CHAPTER XLIV. Regard for the Lower Animals

REGARD FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS

MEN'S conduct towards the lower animals is frequently a subject of moral valuation.

Totem animals must be treated with deference by those who bear their names, and animals generally regarded as divine must be respected by all; of this more will be said in a subsequent chapter. Among various peoples the members of certain animal species must not be killed, because they are considered to be receptacles for the souls of departed men, or because the species is believed to have originated through a transformation of men into animals. The Dyaks of Borneo have a superstitious dread of killing orang-utans, being of opinion that these apes are men who went to live in the forest and abstain from speaking merely in order to be exempt from paying taxes. The Moors consider it wrong to kill a monkey, because the monkey was once a man whom God changed into his present shape as a punishment for the sin he committed by performing his ablutions with milk; and they would never do harm to a stork, because, as they say, the stork was originally a judge, who passed unjust sentences upon his fellow creatures and therefore became what he is. They also account it a sin to kill a swallow or a pigeon, a white spider or a bee, because they regard them as holy. Other creatures, again, are spared by the Moors because they {491} appear uncanny or are suspected of being evil spirits in disguise. It is believed that anybody who kills a raven easily goes mad and that he who kills a toad will get fever or die; and no Moor would dare to hit a cat or a dog in the dark, since it seems very doubtful what kind of being it really is. Superstitions of this sort are world-wide.]

It is a common belief among uncultured peoples that a person who slays an animal is exposed to the vengeance either of its disembodied spirit or of all the other creatures belonging to the same species. Hence, as Sir J. G. Frazer has shown, the savage often makes it a rule to spare the lives of those animals which he has no pressing motive for killing, at least such fierce and dangerous ones as are likely to exact a bloody revenge for the slaughter of any of their kind; and when, for some reason or other, he overcomes his superstitious scruples and takes the life of the beast, he is anxious to appease the victim and its kindred by testifying his respect for them, or making apologies, or trying to conceal his share in procuring the death of the animal, or promising that its remains will be honourably treated. The Stiêns of Cambodia, for instance, who believe that animals have souls which wander about after death, ask pardon when they have killed one, lest its soul should visit and torment them; and they also offer it sacrifices proportioned to the strength and size of the animal. When a party of Koriaks have killed a bear or a wolf, they skin the beast, dress one of their family in the skin, and dance round the skin-clad man, saying that it was not they who killed the animal but someone else, by preference a Russian. The Eskimo about Behring Strait maintain that the dead bodies of various animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death upon him or his people.

{492} The savage, moreover, desires to keep on good terms with animals which, without being feared, are either eaten or valued for their skins. Hence, when he captures one, he shows such deference for it as may be necessary for inducing its fellows to come and be killed also. Alaskan hunters preserve the bones of sables and beavers out of reach of the dogs for a year and then bury them carefully, lest the spirits which look after these species should consider that "they are regarded with contempt and hence no more should be killed or trapped." The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia said that when a deer was killed its fellows would be well pleased if the hunters butchered the animal nicely and cleanly. The Hurons refrained from throwing fish bones into the fire, lest the souls of the fish should go and warn the other fish not to let themselves be caught, since, if they were, their own bones would also be burned. Some savages respect the bones of the animals which they eat because they believe that the bones, if preserved, will, in the course of time, be reclothed with flesh and the animal thus come to life again.

Besides the creatures which primitive man treats with respect because he dreads their strength and ferocity or on account of the benefits he expects from them, there is yet a third class of animate beings which he sometimes deems it necessary to conciliate, namely, vermin that infest the crops. Among the Saxons of Transylvania, in order to keep sparrows from the corn, the sower begins by throwing the first handful of seed backwards over his head, saying, "That is for you, sparrows." And of the Drâvidian tribes of Mirzapur we are told that, when locusts threaten to eat up the fruits of the earth, the people catch one, decorate its head with a spot of red {493} lead, salaam to it, and let it go; after which civilities the whole flight immediately departs.

