COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD HX64099717 QP45 .Sa3 Animals' rights cons s-^ COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS LIBRARY ANIMALS' RIGHTS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS BY HEr^RY S. SALT Author of " The Life of David Thoreau,^'' qt'c. LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS AND NEW YORK 1893 ANIMALS' RIGHTS. " I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. " I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for awhile to roam four-footed among the brambles. I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner, and swore that I would be faithful. " Thee my brother and sister I see and mistake not. Do not be afraid. DweUing thus for a while, fulfilling thy appointed time — thou too shalt come to thyself at last. "Thy half- warm horns and long tongue lapping round my wrist do not conceal thy humanity anymore than the learned talk of the pedant conceals his — for all thou art dumb we have words and plenty between us. " Come nigh, little bird, with your half-stretched quivering wings — within you I behold choirs of angels, and the Lord himself in vista." Towards Democracy. ANIMALS' RIGHTS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS. WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. BY HENRY S. SALT, AUTHOR OF "the LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU. LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST. , COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK. 1892. CHISWICK PRESS :— C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. PREFATORY NOTE. The object of the following essay is to set the principle of animals' rights on a consistent and intelligible footing, to show that this prin- ciple underlies the various efforts of humani- tarian reformers, and to make a clearance of the comfortable fallacies which the apologists of the present system have industriously accu- mulated. While not hesitating to speak strongly when occasion demanded, I have tried to avoid the tone of irrelevant recrimina- tion so common in these controversies, and thus to give more unmistakable emphasis to the vital points at issue. We have to decide, not whether the practice of fox-hunting, for example, is more, or less, cruel than vivisec- tion, but whether all practices which inflict unnecessary pain on sentient beings are not incompatible with the higher instincts of humanity. I am aware that many of my contentions vi Prefatory Note. will appear very ridiculous to those who view the subject from a contrary standpoint, and regard the lower animals as created solely for the pleasure and advantage of man ; on the other hand, I have myself derived an unfailing fund of amusement from a rather extensive study of our adversaries' reasoning. It is a conflict of opinion, wherein time alone can adjudicate ; but already there are not a few signs that the laugh will rest ultimately with the humanitarians. My thanks are due to several friends who have helped me in the preparation of this book ; I may mention Mr. Ernest Bell, Mr. Kenneth Romanes, and Mr. W. E. A. Axon. My many obligations to previous writers are acknowledged in the footnotes and appen- dices. H. S. S. September^ 1892. CONTENTS. Chapter I. The Principle of Animals' Rights. The general doctrine of rights ; Herbert Spencer's definition. Early advocates of animals' rights ; " Martin's Act," 1822. Need of an intelligible prin- ciple. Two main causes of the denial of animals' rights; (i) The "religious" notion that animals have no souls, (2) the Cartesian theory that animals have no consciousness. The individuality of animals. Opinions of Schopenhauer, Darwin, etc. The question of nomenclature ; objectionable use of such terms as "brute-beast," etc. The progressiveness of humanitarian feeling ; analogous instance of negro- slavery. Difficulties and objections ; arguments drawn from " the struggle of life." Animals' rights not antagonistic to human rights. Summary of the principle pp. 1-29 Chapter II. The Case of Domestic Anpmals. Special claims of the domestic animals ; services per- formed by them ; human obligations in return. Opinions of Humphry Primatt and John Lawrence. Common disregard of rights in the case of horses, cattle, sheep, etc. Castration of animals. Treat- viii Contents, ment of dogs and cats. Condition of the household "pet" compared with that of the "beast of burden." pp. 30-44 Chapter III. The Case of Wild Animals. Wild animals have rights, though not yet recognized in law. The influence of property. Man not justi- fied in injuring any harmless animal. The condition of animals in menageries ; the fallacy that " they gain by it." Caged birds. A right relationship must be based on sympathy not power pp. 45-53 Chapter IV. The Slaughter of Animals FOR Food. Important bearing of the food question on the con- sideration of animals' rights. The assumption that flesh-food is necessary ; contradictory statements of flesh-eaters. Experience proves that man is not compelled to kill animals for food. Cruelties in- separable from slaughtering ; feeling of repugnance thereby aroused. The logic of' these facts. In- genious attempts at evasion : "Animals would other- wise not exist;" "scriptural permission." The coming success of food-reform . . pp. 54-66 Chapter V. Sport, or Amateur Butchery. Sport the most wanton of all violations of animals' rights. Childish fallacies of sportsmen. Tame stag hunting ; rabbit-coursing ; cruel treatment of " vermin ; " steel traps. The testimony of an expert on cover-shooting .... pp. 67-78 Contents. ix Chapter VI. Murderous Millinery. The fur and feather traffic. In what sense it is " neces- sary ; " the use of leather. Fashionable demand for furs causes whole provinces to be ransacked. The wearing of feathers in bonnets ; heartless massacre of birds. Due to ignorance and thoughtlessness. pp. 79-89 Chapter VII. Experimental Torture. The analytical methods of scientists and naturalists. Vivisection the logical outcome of this mood. The horrors of vivisection. Its alleged utility. Moral considerations involved ; nothing that is inhuman can be in accord with true science. Experiments on animals as compared with experiments on men. The plea that vivisection is "no worse" than other cruelties. The exact significance of vivisection in the question of animals' rights . . pp. 90-103 Chapter VIII. Lines of Reform. The lesson of the foregoing instances of cruelty and injustice ; the only solution of the problem is to recognize animals' rights. No "sentimentality," where difficulties are fairly faced. The future path of humanitarianism. Human interests involved in animals' rights ; extension of the idea of " humanity " both in western thought and oriental tradition. The movement essentially a democratic one ; the eman- cipation of man will bring with it the emancipation of animals. Practical steps toward securing the rights of animals : (i) Education. Useless to preach X Contents, humanity to children only ; need of an intellectual and literary crusade. The laugh to be turned against the real sentimentalists, our opponents. (2) Legisla- tion. Laisser-faire objections refuted. Cases where immediate action is desirable. Conclusion. pp. 104-131 Bibliographical Appendix . . pp. 133-162 ANIMALS' RIGHTS. CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. Have the lower animals " rights ? " Un- doubtedly — if men have. That is the point I wish to make evident in this opening chapter. But have men rights ? Let it be stated at the outset that I have no intention of discussing the abstract theory of natural rights, which, at the present time, is looked upon with sus- picion and disfavour by many social reformers, since it has not unfrequently been made to cover the most extravagant and contradictory assertions. But though its phraseology is confessedly vague and perilous, there is never- theless a solid truth underlying it — a truth which has always been clearly apprehended by the moral faculty, however difficult it may be to establish it on an unassailable logical B Animals Rio-hts <^ basis. If men have not "rights" — well, they have an unmistakable intimation of something very similar ; a sense of justice which marks the boundary-line where acquiescence ceases and resistance begins ; a demand for freedom to live their own life, subject to the necessity of respecting the equal freedom of other people. Such is the doctrine of rights as formulated by Herbert Spencer. " Every man," he says, " is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal liberty of any other man." And again, " Whoever admits that each man must have a certain restricted free- dom, asserts that it is 7^zght he should have this restricted freedom. . . . And hence the several particular freedoms deducible may fitly be called, as they commonly are called, his rights!' ^ The fitness of this nomenclature is disputed, but the existence of some real principle of the kind can hardly be called in question ; so that the controversy concerning " rights " is little else than an academic battle over words, which leads to no practical conclusion. I shall as- sume, therefore, that men are possessed of " rights," in the sense of Herbert Spencer's ^ "Justice," pp. 46, 62. The Principle of Animals Rights. 3 definition ; and if any of my readers object to this qualified use of the term, I can only say that I shall be perfectly willing to change the word as soon as a more appropriate one is forthcoming. The immediate question that claims our attention is this — if men have rights, have animals their rights also ? From the earliest times there have been thinkers who, directly or indirectly, answered this question with an affirmative. The Bud- dhist and Pythagorean canons, dominated per- haps by the creed of reincarnation, included the maxim " not to kill or injure any innocent animal." The humanitarian philosophers of the Roman empire, among whom Seneca and Plutarch and Porphyry were the most con- spicuous, took still higher ground in preaching humanity on the broadest principle of uni- versal benevolence. " Since justice is due to rational beings," wrote Porphyry, " how is it possible to evade the admission that we are bound also to act justly towards the races below us ? " It is a lamentable fact that during the churchdom of the middle ages, from the fourth century to the sixteenth, from the time of Porphyry to the time of Montaigne, little or no attention was paid to the question of 4 Animals Rights. the rights and wrongs of the lower races. Then, with the Reformation and the revival of learning, came a revival also of humani- tarian feeling, as may be seen in many pas- sages of Erasmus and More, Shakespeare and Bacon ; but it was not until the eighteenth century, the age of enlightenment and " sen- sibility," of which Voltaire and Rousseau were the spokesmen, that the rights of ani- mals obtained more deliberate recognition. From the great Revolution of 1789 dates the period when the world-wide spirit of humani- tarianism, which had hitherto been felt by but one man in a million — the thesis of the philo- sopher or the vision of the poet? — began to disclose itself, gradually and dimly at first, as an essential feature of democracy. A great and far-reaching effect was pro- duced in England at this time by the publica- tion of such revolutionary works as Paine's " Rights of Man," and Mary Wollstonecraft's " Vindication of the Rights of Women ; " and looking back now, after the lapse of a hundred years, we can see that a still wider extension of the theory of rights was thenceforth in- evitable. In fact, such a claim was antici- pated — if only in bitter jest — by a contempo- rary writer, who furnishes us with a notable The Prijiciplc of Animals Rights. 5 instance of how the mockery of one generation may become the reality of the next. There was pubHshed anonymously in 1792 a little volume entitled " A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes," ^ a rcductio ad absitrdiun of Mary Wollstonecraft's essay, written, as the author informs us, " to evince by demonstrative argu- ments the perfect equalit}- of what is called the irrational species to the human." The further opinion is expressed that " after those wonderful productions of Mr. Paine and Mrs. Wollstonecraft, such a theory as the present seems to be necessary." It ivas necessary ; and a very short term of years sufficed to bring it into effect ; indeed, the theory had already been put forward by several English pioneers of nineteenth - century humanita- rianism. To Jeremy Bentham, in particular, belongs the high honour of first asserting the rights of animals with authority and persistence. " The legislator," he wrote, " ought to interdict everything which may serve to lead to cruelty. The barbarous spectacles of gladiators no doubt contributed to give the Romans that ferocity which they displayed in their civil wars. A people accustomed to despise human ^ Attributed to Thomas Taylor, the Platonist. Animals Riohts. ib life in their games could not be expected to respect it amid the fury of their passions. It is proper for the same reason to forbid every kind of cruelty towards animals, whether by way of amusement, or to gratify gluttony. Cock-fights, bull-baiting, hunting hares and foxes, fishing, and other amusements of the same kind, necessarily suppose either the ab- sence of reflection or a fund of inhumanity, since they produce the most acute sufferings to sensible beings, and the most painful and lingering death of which we can form any idea. Why should the law refuse its protec- tion to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes. We have begun by attending to the condition of slaves ; we shall finish by softening that of all the animals which assist our labours or supply our wants." ^ So, too, wrote one of Bentham's contempo- raries : " The grand source of the unmerited and superfluous misery of beasts exists in a defect in the constitution of all communities. No human government, I believe, has ever re- cognized WiQJus animalmm, which ought surely to form a part of the jurisprudence of every ^ " Principles of Penal Law," chap. xvi. The Principle of Animals Rights. 