Prejudice is at first a Guide to Knowledge, but afterwards a Gaoler of Thought.

The average Englishman prefers to have his knowledge well formulated and well classified in what one may call a portable and handy form. To such an one it seems desirable to have certain general propositions about the animal creation which, regardless of small subtleties and differences, he may use as a guide for practical action. As, for instance, “that man is governed by reason but the brutes by instinct”; “that the cat, though eminently domestic, is selfish, egotistic, and luxurious; whereas the dog is generous, affectionate, and faithful”; that “cats care for places and not for people.”

Many more such maxims may be mentioned, some of which imply a certain amount of observation, as, for instance, that the parrot possesses an imitative instinct.

Those who have this guide to knowledge will tell you that they like or do not like “the character of the cat,” and will ask if you like cats or dogs best.

So some one once asked me whether I liked poetry, and when I asked “whose poetry?” instanced that of the Marquis of Lorne.

But in the first case, too, it would seem to be a relevant point to ask which dog and which cat; and to those who profess not to like “the character” of the cat one might put first the counter-question as to whether they like “the character” of the human being.

As it is well from time to time to compare the best established maxims and formulÆ with the results of recent experience and observation; so, although the foregoing principles are extensive enough and fundamental enough to satisfy the greediest grasp after truth, it may not be amiss to compare them with observation of individuals; to compare the general propositions concerning the character of the cat with observations on certain individual cats; the common contempt of birds-wits with observation of individual birds; and to find out the essential point which makes us so certain that similar processes in the man and the brute are in one case the work of reason and in the other case of instinct.

Perhaps we might even come to think that man has some share of instinct, and the brute some dawnings of reason.

Let us face this result boldly, even if it leads us to stammer a little over the irrefragable proposition that, since animals have no souls, this present life contains not only all that they must suffer, but all that they may enjoy; even if it should make us doubt the perfectness of our scientific grasp of spiritual things, and should seem to lead back to such old doctrines as Peter’s belief in the restitution of all things, and St. Paul’s hope of the deliverance of the suffering creature into the glorious liberty of children of God.