Domestic animals are frequently objects of superstitious reverence. They are expected to reward masters who treat them well, whereas those who harm them are believed to expose themselves to their revenge. Among the Eskimo about Behring Strait dogs are never beaten for biting people, lest the inua or shade of the dog should become angry and prevent the wound from healing. Butchers are often regarded as unclean, and the original reason for this was in all probability the idea that they were haunted by the spirits of the animals they had slain. Among the Guanches of the Canary Islands it was unlawful for anybody but professional butchers to kill cattle, and a butcher was forbidden to enter other persons' houses, to touch their property, and to keep company with any one not of his own trade. In Morocco a butcher, like a manslayer, is thought to be haunted by jnûn (jinn), and it seems that in this case also the notion of haunting jnûn has replaced an earlier belief in troublesome ghosts. So, too, the ancient Troglodytes of East Africa, who derived their whole sustenance from their flocks and herds, are said to have looked upon butchers as unclean. In the rural districts of Japan it is believed that a butcher will have a cripple among his descendants.

How far ideas of this sort may account for the great disinclination of many peoples to kill their cattle, it is impossible to say; but they certainly do not constitute the only motive. We have noticed above that pastoral tribes are unwilling to reduce their herds and agricultural peoples to kill the ploughing ox, because this would imply {494} loss of valuable property. And apart from economic considerations, we may assume that feelings of genuine sympathy also induce them to treat their animals with kindness. The altruistic sentiment has not necessarily reference to members of the same species only; of this we find instances even among animals in confinement and domesticated animals, which frequently become attached to individuals of a different species with whom they live together. And the savage feels himself much more closely related to the animal world than does his civilised fellow creature; indeed, as we have seen, he habitually obliterates the boundaries between man and beast and regards all animals as practically on a footing of equality with himself. Among the pastoral races of Africa the men delight in attending their cattle, and spend much time in ornamenting and adorning them; the herdsman knows every beast in his herd, calls it by its name, and affectionately observes all its peculiarities. Of the Bahima, a cow tribe in Uganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe tells us that the men form warm attachments for their cattle; some of them love the animals like children, pet and coax them, talk to them, and weep over their ailments, and should a favourite die their grief is so extreme that it sometimes leads to suicide. The mythical founder of the kingdom of Uganda, Kintu, is said to have been so humane and averse from the sight of blood, that "even cattle killed for necessary food were slaughtered at some distance from his dwelling." But cattle are not the only dumb creatures that excite tender feelings in the bosom of a savage. The For tribe of Central Africa regard it as a characteristic of a good man to be kind to animals in general, and consider it wicked to be otherwise. Concerning the Eastern Central Africans Mr. {495} Macdonald writes that if they appear destitute of pity, say, for their fowls in their methods of carrying them, it is because they do not reflect that it gives them pain--"all would admit that it was a cruel thing to pain the fowl"; and they have fables in their language which show a desire to enter minutely into the feelings of dumb creatures, representing, for instance, fowls as reasoning on their hard fate in being killed for their master's supper. Among the Indians of the province of Quito, according to Juan and Ulloa, the women are so fond of their fowls that they will not sell them, much less kill them with their own hands; "so that if a stranger, who is obliged to pass the night in one of their cottages, offers ever so much money for a fowl, they refuse to part with it, and he finds himself under a necessity of killing the fowl himself. At this his landlady shrieks, dissolves in tears, and wrings her hands, as if it had been an only son; till seeing the mischief past remedy she wipes her eyes, and quietly takes what the traveller offers her." North American Indians, again, are very fond of their hunting dogs. Those on the west side of the Rocky Mountains "appear to have the same affection for them that they have for their children; and they will discourse with them, as if they were rational beings. They frequently call them their sons or daughters; and when describing an Indian, they will speak of him as father of a particular dog which belongs to him. When these dogs die, it is not unusual to see their masters or mistresses place them on a pile of wood, and burn them in the same manner as they do the dead bodies of their relations; and they appear to lament their deaths, by crying and howling, fully as much as if they were their kindred." So also the natives of Australia often display much affection for their dogs; Mr. Gason has seen women crying over a dog when bitten by a snake as if it had been one of their own children, and if a puppy has lost its mother the {496} women suckle and nurse it. Of the Maoris of New Zealand we read that their extreme love of offspring "was also carried out to excess towards the young of brutes--especially of their dogs, and, afterwards, of cats and pigs introduced. Hence it was by no means an unusual sight to see a woman carrying her child at her back, and a pet dog, or pig, in her bosom." The Chukchi of North-Eastern Siberia believe that if a person is cruel to brutes his soul will after his death migrate into some domestic animal--a dog, a horse, or a reindeer. Even the miserable Veddahs of Ceylon are said to be indignant at the needless killing of a beast.