7 system founded on the principles of justice and humanity." ^ A large number of later moralists have followed on the same lines, with the result that the rights of animals have already, to a certain limited extent, been esta- blished both in private usage and by legal enactment. It is interesting to note the exact commence- ment of this new principle in law. When Lord Erskine, speaking in the House of Lords in 181 1, advocated the cause of justice to the lower animals, he was greeted with loud cries of insult and derision. But eleven years later the efforts of the despised humanitarians, and especially of Richard Martin, of Galway, were rewarded by their first success. The passing of the Ill-treatment of Cattle Bill, commonly known as "Martin's Act," in June. 1822, is a memorable date in the history of humane legislation, less on account of the positive pro- tection afforded by it, for it applied only to cattle and " beasts of burden," than for the in- valuable precedent which it created. From 1822 onward, the principle of \h2X jus anijiia- liuin for which Bentham had pleaded, was re- ^ John Lawrence, " Philosophical Treatise on the Moral Duties of Man towards the Brute Creation," 1796. 8 Animals Rights, cognized, however partially and tentatively at first, by English law, and the animals included in the Act ceased to be the mere property of their owners ; moreover the Act has been several times supplemented and extended during the past half century.^ It is scarcely possible, in the face of this legislation, to main- tain that " rights " are a privilege with which none but human beings can be invested ; for if some animals are already included within the pale of protection, why should not more and more be so included in the future ? For the present, however, what is most urgently needed is some comprehensive and intelligible principle, which shall indicate, in a more consistent manner, the true lines of man's moral relation towards the lower animals. And here, it must be admitted, our position is still far from satisfactory ; for though certain very important concessions have been made, as we have seen, to the demand for \\v^ jus aniinaliuin, they have been made for the most part in a grudging, unwilling spirit, and rather in the interests oi p7'Ope7'ty 'C^'d.n oi principle ; while even the leading advocates of animals* ' Viz. : in 1833, 1835, 1849, 1854, 1876, 1884. We shall have occasion, in subsequent chapters, to refer to some of these enactments. The Principle of Animals Rights, g rights seem to have shrunk from basing their claim on the only argument which can ulti- mately be held to be a really sufficient one — the assertion that animals, as well as men, though, of course, to a far less extent than men, are possessed of a distinctive individuality, and, therefore, are in justice entitled to live their lives with a due measure of that " restricted freedom " to which Herbert Spencer alludes. It is of little use to claim " rights " for animals in a vague general way, if with the same breath we explicitly show our determination to sub- ordinate those rights to anything and every- thing that can be construed into a human " want ; " nor will it ever be possible to obtain full justice for the lower races so long as we continue to regard them as beings of a wholly different order, and to ignore the significance of their numberless points of kinship with mankind. For example, it has been said by a well- known writer on the subject of humanity to animals ^ that " the life of a brute, having no moral purpose,can best be understood ethically as representing the sum of its pleasures ; and the obligation, therefore, of producing the 1 "Fraser," November, 1S63; "The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes." lo Animals RioJits. " Neither can men have friendships with horses, cattle, or slaves, considered merely as such ; for a slave is merely a living instrument, and an instrument a living slave. Yet, considered as a man, a slave may be an object of friend- ship, for certain rights seem to belong to all those capable of participating in law and engagement. A slave, then, considered as a man, may be treated justly or unjustly." ^ " Slaves," says Bentham, " have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing as in England, for example, the inferior races of animals are still. The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire, those rights which could never have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny." ' Let us unreservedly admit the immense difficulties that stand in the way of this animal enfranchisement. Our relation towards the animals is complicated and embittered by innumerable habits handed down through centuries of mistrust and brutality ; we can- not, in all cases, suddenly relax these habits, or do full justice even where we see that jus- tice will have to be done. A perfect ethic of ^ " Ethics," book viii. ^ " Principles of Morals and Legislation." The Principle of Animals Rights. 23 humaneness is therefore impracticable, if not unthinkable ; and we can attempt to do no more than to indicate in a general way the main principle of animals' rights, noting at the same time the most flagrant particular violations of those rights, and the lines on which the only valid reform can hereafter be effected. But, on the other hand, it may be remembered, for the comfort and encourage- ment of humanitarian workers, that these ob- stacles are, after all, only such as are inevitable in each branch of social improvement ; for at every stage of every great reformation it has been repeatedly argued, by indifferent or hostile observers, that further progress is im- possible ; indeed, when the opponents of a great cause begin to demonstrate its " impossibility," experience teaches us that that cause is already on the high road to fulfilment. As for the demand so frequently made on reformers, that they should first explain the details of their scheme — how this and that point will be arranged, and by what process all kinds of difficulties, real or imagined, will be circumvented — the only rational reply is that it is absurd to expect to see the end of a question, when we are now but at its begin- ning. The persons who offer this futile sort 24 Animals Rights. of criticism are usually those who under no circumstances would be open to conviction ; they purposely ask for an explanation which, by the very nature of the case, is impossible because it necessarily belongs to a later period of time. It would be equally sensible to re- quest a traveller to enumerate beforehand all the particular things he will see by the way, on pain of being denounced as an unpractical visionary, although he may have a quite suf- ficient general knowledge of his course and destination. Our main principlejsjiow clear. If "rights" exist at all — and both feeling~arid 'usage in- dubitably prove that they do exist — they cannot be consistently awarded to ,men and denied to animals, since the same sense of justice and compassion apply in both cases. " Pain is pain," says an honest old writer,^ " whether it be inflicted on man or on beast ; and the creature that suffers it, whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of it while it lasts, suffers evil ; and the sufferance of evil, unmeritedly, unprovokedly, where no offence has been given, and no good can pos- sibly be answered by it, but merely to exhibit ^ Humphry Primatt, D.D., author of "The Duty of Mercy to Brute Animals" (1776). The Principle of Animals Rights. 25 power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and Injus- tice in him that occasions it." I commend this outspoken utterance to the attention of those ingenious moralists who quibble about the " discipline " of suffering, and deprecate immediate attempts to redress what, it is alleged, may be a necessary instru- ment for the attainment of human welfare. It is, perhaps, a mere coincidence, but it has been observed that those who are most for- ward to disallow the rights of others, and to argue that suffering and subjection are the natural lot of all living things, are usually themselves exempt from the operation of this beneficent law, and that the beauty of self- sacrifice is most loudly belauded by those who profit most largely at the expense of their fellow-creatures. But " nature is one with rapine," say some, and this Utopian theory of " rights," if too widely extended, must come in conflict with that iron rule of internecine competition, by which the universe is regulated. But is the universe so regulated ? We note that this very objection, which was confidently relied on a few years back by many opponents of the emancipation of the working-classes, is not heard of in that connection now ! Our 2 6 Anwials Rights, learned economists and men of science, who set themselves to play the defenders of the social status quo, have seen their own weapons of " natural selection, " survival of the fittest," and what not, snatched from their hands and turned against them, and are therefore begin- ning to explain to us, in a scientific manner, what we untutored humanitarians had pre- viously felt to be true, viz., that competition is not by any means the sole governing law among the human race. We are not greatly dismayed, then, to find the same old bugbear trotted out as an argument against animals' rights — indeed, we see already unmistakable signs of a similar complete reversal of the scientific judgment.^ ^ See Prince Kropotkine's articles on " Mutual Aid among Animals," "Nineteenth Century," 1890, where the conclusion is arrived at that " sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle." A similar view is expressed in the "Study of Animal Life," 1892, by J. Arthur Thomson, " What we must protest against," he says, in an interesting chapter on "The Struggle of Life," " is that one-sided interpretation according to which individualistic competition is nature's sole method of progress. . . . The precise nature of the means employed and ends attained must be carefully considered when we seek from the records of animal evolution support or justification for human conduct," The Principle of Aiiimals Rights. 27 The charge of " sentimentahsm " is fre- quently brought against those who plead for animals' rights. Now " sentimentahsm," if any meaning at all can be attached to the word, must signify an inequality, an ill balance of sentiment, an inconsistency which leads men into attacking one abuse, while they ignore or condone another where a reform is equally desirable. That this weakness is often observable among " philanthropists " on the one hand, and " friends of animals " on the other, and most of all among those acute " men of the world," whose regard is only for themselves, I am not concerned to deny ; what I wish to point out is, that the only real safeguard against sentimentality is to take up a consistent position towards the rights of men and of the lower animals alike, and to cultivate a broad sense of universal justice (not "mercy") for all living things. Herein, and herein alone, is to be sought the true sanity of temperament. It is an entire mistake to suppose that the rights of animals are in any way antagonistic to the rights of men. Let us not be betrayed for a moment into the specious fallacy that we must study human rights first, and leave the animal question to solve itself hereafter ; 2 8 Animals Ris^Jits. ■t> for it is only by a wide and disinterested study of both subjects that a solution of either is possible. " For he who loves all animated nature," says Porphyry, " will not hate any one tribe of innocent beings, and by how much greater his love for the whole, by so much the more will he cultivate justice to- wards a part of them, and that part to which he is most allied." To omit all worthier reasons, it is too late in the day to suggest the indefinite postponement of a consideration of animals' rights, for from a moral point of view, and even from a legislative point of view, we are daily confronted with this momentous problem, and the so-called " practical " people who affect to ignore it are simply shutting their eyes to facts which they find it disagree- able to confront. Once more then, animals have rights, and these rights consist in the " restricted free- dom " to live a natural life — a life, that is, which permits of the individual development — subject to the limitations imposed by the permanent needs and interests of the com- munity. There is nothing quixotic or visionary in this assertion ; it is perfectly compatible with a readiness to look the sternest laws of existence fully and honestly in the face. If The Principle of Animals Rights. 29 we must kill, whether it be man or animal, let us kill and have done with it ; if we must in- flict pain, let us do what is inevitable, without hypocrisy, or evasion, or cant. But (here is the cardinal point) let us first be assured that it zj-^iecessary ; let us not wantDTrl}r trade on the needless^Tmsedes ofjother beings, and tJien attempt to lull our consciences by a series of shuffling excuses which cannot endure a mo- ment's candid investigation. As Leigh Hunt well says : " That there is pain and evil, is no rule That I should make it greater, like a fool." Thus far of the general principle of animals' rights. We will now proceed to apply this principle to a number of particular cases, from which we may learn something both as to the extent of its present violation, and the possi- bility of its better observance in the future. CHAPTER 11. THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. The main principle of animals' rights, if ad- mitted to be fundamentally sound, will not be essentially affected by the wildness or the domesticity, as the case may be, of the animals in question ; both classes have their rights, though these rights may differ largely in ex- tent and importance. It is convenient, how- ever, to consider the subject of the domestic animals apart from that of the wild ones, in- asmuch as their whole relation to mankind is so much altered and emphasized by the fact of their subjection. Here, at any rate, it is impossible, even for the most callous reasoners, to deny the responsibility of man, in his deal- ings with vast races of beings, the very condi- tions of whose existence have been modified by human civilization. An incalculable mass of drudgery, at the cost of incalculable suffering, is daily, hourly The Case of Domestic Animals. 3 1 performed for the benefit of man by these honest, patient labourers in every town and country of the world. Are these countless services to be permanently ignored in a com- munity which makes any pretension to a humane civilization ? Will the free citizens of the enlightened republics of the future be content to reap the immense advantages of animals' labour, without recognizing that they owe them some consideration in return ? The question is one that carries with it its own answer. Even now it is nowhere openly contended that domestic animals have no rights.