The Place of Animals in Human Thought

Part 1

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THE PLACE OF ANIMALS IN HUMAN THOUGHT

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THE EMPEROR AKBAR personally directing the tying up of a wild Elephant. Tempera painting by Abu’l Fazl. (1597-98.) Photographed for this work from the original in the India Museum.]

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THE PLACE OF ANIMALS IN HUMAN THOUGHT

THE COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO

“On ne connait rien que par bribes.”—M. BERTHELOT

New York Charles Scribner’S Sons 153-157 Fifth Avenue 1909

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“C’est l’éternel secret qui veut être gardé.”

(All rights reserved.)

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PREFACE

AT the Congress held at Oxford in September, 1908, those who heard Count Goblet d’Alviella’s address on the “Method and Scope of the History of Religions” must have felt the thrill which announces the stirring of new ideas, when, in a memorable passage, the speaker asked “whether the psychology of animals has not equally some relation to the science of religions?” At any rate, these words came to me as a confirmation of the belief that the study which has engaged my attention for several years, is rapidly advancing towards recognition as a branch of the inquiry into what man is himself. The following chapters on the different answers given to this question when extended from man to animals, were intended, from the first, to form a whole, not complete, indeed, but perhaps fairly comprehensive. I offer them now to the public with my warmest acknowledgments to the scholars whose published works and, in some cases, private hints have made my task possible. I also wish to thank the Editor of the Contemporary Review for his kindness in allowing me to reprint the part of this book which appeared first in that periodical.

Some chapters refer rather to practice than to psychology, and others to myths and fancies rather than to conscious speculation, but all these subjects are so closely connected that it would be difficult to divide their treatment by a hard-and-fast line.

With regard to the illustrations, I am glad to bear grateful testimony to the facilities afforded me by the Directors of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Hague Gallery, the National Museum at Copenhagen, the Egypt Exploration Fund, and by the Secretary of State for India. H.E. Monsieur Camille Barrère, French Ambassador at Rome, has allowed me to include a photograph of his remarkably fine specimen of a bronze cat; and I have obtained the sanction of Monsieur Marcel Dieulafoy for the reproduction of one of Madame Dieulafoy’s photographs which appeared in his magnificent work on “L’Art Antique de la Perse.” Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Limited, and Messrs. Chapman and Hall, Limited, have permitted photographs to be taken of two plates in books published by them. Finally, Dr. C. Waldstein and Mr. E. B. Havell have been most kind in helping me to give the correct description of some of the plates.

SALÒ, LAGO DI GARDA.

February 15, 1909.

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CONTENTS

PAGE SOUL-WANDERING AS IT CONCERNS ANIMALS 11

THE GREEK CONCEPTION OF ANIMALS 22

III

ANIMALS AT ROME 44

PLUTARCH THE HUMANE 62

Part 2

MAN AND HIS BROTHER 84

THE FAITH OF IRAN 113

VII

ZOROASTRIAN ZOOLOGY 141

VIII

A RELIGION OF RUTH 166

LINES FROM THE ADI GRANTH 201

THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF ANIMALS 205

“A PEOPLE LIKE UNTO YOU” 221

XII

THE FRIEND OF THE CREATURE 245

XIII

VERSIPELLES 265

XIV

THE HORSE AS HERO 281

ANIMALS IN EASTERN FICTION 306

XVI

THE GROWTH OF MODERN IDEAS ABOUT ANIMALS 336

INDEX 367

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ILLUSTRATIONS

THE EMPEROR AKBAR PERSONALLY DIRECTING THE Frontispiece TYING UP OF A WILD ELEPHANT. Tempera painting in the “Akbar Namah,” by Abu’l Fazl (1597-98). India Museum. Photographed for this work.

DEER WORSHIPPING THE WHEEL OF THE LAW. Tope of Sanchi, drawn 11 by Lieut.-Col. Maisey From Fergusson’s “Tree and Serpent Worship.” By permission of the India Office.

THE BUDDHISTIC TIGER 21 From a painting on silk by Ko-Tō in the British Museum. Photographed for this work. In Japanese Buddhism the Tiger is the type of Wisdom.

ORPHEUS 32 Fresco found at Pompeii. (Sommer.)

STELE WITH CAT AND BIRD 40 Athens Museum.

CAPITOLINE SHE-WOLF 44 (Bruckmann.) Bronze statue. Early Etruscan style. The twins are modern.

LION BEING LED FROM THE ARENA BY A SLAVE 47 From the mosaic pavement of a Roman villa at Nennig.

Part 3

BACCHUS RIDING ON A PANTHER 74 Mosaic found at Pompeii. (Sommer.)

BRONZE STATUE OF AN EGYPTIAN CAT 82 From the Collection of H.E. Monsieur Camille Barrère, French Ambassador at Rome

REINDEER BROWSING. OLDER STONE AGE 86 Found in a cave at Thayngen in Switzerland.

HORSE DRAWING DISC OF THE SUN. OLDER BRONZE AGE 86 National Museum at Copenhagen.

HATHOR COW 102 Found in 1906 by Dr. Édouard Naville at Deir-el-bahari. By permission of the Egypt Exploration Fund.

WILD GOATS AND YOUNG 108 Assyrian Relief. British Museum. (Mansell.)

ASSYRIAN GOD CARRYING ANTELOPE AND WHEAT-EAR 116 British Museum. (Mansell.)

COUNTING CATTLE 128 Egyptian Fresco. British Museum. (Mansell.)

KING FIGHTING GRIFFIN (“BAD ANIMAL”) 142 Relief in Palace of Darius at Persepolis. Photographed by Jane Dieulafoy. From “L’Art Antique de la Perse.” By permission of M. Marcel Dieulafoy.

