten or twelve feet away from the town of Lasius 
 flavus. These pickets raced home and gave the alarm. 
 Immediately the inhabitants poured out and arranged 
 themselves in front of their beloved herd. Skirmishers 
 were thrown out and soon met the advancing Lasius 
 niger. In a few moments the battle was on, and it was 
 a battle to the death. The Lasius niger outnumbered 
 the Lasius flavus three to one. As near as I could 
 reckon there were about fifteen hundred of the blacks 
 and about five hundred of the yellow ants. The 
 yellow ants were larger and stronger, but the blacks 
 were more agile. The yellow Lasius rushed at her 
 enemy with open mandibles, and seizing her by the 
 middle, crushed her through and through. The black 
 Lasius endeavoured to get behind her enemy and then 
 seize her by one of her legs. If she succeeded in her 
 attempt, no bulldog ever held on with greater tenacity. 
 As soon as possible another black ant would come to 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 249 
 
 her assistance, and mounting on the back of the yellow 
 ant would begin at once to gnaw through the thoracic 
 wall. In a few seconds the shell would be eaten 
 through, the vitals would be reached, and the yellow 
 ant would sink down in the struggle of death. Not 
 until certain that she was dead would Lasius niger, 
 who had her by the leg, loosen her hold. Lasius niger, 
 in this foray, came in light marching order. They 
 carried no commissariat department, no ambulance 
 corps. Lasius flavus, on the contrary, had both. "When 
 wearied or wounded the yellow ants would drop to the 
 rear and communicate their wants. The ambulance 
 corps dressed their wounds with their tongues; the 
 commissariat refreshed them by regurgitating food into 
 their open jaws. All through the battle I noticed this 
 wonderful power of intelligent communication. Lasius 
 flavus sent repeatedly back to the town to bring out the 
 stragglers. It was like a well-ordered battle between 
 human beings. These ants acted as though governed 
 by an intelligence analogous to that which directs the 
 actions of men. In the end, Lasius niger won the vic- 
 tory, but not until they had killed every Lasius flavus, 
 and lost two thirds of their own number. The sur- 
 vivors carried off the bone of contention, the herd of 
 aphides, to their own nest, some fifty feet away." 
 
 The slaveholding ants are of several kinds, and 
 differ greatly in the manner in which they treat their 
 vassals. Some make them do all the work under the 
 direction of overseers; others share their labours; while 
 still others have fallen into such habits of luxury as to 
 be unable or unwilling to wait upon or even to feed 
 themselves, and are carried about and provided with 
 food by their body servants. In many cases this 
 
250 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 sybaritism is the mere ostentatious love of being served. 
 The incapacity is not physical, but moral, and arises 
 from an aristocratic aversion to any kind of menial 
 labour, from the pleasure of being served by a train 
 of obsequious attendants, and the notion that it is more 
 dignified and distinguished to be borne along and to 
 have food put into their mouths than to walk on their 
 own legs and to help themselves to victuals; since 
 these apparently so helpless ants are agile and ener- 
 getic enough as warriors, when it is a question of con- 
 quering and plundering their peaceful neighbours. It 
 is the false sense of honour, fostered by the military 
 spirit, which takes pride in brandishing a sword and, 
 on the slightest provocation, plunging it into the vitals 
 of a fellow-man, but would deem it a deep disgrace 
 for an officer to brush his own clothes or black his 
 own boots. 
 
 Sometimes, in consequence of severe exactions, the 
 Blaves rise in revolt, and are mercilessly put to death; 
 and formiean like old Eoman law seems to recognise 
 the right of the master to inflict summary capital pun- 
 ishment in such cases. This power is often exercised 
 by the red-bearded ant (Formica rubibarbis), who is a 
 fierce slaveholder, and as pitiless in suppressing mutiny 
 as was Barbarossa after the siege of Milan. 
 
 Ants differ in quickness of apprehension and in 
 ingenuity quite as much as men do. Some with which 
 Sir John Lubbock experimented, when cut off from 
 their supply of food by the removal of a little strip of 
 paper which had served as a bridge over a chasm a 
 third of an inch in breadth, did not know enough to 
 replace it. In similar cases, ants have been observed 
 bringing straws from a distance for the express pur- 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 251 
 
 pose of bridging chasms that separated them from a 
 desirable article of food. Bridges for this purpose are 
 often an inch long, and made of mortar or cement con- 
 sisting of a mixture of fine sand with a salivary secre- 
 tion. 
 
 In a monastery near Botzen, in the Tyrol, one of 
 the monks put some pounded sugar, together with a 
 few ants taken from an ant hill in the garden, into an 
 old inkstand, which he suspended by a string from 
 the crosspiece of his window. Very soon the ants 
 began to carry the sugar along the string to their home 
 in the garden, and returned with many others that 
 went to work in the same way. After two days, al- 
 though the greater part of the sugar was still in the 
 inkstand, no ants were seen on the string; and, on 
 closer examination, it was found that about a dozen of 
 them were in the inkstand, busily engaged in throwing 
 the sugar down upon the window sill below, where 
 others were carrying it off to the hill. They thus saved 
 themselves the trouble of climbing the whole length 
 of the window and down the string into the inkstand 
 and back again with their burdens, and avoided by 
 this means an immense expenditure of strength and loss 
 of time. This change in the plan of operations shows 
 remarkable powers of observation and reflection, and 
 was doubtless suggested by some of the more thought- 
 ful and practical members of the community, and, after 
 being communicated to the others, was adopted by 
 them. 
 
 The intelligence of hymenoptera (ants and bees), 
 like that of human beings, depends upon the develop- 
 ment of the nervous system, and especially upon the 
 size and structure of the brain. According to the tables 
 17 
 
252 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 published by Dr. Vitus Graber, the cerebrum of the 
 bee's brain is ^^ and the cerebellum y^^ part of its 
 body, while the corresponding portions of the ant's 
 brain are y^andyj^ of the size of the whole body. On 
 the other hand, the brain of the May bug forms -j^ 
 and that of the water beetle only ^Vr part of its body. 
 These fractions express approximately the relative men- 
 tal capacity of each of the aforesaid insects, and the 
 proportion is nearly the same as that existing between 
 man and the larger mammals, such as the horse and the 
 ox. The brain of the ant is, on an average, about one 
 quarter the size of an ordinary pin's head, although 
 it differs with different species. It is, doubtless, as 
 Darwin has observed, the most marvellous physical 
 atom in any living organism, not even excepting the 
 brain of man, and shows what an amount of mental 
 activity and energy may emanate from an exceedingly 
 minute particle of nerve substance or be concentrated 
 in the smallest ganglion. But the superior intelligence 
 of ants, bees, and other hymenoptera living in highly 
 organized communities, is due not only to the greater 
 relative size, but still more to the complicated forma- 
 tion and composition of the brain, which is divided 
 into two hemispheres, and differs from that of all other 
 insects in its pedunculate character. The effects of 
 injuries to the brain of an ant are analogous to. those 
 caused by injuries to the human brain: spasms, stupe- 
 faction, nervous prostration, the substitution of in- 
 definite reflex action for voluntary movements of the 
 body, raving madness, etc., according to the parts af- 
 fected. Such phenomena have been often observed as 
 the results of wounds received in battle, or in defend- 
 ing the larvse or nymphs against the attempts of preda- 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 253 
 
 tory Amazon ants to capture them. It is a curious and 
 significant fact, too, that the babyhood of the ant is 
 relatively quite as long as that of man, and during this 
 plastic period of infancy the young of the genus 
 Formica are quite as helpless and dependent upon the 
 fostering care of their elders as are the young of the 
 genus Homo. " The larvae," says Biiehner, " are occa- 
 sionally sorted and divided into different groups, ac- 
 cording to their age and size, so that one is involuntarily 
 reminded of a school with distribution of the pupils 
 into classes." " Nothing is more attractive," observes 
 Blanchard, "than the incessant care of the ants for 
 their larvae. They keep them perfectly clean by rub- 
 bing and brushing them with their labial feelers, carry 
 them in the morning to the upper stories of the nest, 
 where it is warmer, and take them below again later in 
 the day in order to escape the scorching rays of the mid- 
 day sun. This transportation occurs as often as atmos- 
 pheric changes and variations of the temperature require 
 it. The soft bodies of the larvae are borne between the 
 firm jaws of the ants, but no injury or accident has ever 
 been noticed; they are never bruised or wounded or 
 hit against the hard walls." After reaching a certain 
 stage of growth, during the course of the summer or 
 sometimes not until the following spring, the larvae spin 
 themselves into so-called pups or chrysalides, popularly 
 but falsely supposed to be ant's eggs and much in quest 
 as food for caged birds. These pupae or nymphs do not 
 require feeding, but are nevertheless solicitously looked 
 after by the working ants, licked, cleaned, carried about, 
 and on fine days exposed to the air and light in front 
 of the nest. When the sun gets too hot the attendants 
 summon the workers, who carry the large, white, un- 
 
254 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 shapely things back into the nest just as a eat carries 
 her kittens. As soon as the pupse have developed into 
 ants they try to free themselves from their fibrous in- 
 casement, but seldom succeed without the aid of the 
 workers, who unloose the web with their jaws and draw 
 the young out of their place of confinement. After 
 their release the skin, which still covers them like a 
 shirt, is removed and their process of education begins. 
 They are conducted through the nest and shown how 
 to work. At first light tasks are assigned to them, such 
 as taking care of larvae, just as in human families older 
 children are made to look after the infants. It is easy 
 to distinguish the young ants from the old ones by 
 their lighter colour, and thus to observe their actions. 
 In a short time, however, generally in three or four 
 days, they are fitted to perform the duties of a full- 
 grown ant. 
 
 "What Solomon says of the ants, that they have " no 
 guide, overseer, or ruler" (Prov. vi, 7), is confirmed 
 by modern entomologists, at least in its application to 
 the ordinary species. No one ant seems to command 
 the others, and Huber affirms that even the slaves 
 are not subject to the slightest compulsion. "It is 
 the consciousness of duty alone that preserves order 
 and secures diligence." Forel asserts that the allusion 
 to chiefs made by some writers (e. g., Bbrard) is " a 
 mere figment of the imagination." If the larger and 
 stronger ants take the lead in marching against foes, 
 this prominence is due to their greater energy and effi- 
 ciency as fighters and does not imply any other supe- 
 riority. Even the warriors, who in some European and 
 nearly all tropical species of ants appear to form a dis- 
 tinct caste, "never play an imperious part, but only 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 255 
 
 serve the commonwealth." Under such circumstances 
 a coup d'etat or other arrogation of sovereignty by a 
 successful soldier would be impossible.* 
 
 As regards moral attributes, says Dr. McCook in 
 his work on the honey ants: "I am much inclined to 
 the view that anything like individual benevolence, as 
 distinguished from tribal or communal benevolence, 
 does not exist. The apparent special cases of benefi- 
 cence, outside the instinctive actions which lie within 
 the lines of formicary routine, are so rare and so 
 doubtful as to their cause that, however loath, I must 
 decide against anything like a personal benevolent char- 
 acter on the part of my honey ants." f 
 
 It is often quite impossible to determine whether 
 human actions arise from public spirit or private feel- 
 ing; and an attempt to fathom the motives of ants, 
 and to decide whether they are animated by a love of 
 their kind and a desire to promote the general weal, 
 or by a special good will toward individuals and what 
 we call personal kindness, is attended with equal dif- 
 ficulty. But what the author affirms of honey ants is 
 also true of savages, whose benevolence is tribal rather 
 than personal; even civilized man, with rare excep- 
 tions, moves in the same narrow traditional rut, and 
 is swayed in all his sentiments by national prejudices 
 and prepossessions. The feeling of kinship is never- 
 theless especially strong in ants, and is not weakened 
 by long absence. Mr. Darwin shut several of them 
 in a bottle with asafcetida, and then released them 
 and brought them back to their colony. At first their 
 
 * Cf. BUehner, pp. 54-57, 75-81. 
 
 f The Honey Ants of the Garden of the Gods, and the Occi- 
 dent Ants of the American Plains, page 45, 
 
256 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 fellow-ants threatened to attack them and thrust them 
 out, hut soon recognised them under their offensive 
 disguise, and received them with evident marks of af- 
 fection. Still, no one would be justified in asserting 
 that the elements of individual love and personal 
 preference do not also enter into these relations. There 
 is no doubt that strong attachments are formed between 
 animals, and that they are capable of emotions of pity 
 and acts of generosity not only toward their own kind, 
 but even toward creatures of another species. A gen- 
 tleman who had a great number of doves used to feed 
 them near the barn; at such times not only chickens 
 and sparrows, but also rats, were accustomed to come 
 and share the meal. One day he saw a large rat fill 
 its cheeks with kernels of corn and run to the coach- 
 house, repeating this performance several times. On 
 going thither he found a lame dove eating the corn 
 which the rat had brought. Such an action on the 
 part of human beings would be looked upon as a 
 charitable desire to relieve the necessities of a helpless 
 cripple, and every one would be satisfied with this 
 simple explanation; but as a rat is assumed to be in- 
 capable of similar feelings, its conduct is regarded as 
 the resultant of a series of impulses of sensation, per- 
 ception, and conception, under which the animal ia 
 led to do wonderful things in an automatic way, with- 
 out any consciousness of the purpose for which it does 
 them; and thus a moral virtue is obscured and wholly 
 hidden from view by a mass of metaphysical jargon. 
 
 A writer in the Eevue d' Anthropologic relates the 
 following story: The owner of a vegetable garden was 
 surprised at the mysterious disappearance of carrots 
 from a basket and asked the gardener what had become 
 
IDEATION m ANIMALS AND MEN. 257 
 
 of them. The latter replied that he did not know, but 
 would try to discover the thief. He accordingly hid 
 behind the hedge, and had not waited long before the 
 house dog came and carried off a carrot toward the 
 stable, giving it to one of the horses, and wagging his 
 tail with delight as his equine friend consumed it. The 
 gardener was angry and, seizing a stick, was about to 
 punish the pilferer for his excessive and rather eccen- 
 tric exhibition of generosity, but the owner prevented 
 him and secretly watched the dog, who continued to 
 run to and fro between the garden and the stall until 
 the entire stock of carrots was exhausted. Mean- 
 while the dog never bestowed a look, much less a carrot, 
 on the horse in the next stall, who would have gladly 
 eaten a share of the stolen fodder. Here we have a 
 marked instance of altruistic sentiment manifesting 
 itself in faithful friendship and even gross favouritism. 
 That the lower animals are capable of feeling compas- 
 sion and exercising charity toward creatures of their 
 own or of other species is proved by numerous and 
 well-authenticated examples of cats and dogs carrying 
 food to other cats and dogs that were utter strangers to 
 them, but were evidently suffering from hunger. In 
 such eases the act of kindness does not even have its 
 source in personal attachment, but springs solely from 
 the purer fountain of pity and disinterested benevo- 
 lence, and contains hardly a trace of what Spencer calls 
 " ego-altruistic sentiment," self-gratification being wholly 
 merged in the gratification of others. 
 
 Again the ability to use tools and to wield weapons, 
 which Prantl derives from the possession of time-sense, 
 is not exclusively human. Ants build bridges with 
 splinters of wood, small pebbles, grains of sand, and 
 
258 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 other available materials, and tunnel small streams, 
 and their skill in performing such feats of engineering 
 and in meeting any emergencies that may arise is al- 
 most incredible ; but the testimony of Bates and Bar 
 and other naturalists leaves no doubt as to the reality 
 of these achievements. They also make a clever and 
 effective use of implements in capturing and killing 
 the ferocious sand hornet, which they seize by the legs 
 and fasten to the ground by means of sticks and stones, 
 and then devour at their leisure. Here we have an 
 unmistakable instance of the use of instruments for 
 the accomplishment of a particular purpose. The 
 same is true of the ant-lion when it prepares a pitfall 
 and lies in wait for its prey, just as any hunter would do. 
 According to Moggridge, the antennae of the trap- 
 door spider (Mygalefodiens) are provided with a kind of 
 rake, and the feet have prongs resembling the teeth of 
 a comb. With the help of these instruments it digs 
 subterranean tunnels or galleries, which it tapestries 
 with a very fine silken web. The door, which closes 
 the entrance, is very ingeniously constructed out of 
 earth, woven firmly together with cobwebs. This door 
 is very thick and broader above than below, so as to fit 
 into the hole as a cork does into the mouth of a bottle. 
 Its upper surface has the same colour as the surround- 
 ing earth, and it is therefore not easily discoverable. The 
 hinge is made out of quite thick and firm fibres of silk, 
 and the lock consists of a series of small holes in which 
 the spider can stick its claws and hold the door fast 
 from the inside. In going out the spider lets the door 
 fall to, and lifts it up again in order to re-enter. This 
 subterranean habitation, says Moggridge, is as far su- 
 perior to that of the ordinary earth spider as the Mont 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 259 
 
 Cenis tunnel is to a common ditch. Erber, who studied 
 the habits of the trapdoor spiders on the island of Tinos 
 in the Grecian Archipelago, saw them spread nets 
 after dark before their doors in order to catch night 
 moths. In the morning these nets were removed. He 
 also speaks of the marvellous skill and adaptation to 
 circumstances with which they repair any injuries done 
 to the doors or snares.* 
 
 Mr. Komanes seems to think that the only tool-using 
 vertebrates are apes and elephants, but such a restric- 
 tion is hardly justified by facts. The following inci- 
 dent, which is vouched for by Mr. William B. Smith, 
 on whose farm at Mount Lookout it occurred, proves 
 that an ass may understand the worth of weapons, and 
 be able to avail himself of them. A donkey, which 
 was in the same pasture with an Alderney bull, was 
 frequently attacked by the latter, and worsted in the 
 combat. Convinced that his heels were no match for 
 his adversary's horns, the ass took a pole between his 
 teeth, and, whirling it about, whacked his assailant 
 so vigorously over the head that the latter was finally 
 glad to give up the contest, and lived thenceforth on a 
 peaceful footing with his long-eared and long-headed 
 companion. 
 
 Cats and dogs open doors by pressing the latchkey, 
 or cause them to be opened by pulling the bell cord or 
 lifting the knocker ; and every farmer knows, to his 
 frequent vexation, how readily cows familiarize them- 
 selves with the mechanism of gates. 
 
 Sehlagintweit states that in India wild elephants 
 
 * Verhandlungen der k. k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft. 
 "Wien., Bd. xviii, pp. 905, 906. 
 
260 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 build walls of sand and stones across the dry beds of 
 rivers, in order to keep the water from flowing off dur- 
 ing the rainy season, so as to have a sufficient supply 
 in times of drought. The native inhabitants do the 
 same ; but whether the elephants or the Hindus were 
 the original builders of these dams is not recorded. 
 If such constructions imply forethought and mechan- 
 ical skill on the part of man, they presume the existence 
 of the same faculties to an equal degree in the animal. 
 
 Crows, cormorants, gulls, and other birds carry 
 shellfish into the air and drop them on rocks, in order 
 to break their hard covering and to eat the flesh. If 
 the first fall is not sufficient, they carry it up still 
 higher, and thus virtually hit it a harder blow. If a 
 boy cracks a nut by hurling it against a stone, he makes 
 use of the stone as a tool as truly as if he should take a 
 stone in his hand and strike the nut with it. The for- 
 mer process is that employed by the birds, which are 
 in this respect tool-using animals. There are rocks 
 on the seacoast which have served generations of birds 
 as stationary hammers for smashing mollusks, and are 
 evidently regarded by them as a permanent slaughter- 
 house. 
 
 It is well known that monkeys living near the sea- 
 shore, where the ebb tide leaves the rocks covered with 
 oysters, evince extraordinary expertness in opening 
 these bivalves with sharp stones, just as a man would 
 do under like circumstances. It would require only a 
 very slight increase of intelligence for a monkey to 
 learn to break a stone into proper shape, instead of 
 selecting a suitable one from the shingle of the beach, 
 and, by thus fabricating a tool, bring himself abreast, 
 intellectually, with the flint-clipping man of the 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 261 
 
 early Stone age. Indeed, it has been suggested by 
 some scientists that man had not yet appeared upon 
 the earth in the Miocene age, and that the chipped 
 flints of that period are the work of semihuman pithe- 
 coid apes of superior intelligence ; and there is nothing 
 in the theory of evolution or the facts of natural his- 
 tory which would render such a supposition absurd. 
 Monkeys use stones as hammers and sticks as levers, 
 and appreciate the advantage to be derived from this 
 the simplest of the mechanical powers. "With them, 
 as with primitive or uneducated men, this knowledge 
 is purely empirical, a product of experience, and does 
 not imply a perception of mathematical truths or prin- 
 ciples any more than the taking of a short cut diag- 
 onally across a field involves a knowledge of the relation 
 of the hypothenuse to the other two sides of a right- 
 angled triangle. In neither case is there any ques- 
 tion of what Prantl calls " spontaneous mathematical 
 thinking." 
 
 Dr. Macgowan, who has resided in China since 1843, 
 and travelled extensively in the Flowery Kingdom, 
 states in a recent number of the North China Daily 
 News (1893) that there exists in the mountainous and 
 densely wooded region of Manchuria near the Great 
 Wall a species of ape which prepares from berries two 
 sorts of wine, one greenish and the other reddish, and 
 preserves them in earthern jars for winter use, when 
 the springs and rivers are frozen. The jars are also 
 made by the apes and are fully equal in workmanship 
 to the pottery of many savage tribes. Dr. Macgowan 
 asserts that there is in the province of Chekiang a 
 kind of orang-outang which shows the same skill and 
 prudence in manufacturing and storing beverages for 
 
262 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the time of need. It is possible that the jars of wine 
 may have been stolen by the monkeys, although the 
 mountains in which they live are not inhabited by hu- 
 man beings. According to Chinese authorities the 
 orang-outangs of Chekiang have been observed pounding 
 berries and other fruits in stone mortars. 
 
 Simian dexterity is greatly increased by association 
 with human beings and by observation of their doings. 
 The owner of a pet monkey, which annoyed him by 
 ringing the servants' bell, tied several knots in the 
 cord, in order to make it shorter and place it out of 
 the animal's reach. But the crafty creature was not to 
 be thwarted by such a clumsy device, and, climbing 
 up on a chair, artfully untied all the knots, and then 
 gave the bell a succession of violent jerks to signalize 
 his triumph. 
 
 A monkey in the Zoological Garden at Philadelphia 
 came into possession of a marble and a hickory nut 
 which he tried in vain to crack with his teeth. After 
 conferring with two other monkeys and chattering 
 in a lively manner, he scraped away the sawdust so as 
 to expose a space about two feet square of the zinc 
 floor of his cage. He then climbed up on a crossbar, 
 and from this vantage ground hurled the marble with 
 all his force against the zinc and broke it into pieces, 
 but found nothing edible inside. He then attempted 
 to break the nut in the same manner, but without suc- 
 cess. After several futile efforts he held another con- 
 sultation with his companions and then handed the 
 nut through the bars to a bystander, who cracked and 
 returned it. The monkey then divided it into three 
 portions, of which he gave one to each of his friends 
 and advisers. The monkey in this case acted as a 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 263 
 
 child would have done under similar circumstances, 
 and showed a like degree and kind of reflection and 
 ingenuous confidence. It is probable, too, that his 
 conduct was somewhat influenced by previous study of 
 mankind. 
 
 In the Transvaal monkeys have been found to be 
 very serviceable in the gold mines. Captain E. Moss 
 states that he has twenty-four monkeys thus employed 
 and that they do the work of about seven able-bodied 
 men, and " it is no reflection upon the human labourers 
 to say that they do a class of work a man can not do as 
 well as they. In many instances they lend valuable aid 
 where a man is useless. They gather up the small 
 pieces of quartz that would be passed unnoticed by the 
 workmen, and pile them up in little heaps that can 
 be easily gathered up in a shovel and thrown into the 
 mill. They are exceedingly adept at catching the 
 little particles, and the very things that the human eye 
 would easily pass over never escape their sharp eyes." 
 He then relates how the idea of thus making use of 
 them first occurred to him, and it is a pleasure to learn 
 that they are not forced to work, but simply do of their 
 own free will what they see others doing. 
 
 "When I went digging gold I had two monkeys 
 that were exceedingly interesting pets. They were 
 constantly following me about the mines, and one day 
 I noticed that they were busily engaged in gathering 
 up little bits of quartz and putting them in piles. They 
 seemed to enjoy the labour very much, and would go 
 to the mines every morning and work there during the 
 day. It did not take me long to learn their value as 
 labourers, and I decided to procure more. So I im- 
 mediately procured a number, and now have two dozen 
 
264 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 working daily in and about the mines. It is exceed- 
 ingly interesting to watch my two pet monkeys teach 
 the new ones how to work, and still stranger to see how 
 the newcomers take to it. They work just as they 
 please, sometimes going down into the mines when they 
 have cleared up all the debris orr the outside. They 
 live and work together without quarrelling any more 
 than men do. They are quite methodical in their hab- 
 its, and go to work and finish up in the same manner 
 as human beings would do under similar circum- 
 stances." 
 
 Prantl also characterizes man as the only animal fa- 
 miliar with the use of fire, and capable of applying it to 
 culinary and economical purposes and to the increase 
 of personal comfort. But this attainment is by no 
 means common to all mankind. Homo sapiens inhab- 
 ited the earth for ages before he discovered methods 
 of generating this element and making it subservient 
 to his interests. The habitual use of fire is the sign 
 of a very considerable advancement toward civilization, 
 and marks an important epoch in the evolution of the 
 race. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-outangs have 
 been repeatedly seen bringing brushwood and throwing 
 it on the camp fires which travellers have left burning, 
 showing that they have learned by observation how to 
 keep up a fire, although they have no means and do not 
 understand the art of kindling it. By associating with 
 man they soon acquire this knowledge, igniting friction 
 matches, and often have to be watched carefully, like 
 children, lest they should do immense mischief unwitting- 
 ly as incendiaries. The same is true of ravens, which, 
 when tamed, are fond of throwing pieces of paper and 
 other light combustibles on the glowing coals, and see- 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 265 
 
 ing them flask into flame. This favourite pastime ren- 
 ders them exceedingly dangerous inmates of the house ; 
 and it is probably this bird that was spoken of by Pliny 
 as avis incendiaria. 
 
 Ants store in their chambered hillocks certain sub- 
 stances which, by fermentation, produce quite a high 
 temperature, and are put there for the sole purpose of 
 generating heat and warming their dwellings. Some 
 birds, as, for example, the Australian megapode, or 
 jungle fowl, hatch their eggs by artificial heat, result- 
 ing from the decomposition of the leaves and decaying 
 substances with which they cover them; raising large 
 mounds that are sometimes twenty or thirty metres in 
 circumference, and serve as incubators for successive 
 generations of birds. Thus, while it is true that ani- 
 mals do not make use of fire, they are not ignorant of 
 the properties of heat, which they turn to practical ac- 
 count in matters of domestic economy and household 
 life. 
 
 It is questionable whether Prantl's statement that 
 animals " expect an effect, but not a logical sequence, 
 and seek a cause, but not a logical ground," can be 
 maintained. The following incident, related by Dr. 
 Schomburgk, director of the zoological garden at Ade- 
 laide, in South Australia, would seem to render such a 
 distinction untenable. An old monkey of the genus 
 Macacus sinicus, which was confined in a cage with two 
 younger ones, flew at the keeper one day as he was sup- 
 plying them with fresh water, and bit him so severely 
 in the wrist as to injure the sinews and artery and to 
 endanger his life. Schomburgk ordered the animal to 
 be shot, but as an attendant approached the cage with a 
 gun the culprit showed the greatest consternation, fled 
 
266 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 into the sleeping apartment of the cage, and could not 
 be induced by any offers of tempting food to come out 
 of this place of refuge. It must be added that the 
 monkeys were perfectly accustomed to firearms, which 
 had been frequently used for killing rats near the cage, 
 and had never manifested the slightest fear of them. 
 Even now the other monkeys ate their food as usual, 
 with a conscience void of offence, and were not at all 
 disturbed by the sight of the murderous weapon. No 
 sooner had the man with the gun withdrawn and con- 
 cealed himself than the old monkey sneaked out, and, 
 snatching some of the food, rushed back into his asy- 
 lum; but when he tried to repeat this experiment a 
 keeper closed the sliding-door from without, and thus 
 cut off his retreat. As the man with the gun drew near 
 again, the poor monkey seemed quite beside himself with 
 terror. He first tried to open the sliding-door, then 
 ran into every nook and corner of the cage in search of 
 some way of escape, and finally, in despair, threw him- 
 self flat on the floor and awaited his fate, which soon 
 overtook him. The conduct of the monkey in this 
 case can be explained only by assuming the animal to 
 have been endowed with a moral sense and a logical fac- 
 ulty, implying a clear perception of right and wrong, a 
 consciousness of guilt, a knowledge of the use of fire- 
 arms, and quite a complicated process of reasoning 
 from these premises to a perfectly correct conclusion. 
 The following case of quite recent occurrence proves 
 that other animals besides monkeys are capable of rea- 
 soning deductively. Mr. Allen H. Norton, the owner 
 of a farm at Winsted, Conn., had a dog of mixed 
 breed, partly cocker spaniel and partly hound, which 
 was a good hunter and had been very serviceable in 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 267 
 
 catching raccoons and other small game. In the spring 
 of 1897 the dog, now twelve years old, was getting rather 
 f eehle and had lost some of its teeth, so that Mr. Norton, 
 thinking that he had no further use for it, since it had 
 ceased to he useful to him, concluded to have it shot. 
 For this purpose he gave it over to the tenant, who took 
 it into the field, put his gun on the ground, and began 
 to dig a grave for the faithful animal, which lay beside 
 the weapon intended soon to end its life, and watched 
 the hole as it gradually grew deeper. When the work 
 was nearly finished the dog suddenly sprang to its feet 
 and ran away in great haste. The man tried to call 
 it back, but for the first time on record it refused to 
 obey, and rushing to the bank of the river, swam to the 
 opposite side, disappeared in the woods, and never re- 
 turned. This instance is even more remarkable than 
 that of Dr. Sehomburgk's monkey, since the acute exer- 
 cise of the logical faculty was not stimulated by the 
 prickings of conscience. 
 
