Yet it is not absurd if the animal, like man, should be an evolving creature, if the animal should in some sense have a "soul." Now, in the animal we find maternal affection, capacity of love, fear of pain, and dawning intelligence, and in some we see great courage, endurance, fidelity and devotion to a master. Great as are the differences between these and the corresponding qualities in a civilised man, they are differences in degree rather than in kind, and a better moral character may be found in a domesticated dog than in a low type of savage.
A brave, loving dog, faithful to death, would seem to be more worthy of immortality than a blood-thirsty, cruel, treacherous savage. Yet ordinary orthodoxy dooms the one to extinction and awards immortality to the other.
Now, it is true that there is one important difference between an animal and a man; both are vivified by an immortal Spirit, whose powers are more or less unfolded and active; but the bridge between the immortal spirit and the perishing body, that which is sometimes called "the soul," the intelligent, self-conscious "I," is present in the man, even in the most brutal savage, and is normally absent in the animal.
Take a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, any group of similar animals, wild or domesticated, and a marked similarity of thought, feeling and action may be observed among them. They are largely guided by instincts, which they share in common, and comparatively little by individual reasoning; it is as though there were "a common soul" guiding them all.
But when one of the higher animals comes into close relations with men--such an animal as a dog or a cat--a gradual change is visible to the close observer. If the animal be a favourable specimen of its class, and be strongly devoted to its owner, it will gradually separate itself off from its kind, and begin to show marks of individuality; it will evolve strong likes and dislikes, will follow ways of its own, will manifest ever-increasing powers of reasoning, and anyone who can use clairvoyant vision will see that a change has taken place in the superphysical bodies of such an animal.
Now, a man, however undeveloped, however savage, shews an astral body, a mental body, and a causal body, with the spirit brooding over and vivifying all. But an animal shows an astral body, a vague cloud representing an embryonic mental body and the over-brooding spirit; the causal body, that which makes possible the self-conscious "I," is absent. Herein lies the difference between the animal and man, between the noblest ordinary animal and the most brutal savage.
But when a highly-developed animal becomes intensely devoted to some human being, and clings to him with passionate and unwavering fidelity, the play of the human self-conscious intelligence stimulates the dawning intelligence and quickens the unfolding of the spirit in the animal, and at last, as it were, a flash, like an electric spark, springs across the gulf between the over-brooding spirit and the embryonic mental body, a bridge of light spans the gulf, the causal body is formed, the "soul " is born. Henceforth the animal is separated off from its kind, and has completed the term of animal evolution. Its death will be followed by an immense period of rest and inner growth, and it will, long ages hence, be borne into some future humanity, to begin the long course of human evolution.
These individualised animals are, indeed, rare exceptions, but all animals are treading the path which leads to individualisation, and their progress is hastened or retarded by the human beings with whom they come into contact. The dog, the cat, and the horse are the three animals capable of profiting most by association with man, and their progress in the animal kingdom may be much quickened by the wise, firm, and sympathetic training given to them by their elder brothers, men. Even when they may not reach the point of individualisation, they may be led up near to it, and a link is made between them and their masters which, in the future, will be a source of benefit and happiness to both.
The practical difference which the adoption of this view of animals would cause in the relationship between them and men would not be the relinquishment of their services, nor the loss of their utility. They would be used as much as they are now, but the treatment of them would be always kind, considerate, firm and judicious. The training of the animal would be regarded as useful to the animal as well as to the man; hasty and unnecessary blows and savage language would be avoided, and harsh punishment of horse or dog would be regarded as showing the owner's incapacity to train and educate aright. All cruel methods of breaking would be abandoned, trust and confidence on the part of the animal would be encouraged, and we should hear much less of "incurably vicious horses "--vice which is mostly the result of human stupidity and cruelty.
Man must gradually learn to regard himself as the divinely appointed ruler of the animal world, using his great powers to raise and train his subjects, not to crush and terrify them. He must cease to look on them as existing only for his use and comfort, and regard them as his infant brethren in the divine family, knowing that he is the representative to them of the Divine Being, to whom he must answer for the exercise of the kingship placed in his hands.
THE END