"You are quite right," replied Raschke, submissively, "and our sensitiveness has but little justification. We find the preparations unpleasant, yet as a rule we are well satisfied with the result. But when one is accustomed to observe animal life with sympathy, he is necessarily shocked at the sudden termination of an organism for his own selfish purposes, when it is done in a way to which he is not accustomed. For the whole life of an animal is full of mystery to us. The same vital power which we observe in ourselves, is fundamentally at work with them, only limited by a less complicated, and, on the whole, less complete organization." "How can you compare their souls with that of man's?" asked Ilse; "the irrational with the rational; the transitory with the eternal?" "As to irrational, my dear lady, it is a word to which in this case one does not attach a very clear meaning. What the difference may be between man and beast is difficult to decide, and on this subject a little modesty becomes us. We know but little of animals, even of those who pass their lives among us. And I confess that the attempt to fathom this unknown problem fills me with awe and reverence, which occasionally rises into fear. I cannot bear that any one who belongs to me should grow fond of an animal. This arises from a weakness of feeling which I own is sentimental. But the influence of the human mind on animals has always seemed to me wonderful and weird; phases of their life are developed, which in certain directions make them very similar to man. Their affectionate devotion to us has something so touching in it, that we are disposed to bestow much more love on them than is good either for them or us." "Still an animal remains what it was from the creation," said Ilse; "unchanged in its habits and inclinations. We can train a bird, and make a dog fetch and carry what he would rather eat, but that is only an outward compulsion. If let to themselves, their nature and manners remain unaltered, and what we call culture they lack utterly." "Even upon that point we are by no means sure," rejoined Raschke. "We do not know but that each race of animals has a history and an evolution which extends from the earliest generation to the present. It is not at all impossible that acquirements and knowledge of the world, so far as they may exist in animals, have acted among them, though in a narrower sphere, just as with men. It is quite an assumption that birds sang just the same way a thousand years ago as they do now. I believe that the wolf and the lynx, in cultivated regions, stand on the same footing in the struggle for life as do the remnants of the red Indians among the whites; whilst those animals that live in comparative peace with man, like sparrows and other small creatures, and bees especially, improve in their mode of work, and in the course of time make progress--progress which we in some cases surmise, but which our science has not yet been able to describe."