strains seem to give them pain
rather than pleasure, and it is quite evident that perfumes have no
attraction for them.

The stories, which seem to be well authenticated, of sheep-killing
dogs that have slipped their collars in the night and indulged their
passion for live mutton, and then returned and thrust their necks into
their collars before their absence was discovered, do not, to my mind,
prove that the dogs were trying to deceive their masters and conceal
their guilt, but rather show how obedient to the chain and collar the
dogs had become. They had long been subject to such control and
discipline, and they returned to them again from the mere force of
habit.

I do not believe even the dog to be capable of a sense of guilt. Such
a sense implies a sense of duty, and this is a complex ethical sense
that the animals do not experience. What the dog fears, and what makes
him put on his look of guilt and shame, is his master's anger. A harsh
word or a severe look will make him assume the air of a culprit
whether he is one or not, and, on the other hand, a kind word and a
reassuring smile will transform him into a happy beast, no matter if
the blood of his victim is fresh upon him.

A dog is to be broken of a bad habit, if at all, not by an appeal to
his conscience or to his sense of duty, for he has neither, but by an
appeal to his susceptibility to pain.

Both Pliny and Plutarch tell the story of an elephant which, having
been beaten by its trainer for its poor dancing, was afterward found
all by itself practicing its steps by the light of the moon. This is
just as credible as many of the animal stories one hears nowadays.

Many of the actions of the lower animals are as automatic as those of
the tin rooster that serves as a weather-vane. See how intelligently
the rooster acts, always pointing the direction of the wind without a
moment's hesitation. Or behold the vessel anchored in the harbor, how
intelligently it adjusts itself to the winds and the tides! I have
seen a log, caught in an eddy in a flooded stream, apparently make
such struggles to escape that the thing became almost uncanny in its
semblance to life. Man himself often obeys just such unseen currents
of race or history when he thinks he is acting upon his own
initiative.

When I was in Alaska, I saw precipices down which hundreds of horses
had dashed themselves in their mad and desperate efforts to escape
from the toil and suffering they underw