The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of man, that's all. I do not see why we should not be as just to an ant as to a human being. In studying the traits and dispositions of the so-called lower animals, and contrasting them with man's, I find the result humiliating to me.
Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.
It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. The establishment of the common origin of all species logically involves a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging the application of what has been called the Golden Rule from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom. A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind inbeast and bird, as in man, is the main thing. It was said that the 'brutes' cannot reason.