 Perhaps the most human of anthropoid apes, as re- 
 gards intelligence, is a species of chimpanzee called the 
 soko, first discovered by Livingstone, and most fully 
 described by him in his Last Journals. The teeth of 
 these creatures, he says, " are slightly human, but their 
 canines show the beast by their large development. 
 The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the 
 natives. They live in communities consisting of about 
 a dozen individuals, and are strictly monogamous in 
 their conjugal relations, and vegetarian, or rather fru- 
 givorous, in their diet, their favourite food being bana- 
 nas." The aborigines, the Manyuema, are, on the con- 
 trary, cannibals, and are described by Livingstone as 
 " the lowest of the low." One of them, who had killed 
 18 
 
268 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 a woman, offered his grandmother to he killed in expia- 
 tion of his offence, and this vicarious punishment was 
 accepted as satisfactory. Even the sokos have a higher 
 and more correct conception of justice than this; at least 
 they do not make the innocent atone for the crimes of 
 the guilty. If a soko " tries to seize the female of an- 
 other, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in box- 
 ing and biting the offender." " Numbers of them come 
 down in the forest within a hundred yards of our camp, 
 and would be unknown but for giving tongue like fox- 
 hounds. This is their nearest approach to speech. A 
 man hoeing was stalked by a soko and seized. He 
 roared out, but the soko giggled and grinned, and left 
 him, as if he had done it in play." It is evident that 
 these animals have some sense of humour and appreciate 
 a practical joke. They are inoffensive and unaggres- 
 sive, but fearless and energetic in self-defence. They 
 never molest women or unarmed men, but if any one ap- 
 proaches them with a spear they rush upon him and 
 wrest the weapon from his hands. If struck with a 
 dart or an arrow, they pull it out, and stanch the blood 
 by stuffing leaves into the wound. The natives recog- 
 nise their harmless and human character, and say, 
 " Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him." 
 
 Sometimes they kidnap a child and take it up into a 
 tree, but they never hurt it, and are ready to exchange 
 it at any time for a bunch of bananas. Perhaps the 
 robbery is for the sake of the ransom. When roaming 
 through the forest, the female usually carries her in- 
 fant in her arms; but in crossing a glade or other open 
 ground, where they would be more exposed to danger, 
 the father takes the child, and returns it to the mother 
 as soon as they enter the wood again. They are ex- 
 
IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 269 
 
 tremely fond of assembling in a remote part of the for- 
 est and drumming on hollow trees and other resonant 
 objects, accompanying this fearful din with loud yells, 
 like sopranos and tenors of strong pulmonary powers 
 trying to outshriek the clash and clang of a Wagnerian 
 orchestra. This deafening noise does not differ greatly 
 from " the natives' embryotic music," and is quite as har- 
 monious and pleasant to the ear as much of the music 
 of the Chinese and other Oriental peoples! 
 
 Livingstone had a young female soko, which, after 
 having been petted for some time, was " quite like a 
 spoiled child." She enjoyed shaking hands, and took 
 as much pleasure in this tiresome manual ceremony as 
 any American citizen who honours the President of the 
 United States by calling on him at the White House. 
 She liked to be carried about, and would beg people to 
 take her in their arms. If they refused, she seemed 
 greatly aggrieved, and would make* a wry face, as if 
 about to burst into tears, and wring her hands, appar- 
 ently in severe distress of mind. She learned to eat 
 whatever was set before her, drew grass and leaves 
 around her for a bed, and covered herself with a mat 
 when she went to sleep. She could untie a knot with 
 her fingers and thumbs "in quite a systematic way," 
 " looked daggers " at any one who interfered with her 
 doings, and resented every attempt to touch what she 
 regarded as her personal property. 
 
 Indeed, the idea of personal property, in distinction 
 from communal property — such, for example, as the 
 provisions stored by ants for winter — is quite as strong- 
 ly developed in many of the higher species of animals 
 as in some of the lower races of men. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. '' 
 
 SPEECH AS A BAKEIEB BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 
 
 Max Miiller's theory. Hobbes's pun. Roots as ultimate facts. 
 Sanskrit illustrations of their formation. Example of " quack " 
 as a prolific root. Dr. Hun's specimen of child language. 
 Horatio Hale's theory of the origin of tribal dialects. Meta- 
 morphoses of organic life and transformations of the roots of 
 speech. A philological ultimatum. General concepts im- 
 properly denied to animals. Home Tooke's absurd statement. 
 Ability of animals to count and to classify objects. Words 
 not the only symbols of thought. Whitney's doctrine of lan- 
 guage as a social institution. Pantomimic expression in man 
 and animals. Jager's distinction between emotional language 
 and the language of thought. Worthlessness of speculation 
 without careful observation. Aphasia. Animals learn to un- 
 derstand human speech. " Nursery philology." Language 
 evolved out of roots as vital organisms out of protoplasm. 
 Clifford's poetic description of atoms. Noire's fantastic syner- 
 gastic theory. The Homo alalus as a social being. Speech 
 not a supernatural endowment. Bow-wow, pooh-pooh; and 
 yo-he-ho theories. Psophos vs. phone. Animal utterances 
 not mere unconeeptional noises. Landois on animal voices. 
 No break in the evolution of expression. Weir and Janet on 
 the vocal organs of ants. Philology in the menagerie. Gar- 
 ner's studies of simian speech. Successful use of the phono- 
 graph. Roots and concepts in the language of animals. Hy- 
 pothetical language of the " missing link." Investigations of 
 animal speech by Wenzel, Radeau, Jules Richard, and others. 
 Remarkable parrots. Superior advantages possessed by Gar- 
 ner for prosecuting his researches. His failure to accomplish 
 270 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 271 
 
 what he expected to do in Africa. Dybowski's account of it. 
 His own report of the expedition confirmatory of Dybowski's 
 criticism. 
 
 Max Mulleb, after admitting "the extraordinary 
 accounts of the intellect, the understanding, the cau- 
 tion, the judgment, the sagacity, acuteness, cleverness, 
 genius, or even social virtues of animals," intrenches 
 himself behind the " one palpable fact, namely, that, 
 whatever animals do or do not do, no animal has ever 
 spoken." This assertion is not strictly true. Parrots 
 and ravens utter articulate sounds as distinctly as the 
 average cockney, and in most cases make quite as in- 
 telligent and edifying use of them for the expression of 
 ideas. 
 
 That no animal has ever made a natural and ha- 
 bitual use of articulate speech for the communication 
 of its thoughts and feelings is a truism which it would 
 seem superfluous to emphasize or italicize. Equally 
 irrelevant to the point at issue is the statement that 
 " in every book on logic language is quoted as the spe- 
 cific difference between man and other beings." It is 
 not by the definitions of logicians that questions of 
 this kind are to be decided. The Greeks called beasts 
 speechless creatures (to. SXoya) just as they called for- 
 eigners tongueless (ayAonroi), meaning thereby per- 
 sons whose language was unintelligible to them; and 
 the epithet was no more appropriate in the former case 
 than in the latter. It was for the same reason that the 
 Eoman poet Ovid, when banished to the Pontus, charac- 
 terized himself as a barbarian, because his language 
 was not understood by tbe inhabitants of that country — 
 oarbarus hie ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli. But such 
 expressions must not be taken too literally. 
 
272 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Hobbes makes speaking the test of rationality — 
 "homo animal rationale, quia orationale — and assumes 
 both powers to be the exclusive property of man; but 
 his pithy statement is a quibble in fact as well as in 
 form, and much better as a pun than as a psycholog- 
 ical proposition. "Language is our Kubicon," says 
 Max Miiller, " and no brute will dare to cross it." "Why 
 not? Because, if he does, our definitions will transform 
 him from a brute into a man. "In a series of forms 
 graduating from some apelike creature to man," Max 
 Miiller maintains that the point where the animal ceases 
 and the man begins can be determined with absolute 
 precision, since " it would be coincident with the begin- 
 ning of the radical period of language, with the first 
 formation of a general idea embodied in the only form 
 in which we find it embodied, namely, in the roots of 
 our language." 
 
 In reply to the statement that "both man and 
 monkey are born without language," Miiller asks " why 
 a man always learns to speak, a monkey never." This 
 query, if it is to be regarded as anything more than a 
 bit of banter, implies a gross misconception of the 
 theory of evolution, as though it involved the develop- 
 ment of an individual monkey into an individual man. 
 One might as well deny the descent of the dog from the 
 wolf because a dog always learns to bark, a wolf never. 
 In the course of ages, and as the result of long processes 
 of evolution and transformation, monkeys have learned 
 to speak, but when they have acquired this faculty we 
 call them men. 
 
 Max Miiller stops at roots or "phonetic cells" as 
 "ultimate facts in the analysis of language," and vir- 
 tually says to the philologist, " Thus far shalt thou 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 273 
 
 go, and no farther, and here shall thy researches he 
 stayed." " The scholar," he declares, " begins and ends 
 with these phonetic types; or, if he ignores them, and 
 traces words back to the cries of animals or to the inter- 
 jections of men, he does so at his peril. The philoso- 
 pher goes beyond, and he discovers in the line which 
 separates rational from emotional language, conceptual 
 from intuitional knowledge — in the roots of language 
 he discovers the true barrier between Man and Beast." 
 
 The philologist, who recognises in the roots of lan- 
 guage the Ultima Thule beyond which he dare not 
 push his investigations, confesses thereby his incompe- 
 tency to solve the problem of the origin of language, 
 and must resign this field of inquiry to the zoopsycholo- 
 gist, who, freeing himself from the trammels and illu- 
 sions of metaphysics, seeks to find a firm basis for his 
 science in the strict and systematic study of facts. Im- 
 agine the folly of the physiologist who should say to 
 his fellow-scientists: "In your researches you must 
 begin and end with cells. If, in studying organic struc- 
 tures, you go back of cells and endeavour to discover 
 the laws underlying their origin, you do so at your 
 peril. Beware of the dangerous seductions of cytoblast 
 and cytogenesis and the treacherous quagmires of pro- 
 toplasm." 
 
 Nevertheless, this attitude of mind is natural enough 
 to the philologist, who is so absorbed in the laws which 
 govern the transmutations of words that he comes to 
 regard these metamorphoses as finalities, and never goes 
 behind and beyond them. "We must look, therefore, 
 not to comparative philology, but to comparative psy- 
 chology, for the discovery of the origin of language. 
 Philology has to do with the growth and development 
 
274 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of speech out of roots, which are assumed to be ultimate 
 and unanalyzable elements, like the purely hypothetical 
 particles which the physicist calls atoms; but as' to the 
 nature and genesis of roots themselves the philologist 
 of to-day is as puzzled and perplexed as was the 'old 
 Vedic poet when,, in the presence of-«the universe and 
 its mysterious generation, he could only utter the pa- 
 thetic and helpless cry, "Who indeed knows, who can 
 declare, whence it sprang, whence this evolution?" 
 
 Doubtless the emotional stage precedes the intel- 
 lectual or rational stage in the growth of language, but.^ 
 the former mode of expression does not cease when the 
 latter begins, nor is it possible to draw a fixed and fast 
 line of demarcation between them, fa and ma are 
 the roots of patri and matri, and mean in Sanskrit to 
 protect and to form, indicating the function of the 
 father as the defender, and of the mother as the mould- 
 er, of children. But how did they come to have these 
 significations? Surely the infant who first used these 
 expressions — and they are universally recognised as be- 
 longing to the vocabulary of babes — did not associate 
 with them the ideas which philologists now discover, 
 and which grammarians and etymologists at a very early 
 period put into'^tljem. How arbitrary these inferences 
 are is evident from the variety of interpretations of 
 which such words are susceptible. Thus ma means also 
 to measure; 'hence the moon, as the measurer of time, 
 was called matri; and from this point of view the term 
 for mother was explained as referring to her office as 
 the head of the household, who kept the keys of closet 
 and pantry, and meted out to the servants and other 
 members of the family the things necessary for them. 
 It. is furthermore a suspicious circumstance touching 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAS3\ 275 
 
 the habits of the Indo-Aryan's progenitors that pa 
 means to drink, and ptitri signifies a drinker; and for 
 aught we know the verbal coincidence may not be acci- 
 dental. As regards ma, it means also bleating as a goat, 
 and occurs in this sense in the Eig-Veda; and it is prob- 
 able that in this* onomatopoetic expression we come 
 nearer to the real origin of the word for mother. 
 
 There is a vast deal of vague speculation and unten- 
 able assertion concerning the origin and formation of 
 roots in language. In Sanskrit, for example, there are 
 three radical words gar, meaning respectively to swal- 
 low, to make a noise, and to wake. It is conceivable, 
 says Max Miiller, that the first two of these roots may 
 have been originally one and the same, and that gar, 
 from meaning to swallow, may have come to mean the 
 indistinct and disagreeable noise which often attends 
 deglutition, and which in speaking is called swallowing 
 letters or words. Yet the third root, he adds, can 
 hardly be traced back to the same source, but has the 
 right to be treated as a legitimate and independent com- 
 panion of the other roots. From this example he de- 
 duces the general principle that if roots have the same 
 form, but a different meaning, they are to be regarded 
 as originally different, notwithstanding their outward 
 resemblance. He then passes from etymology to em- 
 bryology, and reasons from analogy* that "if two germs, 
 though apparently alike, grow, under all circumstances, 
 the one always into an ape and never beyond, the other 
 always into a man and never below, then the two germs,, 
 though indistinguishable at first, and though following* 
 for a time the same line of embryonic development, 
 are different from the beginning, whatever their begin- 
 ning may have been." 
 
276 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 In this statement he .begs the whole question at 
 issue; and the philological illustration which he brings 
 to bear upon an anthropological theory for the purpose 
 of refuting it is itself exceedingly questionable, since 
 nothing is easier or would be more natural than to 
 derive gar, to wake, from gar, to make a noise; so that 
 all three roots not only may have had, but probably did 
 have, a common origin. In no case can it be positively 
 affirmed that roots of the same form are not of the same 
 origin, however widely they may differ from one another 
 in signification. 
 
 One of Darwin's grandchildren, as Mr. Eomanes 
 states, called a duck "quack," and by a special and 
 easily intelligible association called water also " quack." 
 The same term was afterward extended to all fowls and 
 wjnged creatures and to all fluids. A French sou and 
 an American dollar were called " quack " on account 
 of the eagle stamped upon them, and the same name 
 was then given to all coins. Thus " quack " came to 
 mean bird, fly, angel, wine, pond, river, shilling, medal, 
 etc., and it is easy to trace every step of the process by 
 which it acquired these various significations. 
 
 According to Max Miiller's reasoning, "quack" in 
 the sense of dUck or bird must have a radically differ- 
 ent origin from " quack " in the sense of pond or shil- 
 ling. But how do we know that all roots having the 
 same form, but different meanings, may not have origi- 
 nated in this manner? Because we can no longer trace 
 a word through all phases of its development and meta- 
 'morphosis is no proof that the development and meta- 
 morphosis never took place. The evolution of the word 
 " quack " in the vocabulary of the aforesaid child shows 
 furthermore that a purely onomatopoetic root is not 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 277 
 
 always sterile, but may be prodigiously and puzzlingly 
 prolific, germinating in the mind of the primitive man, 
 and springing up and bearing fruit fifty or a hundred- 
 fold. 
 
 When we speak of a train of cars as " telescoped," 
 this use of the word has nothing in common with its 
 primary and etymological meaning, and can be under- 
 stood only by a knowledge of the construction of a tele- 
 scope out of concentric tubes sliding into each other. 
 Again, the telescopic chimney of a war vessel is not a 
 point of far-seeing observation, as the composition of 
 the qualifying word would imply, but a chimney which 
 may be shoved together endwise, and thus put out of 
 reach of the enemy's shot. 
 
 Dr. Hun records in The Monthly Journal of Psycho- 
 logical Medicine (1868) the case of a girl who invented 
 a language of her own, and taught it to her younger 
 brother. Papa and mamma used separately meant fa- 
 ther and mother; but when linked together in the com- 
 pound papa-mamma they meant church, prayer book, 
 praying, and other acts of religious worship, because the 
 child saw her parents going to church together. Gar 
 odo meant " Send for the horse," and also paper and 
 pencil, because the order for the horse was often writ- 
 ten. Bau signified soldier and bishop, because both 
 seemed to be more gorgeously dressed than other per- 
 sons. Here the clothes made the man, and furnished 
 the sole basis of his classification. It needed only the 
 simplest and most superficial point of association in 
 order to attach the most diverse significations to the 
 same word. 
 
 To the objection that these examples are mere child- 
 ish whimseys, and that languages never originate and 
 
278 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 grow up in this manner, it may be replied that such an 
 assertion assumes the very point to be proved. Mr. 
 Horatio Hale maintains that the aboriginal tongues of 
 South America and South Africa were produced in 
 precisely this way. He thinks, too, that the numerous 
 tribal dialects west of the Eocky Mountains had their 
 origin in the isolation of orphaned children, and that 
 such a result is possible, and indeed inevitable, wherever 
 the climate and other external conditions are favour- 
 able to the survival of small children bereft of their 
 parents and separated from their kinsmen. 
 
 Again, Max Miiller observes, in explanation of the 
 manner in which roots were formed, that, " after a long 
 struggle, the uncertain phonetic imitations of special 
 impressions became the definite phonetic representations 
 of general concepts." Thus "there must have been 
 many imitations of the falling of stones, trees, leaves, 
 rivers, rain, and hail, but in the end they were all com- 
 bined in the simple root pat, expressive of quick move- 
 ment, whether in falling, flying, or running. By giving 
 up all that could remind the hearer of any special sound 
 of rushing objects, the root pat became fitted as a sign 
 of the general concept of quick movement." There 
 was a great number of " imitative sounds of falling, 
 out of which pat was selected, or out of which pat, by 
 a higher degree of fitness, struggled into life and fixity." 
 So, too, the prolific root mar, to grind or to break, 
 " must be looked upon as tuned down from innumerable 
 imitations of the sounds of breaking, crushing, crunch- 
 ing, crashing, smashing, mashing, cracking, creaking,' rat- 
 tling and clattering, mauling and marring, till at last, 
 after removing all that seemed too special, there remained 
 the smooth and manageable Aryan root of mar." 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 279 
 
 Now, pray, when did this remarkable evolution, 
 which implies the close and continuous exercise of rare 
 powers of comparison and abstraction and the perfect 
 maturity of the intellectual faculties, take place? 
 " Language," we are informed, " presupposes the forma- 
 tion of concepts," and " all such concepts are embodied 
 in roots." The formation of these concepts, then, must 
 have preceded, logically and chronologically, the for- 
 mation of the roots in which they are embodied, and 
 must therefore have been effected without the aid of 
 language, which was subsequently evolved or elaborated 
 out of these roots. What becomes, then, of the asser- 
 tion that it is impossible to think or to generalize with- 
 out language, since language itself originated in a long 
 and laborious process of thought and generalization? 
 
 The manner in which the word "quack," in the 
 case already cited, gradually acquired its widely differ- 
 ent meanings is perfectly intelligible. Suppose, now, 
 that the child, after having grown to manhood, re- 
 tained, as the result of isolation, the use of the word 
 " quack " in its diverse significations, and taught and 
 transmitted it to his posterity, so that it became incor- 
 porated in the language of his race. In a few genera- 
 tions, especially among a rude people, the origin of the 
 word would be forgotten, and it would be difficult to 
 imagine how it came to acquire such a variety of mean- 
 ings, and to stand for so many objects having appar- 
 ently no connection with one another. In due time 
 the philologist would come with his apparatus criticus, 
 subject the word to a strictly scientific analysis, apply 
 all the approved tests, and, after great expenditure 
 of etymological erudition and conjectural ingenuity, 
 would discover half a dozen wholly independent roots 
 
280 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of " quack " which could not he traced to one and the 
 same source. 
 
 No one knows how often, in the formative period 
 of language, it may have happened that the growth of a 
 word and the multiplication of its meanings may have 
 heen obscured and rendered incomprehensible because 
 the intermediate stages of its development were for- 
 gotten, and the connecting links that made the transi- 
 tion easy and natural were lost. In the instance just 
 cited we have also an example of a fruitful onomato- 
 poetic root. Indeed, in our own tongue, " quack," the 
 mere imitation of an animal cry, has given rise to a 
 variety of words and conceptions, such as quack, quack- 
 salver, quackery, which are as remote in their relations 
 to the web-footed fowl as is, the man who "plays at 
 ducks and drakes " with his money, and ends his career 
 as a "lame duck." 
 
 Nothing could be more abrupt or incredible, to 
 take an illustration from Nature, than the metamor- 
 phoses of the Lepidoptera, the same individual under- 
 going the most marvellous changes from caterpillar 
 into chrysalis, and again into butterfly. Here the trans* 
 formations are so great that, if we saw merely the result, 
 we should never suspect the nature of the process. Crea- 
 tures that for a long time were supposed to be entirely 
 distinct, and were classified as belonging not only to 
 different genera, but even to different orders of animals, 
 are now known to be the same individual in different 
 phases or stages of its development. Thus, as we are 
 told by an eminent authority on Crustacea, " the Zoea, 
 the Megalops, and the Carcinus Mcsnas, or shore crab, 
 are but the baby, the child, and the adult forms of a 
 single individual." 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 281 
 
 The Amphicyon is an animal which may have been 
 the common ancestor of the dog and the bear, although 
 more closely allied to the former than to the latter. 
 The Hycenarctos, on the contrary, possesses more ursine 
 than canine characteristics, but, by change of environ- 
 ment and under stress of circumstances, might have 
 branched off in either direction. The Archceopteryx 
 Lithographica was a sort of griffin, from which both 
 birds and reptiles may have descended. The Phena- 
 codus Primcevus may have been the progenitor of hoofed 
 animals or clawed animals, and needed only slight modi- 
 fications in order to ramify into either class of quadru- 
 peds. Examples of this sort abound among fossil crea-- 
 tures. 
 
 What is here shown to be true of living organisms is 
 still more probable of roots of speech; and the natural- 
 ist might, with at least equal cogency and validity, argue 
 analogically from the identity of these so exceedingly 
 diverse Crustacea, or from the common origin of man 
 and ape, that roots like da and gar, however much they 
 may differ in meaning, are really traceable to one and 
 the same source. 
 
 " Show me only one root in the language of ani- 
 mals," says Max Miiller, "such as ale, to be sharp and 
 quick, and from it two derivatives, as asva, the quick 
 one — the horse — and acutus, sharp or quick-witted; 
 nay, show me one animal that has the power of form- 
 ing roots, that can put one and two together, and real- 
 ize the simplest dual concept; show me one animal that 
 can think and say 'two,' and I should say that, so far 
 as language is concerned, we. can not oppose Mr. Dar- 
 win's argument, and that man has, or at least may have 
 been, developed from some lower animal." 
 
282 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Nothing could be more absurd than this sort of 
 philological ultimatum, since, according to the theory 
 of evolution, the language of animals has not yet reached 
 this stage of development; for it would then become 
 articulate speech, and be no longer the language of ani- 
 mals, but the language of man. But this is surely no 
 evidence or indication that one may not grow out of 
 the other; on the contrary, it rather suggests the possi- 
 bility of such growth and development. 
 
 We can not be certain, however, that animals may 
 not have general concepts. When a dog, in eager pur- 
 suit of some object, yelps ah-ah, how do we know that 
 this sharp utterance, which expresses the strong and 
 impatient desire of the dog to overtake the object, may 
 not stand in the canine mind for the general concept 
 of quickness? It is used in pursuing all animals and 
 inanimate things, bird, hare, squirrel, stick, or stone, 
 and cannot therefore denote any single one of them, 
 but must have a general signification. For aught we 
 know, the language of animals may be made up of un- 
 developed roots vaguely expressive of general concepts, 
 or may even contain derivative sounds. The bark of a 
 dog after bringing a stick or a stone to its master and 
 requesting him to throw it again is slightly different 
 from the sharp yelp uttered in pursuing it; and it is 
 impossible to know whether these sounds may not stand 
 to each other in the relation of the radical to its de- 
 rivative. 
 
 Darwin asserts that "the dog, since being domesti- 
 cated, has learned to bark in at least five or six distinct 
 tones, namely: the bark. of eagerness, as in the chase; 
 that of anger, as well as growling; the yelp, or howl of 
 despair, when shut up; the baying at night; the bark 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 283 
 
 of joy, when starting on a walk with his master; and 
 the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when 
 wishing for a door or window to be opened." This 
 variety of tones, expressing different desires and emo- 
 tions in an animal that in its wild state could not bark 
 at all, marks a very considerable advance in the power 
 of vocal utterance as the result of association with 
 man. 
 
 Max Miiller has recently come to the conclusion that 
 roots originated in cries uttered by men in performing 
 certain actions, such as digging, cutting, lifting, or 
 pounding. This so-called clamor concomitans, or sound 
 attending the action, became by association a clamor sig- 
 nificans, or sound signifying the action. This explana- 
 tion of the genesis of roots is doubtless, to a certain 
 extent, correct, but comes perilously near to the " bow- 
 wow" and "pooh-pooh" theories which he formerly 
 rejected with ridicule and ineffable scorn. It would be 
 hard, however, to find a finer combination of concomi- 
 tant and significant clamour than the deep bay of a 
 pack of hounds. 
 
 In one of his lectures Miiller quotes, as "an excel- 
 lent answer to the interjectional theory," the following 
 observations of Home Tooke in the Diversions of Pur- 
 ley: " The dominion of speech is erected upon the 
 downfall of interjections. Without the artful contriv- 
 ance of language, mankind would have had nothing 
 but interjections with which to communicate orally any 
 of their feelings. The neighing of a horse, the lowing 
 of a cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat, 
 sneezing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other 
 involuntary convulsion with oral sound have almost as 
 good a title to be called parts of speech as interjections 
 19 
 
284: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 have. Voluntary interjections are employed only when 
 the suddenness and vehemence of some affection or pas- 
 sion return men to their natural state, and make them 
 for a moment forget the use of speech; or when, from 
 some circumstance, the shortness of time will not per- 
 mit them to exercise it." 
 
 This passage really confirms in the strongest manner 
 the theory which it is cited in order to refute. The 
 dominion of every improved implement is founded upon 
 the downfall of an inferior implement. Thus the steel 
 plough has superseded the pointed piece of wood with 
 which the primitive hushandman scratched the surface 
 of the earth; the matchlock has supplanted the cross- 
 bow, the Eemington rifle the rude musket, and the 
 steam car the old stagecoach. Everywhere in the prog- 
 ress of human invention the better instrument takes 
 the place of the poorer one and robs it of its supremacy. 
 The evolution of language furnishes no exception to this 
 universal law. It is a means of communicating ideas 
 and emotions from one person to another, and the more 
 clearly, concisely, and forcibly it performs this function 
 the more perfect it is as an instrument. To speak of 
 the grammatically complicated, and therefore practi- 
 cally clumsy, Sanskrit as superior to the simple and 
 handy English, and to characterize the latter as the re- 
 sult of degeneration and decay, is an abuse of terms 
 involving an utter misconception of the purpose for 
 which language exists. Sanskrit may be more interest- 
 ing philologically than English, just as the five-toed 
 Eohippus and the three-toed Hipparion may be more 
 interesting anatomically than the horse; but no one 
 would deny that the modern quadruped combines in a 
 greater degree simplicity of structure with efficiency 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 285 
 
 of function, and is therefore, as an animal, superior 
 to its ancient prototypes. 
 
 The very fact that, as Home Tooke observes, men 
 return to their natural state in the use of interjections 
 and exclamations well-nigh proves that these are the 
 raw material, or linguistic protoplasm, out of which 
 articulate or organic speech was evolved. But to com- 
 pare a cough and a sneeze to an interjection, or to put 
 them in the same category with the neigh of a horse, 
 the bark of a dog, or the purr of a cat, shows a strange 
 lack of discrimination between purely physical and in- 
 voluntary convulsions and vocal sounds intended to 
 express emotions of the mind. A cough or a sneeze may 
 be more or less successfully imitated, like a stage laugh, 
 and thus become the sign and suggestion of an idea; but 
 a genuine cough or sneeze is a violent expulsion of the 
 air through the throat or nose in consequence of local 
 irritation beyond a man's control, and has, therefore, 
 no oral or intellectual element in it. 
 
