s man's prerogative; and to
surrender that prerogative is to abrogate our humanity.

This subjection of a person to an animal may come about through a morbid
and sentimental affection for an animal. When a man or a woman makes an
animal so much of a pet that every caprice of the cat or dog is law;
when the whole arrangements of the household are made to yield to its
whims; when affections that are withheld from earnest work and human
service are lavished in profusion on a pug or a canary; there again we
see the order of rank in the scale of dignity and worth inverted, and
the human bowing to the beast.

THE PENALTY.

+Inhumanity to brutes brutalizes humanity.+--If we refuse by
consideration and kindness to lift the brute up into our human sympathy,
and recognize in it the rights and feelings which it has in common with
us, then we sink to the unfeeling and brutal level to which our cruelty
seeks to consign the brutes. Every cruel blow inflicted on an animal
leaves an ugly scar in our own hardened hearts, which mars and destroys
our capacity for the gentlest and sweetest sympathy with our fellow-men.

CHAPTER XIV.

Fellow-men.

"_Unus homo, nullus homo_" is a Latin proverb which means that one man
alone is no man at all. A man who should be neither son, brother,
husband, father, neighbor, citizen, or friend is inconceivable. To try
to think of such a man is like trying to think of a stone without size,
weight, surface, or color. Man is by nature a social being. Apart from
society man would not be man. "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is
either a wild beast or a god." To take out of a man all that he gets
from his relations to other men would be to take out of him kindness,
compassion, sympathy, love, loyalty, devotion, gratitude, and heroism.
It would reduce him to the level of the brutes. What water is to the
fish, what air is to the bird, that association with his fellow-men is
to a man. It is as necessary to the soul as food and raiment are to the
body. Only as we see ourselves reflected in the praise or blame, the
love or hate of others do we become conscious of ourselves.

THE DUTY.

+Since our fellow-men are so essential to us and we to them, it is our
duty to live in as intimate fellowship with them as possible.+--The
fundamental form of fellowship is hospitality. By the fireside and
around the family table we feel most free, and come nearest to one
another. Without hospitality, such inter