^ But the human mind is subtle to evade the full significance of its duties, and nowhere is this more conspicuously seen than in our treat- ment of the lower races. Given a position in which man profits largely (or thinks he profits largely, for it is not always a matter of cer- tainty) by the toil or suffering of the animals, and our respectable moralists are pretty sure to be explaining to us that this providential arrangement is " better for the animals them- selves." The wish is father to the thought in ^ Auguste Comte included the domestic animals as an organic part of the Positivist conception of humanity. 32 Animals Rights. these questions, and there is an accommodating elasticity in our social ethics that permits of the justification of almost any system which it would be inconvenient to us to discontinue. Thus we find it stated, and on the authority of a bishop, that man may "lay down the terms of the social contract between animals and himself," because, forsooth, "the general life of a domestic animal is one of very great comfort — according to the animal's own stan- dard {sic) probably one of almost perfect happiness." ^ Now this prating about " the animal's own standard " is nothing better than hypocritical cant. If man is obliged to lay down the, terms of the contract, let him at least do so without having recourse to such a suspiciously oppor- tune afterthought. We have taken the animals from a free, natural state, into an artificial thraldom, in order that we^ and not they, may be the gainers thereby ; it cannot possibly be maintained that they owe us gratitude on this account, or that this alleged debt may be used as a means of evading the just recognition of their rights. It is the more necessary to raise a strong protest against this Jesuitical ' " Moral Duty towards Animals," " Macmillan's Magazine," April, 1882, by the then Bishop of Carlisle. The Case of Domestic Animals. ^iZ mode of reasoning, because, as we shall see, it is so frequently employed in one form or another, by the apologists of human tyranny. On the other hand, I desire to keep clear also of the extreme contrary contention, that man is not morally justified in imposing any sort of subjection on the lower animals.^ An abstract question of this sort, however inte- resting as a speculation, and impossible in itself to disprove, is beyond the scope of the present inquiry, which is primarily concerned with the state of things at present existing. We must face the fact that the services of domestic animals have become, whether rightly or wrongly, an integral portion of the system of modern society ; we cannot immediately dis- pense with those services, any more than we can dispense with human labour itself. But we can provide, as at least a present step towards a more ideal relationship in the future, that the conditions under which all labour is performed, whether by men or by animals, ^ See Lewis Gompertz' "Moral Inquiries" (1824), where it is argued that " at least in the present state of society it is unjust, and considering the unnecessary abuse they suffer from being in the power of man, it is wrong to use them, and to encourage their being placed in his power." D 34 Animals Rights. shall be such as to enable the worker to take some appreciable pleasure in the work, instead of experiencing a lifelong course of injustice and ill-treatment. And here it may be convenient to say a word as to the existing line of demarcation between the animals legally recognized as " domestic," and those ferce naturcE, of wild nature. In the Act of 1849, in which a penalty is imposed for cruelty to " any animal," it is expressly provided that "the word animal shall be taken to mean any horse, mare, geld- ing, bull, ox, cow, heifer, steer, calf, mule, ass, sheep, lamb, hog, pig, sow, goat, dog, cat, or any other domestic animal." It will be shown in a later chapter that the interpretation of this vague reference to " any other '^ domestic animal is likely to become a point of consider- able importance, since it closely affects the welfare of certain animals which, though at present regarded as wild, and therefore out- side the pale of protection, are to all intents and purposes in a state of domestication. For the present, however, we may group the domestic animals of this country in three main divisions, (i) horses, asses, and mules ; (2) oxen, sheep, goats, and pigs ; (3) dogs and cats. " Food, rest, and tender usage," are declared The Case of Domestic Anwials. 35 by Humphry Primatt, the old author already quoted, to be the three rights of the domestic animals. Lawrence's opinion is to much the same effect. " Man is indispensably bound," he thinks, " to bestow upon animals, in return for the benefit he derives from their services, good and sufficient nourishment, comfortable shelter, and merciful treatment ; to commit no wanton outrage upon their feelings, whilst alive, and to put them to the speediest and least painful death, when it shall be necessary to deprive them of life." But it is important to note that something more is due to animals, and especially to domestic animals, than the mere supply of provender and the mere im- munit)- from ill-usage. " We owe justice to men," wrote Montaigne, " and grace and be- nignity to other creatures that are capable of it ; there is a natural commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us." Sir Arthur Helps admirably expressed this sentiment in his well-known reference to the duty of " using courtesy to animals." ^ If these be the rights of domestic animals, it is pitiful to reflect how commonly and how grossly they are violated. The average life of our " beasts of burden," the horse, the ass, and ^ "Animals and their Masters," p. loi. 36 Animals Rights, the mule, is from beginning to end a rude negation of their individuaHty and intelHgence ; they are habitually addressed and treated as stupid instruments of man's will and pleasure, instead of the highly-organized and sensitive beings that they are. Well might Thoreau, the humanest and most observant of naturalists, complain of man's " not educating the horse, not trying to develop his nature, but merely getting work out of him ; " for such, it must be acknowledged, is the prevalent method of treatment, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, at the present day, even where there is no actual cruelty or ill-usage/ We are often told that there is no other western country where tame animals are so well treated as in England, and it is only necessary to read the records of a century back to see that the inhumanities of the past were far more atrocious than any that are still practised in the present. Let us be thankful ^ The representative of an English paper lately had a drive with Count Tolstoi. On his remarking that he had no whip, the Count gave him a glance "almost of scorn," and said, " I talk to my horses ; I do not beat them." That this story should have gone the round of the press, as a sort of marvellous legend of a second St. Francis, is a striking comment on the existing state of affairs. The Case of Domestic Animals, 37 for these facts, as showing that the current of EngHsh opinion is at least moving in the right direction. But it must yet be said that the sights that everywhere meet the eye of a humane and thoughtful observer, whether in town or country, are a disgrace to our vaunted "civilization," and suggest the thought that, as far as the touch of compassion is concerned, the majority of our fellow citizens must be obtuse, not to say pachydermatous. Watch the cab traffic in one of the crowded thorough- fares of one of our great cities — always the same lugubrious patient procession of underfed overloaded animals, the same brutal insolence of the drivers, the same accursed sound of the whip. And remembering that these horses are gifted wdth a large degree of sensibility and intelligence, must one not feel that the fate to which they are thus mercilessly sub- jected is a shameful violation of the principle which moralists have laid down? Yet it is to this fate that even the well-kept horses of the rich must in time descend, so to pass the declining years of a life devoted to man's service ! " A good man," said Plutarch, "will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service. We ought certainly not to treat 38 Animals Rights. living" beings like shoes and household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away." Such was the feeling of the old pagan writer, and our good Christians of the present age scarcely seem to have improved on it. True, they do not " throw away " their super- annuated carriage-horses — it is so much more lucrative to sell them to the shopman or cab- proprietor, who will in due course pass them on to the knacker and cat's-meat man. The use of machinery is often condemned, on aesthetic grounds, because of the ugliness it has introduced into so many features of modern life. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that it has immensely relieved the huge mass of animal labour, and «that when electricity is generally used for purposes of traction, one of the foulest blots on our social humanity is likely to disappear. Scientific and mechanical invention, so far from being necessarily antagonistic to a true beauty of life, may be found to be of the utmost service to it, when they are employed for humane, and not merely commercial, purposes. Herein Thoreau is a wiser teacher than Ruskin. " If all were as it seems," he says,^ " and men made the elements their servants for noble ^ "Waklen." The Case of Domestic Animals. 39 ends ! If the cloud that hangs over the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer's fields, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort." It is no part of my purpose to enumerate the various acts of injustice of which domestic animals are the victims ; it is sufficient to point out that the true cause of such injustice is to be sought in the unwarrantable neglect of their many intelligent qualities, and in the contemptuous indifference which, in defiance of sense and reason, still classes them as " brute-beasts." What has been said of horses in this respect applies still more strongly to the second class of domestic animals. Sheep, goats, and oxen are regarded as mere " live- stock ; " while pigs, poultry, rabbits, and other marketable "farm-produce," meet with even less consideration, and are constantly treated with very brutal inhumanity by their human possessors.^ Let anyone who doubts this pay a visit to a cattle-market, and study the scenes that are enacted there. ^ Further, remarks on this subject belong more properly to the Food Question, which is treated in Chapter IV. 40 Animals Rights. The question of the castration of animals may here be briefly referred to. That nothing but imperative necessity could justify such a practice must I think be admitted ; for an unnatural mutilation of this kind is not only painful in itself, but deprives those who undergo it of the most vigorous and spirited elements of their character. It is said — with what pre- cise amount of truth I cannot pretend to determine — that man would not otherwise be able to maintain his dominion over the domes- tic animals ; but on the other hand it may be pointed out that this dominion is in no case destined to be perpetuated in its present sharply-accentuated form, and that various practices which, in a sense, are " necessary " now, — i.e. in the false position and relationship in which we stand towards the animals, — will doubtless be gradually discontinued under the humaner system of the future. Moreover, castration as performed on cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowls, with no better object than to in- crease their size and improve their flavour for the table, is, even at the present time, utterly needless and unjustifiable. " The bull," as Shelley says, " must be degraded into the ox, and the ram into the wether, by an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the flaccid fibre The Case of Domestic Animals. 41 may offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature." In all its aspects, this is a disagree- able subject, and one about which the majority of people do not care to think — probably from an unconscious perception that the established custom could scarcely survive the critical ordeal of thought. There remains one other class of domestic animals, viz., those who have become still more closely associated with mankind through being the inmates of their homes. The dog is probably better treated on the whole than any other animal ; ^ though to prove how far we still are from a rational and consistent appreciation of his worth, it is only necessary to point to the fact that he is commonly regarded by a large number of educated people as a fit and proper subject for that experi- mental torture which is known as vivisection. The cat has always been treated with far less consideration than the dog, and, despite the numerous scattered instances that might be cited to the contrary, it is to be feared that De Ouincey was in the main correct, when he remarked that " the eroans and screams of iD' ^ The use of dogs for purposes of draught was pro- hibited in London m 1839, and in 1854 this enactment was extended to the whole kingdom. 4-2 Animals Rights. this poor persecuted race, if gathered into some great echoing hall of horrors, would melt the heart of the stoniest of our race." The institution of " Homes " for lost and starving dogs and cats is a welcome sign of the humane feeling that is asserting itself in some quarters; but it is also no less a proof of the general indifferentism which can allow the most familiar domestic animals to become home- less. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the condition of the household " pet " is, in the long run, more enviable than that of the " beast of burden." Pets, like kings' favourites, are usually the recipients of an abundance of sentimental affection but of little real kind- ness ; so much easier is it to give temporary caresses than substantial justice. It seems to be forgotten, in a vast majority of cases, that a domestic animal does not exist for the m.ere idle amusement, any more than for the mere commercial profit, of its human owner ; and that for a living being to be turned into a use- less puppet is only one degree better than to be doomed to the servitude of a drudge. The injustice done to the pampered lap-dog is as conspicuous, in its way, as that done to the over-worked horse, and both spring from one The Case of Domestic Animals. 