Chapter 123

77Lane,Modern Egyptians, p. 293.

78Montaigne,Essais, ii. 11.

79Bosworth Smith,Mohammed and Mohammedanism, pp. 180, 217.

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.80Animals were held in some measure responsible for their deeds; they were tried for manslaughter, sentenced, and executed.81On 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;82and 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.83According to Xenocrates, there were in existenceat 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.”84At Athens a man was punished for flaying a living ram.85The Areopagites once condemned a boy to death because he had picked out the eyes of some quails.86As we have noticed before, the life of the ploughing ox was sacred;87and young animals in particular were believed to be under the protection of the gods.88An ancient proverb says that “there are Erinyes even for dogs.”89This 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 killed90was connected with their theory of metempsychosis;91and in some cases the prohibition of slaying useful animals may be traced to utilitarian motives.92But 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.93He 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.”94According to Plutarch kindness and beneficence to creatures of every species flow from the breast of a well-natured man asstreams 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.95We ought not to violate or kill anything whatsoever that has life, unless it hurt us first.96And 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.97Cicero says it is a crime to injure an animal.98And Marcus Aurelius enjoins man to make use of brutes with a generous and liberal spirit, since he has reason and they have not.99

80Schmidt,Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 96sq.

81Supra,i. 254.

82Plutarch,Cato Major, v. 6.

83Ibid.v. 7.

84Porphyry,De abstinentia ab esu animalium, iv. 22.

85Plutarch,De carnium esu oratio I.vii. 2.

86Quintilian,De institutione oratoria, v. 9. 13.

87Supra,ii. 331.

88Aeschylus,Agamemnon, 48sqq.Xenophon,Cynegeticus, v. 14.

89Schmidt,op. cit.ii. 96.

90Jamblichus,De Pythagorica vita, 21 (98).

91Diogenes Laertius,Vitæ philosophorum, viii. 2. 12 (77). Aristotle,Rhetorica, i. 13. 2, p. 1373 b. Schmidt,op. cit.ii. 94.

92Porphyry,op. cit.iv. 22.Supra,ii. 331.

93Porphyry,op. cit.iii. 18.

94Ibid.iii. 28.

95Plutarch,Cato Major, v. 3sq.

96Idem,Questiones Romanæ, 75.

97Idem,De carnium esu oratio II.i. 3.

98Cicero,De republica, iii. 11.

99Marcus Aurelius,Commentarii, vi. 23.

In the Old Testament we meet with several instances of kindly feeling towards animals.100God 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.101Whilst 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.102But 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.103For his sustenance the fruits of the earth were made to grow, and to him was given dominion over the fish of the sea,and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.104And 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.105And 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.106

100See Bertholet,Die Stellung der Israeliten zu den Fremden, p. 14. Various passages, however, which are often quoted as instances of tenderness towards animals allow of another and more natural interpretation. This is especially the case with the Sabbatarian injunctions referring to domestic animals.

101Psalms, civ. 10-12, 14, 17, 21.

102Toy,Judaism and Christianity, p. 81.

103Genesis, i. 16sq.

104Genesis, i. 28.

105Ibid.ix. 2sq.

106Cf.Evans, ‘Ethical Relations between Man and Beast,’ inPopular Science Monthly, xlv. 637sq.

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.”107St. Paul asks with scorn, “Doth God take care for oxen?”108No creed in Christendom teaches kindness to animals as a dogma of religion.109In the Middle Ages various councils of the Church declared hunting unlawful for the clergy;110but the obvious reason for this prohibition was its horror of bloodshed,111not any considerationfor 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.”112Nor 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,113whereas Roman Catholic writers—with a few exceptions114—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 dutiesaboutthem. We must not harm them when they are our neighbour’s property, we must not vex and annoy themforsport, 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 brutesinsport, 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 asthingsin 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.”115According to anothermodern 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.”116Pope 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.117

107Arnold, quoted by Evans, inPopular Science Monthly, xlv. 639.

1081 Corinthians, ix. 9.

109The Manichæans prohibited all killing of animals (Baur,Das Manichäische Religionssystem, p. 252sqq.); but Manichæism did not originate on Christian ground (Harnack, ‘Manichæism,’ inEncyclopædia Britannica, xv. 485;supra,ii. 312).

110Le Grand d’Aussy,Histoire de la vie privée des François, i. 394sq.

111Supra,i. 381sq.