On the other hand we also hear of savages who are greatly lacking in sympathy for the brute creation. Darwin says that humanity to the lower animals is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. Mr. Atkinson charges the New Caledonians with great cruelty to animals. The Tasmanians appeared much to enjoy the tortures of a wounded bird or beast. It is not to be expected that people whose kindly feelings towards men hardly extend beyond the borders of their own communities should be compassionate to wild animals. They may also appear wantonly cruel because they do not realise the pain which they inflict. And, like children, they may enjoy the agony of a suffering beast or bird because it excites their curiosity.

It is obvious from what has been said above that already at the savage stage men's conduct towards the lower animals must in some cases be a matter of moral concern. For hand in hand with the altruistic sentiment we always find the feeling of sympathetic resentment whenever there is an occasion for its outburst. Moreover, {497} acts which are, or are believed to be, injurious to the agent, by exposing him to an animal's revenge or otherwise, are prohibited because they are imprudent; and, as we have often noticed, such prohibitions are apt to assume a moral character. Finally, if a certain mode of conduct is considered to be productive of public harm, as is the case with any act or omission which reduces, or is supposed to reduce, the supply of food or animal clothing, it is naturally looked upon as a wrong against the community.

Similar facts have, among peoples of a higher culture, led to moral rules inculcating regard for animals--rules which have often assumed a definite shape in their laws or religious books.

According to Brahmanism tenderness towards all creatures is a duty incumbent upon the four castes. It is said that "he who injures innoxious beings from a wish to give himself pleasure, never finds happiness, neither living nor dead." If a blow is struck against animals in order to give them pain, the judge shall inflict a fine in proportion to the amount of pain caused, just as if the blow had been struck against a man. The killing of various creatures, including fish and snakes, reduces the offender to a mixed caste; and, according to 'Vishnu Purana,' fishermen go after death to the same hell as awaits prisoners, incendiaries, and treacherous friends. To kill a cow is a great crime; whereas he who unhesitatingly abandons life for the sake of a cow is freed even from the guilt of the murder of a Brâhmana, and so is he who saves the life of a cow. Among many of the Hindus the slaughter of a cow excites more horror than the killing of a man, and is punished with great severity, even with death.

In Buddhism, Jainism, and Taouism the respect for animal life is extreme. A disciple of Buddha may not {498} knowingly deprive any creature of life, not even a worm or an ant. He may not drink water in which animal life of any kind whatever is contained, and must not even pour it out on grass or clay. And the doctrine which forbids the killing of animate beings is not only professed, but in a large measure followed, by the great majority of people in Buddhistic countries. In Siam the tameness of many living creatures which in Europe fly from the presence of man is very striking. Instances have been known in which natives have quitted the service of Europeans on account of their unwillingness to destroy reptiles and vermin, and it is a not uncommon practice for rich Siamese to buy live fish to have the merit of restoring them to the sea. In Burma, though fish is one of the staple foods of the people, the fisherman is despised; not so much, perhaps, as if he killed other living things, but he is still an outcast from decent society, and "will have to suffer great and terrible punishment before he can be cleansed from the sins that he daily commits." The Buddhists of Ceylon are more forbearing: they excuse the fisherman by saying that he does not kill the fish, but only removes it from the water. In Tibet all dumb creatures are treated with humanity, and the taking of animal life is rather strictly prohibited, except in the case of yaks and sheep needed for food. Owing to the coldness of the climate, flesh forms an essential staple of diet; but the butchers are regarded as professional sinners and are therefore the most despised of all classes in Tibet. Wild animals and even small birds and fish are seldom or never killed, on account of the religious penalties attached to this crime.

The Jain is stricter still in his regard for animal life. He sweeps the ground before him as he goes, lest animate things be destroyed; he walks veiled, lest he inhale a living organism; he considers that the evening and night are {499} not times for eating, since one might then swallow a live thing by mistake; and he rejects not only meat but even honey, together with various fruits that are supposed to contain worms, not because of his distaste for worms but because of his regard for life. Some towns in Western India in which Jains are found have their beast hospitals, where animals are kept and fed. At Surat there was quite recently an establishment of this sort with a house where a host of noxious and offensive vermin, dense as the sands on the sea-shore, were bred and nurtured; and at Anjár, in Kutch, about five thousand rats were kept in a certain temple and daily fed with flour, which was procured by a tax on the inhabitants of the town.