 As regards the ability of animals to " think and say 
 ' two,' " it has been proved conclusively that the mag- 
 pie and some other birds, even in their wild state, can 
 count at least four, and this fact is recognised and util- 
 ized by fowlers; but if it be true that it is impossible to 
 form the concept " four " without the aid of language, 
 it follows that the magpie must be able to say " four " 
 in a language of its own. To deny this conclusion be- 
 cause we do not understand " margot " (as the magpie 
 language might be called) would be to set up our own 
 ignorance as a standard by which to test the magpie's 
 intellectual capacity, and thus fall into the fallacy of 
 argumentum ab ignorantia facti. This knowledge of 
 numeration can be greatly extended by instruction. A 
 
286 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 chimpanzee in the London Zoological Gardens, says 
 Mr. Komanes, has been taught to count five. Ask her 
 for four, three, two, or five straws in any order of suc- 
 cession, and she will give the exact number required. 
 She understands not only the names of these. numerals, 
 but also other words and phrases, just as a child does 
 before learning to speak. 
 
 All classification rests upon the power of generaliza- 
 tion, and this faculty belongs to the lower animals as 
 well as to men. As has been remarked by an acute ob- 
 server: " Dogs can distinguish strangers and acquaint- 
 ances, well-dressed persons from persons in rags, the 
 canine species from all other species. They can not 
 carry their classification far, not from want of memory 
 and intelligence, but from want of a well-defined lan- 
 guage and printed books." The dullest dog has a lively 
 perception of the difference between canine and feline. 
 No matter how much the particular dog may vary from 
 other individuals of the species, 
 
 As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
 Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, 
 
 he is never confounded with the cat, but is at once 
 recognised as canine. The dog not only thinks of these 
 so diverse creatures as belonging to the same class, but 
 is also conscious of belonging to it himself. Man's in- 
 tellectual superiority consists in possessing a greater 
 number of these concepts, and in being able to compare 
 and combine them in reasoning processes with greater 
 accuracy and facility, than the beast, although there 
 are tribes of men in which this superiority is so slight 
 as to be scarcely perceptible. 
 
 Thus, for example, the aborigines of Australia have 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 287 
 
 no words for the expression of abstract ideas or general 
 conceptions, not even collective names for animals and 
 plants, indicating a lack of the faculty of generalization. 
 Their ability to discriminate between animals of the 
 same species is far greater than the poverty of their 
 vocabulary would imply. They do not mistake a wild 
 duck for a wild goose, and yet they call them both 
 " monarum." Every poisonous serpent is a " wonge " 
 and every kind of turtle a " miaro." White is " barn- 
 bar " and black is " ngurue" but red, green, blue, and 
 yellow are lumped together as " beiar " ; but it would 
 be incorrect to infer from this want of special designa- 
 tions that they do not distinguish between these four 
 colours with the eye. The development of language 
 has not kept pace with the cultivation of the organs of 
 sense. Some Australian tribes can count only three, 
 and none of them more than five; " garro " is one, " 600 " 
 two, "lcorom.de" three, "wogaro" four, and "boo 
 horomde " five; more than five is " meian" many. Even 
 the natives who have learned a little English are not 
 able to count beyond six with any degree of certainty, 
 although they make use of the English numerals.* 
 
 Exclamations, according to Max Miiller, "are as 
 little to be called words as the expressive gestures which 
 usually accompany these exclamations." No one asserts 
 that they are words in the strict sense of the term; all 
 that is claimed for them is that they express thoughts 
 and feelings or reveal states of the mind, and may be 
 regarded as language. This he admits when he adds, 
 "In fact, interjections, together with gestures, the 
 
 * Im australischen Busch, von Richard Semon, Leipzig, 1896, 
 p. 240. 
 
288 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 movements of the muscles of the mouth and the eye, 
 would he quite sufficient for all purposes which lan- 
 guage answers with the majority of mankind." But 
 as such exclamations and gesticulations are not words 
 and do not constitute language, the majority of man- 
 kind are destitute of thought, since we are assured that 
 "language and thought are inseparable," and that 
 "there is no thought without words, as little as there 
 are words without thought." 
 
 Prof. Mansel is nearer the truth when he says, " As 
 a matter of necessity, men must think by symbols; as a 
 matter of fact, they do think by language." But al- 
 though words are the most convenient and most perfect 
 symbols of thought, they are by no means the only ones. 
 A man can count three by holding up three fingers, or 
 by touching three objects, or by laying down three 
 sticks, as the Veddahs do in bartering, without the aid 
 of articulate speech. A dog can do the same by barking 
 three times. It is not true that " language begins where 
 interjections end." Articulate speech begins where 
 pantomimic expression, emphasized by mere hooting 
 and hallooing, ends; but both are instruments of 
 thought and symbols for the representation and com- 
 munication of ideas. 
 
 "Speech," as Prof. Whitney has justly observed, 
 "is not a personal possession, but a social institution. 
 What we may severally choose to say is not language 
 until it is accepted and employed by our fellows. The 
 whole development of speech is wrought out by the 
 community. That is a word, and only that, which is 
 understood in a community. Their mutual understand- 
 ing is the tie that connects it with the idea. It is a 
 sign which each one has acquired from without, from 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 289 
 
 the usage of others." Goethe, in his epigram Etymolo- 
 gie, expresses the same thought: 
 
 So wird erst nach und nach die Sprache fcstgerammclt, 
 Und was ein Volk zusammen sich gestammelt, 
 Muss ewiges Gesetz fur Herz und Seele sein. 
 
 " Man," says Wilhelm Ton Humboldt, " understands 
 himself fully only by testing the intelligibility of his 
 words on others. The objectivity is increased when the 
 word which he has formed is echoed back to him from 
 the mouth of another. At the same time, it is not there- 
 by robbed in the least of its subjective character, since 
 man feels himself always one with man." What is felt 
 and expressed by the individual must be refelt and re- 
 expressed by the mass and stamped with its indorse- 
 ment before it is accepted as speech. 
 
 One who is deaf and dumb from his birth learns to 
 give digital instead of lingual expression to his thoughts, 
 and it has been observed that such a person in the act 
 of thinking almost unconsciously moves his fingers, as 
 though thought and digital action (as a substitute for 
 articulation) were necessarily and inseparably connect- 
 ed, thus proving that, while speech is a natural instru- 
 ment for the expression of thought, other purely con- 
 ventional methods may be substituted for it, and 
 through habit may become quite as strongly associated 
 with the thinking processes. 
 
 Among savage tribes, and even among a people so 
 highly civilized as the Arabs, signs and gestures play 
 a very important part in the expression of thought, and 
 the Neapolitan's love of pantomime and skill in the use 
 of it are well known. Of the Veddahs of Ceylon Sir 
 James Emerson Tennent says, "So degraded are some 
 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of these wretched outcasts that it has appeared doubt- 
 ful in certain cases whether they have any language 
 whatever "; and Mr. 6. E. Mercer, who, by a long resi- 
 dence in their country, acquired an intimate knowledge 
 of their habits, affirms that "even their . communica- 
 tions with one another are made by signs, grimaces, 
 and guttural sounds which bear little or no resemblance 
 to distinct words or systematized language." It is not 
 correct, from an anthropological point of view, to char- 
 acterize the Veddahs as " degraded." They are simply 
 primitive and undeveloped. They are the remains of 
 the aborigines of Ceylon; and the few articulate words 
 they utter they have learned, parrotlike, from the Sin- 
 ghalese, who invaded and conquered the country, and 
 now constitute its chief population. 
 
 Lord Monboddo's seemingly absurd and much-ridi- ■ 
 culed theory that language was formed by an assembly 
 of learned men convened for that purpose is right so far 
 as it affirms the conventional and communal character [ , 4 
 of articulate speech and written language; and this is. 
 doubtless all that the laird meant to imply by hisrather 
 bullish statement.. He did not intend to assert that lan- 
 guage was framed, like a political platform, by a bddy 
 of men come together expressly for that object, but 
 that it was gradually developed in consequence of their 
 coming together as individuals, families, and communi-- 
 ties, and endeavouring to understand one another- by 
 means of gestures and exclamations and onomatopoeic 
 sounds. It was also the mcjst intelligent men of their 
 time; those who were endowed with the greatest ampunt 
 of wisdom, the quickest wits, and the readiest faculty of 
 invention; in short, the foremost men of primitive life, '. 
 who, contributed most to this result. Then, as now, 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 291 
 
 the progress of the race was due to the impetus imparted 
 to it by the best brains, and was less the effect of happy 
 chance than we are fain to imagine. 
 
 Articulate speech is an immense help to the intel- 
 lectual processes of induction and deduction, abstrac- 
 tion and generalization, but by no means essential to 
 these mental operations. As Dr. Paul Carus observes, 
 " The act of naming is an enormous economy of mental 
 activity "; but it is not absolutely necessary to this kind 
 of activity. 
 
 The fox must have an abstract idea of danger apart 
 frem any concrete form or embodiment of it; other- 
 wise he would not be constantly on the alert, anticipat- 
 ing peril when it is not present. Flourens asserts, " It 
 is a fact that beasts do not form general ideas, and it 
 is another fact that man does form them"; he then 
 adds: " The study of mind by mind is that which puts 
 the final stamp upon the profound difference separating 
 beast from man. Intelligence in beasts does not study 
 intelligence." Buffon caps the climax of this sort of 
 dogmatism by declaring that in animals " c'est le corps 
 qui parle au corps." A body talking to another body 
 without the mediation of mental faculties would be a 
 phenomenon worth seeing. 
 
 Pantomime is the natural language of man and the 
 lower animals, and is intelligible without previous study. 
 In this respect it differs from articulate speech, which 
 is mainly conventional in its character. A word has 
 the meaning which common eonsent has tacitly attrib- 
 uted to it, and which usage has sanctioned. It is not 
 necessary, however, that any two persons should agree 
 beforehand as to the signification of mimetig*movements 
 in order to be able to communicate their ideas in this 
 
292 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 manner. Two deaf-mutes, or savages of alien tribes, 
 on meeting for the first time, have no definite stock 
 of signs with which to converse, but create them as 
 they go along. If one sign fails to express the 
 thought clearly, they try another. If A wishes to 
 convey to C the drift of a previous conversation 
 with B, he will do so by means of signs many of which 
 differ from those used in conversing with B. He 
 will constantly invent new and more expressive signs, 
 and thereby convey his meaning more fully and 
 distinctly than in his first conversation. This natural 
 sign language may be enlarged and perfected, as it is 
 in institutes for deaf-mutes, by the introduction of con- 
 ventional elements, and thus an extended mimetic sys- 
 tem for the communication of thought may be devel- 
 oped. 
 
 The dog expresses thoughts and emotions by wag- 
 ging his tail, to quite as good purpose as many persons 
 do by wagging their tongues. We impart our wishes 
 to animals almost exclusively by gestures, until they 
 learn to understand our words, which then alone suf- 
 fice, so that the pantomime is no longer necessary except 
 for sake of emphasis in case they refuse to obey. Ani- 
 mals also, in communicating their desires to us, make 
 use of signs accompanied by all sorts of vocal utter- 
 ances, which through association have become intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 Among insects, especially ants and bees, the lan- 
 guage of gesture is highly developed. Owing to the 
 smallness of these creatures, it is difficult to observe 
 them in their conversational intercourse, and their re- 
 moteness from us in structure "and organization renders 
 it still more difficult for us to identify ourselves with 
 
BAERIEB, BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 293 
 
 them through sympathy, and to get a clear conception 
 of their states of mind. We are fully justified, how- 
 ever, in inferring from their conduct that they com- 
 municate their ideas to one another with rapidity, pre- 
 cision, and intelligibleness. " If psychologists of to- 
 day," remarks Prof. Wundt, "overlooking all that an 
 animal can express through gestures and sounds, limit 
 the possession of language to mankind, such a con- 
 clusion is scarcely less absurd than that of many philoso- 
 phers of antiquity who regarded the languages of bar- 
 barous nations as animal cries." 
 
 This observation is perfectly true, but not new, in- 
 asmuch as it was made more than fourteen centuries 
 ago by the Neoplatonist Porphyrius in his treatise on 
 abstinence from animal food (irepl airo^ lfiAJ/u\<isv). 
 After stating that the different tones used by animals 
 show that they have a language for the expression of 
 different sentiments, such as anger, fear, and affection, 
 he adds: " To deny animals language because it is unin- 
 telligible to us would be as absurd as for the crows to 
 maintain that their croaking is the only rational speech, 
 and that we are devoid of reason because we do not 
 understand it; or for the inhabitants of Attica to claim 
 that theirs is the only language, and that all who do 
 not speak it are devoid of reason. Nevertheless, an in- 
 habitant of Attica could as easily understand the lan- 
 guage of crows as those of Persians and Syrians." For- 
 eign tongues, to those who hear them for the first time, 
 are hardly more intelligible than the inarticulate sounds 
 uttered by animals. The Emperor Julian compared the 
 speech of the Germans to the caw of ravens, and to the 
 Athenians the conversation of Thracians and Scythians 
 sounded like the chatter of cranes. 
 
294 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Prof. Jaeger'a assertion that animals have merely 
 emotional language (Gefuhlssprache) in distinction from 
 the language of thought (Gedankensprache) is psycho- 
 logically untenable. In all operations of the mind, 
 thoughts and feelings are inextricably interblended, 
 and it is impossible to draw a line of demarcation be- 
 tween them. There is no language of emotion as op- 
 posed to or essentially distinct from language of 
 thought. Emotion is only thought under tension, 
 thought strongly emphasized and impelled by desire." 
 Every cry or exclamation presupposes an idea or intel- 
 lectual conception, without which the emotion would 
 never arise; and it is hardly possible to determine where 
 the one begins and the other ends. 
 
 To what an extent animals are at the mercy of meta- 
 physicians is illustrated by the following passage from 
 a treatise by Prof. Green: " There is no reason to sup- 
 pose, because the burnt dog shuns the fire, that it per- 
 ceives any relation between it and the pain of being 
 burnt. . . . The dog's conduct may be accounted for 
 by the simple sequence of an imagination upon a visual 
 sensation, resembling ones which actual pain has pre- 
 viously followed. . . . Till dogs can talk, what data 
 have we on which to found another explanation? " We 
 have precisely the same data in the case of the burnt 
 dog as in the case of the burnt child who shuns the fire; 
 and we are justified in reasoning from analogy that 
 the conduct of the dog is due to the same perception 
 of cause and effect as that of the child. " The simple 
 sequence of an imagination upon a visual sensation, 
 resembling ones which actual pain has previously fol- 
 lowed," means, when translated from metaphysical 
 jargon into plain English, that, when a dog sees a flame, 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 295 
 
 its resemblance to another flame which burned him 
 leads him to avoid it, lest this one should also burn 
 him. The misfortune of dogs in not being endowed 
 with articulate speech is greatly aggravated if it renders 
 them liable to have such elaborate philosophy as this 
 mouthed over them. 
 
 The phenomenon of aphasia furnishes additional 
 evidence that the faculty of speech is not essential to 
 the exercise of thought or to the power of reasoning. 
 Aphasia, or speechlessness, as has been shown by Bouil- 
 land, Broca, and other pathologists, is the result of a 
 disease or lesion of the third frontal convolution of the 
 left hemisphere of the brain. Any injury of this part 
 produces a partial or complete loss of articulate speech 
 without disturbing or diminishing in the least the 
 action of the intellectual faculties. The vocal organs 
 and all the mechanism of articulation remain intact, 
 and the ability to think logically and consecutively is 
 unimpaired. There is no paralysis of the muscular ap- 
 paratus necessary to the enunciation of words, and no 
 derangement of the mental operations so far as the for- 
 mation and orderly sequence of conceptions are con- 
 cerned; only the power of correct verbal expression is 
 gone. Max Miiller speaks with contempt of "a fold 
 of the brain "; but here we have an instance in which 
 articulate speech is dependent upon the full develop- 
 ment and the healthy action of a mere fold of the brain, 
 which, if his own theory be true, is the Kubicon sepa- 
 rating man from the brute. 
 
 The aphasiac can express his thoughts and feelings 
 by facial movements, gesticulations, and guttural noises, 
 but is unable to articulate words correctly. He thus 
 reverts to the condition of mankind prior to the develop- 
 
296 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ment of the speech-producing cerebral convolution plus 
 the knowledge and mental capacity acquired since that 
 time. Finkelnburg reports the extreme case of a woman 
 whose memory for things and persons was normal, and 
 in whose general conduct nothing anomalous was ob- 
 servable, but who had lost entirely the use of speech, 
 and could understand neither spoken nor written words. 
 She was a pious Catholic, but never made the sign of 
 the cross of her own accord or when told to do so, yet 
 readily imitated others when she saw them do it. She 
 was in the hospital three months, but never learned 
 that the ringing of the bell was the signal for dinner. 
 Symbols even of the most general character had for her 
 no significance; her understanding was confined strictly 
 and directly to things, and her consciousness seems to 
 have sunk to the level of a rather dull anthropoid. 
 
 In apes, cretins, and many microcephalous persons, 
 the convolution of the brain on which the power of 
 articulate speech depends is rudimentary. Human and 
 simian brains are constructed on precisely the same plan, 
 and differ only in the development and consequent ar- 
 rangement of the convolutions. " In man," says Prof. 
 Vogt, " the third frontal convolution is extraordinarily 
 developed and covers the insula, while the transverse 
 central convolutions are much less prominent; in the 
 ape, on the contrary, the third frontal convolution is 
 but slightly developed, while the central transverse con- 
 volutions are very large, descending quite to the edge 
 of the hemisphere and giving to the fissure of Sylvius 
 the form of a V." 
 
 The difference is one of degree, and not of kind, 
 resulting from the higher evolution of the same type. 
 Max Miiller admits it to be possible and intelligible that 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 297 
 
 "that most wonderful of organs, the eye, has been de- 
 veloped out of a pigmentary spot, and the ear out of 
 a particularly sore place in the skin — that, in fact, an 
 animal without any organs of sense may in time grow 
 into an animal with organs of sense "; but " by no effort 
 of the understanding, by no stretch of imagination," 
 he declares, " can I explain to myself how language 
 could have grown out of anything which animals pos- 
 sess, even if we granted them millions of years for that 
 purpose." In other words, he can imagine how a sore 
 spot in the skin could grow into a complex and delicate 
 organ like the ear, or a sensitive black spot could de- 
 velop into the marvellous mechanism of the eye, but by 
 no mental effort can he conceive how an imperfectly 
 developed convolution in the brain of an ape could 
 become a perfectly developed convolution in the brain 
 of a man. Surely this is one of the strangest freaks of 
 the imagination on record. Yet he admits the correct- 
 ness of Dr. Broca's conclusions on this subject. " So 
 much," he says, "seems to be established: if a certain 
 portion of the brain on the left side of the anterior lobe 
 happens to be affected by disease, the patient becomes 
 unable to use rational language; while, unless some 
 other mental disease is added to aphasia, he retains the 
 faculty of emotional language, and of communicating 
 with others by means of signs and gestures." This state- 
 ment is not exact. Aphasia is not the loss of rational 
 language, but of articulate speech, which is something 
 quite different. The aphasiac can exercise his reasoning 
 powers and can entertain and express by pantomime 
 rational ideas, but he is unable to utter or embody them 
 in either oral or written words, although he may under- 
 stand them when addressed to his ear or eye. 
 
298 ANIMAL PYSCHOLOQY. 
 
 Sometimes there is not an entire cessation, but a 
 curious and comical perversion of speech in the pa- 
 tients, who use words having no connection with the 
 ideas they wish to convey, and are often, though not 
 always, unconscious of any discrepancy or impropriety 
 in their language. Thus Trousseau narrates the case 
 of a lady who, on receiving a call, met her visitor with 
 a kindly smile, and, pointing to a chair, exclaimed, 
 "Pig, brute, stupid fool!" "Madame begs you to be 
 seated," said a friend who was present, and thus inter- 
 preted the courtesy really intended by the rude greet- 
 ing. The lady's conduct was otherwise sensible, and 
 her process of thought logical and rational, although 
 her utterances were wholly irrelevant, and usually most 
 coarse when meant to be most charming. 
 
 Another striking case, recorded by Trousseau and 
 cited by Bateman, is that of Prof. Eostan, who, while 
 occupied in reading one of Lamartine's literary con- 
 versations, began to be aware that he only partially 
 comprehended the sense of the text. He stopped for a 
 moment, then resumed his reading, and again experi- 
 enced the same difficulty. He became alarmed, and 
 wished to call for assistance, when, to his surprise, he 
 found himself unable to speak a word. It now occurred 
 to him that he might have had a stroke of apoplexy, 
 but he could move all his limbs and could discover no 
 evidences of paralysis. He rang the bell, but when the 
 servant appeared he could not tell what he wanted. 
 He could move his tongue in all directions, and seemed 
 to have full control of his vocal organs, but could not 
 express a thought by speech. He made a sign that he 
 wished to write, but when pen and ink and paper were 
 brought, although he had the perfect use of his hand, 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 299 
 
 he could not express a thought by writing. After the 
 lapse of two or three hours a physician came, and Ros- 
 tan, turning up his sleeve and pointing to his arm, 
 thereby manifested the desire to be bled. No sooner 
 was this done, and the local pressure on the brain re- 
 lieved, than he was able to utter a few words, and after 
 twelve hours was completely restored and could speak 
 as well as ever. 
 
 An orang-outang that had once been bled on ac- 
 count of illness, not feeling well some time afterward, 
 went from one person to another, and, pointing to the 
 vein in his arm, signified plainly enough that he wished 
 the operation to be repeated. In this instance, the 
 orang, not being endowed with articulate speech owing 
 to the rudimentary condition of a convolution of the 
 brain, expressed his ideas just as the Frenchman did, 
 who had been temporarily deprived of the faculty of 
 articulate speech owing to the suspension of function 
 in the same convolution of the brain. The process of 
 reasoning was identical in both cases. The idea of re- 
 covery from sickness was associated with the act of 
 venesection as the result of experience. In short, the 
 man reverted for the time being to the condition of the 
 monkey. How then should it be deemed a thing im- 
 possible for him to have risen out of such a condition? 
 
 It is also interesting to note that an injury to the 
 brain of the lower animals sometimes produces phe- 
 nomena analogous to those of aphasia in man; causing 
 birds, for example, to sing their notes wrong, reversing 
 the intonation and accent, like the quail mentioned by 
 Dr. Abbott, which, owing to such an accident, per- 
 sistently whistled " white-bob " instead of " bob- white." 
 
 It would be superfluous to multiply instances of the 
 20 
 
300 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 capability of understanding articulate speech mani- 
 fested by monkeys, horses, dogs, cats, elephants, birds, 
 and other animals which acquire this power, as children 
 do, through the ear and by the exercise of attention. 
 They also show a nice discrimination in distinguishing 
 between words similar in sound; A parrot or a raven 
 masters a new sentence by repeating it, and working 
 at it, just as a schoolboy solves a hard problem. These 
 birds associate sounds with objects, and thus invent 
 names for them. Every dog is a " bow-wow," and every 
 cat a "miau-miau." The denotative term has an ono- 
 matopoetic origin, and by the process of generalization 
 is applied to all animals of the species; it is not neces- 
 sary that the parrot should have heard each individual 
 dog bark or cat mew before giving it its appropriate 
 name. A raven belonging to Gotthard Heidegger, a 
 clergyman and rector of the gymnasium in Zurich, was 
 constantly picking up words dropped in general con- 
 versation, and using them afterward in the most sur- 
 prising manner. 
 
 Even animals whose laryngeal apparatus is not 
 structurally adapted to the production of articulate 
 sounds may be taught to utter them. Leibnitz mentions 
 a dog which had learned to pronounce thirty words dis- 
 tinctly. In the Dumfries Journal of January, 1829, an 
 account is given of a dog which called out " William " 
 so as to be clearly understood; and Mr. Eomanes cites 
 the case of an English terrier which had been taught 
 to say, "How are you, grandmam?" The careful and 
 systematic experiments now being made in this direction 
 by Prof. A. Graham Bell and other scientists are ex- 
 ceedingly interesting, and may lead to important re- 
 sults. 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 301 
 
 In -view of these facts, it is evident that the barrier 
 between human and animal intelligence, once deemed 
 impassable, is becoming more and more imperceptible, 
 and with the rapid progress of zoopsychological re- 
 search will soon disappear altogether. "When we 
 remember," says Prof. Sayce, "the inarticulate clicks 
 which still form part of the Bushman's language, it 
 would seem as if no line of division could be drawn 
 between man and beast, even when language is made the 
 test." Apes make use of similar clicks for a like pur- 
 pose, and these sounds are doubtless survivals of speech 
 before it became distinctively articulate. 
 
 Max Miiller expresses great contempt for what he 
 calls " nursery philology," which, he thinks, can throw 
 no light on the origin of human speech. " The two 
 problems, how a child learns to speak English, and 
 how language was elaborated for the first time, are as 
 remote from each other as the two poles." This remark 
 betrays an utter misconception of the objects to be at- 
 tained by observing the earliest stages in the mental 
 development of infants. It is not to see how a child 
 learns English or German or any other known language, 
 but how it attempts to construct a language of its own 
 for the expression of its thoughts, that interests the 
 psychologist, and may aid him in solving the problem 
 of the origin of speech. That it " can be solved by a 
 careful analysis of language, such as it exists in the im- 
 mense variety of spoken languages all over the globe," 
 is highly improbable, and, indeed, from the very nature 
 of the questions involved, quite impossible. All efforts 
 that have been made in this direction from the dawn 
 of philosophical speculation to the present time have 
 failed, and are forever predoomed to failure. 
 
302 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 The philologist can no more explain the origin of 
 roots by the study of languages than the physiologist 
 can discover the origin of protoplasm by dissecting vital 
 organisms, or the psychologist can determine the origin 
 of the will by appealing to consciousness. Given roots, 
 and there is no mystery about the growth and structure 
 of language; given protoplasm, and the evolution of 
 organic life in harmony with its environment is per- 
 fectly intelligible; and a correct conception of volition 
 is the safest clew to the intricate maze of human con- 
 duct and the soundest basis on which to build a system 
 of ethics. It must be remembered, too, that in spoken 
 and written language there are no roots, but only the 
 outgrowths of roots — namely, words arranged in sen- 
 tences. The dictionary defines a root as "a primitive 
 form of speech, one of the earliest terms employed in 
 language"; but so far as our knowledge extends, no 
 tribe of men, however primitive, ever used such a form 
 of speech, and no such terms are found in any lan- 
 guage. Eoots as such have then no real and independ- 
 ent existence, and, while it would be hardly correct 
 perhaps to call them fictions of the philologist, they 
 are the products of philological analysis, and exist in 
 human speech only as the protoplasmic element out of 
 which it is evolved. 
 
 In a brilliant lecture on Atoms, the late Prof . Clif- 
 ford describes the movements of these molecules as they 
 swing around and then fly away in different directions, 
 mutually approaching and receding, and behaving to 
 one another " somewhat in the same way as two people 
 do who are dancing Sir Eoger de Coverley." An en- 
 thusiastic critic, who quotes the whole passage, remarks, 
 " Such scientific exposition as this is as beautiful as 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 303 
 
 poetry"; and lie might have added, like poetry, it is 
 purely a creation of the imagination. -The particles, 
 whose motions are so minutely and vividly depicted, 
 are wholly hypothetical, and, if a matter-of-fact pupil 
 were to ask the professor where he sees all these beauti- 
 ful things, he could only reply, with Hamlet, "In my 
 mind's eye, Horatio." They belong to the realm of 
 mythopoetic fancy, as truly as do the Muses of Apollo 
 or " the rosy-bosomed Hours in fair Venus' train." 
 
 Equally remote from human experience and impos- 
 sible at any period in the evolution of the human race is 
 Max Miiller's often-quoted description of the processes 
 by which such roots as pat and mar were " tuned down " 
 into their present " smooth and manageable " shape, and 
 rendered serviceable as signs of general concepts. There 
 is no stage in the growth of human speech in which one 
 can conceive of such a process having taken place, and 
 every attempt to imagine and to describe it leads logic- 
 ally to no end of philological contradictions and psy- 
 chological absurdities. 
 
 In the first part of this chapter we quoted Max Miil- 
 ler's theory of " roots as ultimate facts," and his warn- 
 ing of some mysterious danger that would be incurred 
 by the rejection of this view. He now adopts the hy- 
 pothesis suggested by the late Prof. Noire, "that the 
 primitive roots of Aryan speech may owe their origin to 
 the sounds which naturally accompany many acts per- 
 formed in common by members of a family, a clan, or a 
 village." Here we have the strange spectacle of men so 
 highly civilized as to be living together in families, clans, 
 or villages, and yet by their joint efforts in performing 
 certain tasks that require their united strength, creating 
 the primitive roots of their language. But as all words 
 
304 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 are derived from roots, and all human languages are 
 evolved out of roots, and every thought that ever crossed 
 thejnind of man can be traced back to a few simple con- 
 cepts embodied in roots, what was the language of the 
 families and communities thus engaged in unconsciously, 
 but not the less really, producing the roots of their lan- 
 guage ? The only logical inference from the premises 
 is that they were speechless, and although Max Miiller 
 distinctly and disdainfully repudiates the Homo alalus, 
 and declares that he knows nothing of such a creature, 
 the theory he advocates brings us face to face, not merely 
 with the Homo aMus, as a solitary individual, but with 
 socially organized masses of homines alali, toiling to- 
 gether and " finding relief in emitting their breath in 
 more or less musical modulation," and thus uttering 
 concomitant sounds which express their common acts 
 and become " the germs of conceptual language " called 
 roots. It was in this way that the concept of rubbing 
 came to " be expressed by mar, and that of tearing by 
 dar." The same holds true of the roots pa to protect 
 and ma to form. As the words derived from these roots 
 are necessarily of later origin than the roots themselves 
 we are driven to the conclusion that the Aryans, at the 
 time when they began to live in families, clans, or vil- 
 lages, and before they had shouted in unison at their work 
 and thus created these roots, had no words for death 
 (mara), or disease (mari), or rent (ddra), or even for 
 father (pitri) and mother {matri), since the parenthetic 
 words are admitted to be the oldest terms in the Aryan 
 family of languages used to express these concepts or to 
 denote these relations, and could not therefore have been 
 preceded by any others, a conclusion which is a com- 
 plete reductio ad absurdum of the whole symphonic or 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 305 
 
 " synergistic " theory as applied to the origin of human 
 speech. 
 