112Helps,Some Talk about Animals and their Masters, p. 20.Cf.Mrs. Jameson,Common-Place Book of Thoughts, p. 212.

113See Gurney,Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, p. 392sq.n. 8; Richmond, ‘Sermon on the Sin of Cruelty to the Brute Creation,’ inMethodist Magazine(London), xxx. 490sqq.; Chalmers, ‘Cruelty to Animals,’ inMethodist Magazine(New York), ix. 259sqq.

114See de la Roche-Fontenelles,L’Église et la pitié envers animaux,passim.

115Rickaby,Moral Philosophy, p. 248sqq.See also Addis and Arnold,Catholic Dictionary, p. 33; Clarke, ‘Cruelty to Animals,’ inThe Month and Catholic Review, xxv. 401sqq.; Hedley, ‘Dr. Mivart on Faith and Science,’ inDublin Review, ser. iii. vol. xviii. 418.

116Clarke, inThe Month and Catholic Review, xxv. 406.

117Cobbe,Modern Rack, p. 6.

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 Kant118and by many later philosophers.119So 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,120or that it wounds the sensibilities of other people.121In ‘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.122The 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.123The criminal code of the German Empire, again, imposes a fine upon any person “who spitefully tortures or cruelly ill-treats beasts,either publicly or in a manner to create scandal”124—in other words, he is punished, not because he puts the animal to pain, but because his conduct is offensive to his fellow men.

118Kant,Metaphysische Anfangungsgründe der Tugendlehre, § 16sq., pp. 106, 108.

119E.g., Alexander,Moral Order and Progress, p. 281; Ritchie,Natural Rights, p. 110sq.

120Hommel, quoted by von Hippel,Die Thielquälerei in der Strafgesetzgebung, p. 110. Tissot,Le droit pénal, i. 17. Lasson,System der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 548sq.

121Lasson,op. cit.p. 548. von Hippel,op. cit.p. 125.

122Parliamentary History and Review, 1825–6, p. 761.

123Ibid.p. 546.

124Strafgesetzbuch, § 360 (13).

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.125Till 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.126Those 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;127but 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.128Other 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 relishedby those of a refined taste.129As late as 1824 Sir Robert (then Mr.) Peel argued strongly against the legal prohibition of bull-baiting.130

125Young,Essay on Humanity to Animals, p. 1.

126Roberts,Social History of the People of the Southern Counties of England, p. 421sqq.Rogers,Social Life in Scotland, ii. 340. In 1856, when Roberts wrote his book, cock-penance was still paid in some English grammar schools to the master as a perquisite on Shrove Tuesday (Roberts, p. 423).

127Roberts,op. cit.p. 422.

128Lawrence,Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses, ii. 12.

129Kames,Essays on the Principles of Morality, p. 7.

130Hansard,Parliamentary Debates, New Series, x. 491sqq.

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.131This 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.132On the Continent cruelty to animals was first prohibited by criminal law in Saxony, in 1838,133and 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.134

131Statutes of Great Britain and Ireland, lxii. 403sqq.

132Stephen,New Commentaries on the Laws of England, iv. 213sqq.

133von Hippel,op. cit.p. 1.

134Ibid.p. 90sq.

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.135Tender feelings towards the brute creation are also displayed in many legends of saints.136St. Francis of Assisitalked 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.137John 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.138In 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.”139Many 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.140Shakespeare points out that “the poor beetle that we tread upon, in corporal sufferance finds a pang as great as when a giant dies.”141Mandeville 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.142Towards 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 toexcite pity; we shall end by softening the lot of the animals which labour for us and supply our wants.”143Some years later Thomas Young pronounced hunting, shooting, and fishing for sport to be “unlawful, cruel, and sinful.”144And 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.”145Some 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.

135Supra,i. 259. Schwarz,Prähistorisch-anthropologische Studien, p. 203.

136Lecky,History of European Morals, ii. 168sqq.Joyce,Social History of Ancient Ireland, ii. 517sq.

137Sabatier,Life of St. Francis of Assisi, p. 176sq.Digby,Mores Catholici, ii. 291.

138Moschus,Pratum spirituale, 184 (Migne,Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Græca, lxxxvii. 3056).

139St. Bridget, quoted by Helps,op. cit.p. 124.

140Montaigne,Essais, ii. 11.

141Shakespeare,Measure for Measure, iii. 1.

Back to Index Next