According to 'Thâi-Shang,' one of the books of Taouism, a good man will feel kindly towards all creatures, and refrain from hurting even the insect tribes, grass, and trees; and he is a bad man who "shoots birds and hunts beasts, unearths the burrowing insects and frightens roosting birds, blocks up the dens of animals and overturns nests, hurts the pregnant womb and breaks eggs." In the book called 'Merits and Errors Scrutinised,' which enjoys great popularity in China, it is said to be meritorious to save animals from death--even insects if the number amounts to a hundred,--to relieve a brute that is greatly wearied with work, to purchase and set at liberty animals intended to be slaughtered. On the other hand, to confine birds in a cage, to kill ten insects, to be unsparing of the strength of tired animals, to disturb insects in their holes, to destroy the nests of birds, without great reason to kill and dress animals for food, are all errors of various degrees. And "to be the foremost to encourage the slaughter of animals, or to hinder persons from setting them at liberty," is regarded as an error of the same magnitude as the crime of devising a person's death or of drowning or murdering a child. Kindness {500} to animals is conspicuous in the writings of Confucius and Mencius; the Master angled but did not use a net, he shot but not at birds perching. Throughout Japan, according to Sir Edward Reed, "the life of animals has always been held more or less sacred. . . ., neither Shintoism nor Buddhism requiring or justifying the taking of the life of any creature for sacrifice."

The regard for the lower animals which is shown by these Eastern religions and their adherents is to some extent due to superstitious ideas, similar to those which we found prevalent among many savages. Dr. de Groot observes that in China the virtues of benevolence and humanity are extended to animals because these, also, have souls which may work vengeance or bring reward. The conduct of Orientals towards the brute creation has further been explained by their belief in the transmigration of souls. But it seems that the connection between their theory of metempsychosis and their rules relating to the treatment of animals is not exclusively, nor even chiefly, one of cause and effect, but rather one of a common origin. This theory itself may in some measure be regarded as a result of that intimacy which prevails in the East between animals and men. Buddhism recognises no fundamental distinction between them, only an accidental or phenomenal difference; and the step is not long from this attitude to the doctrine of metempsychosis. Captain Forbes maintains that the humanity with which the Burmans treat dumb animals comes "more from the innate good nature and easiness of their dispositions than from any effect over them of this peculiar doctrine"; and they laugh at the suggestion made by Europeans that Buddhists abstain from taking life because they believe in the transmigration of souls, having never heard of it before. Their motive, says Mr. Fielding Hall, is compassion and noblesse oblige. But by its punishments {501} and rewards, religion has greatly increased the natural regard for animal life and welfare, and introduced a new motive for conduct which originally sprang in the main from kindly feeling.

In Zoroastrianism we meet with a different attitude towards the lower animal world. A fundamental distinction is made between the animals of Ormuzd and those of Ahriman. To kill one of the former is a heinous sin, to kill one of the latter is a pious deed. Sacred above all other animals is the dog. The ill-feeding and maltreatment of dogs are prosecuted as criminal, and extreme penalties are inflicted on those who venture to kill them. Nay, if there be in the house of a worshipper of Mazda a mad dog who has no scent, the worshippers of Mazda "shall attend him to heal him, in the same manner as they would do for one of the faithful." In the eyes of the Parsis, animals are enlisted under the standards of either Ormuzd or Ahriman according as they are useful or hurtful to man; but M. Darmesteter is of opinion that they originally belonged to the one or the other not on account of any such qualities, but according as they chanced to have lent their forms to either the god or the fiend in the storm tales. "It was not animal psychology," he says, "that disguised gods and fiends as dogs, otters, hedge-hogs, and cocks, or as snakes, tortoises, frogs, and ants, but the accidents of physical qualities and the caprice of popular fancy, as both the god and the fiend might be compared with, and transformed into, any object, the idea of which was suggested by the uproar of the storm, the blazing of the lightning, the streaming of the water, or the hue and shape of the clouds." This hypothesis, however, seems to attach undue importance to mythical fancies, and it presupposes an almost unbounded and capricious allegorism, for which there is apparently little foundation {502} in facts. The suggestion that the animals are referred to either the one or the other category according as they are useful or obnoxious to man, is at all events borne out by a few salient features, although in many details the matter remains obscure.