43 and the same origin — the fixed behef that the Hfe of a "brute" has no "moral purpose," no distinctive personality worthy of due considera- tion and development. In a society where the lower animals were regarded as intelligent be- ings, and not as animated machines, it would be impossible for this incongruous absurdity to continue. This, then, appears to be our position as regards the rights of domestic animals. Waiv- ing, on the one hand, the somewhat abstruse question whether man is morally justified in utilizing animal labour at all, and on the other the fatuous assertion that he is constituting himself a benefactor by so doing, we recognize that the services of domestic animals have, by immemorial usage, become an important and, it may even be said, necessary element in the economy of modern life. It is impossible, unless every principle of justice is to be cast to the winds, that the due requital of these ser- vices should remain a matter of personal caprice; for slavery is at all times hateful and iniquitous, whether it be imposed on mankind or on the lower races. Apart from the uni- versal rights they possess in common with all intelligent beings, domestic animals have a special claim on man's courtesy and sense of 44 Animals Rights. fairness, inasmuch as they are not his fellow- creatures only, but his fellow-workers, his dependents, and in many cases the familiar associates and trusted inmates of his home. CHAPTER III. THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS. That wild animals, no less than domestic animals, have their rights, albeit of a less positive character and far less easy to define, is an essential point which follows directly from the acceptance of the general principle of a jus anhnalium. It is of the utmost im- portance to emphasize the fact that, whatever the legal fiction may have been, or may still be, the rights of animals are not morally de- pendent on the so-called rights of pro- perty ; it is not to owned animals merely that we must extend our sympathy and pro- tection. The domination of property has left its trail indelibly on the records of this question. Until the passing of ''Martin's Act" in 1822, the most atrocious cruelty, even to domestic animals, could only be punished where there was proved to be an infringement of the rights 46 Animals Rights. of ownership.^ This monstrous iniquity, so far as relates to the domestic animals, has now been removed ; but the only direct legal pro- tection yet accorded to wild animals (except in the Wild Birds' Protection Act of 1880) is that which prohibits their being baited or pitted in conflict ; otherwise, it is open for anyone to kill or torture them with impunity, except where the sacred privileges of " pro- perty " are thereby offended. " Everywhere," it has been well said, " it is absolutely a capital crime to be an unowned creature." Yet surely an unowned creature has the same right as another to live his life un- molested and uninjured except when this is in some way inimical to human welfare.. We are justified by the strongest of all instincts, that of self-defence, in safe-guarding ourselves against such a multiplication of any species of animal as might imperil the established supre- macy of man ; but we are not justified in un- necessarily killing — still less in torturing — any harmless beings whatsoever. In this respect the position of wild animals, in their relation to man, is somewhat analogous to that of the uncivilized towards the civilized nations. No- ^ See the excellent remarks on this subject in Mr. E. B.Nicholson's "The Rights of an Animal" (ch. III.). The Case of Wild Animals. 47 thing is more difficult than to determine pre- cisely to what extent it is morally permissible to interfere with the autonomy of savage tribes — an interference which seems in some cases to conduce to the general progress of the race, in others to foster the worst forms of cruelty and injustice ; but it is beyond question that savages, like other people, have the right to be exempt from all wanton insult and degrada- tion. In the same way, while admitting that man is justified, by the exigencies of his own des- tiny, in asserting his supremacy over the wild animals, we must deny him any right to turn his protectorate into a tyranny, or to inflict one atom more of subjection and pain than is absolutely unavoidable. To take advantage of the sufferings of animals, whether wild or tame, for the gratification of sport, or gluttony, or fashion, is quite incompatible with any possible assertion of animals' rights. We may kill, if necessary, but never torture or degrade. " The laws of self-defence," says an old writer,^ "undoubtedly justify us in destroying those animals who would destroy us, who in- ^ " On Cruelty to the Inferior Animals," by Soame Jenyns, 1782. 48 Animals Rights, jure our properties or annoy our persons ; but not even these, whenever their situation in- capacitates them from hurting us. I know of no right which we have to shoot a bear on an inaccessible island of ice, or an eagle on the mountain's top, whose lives cannot injure us, nor deaths procure us any benefit. We are unable to give life, and therefore ought not to take it away from the meanest insect without sufficient reason." I reserve, for fuller consideration in subse- quent chapters, certain problems which are suggested by the wholesale slaughter of wild animals by the huntsman or the trapper, for purposes which are loosely supposed to be necessary and inevitable. Meantime a word must be said about the condition of those tamed or caged animals which, though wild by nature, and not bred in captivity, are yet to a certain extent " domesticated " — a class which stands midway between the true do- mestic and the wild. J[s the imprisonment of such animals a violation of the principle we have laid down? Tnrnost cases I fear this question can only be answered in the affir- mative. And here, once more I must protest against the common assumption that these captive The Case of Wild Animals. 49 animals are laid under an obligation to man by the very fact of their captivity, and that there- fore no complaint can be made on the score of their loss of freedom and the many miseries involved therein ! It is extraordinary that even humane thinkers and earnest champions of animals' rights, should permit themselves to be misled by this most fallacious and flimsy line of argument. " Harmful animals," says one of these writers,* " and animals with whom man has to struggle for the fruits of the earth, may of course be so shut up : they gain by it, for otherwise they would not have been let live." And so in like manner it is sometimes con- tended that a menagerie is a sort of paradise for wild beasts, whose loss of liberty is more than compensated by the absence of the con- stant apprehension and insecurity which, it is conveniently assumed, weigh so heavily on their spirits. But all this notion of their " gaining by it " is in truth nothing more than a mere arbitrary supposition ; for, in the first place, a speedy death may, for all we know, be very preferable to a protracted death-in- life ; while, secondly, the pretence that wild animals enjoy captivity is even more absurd than the episcopal contention ^ that the life of ^ Mr. E. B. Nicholson. ^ See p. 32. E 50 Animals Rights. a domestic animal is " one of very great com- fort, according to the animal's own standard." To take a wild animal from its free natural state, full of abounding egoism and vitality, and to shut it up for the wretched remainder of its life in a cell where it has just space to turn round, and where it necessarily loses every distinctive feature of its character — this appears to me to be as downright a denial as could well be imagined of the theory of animals' rights.^ Nor is there very much force in the plea founded on the alleged scientific value of these zoological institutions, at any rate in the case of the wilder and less tractable animals, for it cannot be maintained that the establishment of wild-beast shows is in any way necessary for the advancement of human knowledge. For what do the good people see ^ I subjoin a sentence, copied by me from one of the note-books of the late James Thomson (" B.V.") : " It being a very wet Sunday, I had to keep in, and paced much prisoner-Hke to and fro my room. This reminded me of the wild beasts at Regent's Park, and especially of the great wild birds, the vultures and eagles. How they must suffer ! How long will it be ere the thought of such agonies becomes intolerable to the public conscience, and wild creatures be left at liberty when they need not be killed ? Three or four centuries, perhaps." The Case of IVild Animals. 51 who go to the gardens on a half-holiday after- noon to poke their umbrellas at a blinking eagle-owl, or to throw dog-biscuits down the expansive throat of a hippopotamus? Not wild beasts or wild birds certainly, for there never have been or can be such in the best of all possible menageries, but merely the outer semblances and simulacra of the denizens of forest and prairie — poor spiritless remnants of what were formerly wild animals. To kill and stuff these victims of our morbid curiosity, in- stead of immuring them in lifelong imprison- ment, would be at once a humaner and a cheaper method, and could not possibly be of less use to science.^ But of course these remarks do not apply, with anything like the same force, to the taming of such wild animals as are readily domesticated in captivity, or trained by man to some intelligible and practical purpose. For example, though we may look forward to ^ Unfortunately they are not of much value even for that purpose, owing to the deterioration of health and vigour caused by their imprisonment. " The skeletons of aged carnivora," says Dr. W. B. Car- penter, " are often good for nothing as museum speci- mens, their bones being. rickety and distorted." Could there be a more convincing proof than this of the inhumanity of these exhibitions ? 52 Animals Rights. the time when It will not be deemed necessary to convert wild elephants into beasts of burden, it must be acknowledged that the exaction of such service, however questionable in itself, is very different from condemning an animal to a long term of useless and deadening imbe- cility. There can be no absolute standard of morals in these matters, whether it be human liberty or animal liberty that is at stake ; I merely contend that it is as incumbent on us to show good reason for curtailing the one as the other. This would be at once recognised, but for the prevalent habit of regarding the lower animals as devoid of moral purpose and individuality. The caging of wild song-birds is another practice which deserves the strongest reproba- tion. It is often pleaded that the amusement given by these unfortunate prisoners to the still more unfortunate human prisoners of the sick-room, or the smoky city, is a justification for their sacrifice ; but surely such excuses rest only on habit — habitual inability or unwilling- ness to look facts in the face. Few invalids, I fancy, would be greatly cheered by the captive life that hangs at their window, if they had fully considered how blighted and sterilized a life it must be. The bird-catcher's trade and The Case of Wild Animals. 53 the bird-catcher's shop are aHke full of horrors, and they are horrors which are due entirely to a silly fashion and a habit of callous thought- lessness, not on the part of the ruffianly bird- catcher (ruffianly enough, too often,) who has to bear the burden of the odium attaching to these cruelties, but of the respectable customers who buy captured larks and linnets without the smallest scruple or consideration. Finally, let me point out that if we desire to cultivate a closer intimacy with the wild animals, it must be an intimacy based on a genuine love for them as living beings and fellow-creatures, not on the superior power or cunning by which we can drag them from their native haunts, warp the whole purpose of their lives, and degrade them to the level of pets, or curiosities, or labour-saving auto- mata. The key to a proper understanding of the wild, as of the tame, animals must always lie in such sympathies — sympathies, as Words- worth describes them, "Aloft ascending, and descending deep, Even to the inferior Kinds ; whom forest trees Protect from beating sunbeams and the sweep Of the sharp winds ; fair Creatures, to whom Heaven A cahii and sinless life, with love, has given." CHAPTER IV. THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. It is impossible that any discussion of the principle of animals' rights can be at all ade- quate or conclusive which ignores, as many so-called humanitarians still ignore, the im- mense underlying importance of the food question. The origin of the habit of flesh-eating need not greatly concern us ; let us assume, in accordance with the most favoured theory, that animals were first slaughtered by the un- civilized migratory tribes under the stress of want, and that the practice thus engendered, being fostered by the religious idea of blood- offering and propitiation, survived and in- creased after the early conditions which pro- duced it had passed away. What is more im- portant to note, is that the very prevalence of the habit has caused it to be regarded as a necessary feature of modern civilisation, and that this view has inevitably had a marked The Slaitghtcr of Animals for Food. 55 effect, and a very detrimental effect, on the study of man's moral relation to the lower animals. Now it must be admitted, I think, that it is a difficult thing consistently to recognise or assert the rights of an animal on whom you purpose to make a meal, a difficulty which has not been at all satisfactorily surmounted by those moralists who, while accepting the prac- tice of flesh-eating as an institution which is itself beyond cavil, have nevertheless been anxious to find some solid basis for a theory of humaneness. " Strange contrariety of con- duct," says Goldsmith's " Chinese Philosopher," in commenting on this dilemma ; " they pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion !" There is also the further consideration that the sanction implicitly given to the terrible cruelties inflicted on harmless cattle by the drover and the slaughterman render it, by parity of reasoning, well-nigh impossible to abolish many other acts of injustice that we see everywhere around us ; and this obstacle the opponents of humanitarian reform have not been slow to utilise.