this same discrimination dragons show , greatly to their credit , and certainly no one can deny that with it is matched an understanding superior to virtually all of the animal world that renders them arguably the most valuable and useful of all our domestic beasts ... . and yet it has been some years now since many eminent gentlemen , unsatisfied with these considerable encomiums , have begun to put before the world , cautiously and in measured stages , a body of work which in its sum total , almost as if by joint intention , leads the thinking man to the inevitable and seductive conclusion that dragons rise beyond the animal sphere entirely : that they possess , in full measure equal to man , the faculty of reason and intellect .