It appears that among the Zoroastrians, also, the respect for the life of animals is partly due to superstitious ideas about their souls and fear of their revenge. According to the 'Yasts,' "the souls of the wild beasts and of the tame" are objects of worship; and in one of the Pahlavi texts it is said that people should abstain from unlawfully slaughtering any species of animals, since otherwise, in punishment for such an act, each hair of the animal killed becomes like a sharp dagger, and he who is unlawfully a slaughterer is slain. But here again we may assume the co-operating influence of the feeling of sympathy. Various passages in the Zoroastrian 'Gathas' which enjoin kindness to domestic animals suggest as their motives not only considerations of utility but genuine tenderness. In a later age Firdausi sang, "Ah! spare yon emmet rich in hoarded grain: He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain." And of the modern Persian Dr. Polak says that, "naturally not cruel, he treats animals with more consideration than men." His present religion, too, enjoins kindness to animals as a duty.

According to Muhammedanism, beasts, birds, fish, insects, are all, like man, the slaves of God, the tools of His will. There is no intrinsic distinction between them and the human species, except what accidental diversity God may have been pleased to make. Muhammed said to his followers:--"There is not a beast upon the earth nor a bird that flies with both its wings, but is a nation like to you; . . . to their Lord shall they be gathered." Muhammedan law prescribes that domestic animals shall {503} be treated with consideration and not be overworked; and in various Muhammedan countries this law has also been habitually put into practice. The Moslems of India are kind to animals. In his earlier intercourse with the people of Egypt, Mr. Lane noticed much humanity to beasts. Montaigne said that the Turks gave alms to brutes and had hospitals for them; and Mr. Bosworth Smith is of opinion that beasts of burden and domestic animals are nowhere in Christendom with the one exception, perhaps, of Norway treated with such unvarying kindness and consideration as they are in Turkey. "In the East," he adds, "so far as it has not been hardened by the West, there is a real sympathy between man and the domestic animals; they understand one another."

So also the ancient Greeks were on familiar terms with the animal world. This appears from the frequency with which their poets illustrate human qualities by metaphors drawn from it. And as men were compared with animals, so animals were believed to possess human peculiarities. When a beast was going to be sacrificed it had to give its consent to the act by a nod of the head before it was killed. Animals were held in some measure responsible for their deeds; they were tried for manslaughter, sentenced, and executed. On the other hand, honours were bestowed upon beasts which had rendered signal services to their masters. The graves of Cimon's mares with which he three times conquered at the Olympic games were still in the days of Plutarch to be seen near his own tomb; and a certain Xanthippus honoured his dog by burying it on a promontory, since then called "the dog's grave," because when the Athenians were compelled to abandon their city it swam by the side of his galley to Salamis. According to Xenocrates, there were in existence {504} at Eleusis three laws which had been made by an ancient legislator, namely:--"Honour your parents; Sacrifice to the gods from the fruits of the earth; Injure not animals." At Athens a man was punished for flaying a living ram. The Areopagites once condemned a boy to death because he had picked out the eyes of some quails. As we have noticed before, the life of the ploughing ox was sacred; and young animals in particular were believed to be under the protection of the gods. An ancient proverb says that "there are Erinyes even for dogs." This seems to indicate that the Greeks, also, were influenced by the common notion that the soul of an animal may take revenge upon him who killed it, the Erinys of the slain animal being originally its persecuting ghost. Among the Pythagoreans, again, the rule that animals which are not obnoxious to the human race should be neither injured nor killed was connected with their theory of metempsychosis; and in some cases the prohibition of slaying useful animals may be traced to utilitarian motives. But both in Greece and Rome kindness to brutes was also inculcated for their own sake, on purely humanitarian grounds. Porphyry says that, as justice pertains to rational beings and animals have been proved to be possessed of reason, it is necessary that we should act justly towards them. He adds that "he who does not restrict harmless conduct to man alone, but extends it to other animals, most closely approaches to divinity; and if it were possible to extend it to plants, he would preserve this image in a still greater degree." According to Plutarch kindness and beneficence to creatures of every species flow from the breast of a well-natured man as {505} streams that issue from the living fountain. We ought to take care of our dogs and horses not only when they are young, but when they are old and past service. We ought not to violate or kill anything whatsoever that has life, unless it hurt us first. And if we cannot live unblamably we should at least sin with discretion: when we kill an animal in order to satisfy our hunger we should do so with sorrow and pity, without abusing and tormenting it. Cicero says it is a crime to injure an animal. And Marcus Aurelius enjoins man to make use of brutes with a generous and liberal spirit, since he has reason and they have not.