 Again, we are told in a passage already cited that the 
 point in the process of evolution where the animal ceases 
 and the man begins is coincident with the formation of 
 the roots of language, and that these roots constitute an 
 impassable barrier between man and beast. If this state- 
 ment be correct, we are at a loss to know how to classify 
 zoologically our primitive ancestors, who had not yet 
 had occasion to perform acts in common, and whom the 
 etymogenetie clamor concomitans had therefore not yet 
 provided with the stock of radicals essential to the de- 
 velopment of speech and of general ideas. So far as 
 their claims to humanity are concerned, they are cer- 
 tainly on the wrong side of the barrier, and can lift them- 
 selves over it only by united and persistent exertions of 
 the lungs in crying yo-he-ho! 
 
 That there was a time " when the first sound of lan- 
 guage burst forth from the breast of the first man, as yet 
 dumb " is admitted by Max Miiller, who quotes with ap- 
 proval a sentence to this effect from Steinthal. Here 
 we are again thrown into the disreputable society of " the 
 Homo alalus, the speechless progenitor of Homo sa- 
 piens," notwithstanding the cynical reproach made to 
 Prof. Romanes for seeming to be " so intimately 
 acquainted " with that questionable individual. What 
 sort of creature could "this first man, as yet dumb," 
 this unspeakable Caliban, have been? According to the 
 definition, he did not possess the one essential charac- 
 teristic of man, and must therefore have been a brute 
 "honour'd with a human shape"; and although we are 
 assured that " whatever animals may do or not do, no ani- 
 mal has ever spoken," speech did burst forth from the 
 
306 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 breast pf this primeval animal, and the anthropoid prod- 
 igy, rational but not yet orational, suddenly spoke out 
 and beGame the ancestor of a flippant and garrulous 
 race. 
 
 The origin of language, like the origin of life^ is so 
 obscure that some thinkers, in despair of discovering it, 
 have been content to let it remain a mystery by declaring 
 it to be a special gift of God, with which man was en- 
 dowed at his creation or which was taught him imme- 
 diately afterward by his Creator. In either case, the 
 gift must have been transmissible from generation to 
 generation in order to become the heirloom of the race. 
 No one, however, will maintain that a child inherits its 
 language from its parents; what it inherits is the faculty, 
 which its earliest progenitors must have also possessed, 
 of producing a language, and this power is not the less 
 creative, because with the child of to-day the process is 
 facilitated and the result determined by its social and 
 domestic environment. But the existence of such a 
 faculty and its continued exercise can be fully accounted 
 for by the doctrine of evolution without necessitating the 
 intervention of a deus ex machina. Indeed, an act of 
 special creation would explain or rather account for the 
 possession of this faculty by the person on whom it was 
 miraculously conferred, but not by his descendants. As 
 Steinthal observes, "What a man has been exception- 
 ally endowed with by God no other man can learn from 
 him." Only that is learnable which comes through the 
 natural and progressive development of the power of 
 learning inherent in the race, and which each individual 
 is capable of learning for himself, though less easily 
 than through intercourse with others. The theory of 
 the divine origin of language may therefore be set aside 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 307 
 
 as unscientific, since it evades the question instead of 
 answering it, and complicates. the problem by substi- 
 tuting two mysteries for one, and as inadequate, since 
 it fails to account for the phenomena in their historical 
 continuity. 
 
 Apart from the untenable assumption of supernat- 
 uralism, all principles involved in the origin of language 
 may be reduced to three : the onomatopoetic, the inter- 
 jectional and the synergistic principle, or according to 
 Max Mutter's vernacular and expressive nomenclature, 
 the bow-wow, the pooh-pooh, and the yo-he-ho theories. 
 " Those who appeal to words like thunder as derived from 
 the rumbling sound in the clouds without any concep- 
 tual root standing between our conceptual word thunder 
 and these unconceptual noises, hold the bow-wow 
 theory. Those who hold that fiend is derived from fie, 
 without any conceptual root standing between the un- 
 conceptual fie and the conceptual word fiend, hold the 
 pooh-pooh theory. Those who would derive to heave 
 and to hoist from sounds like yo-he-ho, would hold 
 what may be called the yo-he-ho theory." In this con- 
 nection, Max Miiller states that " the yo-he-ho theory is 
 the very opposite of what Noire called the synergistic 
 theory " ; although he does not make the distinction 
 clear and was himself the first who substituted this slang 
 term for the dignified Greek designation, when he en- 
 deavoured to show how the roots mar, dar, and tan might 
 have been produced by men engaged in common acts of 
 grinding, tearing, and stretching, and finding relief in 
 emitting their breath in musical modulation, as sailors 
 are wont to do in pulling ropes. The same synergistic 
 activity of primitive men in gulping their food and the 
 noise of simultaneous deglutition would give rise to the 
 
308 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 * * " 
 
 root gar, to swallow; whereas the reverse process of dis- 
 gorging the contents of .an overloaded stomach and the/ 
 unmistakable sound attending this operation, especially 
 when performed by several persons synchronously, as 
 was the custom of Eoman jjormands at their banquets, 
 would be expressed by vam, a root that is found in every* 
 Aryan tongue, thus proving at what a very early period 
 this vigorous race began, as the Germans' say " to call 
 upon the name of St. Ulrich." It will never do for the 
 godfather of Yo-he-ho, who stood sponsor for the, in- 
 fant and held it so tenderly in his arms at the font, to 
 repudiate this youngest born of philological bantlings, 
 simply because, as it grows older, it bears so strong a re- ' 
 semblance to its big and burly brother Bow-wow. 
 
 As regards the second of the above-mentioned theo- ,. 
 ries, we can hardly believe that even the most inveterate 
 pooh-poohist would derive fiend from fie either directly 
 or indirectly. Irascible Germans, under strong excite-^ 
 ment, are apt to link the words together in the scornful 
 phrase, Pfui! Teufel! But no one who has given any 
 thought to the subject would connect them etymologic- 
 ally. 
 
 In the sentence which we have quoted there seems, 
 to be also a queer confusion of ideas concerning the con- 
 ceptual and the unconceptual. Thunder, regarded as 
 the report which follows the discharge of atmospherical 
 electricity, may be properly spoken of as an unconcep- ■'" 
 tual noise; yet it is something more than this to the 
 primitive man or the savage, who hears in it the voice of 
 an angry deity. Again, if a person wishes to inform an- 
 other that he has heard thunder by pointing to' the sky 
 and imitating the sound, the rumble thus produced is 
 no longer unconceptual, but becomes the sign of a dis- 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 309 
 
 tinct and intelligible idea. * So, too, of interjections, 
 such as fie "and fudge, they express the concept of min- 
 gled incredulity * and contempt as clearly as any colloca- 
 tion of words in a sentence could do. This theory is 
 carried so far by its author as to lead Kim to the assertion 
 that mispronunciation annihilates a word, the change of 
 a vowel or consonant, or " only an accent " sufficing to 
 deprive it of its articulate character and to resolve it 
 into empty noise, or " what Heraclitus would call a mere 
 psophos." This position is justly characterized by Prof. 
 Whitney as "not only wrong, but ludicrously wrong." 
 What becomes of the hundreds of words in the English 
 language which many persons habitually mispronounce, 
 and even .lexicographers accent differently? Does this 
 deviation in orthoepy destroy the conceptual quality of 
 the word and reduce it to a mere noise? As regards the 
 term psophos (^o<^os), here somewhat pedantically in- 
 troduced, it was used by Greek writers in distinction 
 from phone {<fa»rq), vocal sound or tone, and Aristotle 
 calls phone the psophos of animate creatures (-q <j>a>vrj </ro^>os 
 Tis toTO' e/u/T;^ ")' DU t it dial not necessarily mean mere 
 noise. It was also employed to denote the cries of peo- 
 ple in the street or on the market place, and other sig- 
 nificant sounds, including those produced by insects as 
 well as the conventional rap on the door (xfro^dv d/v 
 Ovpav) by which a visitor announced his presence and 
 virtually asked whether he might enter. On the other 
 hand, phone was applied to the utterances of beasts as 
 well as of men, and even to "the noises of inanimate 
 things, as when Sophocles speaks of the voice of the 
 loom (icepictSos (fumy). Indeed, if any inference could 
 be drawn from an exhaustive and critical comparison 
 of the passages in which these words are used, not 
 
310 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 only by Heraclitus, but in a far more frequent and 
 philosophical manner by Aristotle and his contempora- 
 ries, it would certainly not favour the notion that a word 
 is robbed of its significance by mispronunciation, or con- 
 verted into mere noise by a false accent. That epochal 
 clamor concomitants in which, according to the syner- 
 gistic and, as Whitney calls it, "utterly fantastic 
 theory," language had its origin, would have been to the 
 Greeks a mere psophosi '"«■ 
 
 Wholly untenable, too, is the assertion that no 
 traces of conceptual thought are discoverable in the lower 
 animals. The very lowest forms of organic life com- 
 municate with each other by means of sounds, although 
 in many cases the manner of their production has not yet _ 
 been definitely determined. Some insects possess vocal 
 organs in the proper sense of the term and are thus en- 
 abled to give voice to their emotions, while others ex- 
 press their desires in a more mechanical way by the buzz- 
 ing vibration of their wings or the stridultfus friction of 
 their legs. The death's-head moth has a sort of bagpipe 
 arrangement, consisting of an internal sack and a probos- 
 cis through which the air is forced, producing a shrill 
 and doleful treble like that of the so-called chanter of the 
 Scotch instrument. Gnats have a twofold mode of ex- 
 pression — a voice accompanied by deeper tones made by 
 the movement of the wings. This combination of 
 sounds constitutes their language and, in a limited de- 
 gree, appeals to them in the same manner as speech does 
 to man, so that they are attracted by an imitation of it 
 with the human voice or on a violin. Prof. Landois 
 gives a comical example of this in his work on Thierstim- 
 men: " One day," he says, " I found my servant boy in 
 the garden engaged in his favourite occupation of doing 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 311 
 
 nothing. By chance a swarm of musquitoes was hover- 
 ing in the air near me. I called the fellow and reproved 
 him for his laziness, and raising my voice to the mus- 
 quito pitch of high E said: ' If you don't go and black 
 the boots properly, I'll have you stung to death by 
 musquitoes.' The words were hardly uttered when the 
 whole swarm came down upon him, causing him to flee 
 in terror from the wizard, who had even the musquitoes 
 at his command." In this purely musical language the 
 tone varies slightly perhaps with the individual, but very 
 perceptibly with the sex of the insect, the male having a 
 somewhat higher note than the female. "With every ad- 
 vance in the ascending scale of animal life the power of 
 expression increases, gradually ceasing to be a monoto- 
 nous humor dull drone, and becoming considerably modu- 
 lated and growing more and more articulate until it 
 reaches its highest development in human speech. 
 Great as may be the disparity between the squeak of a 
 mouse, the chatter of a parrot, the roar of a gorilla, the 
 gibberish of a Bushman, and the eloquence of a Demos- 
 thenes, there is really no break in this long process of 
 evolution corresponding to the growth of the intellectual 
 faculties in the several species. Every creature has a 
 language of its own composed of significant sounds in- 
 telligible to its kind; and there is no point in the devel- 
 opment of vocal utterance at which it can be said hitherto 
 these sounds have been empty and unconceptual noises, 
 henceforth they express the wants, emotions, and ideas of 
 those who use them. 
 
 Mr. James Weir, Jr., to whose special study of the 
 senses of the lower animals reference has been made in 
 a former chaper, says that, although ants are generally 
 supposed to communicate with one another through their 
 
312 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 antennae, they may do so by means of sounds so low as 
 to be inaudible to the human ear, but adds that he has 
 never been able to find in them either vocal organs or 
 instruments of stridulation, such as the genus Gryllus 
 possesses. The recent microscopical observations of 
 M. Charles Janet, however, have led him to the conclu- 
 sion that ants are provided with vocal organs, and he 
 claims to have succeeded in ascertaining by the use of 
 the microphone that they give utterance to a consider- 
 able variety of tones, which he assumes to be expressive 
 of different emotions. 
 
 From a philological point of view Max Miiller has 
 as slight consideration for beasts as for babies, taking 
 every occasion to disparage the teachings of zoopsychol- 
 ogy, and refusing, as he says, to argue with any philoso- 
 pher "either in the nursery or in the menagerie." 
 Curiously enough, it now seems as though the possibili- 
 ties of the menagerie in this direction had been strangely 
 overlooked, and the ultimate elements of human speech, 
 "phonetic cells," might yet be discovered in the mon- 
 key's cage. About a dozen years have elapsed since Mr. 
 E. L. Garner began his study of the language of quadru- 
 mans in the Zoological Garden at Cincinnati.* Confined 
 in a large cage with a number of smaller monkeys was a 
 mandril endowed with all the ugly characteristics of his 
 kind. This beast, which in its wild state is spoken of by 
 the natives as the " forest devil," and which science has 
 
 * Although Mr. Garner's researches have led to no definite re- 
 sults, and he has been rather harshly characterized as " a sensa- 
 tional charlatan," I prefer to let my remarks on his attempt to 
 solve the problem of simian speech remain as they were originally 
 written, since they could not be eliminated without impairing the 
 general discussion of the subject. 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 313 
 
 named the " dog-headed horror " (Cynocephalus mor- 
 mon), and whose habits of life justify both designations, 
 is the most hideous in appearance, the most cruel in dis- 
 position, the lewdest and wickedest of baboons. Per- 
 haps in no other creature is " pure cussedness," or the 
 love of evil for evil's sake, so highly developed. It is the 
 only animal, except man, that undermines its health and 
 dies a premature death through excessive and unnatural 
 indulgence of its lusts. Jardine reports the case of a 
 mandril that, in becoming domesticated, took readily 
 to the vices of civilization, brandy-drinking, and smoking, 
 although it greatly preferred alcohol to tobacco. Broek- 
 mann, however, succeeded not only in taming one, but 
 also in overcoming its vicious propensities by a proper 
 course of training. He taught it a variety of tricks, 
 which it had to perform every day in an orderly manner 
 and gradually took pride in performing well, thus prov- 
 ing that if " idleness is the parent of vice," regular indus- 
 try is the source of sobriety. The distinguished natural- 
 ist Reichenbach, who watched Broekmann's experiment 
 with lively interest, was struck by the wonderful effect 
 which the* mere fact of having something definite to do 
 produced in transforming the wildest and most wanton 
 of baboons into a decent and quite companionable crea- 
 ture. As the result of this systematic discipline, "its 
 lower and purely animal propensities and carnal appe- 
 tites, which tended to undermine its own existence, be- 
 gan to calm, and ceased to be easily excited as its higher 
 faculties were awakened and called into exercise, and as 
 it was drawn upward through instruction and through 
 love of the feats whose performance had kindled in it 
 the first spark of mental activity and now kept its 
 powers in a constant state of tension." Here we have an 
 
314 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 application of the same means that are used to civilize 
 a savage or to train up a child in the way it should go; 
 and Broekmann's success in curbing the cruel mandril 
 of its will, elevating it socially into an agreeable and af- 
 fectionate friend, and educating it histrionically to be 
 the " star " of a monkey theatre, is not only a triumph 
 of pedagogical patience and skill, but also a striking 
 proof of the animal's latent capabilities. 
 
 The mandril at Cincinnati was a savage brute which 
 killed several of its less powerful associates and made the 
 lives of the rest hardly worth living. They were never 
 free from alarm and always on the alert to escape the as- 
 saults of their common foe, whose movements they anx- 
 iously watched and quickly reported to £ach o^her. Mr. 
 Garner, who observed them day after^day, soon became 
 convinced that their cries and chatterings were not mere 
 unconceptual noises or ejaculations inspired by individ- 
 ual fear, but vocal expressions of ideas conveying definite 
 information. He endeavoured to start a conversation 
 by imitating these sounds, but the monkeys, although 
 their attention was somewhat attracted by his utter- 
 ances, evidently failed to comprehend his broken Simian, 
 and in a short time ceased to pay "heed to a creature who 
 could not talk better than that. It then occurred to him 
 to use the phonograph, which would not only reproduce 
 these sounds with precision, but would also repeat~them 
 at pleasure and thus enable the human voice by persistent 
 practice to articulate them distinctly. This plan was 
 successful, and the monkeys showed by their actions 
 that they clearly understood what the phonograph said. 
 It is not necessary here to enter into the details of his 
 subsequent experiments, the results of which he has 
 embodied in a volume; and although one may not accept 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 315 
 
 some of his inferences, his researches all tend to confirm 
 the assumption that monkeys have a language of their 
 own, and that man can learn it and converse with them 
 in their own tongue. Mr. Garner is now in the wilds of 
 Africa, amply equipped with the instruments requisite 
 for his personal safety and for the pursuit of his inves- 
 tigations in the habitat of the gorilla and the chimpan- 
 zee; and the fruits of the studies which he is carrying on 
 under so favourable circumstances will be awaited with 
 interest. Nomen et omen: may he return with a well- 
 filled garner! 
 
 Brehm remarked nearly twenty years ago: " The lan- 
 guage of apes may be called quite rich; at least every ape 
 has at its command a great variety of tones for the ex- 
 pression of different emotions. Man also learns the 
 significance of these sounds, which are difficult to describe 
 and still more difficult to imitate." Indeed, without 
 the aid of the phonograph it would have been impossible 
 to determine their exact nature and to reduce them to 
 a phonological system. This is an interesting illustra- 
 tion of the far-reaching and beneficent influence of 
 great inventions. The phonograph may yet render as 
 valuable service to philology by extending the field of lin- 
 guistic research as the microscope has rendered to medi- 
 cine, and especially to bacteriology. 
 
 It has been repeatedly asserted and generally ac- 
 cepted that " no animal has the power of forming roots," 
 and that there is " not one root in the language of ani- 
 mals." This statement is sheer assumption, and for 
 aught we know the very reverse of the proposition may 
 be true and the language of animals consist chiefly, if 
 not wholly, of roots. The origin of these constituent 
 elements of language is a mystery. No philologist can 
 21 
 
316 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tell how they arose or why they should convey one mean- 
 ing rather than another, except so far as their genesis 
 may be explained in a few cases by onomatopoetic sug- 
 gestion. The 'most natural supposition is that they are 
 the heirlooms of the anthropoid race, which may have 
 been transmitted to man from the semi-human primates 
 of the Miocene age, already highly specialized enough to 
 be capable of chipping flints. The beauty and force of 
 human speech and its superiority to the utterances of 
 brutes are due, not to the fact that it has its origin in 
 roots, the very existence of which is overlooked by the 
 great majority of men and detected only by philological 
 analysis, but to its marvelous growth out of roots, to its 
 grammatical and syntactical structure, its elaborate and 
 complicated system of cases and tenses, the etymological 
 relations of its parts, and the various means employed to 
 express the nicest shades and most subtile suggestions of 
 thought and feeling. It is this wonderful „and never- 
 ceasing evolution that makes human language what it 
 is and distinguishes it from the extremely scanty and 
 comparatively stationary language of all animals fr.om 
 the death-watch to the Dryopithecus. 
 
 Eeasoning from what we know of the language of 
 apes, that of "the missing link" must have consisted 
 mostly of monosyllabic sounds expressive of simple con- 
 cepts, which, in proportion as his posterity reached a 
 higher degree of intellectual development and became 
 partially humanized, were gradually modified in mean- 
 ing by prefixes and suffixes and organically correlated 
 by inflection, until the original monosyllabic utterance, 
 often perhaps little more than a short and sharp outcry, 
 ceased to be used except in these derivative and differ- 
 entiated forms. The root was thus merged and wholly 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 317 
 
 lost sight of in the word, as is now the case with all hu- 
 man tongues, where its existence is unsuspected, until 
 the philologist grubs it up. No one maintains that 
 human language was evolved in this manner out of that 
 of the gorilla or chimpanzee or any other existing tribe 
 of Simia. As the different races of men are descended 
 from different anthropoid species'* now extinct, so the 
 diversity of tongues arose from the same cause. These 
 anthropoid species or types died out because they were 
 too nearly akin to man to compete with him in the strug- 
 gle for existence; they could survive only by sharing in 
 the advance of the race, and by sharing in it they ceased 
 to be what they were; in either case they were doomed , 
 to disappear. 
 
 In this connection we may refer again to the asser- 
 tion of the identity of language and thought, or the state- 
 ment that reasoning can not be carried on without words. 
 If this principle be correct, it is rather queer that the most 
 thoughtful persons should be, as a rule, the least wordy, 
 or as Shakespeare says of Nature, "deep clerks she 
 dumbs," as though it were one of her universal laws. 
 Emotionally there are, as Wordsworth tells us, " thoughts 
 too deep for words"; intellectually there are thinking 
 processes, such as the abstract consideration of quantity 
 and magnitude and their relations in pure mathematics, 
 for the expression and realization of which words are 
 far too clumsy and inexact, and recourse must be had to 
 figures, algebraic characters, and arithmetical and geo- 
 metrical formulas. On the other hand, there is a low 
 stage of thought, which a few gestures or exclamations 
 are fully adequate to represent. Indeed, in Old Chinese, 
 the archaic Kuan-hua, we have an extended literature 
 recorded in what is essentially a language of signs, in- 
 
318 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 telligible to the eye but not to the ear, and having no 
 grammatical connection or any relation to each other 
 except propinquity. Sinograms, ideograms, and all 
 hieroglyphics and picture-writing are relics of this early 
 period in the evolution of alphabetical language. 
 
 The beast, as well as man, is not confined to the use of 
 what might be called its native tongue, but is capable 
 of learning foreign languages. Not only do parrots, 
 ravens, and other birds acquire considerable facility in 
 human speech, but animals, in which the social instinct 
 is strongly developed, adopt the means of communicat- 
 ing thoughts employed by other animals with which 
 they habitually associate. A striking example of this 
 adaptation is given by Dr. Paul Carus: "If ants of a 
 special kind rob the larva of another kind and educate 
 them as their slaves, the slaves will in case of war or dan- 
 ger stand by their masters even against their own folks. 
 They evidently speak the language of the hill in which 
 they have been raised," just as children carried off in 
 their infancy speak the language of the tribe in which 
 they have been reared, and indeed as all persons speak 
 the language of the community in which they have 
 grown up. 
 
 The question whether the roots of language ever ex- 
 isted by themselves or whether any language could con- 
 sist solely of roots may be " a foolish question " to the 
 philologist, who does not dare to go beyond them; it is 
 certainly a question which his methods will never solve. 
 Less than a century ago there were eminent scholars who 
 regarded the study of Sanskrit as a vain pursuit, and 
 some denounced the language itself as a fabrication of 
 cunning Brahmans. Even as late as 1820 the distin- 
 guished Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy wrote to Bopp, 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 319 
 
 urging him to abandon this study as having no immediate 
 relation to classical or theological studies; to-day every 
 one knows that it has revolutionized these studies. The 
 philologist no longer devotes himself exclusively to 
 classical languages or even to those of civilized nations, 
 but extends his researches to the dialects of barbarous 
 tribes. Nevertheless there are still those who refuse to 
 enlarge the borders of their science so as to include any 
 of the lower animals, however intelligent, and obstinately 
 reject all contributions from this quarter. Yet if we 
 ever discover the origin of roots, it will probably be by 
 searching for them in this direction. Least of all is it 
 befitting an earnest and broad-minded scholar to treat 
 such investigations with facetious flippancy, and to re- 
 pudiate the conclusions of the zoopsychologist without 
 having any profounder knowledge of the mental powers 
 of animals than can be obtained by walking through a 
 museum and contemplating the dry hides to which the 
 taxidermist has given the semblance of life. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which Mr. Garner has devoted 
 himself to the study of simian speech, and the general 
 interest excited by his discoveries, naturally suggest a 
 comparison of his investigations with those of his pred- 
 ecessors in this department of linguistic research. Per- 
 haps the most serious and scientific attempt of this kind 
 was made nearly a century ago by Gottfried Immanuel 
 Wenzel, who published at Vienna, in 1808, a volume of 
 216 pages entitled Neue auf Vernunft und Erfahrung 
 gegriindete Entdeckungen iiber die Sprache der Thiere 
 (New Discoveries concerning the Language of Animals, 
 based on Eeason and Experience), in which he main- 
 tained that the lower animals are capable of expressing 
 their thoughts and emotions by means of articulate 
 
320 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 sounds, and that these utterances are not only intelli- 
 gible to their kind, hut may also he understood by man, 
 indicated by alphabetical signs, and thus reduced to 
 writing. He made a list of the sounds uttered by thirty 
 different birds and beasts, and prepared a dictionary of 
 more than twenty pages, to which he added a number 
 of translations from animal into human speech. These 
 so-called translations are very free, and give merely a 
 paraphrastic statement of what he supposes to be the 
 significance of certain canine and feline tones, the ver- 
 sions being confined to his interpretations of the collo- 
 quies of cats and dogs. As an illustration of his 
 proficiency in this language and the practical value of 
 such knowledge, he relates an incident, which sounds as 
 though it might belong to the ancient and fabulous 
 literature known to the Germans as Jagerlatein, or hun- 
 ters' Latin. He once went to visit a friend, who was a 
 great huntsman, but on learning that he had gone out 
 with his gun waited for him to return; meanwhile he 
 took a book and sat down under a tree near a pen in 
 which some foxes were confined. Suddenly he heard 
 them utter certain sounds which according to his vocab- 
 ulary were expressive of surprise and joy, and after 
 listening for a time came to the conclusion that the foxes 
 had discovered some means of escape and were exulting 
 over the prospect of regaining their freedom. When 
 the hunter returned, Wenzel informed him of what he 
 had heard and advised him to look into the matter, but 
 was only laughed at for his credulity and assured that the 
 pen was perfectly secure. They went into the house, 
 where they were taking some refreshments and talking 
 about other affairs, when a servant rushed in greatly 
 excited and announced that the foxes had escaped. 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 321 
 
 Wenzel admits that the language of animals is ex- 
 tremely simple and limited, and consequently monoto- 
 nously repetitious; the same combination of sounds 
 uttered with a stronger or weaker intonation serves to 
 denote a variety of mental states and must be largely 
 supplemented by lively pantomime. In conclusion, he 
 has eighteen pages of what he calls an " animal pathog- 
 nomonic-mimetic alphabet," showing the value and func- 
 tion of each part of the physical organism, from the teeth 
 to the tail, as a vehicle of expression. Dogs and cats 
 fairly bristle with strong emotions, and birds show their 
 ruffled feelings in their feathers and wax eloquent with 
 their wings. "Wenzel is convinced that every species of 
 animal has its own dialect, which is to be regarded as a 
 modification of the common or generic language of the 
 race to which it belongs. Thus he seems to think that 
 the zebra would understand the ass more readily than 
 the horse, because the first two are more closely affiliated, 
 although all three are endowed with equine speech. The 
 same principle applies to the different varieties of the 
 domestic hog in relation to other suilline quadrupeds. 
 
 As an example of the extent to which animals may 
 acquire a knowledge of human speech he prints a com- 
 munication from a clergyman who had taught his dog to 
 fetch books from his library in an adjoining room. 
 " Fido," he would say, " on the table near the window 
 are a quarto, an octavo, and a duodecimo; go and get the 
 quarto." Fido never failed to bring the volume desig- 
 nated. He had trained the dog to perform this service 
 by showing him a book and saying very distinctly and 
 repeatedly quarto, octavo, or duodecimo, and then laying 
 it down in the library and making him fetch it. In the 
 same manner the dog was taught to bring many other 
 
322 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 objects, the names of which he seldom confounded or 
 misunderstood. The clever animal could also be sent 
 on errands. " Eido," the clergyman would say, " go to 
 Mr. B. and tell him that I shall call upon him to-day." 
 Thereupon Eido ran to Mr. B.'s house and on finding 
 him gave three short barks, which were perfectly intelli- 
 gible to the person thus addressed. If any one called 
 when the clergyman was out, Eido barked once; and he 
 did the same if his master did not wish to be disturbed 
 and bade him tell the caller that he was not at home. 
 He announced a visitor by scratching on the door and 
 barking twice. A Bavarian family at Munich has a dog 
 that deems it highly improper for gentlemen to wear 
 their hats in the house, but is sufficiently gallant not to 
 find fault with ladies for doing so. An American, who 
 wished to test the animal's discriminating sense of the 
 fitness..of things in this respect, entered the room and sat 
 down with his hat on. The dog looked at him disapprov- 
 ingly for a moment and then began to bark, with eyes 
 intently fixed upon the hat. As the unmannerly visitor 
 continued the conversation without paying any atten- 
 tion to these admonitions, the dog sprang up and, seiz- 
 ing the hat by the brim, pulled it off and quietly laid it 
 on a chair. 
 
 Wenzel also tells the story of a dog whom his master 
 used to send to the market for meat, and who would 
 stand before the kind of meat he was instructed to get, 
 beef, mutton, or veal, and bark once, twice, or thrice, 
 according to the number of pounds desired. The 
 butcher filled the order, and the dog trotted home with 
 his purchase and the cheerful consciousness of having 
 done his duty. A still more remarkable case of this 
 kind occurred recently in a German town, where the 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 323 
 
 dog went regularly to the market and always to the 
 same stall. One day thQ,animal took offence at some- 
 thing and immediately transferred his custom to another 
 stall. A few weeks later the owner of the dog met the 
 first butcher and remarked that the meat, although a 
 little cheaper, was not quite so good as formerly. 
 " There must be some mistake," was the reply, " for 
 I have not sold you any meat for a long time." This 
 statement led to an investigation and final solution of 
 the mystery, which created much amusement and ex- 
 cited no little astonishment that canine minds could 
 "such high resentment show." Wenzel's little book 
 is full of interesting anecdotes illustrating his subject, 
 and has a frontispiece representing a landscape, re- 
 sembling the traditional pictures of the garden of Eden 
 found in old Bibles, with an ape, a dog, a horse, and 
 a bull in the foreground, and the legend underneath: 
 " They do not lie; their speech is truth." 
 
 The French physicist, E. Eadeau, in a work on acous- 
 tics, published in 1869, treats incidentally of the lan- 
 guage of animals, which he thinks one could, by careful 
 observation,. learn to understand and even to speak with 
 fluency. Mersenne, in his Harmonie Universelle, as- 
 serts that men speak from a volitional impulse and 
 utter vocal sounds in the exercise of a power of the mind 
 which they are free not to exercise unless they choose to 
 do so, whereas the lower animals use their voices under 
 the influence of natural necessity, howling, shrieking, 
 singing, etc., because under the circumstances they can 
 not do otherwise, being subject to forces which they are 
 absolutely unable to resist. The vexed question of the 
 freedom or necessity of the will in human action, which 
 metaphysics has vainly endeavoured to solve, has been 
 
324 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 reopened by natural science and evolutionary biology 
 and is now discussed on a broader basis and with the 
 prospect of positive results. Whatever may be the final 
 issue of these investigations, it is certain that the old 
 Cartesian distinction between man and brute in this re- 
 spect can no longer be maintained. Eadeau is right in 
 rejecting Mersenne's theory as involving a too subtile 
 psychological distinction and in declaring that his doc- 
 trine of natural necessity might be applied with equal 
 force to many an inveterate gabbler who can not hold 
 his tongue. 
 
 In this connection he relates the following anecdote 
 on the authority of Jules Eichard: In 1857 this gentle- 
 man had occasion to visit a sick friend in a hospital, 
 where he made the acquaintance of an old official of the 
 institution from the south of France, who was exceed- 
 ingly fond of animals, his love of them being equalled 
 only by his hatred of priests; he claimed also to be per- 
 fectly familiar with the languages of cats and dogs, and 
 to speak the language of apes even better than the apes 
 themselves. Jules Eichard received this statement 
 with an incredulous smile, whereupon the old man, 
 whose pride was evidently touched by such scepticism, 
 invited him to come the next morning to the zoological 
 garden. " I met him at the appointed time and place," 
 says Mr. Eichard, " and we went together to the mon- 
 keys' cage, where he leaned on the outer railing and 
 began to utter a succession of guttural sounds, which 
 alphabetical signs are scarcely adequate to represent — 
 'Kirruu, kirrikiu, kuruki, kirikiu' — repeated with 
 slight variations and differences of accentuation. In a 
 few minutes the whole company of monkeys, a dozen in 
 number, assembled and sat in rows before him with their 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 325 
 
 hands crossed in their laps or resting on their knees, 
 laughing, gesticulating, and answering." The conver- 
 sation continued for a full quarter of an hour, to the in- 
 tense delight of the monkeys, who took a lively part in 
 it. As their interlocutor was about to go away, they 
 all became intensely excited, climbing up on the balus- 
 trade and uttering cries of lamentation; when he finally 
 departed and disappeared more and more from their 
 view, they ran up to the top of the cage and clinging to 
 the frieze made motions as if they were bidding him 
 good-bye. It seemed, adds Mr. Eichard, as though 
 they wished to say, " We are sorry to part and hope to 
 meet again, and if you can't come, do drop us a line! " 
 No one who has ever observed the actions and lis- 
 tened to the utterances of a clever parrot will accept Mer- 
 senne's assertion that the exercise of the vocal organs 
 of animals is not free, but subject to natuial and irre- 
 sistible necessity, or that speech is in a greater degree 
 the product of inevitable causation in the mouth of the 
 cockatoo than in that of the cockney. Humboldt states 
 that after the Aturians on the Orinoco had become ex- 
 tinct, the only creature that could speak their language 
 was a very aged parrot, condemned by adverse fortune 
 to spend the remnant of its days in comparative solitude 
 as the sad survivor of a once powerful tribe. From a 
 philological point of view, the venerable bird was as in- 
 teresting a character as the old Cornish woman with 
 whose decease, some years ago, the dialect of her people 
 ceased to be a spoken tongue. It is also a historical fact 
 that when, in 1509, the Spanish freebooters Nicuesa and 
 Ojeda wished to surprise the village of Yurbaco, on the 
 Isthmus of Darien, in order to capture a cargo of slaves, 
 the vigilant parrots in the tops of the trees announced 
 
326 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the approach of the enemy, and thus enabled the inhab- 
 itants to escape. 
 
 Perhaps the most cultivated and certainly the most 
 celebrated parrot of which we have any record belonged 
 from 1830 to 1840 to a canon of the cathedral of Salz- 
 burg, named Hanikl, who gave the bird regular instruc- 
 tion twice a day, from nine to ten in the morning and 
 from ten to eleven in the evening. The parrot made 
 rapid progress in the development of its mental facul- 
 ties, and soon showed what a remarkable degree of in- 
 telligence it is possible for such a creature to attain 
 under systematic tuition. The sayings and doings of 
 this parrot which lived fourteen years after Hanikl's 
 death and died in 1854, have been reported by a number 
 of careful and competent observers and are unquestion- 
 ably authentic. One day, as some one entered the room, 
 it cried out in a harsh tone, " Where do you come from? " 
 On seeing that the person was an ecclesiastical dignitary, 
 it added, apologetically: " Oh, I beg pardon of your 
 Grace; I thought it was a bird." It took part in gen- 
 eral conversation, and was sometimes so loquacious that 
 it had to be told to stop; it was also fond of talking to it- 
 self, and imagining all sorts of exciting scenes: " Beat 
 me, will you? Beat me, will you? Oh, you rascal! 
 Yes, yes, that's the way of the world." It whistled 
 tunes and sang various popular songs, and even learned 
 an entire aria from Motow's opera of Martha. 
 
 A parrot of the same species {Psittacus erithacus), 
 ash-gray, with scarlet-red tail, is now in the possession 
 of M. Nicaise, a member of the Anthropological Society 
 of Paris. This bird is nearly fifty years of age, and en- 
 dowed with wonderful versatility of intellect. It 
 imitates to perfection all the calls and cries of the street, 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 327 
 
 and when in 1870 it was sent away from the beleaguered 
 city into the country, it came tack with its repertory im- 
 mensely enlarged, having learned to reproduce the 
 whistle of the quail, the hoot of the owl, the merry 
 scream of the magpie, the crow of the cock, the cluck of 
 the hen, and the tones of a great variety of wild birds 
 and domestic fowls and quadrupeds. One of its histri- 
 onic masterpieces is the phonetic representation of the 
 killing of a pig which it witnessed nearly a quarter of a 
 century ago, but of which it has not forgotten a single 
 characteristic grunt or squeal. Nothing is omitted, 
 from the deep gutturals, alternating with piercing 
 shrieks, as the porker is dragged to the place of slaughter, 
 to the last faint groan of the dying animal. Indeed, 
 the reproduction of the scene is so intolerably realistic, 
 that the persons present are fain to stop their ears and to 
 bid the bird keep silence. It listens attentively to any 
 conversation that is going on, and expresses its approval 
 or astonishment by exclaiming " Oh! " or " Ah I " and 
 always at the appropriate time or place. If any one tells 
 a funny story or gets off a joke, it laughs with the rest of 
 the company, although this outburst of merriment is 
 doubtless due, not so much to a humorous appreciation 
 of what is said, as to the contagion of the general hilarity. 
 When it wants something, it calls its mistress by her 
 Christian name, Marie, and, if she does not come at once, 
 calls her again with a sharp tone of impatience. Once, 
 when a firebrand fell on the hearth and filled the room 
 with smoke, it cried, "Marie! Marie!" in a voice in- 
 dicating extreme anxiety and alarm. This parrot is a 
 provident creature, and when taking its dinner always 
 lays aside a piece of bread and jam for its supper, thus 
 showing that it has the power of looking before and after, 
 
328 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 which Shakespeare deems a peculiarly human attribute. 
 It not only sings songs correctly, but also improvises 
 musical compositions, which it renders each time with 
 new variations, and performs, as M. Nicaise assures us, 
 " with a taste and style and spirit that might excite the 
 envy of any pupil of the conservatory." The fact that 
 these pieces invariably close on the tonic or keynote 
 proves that all the modulations are referred to the fun- 
 damental tone of the chord, and gives evidence of a 
 musical feeling and sense of harmony such as only hu- 
 man beings are usually supposed to possess. These im- 
 provisations are whistled, and sound as though they were 
 played by a flute, the performance being uniformly 
 preluded with runs and trills and other vocalizations. 
 
 The parrot is an exception to the rule that the period 
 of infancy is longest in the most intelligent creatures. 
 Its babyhood is, in fact, very short, although its average 
 life seems to be somewhat longer than that of a man. It 
 attains the full splendour of its plumage and is pubes- 
 cent at the early age of two, and often survives all the 
 members of the human family in which it has been 
 reared, outliving even the children much younger than 
 itself. During all this time it retains its mental plas- 
 ticity and progressiveness, never ceases to learn, and goes 
 on developing its inborn capacities from the beginning to 
 the end of its prolonged existence. It is quite as in- 
 quisitive as the monkey, and quite as capable of close and 
 continued observation. Merely through its association 
 with man it is constantly making new acquisitions of 
 knowledge, and there is no telling what might not be ac- 
 complished in this direction by systematic instruction 
 carried on through successive generations. 
 
 If Mr. Garner's object had been to ascertain how far 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 329 
 
 animals can acquire the use of human speech and what 
 effect such discipline would have in enlarging their in- 
 tellectual faculties, he would have done better to choose 
 parrots instead of monkeys for his experiments; but 
 as his purpose is to learn the language of animals, and not 
 to teach them his own, he has done well to select apes 
 as the objects of his study. It must be confessed, how- 
 ever, that the results of his investigations, embodied in 
 his volume recently published, are rather disappointing, 
 and are, in fact, less comprehensive, although doubtless 
 more accurate, than the observations made by Wenzel at 
 the beginning of the present century. He is prone to 
 lay great stress upon matters that are really of no im- 
 portance whatever, as, for example, when he discovers 
 that " No " accompanied by a shake of the head is the 
 sign of negation, and adds, " The fact that this sign is 
 common to both man and simian I regard as more than 
 a mere coincidence, and I believe that in this sign I have 
 found the psycho-physical basis of expression." It is 
 difficult to perceive how a logical thinker could draw 
 such a sweeping conclusion from so slight premises. If 
 he finds that gorillas and chimpanzees in their native 
 wilds, unaffected by human associations, express dissent 
 by shaking their heads and shouting " No! " it will be a 
 fact well worth recording. 
 
 Mr. Garner's superiority to his predecessors in this 
 department of linguistic research consists in the greater 
 excellence of his material rather than of his mental 
 equipment. The possession of the phonograph alone 
 gives him an immense advantage in this respect, by en- 
 abling him to record and to repeat the utterances of 
 monkeys with perfect accuracy. Armed with this 
 scientific weapon of phonetic precision and all the instru- 
 
330 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ments and appliances which modern invention has placed 
 at his disposal, he may perhaps completely conquer a 
 province of investigation hitherto but partially explored, 
 and, by making important contributions to zooglottology 
 and working out a system of alphabetical signs for the 
 language of the anthropoid race, become the Cadmus 
 of the simian world.* 
 
 * According to the latest reports, Mr. Garner has returned 
 from his expedition without having realized the exalted hopes ex- 
 cited by his elaborate preparations and the somewhat sensational 
 announcement of his programme, published on the eve of his de- 
 parture in The North American Review. In an address delivered 
 before the Societe de Geographie in Paris, on May 4, 1894, the 
 African explorer Dybowski took occasion to refer to Mr. Garner's 
 sojourn in the jungles of the Congo for the purpose of learning 
 the language of the gorillas from their own lips. Dybowski 
 stated that he himself had passed two days at the mission of Fer- 
 nand Vaz, situated on the shore of the lake bearing the same 
 name. The superior, Father Bichet, informed him that Mr. Gar- 
 ner had spent three months there — not in the depth of the forest, 
 but at the mission itself — evidently preferring the society of the 
 monks to that of the monkeys. Mr. Garner brought with him his 
 famous cage " of steel wire woven into a diamond-shaped lattice," 
 and set it up at a place called Port Gorillas, on the edge of the 
 forest, just twenty-eight minutes' walk from the mission and within 
 hearing of the church bells. Dybowski expresses a doubt whether 
 '• the apes, however strong their instincts of civilization, ever came 
 so near the convent to perform their religious devotions." The 
 negro boy Rozounge, a youth about thirteen or fourteen years of 
 ape, who speaks French very well and accompanied Mr. Garner on 
 his excursions, confirmed the statements of Father Bichet, and 
 added that Mr. Garner had slept three nights in the cage, where 
 he awaited in vain the visits of the chimpanzees and gorillas. The 
 boy thinks they heard them one evening, and that is the extent of 
 Mr. Garner's intercourse with these great anthropoid apes in their 
 wild state. He succeeded, however, in buying a young chimpan- 
 zee, which he named Moses, but which soon died. He afterward 
 
BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 331 
 
 expended sixteen dollars in the purchase of a young gorilla, which 
 survived only a lew days. He then left the mission, where he had 
 paid five francs a day for board and lodging, and set out with 
 Father Buleon, of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, on a tour 
 to the Eschiras, a tribe of the interior. After two days' travel he 
 was taken with a severe pain in his legs, and had to be borne in a 
 hammock to the Tomlinson factory, where he remained two 
 months. On recovery he embarked for Europe, taking with him 
 his cage and the elements of his dictionary of the simian tongue. 
 Dybowski says that the phonograph which was to catch the 
 sounds uttered by the apes and to record them on a cylinder never 
 arrived, so that Mr. Garner had to carry on his investigations 
 without the aid of this instrument. Dybowski's remarks on this 
 subject were reported in the Paris Figaro, and have been published 
 in other papers — e. g., in The Nation, June 14, 1894. The French 
 journal characterizes Mr. Garner as an amateur in linguistics, who 
 has succeeded in having himself taken seriously, but who proves 
 to be " un simple fnmiste." It is hardly possible that these state- 
 ments should have escaped Mr. Garner's notice, and the fact that 
 he has made no reply to them is a tacit admission of their correct- 
 ness. This utter failure to accomplish what he set out to do is 
 greatly to be regretted, inasmuch as the line of his researches was 
 in the right direction, although they might have been more suc- 
 cessfully pursued in a zoological garden than in the wilds of Africa 
 or at a missionary station on Lake Fernand Vaz. 
 
 Those who may have condemned Dybowski's strictures as too 
 severe will find them fully justified by Mr. Garner's own relation 
 of his experiences and observations recorded in his recently pub- 
 lished volume Gorillas and Chimpanzees. The only original dis- 
 covery he seems to have made is that of the armadillo, hitherto 
 supposed to be peculiar to South America. We venture to assert 
 that the one he saw will probably prove to be the sole specimen of 
 the Dasypua sexcinatus existing in tropical Africa. His work 
 does not contain a single noteworthy contribution to simian 
 speech. Indeed, it is difficult to determine the exact field of his 
 labours by consulting any map of the country, and the fact that 
 letters were delivered to him in his cage would imply that the 
 postman was abroad, and indicate that his camp was not far from 
 the outskirts of civilization. 
 
 In a communication to an English paper on his return from 
 22 
 
332 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Africa Mr. Garner speaks of conferences with gorillas, and adds : 
 " My preliminary understanding of the sounds uttered by my 
 anthropoid visitors was that their government is strictly patri- 
 archal and that they have some fixed idea of order and justice." 
 This theory of the organization of the simian horde is not new, 
 but it is the first time that positive information on the subject has 
 been received directly from the mouths of the Simia themselves. 
 The gorillas must have been in a very confiding mood, or they 
 would not have imparted this knowledge to a perfect stranger. 
 Perhaps their communicativeness was the result of hypnotic sug- 
 gestion, for in a letter published in an Australian journal, the 
 Sydney Daily News, Mr. Garner states that on one occasion he 
 placed his battery with a phonograph and a revolving mirror in a 
 banyan grove and concealed himself about sixty metres distant. 
 A crowd of chattering monkeys soon gathered round the glittering 
 mirror. Mr. Garner observed them for more than an hour and 
 then emerging from his hiding place cautiously approached. No 
 sooner did they see him than they all disappeared as by magic 
 with the exception of one chimpanzee, which stood perfectly 
 still, staring at the mirror, while a slight tremor ran through its 
 limbs and its ears gave a convulsive twitch. " I could hardly be- 
 lieve my eyes ; the monkey was hypnotized." As the chimpanzee 
 kept saying " achru," which means sun in the anthropoid tongue, 
 one might suggest that this animal was a sun-worshipper in an 
 ecstasy of devotion at the supposed descent of its god to the earth. 
 There is no limit to hypotheses in such cases. Mr. Garner's men- 
 tion of the phonograph can be reconciled with the positive state- 
 ments of Dybowski and the French missionaries only by assuming 
 that this apparatus arrived after he left Fernand Yaz. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AESTHETIC SENSE AND EELIGIOUS SENTIMENT IN 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 The (esthetic sense as a distinction between man brute. Man's ar- 
 tistic faculty the mark of his pre-eminence according toWilks, 
 Huxley, Prantl, and Schiller. Herbart recognises no such line 
 of separation. The influence of infancy. Value of flexible 
 organs of prehension. Appreciation of the beautiful shown by 
 birds. Fondness of finery. Decorative taste of the bower 
 bird. Nests of the weaver, oriole, titmouse, and japu. Love 
 of music in birds and insects. Musical training of unmusical 
 birds. Beethoven and the spider. The cicada as a violinist. 
 Musical performances of apes in their native wilds. Exhibi- 
 tion of musical preferences by dogs. Musical concerts by 
 mammals and birds. Hudson's observations in La Plata. 
 Propagation of plants dependent upon a sense of colour in in- 
 sects. Religious sentiment of animals recognised by De Qua- 
 trefages and Darwin. Fetiehistic conceptions formed by the 
 higher animals. Striking examples given by Herbert Spencer 
 and Romanes. Sense of the supernatural in horses and dogs. 
 A haunted canary cage. Second sight and ghost-seeing at- 
 tributed by popular belief to dogs, horses, and storks. Reli- 
 gion as a natural growth has its roots in animal intelligence. 
 
 De. Wilks reduces the chief difference between man 
 and brute to the " smallness of knowledge of the fine arts 
 possessed by the latter "; and a passing remark made by 
 Prof. Huxley, in one of his essays, would seem to imply a 
 disposition to draw the line of separation between animal 
 
 333 
 
334: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 and human intelligence at this point. Prantl regards 
 the phrase " die Kunsttriebe der Thiere " as a metaphor- 
 ical expression involving a confusion of terms, since ani- 
 mals, with all their apparent artistic ability and taste 
 shown in constructing and decorating their habitations, 
 do not seek to embody ideas in material forms — an as- 
 sumption which begs the very question in dispute. 
 Schiller, in his well-known poem, Die Kiinstler, makes 
 man's pre-eminence consist solely in his artistic faculty: 
 
 In Fleiss kann dich die Biene meistern, 
 In der Geschicklichkeit ein Wurm dein Lehrer sein, 
 
 Dein "Wissen theilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern, 
 Die Kunst, o Mensch, hast du allein. 
 
 In diligence the bee can master thee, 
 In skilfulness a worm thy teacher be, 
 Knowledge thou dost with higher spirits own, 
 But art, O man, thou dost possess alone. 
 
 Herbart, as we have already seen, does not recognise 
 this demarcation. " If one asks for a specific character- 
 istic of mankind, which is not physical, but spiritual, 
 original and universal, and does not resolve itself 
 into a more or less, I confess," he says, " that I do not 
 know of any such distinction and do not think it exists." 
 He then enumerates the advantages possessed by man — 
 namely, hands, speech, and a long and helpless infancy, 
 to the use and influence of which are due the extraor- 
 dinary growth of the human brain in size and complexity 
 and the corresponding development of intellectual power. 
 In the acuteness of his senses and in many peculiarities 
 of physical structure man is inferior to some of the lower 
 animals. He has not, says Prof. Cope, kept pace with 
 other mammals in the development of his teeth, which 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 335 
 
 are " thoroughly primitive " ; his nose is less service- 
 able than that of the dog; the eagle has a far better eye; 
 the ankle joint of the sheep is, as a piece of mechanism, 
 stronger and less liable to derangement than the corre- 
 sponding joint in man; the horse's foot consists of a 
 single compact elastic toe, on which the animal runs 
 while its heel is carried in the air and never touches the 
 ground, thus attaining a springiness and swiftness of 
 motion beyond the reach of the human plantigrade. 
 Whatever lightness and elasticity of step man possesses 
 is due less to the perfection of his bodily organism than 
 to the uplifting influence of his intellect. With the 
 decay of his mental powers Homo sapiens slouches like 
 a bear, as may be observed in the ungainly and unsteady 
 gait of cretins and idiots, however vigorous they may be 
 physically. 
 
 The objection urged by Prof. Kedny against the doc- 
 trine of evolution — namely, that man's helpless infancy 
 proves him to be different in kind from other animals — 
 ignores the fact that the soko and many other species of 
 the genus Simia pass through a period of infant help- 
 lessness almost as long as that of some savage tribes. The 
 babyhood of the anthropoid apes is much longer and 
 more helpless than that of the cynopithecoids, the platy- 
 rhines, or the lemurs; and the higher the order of the 
 monkeys, the more they resemble man in this respect. 
 Mr. Wallace captured a young orang-outang, which had 
 to be fed and cared for like a human infant, lay rolling 
 on the ground with all fours in the air, and could hardly 
 walk when it was three months old; whereas a macacus 
 of the same age seemed to have already acquired full use 
 of its limbs and mental faculties. The long duration of 
 this complete dependence on parental care in the case of 
 
336 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the human infant, so far from disproving the doctrine of 
 evolution, furnishes one of the strongest arguments in 
 its favour, since it helps to explain how man gradually 
 attained his intellectual primacy among the primates. 
 The American platyrhines, marmosets, and other smaller 
 long-tailed monkeys reach maturity in three or four 
 years, whereas the African dog-headed apes require ten 
 or twelve years for their full development, and with the 
 larger anthropoids this period of growth is nearly as long 
 as with human beings. 
 
 The fact that quadrumans have flexible organs of 
 prehension, can grasp and handle things and imitate 
 human actions, gives them a great advantage over quad- 
 rupeds. A dog may be as intelligent as a chimpanzee, 
 but he is unable to " show off " as well; he can not un- 
 tie knots with his paws, nor put on clothes, nor eat with 
 knife and fork, nor uncork bottles, nor drink wine by 
 lifting the glass to his lips, nor use a toothpick, nor per- 
 form a variety of tricks which make the monkey appear 
 to be relatively far more richly endowed with mental 
 gifts than is actually the case, and throw into the shade 
 the most conspicuous exploits of the poodle and the 
 collie. 
 
 Nevertheless, this manual and digital dexterity can 
 scarcely be overestimated as a means of disciplining the 
 mind and increasing the volume of the brain; and if 
 chimpanzees, orang-outangs, and sokos had enjoyed the 
 thousands of years of domestication and thorough breed- 
 ing and training, from which dogs have so immensely 
 profited, there is no knowing what advances in knowl- 
 edge and acquisitions of intellectual culture they might 
 not have made. It is wonderful how much they learn 
 through observation and very slight instruction during 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 337 
 
 a few months' intercourse with human beings, discharg- 
 ing with evident pleasure the duties of body servant or 
 waiter, answering the door bell, showing visitors into 
 the parlour, fetching water, kindling the fire, washing 
 dishes, turning the spit, and doing all sort of chores in 
 and about the house. " Such an ape," says Brehm, " one 
 can not treat as a beast, but must associate with as a man. 
 Notwithstanding all the peculiarities it exhibits, it re- 
 veals in its nature and conduct so very much that is hu- 
 man, that one quite forgets the animal. Its body is that 
 of a brute, but its intelligence is almost on a level with 
 that of a common boor. It is absurd to attribute the 
 actions of such a creature to unthinking imitation; it 
 imitates to be sure, but as a child imitates an adult, with 
 understanding and judgment." 
 
 That the plastic and progressive period of the mon- 
 key's individual development is short, and that its facul- 
 ties become set and stationary at a comparatively early 
 age, is undeniable; but the same holds true of the negro, 
 who loses his educability and ceases his mental growth 
 much earlier than the Caucasian. The longer or shorter 
 duration of this formative season in the mental life of 
 man is, to some extent, a matter of race, but in a still 
 greater degree the result of civilization. 
 
 The hand is also a valuable instrument for the culti- 
 vation of the aesthetic sense, and the more flexible and 
 sensitive this instrument becomes, the greater are the 
 results achieved by it in this direction. But there are 
 animals without hands that show an appreciation of the 
 beautiful. Mr. Darwin has proved conclusively that 
 birds take pleasure in sweet sounds and in brilliant 
 colours, and that the sentiment thus awakened and ap- 
 pealed to plays an important part in the preservation 
 
338 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 and perfection of the species through natural selection. 
 The struggle for existence is not always carried on by 
 fierce combat and the triumph of brute force, but quite as 
 frequently takes the form of competition in beauty, ad- 
 dressing itself either to the ear as alluring song or to the 
 eye as attractive plumage; and the bird that possesses 
 these characteristics in the highest degree carries off the 
 prize in the tournament of love, and propagates its kind. 
 
 There is no doubt that birds take delight in the gor- 
 geousness of their own feathers, and the more brilliant 
 their hues the greater the vanity they display. Con- 
 spicuous examples of this love of admiration and fond- 
 ness of parading their finery are the peacock and the 
 bird of paradise. 
 
 The decoration of its boudoir by the bower bird, as 
 described by Mr. Gould in his History of the Birds of 
 New South Wales, indicates a decided and discrimina- 
 tive preference for bright and variegated objects, and 
 evinces no small amount of aesthetic feeling and artistic 
 taste in selecting and arranging them. The bower is built 
 of sticks and slender twigs gracefully interwoven, so 
 that the tapering points meet at the top, and is adorned 
 with the rose-coloured tail feathers of the inoa cockatoo 
 and the gay plumes of other parrots, tinted shells, 
 bleached bones, rags of divers hues, and whatever gaudy 
 or glittering trinkets may please the bird's fancy. Some- 
 times the space in front of the bower is covered with 
 half a bushel of things of this sort, laid out like a par- 
 terre with winding walks, in which the happy possessor 
 of the garnered treasures struts about with the pride and 
 pleasure of a connoisseur in a gallery of paintings, or a 
 bibliophile who has his shelves filled with incunabula and 
 other rare editions. These objects have often been 
 
THE 2ESTHETIC SENSE. 339 
 
 brought from a great distance, and are of no possible 
 use to the bird except as they gratify its love of the 
 beautiful and appeal to what we call in man the aesthetic 
 sense. Its conduct can be explained in no other way; 
 for the bower is not a nest in which eggs are laid and 
 hatched and young ones reared; it is a salon or place of 
 social entertainment, and thus serves a distinctly ideal 
 purpose. 
 
 A similar artistic talent is shown by the African and 
 Asiatic varieties of weaver, which suspend their nests 
 from the slender branches of trees over running water 
 and thus render them inaccessible to monkeys and other 
 plundering foes; sometimes, too, they weave into them 
 long thorns with the points turned outwards, so that their 
 house becomes a castle and resembles a fortress bristling 
 with bayonets. It is also a significant fact that the nests 
 of young birds are loosely and clumsily built and not 
 constructed to perfection until the third year, proving 
 that their skill is a gradual acquirement, something' 
 learned, to a certain extent, by practice and instruction, 
 and not purely instinctive. Among Western repre- 
 sentatives of this class of bird artists the Baltimore oriole, 
 the European titmouse (Parus pendulinus), and the 
 Brazilian japu are the most noteworthy. 
 
 The singing of birds, as a means of sexual attraction, 
 implies a certain appreciation of melody. Indeed, many 
 of them do not confine themselves to the songs of their' 
 species, but learn notes from other birds and snatches of 
 tunes from musical instruments. Canaries can be taught 
 a variety of airs by playing them repeatedly on a piano 
 or on a hurdy-gurdy. They listen with attention and 
 imitate the strains which take their fancy. If harmony 
 or the concord of sweet sounds, as distinguished from 
 
340 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 melody or the simple succession of sweet sounds, does not 
 enter into bird music, the same may be said of the music 
 of primitive man and of all early nations. Savages, like 
 feathered songsters, sing in unison, but not in accord. 
 
