In our conviction, if souls were visible, we should distinctly see the …

In our conviction, if souls were visible, we should distinctly see the strange fact that every individual of the human species corresponds to some one of the species of animal creation; and we might easily recognize the truth which has as yet scarcely occurred to the thinker, that, from the oyster to the eagle, from the hog to the tiger, all animals are in man, and that each of them is in a man; at times several of them at once.Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, wandering before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls.God shows these to us in order to make us reflect; but, as animals are only shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the complete sense of the term, for of what use would it be ? On the other hand, our souls being realities and having an end of their own, God has endowed them with intelligence; that is to say, possible education.Social education, properly carried out, can always draw out of a soul, no matter its nature, the utility which it contains.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo