In an instant the
greyhound Brenda would fly into my lap, and cover me with kisses, her
heart tumultuously beating. After she grew old, her joy at my return
home after a long absence has at times nearly killed her; and when I was
away, the bed she loved best was one of my old shooting-jackets, but
never when I was at home."

The impassable gulf which the writers of old created between mankind and
the animal kingdom was based mainly upon the belief that animals had no
language, but this has been proved a mistake and no longer exists. In
the light of modern knowledge and a better understanding of the
marvellous theory of evolution, we are thoroughly convinced that there
is no break whatever in the long chain of living beings. Man has no art,
has developed no thing whatever, no mode of language or communication,
that is not to be found in some degree among animals. They are capable
of feeling the same emotions as human beings, and are therefore subject
to the same general laws of life. No science has been more beneficial
than psychology in proving that they are human in all ways; no discovery
made by the human mind is so poetical and of such value as that which
leads mankind to recognise some part of himself in every part of
Nature, even in the language of animals.

This knowledge of all life is recognised by thinking men the world over,
removing forever that artificial barrier by which, in his ignorance and
prejudice, he has separated himself from his lower brothers, the
animals, denying unto them even a means of intelligent communication.
This recognition of the existence of a common language will go far
toward establishing the universal brotherhood of all living creatures.

VIII

IN THEIR BOUDOIRS, HOSPITALS AND CHURCHES

_"Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge and follows,
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck and then a vulture
Till the air is dark with pinions."_

Many animals show a surprising knowledge of medical and sanitary laws,
but these laws vary in the different species as much as they do among
humans. Animals are divided into as many classes and social castes as
are mankind; and those that have advanced beyond the nomadic life, and
have fixed homes with servants and luxuries, naturally are