 There are also some remarkable instances of the mu- 
 sical education of unmusical birds, so that they learn songs 
 wholly foreign to their species. A recent case of this 
 kind occurred at the little town of Tannendorf, in the 
 principality of Eeuss, in Germany. It is well known 
 that the sparrow has naturally no gift of song, but keeps 
 up a tedious and often intolerable chirping; at the same 
 time it is by no means a stupid bird. An invalid soldier 
 of Tannendorf, named Pfeifer, succeeded in training 
 one of these birds into a very superior songster, which 
 took the first prize for its vocal powers at the ex- 
 hibition of the Ornithological Society " Ornis," held 
 at Leipsic in February, 1896. Isaak "Walton says 
 the nightingale " breathes such sweet, loud music out of 
 her little instrumental throat, that it might make man- 
 kind to think that miracles are not ceased." But the 
 miracle is still greater when such " sweet descants " come 
 from the throat of the sparrow, whose natural notes are 
 so shrill and monotonous. This incident is a striking 
 proof of the musical capabilities of the unmusical pas- 
 serine family, and shows what wonderful results may be 
 attained by the patient development of the faculties of 
 the lower animals. We may add that one of the jurors 
 who awarded the prize to Pfeifer's sparrow was Prof. 
 Goring, of Gera, well known for his scientific explorations 
 in Brazil. 
 
 Spiders, locusts, and lizards show a decided love of 
 musical tones whether produced by themselves for the 
 purpose of sexual attraction or by the human voice and 
 
THE -ESTHETIC SENSE. 341 
 
 performers on instruments. It is related of Beethoven 
 that when in his boyhood he was learning the violin in 
 his room, a spider used to let itself down from the ceil- 
 ing on the instrument and remain there so long as he 
 kept on playing. One day his mother entered the room 
 and seeing the spider in its accustomed place obeyed the 
 instincts of a careful housewife and killed it, whereupon 
 the youthful Ludwig, angry at this brutal treatment of 
 his silent and attentive auditor, flung his fiddle on the 
 floor and smashed it. Beethoven was once questioned 
 as to the truth of this statement and declared that he 
 had no recollection of any such incident, but, on the con- 
 trary, had good reason to believe that every living crea- 
 ture, including flies and spiders, would have got as far 
 as possible away from his horrid gratings on the catgut. 
 The tale in this case may be a fiction, but authentic in- 
 stances of this kind have occurred and been recorded by 
 musicians. 
 
 It is possible, however, that the apparent fondness of 
 spiders for music and their supposed partiality for the 
 tones of stringed instruments may be due to the resem- 
 blance of such noises to the buzzing of flies when caught 
 in a web. This explanation, if it be correct, would throw 
 a blur upon the evidence adduced in proof of the aesthetic 
 endowments of the Arachnida, and show that they are 
 " not moved with concord of sweet sounds," but rather 
 by their eagerness for prey, and are therefore " fit for 
 treason, stratagems, and spoils." Thus, for example, 
 during a concert in the celebrated Gewandhaus at Leip- 
 sic, Prof. Beclam watched the movements of a spider, 
 which let itself down from a chandelier when the violin 
 solos were performed, but hurried back and disappeared 
 as soon as the full orchestra began to play. The illusion 
 
342 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of the buzzing fly was suddenly dissipated by the clangour 
 of trumpets, the rattle of drums, the clash of cymbals, 
 and the deep notes of the ophicleide and trombone. 
 
 It is true, however, that certain 6pecies of spiders pro- 
 duce musical tones and seem to take pleasure in them. 
 This is the case with the gigantic spider of Central Aus- 
 tralia, known to zoologists as Phrictis crassipes. Ac- 
 cording to recent observations made by Prof. Baldwin 
 Spencer, it is from six to seven centimetres long and 
 measures twelve centimetres between the extremities of 
 its legs. By rubbing its feelers against a comblike set 
 of bristles on the back part of its body, it brings forth 
 sounds that in a still night may be heard for a distance 
 of two or three metres. 
 
 In some charming verses entitled The Lark (Die 
 Lerche) a Westphalian poetess, Annette von Droste- 
 Hulfshoff, gives a vivid description of a spring morning 
 on a North German heath and the orchestral perform- 
 ance, in which the cricket plays the kit, the beetle the 
 horn, the gnat the triangle, and the bumblebee the 
 bass viol: 
 
 So tausendstitnmig stieg noch nie ein Chor, 
 Wie's musicirt aus grunem Heid hervor. 
 
 The Greeks ascribed to the cicada (tctti£) a beauti- 
 ful voice {<f>w/ri), which seems to have been to their 
 ear the synonym and supreme ideal of melodiousness. 
 Plato calls this insect the prophet of the Muses, and 
 Anacreon extols it as the divinest of singers. Only the 
 males were supposed to be endowed with this fine vocal ■ 
 gift, hence the witty suggestion of Xenarchos that men 
 might well envy the happiness of the Cicadse, whose fe- 
 males are dumb (<6v reus ywcu%lv ov8' otiovv KJxavri's evi). As 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 343 
 
 a matter of fact, the cicada has no voice at all, hut is 
 a superior violinist, and always carries with him his 
 fiddle organically attached to his person. The recent 
 investigations of the entomologists Vitus Graber and 
 Brunner von Wattenwyl have first given a clear idea 
 of the construction of this musical apparatus and the 
 manner of its use. The arrangement and the mode 
 of operation differ somewhat in different species. Per- 
 haps the purest violin tones are produced by the Lo- 
 custa cantans, popularly known in some parts of Europe 
 as the "harvest bird." The male is an unwearied 
 wielder of the fiddle stick, and the female will listen for 
 hours with evident rapture to his performances. She, 
 too, possesses rudimentary organs of the same kind, but 
 they are visible only under the microscope and not suffi- 
 ciently developed to produce tones. Clearly her musical 
 education has been neglected and she has not made the 
 most of the gifts with which Nature has endowed her; 
 but as a good listener she is unrivalled, and finds ample 
 opportunity to cultivate this rare and amiable talent. 
 
 Not only do some species of monkeys, like the chim- 
 panzees and sokos, get up concerts of their own in the 
 depths of the forest, but dogs, which are generally sup- 
 posed to be decidedly unmusical, also discriminate be- 
 tween tunes and express their preferences or aversions 
 in an unmistakable manner. A friend of mine, who 
 had a magnificent St. Bernard dog, was fond of playing 
 the violoncello. The dog used to lie quietly in the room 
 with closed eyes, and appeared to pay no attention to 
 the music until his master struck up a certain tune, 
 when the dog immediately and invariably sat up on his 
 haunches and began to howl. If the tune which called 
 forth such emotions had been written on a very high 
 
344 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 key, or characterized by shrill tones or harsh dissonances, 
 the conduct of the dog might be easily explained. But 
 such was not the case. There was nothing in this piece 
 more than in any other, so far as any one could observe, 
 that ought to grate the canine ear. Many incidents of 
 this kind might be cited to prove that even dogs are not 
 indifferent to musical compositions, and show a nice dis- 
 crimination between them, having their likes and dis- 
 likes, as well as human beings. 
 
 Indeed, the howling of a dog under such circum- 
 stances is no proof that the sounds are painful to himj on 
 the contrary, it is probably his manner of expressing his 
 appreciation of them. The noise he makes may be 
 disagreeable to us, just as his sharp bark often is, but 
 this is no reason why it should not be an utterance of 
 joy. More than half a century ago, the zoopsychologist 
 Seheitlin suggested that the dog takes pleasure in the 
 musical tones, and merely ^wishes to accompany the per- 
 former. If they were so discordant as to be distressful to 
 him, he could leave the room; but he has never been 
 known to seek relief in this manner. It is also certain 
 that he imitates in some degree what he hears, and that 
 the howls stimulated by the lengthened notes of the 
 organ differ from those excited by the piano, the violin, 
 or the human voice. The Eev. A. Treiber, a clergyman 
 in Eichen near Eppingen, Germany, states that when 
 a student in the university he had a female poodle named 
 Eolla, who was very fond of singing with him. Thus, 
 for example, if he began to sing the Lorelei, especially 
 in falsetto, Eolla would strike in, and one could easily 
 perceive how she would try to catch the tune by follow- 
 ing, though not very successfully, the ascending and 
 descending notes of the melody. Still more striking 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 345 
 
 instances of this kind are given by Alix (L'Esprit de nos 
 Betes, p. 364 sq.), of several poodles that sang the scale 
 perfectly, and one that " sang very agreeably a magnifi- 
 cent piece by Mozart." This remarkable dog belonged 
 to Habeneck, the director of the Paris opera, and not 
 only had the superior advantage of living in a musical 
 atmosphere, but had also received special musical in- 
 struction.* We know that the imitative impulse in 
 dogs, and more particularly in poodles, is very strong, 
 and there is no reason why it should not extend to the 
 imitation of articulate and musical tones, so far as the 
 structure of the vocal organs render their reproduction 
 possible. That there is also an element of aesthetic 
 gratification in such performances would seem to be 
 evident from the fact that some tones are imitated in 
 preference to others. 
 
 " Mammals and birds," says a recent writer, " possess 
 the habit of indulging frequently in more or less regular 
 or set performances, with or without sound, or composed 
 exclusively of sound; and these performances, which in 
 many animals are only discordant cries and choruses, 
 and uncouth, irregular motions, in the more aerial, grace- 
 ful, and melodious kinds take immeasurably higher, more 
 complex, and more beautiful forms. . . . We see that the 
 inferior animals, when the conditions of life are favour- 
 able, are subject to periodical fits of gladness, affecting 
 them powerfully and standing out in vivid contrast to 
 their ordinary temper. And we know what this feeling 
 is — this periodic intense elation which even civilized 
 man occasionally experiences when in perfect health, 
 and more especially when young. There are moments 
 
 * Cf. Karl Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, p. 183. 
 
346 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 when he is mad with joy, when he can not keep still, when 
 his impulse is to sing and shout aloud and laugh at noth- 
 ing, to run and leap and exert himself in some extrava- 
 gant way. Among the heavier mammalians the feeling 
 is manifested in loud noises, bellowings, and screamings, 
 and in lumbering, uncouth motions — throwing up of 
 heels, pretended panics, and ponderous mock battles. In 
 smaller and livelier animals, with greater celerity and 
 certitude in their motions, the feeling shows itself in 
 more regular and often more complex ways. . , . Birds 
 are more subject to this universal joyous instinct than 
 mammals, and there are times when some species are con- 
 stantly overflowing with it; and as they are so much 
 freer than mammals, more buoyant and more graceful 
 in action, more loquacious, and have voices so much 
 finer, their gladness shows itself in a greater variety of 
 ways with more regular and beautiful motions, and with 
 melody." * Here we have very near approaches to con- 
 scious artistic production. Indeed, the theory of the 
 derivation of the aesthetic sentiments from the play im- 
 pulse, enunciated by Schiller more than a century ago in 
 his Brief e iiber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen, 
 and more systematically formulated by Herbert Spencer 
 in his Principles of Psychology, would make these sen- 
 timents common both to men and animals. The play 
 impulse, like the art impulse, has its source in the 
 imagination, and the form in which it finds expression 
 is determined chiefly by the force of heredity modified 
 by the action of the imitative instinct. The kitten, the 
 kid, the puppy, the young bird, and the child has each 
 
 * The Naturalist in La Plata, by W. H. Hudson, 3d ed., Lon- 
 don, 1895, pp. 264, 280. 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 347 
 
 its own style of performance, "which consists in what 
 Herbert Spencer calls "dramatizing" the serious and 
 habitual occupations of their parents and elders. The 
 young do in fun the things in which the adults of their 
 kind are earnestly engaged, and thus unconsciously ex- 
 ercise faculties and acquire capabilities destined to be 
 of immense ulterior benefit to them in the struggle 
 for existence. This form of diversion, which Prof. 
 Groos calls "experimenting," enters largely into the 
 education of children, and is the most important factor 
 in kindergarten instruction, owing to the long duration 
 of human infancy. "With most animals this sportive 
 simulation begins very early, but soon gives place to 
 serious activity. The kitten stretches its legs, thrusts 
 out its claws, scratches whatever comes in contact with 
 them, runs after a rolling ball, and, in lack of other 
 objects of pursuit, indulges the predatory instincts of 
 the feline race by chasing its own tail. The lowest or- 
 ganisms have no leisure in the proper sense of the term; 
 all the powers they possess are constantly and exclusively 
 employed in securing the bare necessities of life. As 
 we ascend to animals of a higher type we find them en- 
 dowed with superior faculties, which enable them to 
 procure food and shelter, to protect themselves against 
 enemies, and to propagate their species, and yet leave 
 them time and strength not wholly absorbed in making 
 provision for their pressing wants. This surplus of en- 
 ergy finds its natural outlet in play, which, as already 
 observed, is the resultant of hereditary tendencies and 
 imitative propensities, and marks the Btarting point 
 in the cultivation of the ideal. In the above-cited 
 work (p. 227), Mr. Hudson describes very vividly 
 the strange impression produced by large flocks of 
 33 
 
34:8 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 chakars or crested screamers singing together on the 
 pampas of South America. On one occasion he saw 
 countless numbers of them gathered along the shores of 
 a narrow sheet of water and arranged in several well-de- 
 fined groups of about five hundred each and extending all 
 round the lake. "Presently one flock near me began 
 singing and continued their powerful chant for three or 
 four minutes; when they ceased, the next flock took up 
 the strains, and after it the next, and so on until the notes 
 of the flocks on the opposite shore came floating strong 
 and clear across the water — then passed away, growing 
 fainter and fainter, until once more the sound ap- 
 proached me travelling round to my side again. The 
 effect was very curious, and I was astonished at the order- 
 ly way with which each flock waited its turn to sing, in- 
 stead of a general outburst taking place after the first 
 flock had given the signal." At another time he heard a 
 similar performance on a still larger scale. This occurred 
 at a place called Gualicho, on the southern pampas, 
 where, after riding over a marshy plain covered with in- 
 numerable groups of chakars, he had stopped for the 
 night at a small rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his 
 family. About nine o'clock, while they were eating 
 supper, the vast multitude of birds covering the marsh 
 for miles around burst forth into a tremendous evening 
 song, the effect of which was indescribable. " One pecul- 
 iarity was that in this mighty noise, which sounded louder 
 than the sea thundering on a rocky coast, I seemed to be 
 able to distinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individ- 
 ual voices. Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless and 
 overcome with astonishment, while the air and even the 
 frail rancho seemed to be trembling in that tempest of 
 sound. When it ceased, my host remarked with a smile, 
 
THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 349 
 
 'We are accustomed to this, sefior — every evening we 
 have this concert.' It was a concert well worth riding a 
 hundred miles to hear." It is evident from the regular 
 occurrence of this performance and the circumstances 
 attending it that it was merely a musical entertainment, 
 havingnothing more to do with sexual solicitation orwoo- 
 ing than has an assembly of men and women giving or 
 hearing a piece of instrumental or vocal music in a thea- 
 tre or a concert hall. It was the expression and gratifi- 
 cation of aesthetic feeling, having a crude and inchoate 
 artistic character like the singing of savages, only more 
 melodious. As just stated, it is well known that monkeys, 
 and especially chimpanzees and gorillas, take a childish 
 delight in making loud and discordant noises by beating 
 on hollow trees and other resonant objects, and often 
 accompanying this din with shouts of exultation, which 
 afford them the same pleasure that it gives an urchin to 
 pound on a tin pan or many an adult to listen to the mo- 
 notonous wheezing of a hand-organ. The only differ- 
 ence in these cases is that the bird has a finer musical 
 sense and a more delicate appreciation of the " concord 
 of sweet sounds " than the simian or the human creature. 
 The fact, too, that some birds sing less freely and to our 
 ear at least less charmingly in the pairing season than at 
 other times, would imply the existence of other and 
 stronger incentives to song than sexual attraction, and 
 can be best explained by assuming that they find pleasure 
 in the mere act of singing or in the production of musical 
 tones. For this reason they meet together and exercise 
 their voices in concert; this occurs also as a general rule 
 out of the pairing season and after the young are fledged 
 and can take part in the performances. It has also been 
 repeatedly observed that the male sings his most beauti- 
 
350 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 fill songs not as a suitor, but as the prospective father of 
 a family, namely, while the female is brooding. What- 
 ever emotion this more elaborate carol of the bird may 
 express, whether paternal pride or conjugal love, it is 
 certainly not the strain in which the feathered warbler 
 woos his mate. Some species of grallatorial birds, 
 such as the New Caledonian kagu (Bhinochitus juoatus) 
 and the African umber or shadow-bird (Scopus urn- 
 iretta), although extremely grave and dignified when 
 in repose, are wont to work off their surplus of vigor 
 by wild pranks and antic postures. All at once the 
 usually staid and rather ungainly fowl begins to dance 
 and skip about in the liveliest manner, seizing with its 
 long beak a tail feather or the tip of its wing, as a 
 ballet-dancer does her gauzy skirt with the tips of her 
 fingers, and prancing and pirouetting in a style that 
 would do credit to any Terpsichorean " star " of the oper- 
 atic stage. Sometimes the fantastic performance ends 
 with a startling acrobatic climax, the bird standing on its 
 head, or rather on the end of its beak, flapping its wings 
 and waving its bright-hued legs like flames in the air. 
 
 The fertilization and propagation of many plants 
 depend upon the existence of a sense of colour in insects, 
 and the exercise of choice in the selection of flowers. 
 This preference implies a pleasure in certain hues, and 
 consequently the possession of a rudimentary perception 
 of beauty. Plants whose fecundation depends upon the 
 action of the wind do not develop such a variety of 
 colours as those in which this depends upon the agency 
 of insects. Nature can trust her ill-favoured daughters 
 to the wooing of the wind, but if she wishes to attract a 
 nicer class of suitors she must endow her children with 
 brilliant qualities. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 351 
 
 The power of distinguishing between colours has 
 been denied not only to the lower animals, but also to 
 the lower races of mankind. But a more extended and 
 accurate knowledge shows that the conclusion is incorrect 
 in both cases. We know that the American aborigines 
 discriminate between the seven primary colours, and it 
 is absurd to infer that this faculty was wanting to the 
 Homeric men merely because we do not find all these 
 colours mentioned in the Homeric poems. It has also 
 been asserted that the ancient Assyrians could not dis- 
 tinguish green from blue or yellow, because no word 
 was found for it in the remains of their language. But 
 the tiles discovered at Nineveh prove that they had a 
 very clear conception and aesthetic appreciation of the 
 distinction between yellow, green, and blue, and prob- 
 ably did not confound any colours of the solar spectrum. 
 The evidence of language on this point is purely negative 
 and necessarily defective. 
 
 Even the religious sentiment, which has been as- 
 sumed to be the peculiar possession of man, is fairly fore- 
 shadowed in the lower animals. The unanimity of opin- 
 ion among those who have made the most careful study 
 of this subject, and whose views are therefore entitled to 
 the greatest consideration, is quite remarkable. M. A. 
 de Quatrefages, in his Eapport sur le Progres de l'An- 
 thropologie (Paris,1867,p.85), maintains that " domestic 
 animals are religious, since they readily obey those who 
 appeal to them with the rod or with sugar." In other 
 words, they are amenable to rewards and punishments, 
 doing the will and seeking to win the favour of superior 
 beings, on whom they are dependent, propitiating and 
 fawning upon them, creeping and grovelling on the 
 ground in abject adoration, in order to assuage their 
 
352 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 anger or to secure their kind regard. " There is no dif- 
 ference," adds the same author, "between the negro 
 who worships a dangerous animal, and the dog who 
 crouches at his master's feet to obtain pardon for a fault. 
 . . . Animals fly to man for protection as a believer 
 does to his god." 
 
 This is precisely the feeling of the savage in respect 
 to the superior skill and power of the civilized man. 
 Taguta Teipini te Atua — doctor all the same as God — are 
 the words in which the Morioris, or aborigines of the 
 Chatham Islands, expressed their sense of dependence 
 on a higher agency, whose beneficent workings they per- 
 ceived but could not comprehend. Among rude tribes 
 the sentiment of devotion to a chief does not differ essen- 
 tially from that of devotion to a god; the Komans, at the 
 height of their civilization, paid divine honours to their 
 emperors; and in modern monarchies kings are officially 
 addressed in terms of reverential awe and superlative 
 adulation as all-wise and all-powerful beings, whose fa- 
 vour one can not sufficiently implore with servile words 
 and suppliant knee. 
 
 " The feeling of religious devotion," says Darwin, 
 " is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete 
 submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a 
 strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, 
 hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No 
 being could experience so complex an emotion until ad- 
 vanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least 
 a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some dis- 
 tinct approach to this state of mind in the deep love of 
 a dog for his master, associated with complete submis- 
 sion, some fear, and perhaps other feelings." * 
 
 * The "Descent of Man. London, 1874, p. 95. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 353 
 
 Comte held that the higher animals are capahle of 
 forming fetichistic conceptions, and of being strongly 
 influenced by them. Herbert Spencer denies the truth 
 of this statement in its absolute form, because it does not 
 fit into his theory of the origin and evolution of religious 
 ideas, but admits, what is essentially the same thing so 
 far as the present discussion is concerned, that " the be- 
 haviour of intelligent animals elucidates the genesis" 
 of fetichism, and gives two illustrations of it. " One of 
 these actions was that of a formidable beast, half mas- 
 tiff, half bloodhound, belonging to friends of mine. 
 While playing with a walking stick, which had been 
 given to him and which he had seized by the lower end, it 
 happened that in his gambols he thrust the handle against 
 the ground, the result being that the end he had in his 
 mouth was forced against his palate. Giving a yelp, 
 he dropped the stick, rushed to some distance from it, 
 and betrayed a consternation which was particularly 
 laughable in so large and ferocious-looking a creature. 
 Only after cautious approaches and much hesitation was 
 he induced again to lay hold of the stick. This behav- 
 iour showed very clearly that the stick, while displaying 
 none but the properties he was familiar with, was not 
 regarded by him as an active agent, but that when it 
 suddenly inflicted a pain in a way never before experi- 
 enced from an inanimate object, he was led for the mo- 
 ment to class it with animate objects, and to regard it as 
 capable of again doing him injury. Similarly, in the 
 mind of the primitive man, knowing scarcely more of 
 natural causation than a dog, the anomalous behaviour 
 of an object previously classed as inanimate suggests 
 animation. The idea of voluntary action is made nas- 
 cent, and there arises a tendency to regard the object 
 
354 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 with alarm, lest it should act in some other unexpected 
 and perhaps mischievous way. The vague notion of 
 animation thus aroused will obviously become a more 
 definite notion as fast as the development of the ghost 
 ' theory furnishes a specific agency to which the anoma- 
 lous behaviour can be ascribed." 
 
 This conduct of the dog, which every one must have 
 observed under similar circumstances, corresponds to that 
 of the savage who worshipped an anchor which had been 
 cast ashore, and on which he had hurt himself when he 
 first came in contact with it. Superstitious fear of this 
 sort prevails most among men of the lowest order of in- 
 telligence, or in that stage of society in which human be- 
 ings are psychically least removed from beasts. In pro- 
 portion as they rise in the scale of existence and unfold 
 their mental faculties, the more they free themselves 
 from the tyranny of the supernatural. The terror of 
 the dog hurt by the stick was out of all proportion to the 
 pain inflicted, and arose solely from the fact that it was 
 produced by a mysterious cause; it was fear intensified 
 by the intervention of a ghostly element, and thus work- 
 ing upon the imagination it assumed the nature of 
 religious awe. The case is analogous to that of a big, 
 burly, brutal savage trembling before a rude stock or 
 stone, or a Neapolitan bandit cowering before an 
 image of the Virgin or kissing devoutly the feet of a 
 crucifix. 
 
 The other illustration given by Herbert Spencer is 
 that of a retriever, who, associating the fetching of game 
 with the pleasure of the person to whom she brought it, 
 would often fetch various objects and lay them at her 
 master's feet; and " this had become in her mind an act 
 of propitiation." 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 355 
 
 Still more interesting and instructive are Mr. Eo- 
 manes's experiments with a Skye terrier. This dog, 
 which was exceedingly intelligent and therefore an ex- 
 cellent subject for psychological study, "used to play 
 with dry hones, by tossing them in the air, throwing them 
 to a distance, and generally giving them the appearance 
 of animation, in order to give himself the ideal pleasure 
 of worrying them. On one occasion, therefore, I tied a 
 long and fine thread to a dry bone and gave him the latter 
 to play with. After he had tossed it about for a short 
 time I took the opportunity, when it had fallen at a dis- 
 tance from him and while he was following it up, of 
 gently drawing it away from him by means of the long, 
 invisible thread. Instantly his whole demeanour changed. 
 The bone which he had previously pretended to be alive, 
 began to look as if it were really alive, and his astonish- 
 ment knew no bounds. He first approached it with 
 nervous caution, but, as the slow receding motion con- 
 tinued and he became quite certain that the movement 
 could not be accounted for by any residuum of force 
 which he had himself communicated, his astonishment 
 developed into dread, and he ran to conceal himself 
 under some articles of furniture, there to behold at a 
 distance the ' uncanny ' spectacle of a dry hone coming 
 to life." In this instance we have the exercise of close 
 observation, judgment, reason, and imagination culmin- 
 ating in the exhibition of superstitious fear — all the ele- 
 ments, in short, which constitute religious sentiment in 
 its crudest form. 
 
 Animals are afraid of darkness for the same reason 
 that children are. Thunder, lightning, and other violent 
 meteorological phenomena, which inspire the primitive 
 man with awe and therefore play a prominent part in the 
 
356 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 evolution of early mythology, produce a similar impres- 
 sion upon many of the lower animals, simply because they 
 are mysterious noises which appeal to the imagination 
 and stimulate the mythopcaic faculty. Mr. Romanes 
 states that " on one occasion, when a number of apples 
 were being shot out of bags upon the wooden floor of an 
 apple room, the sound in the house as each bag was shot 
 closely resembled that of distant thunder." A setter 
 was greatly alarmed at the noise until he was taken to the 
 apple room and shown the cause of it, after which " his 
 dread entirely left him, and on again returning to the 
 house he listened to the rumbling with all cheerfulness." 
 Dogs and horses can be completely cured of their fear of 
 thunder by being present at artillery practice; they 
 imagine that they now know what produces the dreadful 
 roar, and are henceforth free from all apprehension con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 To some extent this sense of the supernatural seems 
 to enter into the sphere of pure imagination and to 
 excite in the minds of animals those vague feelings of 
 anxiety and alarm arising from mere figments of the 
 brain and characterized as superstition. The following 
 incident, " illustrating the instinctive fear of death and 
 consciousness of its presence manifested by birds," is 
 related by Buist: " A hen canary died, was buried, the 
 nesting establishment broken up, the surviving cock bird 
 removed to a new cage, and the hatching cage itself thor- 
 oughly cleansed and purified, and put aside till the fol- 
 lowing spring. Never, however, could any bird after- 
 ward endure being placed in that cage. They fought 
 and struggled to get out, and, if all in vain their efforts, 
 they moped, huddling close together, thoroughly un- 
 happy, refusing to be comforted by any amount of sun- 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 357 
 
 shine, companionship, or dainty food." The experiment 
 was tried with foreign birds, that had not been in the 
 house when the death of the hen occurred, and could not, 
 therefore, have known anything of the melancholy event 
 by observation. The result, however, was always the 
 same. " For the future that cage to them was haunted." 
 
 It is a common belief that many animals can see 
 ghosts and future events. Justinus Kerner declares (Die 
 Seherin von Prevost, i, 125) that they are endowed with 
 second sight, and that numerous facts can be adduced 
 in proof of it. This uncanny faculty is supposed to be 
 especially strong in dogs and horses. Storks, too, are 
 known to have foreseen the burning of houses on which 
 they had been wont to build their nests, end to have 
 abandoned them, taking up their abode on other build- 
 ings or on trees in the vicinity. No sooner had the an- 
 ticipated conflagration taken place, and a new house 
 been erected on the same site, than they returned and 
 built their nests on it as heretofore. That Balaam's ass 
 perceived the angel, which was beyond the ken of the 
 prophet, ought to suffice to convince every believer in the 
 plenary inspiration of the Bible of the spectre-seeing 
 powers of the lower animals. The ghost stories told of 
 dogs and horses are quite as numerous and well authenti- 
 cated as those which have been told of men. There is 
 no psychological theory of apparitions that does not ex- 
 plain these strange phenomena as satisfactorily in 
 beasts as in human beings. The night side of Nature 
 casts its gloom over both. 
 
