Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/674

652 apt to ignore the psychological similarity. From experiments on the brains of the lower animals we argue as to the nature of the brain of man. Why not pursue the comparative method for the soul?

This condition of things can be traced to the influence of views still surviving, unscientific, as we believe, as to man's origin and place in the universe. At all events, such views exist and influence practically our treatment of the lower animals. Where man is concerned, their rights are very seldom considered. The question is not raised as to whose rights are paramount, but it is tacitly assumed that when man is involved the brutes have none. That such views have been up to the present time operative to the neglect, and often the positive annoyance, if not the actual persecution and death of unoffending creatures, will be perfectly plain to any one who will take the pains to examine into the case.

If there is to be order in the universe, it must be conceded that where respective interests clash in certain cases, that interest, and that creature of less importance must give way to the one of greater importance; but man can never act righteously to his fellow-creatures lower in the animal scale, till he recognizes that he is of them not only in his body but in his mind; in other words, that they are truly fellows, or, as some one has expressed it, "poor relations." But let this not be said in any pitying sense, for it can be most clearly shown that in not a few respects not only are these "poor relations" equal but superior to man.

Physiologists have long been familiar with the higher development of the senses in animals below man. There is not a single sense that man possesses in which he is not excelled by some one animal, often immeasurably.

Many of the performances of the lower animals, if accomplished by men, would be regarded as indications of the possession of marvelous genius. In the brutes they are regarded ae the outcome of "mere instinct," by which is meant an endowment acting blindly and incapable either of philosophic explanation or of modification. While the fact seems to be that instincts, as they exist, are the result of inherited experiences accumulated through considerable periods of time; that they may be modified, and are constantly being modified by new experiences; that they may be lost or replaced; and much more that we have still to learn. Many of the instincts of animals are so far removed from any knowledge or faculty we possess that they are at present inexplicable. Rut man must learn to say, "I don't know," about a great many things still, instead of assuming the validity of explanations which are not true solutions at all, but mere assumptions.

And at this point allow me to indicate a danger that should make us cautious and modest in attempting to explain the behavior of animals. We infer from our fellow-man's behavior similarity of motive and mental processes to our own under like circumstances. We find,