THE REAL DOG OF IRAN 152 Bronze Statuette found at Susa. Louvre. From Perrot’s “History of Art in Ancient Persia.” By permission of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Ltd.

BUDDHA PACIFYING AN INTOXICATED ELEPHANT WHICH HAD BEEN SENT 188 TO DESTROY HIM. THE ELEPHANT STOOPS IN ADORATION Græco-Buddhist sculpture from a ruined monastery at Takt-i-Bahi. India Museum. Photographed for this work.

RECLINING BULL 192 Ancient Southern Indian sculpture. From a photograph in the India Museum.

WILD BULLS AND TAMED BULLS 201 Reliefs on two gold cups found in a tomb at Vapheio near Amyclae. Fifteenth century B.C. (possibly earlier). From Schuckhardt’s “Schliemann’s Excavations.” By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN 208 By Rubens. Hague Gallery. (Bruckmann.)

GENESIS VIII. 212 Loggie di Raffaello. In the Vatican. Drawn by N. Consoni.

DANIEL AND THE LIONS 216 From an early Christian Sarcophagus in S. Vitale, Ravenna. (Alinari.)

“AN INDIAN ORPHEUS” 222 Inlaid marble work panel originally surmounting a doorway in the Great Hall of Audience in the Mogul Palace at Delhi (about 1650). Photographed for this work from a painting by a native artist in the India Museum. Imitated from a painting by Raphael.

MOSLEM BEGGAR FEEDING DOGS AT CONSTANTINOPLE 226 From life.

ST. JEROME EXTRACTING A THORN FROM THE PAW OF A LION 253 By Hubert van Eyck. Naples Museum. (Anderson.)

ST. EUSTACE (OR ST. HUBERT) AND THE STAG 256 By Vittore Pisano. National Gallery. (Hanfstängl.)

“LE MENEUR DES LOUPS” 276 Designed and drawn by Maurice Sand.

THE ASSYRIAN HORSE 284 From a relief in the British Museum. (Mansell.)

ARABIAN HORSE OF THE SAHARA 288 From life.

THE BANYAN DEER 328 From “Stûpa of Bharhut.” By General Cunningham. By permission of the India Office. (Griggs.)

EGYPTIAN OFFICIAL, WITH HIS WIFE, ENGAGED IN FOWLING IN THE 330 PAPYRUS SWAMP. HIS HUNTING CAT HAS SEIZED THREE BIRDS. Mural painting in British Museum. (Mansell.)

ASSYRIAN LION AND LIONESS IN PARADISE PARK 336 British Museum. (Mansell.) The King’s reservations for big game were called “paradises.”

LAMBS 338 Relief on a fifth century tomb at Ravenna. (Alinari.)

“IL BUON PASTORE” 346 Mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna.

Part 4

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LT COL. MAISEY DEL. W. BRIGGS, LITH. DEER WORSHIPPING THE WHEEL OF THE LAW. Tope of Sanchi.]

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The Place of Animals in Human Thought

SOUL-WANDERING AS IT CONCERNS ANIMALS

IN one of these enigmatic sayings which launch the mind on boundless seas, Cardinal Newman remarked that we know less of animals than of angels. A large part of the human race explains the mystery by what is called transmigration, metempsychosis, Samsara, Seelenwanderung; the last a word so compact and picturesque that it is a pity not to imitate it in English. The intelligibility of ideas depends much on whether words touch the spring of the picture-making wheel of the brain; “Soul-wandering” does this.

Ancient as the theory is, we ought to remember what is commonly forgotten—that somewhere in the distance we catch sight of a time when it was unknown, at least in the sense of a procession of the soul from death to life through animal forms. Traces of it are to be found in the Sutras and it is thoroughly developed in the Upanishads, but if the Sutras belong to the thirteenth century and the Upanishads to about the year 700 before Christ, a long road still remains to the Vedas with their fabulous antiquity.

In the Vedas it is stated that the soul may wander, even during sleep, and that it will surely have a further existence after death, but there is nothing to show that in this further existence it will take the form of an animal. Man will be substantially man, able to feel the same pleasures as his prototype on earth; but if he goes to a good place, exempt from the same pains. What, then, was the Vedic opinion of animals? On the whole, it is safe to assume that the authors of the Vedic chants believed that animals, like men, entered a soul-world in which they preserved their identity. The idea of funeral sacrifices, as exemplified in these earliest records, was that of sending some one before. The horse and the goat that were immolated at a Vedic funeral were intended to go and announce the coming of the man’s soul. Wherever victims were sacrificed at funerals, they were originally meant to do something in the after-life; hence they must have had souls. The origin of the Suttee was the wish that the wife should accompany her husband, and among primitive peoples animals were sacrificed because the dead man might have need of them. Not very long ago an old Irish woman, on being remonstrated with for having killed her dead husband’s horse, replied with the words, “Do you think I would let my man go on foot in the next world?” On visiting that wonderfully emotion-awakening relic, the Viking ship at Christiania, I was interested to see the bones of the Chief’s horses and dogs as well as his own. Did the Norsemen, passionately devoted to the sea as they were, suppose, that not only the animals, but also the vessel in which they buried their leader, would have a ghostly second existence? I have no doubt that they did. Apart from what hints may be gleaned from the Vedas, there is an inherent probability against the early Aryans, any more than the modern Hindu, believing that the soul of man or beast comes suddenly to a full stop. To destroy spirit seems to the Asiatic mind as impossible as to destroy matter seems to the biologist.

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