Instances of disinterested actions are so common among dogs and horses that farther illustrations are entirely unnecessary.  And disinterested action is limited to fewer cases because the environment is rarely suited to its development in the animal world.  But do you answer that the affection of the dog is never really disinterested, but a very refined form of selfishness.  Possibly.  But it were to be greatly desired that selfishness would more frequently take that same refined form among men.  But I cannot see how selfishness can ever become so refined as to lead an animal to die of grief over its master’s grave.

And if refined selfishness were all, I for one cannot help believing that the dog would long ago have been asleep on a full stomach before the kitchen fire.  Has no attempt been made to prove that all human actions are due to selfishness more or less refined?  It is very unwise to apply tests and use arguments concerning animals which, if applied with equal strictness to human conduct, would prove human society irrational and purely selfish.

Mammals may be self-centred.  But the highest forms have set their faces away from self and toward the non-self; some have at least started on the road which leads to unselfishness.

And man is governed to a certain extent by prudential considerations.  If he entirely disregarded these he would not be wise.  But the development of the rational faculty has brought before his mind a series of motives higher than these, which are slowly but surely superseding them.  Truth, right, and duty are motives of a different order.  With regard to these there can be no question of profit or loss.  Here the mind cannot stop to ask, Will it pay?  Self must be left out of account.

“When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The soul replies, I can.”

And thus man rises above appetite, above prudential considerations, and becomes a free and moral agent.  And family and social life bring him into new relations, press home upon him new duties and responsibilities, every one of which is a new motive compelling him to rise above self.  And thus the unselfish, altruistic emotions have made man what he is, and are in him, ever advancing toward their future supremacy.  But some one will say, This is a very pretty theory; it is not history.  But the perception of truth and right is certainly a fact, the result of ages of development.  And the very highest which the intellect can perceive is bound to become the controlling motive of the will.  It always has been so.  It must be so, if evolution is not to be purely degeneration.  Thus only has man become what he is.  And the voice of the people demanding truth and justice, whenever and wherever they see them, is the voice of God promising the future triumph of righteousness.  For it is proof positive that man’s face is resolutely set toward these, as his ancestors have always marched steadily toward that which was the highest possible attainment.