In the Old Testament we meet with several instances of kindly feeling towards animals. God watches over and controls the sustenance of their life. He sends springs into the valleys which will give drink to every beast of the field. He gives nests to the birds of the heaven, which sing among the branches. He causes grass to grow for the cattle; and the young lions, roaring after their prey, seek their food from God. Whilst the Jews, as Professor Toy observes, found it hard to conceive of the God of Israel as thinking kindly of its enemies, they had no such feeling of hostility towards beasts and birds. But at the same time man is the centre of the creation, a being set apart from all other sentient creatures as God's special favourite, for whose sake everything else was brought into existence. The sun, the moon, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the estate of man. For his sustenance the fruits of the earth were made to grow, and to him was given dominion over the fish of the sea, {506} and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And when the earth is to be replenished after the deluge, the same privileges are again granted to him. The fear of man and the dread of man shall be upon all living creatures, into his hand are they all delivered, they shall all be meat for him. And they are given over to his supreme and irresponsible control without the slightest injunction of kindness or the faintest suggestion of any duties towards them. They are to be regarded by him simply as food.

Among the Hebrews the harshness of this anthropocentric doctrine was somewhat mitigated by the sympathy which a simple pastoral and agricultural people naturally feels for its domestic animals. In Christianity, on the other hand, it was further strengthened by the exclusive importance which was attached to the spiritual salvation of man. He was now more than ever separated from the rest of sentient beings. Even his own animal nature was regarded with contempt, the immortality of his soul being the only object of religious interest. "It would seem," says Dr. Arnold, "as if the primitive Christian, by laying so much stress upon a future life in contradistinction to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of hope, placed them at the same time out of the pale of sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of animals in the light of our fellow-creatures." St. Paul asks with scorn, "Doth God take care for oxen?" No creed in Christendom teaches kindness to animals as a dogma of religion. In the Middle Ages various councils of the Church declared hunting unlawful for the clergy; but the obvious reason for this prohibition was its horror of bloodshed, not any consideration {507} for the animals. Mr. Mauleverer in Sir Arthur Helps' 'Talk about Animals and their Masters,' says, "Upon a moderate calculation, I think I have heard, in my time, 1320 sermons; and I do not recollect that in any one of them I ever heard the slightest allusion made to the conduct of men towards animals." Nor is there any such allusion in most treatises on Ethics which base their teachings upon distinctly Christian tenets. The kindest words, I think, which from a Christian point of view have been said about animals have generally come from Protestant sectarians, Quakers and Methodists, whereas Roman Catholic writers--with a few exceptions--when they deal with the subject at all, chiefly take pains to show that animals are entirely destitute of rights. Brute beasts, says Father Rickaby, cannot have any rights for the reason that they have no understanding and therefore are not persons. We have no duties of any kind to them, as neither to stocks and stones; we only have duties about them. We must not harm them when they are our neighbour's property, we must not vex and annoy them for sport, because it disposes him who does so to inhumanity towards his own species. But there is no shadow of evil resting on the practice of causing pain to brutes in sport, where the pain is not the sport itself, but an incidental concomitant of it. Much more in all that conduces to the sustenance of man may we give pain to animals, and we are not "bound to any anxious care to make this pain as little as may be. Brutes are as things in our regard: so far as they are useful to us, they exist for us, not for themselves; and we do right in using them unsparingly for our need and convenience, though not for our wantonness." According to another {508} modern Catholic writer the infliction of suffering upon an animal is not only justifiable, but a duty, "when it confers a certain, a solid good, however small, on the spiritual nature of man." Pope Pius IX. refused a request for permission to form in Rome a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on the professed ground that it was a theological error to suppose that man owes any duty to an animal.

It is not only theological moralists that maintain that animals can have no rights and that abstinence from wanton cruelty is a duty not to the animal but to man. This view has been shared by Kant and by many later philosophers. So also the legal protection of animals has often been vindicated merely on the ground that cruelty to animals might breed cruelty to men or shows a cruel disposition of mind, or that it wounds the sensibilities of other people. In 'Parliamentary History and Review' for 1825-1826 it is stated that no reason can be assigned for the interference of the legislator in the protection of animals unless their protection be connected, either directly or remotely, with some advantage to man. The Bill for the abolition of bear-baiting and other cruel practices was expressly propounded on the ground that nothing was more conducive to crime than such sports, that they led the lower orders to gambling, that they educated them for thieves, that they gradually trained them up to bloodshed and murder. The criminal code of the German Empire, again, imposes a fine upon any person "who spitefully tortures or cruelly ill-treats beasts, {509} either publicly or in a manner to create scandal"--in other words, he is punished, not because he puts the animal to pain, but because his conduct is offensive to his fellow men.

