Artists, too, have attempted to depict the animal spirit that dwells in human beings. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted two portraits of young girls, one holding a cage with a mouse in it, the other a kitten. The former is called Muscipula,[24] the latter Felina, and it may be surmised that he intended to show in their features the imitative sympathy young children have with young animals, for Muscipula's expression is that of the mouse.
Charles Le Brun, the artist, worked out the same idea in a less symbolic and more practical manner, from the physiognomical aspect, in his series of drawings illustrative of the relation between human physiognomy and brute creation which depict man's features transformed in many animal countenances.
"Man is a talkative and religious ape," says J. Howard Moore in "The Universal Kinship,"[25] and goes on to point out that while man has expressed his opinion about animals constantly, he has never had the opportunity of hearing what animals have to say about human beings. Although we know what a lion looks like when painted by a man, "human eyes have never yet been illumined by the sardonic lineaments of a man painted by a lion."[26]
Emerson expressed something of the same idea when confronting the inmates of a stable or menagerie. "What compassion," he cries, "do these imprisoning forms awaken! You may sometimes catch the glance of a dog which lays a kind of claim to sympathy and brotherhood. What! somewhat of me down there? Does he know it? Can he, too, as I, go out of himself, see himself, perceive relations? We fear lest the poor brute should gain one dreadful glimpse of his condition, should learn in some moment the tough limitation of this fettering organisation. It was in this glance that Ovid got the hint of his metamorphosis; Calidasa of his transmigration of souls.
"For these fables are our own thoughts carried out. What keeps these wild tales in circulation for thousands of years? What but the wild fact to which they suggest some approximation of theory! Nor is the fact quite solitary, for in varieties of our own species where organisation seems to predominate over the genius of man, in Kalmuck or Malay or Flathead Indian, we are sometimes pained by the same feeling; and sometimes, too, the sharp-witted prosperous white man awakens it. In a mixed assembly we have chanced to see not only a glance at Abdiel so grand and keen, but also in other faces the features of the mink, of the bull, of the rat, and the barn-door fowl."[27]
The great Chinese Epic "A Journey to Heaven," depicts the gradual evolution of the beast into man and the transformation of character from unpromising materials into saints worthy of heaven. The monkey's ambition, the pig's love of ease and the horse's one talent of bearing burdens are all made to play their part in working out the salvation of man. One of the chief characters in the story is Sun Wu King, who personates the irrepressible human mind, an inventive genius full of resource who begins with monkey inquisitiveness to discover the reasons of things and presently develops into a man of science and an inventor.
The pig impersonates man's lower nature and demons represent the untamed passions of man. One demon having once been a clever, handsome man, became extremely ugly with a snout like a pig and long flapping ears. He tells his story thus: "Since I was born I have been stupid and loved ease night and day. I received the pill of nine Transformations and studied all the arts by which man could be united to the powers above and below, till at last I was able to fly with a light but strong body and was a guest in the celestial Court." Thence he was thrown out for misdemeanours and made to take the shape of a pig, but gradually he was weaned to better things and lost his animal propensities.