Men may be intelligent but animals are wiser!!
Looking at the vast materialistic development man has done over the years; one may find humans more intelligent than animals. But in my opinion animals are wiser.
If I check on the following 5 universal principles of spirituality, almost all the animals pass the test:
1) Non Violence: Except for the fulfillment of food or safety needs, no animal harms any other creature. Whereas a man may harm others for fulfillment of his material or non-materialistic needs like pleasure and craziness.
2) Truthfulness: Animal does not lie, pretend, deceive or wear different masks. A man is expert in all these things.
3) Stealing: Animal does not steal because they do not accumulate. A man is expert in taking things without the permission of owner.
4) BRAHMACHARYA: This Hindi word is poorly defined in English as Celibacy. BRAHMA means Universe CHARYA means behavior. So, in my opinion BRAHMACHARYA means behaving in tune with universe. Except few great men like Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammada, Christ etc. Not all humans conduct themselves in tune with the universe. The animals are most environment friendly where as humans are most dangerous creature for nature.
5) Non-possession: Humans are possessive of everything. They want to accumulate for 7 generations and beyond. They are possessive even in relationship. Whereas animal is completely non-possessive of things as well as relations.
In fact, an animal is more humane/ kind or more appropriately lives up to the principles of universe than a human belonging to various religions and following that particular religion’s philosophy. I.e. an animal is more Jain than Jains, more Buddhist than Buddhists, more Christ than Christians, more Hindu than Hindus and more Islamic than Muslims.
Animals do not have attachment, greed, jealousy, anger or any kind of negative feeling which human is struggling to shade off. They know very well where they need to live, what they need to eat, how to carry on generation and how to treat self when fallen sick. If I talk about the talent then they know so many skills far better than human beings like flying, swimming, running, hearing and living in tune of nature. Human try to copy the skill and talent of animal but an animal never try to compete with human.
Likewise, there can be lot of other arguments in favor of animals about how they are wiser than human beings.