^ Hence a disposition ^ Here are two instances urged on behalf of the vivisector and the sportsman respectively. " If man can legitimately put animals to a painful death in 56 Animals Rights. on the part of many otherwise humane writers to fight shy of the awkward subject of the slaughterhouse, or to gloss it over with a series of contradictory and quite irrelevant excuses. Let me give a few examples. " We deprive animals of life," says Bentham, in a delight- fully naive application of the utilitarian philo- sophy, " and this is justifiable ; their pains do not equal our enjoyments." " By the scheme of universal providence," says Lawrence, " the services between man and beast are intended to be reciprocal, and the greater part of the latter can by no other means requite human labour and care than by the forfeiture of life." Schopenhauer's plea is somewhat similar to the foregoing : " Man deprived of all flesh food, especially in the north, would suffer more than the animal suffers in a swift and unfore- order to supply himself with food and luxuries, why- may he not also legitimately put them to pain, and even to death, for the higher object of relieving the sufferings of humanity.-^" — Chambers^ s EiicydopcEdia, 1884. " If they were called upon to put an end to pigeon- shooting, they might next be called upon to put an end to the slaughter of live-stock." — LORD FORTESCUE, Debate on Pigeon-Slwotijig (1-884). The Slaiighter of Animals for Food. 57 seen death ; still we ought to mitigate it by the help of chloroform." Then there is the argument so frequently founded on the supposed sanction of Nature. " My scruples," wrote Lord Chesterfield, " re- mained unreconciled to the committing of so horrid a meal, till upon serious reflection I became convinced of its legality from the general order of Nature, which has instituted the universal preying upon the weaker as one of her first principles." Finally, we find the redoubtable Paley dis- carding as valueless the whole appeal to Nature, and relying on the ordinances of Holy Writ. " A right to the flesh of animals. Some excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss which we occasion to animals by restrain- ing them of their liberty, mutilating their bodies, and at last putting an end to their lives for our pleasure or convenience. The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the following : that the several species of animals being created to prey upon one another affords a kind of analogy to prove that the human species were intended to feed upon them. . . . Upon which reason I would observe that the analogy contended for is ex- tremely lame, since animals have no power to 58 Animals Rights. support life by any other means, and since we have, for the whole human species might sub- sist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindus actually do. . . . It seems to me that it would be difficult to defend this right by any arguments which the light and order of Nature afford, and that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture." It is evident from the above quotations, which might be indefinitely extended, that the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb is con- stantly repeating itself in the attitude of our moralists and philosophers towards the victinris of the slaughter-house! Well might Humphry Primatt remark that " we ransack and rack all nature in her weakest and tenderest parts, to extort from her, if possible, any concession whereon to rest the appearance of an argu- ment." Far wiser and humaner, on this particular subject, is the tone adopted by such writers as Michelet, who, while not seeing any way of escape from the practice of flesh-eating, at least refrain from attempting to support it by fallacious reasonings. " The animals below us," says Michelet, " have also their rights before God. Animal life, sombre mystery ! The Slaughter of A iiimals for Food. 5 9 Immense world of thoughts and of dumb sufferings ! All nature protests against the barbarity of man, who misapprehends, who humiliates, who tortures his inferior brethren. . . . . Life — death ! The daily murder which feeding upon animals implies — those hard and bitter problems sternly placed themselves before my mind. Miserable contradiction ! Let us hope that there may be another globe in which the base, the cruel fatalities of this may be spared to us." ^ MeantimiC, however, the simple fact remains true, and is every year finding more and more scientific corroboration, that there is no such " cruel fatality " as that which Michelet ima- gined. Comparative anatomy has shown that man is not carnivorous, but frugivorous, in his natural structure ; experience has shown that flesh-food is wholly unnecessary for the sup- port of healthy life. The importance of this more general recognition of a truth which has in all ages been familiar to a few enlightened thinkers, can hardly be over-estimated in its bearing on the question of animals' rights. It clears away a difficulty which has long damped the enthusiasm, or warped the judgment, of the humaner school of European moralists, ' "La Bible de rHumanitc." 6o Animals Rwhts. ^> and makes it possible to approach the subject of man's moral relation to the lower animals in a more candid and fearless spirit of enquiry. It is no part of my present purpose to advo- cate the cause of vegetarianism ; but in view of the mass of evidence, readily obtainable/ that the transit and slaughter of animals are necessarily attended by most atrocious cruel- ties, and that a large number of persons have for years been living healthily without the use of flesh-meat, it must at least be said that to omit this branch of the subject from the most earnest and strenuous considera- tion is playing with the question of animals' rights. Fifty or a hundred years ago^ there w^as perhaps some excuse for supposing that vegetarianism was a mere fad ; there is absolutely no such excuse at the present time. There are two points of especial significance in this connection. First, that as civilisation advances, the cruelties inseparable from the slaughtering system have been aggravated rather than diminished, owing both to the ^ From any of the following societies : The Vege- tarian Society, 75, Princess Street, Manchester; the London Vegetarian Society, Memorial Hall, E.G. ; the National Food Reform Society, 13, Rathbone Place, W. The Slaughter of Animals for Food, 6i increased necessity of transporting animals long distances by sea and land, under con- ditions of hurry and hardship which generally preclude any sort of humane regard for their comfort, and to the clumsy and barbarous methods of slaughtering too often practised in those ill-constructed dens of torment known as " private slaughter-houses." ^ Secondly, that the feeling of repugnance caused among all people of sensibility and refinement by the sight, or mention, or even thought, of the business of the butcher are also largely on the increase ; so that the details of the revolting process are, as far as possible, kept carefully out of sight and out of mind, being delegated to a pariah class who do the work which most educated persons would shrink from doing for themselves. In these two facts we have clear evidence, first that there is good reason why the public conscience, or at any rate the humanitarian conscience, should be uneasy concerning the slaughter of " live-stock," and secondly that this uneasiness ^ If any reader thinks there is exaggeration in this statement, let him study (i) " Cattle Ships," by Samuel Plimsoll, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubnerand Co., i8go ; (2) "Behind the Scenes in Slaughter-houses," by H. F. Lester, Wm. Reeves, 1892. 62 Animals RioJits. a> is already to a large extent developed and manifested. The common argument, adopted by many apologists of flesh-eating, as of fox-hunting, that the pain inflicted by the death of the animals is more than compensated by the pleasure enjoyed by them in their life-time, since otherwise they would not have been brought into existence at all, is ingenious rather than convincing, being indeed none other than the old familiar fallacy already commented on — the arbitrary trick of con- stituting ourselves the spokesmen and the interpreters of our victims. Mr. E. B. Nichol- son, for example, is of opinion that " we may pretty safely take it that if he [the fox] were able to understand and answer the question, he would choose life, with all its pains and risks, to non-existence without them." ^ Un- fortunately for the soundness of this sus- piciously partial assumption, there is no re- corded instance of this strange alternative having ever been submitted either to fox or philosopher ; so that a precedent has yet to be established on which to found a judgment. Meantime, instead of committing the gross absurdity of talking of non-existence as a state 1 "The Rights of an Animal," 1879. The Slaughtei' of Animals for Food. 6 which is good, or bad, or in any way com- parable to existence, we might do well to remember that animals' rights, if we admit them at all, must begin with the birth, and can only end with the death, of the animals in question, and that we cannot evade our just responsibilities by any such quibbling refe- rences to an imaginary ante-natal choice in an imaginary ante-natal condition. The most mischievous effect of the practice of flesh-eating, in its influence on the study of animals' rights at the present time, is that it so stultifies and debases the very raison d'etre of countless myriads of beings — it brings them into life for no better purpose than to deny their right to live. It is idle to appeal to the internecine warfare that we see in some as- pects of wild nature, where the weaker animal is often the prey of the stronger, for there (apart from the fact that co-operation largely modifies competition) the weaker races at least live their own lives and take their chance in the game, whereas the victims of the human car- nivora are bred, and fed, and from the first pre- destined to untimely slaughter, so that their whole mode of living is warped from its natural standard, and they are scarcely more than animated beef or mutton or pork. This, I 64 Animals Rights, contend, is a flagrant violation of the rights of the lower animals, as those rights are now beginning to be apprehended by the humaner conscience of mankind. It has been well said that " to keep a man (slave or servant) for your own advantage merely, to keep an animal that you may eat it, is a lie. You cannot look that man or animal in the face." ' That those who are aware of the horrors involved in slaughtering, and also aware of the possibility of a fleshless diet, should think it sufficient to oppose " scriptural permission " as an answer to the arguments of food-reformers is an instance of the extraordinary power of custom to blind the eyes and the hearts of otherwise humane men. The following pas- sage is quoted from a "Plea for Mercy to Animals," ^ as a typical instance of the sort of perverted sentiment to which I allude. " Not in superstitious India only," says the writer, whose ideas of what constitutes " superstition" seem to • be rather confused, " but in this country, there are vegetarians, and other per- sons, who object to the use of animal food, not on the ground of health only, but as involving ^ Edward Carpenter, "England's Ideal." ^ By J. Macaulay (Partridge and Co., 1881). The Sla7ighter of Animals for Food, 65 a power to which man has no right. To such statements we have only to oppose the clear permission of the divine Author of life. But the unqualified permission can never give sanction to the infliction of unnecessary pain." But if the use of flesh-meat can itself be dispensed with, how can it be argued that the pain, which is inseparable from slaughtering, can be otherwise than unnecessary also ? I trust that the cause of humanity and jus- tice (not " mercy ") to the lower animals is not likely to be retarded by any such sentimental and superstitious objections as these ! Reform of diet will doubtless be slow, and attended in many individual cases with its difficulties and drawbacks. But at least we may lay down this much as incumbent on all humanitarian thinkers — that everyone must satisfy himself of the necessity, the real neces- sity, of the use of flesh-food, before he comes to any intellectual conclusion on the subject of animals' rights. It is easy to see that, as the ques- tion is more and more discussed, the result will be more and more decisive. " Whatever my own practice may be," v/rote Thoreau, " I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the F 66 A^iimals Rights. human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized." CHAPTER V. SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY. That particular form of recreation which is euphemistically known as " sport " has a close historical connection with the practice of flesh- eating, inasmuch as the hunter was in old times what the butcher is now, — the "purveyor" on whom the family was dependent for its daily supply of victuals. Modern sport, how- ever, as usually carried on in civilised European countries, has degenerated into what has been well described as "amateur butchery," a system under which the slaughter of certain kinds of animals is practised less as a necessity than as a means of amusement and diversion. Just as the youthful nobles, during the savage scenes and reprisals of the Huguenot wars, used to seize the opportunity of exercising their swordsmanship, and perfecting themselves in the art of dealing graceful death-blows, so the modern sportsman converts the killing of 68 Animals Rie:hts. ' butchering trade, the responsibility for what- ever wrongs are done must rest ultimately on the class which demands an unnecessary com- modity, rather than on that which is compelled by economic pressure to supply it ; it is not the man who kills the bird, but the lady who wears the feathers in her hat, who is the true offender. But here it will be asked, is the use of fur and feathers unnecessary? Now of course if we consider solely the present needs and tastes of society, in regard to these matters, it must be admitted that a sudden, unexpected withdrawal of the numberless animal products on which our " civilisation " depends would be a very serious embarrassment ; the world, as alarmists point out to us, might have to go to bed without candles, and wake up to find