Something of the same sort may happen in the conscience in relation to the distinction between good and evil; the more so as the good stands for real utility in life far more directly than the beautiful, and the evil may be roughly said to represent danger. Have not animals, perhaps, an acute instinct of self-preservation, which dictates infinite details of conduct to them, both for the maintenance of life and for its protection? Dogs, horses, and cats, and generally speaking, all domestic animals, do not await the imminent earthquake quietly and unconsciously, as does man, but become agitated. When the ice is about to crack, the Esquimaux dogs which draw the sleighs detach themselves one from the other, as if to avoid falling in; while man can only observe their amazing instinct with stupefaction. Man has not by nature these intense instincts; it is by means of intelligence and the sensibility of his conscience to good and evil that he constructs his defenses and recognizes his perils. And if this intelligence of his, which is actually capable of transforming the world, raises him to such a supreme height above animals, to what a lofty eminence might he raise himself by developing his moral consciousness! But on the contrary, man to-day is reduced to the point of asking himself seriously whether animals are not better than he. When man wishes to exalt himself, he says: "I am faithful as a dog, pure as a dove, strong as a lion." Indeed, animals have always that instinct which is admirable, for it confers on them a mysterious power; but if man lacks sensibility of conscience he is inferior to the animals; nothing can then save him from excesses; he may rush upon his own ruin, upon havoc and destruction in a manner that might fill animals with stupefaction and terror; and if it were in their power they might set themselves to teach man, that he might become equal to themselves. Men without conscience are like animals without the instinct of self-preservation; madmen rushing on destruction. What shall it profit man to discover by means of science the law of physical self-preservation in its most minute details, if he has no care for that which corresponds in man to the "instinct" of his own salvation? If an individual has a perfect knowledge of hygienic feeding, of the manner in which to weigh himself in order to follow the course of his own health, of bathing and of massage, but should lose the instinct of humanity and kill a fellow-creature, or take his own life, what would be the use of all his care? And if he feels nothing more in his heart? if the void draws him to it, plunging him into melancholy, what does his well-nourished and well washed body avail him? Good is life; evil is death; the real distinction is as clear as the words. Our moral conscience is, like our intelligence, capable of perfection, of elevation; this is one of the most fundamental of its differences from the instincts of animals.