It is a comforting reflection in a world still “full of violence and cruel habitations” that the behavior of men to domestic animals must have been, on the whole, more kind than the reverse. Had it been otherwise, the “set” of the brute’s brains, according to modern theory, would have been that of shyness and dread of us, such as is actually exhibited by the rabbit which we chase in the field and the rat we pursue in the cupboard. In countries where cats are exceptionally ill-treated (_e.g._, the south of France), poor puss is almost as timid as a hare; while the devotion and trustfulness of the dog toward man in every land peopled by an Aryan race seem to prove that, with all our faults, he has not found us such bad masters after all. Dogs love us, and could only love us, because we have bestowed on them some crumbs of love and good-will, though their generous little hearts have repaid the debt a thousand-fold. The “Shepherd’s Chief Mourner” and “Grey Friar’s Bobby” had probably received in their time only a few pats from the horny hands of their masters, and a gruff word of approval when the sheep had been particularly cleverly folded. But they recognized that the superior being condescended to care for them, and their adoring fidelity was the ready response.[21] Two different motives of course have influenced men to such kindness to domestic animals, one being obvious self-interest, and the necessity, if they needed the creature’s services, to keep it in some degree of health and comfort; and the other being the special affection of individual men for favorite animals. Of the frequent manifestation of this latter sentiment in all ages, literature and art bear repeated testimony. We find it in the parable of Nathan; in the pictured tame lion running beside the chariot of Rameses; in the story of Argus in the _Odyssey_; in the episode in the _Mahabharata_, where the hero refuses to ascend to heaven in the car of Indra without his dog; in the exquisite passage in the _Zend-Avesta_, where the lord of good speaks to Zoroaster, “For I have made the dog, I who am Ahura Mazda”; in the history of Alexander’s hero, Bucephalus; in Pliny’s charming tales of the boy and the pet dolphin, and of the poor slave thrown down the Gemonian stairs, beside whose corpse his dog watched and wailed till even the stern hearts of the Roman populace were melted to pity. But neither the every-day self-interested care of animals by their masters, nor the occasional genuine affection of special men to favorite animals,--which have together produced the actual tameness most of the domesticated tribes now exhibit,--seems to have led men to the acknowledgment of moral obligation on their part toward the brutes. As a lady will finger lovingly a bunch of flowers, and the next moment drop it carelessly on the roadside or pluck the blossoms to pieces in sheer thoughtlessness, so the great majority of mankind have always treated animals.