itself without boots. It must be remembered, how- ever, that such changes do not come about with suddenness, but, on the contrary, with the ex- tremest slowness imaginable ; and a little thought will suggest, what experience has already in many cases confirmed, that there is really no indispensable animal substance for which a substitute cannot be provided, when once there is sufficient demand, from the vege- table or mineral kingdom. Take the case of leather, for instance, a Aftcrdcroiis jMilliiicry, 8 1 material which is in ahiiost universal use, and ma}-, under present circumstances, be fairly described as a necessar}-. What should we do without leather? was, in fact, a question very frequently asked of vegetarians during the early and callow years of the food-reform movement, until it was found that vegetable leather could be successfully employed in boot- making, and that the inconsistency of which vegetarians at present stand convicted is only a temporary and incidental one. Now of course, so long as oxen are slaughtered for food, their skins will be utilized in this way ; but it is not difficult to foresee that the gradual discontinuance of the habit of flesh-eating will lead to a similar gradual discontinuance of the use of hides, and that human ingenuity will not be at a loss in the provision of a substitute. So that it does not follow that a commodity which, in the immediate sense, is necessary row, would be absolutely or permanently necessary, under different conditions, in the future. My sole reason for dwelling on this typical point is that I wish to guard myself, by antici- pation, against a very plausible argument, by which discredit is often cast on the whole theory of animals' rights. What can be the G 82 Animals Rights. object, it is said, of entering on the senti- mental path of an impossible humanitarianism, which only leads into insurmountable difficul- ties and dilemmas, inasmuch as the use of these various animal substances is so inter- woven with the whole system of society that it can never be discontinued until society itself comes to an end ? I assert that the case is by no means so desperate — that it is easy to make a right beginning now, and to foresee the lines along which future progress will be effected. Much that is impossible in our own time may be realized, by those who come after us, as the natural and inevitable outcome of reforms which it now lies with us to inaugurate. This said, it may be freely admitted that, at the outset, humanitarians will do well to draw a practical distinction between such animal products as are converted to some genuine personal use, and those which are supplied for no better object than to gratify the idle whims of luxury or fashion. The when and the wJiere are considerations of the greatest import in these questions. There is a certain fitness in the hunter — himself the product of a rough, wild era in human development — as- suming the skins of the wild creatures he has Mttrderoiis Millinery. Zi conquered ; but it docs not follow because an Eskimo, for example, may appropriately wear fur, or a Red Indian feathers, that this apparel will be equally becoming to the inhabitants of London or New York ; on the contrary, an act which is perfectly natural in the one case, is often a sign of crass vulgarity in the other. Hercules, clothed triumphant in the spoils of the Nemean lion, is a subject for painter and poet ; but what if he had purchased the skin, ready dressed, from a contemporary manu- facturer ? What we must unhesitatingly condemn is the blind and reckless barbarism which has ransacked, and is ransacking, whole provinces and continents, without a glimmer of suspicion that the innumerable birds and quadrupeds which it is rapidly exterminating have any other part or purpose in nature than to be sacrificed to human vanity, that idle gentle- men and ladies may bedeck themselves, like certain characters in the fable, in borrowed skins and feathers. What care they for all the beauty and tenderness and intelligence of the varied forms of animal life ? and what is it to them whether these be helped forward by man in the universal progress and evolution of all living things, or whether whole species be 84 Animals Rights. transformed and degraded by the way — boiled down, like the beaver, into a hat, or, like the seal, into a lady's jacket ? ^ Whatever it may be in other respects, the fur trade, in so far as it is a supply of orna- mental clothing for those who are under no necessity of wearing fur at all, is a barbarous and stupid business. It makes patch-work, one may say, not only of the hides of its victims, but of the conscience and intellect of its supporters. A fur garment or trimming, we are told, appearing to the eye as if it were one uniform piece, is generally made up of many curiously shaped fragments. It is sig- nificant that a society which is enamoured of so many shams and fictions, and which detests nothing so strongly as the need of looking facts in the face, should pre-eminently esteem those articles of apparel which are constructed on the most deceptive and illusory principle. The story of the Ass in the Lion's skin is capable, it seems, of a new and wider application. ^ It is stated of the fur-seal of Alaska {calloj'himis ursinus) that " there is no known animal, on land or water, which can take higher physical rank, or which exhibits a higher order of instinct, closely approaching human intelligence." — Chainbei's' Jottrnal^ Nov. 27th, 1886. Murderous i\IiUincry, 85 But if the fur trade gives cause for serious reflection, what are we to say of the still more abominable trade in feathers ? Murderous, indeed, is the millinery which finds its most fashionable ornament in the dead bodies of birds — birds, the loveliest and most blithesome beings in Nature ! There is a pregnant re- mark made b}- a writer in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," that " to enumerate all the feathers used for ornamental purposes w^ould be prac- tically to give a complete list of all known and obtainable birds." The figures and details published by those humane writers w4io have raised an unavailing protest against this latest and worst crime of Fashion are simply appal- ling in their stern and naked record of unre- mitting cruelty. " One dealer in London is said to have re- ceived as a single consignment 32,000 dead humming-birds, 80,000 aquatic birds, and 800,000 pairs of wings. A Parisian dealer had a contract for 40,000 birds, and an army of murderers were turned out to supply the order. No less than 40,000 terns have been sent from Long Island in one season for millinery purposes. At one auction alone in London there were sold 404,389 West Indian and Brazilian bird-skins, and 356,389 East 86 Animals Rights. Indian, besides thousands of pheasants and birds-of-paradise." ^ The meaning of such statistics is simply that the women of Europe and America have given an order for the ruth- less extermination of birds.^ It is not seriously contended in any quarter that this wholesale destruction, effected often in the most revolting and heartless manner,^ is capable of excuse or justification ; yet the efforts of those who address themselves to the better feelings of the offenders appear to meet with little or no success. The cause of this failure must undoubtedly be sought in the general lack of any clear conviction that animals have rights ; and the evil will never be thoroughly remedied until not only this particular abuse, but all such abuses, and the prime source from which such abuses originate? have been subjected to an impartial criticism."^ ^ Quoted from "As in a Mirror, an Appeal to the Ladies of England." ^ " You kill a paddy-bird," says an Indian proverb, " and what do you get ? A handful of feathers." Un- fortunately commerce has now taught the natives of India that a handful of feathers is not without its value. ^ See the publications issued by the Society for the Protection of Birds, 29, Warwick Road, Maida Vale, W. ■^ It is well that ladies should pledge themselves to Murderous Millinery. '^'] In saying this I do not of course mean to imply that special efforts should not be di- rected against special cruelties. I have already remarked that the main responsibility for the daily murders which fashionable millinery is instigating must lie at the doors of those who demand, rather than those who supply, these hideous and funereal ornaments. Unfor- a rule of not wearing feathers ; but that is an ominous exception which permits them to wear the feathers of birds killed for food. It is to such inconsistencies that an anonymous satirist makes reference in the following lines : " When Edwin sat him down to dine one night, With piteous grief his heart was newly stricken ; In vain did Angelina him invite, Grace said, to carve the chicken. " ' A thousand songsters slaughtered in one day ; Oh, Angelina, meditate upon it ; And henceforth never, never wear, I pray, A redbreast in thy bonnet.' " Fair Angelina did not scold nor scowl ; No word she spake, she better knew her lover ; But from the ample dish of roasted fowl She gently raised the cover. " And lo ! the savour of that tender bird The tender Edwin's appetite did cjuicken. He started, by a new emotion stirred, Said grace, and carved the chicken." 88 Animals Rights. tunately the process, like that of slaughtering cattle, is throughout delegated to other hands than those of the ultimate purchaser, so that it is exceedingly difficult to bring home a due sense of blood-guiltiness to the right person. The confirmed sportsman, or amateur butcher, at least sees with his own eyes the circumstances attendant on his " sport ; " and the fact that he feels no compunction in pur- suing it, is due, in most cases, to an obtuseness or confusion of the moral faculties. But many of those who wear seal-skin mantles, or feather-bedaubed bonnets are naturally humane enough ; they are misled by pure ignorance or thoughtlessness, and would at once abandon such practices if they could be made aware of the methods employed in the wholesale massacre of seals or humming- birds. Still, it remains true that all these questions ultimately hang together, and that no complete solution will be found for any one of them until the whole problem of our moral relation towards the lower animals is studied with far greater comprehensiveness. For this reason it is perhaps unscientific to assert that any particular form of cruelty to animals is worse than another form ; the truth is, that each of these hydra-heads, the off- MiLrdcrotis Millinery. 89 spring of one parent stem, has its own proper characteristic, and is different, not worse or better than the rest. To flesh-eating belongs the proud distinction of causing a greater bulk of animal suffering than any other habit what- soever ; to sport, the meed of unique and unparalleled brutality ; while the patrons of murderous millinery afford the most marvel- lous instance of the capacity the human mind possesses for ignoring its personal responsi- bilities. To re-apply Keats's words : " For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, And went all naked to the hungry shark ; For them his ears gush'd blood ; for them in death The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark Lay full of darts ; for them alone did seethe A thousand men in troubles wide and dark ; Half ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel, That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel." CHAPTER VII. EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE. Great is the change when we turn from the easy thoughtless indifferentism of the sports- man or the milliner to the more determined and deliberately chosen attitude of the scien- tist — so great, indeed, that by many people, even among professed champions of. animals' rights, it is held impossible to trace such dis- similar lines of action to one and the same source. Yet it can be shown, I think, that in this instance, as in those already examined, the prime cause of man's injustice to the lower animals is the belief that they are mere auto- mata, devoid alike of spirit, character, and individuality ; only, while the ignorant sports- man expresses this contempt through the medium of the battue, and the milliner through that of the bonnet, the more seriously-minded physiologist works his work in the " experi- mental torture " of the laboratory. The diffe- Experimental Torture. 91 rence lies in the temperament of the men, and in the tone of their profession ; but in their denial of the most elementary rights of the lower races, they are all inspired and instigated by one common prejudice. The analytical method employed by modern science tends ultimately, in the hands of its most enlightened exponents, to the recognition of a close relationship between mankind and the animals ; but incidentally it has exercised a most sinister effect on the study of the jus aniinaliiun among the mass of average men. For consider the dealings of the so-called naturalist with the animals whose nature he makes it his business to observe ! In ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, he is wholly un- appreciative of the essential distinctive quality, the individuality, of the subject of his investi- gations, and becomes nothing more than a contented accumulator of facts, an industrious dissector of carcases. " I think the most im- portant requisite in describing an animal," says Thoreau, " is to be sure that you give its character and spirit, for in that you have, without error, the sum and effect of all its parts known and unknown. Surely the most important part of an animal is its aniina, its vital spirit, on which is based its character and 92 Animals Rights. all the particulars by which it most concerns us. Yet most scientific books which treat of animals leave this out altogether, and what they describe are, as it were, phenomena of dead matter." The whole system of our " natural history " as practised at the present time, is based on this deplorably partial and misleading method. Does a rare bird alight on our shores ? It is at once slaughtered by some enterprising col- lector, and proudly handed over to the nearest taxidermist, that it may be " preserved," among a number of other stuffed corpses, in the local " Museum." It is a dismal business at best, this science of the fowling-piece and the dis- secting-knife, but it is in keeping" with the materialistic tendency of a certain school of thought, and only a few of its professors rise out of it, and above it, to a maturer and more far-sighted understanding. " The child," says Michelet, "disports himself, shatters, and de- stroys ; he finds his happiness in undoing. And science, in its childhood, does the same. It cannot study unless it kills. The sole use which it makes of a living mind is, in the first place, to dissect it. None carry into scientific pursuits that tender reverence for life which Na- ture rewards by unveiling to us her mysteries." Expeidmeutal Tortiti^e. 93 Under these circumstances, it is scarcely to be wondered at that modern scientists, their minds athirst for further and further oppor- tunities of satisfying this analytical curiosity, should desire to have recourse to the experi- mental torture which is euphemistically de- scribed as " vivisection." They are caught and impelled by the overmastering passion of knowledge ; and, as a handy subject for the gratification of this passion, they see before them the helpless race of animals, in part wild, in part domesticated, but alike regarded by the generality of mankind as incapable of possessing any " rights." They are practically accustomed (despite their ostensible disavowal of the Cartesian theory) to treat these animals as automata — things made to be killed and dissected and catalogued for the advancement of knowledge ; they are, moreover, in their professional capacity, the lineal descendants of a class of men who, however kindly and con- siderate in other respects, have never scrupled to subordinate the strongest promptings of humaneness to the least of the supposed inte- rests of science.