Indifference to animal suffering has been a characteristic of public opinion in European countries up to quite modern times. Only a little more than a hundred years ago Thomas Young declared in his 'Essay on Humanity to Animals' that he was sensible of laying himself open to no small portion of ridicule in offering to the public a book on such a subject. Till the end of the eighteenth century and even later cock-fighting was a very general amusement among the English and Scotch, entering into the occupations of both the old and young. Travellers agreed with coachmen that they were to wait a night if there was a cock-fight in any town through which they passed. Schools had their cock-fights; on Shrove Tuesday every youth took to the village schoolroom a cock reared for his special use, and the schoolmaster presided at the conflict. Those who felt that the practice required some excuse found it in the idea that the race was to suffer this annual barbarity by way of punishment for St. Peter's crime; but the number of people who had any scruples about the game cannot have been great considering that even such a strong advocate of humanity to animals as Lawrence had no decided antipathy to it. Other pastimes indulged in were dog-fighting, bull-baiting and badger-baiting; and in the middle of the eighteenth century the bear-garden was described by Lord Kames as one of the chief entertainments of the English, though it was held in abhorrence by the French and "other polite nations," being too savage an amusement to be relished {510} by those of a refined taste. As late as 1824 Sir Robert (then Mr.) Peel argued strongly against the legal prohibition of bull-baiting.

About two years previously, however, humanity to animals had, for the first time, become a subject of English legislation by the Act which prevented cruel and improper treatment of cattle. This Act was afterwards followed by others which prohibited bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and similar pastimes, as also cruelty to domestic animals in general. In 1876 vivisection for medical or scientific purposes was subjected to a variety of restrictions, and since 1900 cases of ill-treatment of wild animals in captivity may be dealt with under the Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act. On the Continent cruelty to animals was first prohibited by criminal law in Saxony, in 1838, and subsequently in most other European states. But in the South of Europe there are still countries in which the law is entirely silent on the subject.

Whatever be the professed motives of legislators for preventing cruelty to animals, there can be no doubt that the laws against it are chiefly due to a keener and more generally felt sympathy with their sufferings. The actual feelings of men have commonly been somewhat more tender than the theories of law, philosophy, and religion. The anthropocentric exclusiveness of Christianity was from ancient times to some extent counterbalanced by popular sentiments and beliefs. In the folk-tales of Europe man is not placed in an isolated and unique position in the universe. He lives in intimate and friendly intercourse with the animals round him, attributes to them human qualities, and regards them with mercy. Tender feelings towards the brute creation are also displayed in many legends of saints. St. Francis of Assisi {511} talked with the birds and called them "brother birds" or "little sister swallows," and was seen employed in removing worms from the road that they might not be trampled by travellers. John Moschus speaks of a certain abbot who early in the morning not only used to give food to all the dogs in the monastery, but would bring corn to the ants and to the birds on the roof. In the 'Revelations of St. Bridget' we read, "Let a man fear, above all, me, his God, and so much the gentler will he become towards my creatures and animals, on whom, on account of me, their Creator, he ought to have compassion." Many kind words about animals have come from poets and thinkers. Montaigne says that he has never been able to see without affliction an innocent beast, which is without defence and from which we receive no offence, pursued and killed. Shakespeare points out that "the poor beetle that we tread upon, in corporal sufferance finds a pang as great as when a giant dies." Mandeville thinks that if it was not for that tyranny which custom usurps over us, no men of any tolerable good-nature could ever be reconciled to the killing of so many animals for their daily food, as long as the bountiful earth so plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties. Towards the end of the eighteenth century Bentham wrote:--"Men must be permitted to kill animals; but they should be forbidden to torment them. Artificial death may be rendered less painful than natural death by simple processes, well worth the trouble of being studied, and of becoming an object of police. Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? A time will come when humanity will spread its mantle over everything that breathes. The lot of slaves has begun to {512} excite pity; we shall end by softening the lot of the animals which labour for us and supply our wants." Some years later Thomas Young pronounced hunting, shooting, and fishing for sport to be "unlawful, cruel, and sinful." And in the course of the nineteenth century humanity to animals, from being conspicuous in a few individuals only, became the keynote of a movement gradually increasing in strength. Humanitarians, says Mr. Salt, "insist that the difference between human and non-human is one of degree only and not of kind, and that we owe duties, the same in kind though not in degree, to all our sentient fellow-beings." Some people maintain that it is wrong to kill animals for food or in sport; but the most vigorous attacks concerning the treatment of the brute creation are at present directed against the practice of vivisection. The claim is made that this practice should be, not merely restricted, but entirely prohibited by law. And while the antivivisectionists generally endeavour to deny or minimise the scientific importance of experiments on living animals, their cry for the abolition of such experiments is mainly based on the argument that humanity at large has no right to purchase relief from its own suffering by torturing helpless brutes.