 Of course, if religion is a direct and special revelation 
 to man, then no sentient creature prior and inferior to 
 him could have any share in it. The hypothesis of a 
 pure primitive monotheism, of which all polytheistic 
 
358 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 systems of belief are mere distortions and degradations, 
 would, also tend to exclude the lower animals from the 
 possession of religious sentiment by showing that the 
 religious history of the race has been a downward instead 
 of an upward movement, a corruption instead of an evolu- 
 tion. Its growth would not correspond to the growth 
 of intelligence, and it could no longer be studied as a 
 psychological phenomenon, but would be removed at 
 once from the province of scientific investigation. 
 There can be no science of the supernatural, since science 
 recognises only the operation of natural laws. A mir- 
 acle that can be explained, as the rationalistic school of 
 theology has attempted to do, ceases thereby to be a 
 miracle. The essence of religion is mystery; the sole 
 aim of science is to clear up and thus do away with mys- 
 teries — a goal which it is always tending toward but will 
 never reach, for the same reason that an asymptotic line 
 never meets the curve which it is constantly approaching. 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 Abbott, Dr., on mechanical skill of 
 
 the oriole, 200 ; on aphasia in the 
 
 quail, 299. 
 Abel, his offering, 90. 
 Addis, W. E., on animals as things, 
 
 97. 
 JEschylus, quoted, 81. 
 Agriculture, conservative influence 
 
 of, 89 ; first promoters of, 43 ; holi- 
 ness of, 60-69 ; fatal to nomadic 
 
 life, 71. 
 Ahuramazda, 59, 62, 66, 67. 
 Airyana-Vaej6, 64. 
 Akemmano, 69. 
 Albert, meaning of, 22. 
 Alexander, meaning of, 22. 
 Aliens, as enemies, 26; former 
 
 treatment in England, France, 
 
 and Italy, 34-37. 
 Alix, E., on musical poodles, 345. 
 Altum, on the " natural necessity " 
 
 of bird-song, 220. 
 Amenophis III and IY, 33. 
 Americans, their extravagance, and 
 
 ignorance of economic laws, 102, 
 
 103. 
 Amnon, his relations to Tamar, 51. 
 Amphicyon, ancestor of dog and 
 
 bear, 281. 
 Amtsberg, his experiment with a 
 
 pike, 186. 
 
 Anacreon, extols the song of the ci- 
 cadas, 342. 
 
 Anasis, foes of agriculture, 72. 
 
 Anaximander, as an evolutionist, 
 137. 
 
 Ancon sheep, origin of, 214. 
 
 Angro-Mainyush, 69. 
 
 Animals, denial of their rights by 
 mediaeval and modern school- 
 men, 2, 96-99 ; in the eyes of 
 primitive man, 4; superstitious 
 fear and worship of, 6, 118-120 ; 
 effect of domestication on their 
 relations to man, 7 ; Zarathustra, 
 doctrine of, 8, 59 ; regard of Bud- 
 dhists and Brahmans for, 9, 88, 
 148, 164; Greek speculation con- 
 cerning, 10 ; views of early Chris- 
 tians concerning, 11 ; moral and 
 religious symbolism of, 12; capi- 
 tal punishment and excommuni- 
 cation of, 13, 155 ; penal laws for 
 the protection of, 14, 100-102 ; the 
 clergy opposed to rights of, 14 ; 
 Lotze's theory of animal souls, 15 ; 
 measure of man's duty to, 18 ; an- 
 thropocentric teachings of Holy 
 Writ, 10, 88-90; practical work- 
 ings of biblical teachings con- 
 cerning, 89-93, 96-99, 146-152, 
 156-161 ; arguments in favour of 
 
 869 
 
370 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 immortality of, 94; limitation of 
 man's dominion over, 97 ; cruel- 
 ties inflicted in transporting, 101 ; 
 influence of the doctrine of me- 
 tempsychosis, 135-138; societies 
 for protection of, 138; hospitals 
 for 4 139-144, 147; excessive 
 scruples of Jainas concerning, 
 141 ; tormented by Mantegazza, 
 142 ; foolish fondness for pet, 145 ; 
 Munich Thierscjhutzverein, 149; 
 dilemma of a philozoic par- 
 Bon, 149; scriptura^ injunctions 
 of kindness to, 149-152, 164; in 
 hagiology, 152-159; "not Chris- 
 tians," 160; attitude of Catholic 
 Church toward, 159-162; decree 
 of Pius IX concerning, 160 ; 
 cruelty of Italians to, 154, 160 ; 
 inalienable rights of, 164; psy- 
 chical kinship with man, 167, 171 ; 
 power of choice in the lowest, 
 172 ; no precise line of demarca- 
 tion between vegetables and, 171- 
 173 ; Schneider's psychological 
 classification of, 175, 178-181, 
 185; Oken's temperaments of, 
 179; mental impulses of food- 
 storing, 179 ; sentinel-posting, 
 182, 183 ; mutual benefit associa- 
 tions of, 184; didactic procedures 
 with, 186-189; paternal training 
 of, 189, 198; wild speculations 
 about, 191 ; fanciful distinctions 
 between man [and, 192-194 ; dif- 
 ference in bodily constitution 
 and its influence on mental de- 
 velopment of man and, 194-196 ; 
 institutions common to man and, 
 197 ; communities of, 198 ; im- 
 provableness of, 198, 200-206, 212- 
 216 ; military organization of, 
 210 ; inheritable qualities of, 213- 
 215 ; their conceptual world com- 
 pared with that of savages, 215, 
 
 225; influence of domestication 
 on their mental development, 216- 
 218; tamability of, 21§; "time- 
 sense" in, 223-227; tradition in 
 communities of, 225; suicide of, 
 227; nature of benevolence in, 
 228; conjugal, unions of, 228, 
 229; jealousies of, 229; sense of 
 community in, 230 ; courts of jus- 
 tice held by, 230-235; criminal 
 impulses in, 236 : social and in- 
 dustrial organizations of, 227-240 ; 
 adaptation to environment, 240- 
 243 ; relapse into barbarism, 241 ; 
 different stages of evolution, 247 ; 
 grades of intelligence, 250 ; size 
 of brain and mental capacity. 
 252; personal benevolence and 
 altruism of, 255-257 ; use of tools 
 by, 257-265 ; as miners, 263 ; logi- 
 cal faculty of, 265-267; humour 
 in, 268; speech as the Eubicon 
 between man and, 271-273, 291- 
 295, 300; formation of general 
 concepts by, 282, 286, 291, 310; 
 ability to count, 285; strange 
 transformations of individual, 
 280 ; evolution of different specieB 
 of, 281 ; vices of civilization ac- 
 quired by, 313 ; language of, 291- 
 294, 299-310, 310-330 ; knowledge 
 of the fine arts as a distinction 
 between man and, 333; inferior- 
 ity of man in physical structure 
 to, 334, 335 ; long and helpless in- 
 fancy of some, 335 ; advantage of 
 quadruman over quadruped, 336 ; 
 sesthetio sense and artistic skill 
 of, 337-339 ; appreciation of mel- 
 ody by, 339-350 ; musical instruc- 
 tion of, 340, 344, 345; play im- 
 pulse in, 345-347 ; musical ap- 
 paratus of, 843; muBical per- 
 formances by, 343-350; colour 
 sense in, 87, 350 ; religious senti- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 371 
 
 ment in, 851-358 ; fear of thunder 
 
 and darkness, 355, 356; fear of 
 
 ghosts and second sight in, 356, 
 
 357. 
 Anthony, St., his sermon to fishes, 
 
 155; celebration of his feast in 
 Rome, 156. 
 Anti-Semitism, a survival of tribal- 
 ism, 50. 
 Ants, progressive evolution of, 205 ; 
 structure of their hills, 206 ; 
 white, 207 ; agricultural, 245-247 ; 
 cazadores or nomadic, 247 ; 
 " cattle-lifting," 248; slavehold- 
 ing, 249 ; difference of intelli- 
 gence in, 250 ; ingenuity of, 251 ; 
 size of brain and mental capacity 
 of, 252 ; babyhood and education 
 of, 253 ; moral attributes of honey, 
 255; Darwin's experiment with, 
 255; method of heating their 
 habitations, 265 ; language of ges- 
 ture highly developed by, 292; 
 language of, 311, 318. 
 
 Apes, social organization of, 41 ; 
 wine-making and pottery-fabri- 
 cating, 261 ; language of, 315, 317, 
 324 ; long infancy of anthropoid, 
 335; manual dexterity of, 262, 
 336. See Monkeys. 
 
 Aphasia, cause and examples of, 
 295-298. 
 
 Aphides, kept by ants as cattle, 
 248, 249. 
 * Apiarists, improvements introduced 
 by, 202. 
 
 Apuleius, his Golden Ass, 115; 
 reputation as a sorcerer, 116. 
 
 Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Arehceopteryx, ancestor of birds and 
 reptiles, 281. 
 
 Arda-Viraf, his piety and incest, 13. 
 
 Aristophanes, quoted, 23. 
 
 Aristotle, quoted, 10 ; on the re-em- 
 bodiment of poets as cygnets, 
 
 114 ; on heart-beating as peculiar 
 to man, 191 ; on phdn6 and pso- 
 phos, 809. 
 Armaiti, personifioation of the 
 
 earth, 59, 66. 
 Arnold, Thomas, perplexed by the 
 Christian doctrine of animals, 91, 
 92, 93. 
 
 Arnold, T., quoted, 97. 
 
 Arts, first developed by dwarfs and 
 
 . cripples, 44 ; animal appreciation 
 of the fine, 333-851. 
 
 Asceticism repudiated by Parsis, 61. 
 
 Ashemaogho, the impure, 63. 
 
 Asia, meaning of, 22. 
 
 Asperena, meaning of, 62. 
 
 Ass, use of weapons by an, 259 ; vi- 
 sion of Balaam's, 357. 
 
 Assyrians, their distinction of col- 
 ours, 351. 
 
 Astovidhotus, the death demon, 63. 
 
 Astrology, persistence of, 85. 
 
 Astronomy, geocentric, 24, 82. 
 
 Augustine, on sorcery, 115 ; on pre- 
 destination, 130. 
 
 Austin, Philip, denies the duty of 
 kindness to brutes, 97. 
 
 Australians, as beasts of venery, 78 ; 
 their numerals and words for 
 colours, 287. 
 
 A vesta, quoted, 2, 51, 59-63. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quoted, 93. 
 
 Bactria, social evolution in, 58. 
 
 "Bai Sakarbai," hospital for ani- 
 mals, 142. 
 
 Balantis, tribal ethics of the, 25. 
 
 Barbarian, origin of the word, 23 ; 
 later applications of the term, 31, 
 32 ; conservatism of the, 70. 
 
 Barclay, John, on the immortality 
 of animals, 94. 
 
 Barley, first grain cultivated, 44. 
 
 Barnum, his contract with King 
 Thibo for a white elephant, 143. 
 
372 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Barthelot, Major, his cruelty to 
 Africans, 78. 
 
 Bastian, on termites in India, 211. 
 
 Bateman, on«phasia, 298. 
 
 Battas, parricide as a mark of filial 
 affection, 109. 
 
 Bayle, on comets as portents, 86. 
 
 Bedouins, hospitality of, 30 ; hostil- 
 ity to agriculture, 72. 
 
 Bees, colonization of, 198 ; artificial 
 comb for, 202 ; products of human 
 industry used by, 203; "sweat- 
 ing," 203-205 ; cause of the hex- 
 agonal form of their cells, 205; 
 liability to error, 20t, note ; math- 
 ematical thinking of, 224 ; demo- 
 cratic government of, 237 ; mater- 
 nal functions and conjugal rela- 
 tions of their queen, 237-239; 
 drones as prince consorts, 239; 
 radical changes in the habits of, 
 240 ; degeneracy of, 240-242 ; 
 brigand, 241 ; effect of alcoholic 
 drinks on, 242; interhival rela- 
 tions of, 243; foresight of, 244; 
 brain of, 252; pantomimic lan- 
 guage of, 292. 
 
 Beethoven, his musical spider, 341. 
 
 Belief, supersession of kinship by 
 religious, 53. See Religion. 
 
 Bell, A. Graham, his attempts to 
 teach animals to speak, 216, 300. 
 
 Bellarmine, Cardinal, his nasty 
 means of grace, 152. 
 
 Benares, as the centre of the earth, 
 21. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, on animal rights, 
 13. 
 
 Bergh, Henry, on the cruelty of 
 corporations to animals, 101, 102. 
 
 Berlin, meaning of, 22. 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, on the tolera- 
 tion of Jews, 74. 
 
 Bemardine de Saint- Pierre, his tele- 
 ology, 83. 
 
 Berzelius, on the products of vital 
 forces, 174. 
 
 Bethlehem, as the centre of the 
 earth, 21. 
 
 Bettzieh-Beta, on termites, 208. 
 
 Bible, anthropooentric teachings of 
 the, 149, 150, 152. 
 
 Birds, Jewish protection of, 151 ; 
 Italian cruelty to, 154; relation of 
 saints to, 154, 157 ; sentinel-post- 
 ing, 182; conjugal instinct in, 
 197; parasitic, 199; their im- 
 provements in nest building, 
 200-202; "time-sense" in, 226; 
 conjugal virtue of, 229 ; sense of 
 community in, 230; oourts of 
 justice held by, 230-234 ; use of 
 tools by, 260; their ability to 
 count, 285; aphasia in, 299; ar- 
 ticulation by, 300 (see Pabrots 
 and Ravens) ; aesthetic sense in, 
 338, 339 ; musical education of, 
 829, 340; the play impulse in, 
 345-350; musical concerts by, 
 347-349 ; dancing, 350. 
 
 Blanchard, on termites, 208. 
 
 Blood, brotherhood of, 24-26 ; su- 
 perstitious regard for, 26-28; 
 Christian enlargement of the 
 bond of, 28, 29 ; all nations and 
 all creatures of one, 164. See 
 Ethics. 
 
 Body, development of the soul de- 
 pendent upon the, 15 ; seat of the 
 soul, 26 ; made by the soul, 121 ; 
 mind not destroyed with the, 
 123; acquisition of new organB of 
 the, 124 ; no knowledge of spirit 
 separate from the, 132-135. 
 
 Boethius, on metamorphoses, 116. 
 
 Bordeaux, termites in, 211. 
 
 Bouillard, on aphasia, 295. 
 
 Bower bird, aesthetic Bense and ar- 
 tistic taste of the, 338. 
 
 Bozen, ingenuity of ants in, 251. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 373 
 
 Brahmanism, doctrine concerning 
 animals, 9, 88, 188 ; caste in, 58 ; 
 necessity of a son to salvation, 68. 
 
 Brehm, A. E., on the language of 
 apes, 815; on,the nearness of the 
 ape to man, 837. 
 
 Brooa, on aphasia, 295, 297. 
 
 Brotherhood, the sole cement of 
 primitive society, 25; Christian 
 theory of universal, 28; Cicero 
 and Marcus Aurelius on human, 
 28, 29; artificial creation of, 27; 
 feigned by sovereigns, 83 ; natu- 
 ral superseded by religious, 55. 
 
 Buchner, quoted, 137; on drones, 
 238 ; on demoralized bees, 242 ; 
 on the rearing and training of 
 ants, 253, 254. 
 
 Buddha and Buddhism, doctrine of 
 animal life, 9, 88, 127, 136, 188. 
 
 Buffon, on animal intelligence, 202, 
 212, 213, 291. 
 
 Buist, on canaries and the haunted 
 cage, 356. 
 
 Bullfights, under the auspices of 
 the Church, 161. 
 
 Bumaburiash, his correspondence, 
 33. 
 
 Bums, quoted, 90, 131. 
 
 Butler, Bishop, on animal immor- 
 tality, 94. 
 
 Cain, type of primitive man, 30 ; his 
 offerings, 90. 
 
 Calvin, John, his doctrine of pre- 
 destination, 130, 168. 
 
 Canaries, conjugal virtue of, 229 ; 
 appreciation of melody by, 339 ; 
 ghost-seeing, 356. 
 
 Cannibalism, origin of, 27, 118; 
 practised by Europeans, 79. 
 
 Canning, George, his abolition of 
 the alien law, 38. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his false etymol- 
 ogy of king, 41. 
 
 Carrion fly, aots under the impulse 
 of perception, 180. 
 
 Carus, Paul, on naming, 291 ; on 
 the language of ants, 318. 
 
 Cassiodorus, quoted, 191. 
 
 Cathrein, Victor, ridicules kind- 
 ness to animals, 99. 
 
 Cato, on usury, 74. 
 
 Cats, asylum for, 144 ; training of, 
 219 ; standard of goodness in, 228 ; 
 the play impulse in, 347. 
 
 Cattle, care for, 2 ; cruelty in trans- 
 porting, 101, 102. 
 
 Cazadores, nomadic ants, 247. 
 
 Cells of bees, cause of their form, 
 205. 
 
 Celsus, his polemic against anthro- 
 pocentrio Christianity, 10. 
 
 Cicero, cosmopolitan spirit of, 28. 
 
 Chakar, 64. 
 
 Chakars, musical concerts of, 848, 
 349. 
 
 Chaumette, his aviary, 145. 
 
 Chekiang, wine-making apes in, 
 261. 
 
 Chester, meaning of, 22. 
 
 Chevage, tax on aliens, 36. 
 
 Chimpanzees. See Apes and Mon- 
 keys. 
 
 China, the centre of the earth, 23. 
 
 Chinvad, bridge to paradise, 63, 132. 
 
 Christ, his gospel a sword, 56. 
 
 Christianity, its attitude toward ani- 
 mals, 10, 88-99, 138. 
 
 Cicada, prized by the Greeks as a 
 singer, 342 ; now known to be a 
 violinist, 343. 
 
 Clifford, Prof., on the movements of 
 atoms, 302. 
 
 Cobbe, Frances Power, on zoophi- 
 le 3- 
 
 Cock, cruel treatment of the, 160, 
 
 161. 
 Cockneyism, a survival of tribalism, 
 
 88. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Colour, sense of, in animals and sav- 
 ages, 287, 338, 351. 
 
 Columbanus, St., wild animals at- 
 tracted by, 153. 
 
 Comets, as portents, 86. 
 
 Comte, Aug., on fetichism in ani- 
 mals, 353. 
 
 Conception, impulse of, 175-181. 
 
 Congo, cruelties in, 78. 
 
 Consanguinity, the primitive basis 
 of moral obligation and social 
 union, 25. See Biood and Broth- 
 erhood. 
 
 Consciousness, in the lowest forms 
 of life, 167. 
 
 Cope, Prof., on superiorities of ani- 
 mals to man in physical structure, 
 334. 
 
 Cormorants, tool-using, 260. 
 
 Couthon, his pet spaniel, 145. 
 
 Cowper, William, quoted, 151, 193. 
 
 Creed, cohesive attraction of the, 
 56. 
 
 Cripples, the first inventors, 44. 
 
 Crows, tool-using, 260. 
 
 Crystallization, phenomena of, 172- 
 174. 
 
 Cuckoo, habits of different species 
 of, 199. 
 
 Cyril, quoted, 39. 
 
 Cyrus, wedded to his sister, 51. 
 
 Czynski, Czeslav, hypnotic sugges- 
 tion and swindling, 117. 
 
 Dadabhoi Naoroji, a "nigger," 46. 
 
 Dakotas, as dog-eaters, 118. 
 
 Dards, primitive barbarism of, 70. 
 
 Darmesteter, his solar theory of 
 Zarathustra, 69. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, on intelligence in 
 the oyster, 17 ; his Origin of Spe- 
 cies, 14, 137 ; on worms, 151 ; on 
 the fallibility of bees, 207, note ; 
 on agricultural ants, 245 ; on the 
 ant's brain, 252; his experiment 
 
 with ants, 255 ; on the different 
 barking tones of the dog, 282 ; on 
 the sense of melody and colour in 
 birds, 337 ; on religious sentiment 
 in animals, 352. 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus, his theory of di- 
 vine beneficence, 103. 
 
 Dasyus, aborigines of India, 68. 
 
 Death, continuous process of, 
 134. 
 
 Descartes, on animals as machines, 
 170. 
 
 Detractus personalis, punishment 
 for emigration, 40. 
 
 Devas, diabolized deities, 59. 
 
 Dogs, tortured by Mantegazza, 142 ; 
 asylum for, 144; as specialists, 
 216 ; reared for food, 218 ; " time- 
 sense " in, 226 ; generous friend- 
 ship of, 256, 257 ; ak-ak denoting 
 eagerness in the language of, 282 ; 
 distinct barking tones acquired 
 through domestication, 282, 283 ; 
 power of classification, 286 ; abil- 
 ity to count, 288, 322 ; expression 
 by wagging the tail, 292 ; at the 
 mercy of metaphysicians, 294; 
 able to articulate words, 300 ; sent 
 on errands and to the market, 
 321-323 ; compared to monkeys, 
 336 ; musical taste and training 
 of, 343-345 ; religious sentiment 
 in, 352-355 ; ghost stories about, 
 357. 
 
 Domestication, results of, 216-219, 
 282, 283. 
 
 Donkey, club wielding, 259. 
 
 Droit d'aubaine, against aliens, 35. 
 
 Drones, the prince consorts of the 
 hive, 239. 
 
 Droste-Hulfshoff, Annette von, her 
 poem The Lark, 342. 
 
 Dybowski, on Garner's studies of 
 simian speech in Africa, 330- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 375 
 
 Ebrard, on ants, 254. 
 
 Edinburgh, meaning of, 22. 
 
 Edmonson, Dr., on the judicial pro- 
 ceedings of hooded crows, 281. 
 
 Eleusis, privilege of asses at, 150, 
 151. 
 
 Elliott, George, quoted, 90. 
 
 Emerson, Kalph Waldo, on evolu- 
 tion, 11, 135. 
 
 Emigration, right of, 47-49; barbar- 
 izing effects of, 78-80. 
 
 Empedooles, 187. 
 
 English, insularity of the, 28 ; boor, 
 34 ; laws against aliens, 37, 38 ; 
 tribal spirit in their extradition 
 treaties, 40; King George's men, 
 49 ; treatment of Negritos, 78 ; 
 cannibalism, 79. 
 
 Spares, aliens as waifs, 36. 
 
 Ethics, relation of animal psycholo- 
 gy to evolutional, 2, 4, 14 ; philo- 
 zoic, 3 ; ethnocentric, 24-26, 73 ; 
 survivals of tribal, 33-40, 49, 50, 
 77-79 ; supersession of ethnocen- 
 tric by theocentric, 53, 55-57, 58, 
 73-76; anthropocentric, 89; de- 
 fect of Jewish and Christian, 88- 
 99 ; scientific basis of philozoic, 
 96 : legal recognition of animal 
 rights as a corollary to evolution- 
 al, 100. 
 
 Europe, meaning of, 22. 
 
 Expatriation, right of, 47. 
 
 Family, included domestic animals, 
 8 ; differentiated out of the tribe, 
 41, 229. 
 
 Fate, Oriental idea of, 121, 122. 
 
 Feigning death, by animals, 181. 
 
 Fellahin, strangers hated by, 34; 
 meaning of, 72. 
 
 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 137. 
 
 Fire, used by animals, 264. 
 
 Fiske, John, Hefbart's idea devel- 
 oped by, 194. 
 
 Flourens, on mind in animals, 291. 
 
 Flugel, O., on animal tribunals and 
 simulation, 234, 235. 
 
 Forel, on ants, 254. 
 
 Fournior, his fondness for squirrels, 
 145. 
 
 Francis of AsBisi, St., wolf of Gub- 
 bio reformed by, 155 ; his Cantico 
 delle Creature and sympathy with 
 beasts and birds, 157, 158. 
 
 Frederick III, his decree concern- 
 ing Jews in Nuremberg, 74. 
 
 Free will, nature and extent of, 167- 
 170. 
 
 French, childish exhibition of'tri- 
 balism by the, 25. 
 
 Fuligatti, biography of Cardinal 
 Bellarmine, 152. 
 
 Gabella hereditarius, against aliens, 
 
 40. 
 Galen, on man's 'upward look, 192. 
 Gall, St., bear addressed in Latin 
 
 by, 153. 
 Galton, Francis, on training animals 
 
 for mental power, 215. 
 Garner, K. L., his studies of simian 
 
 speech and their results, 312-815, 
 
 319, 328-332. 
 Gatha dialect, 58. 
 Gennadius, on creation, 84. 
 Geography, ethnocentric, 20-24, 82. 
 George, meaning of, 22. 
 Germans, called Nemici, 24; ethics 
 
 of ancient, 25 ; called barbarians 
 
 by the Komans, 32; old laws of 
 
 the, 35, 36. 
 Gervinus, on the ancient Greeks' 
 
 love of nature, 190. 
 Gessner, K., on the stargazer, 184. 
 Gifford, Ellen M., her refuge for 
 
 cats and dogB, 144. 
 Glendower, 85, 153. 
 Goar, St., hinds commanded by, 
 
 158. 
 
376 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Goethe, horosoopy of, 86 ; on pre- 
 existenoe with Frau von Stein, 
 116 ; on Orient and Occident, 162 ; 
 on language, 289. 
 
 Goring, Prof., 340. 
 
 Gould, on the bower bird, 338. 
 
 Graber, Vitus, on the relative size of 
 insect brains, 252 ; on the musical 
 apparatus of the cioada, 343. 
 
 Graul, on the treatment of animals 
 in India, 136. 
 
 Gray, quoted, 87. 
 
 Greeks, early speculations of the, 14 ; 
 survival of their, geographical 
 terms, 22; their classification of 
 mankind, 23; their attitude to 
 '■ strangers, 31 ; their disregard for 
 the decrepit, 139. 
 
 Green, Prof., on the mental opera- 
 tions of a burnt dog in the pres- 
 ence of fire, 294. 
 
 Grenville, Lord, his alien bill, 
 38. 
 
 Groos, Karl, on the play impulse in 
 animals, 347. 
 
 Habeneck, his musical poodle, 345. 
 
 Haeokel, ErnBt, on treatment of ani- 
 mals in India, 136 ; on aboriginal 
 ants, 205.. 
 
 Hagen, H., on termites, 209, 211. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, on the souls of 
 brutes, 95. 
 
 Hamann, 137. 
 
 Hand, its influence on mental 
 growth, 194, 195. 
 
 Hanikl, his remarkable parrot, 326. 
 
 Hartmann, Eduard von, 137. 
 
 Harvey, anticipated by Nemesius, 
 11. 
 
 Haug, 65. 
 
 Hawthorne, his Donatello, 159. 
 
 Hebrews, ethnocentric notions of, 
 6; survival of tribal marriage 
 among, 8; tribal religion of, 57; 
 
 contempt for Christians, 75. See 
 Jews. 
 
 Hedley, John Cuthbert, animal 
 rights deniett by, 96. 
 
 Hegel, quoted, 55. 
 
 Heidegger, Gotthard, his speaking 
 raven, 300. 
 
 Heine, Heinrich, reflections of his i 
 lizard at Lucca, 189. 
 
 Hens, effect of alcohol on, 243. 
 
 Hephsestus, 44. 
 
 Heraclitus, on psophos, 809, 310. 
 
 Herbart, on the disciplinary value 
 of religion in early society, 55 ; on 
 the three chief causes of man's 
 mental development, 194, 334. 
 
 Herbert, George, his precepts for 
 parsons, 90. 
 
 Herder, on animals as elder broth- 
 ers, 18, 137. 
 
 Hermit crab, 184. 
 
 Herodotus, quoted, 43, 57, 63; on 
 the transmigration of souls, 110. 
 
 Hettinger, his apology for Christian- 
 ity, 14. 
 
 Hickok, Dr., denies duties to ani- 
 mals, 98. 
 
 Hippocrates, on the stargazer, 110. 
 
 Hobbes, man rational because ora- 
 tional, 272. 
 
 Holden, Prof., on the suicide of a 
 rattlesnake, 227. 
 
 Homer, on kindness to strangers, 29. 
 
 Horace, his apokyknosiB, 114. 
 
 Horoscopy, 85. 
 
 Horses, cruelty to, 102 ; training of, 
 188 ; transmission of qualities by, 
 213; "time-sense" in, 226; fear 
 of thunder, 356 ; ghost-seeing, 
 357. 
 
 Hospitality, sacredness of, 30; to- 
 kens of, 82. 
 
 Hospitals for animals, 139-145, 147. 
 
 Hotspur, his retort to Glendower, 
 85. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 377 
 
 Huber, Francois, on bees, 207, note ; 
 
 "royal treatment" of, 237; on 
 
 foresight in, 244. 
 Huber, Pierre, on ants, 207; on 
 
 " royal treatment " of ants, 287 ; 
 
 on slaves of ants, 254. 
 Hubert, St., his vision of a Btag, 
 
 155. 
 Hudson, W. H., on the play impulse 
 
 in mammals and birds, 345, 346 ; 
 
 on the musical concerts of cha- 
 
 kars, 347-349. 
 Humboldt, A. von, on an Aturian 
 
 parrot, 825. 
 Humboldt, W. von, on language, 
 
 289. 
 Hun, Dr., on child language, 277. 
 Hunger, as an impulse, 55, 175-177. 
 Huxley, his line of separation be- 
 tween unimala and man, 333. 
 Hysenarctos, ursine and canine, 281. 
 
 Impulses, Schneider's four cate- 
 gories of, 175. 
 
 Incarnation, as a curse, 113. 
 
 Infusoria, their power of choice, 170 ; 
 metamorphosed into algse, 172. 
 
 Insects, sense of colour in, 87, 350 ; 
 vocal organs of, 310-312 ; love of 
 musical tones, 340; musical in- 
 struments of, 342, 343. 
 
 Instincts, analogous to habits in 
 man, 18 ; not unchangeable, 198, 
 210, 212, 240-243 ; liable to error, 
 206, 207. 
 
 Institutions common to animals and 
 man, 197. 
 
 International conscience, slow 
 growth of, 25. 
 
 Ionic school, evolution taught by 
 the, 9, 137. 
 
 Ivan the Terrible, 100. 
 
 Jaeger, Charles, on the language of 
 animals, 294. 
 
 Jainas, excessive fear of killing 
 animals, 136, 140, 141. 
 
 James, St., oare for birds, 154. 
 
 Jameson, Mr., his barbarity to ne- 
 groes, 78. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., on the delinquen- 
 cies of the pulpit, 90 ; on cruelty 
 to dogs in Vienna, 145. 
 