^ Given these conditions, it ^ Vivisection is an ancient usage, having been prac- tised for 2,000 years or more, in Egypt, Italy, and elsewhere. Human vivisection is mentioned by Galen 94 Ani7Jials Rights. seems as inevitable that the physiologist should vivisect as that the country gentleman should shoot. Experimental torture is as appro- priately the study of the half-enlightened man as sport is the amusement of the half-witted. But the fact that vivisection is not, as some of its opponents would appear to regard it, a portentous, unaccountable phenomenon, but rather the logical outcome of a certain ill- balanced habit of mind, does not in any way detract from its intellectual and moral loath- someness. It is idle to spend a single moment in advocating the rights of the lower animals, if such rights do not include a total and un- qualified exemption from the awful tortures of vivisection — from the doom of being slowly as liaving been fashionable for centuries before his day, and Celsus informs us that " they procured crimi- nals out of prison, and, dissecting them alive, contem- plated, while they were yet breathing, what nature had before concealed." The sorcerers, too, of the Middle Ages tortured both human beings and animals, with a view to the discovery of their medicinal elixirs. The recognition of the rights of men has now made human vivisection criminal, and the scientific inquisition of the present time counts animals alone as its victims. And here the Act of 1876 has fortunately, though not sufficiently, restricted the powers of the vivisector in this country. Experimental Tor litre. 95 and mercilessly dismembered, or flayed, or baked alive, or infected with some deadly virus, or subjected to any of the numerous modes of torture inflicted by the Scientific Inquisition. Let us heartily endorse the words of Miss Cobbe on this crucial subject, that " the minimuin of all possible rights plainly is — to be spared the worst of all possible wrongs ; and if a horse or dog have no claim to be spared from being maddened and mangled after the fashion of Pasteur and Chauveau, then it is impossible it can have any right at all, or that any offence against it, by gentle or simple, can deserve punishment." It is necessary to speak strongly and un- mistakably on this point, because, as I have already said, there is a disposition on the part of some of the " friends of animals " to palter and compromise with vivisection, as if the alleged " utility " of its practices, or the " con- scientious " motives of its professors, put it on an altogether different footing from other kinds of inhumanity. " Much against my own feelings," wrote one of these backsliders,^ " I do see a warrant for vivisection in the case of harmful animals, and animals which are 1 "The Rights of an Animal," by E. B. Nicholson, 1879. 96 Animals Rights. man's rivals for food. If an animal is doomed to be killed on other grounds, the vivisector, when its time comes, may step in, buy it, kill it in his own way, and take without self-re- proach the gain to knowledge which he can get from its death. And my ' sweet is life ' theory would further allow of animals being specially bred for vivisection — where and where only they would otherwise not have been bred at all." This astounding argument, which as- sumes the necessity of vivisection, gives away, it will be observed, the whole case of animals' rights. The assertion, commonly made by the apologists of the Scientific Inquisition, that vivisection is justified by its utility — that it is, in fact, indispensable to the advance of know- ledge and civilization ^ — is founded on a mere ^ The medical argument of " utility " has always been held in terroi'em over the unscientific assertion of animals' rights. Porphyry, writing in the third century, quotes the following from Claudius the Nea- politan, author of a treatise against abstinence from animal food. " How many will be prevented from having their diseases cured, if animals are abstained from ! For we see that those who are blind recover their sight by eating a viper." Some of the results that scientists "see" nowadays may appear equally strange to posterity ! Experimental Tortitre. 97 half-view of the position ; the scientist, as I have alread}' remarked, is a half-enHghtened man. Let us assume (a large assumption, cer- tainly, controverted as it is by some most weighty medical testimony) that the progress of surgical science is assisted by the experi- ments of the vivisector. What then ? Before rushing to the conclusion that vivisection is justifiable on that account, a wise man will take into full consideration the other, the moral side of the question — the hideous injustice of torturing an innocent animal, and the terrible wrong thereby done to the humane sense of the community. The wise scientist and the wise humanist are identical. A true science cannot possibly ignore the solid incontrovertible fact, that the practice of vivisection is revolting to the human conscience, even among the ordinary members of a not over-sensitive society. The so-called "science" (we are compelled unfortunately, in common parlance, to use the word in this specialized technical meaning) which delibe- rately overlooks this fact, and confines its view to the material aspects of the problem, is not science at all, but a one-sided assertion of the views which find favour with a particular class of men. H g8 Animals Rights. Nothing is necessary which is abhorrent, revolting, intolerable, to the general instincts of humanity. Better a thousand times that science should forego or postpone the ques- tionable advantage of certain problematical discoveries, than that the moral conscience of the community should be unmistakably out- raged by the confusion of right and wrong. The short cut is not always the right path ; and to perpetrate a cruel injustice on the lower animals, and then attempt to excuse it on the ground that it will benefit posterity, is an argument which is as irrelevant as it is im- moral. Ingenious it may be (in the way of hoodwinking the unwary) but it is certainly in no true sense scientific. * If there be one bright spot, one refreshing oasis, in the discussion of this dreary subject, it is the humorous recurrence of the old thread- bare fallacy of " better for the animals them- selves." Yes, even here, in the laboratory of the vivisector, amidst the baking and sawing and dissection, we are sometimes met by that familiar friend — the proud plea of a single- hearted regard for the interests of the suffering animals ! Who knows but what some benefi- cent experimentalist, if only he be permitted to cut up a sufficient number of victims, may Experimental Torture. gg discover some potent remedy for all the lamented ills of the animal as well as of the human creation ? Can we doubt that the victims themselves, if once they could realize the noble object of their martyrdom, would vie with each other in rushing eagerly on the knife ? The only marvel is that, where the cause is so meritorious, no Jmnian volunteer has as yet come forward to die under the hands of the vivisector 1 ^ It is fully admitted that experiments on men would be far more valuable and conclusive than experiments on animals ; yet scientists usually disavow any wish to revive these practices, and indignantly deny the rumours, occasionally circulated, that the poorer patients in hospitals are the subjects of such anatomical curiosity. Now here, it will be observed, in the case of men, the 7;^(9r<^/ aspect of vivisection is admitted by the scientist as a matter of course, yet in the case of animals it is allowed no weight • It is true, however, that Lord Aberdare, in pre- siding over the last annual meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in warning the society against entering on an anti- vivisection crusade, gave utterance to the delightfully comical remark that he had himself been thrice ope- rated on, and was all the better for it I lOO Animals Rights. whatever ! How can this strange inconsistency be justified, unless on the assumption that men have rights, but animals have no rights — in other words, that animals are mere things^ possessed of no purpose, and no claim on the justice and forbearance of the community? One of the most notable and ominous features in the apologies offered for vivisection is the assertion, so commonly made by scien- tific writers, that it is " no worse " than certain kindred practices. When the upholders of any accused institution begin to plead that it is " no worse " than other institutions, we may feel quite assured that the case is a very bad one indeed — it is the drowning man catching at the last straw and shred of argument. Thus the advocates of experimental torture are reduced to the expedient of laying stress on the cruelties of the butcher and the herds- man, and inquiring why, if pole-axing and castration are permissible, vivisection may not also be permitted.^ Sport, also, is a practice which has greatly shocked the susceptibilities of the humane vivisector. A writer in the "Fortnightly Review" has defined sport as ^ See J. Cotter Morrison's article on " Scientific versus Bucolic Vivisection," " Fortnightly Review," 1885. Experimental Torture. loi " the love of the clever destruction of living things," and has calculated that three millions of animals are yearly mangled by English sportsmen, in addition to those killed outright."^ Now if the attack on vivisection emanated primarily or wholly from the apologists of the sportsman and slaughterer, this tu quoque of the scientist's must be allowed to be a smart, though rather flippant, retort ; but when all cruelty is arraigned as inhuman and unjustifi- able, an evasive answer of this kind ceases to have any relevancy or pertinence. Let us admit, however, that, in contrast with the childish brutality of the sportsman, the un- doubted seriousness and conscientiousness of the vivisector (for I do not question that he acts from conscientious motives) may be counted to his advantage. But then we have to remember, on the other hand, that the conscientious man, when he goes wrong, is far more dangerous to society than the knave or the fool ; indeed, the special horror of vivisection consists pre- cisely in this fact, that it is not due to mere thoughtlessness and ignorance, but represents a deliberate, avowed, conscientious invasion of the very principle of animals' rights. I have already said that it is idle to specu- ^ Professor Jevons, "Fortnightly Review," 1876. 102 Animals Rights. late which is the worst form of cruelty to animals, for certainly in this subject, if any- where, we must " reject the lore of nicely calculated less or more." Vivisection, if there be any truth at all in the principle for which I am contending, is not the root, but the fine flower and consummation of barbarity and in- justice — the ne plus ultra of iniquity in man's dealings w^ith the lower races. The root of the evil lies, as I have throughout asserted, in that detestable assumption (detestable equally whether it be based on pseudo-religious or pseudo-scientific grounds) that there is a gulf, an impassable barrier, between man and the animals, and that the moral instincts of com- passion, justice, and love, are to be as sedu- lously repressed and thwarted in the one direction as they are to be fostered and extended in the other. For this very reason our crusade against the Scientific Inquisition, to be thorough and suc- cessful, must be founded on the rock of con- sistent opposition to cruelty in every form and phase ; it is useless to denounce vivisection as the source of all inhumanities, and, while demanding its immediate suppression, to sup- pose that other minor questions may be in- definitely postponed. It is true that the actual Expe7'imental Torture. 