New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1896-01-26
MAN AND HIS FRIENDS.
PROFESSOR SHALER on THE CREATURES
ANIMATE AND INANIMATE. THAT
LABOR FOR HUMANITY.

DOMEsTICATED ANIMALS Their Relation to
Man and TO His Advancement in civiliza ton.
BY Nathaniel Southgate Shaler Dean OF the
Lawrence Scientific School OF Harvard Cnvcr-
sty Illustrated. Pp x' 267. Charles scribners
with Special Reference to the Iife Of Man. by
y. S. Shaler. Illustrated PIP. xiii. 212 Charles
Scr!tner's Sons.
II one endeavors to outline the field covered By
these two books one finds that it stretches. no,
without interruption. however. from the time Of
mere sunlight and nothing else on to the develop
ment Of the highest NE known TO the earth
Man. as he is. is very complex creature that
can hardly explain his own conduct. He sees his
selishness work out . the benefit Of others. and
he is filled with sympathy even for dumb ami
mails He interprets their actions in accordance
with his own feelings and thoughts, and he
strives increasingly owidcn his acquaintance with
them, sometimes in cruel ways, often in ways
that are benign. He has almost outgrown the
opinion that he differs from them In origin.
Professor Shaler. like most men Of science. has
outgrown that notion altogether, and he looks upon
the fact Of kinship between man and the lower
animals the strongest motive for Kindness on
the part Of the former toward his poor relations
The place OF man in the order Of nature fixes his
duty toward the other creatures which also have
their place In the same order. and 1.-THE sense
of this duty which mastery Of the earth gives or
should afford Is to be one of the moral gifts Of
modern learning" That is, man as a product Of
evolution with a missing link for a parent and
genealogy that leads back to the invertebrates,
stands in a different attitude toward the animate
and nanimate world about him from that which
he maintained when he fancied himself natures
aristocrat with no brute blood In his blue veins
Swifts satire has a edge in these days OF
Val n "
his horse mains his dog from sheer pleasure in
the pain he can inhict-is more dcspicabe a thou
sandfod than the two-legged FEATURES whom the
Dean Of st. Patrck's imagined. He betrays his
ancestry where Sw.fts Yahoos only belied theirs
The most civilized of men are those who are
kind to animals This is generally conceded now.
But 1t Is not long step in history back to the
time when those who treated dumb creatures
kindly did so without any sense Of obligation
They really learned Righteousness. says Professor
Shaler indirectly from the animals themselves
In the first place. they could not have attained
any measure o, civilization If other creatures had
not existed beside man. Setting aside the inven-
lions for hunting perfected by savage man. IT is
hard to imagine what would have become Of the
Esouimaux and the North American Indians IN
general without the dog, Of the North European
samoyeds Laps and Firms without the REIN
deer, or the Hinuoos Wthout the cow Oh the an
Gent Peruvians without the llama. I'VE can
discern" remarks Professor Shaler. that the
Arab without the camel and the horse would not
have found the place IN history which he has
filed and that our own race could not have at
tanned its place save for the aid which the horned
cattle, sheep. and host OF other helpers which
we have pressed into service, have Afforded
The comparative usefulness OF different domes-
t,ca h,e animals TO man IL a direct measure OF the
progress of diverse races. 1t was not lack or
natural ability that kept back the natives OF the
New World but the wont Of horses and cattle
and sheep. With nothing better than the dog 10
lift the burdens from their own backs and no