This rapidly increasing sympathy with animal suffering is no doubt to a considerable extent due to the decline of the anthropocentric doctrine and the influence of another theory, which regards man, not as an image of the deity separated from the lower animals by a special act of creation, but as a being generally akin to them, and only representing a higher stage in the scale of mental evolution. Through this doctrine the orthodox contempt for dumb creatures was succeeded by feelings of affinity and kindly interest. But apart from any theory as regards human origins, growing reflection has also taught men to be more considerate in their treatment of animals by producing a more vivid idea of their sufferings. Human thoughtlessness {513} has been responsible for much needless pain to which they have been made subject. In spite of some improvement it is so still; whilst, at the same time, the movement advocating greater humanity to animals is itself not altogether free from inconsistencies and a certain lack of discrimination.

It has been observed that the Neapolitan would not act so cruelly as he does to almost all animals except the cat if he could bring himself to conceive their capacity for joy and pain. So also we ourselves should often behave differently if we realised the tortures we thoughtlessly cause to creatures whose sufferings escape our notice from want of obvious outward expression. While the practice of whipping young pigs to death to make them tender, which occurred in England not much more than a century ago, would nowadays be regarded with general horror, cruelties inflicted for gastronomic purposes upon creatures of a lower type are little thought of. Cray-fish, oysters, and fish in general, as Mandeville observed, excite hardly any compassion at all, because "they express themselves unintelligibly to us; they are mute, and their inward formation, as well as outward figure, vastly different from ours." On the other hand, even passionate sportsmen describe the hunting of monkeys as repulsive on account of their resemblance to man; Rajah Brooke thought it almost barbarous to kill an orang-utan, unless for the sake of scientific research. Buddhism itself declares that "he who takes away the life of a large animal will have greater demerit than he who takes away the life of a small one. . . . The crime is not great when an ant is killed; its magnitude increases in this progression--a lizard, a guana, a hare, a deer, a bull, a horse, and an elephant." How little the feelings which underlie men's opinions concerning conduct {514} towards the lower animals are influenced by reflection is also apparent in the present crusade against vivisection, when compared with the public indifference to the sufferings inflicted on wild animals in sport. The vivisector who in cold blood torments his helpless victim in the interest of science and for the benefit of mankind is called a coward, and is a much more common object of hatred than the sportsman who causes agonies to the creature he pursues for sheer amusement. The pursued animal, it is argued, has "free chances of escape." This is an excellent argument--provided we share the North American Indian's conviction that an animal can never be killed without its own permission.

At present there is among ourselves no topic of moral concern which presents a greater variety of opinion than the question how far the happiness of the lower animals may be justly sacrificed for the benefit of man. The extreme views on this subject might, no doubt, be somewhat modified, on the one hand by a more vivid representation of animal suffering, on the other hand by the recognition of certain facts, often overlooked, which make it unreasonable to regard conduct towards dumb creatures in exactly the same light as conduct towards men. It should especially be remembered that the former have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery or death which we have. If they are destined to serve as meat they are not aware of it; whereas many domestic animals would never have come into existence, and been able to enjoy what appears a very happy life, but for the purpose of being used as food. But though greater intellectual discrimination may somewhat lessen the divergencies of moral opinion on the subject, nothing like unanimity can be expected, for the simple reason that moral judgments are ultimately based upon emotions, and sympathy with the animal world is a feeling which varies extremely in different individuals.