103 emancipation of the lower races, as of the human, can only proceed step by step, and that it is both natural and politic to strike first at what is most repulsive to the public conscience. I am not depreciating the wisdom of such a concentration of effort on any par- ticular point, but warning my readers against the too common tendency to forget the gene- ral principle that underlies each individual protest. The spirit in which we approach these matters should be a liberal and far-seeing one. Those who work for the abolition of vivisection, or any other particular wrong, should do so with the avowed purpose of capturing one stronghold of the enemy, not because they believe that the war will then be over, but because they will be able to use the position thus gained as an advantageous starting-point for still further progression. CHAPTER VIII. LINES OF REFORM. Having now applied the principle with which we started to the several cases where it appears to be most flagrantly overlooked, we are in a better position to estimate the difficulties and the possibilities of its future acceptance. Our investigation of animals' rights has necessarily been, in large measure, an enumeration of animals' wrongs, a story of cruelty and injustice which might have been unfolded in far greater and more impressive detail, had there been any reason for here repeating what has been else- where established by other writers beyond doubt or dispute. But my main purpose was to deal with a general theory rather than with particular instances ; and enough has already been said to show that while man has much cause to be grateful to the lower animals for the innumer- able services rendered by them, he can hardly Lines of Refoiin, 105 pride himself on the record of the counter- benefits which they have received at his hands. " If we consider," says Primatt, "the excruciat- ing injuries offered on our part to the brutes, and the patience on their part ; how frequent our provocation, and how seldom tJieir resent- ment (and in some cases our weakness and tJieir strength, our slowness and //^^2> swiftness) one would be almost tempted to suppose that the brutes had combined in one general scheme of benevolence, to teach mankind lessons of mercy and meekness by their own forbearance and longsuffering." It is unwise, no doubt, to dwell too ex- clusively on the wrongs of which animals are the victims ; it is still more unwise to ignore them as they are to-day ignored by the large majority of mankind. It is full time that this question were examined in the light of some rational and guiding principle, and that we ceased to drift helplessly between the extremes of total indifference on the one hand, and spasmodic, partially-applied compassion on the other. We have had enough, and too much, of trifling with this or that isolated aspect of the subject, and of playing off the exposure of somebody else's insensibility by way of a balance for our own, as if a tu quoque io6 Animals Rights, ^y were a sufficient justification of a man's moral delinquencies. The terrible sufferings that are quite need- lessly inflicted on the lower animals under the plea of domestic usage, food-demands, sport, fashion, and science, are patent to all who have the seeing eye and the feeling heart to appre- hend them ; those sufferings will not be lessened, nor will man's responsibility be diminished by any such irrelevant assertions as that vivisection is less cruel than sport, or sport less cruel than butchering, — nor yet by the contrary contention that vivisection, or sport, or flesh-eating, as the case may be, is the one prime origin of all human inhumanity. We want a comprehensive principle which will coverall these varying instances, and determine the true lines of reform. Such a principle, as I have throughout in- sisted, can only be found in the recognition of the right of animals, as of men, to be exempt from any unnecessary suffering or serfdom, the right to live a natural life of " restricted free- dom," subject to the real, not supposed or pretended, requirements of the general com- munity. It may be said, and with truth, that the perilous vagueness of the word "necessary" must leave a convenient loop-hole of escape to Lines of Reform. 107 anyone who wishes to justify his own treat- ment of animals, however unjustifiable that treatment may appear ; the vivisector will assert that his practice is necessary in the interests of science, the flesh-eater that he cannot maintain his health without animal food, and so on through the whole category of systematic oppression. The difficulty is an inevitable one. No form of words can be devised for the expres- sion of rights, human or animal, which is not liable to some sort of evasion ; and all that can be done is to fix the responsibility of deciding between what is necessary and unne- cessary, between factitious personal wants and genuine social demands, on those in whom is vested the power of exacting the service or sacrifice required. The appeal being thus made, and the issue thus stated, it may be confidently trusted that the personal conscience of individuals and the public conscience of the nation, acting and reacting in turn on each other, will slowly and surely work out the only possible solution of this difficult and many- sided problem. For that the difficulties involved in this animal question are many and serious, no one, I imagine, would dispute, and certainly io8 Animals Rights. no attempt has been made or will be made, in this essay to minimise or deny them/ It may suit the purpose of those who would retard all humanitarian progress to represent its advocates as mere dreamers and senti- mentalists — men and women who befool them- selves by shutting their eyes to the fierce struggle that is everywhere being waged in the world of nature, while they point with virtuous indignation to the iniquities perpetrated by man. But it is possible to be quite free from any such sentimental illusions, and yet to hold a very firm belief in the principle of animals' rights. We do not deny, or attempt to ex- plain away, the existence of evil in jiature, or the fact that the life of the lower races, as of mankind, is based to a large degree on rapine and violence ; nor can we pretend to say whether this evil will ever be wholly amended. It is therefore confessedly impossible, at the present time, to formulate an entirely and logically consistent philosophy of rights ; but that would be a poor argument against grap- pling with the subject at all. The hard unmistakable facts of the situation, when viewed in their entirety, are not by any means calculated to inspire with confidence the * See p. 22. Lines of Refo7nii. 109 opponents of humane reform. For, if it be true that internecine competition is a great factor in the economy of nature, it is no less true, as has been already pointed out,^ that co-operation is also a great factor therein. Furthermore, though there are many difficulties besetting the onward path of humanitarianism, an even greater difficulty has to be faced by those who refuse to proceed along that path, viz., the fact — as strong a fact as any that can be produced on the other side — that the instinct of com- passion and justice to* the lower animals has already been so largely developed in the human conscience as to obtain legislative recognition. If the theory of animals' rights is a mere idealistic phantasy, it follows that we have long ago committed ourselves to a track which can lead us no whither. Is it then proposed that we should retrace our steps, with a view to regaining the antique position of savage and consistent callousness ; or are we to remain perpetually in our present meaningless attitude, admitting the moral value of a par- tially awakened sensibility, yet opposing an eternal non possumus to any further improve- ment ? Neither of these alternatives is for a moment conceivable ; it is perfectly certain ^ See p. 26. no Animals Rights. that there will still be a forward movement, and along the same lines as in the past. Nor need we be at all disconcerted by the derisive enquiries of our antagonists as to the final outcome of such theories. "There is some reason to hope," said the author of the ironical "Vindication of the Rights of Brutes," " that this essay will soon be followed by trea- tises on the rights of vegetables and minerals, and that thus the doctrine of perfect equality will become universal." To which suggestion we need only answer, "Perhaps." It is for each age to initiate its own ethical reforms, accord- ing to the light and sensibility of its own instincts ; further and more abstruse questions, at present insoluble, may safely be left to the more mature judgment of posterity. The human conscience furnishes the safest and simplest indicator in these matters. We know that certain acts of injustice affect us as they did not affect our forefathers — it is our duty to set these right. It is not our duty to agitate problems, which, at the present date, excite no unmistakable moral feeling. The humane instinct will assuredly continue to develope. And it should be observed that to advocate the rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion or justice to- Lhics of Reforin, \ \ \ wards the victims of ill-usage ; it is not only, and not primarily, for the sake of the victims that we plead, but for the sake of mankind it- self. Our true civilisation, our race-progress, our Jiuinanity (in the best sense of the term) are concerned in this development ; it is our- selves, our own vital instincts, that we wrong, when we trample on the rights of the fellow- beings, human or animal, over whom we chance to hold jurisdiction. It has been ad- mirably said ^ that, " terrible as is the lot of the subjects of cruelty and injustice, that of the perpetrators is even worse, by reason of the debasement and degradation of character im- plied and incurred. For the principles of Hu- manity cannot be renounced with impunity ; but their renunciation, if persisted in, involves inevitably the forfeiture of Humanity itself. And to cease through such forfeiture to be man is to become demon." This most important point is constantly overlooked by the opponents of humanitarian reform. They labour, unsuccesssfully enough, to minimise the complaints of animals' wrongs, on the plea that these wrongs, though great, are not so great as they are represented to be, ^ Edward Maitland ; Address to the Humanitarian League. 112 Animals Rip'hts. s and that in any case It is not possible, or not urgently desirable, for man to alleviate them. As if Jiuinan interests also were not intimately bound up in every such compassionate endea- vour ! The case against injustice to animals stands, in this respect, on exactly the same grounds as that against injustice to man, and may be illustrated by some suggestive words of De Quincey's on the typical subject of cor- poral punishment. This practice, he remarks, " is usually argued with a single reference to the case of him who suffers it ; and so argued, God knows that it is worthy of all abhorrence : but the weightiest argument against it is the foul indignity which is offered to our common nature lodged in the person of him on whom it is inflicted." And this brings us back to the moral of the whole matter. The idea of Humanity is no longer confined to man ; it is beginning to extend itself to the lower animals, as in the past it has been gradually extended to savages and slaves. " Behold the animals. There is not one but the human soul lurks within it, fulfilling its destiny as surely as within you." So writes the author of " Towards Demo- cracy ; " and what has long been felt by the poet is now being scientifically corroborated Lines of Reform. 1 1 3 by the anthropologist and philosopher. " The standpoint of modern thought," says Biichner/ " no longer recognises in animals a difference of kind, but only a difference of degree, and sees the principle of intelligence developing through an endless and unbroken series." It is noteworthy that, on this point, evolu- tionary science finds itself in agreement with oriental tradition. " The doctrine of metem- psychosis," says Strauss,^ "knits men and beasts together here [in the East], and unites the whole of Nature in one sacred and mysterious bond. The breach between the two was opened in the first place by Judaism, with its hatred of the Gods of Nature, next by the dualism of Christianity. It is remarkable that at present a deeper sympathy with the animal world should have arisen among the more civi- lized nations, which manifests itself here and there in societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It is thus apparent that what on the one hand is the product of modern science — the giving up of the spiritualistic isolation of man from Nature — reveals itself simultaneously through the channel of popular sentiment." * " Mind in Animals," translated by Annie Besant. 2 "The Old Faith and the New," translated by Mathilde Blind. 114 Animals Rights. It is not human life only that is lovable and sacred, but all innocent and beautiful life : the great republic of the future will not confine its beneficence to man. The isolation of man from Nature, by our persistent culture of the ratio- cinative faculty, and our persistent neglect of the instinctive, has hitherto been the penalty we have had to pay for our incomplete and partial " civilization ; " there are many signs that the tendency will now be towards that " Return to Nature " of which Rousseau was the pro- phet. But let it not for a moment be sup- posed that an acceptance of the gospel of Nature implies an abandonment or deprecia- tion of intellect — on the contrary, it is the assertion that reason itself can never be at its best, can never be truly rational, except when it is in perfect harmony with the deep-seated emotional instincts and sympathies which underlie all thought. The true scientist and humanist is he who will reconcile brain to heart, and show us how, without any sacrifice of what we have gained in knowledge, we may resume what we have temporarily lost during the process of acquiring that knowledge — the sureness of in- tuitive faculty which is originally implanted in men and animals alike. Only by this return Lines of Reform. 1 1 5 to the common fount of feeling will it be possible for man to place himself in right rela- tionship towards the lower animals, and to break down the fatal barrier of antipathy that he has himself erected. If we contrast the mental and moral attitude of the generality of mankind towards the lower races with that of such men as St. Francis or Thoreau, we see what far-reaching possibilities still lie before us on this line of development, and what an immense extension is even now waiting to be given to our most advanced ideas of social unity and brotherhood. I have already remarked on the frequent and not altogether unjustifiable complaint against " lovers of animals," that they are often indifferent to the struggle for human rights, while they concern themselves so eagerly over the interests of the lower races. Equally true is the converse statement, that many earnest reformers and philanthropists, men who have a genuine passion for human liberty and progress, are coldly sceptical or even bitterly hostile on the subject of the rights of animals. This organic limitation of sympa- thies must be recognised and regretted, but it is worse than useless for the one class of re- formers to indulge in blame or recrimination ii6 Anhnals RipJits. ^K2i)20Q4 MAY (2 2004 M,\Y2 3208I E COV-; .VJtAB)^ vJ^i\V.«l a^^^l ix^^lSt 00^^' m^^^ '■^••w ■ .-lf,l..,*|-. »^M»^«|W« I * K, /■',- 4 — ,*>.♦- •WfV^ **>-■/ - :':5,:;i:^i;': •,'i;}.r43:^>j 1 V >;-, ,,■■>■ AH- •,.»>. -.r — f. J .!:ri/r;;T-