The real difference between the human being and the animal lies only their inner core. An animal can only return to the essential after it has discarded the gross material body, whereas a human being returns to the spiritual, which is much higher.
Man may indeed often descend in certain respects to the level of the animal, but must nevertheless always remain man, since he cannot evade the responsibility for his actions, inherent in the germ in his spiritual origin; the animal, however, with its merely essential origin, can never rise to the level of man. The difference between the bodies, however, lies only in the form, and in the nobler evolution of the human being, which was brought about by the spirit after it had entered the gross material body