 Janet, Charles, on the vocal organs 
 of ants, 312. 
 
 Japu, artistic talent of the, 339. 
 
 Jerusalem, the centre of the earth, 
 21. 
 
 Jesse, on beehive fortifications, 241. 
 
 Jesus, his belief in pre-existence, 
 114. 
 
 Jews, tneir ethnocentric ethics, 23, 
 24 ; superstitious regard for blood, 
 26 ; not proselytizing, 57 ; tribal 
 feeling, 74^76; their schabbesgol 
 and dread of perjury, 76 ; place 
 of animals in their cosmogony 
 and religion, 88-91 ; theory of 
 transmigration adopted by, 110- 
 112 ; poverty of their scriptures in 
 regard to animals' rights, 149- 
 152. 
 
 Julian, Emperor, compares German 
 to the caw of ravens, 293. 
 
 Jus albinagii, kolbekerlii, and wild- 
 fangiatus, 35, 36. 
 
 Kagu, dancing feats of the, 350. 
 
 Kalewala, quoted, 4. 
 
 Kapila, Indian prototype of Darwin, 
 166, note. 
 
 Kedney, Prof., his argument against 
 evolution, 335. 
 
 Kerner, Justinus, on second sight 
 in animals, 357. 
 
 Kepler, 85. 
 
 Kilima-Njaro, a raid of driver ants 
 in, 247. 
 
 Kinship. See Blood and Brother- 
 hood. 
 
378 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kipling, J. Lookwood, on the treat- 
 ment of animals in India, 135. 
 
 Kitto, on the sacrificial institution, 
 90. 
 
 Knownothingism, 39. 
 
 Kolbenrecht, 36. 
 
 Krause, on mental development in 
 relation to moral rights, 18, 137. 
 
 Lactantius, Lucius, on human broth- 
 erhood, 28, 29 ; his distinction be- 
 tween men and brutes, 192. 
 
 La Mettrie, on men as machines, 
 170. 
 
 Landois, Prof., on the tone language 
 of mosquitoes, 310, 311i 
 
 Language, as a barrier between man 
 and beast, 271-273 ; as the test of 
 rationality, 272; roots of, 273- 
 276, 278, 281, 283, ; 302, 303, 315 ; 
 child, 276-280 ; identity of thought 
 and, 288, 317 ; a social institution, 
 288, 289; theories of the origin of, 
 278, 283, 290, 306-308 ; not super- 
 natural, 306 ; pantomimic, 289, 
 291, 292, 299 ; organ of articulate, 
 295 ; animal, see Animals. 
 
 La Koohelle, termites in, 209, 211. 
 
 Lecky, on Egyptian hospitals for 
 animals, 145. 
 
 Leibnitz, on the useof human speech 
 by animals, 216, 300. 
 
 Lenz, on the maternal training of 
 kittens, 188 ; on tradition in bee- 
 hives, 243. 
 
 Leonhard, St., feast of, 157. 
 
 Lessing, on the acquisition of new 
 senses, 124-126. 
 
 Levant, local meaning of, 22. 
 
 Liberia, republic of, 77. 
 
 Lindo, Miss, her hospital for horses, 
 144. 
 
 Linseeom, Dr., studies of Texan 
 agricultural ants, 245, 246. 
 
 Livingstone, on the soko, 267-269. 
 
 Lizard, Heine's, 189 ; -love of music, 
 340. 
 
 Lotze, Hermann, his theory of souls, 
 15, 137. 
 
 Louis XIV, absolutism of, 100. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, his experiment 
 with ants, 250. 
 
 Lucian, his imaginary metamorpho- 
 sis, 115. 
 
 Lucretius, on human brotherhood, 
 29. 
 
 Ludwig I, his futile efforts to attract 
 birds, 159. 
 
 Macarius, St., his penance, 153. 
 
 Macgowan, on wine-making apes, 
 261. 
 
 Magpie, its ability to count four, 
 285. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on the 
 evolution of social institutions, 
 25-40, 45, 46, 53. ' 
 
 Man, his place in nature, 15, '83-89, 
 99 ; turning point in his evolu- 
 tion, 17 ; world of primitive, 20 ; 
 ethics of primitive, 24, 73 ; broth- 
 erhood of, 28, 33 ; social survivals 
 of palseozoic, 33, 34-38 ; suprem- 
 acy of, 89-99, 192-194; his superi- 
 ority and inferiority in bodily 
 structure,, 194, 334. 
 
 Manchuria, wine-making apes in, 
 261. 
 
 Mandrill, vicious nature of the, 312- 
 
 . 315 ; teachableness of the, 313. 
 
 Manichsaans, metempsychosis 
 
 taught by the, 112. 
 
 Mansel, Prof., on language and 
 thought, 288. 
 
 Mantegazza, Prof., hospitals for ani- 
 mals ridiculed by, 142; his "tor- 
 mentor," 142. 
 
 Manu, institutes of, 121. 
 
 Manyuema, their inferiority to the 
 soko, 267, 268. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 379 
 
 Marat, his devotion to doves, 145. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, his cosmopolitan 
 spirit, 29. 
 
 Marriage, tribal, SI ; with next of 
 kin, 51, 52 ; with ritual relations 
 prohibited, 54; among animals, 
 197, 228. 
 
 Mather, Increase, on portents, 86. 
 
 Mazdayasnians, 59, 69. 
 
 McCook, Henry C, on agricultural 
 ants, 247 ; on honey ants, 255. 
 
 Mecca, centre of the earth, 21. 
 
 Mechanical labour, its value as a 
 discipline, 195. 
 
 Megapode, artificial heat used by 
 the, 265. 
 
 Melody, appreciated by birds, in- 
 seots, and dogs, 339-349; monkeys' 
 attempts to produce, 269, 349. 
 
 Henander, on the brotherhood of 
 man, 28. 
 
 Mercer, G. E., on the language of 
 the Veddahs, 290. 
 
 Mersenne, on the language of ani- 
 mals, 323, 325. 
 
 Metempsychosis, 9, 88 ; universality 
 of the belief in, 106-110; held by 
 Jews and Manichseans, 110-112; 
 exegetically applied by Origen 
 112-114; taught by the Greeks, 
 114 ; in mythology and folklore, 
 117 ; basis of zoolatry and canni- 
 balism, 118 ; as applied metaphor, 
 121 ; predestination explained by, 
 112, 113, 122, 129-132; individual 
 extinction the final aim of, 127, 
 128 ; from an ethical point of 
 view, 130; the embodiment of 
 cherished propensities, 121, 131 ; 
 the spiritual counterpart of meta- 
 morphosis, 132; as a code of 
 morals in relation to the lower 
 animals, 135-138 ; correspondence 
 of the doctrine of evolution to, 
 162-164, 166. 
 25 
 
 Meyer, Hans, on driver ants, 247. 
 
 Milton, his Stygian metaphysicians, 
 130, 131 ; on man as God's master 
 
 - work, 193. 
 
 Missing link, probable language of 
 the, 816. 
 
 Moebius, Dr., on Amtsberg's experi- 
 ment with a pike, 186, 188. 
 
 Moggridge, on trapdoor spiders, 258. 
 
 Moleschott, 137. 
 
 Molothrus, its essays at nest-build- 
 ing, 199. 
 
 Monacella, St., protectress of hares, 
 154. 
 
 Monboddo, Lord, his theory of the 
 origin of language, 290. 
 
 Monkeys, tool-UBing, 259, 261, 262 ; 
 as miners, 263 ; use of fire, 264 ; 
 reasoning from cause to effect by, 
 265, 266, 299 ; ability to count, 
 286; language of, 272, 314-317, 
 319, 324, 329-332; plastic period 
 of, 337 ; musical concerts of, 269, 
 343, 349. 
 
 More, Henry, on four dimensions, 
 124. 
 
 Morioris, doctor revered as a god 
 by, 352. 
 
 Mormons, sacredness of agriculture 
 taught by, 72. 
 
 Moss, Capt. E., his monkeys as 
 miners, 268. 
 
 Mother, descent from the, 26. 
 
 Muller, Max, on language as our 
 Eubicon, 271-273 ; on roots as ul- 
 timate facts in language, 273; 
 Sanskrit examples of the forma- 
 tion of roots, 274-276, 278, 281, 
 282, 803, 804; concomitant and 
 significant clamour, 283, 305, 310 ; 
 on the ability of animals to count 
 and form general concepts, 281, 
 282, 285, 286; on interjections 
 and exclamations, 283, 287; on a 
 mere " fold of the brain," 295 ; on 
 
380 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the evolution of the eye, ear, and 
 brain, 297; on "nursery philol- 
 ogy," 801, 812; NoWb theory 
 indorsed by, 303, 307; on the 
 Homo alalus, 304, 305; on the 
 bow-wow, pooh-pooh, and yo-he- 
 ho theories, 307 ; on philology in 
 the menagerie, 312. 
 Munich, meaning of, 22; Thier- 
 schutzverein in, 149; former 
 cruelty to animals in, 159. 
 
 Name day, importance of, 54. 
 Nanak, compared with Paul, 128. 
 Napoleon III, his appeal to tribal 
 
 prejudice, 49. 
 Nation, modern conception of a, 46. 
 Negritos, as beasts of venery, 78. 
 Negroes, prejudice against, 77 ; 
 
 analogies between monkeys and, 
 
 267, 268, 337. 
 Nemici, Slavonic appellation of 
 
 Germans, 24. 
 Neoherbartianism, 15. 
 Neolamarckian school of science 
 
 125. 
 Neoplatonism, 10, 137. 
 Neopythagoreanism, 10, 137. 
 Nicaise, his wonderful parrot, 326- 
 
 328. 
 Nirvana, final aim of Buddhism, 
 
 128, 129. 
 Noire, on the origin of language, 
 
 303. 
 Nomadic tribes, transition to seden- 
 tary life, 42, 64, 70-73 ; ants, 247. 
 Norton, Allen H., logical faculty in 
 
 his dog, 266. 
 Nursery, philology in the, 301, 
 
 312. 
 Nutrition, impulse of, 175-177. 
 
 Oken, his classification of animals, 
 
 178. 
 Opossum, power of simulation, 181. 
 
 Orang-outangs. See Apes and Mon- 
 keys. 
 
 Organisms, evolution of animated, 
 167, 171-174. 
 
 Orient, animal ethicB in the, 9, 88, 
 136, 145 ; local significance of the 
 term, 22 ; pantheism and atheism 
 in the, 126 ; evolutional specula- 
 tion in the, 162-166. 
 
 Origen, against Celsus, 10; on the 
 purpose of animals, 10 ; metemp- 
 sychosis the basis of his exege- 
 sis, 112, 113. 
 
 Orioles, skill in nest-building, 200, 
 201, 839. 
 
 Orpheus, reborn as a swan, 114. 
 
 Ovid, on the erect posture of man, 
 192 ; in the Pontus, 271. 
 
 Owl, mental horizon of the, 194. 
 
 Paley, his definition of virtue, 92. 
 Panis, his golden pheasants, 145. 
 Panjab, 68. 
 Panjara Pol, described, 139-142, 
 
 143. 
 Panpsychism, as the basis of animal 
 
 rights, 137. 
 Panslavism and Panteutonism, 50. 
 Pantheism, 126, 129. 
 Pantomime, as a means of expres- 
 sion, 291-293. 
 Parrots, use of articulate sounds by, 
 
 271 ; remarkable, 325-327. 
 Parsi, classification of animals by 
 
 the, 136. 
 Parson, dilemma of a German, 149. 
 Pasturage, fatal to hunting tribes, 
 
 71. 
 Pasu, meaning of, 7. 
 Patriotism, a survival of tribalism, 
 
 25 ; barbarous exhibitions of, 34- 
 
 38, 40; Dr. Johnson's definition 
 
 of, 228. 
 Paul, his influence on Christianity, 
 
 58 ; compared with Nanak, 128 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 381 
 
 his doctrine of eleotion, 180 ; on 
 soul and body, 1SS ; compared 
 with Buddha, 164 
 
 Paulsen, 187. 
 
 Penguin, erect posture of the, 194. 
 
 Perception, impulse of, 175-181. 
 
 Peter, on brute beasts, 152. 
 
 Pfeifer, his musically trained spar- 
 row, 340. 
 
 Pharisees, as proselyters, 57. 
 
 Phenacodus Primsevus, progenitor 
 of hooked or clawed animals, 
 281. 
 
 Physical organs, their relation to 
 mental development, 15-18. 
 
 Pig, mental deterioration through 
 domestication, 217 ; as a hunter, 
 218. 
 
 Pike, Amtberg's experiment with a, 
 186-188. 
 
 Pithecoid man, bodily aids to the 
 mental growth of, 17. 
 
 Pius IX, his dictum concerning ani- 
 mals, 160. 
 
 Plants, function of colour and odour 
 in, 87. 
 
 Plato, on pure soul, 121 ; on the ori- 
 gin of a priori ideas, 123 ; on pre- 
 existence, 125 ; on the song of the 
 cicada, 342. 
 
 Plautus, Latin called barbarous by, 
 31. 
 
 Plimsoll, Samuel, on cattle ships, 
 101. 
 
 Pliny, on the incendiary bird, 265. 
 
 Plotinus, 10, 137. 
 
 Plutarch, 9 ; on religion as the foun- 
 dation of the state, 55. 
 
 Poe, E. A., quoted, 85. 
 
 Points of the compass, 20, 22. 
 
 Polyandry, survivals of, 81, 41. 
 
 Polynesians, as affectionate parri- 
 cides, 108. 
 
 Popes, Spanish bullfights and the, 
 161. 
 
 Porphyrius, 9,137; on the language 
 of animals, 293. 
 
 Pound, purpose of the, 144. 
 
 Prantl, Prof., on the mental opera- 
 tions of animals, 222-225, 265; 
 denies " time-sense " to animals, 
 223 ; weak point of his specula- 
 tions, 225 ; denies use of tools and 
 fire to animals, 257, 264 ; on the 
 art impulse in animals, 224, 
 334. 
 
 Prehension, as an aid to comprehen- 
 sion, 195. 
 
 Preyer, Prof., on animal simulation, 
 181. 
 
 Primitive man, aliens and animals 
 in the eyes of, 4-8 ; limited world 
 of, 20-22 ; idea of retributive jus- 
 tice entertained by, 87; tribal 
 marriage of, 31, 50 ; his belief in 
 the transmigration of souls, 107- 
 109, 119. 
 
 Property, origin of the conception 
 of personal, 176 ; soko's idea of, 
 269. 
 
 Protista, nature of, 171, 172. 
 
 Protoplasm, evolution of organisms 
 out of, 173. 
 
 Psophos, distinction between ph6n4 
 and, 309. 
 
 Psychology, comparative, 2,17,162; 
 scholastic, 2, 3, 220 ; Neoherbar- 
 tian, 15 ; anthropocentric, 83. See 
 Animals and Zoopsychology. 
 
 Public opinion, wholesome influ- 
 ence of, 80. 
 
 Pythagoras, his memory of pre-ex- 
 istence, 114, 125, 137 ; fish re- 
 leased by, 154. 
 
 " Quack," an onomatopoetio root in 
 child language, 276, 277, 279, 
 280. 
 
 Quadrumans, their advantage over 
 quadrupeds, 886. 
 
382 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Quaquas, animal worship by, 119. 
 Quatrefages, on the religious senti- 
 ment in animals, 351. 
 
 Eacine, on man's heavenward look, 
 193. 
 
 Badeau, B., on the language of ani- 
 mals, 323 ; Mersenne's theory of 
 language rejected by, 324. 
 
 Bats, benevolence in, 258. 
 
 Battlesnake, suicide of a, 227. 
 
 Eavens, infliction of punishment by, 
 234; use of Are by, 264 ; use of ar- 
 ticulate speech by, 300. 
 
 Bcason, boundaries of instinct and, 
 6, 95, 167, 170; in animals, see 
 Animals. 
 
 Beclam, Prof., on a musical spider, 
 341. 
 
 Belationship, real and ritual, 54. 
 
 Beligion, moral influence of, 9 ; its 
 value in early society, 55 ; in ani- 
 mals, see Animals ; as a revela- 
 tion to man, 857, 358. 
 
 Bichard, Jules, on simian speech, 
 324. 
 
 Bickaby, Bev. Joseph, animals not 
 autocentric, 2. 
 
 Eivayats, cited, 64. 
 
 Bochefort, termites in, 211. 
 
 Bomanes, on intelligence in the 
 amceba, 17; on tool-using ani- 
 mals, 259; on child language, 
 276 ; a chimpanzee's knowledge 
 of numeration, 286; a speaking 
 terrier, 300 ; on the Homo alalus, 
 805 ; example of religious awe in 
 a Skye terrier, 355. 
 
 Borne, urbs et orbis, 21. 
 
 Boots of language. See Max Mt)L- 
 leh. 
 
 Bosegger, on anarchism in the 
 hives, 240. 
 
 Bostan, Prof., his attack of aphasia, 
 298. 
 
 Botundity of the earth, and the 
 rights of man, 21. 
 
 Sacy, Silvestre de, on the study of 
 Sanskrit, 318. 
 
 Sad-dar, cited, 63. 
 
 Sadducees, 57, 127. 
 
 Saints, their relations to animals, 
 152-156. 
 
 Sakarbai, Lady, her hospital for 
 animals, 142. 
 
 Samodershez, title of Czar as tribal 
 sovereign, 45. 
 
 Sanhedrin, 57. 
 
 Sanskrit, formation of roots in, 274, 
 278, 281; alleged superiority of, 
 284 ; as a fabrication of Brah- 
 mans, 318. 
 
 Satar, 64. 
 
 Savages, tribal spirit of, 2, 21 ; treat- 
 ment of old and infirm, 139 ; abil- 
 ity to count and distinguish col- 
 ours, 287, 351. See Pkimitive Man. 
 
 Sayce, Prof., on BuBhman speech, 
 301. 
 
 Schabbesgo!, 76. 
 
 Scheitling, on canine love of musio, 
 844. 
 
 Schelling, on religion as the cement 
 of society, 54. 
 
 Schiller, on love of nature by the 
 Greeks, 190; on art as the pre- 
 rogative of man, 334 ; on the play 
 impulse in animals, 346. 
 
 Schlagintweit, on elephants as 
 dam-builders, 259, 260. 
 
 Sohleiermacher, 137. 
 
 Schneider, G. H., his four categories 
 of mental impulses, 175 ; his psy- 
 chological classification of ani- 
 mals, 178 ; on the impulses of 
 food-storing animals, 179 ; on the 
 Btargazer, 185. 
 
 Sehomburgk, Dr., simian reasoning 
 from cause to effect, 265. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 383 
 
 Schopenhauer, on a radical defeet 
 
 in Judaism and Christianity, 88 ; 
 
 panpaychism, 137 ; on men as 
 
 devils, 147. 
 Sohutz, Leopold, irrationality of 
 
 brutes a dogma of the Church, 
 
 96 ; animals as puppets, 219, 220. 
 Scorpions, suicide of, 227. 
 Scripture, place of animals in, 88 : 
 
 kindness to animals inculcated in 
 
 passages from, 149, ISO. 
 Scythians, their language like the 
 
 chatter of cranes, 293. 
 Sea anemone, its relation to the 
 
 hermit crab, 184. 
 Sea pudding, as gourmand, 170. 
 Second sight, ascribed to animals, 
 
 357. 
 Sedley, on St. Peter's crime, 161. 
 Semon, Kiohard, on Australian 
 
 tribes, 287. 
 Senegambia, termite mounds in, 
 
 212. 
 Sensation, impulse of, 175, 177-181. 
 Sentinels, posted by animals, 182, 
 
 183. 
 Shadow-bird, as dancer, 850. 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 132, 317. 
 Shelley, on man's supremacy, 89. 
 Shylock, as typical Hebrew, 76. 
 Sikh, prophet, 128. 
 Silins Italicus, on man's upward 
 
 look, 193. 
 Simmins, S., on "sweating" bees, 
 
 202-205. 
 Sioux, idea of retributive justice, 
 
 37. 
 Sister, marriage of own, 51, 52. 
 Slavonic, meaning of, 24. 
 Smeathman, on termite soldiera 
 
 and workers, 210. 
 Smith, William B., his club-wield- 
 ing donkey, 259. 
 Smith, Sydney, on brute souls as 
 
 immortal, 94. 
 
 Socrates, on pre-existence, 114; 
 Xantippe's grievance against, 
 176. 
 
 Soko, characteristics of the, 267- 
 269, 343. 
 
 Solomon, his cynical view of life, 
 147, 148 ; on ants, 254. 
 
 Song. See Birds. 
 
 Sophocles, his use of ph6n6, 809. 
 
 Souls, congeniousness of, 15 ; influ- 
 ence of bodily conditions on, 16- 
 18 ; immortality of brute, 93-96 ; 
 transmigration of, 106 (see Me- 
 tempsychosis) ; origin of the be- 
 lief in the immortality of, 177. 
 
 Spain, animals' rights not recog- 
 nized in, 14, 161. 
 
 Sparrows, maternal training of, 189 ; 
 improvements in nest-building 
 made by, 202 ; musical education 
 of, 340. 
 
 Spartans, guest-hating, 81. 
 
 Spencer, Baldwin, on the musical 
 tones of the Australian spider, 
 342. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on the play im- 
 pulse in animals, 346; on reli- 
 gious awe and propitiation in ani- 
 mals, 353, 854. 
 
 Spento-mainyush, 8. 
 
 Spiders, their love of music, 340- 
 342. 
 
 Spiegel, 62, 65. 
 
 Spinoza, on the indestructibility of 
 mind, 123 ; as lens-grinder and 
 philosopher, 176 ; on benevolence 
 in animals, 228. 
 
 Spirit. See Souls. 
 
 Squirrels, their impulses to action, 
 179 ; as explorers, 182. 
 
 Stargazer, as angler, 184. 
 
 Steinthal, on birds and brutes, 193, 
 194; on the origin of language, 
 805, 306. 
 
 Steward, Dugald, on the adaptabil- 
 
384 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ity of animals and its value to 
 
 man, 98. 
 Stoics, liberal -philosophy of the, 28, 
 
 187. ■ 
 Storks, their conjugal relations and 
 
 courts of justice, 230-284. ? 
 
 Suicide) by reptiles, 227. 
 Sunisar, an Indian atheistic poem, 
 
 127. 
 f§unyavadinah, 127. 
 Svoboda, quoted, 177. 
 Swallows, their recent improve- 
 ments in nest-building, 200. 
 Swedenborg, his vision, 120. 
 Swine, scientific breeding of, 214. 
 
 See Pig. 
 Switzerland, clannish spirit in, 84, 
 
 36. 
 Symbol, as a token of hospitality, 
 
 32 ; Christian, 56. 
 
 Tailor^bird, its progress in artistic 
 skill, 201. 
 
 Tait, Lawrence, on drunken wasps, 
 242. 
 
 Tamar, her relations to Amnon, 51. 
 - Taylor, Father, on ruffianism, 147. 
 
 Teleology, absurdities of anthropo- 
 centric, 83-88. 
 
 Tennent, Sir James Emerson, on 
 the Veddahs of Ceylon, 289, 290. 
 
 Terence, quoted, 24. 
 
 Termites, habitations of, 207-210, 
 212; the "royal residence" of, 
 208; engineering skill of, 209; 
 destructiveness of, 211 ; propor- 
 tion of soldiers to workers, 210, 
 211. 
 
 Tesseres hospitales, 32. 
 
 Theft, as a tribal virtue, 25. 
 
 Theocritus, on the soul of the Ne- 
 mean lion, 93. 
 
 Theodicy, untenahleness of ortho- . 
 dox, 104, 131. 
 
 Theophrastus, 9, 137. 
 
 Thibetans, polyandry of the, 31. 
 
 Thibo, . King, his white elephant, 
 148. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, his philosophy 
 indorsed by the Catholic Church, 
 3; head of mediaeval scholiasts, 
 12 ; his doctrine of objective ne- 
 cessity, 130; on the beast soul, 
 184. 
 
 Thoreau, his sympathy with ani- 
 mals, 159. 
 
 Thought, impulse of, 175-181. 
 
 Thraoians, their contempt for hus- 
 bandry, 43 ; their language like 
 the chatter of cranes, 293. 
 
 Titmouse, skill of the, 339. 
 
 Tooke, Home, on interjections, 283 
 285. 
 
 Tools, used by animals, 257-263. 
 
 Torres, Countess de la, her asylum 
 for cats, 144. 
 
 Totemism, origin and survivals of, 6. 
 
 Treiber, Eev. A., his musical poo- 
 dle, 344. 
 
 Trent, Council of, 54. 
 
 Tribe, ethics of the, 24, 73 ; genesis 
 of the, 41-43 ; tribal superseded 
 by territorial sovereignty, 42-46 ; 
 marriage within the, 50-52; re- 
 ligion of the, 65-58. 
 
 Trousseau, on aphasia, 298. 
 
 Tumblebugs, insectile and human, 
 180. 
 
 Tycho de Brahe, his belief in as- 
 trology, 85. 
 
 TyreU, Kev. George, his scholastic 
 psychology, 3. 
 
 Umber, as a dancer, 350. 
 
 United States, national stronger 
 than race feeling in the, 46 ; right 
 of expatriation asserted by the, 
 47 ; legislation inconsistent with 
 this right, 48. 
 
 Usury, primitive notions concern- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 385 
 
 ing, 73; Cato on, 74; exacted by 
 Jews from Gentiles, 74; laws 
 regulating and punishing, 75. 
 
 Vaccination, denounced as impious, 
 84. 
 
 Vedanta, influence of the, 126. 
 
 Vedas, religion of the, 67. 
 
 Veddahs, not degraded but unde- 
 veloped, 290. 
 
 Yeland, represented as lame, 44. 
 
 Vendidad, dualism of the, 8, 59; 
 sacredness of agriculture in the, 
 60-67. 
 
 Tinci, Leonardo da, his kindness to 
 birds, 154. 
 
 Viraf, Arda, his polygamy and in- 
 cest, 51. 
 
 Vital force, artificial products of, 174. 
 
 Vogt, Carl, on the conjugal infidel- 
 ity of storks, 232 ; on the human 
 and simian brain, 296. 
 
 Vogtleute, 86. 
 
 Vohumano, the Good Mind, 8, 62, 68. 
 
 Vulcan, lameness of, 44. 
 
 Wagtails, nests of, 202. 
 
 Waitz, Theodor, on barbarized 
 Europeans, 79. 
 
 ■Wallace, A. E., on simian infancy, 
 335. 
 
 Wallace, D. Mackenzie, on the Cos- 
 sacks, 71. 
 
 Walton, Izaak, on the nightingale's 
 song, 340. 
 
 Wasps, effect of alcohol on, 242. 
 
 Wattenwyl, Brunner von, on the 
 music of the cicada, 343. 
 
 Wayland, Dr., on duties to animals, 
 98. 
 
 Weaver bird, skill of the, 339. 
 
 Weir, James, battle of ants de- 
 scribed by, 248 ; orr the vocal or- 
 gans of ants, 311. 
 
 Wenzel, G. L, his studies of animal 
 
 speech, 820-823; conversation of 
 foxes overheard by, 320; his al- 
 phabet of animal speeoh, 321 ; 
 knowledge of human language 
 acquired by dogs, 321, 322. 
 
 Wert, E. W., oited, 64. 
 
 Weygandt, on " milking " bees, 241. 
 
 Whitney, W. D., on language as a 
 social institution, 288 ; on mispro- 
 nunciation and false accent, 809 ; 
 on the synergistic theory, 310. 
 
 Wildfangsreoht, 36. 
 
 Wilks, Dr., on knowledge of the 
 fine arts as distinctively human, 
 833. 
 
 Williams, Monier, on hospitals for 
 animals in India, 189-141. 
 
 Wives, three kinds of Persian, 64. 
 
 Wdhler, urea chemically produced 
 by, 174. 
 
 Woman, transmission of race quali- 
 ties through, 27 ; the first agricul- 
 turist, 43. 
 
 Wooing, primitive method of, 50. 
 
 Wordsworth, quoted, 817. 
 
 Wundt, Wilhelm, 137; on differ- 
 ences of degree between man and 
 brute, 170, 171 ; on apian tradi- 
 tion, 244, note; on animal lan- 
 guage, 293. 
 
 Xantippe, the domestic character of, 
 176; New England parallels to, 
 177. 
 
 Xenarohos, on the enviable mute- 
 ness of the female cicada, 342. 
 
 Yajfiavalkya, definition of fate by, 
 
 122. 
 Yima, enlargement of the earth by, 
 
 64-66. 
 Yukan, Persian child-wife, 64. 
 
 Zarathustra, his classification of 
 animals, 8 ; social reformation by, 
 
386 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 58 ; his teachings, 59-63, 66-68 ; 
 holiness of husbandry proclaimed 
 by, 60, 72. 
 
 Zebras, ostriches used as sentries 
 by, 183. 
 
 Zoolatry, basis of, 6 ; ethical influ- 
 ence of, 7 ; its relation to metemp- 
 sychosis, 118 ; survivals of, 6, 119 
 
 Zoophily, ethics of, 3 ; scientific ba- 
 sis of, 96. 
 
 Zoopsychology, a branch of com- 
 parative psychology, 17; ethical 
 influence of, 96; metaphysical 
 barriers between man and beast 
 gradually removed by, 162-164, 
 171. See Animals. 
 
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