ANIMALSâ RIGHTS ANIMALSâ RIGHTS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS BY HENRY S. SALT _REVISED EDITION_ LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET 1922 TO MY FRIEND HOWARD WILLIAMS AND OTHER HUMANITARIAN COLLEAGUES PREFACE As a memorial of work done on behalf of the rights of animals, it has been thought fitting, by members and friends of the late Humanitarian League, that a new edition of this little book should be published in the year that brings the centenary of âMartinâs Act,â the first legislation for the prevention of cruelty to the non-human races. Of the progress made in this branch of ethics, since 1822, some account is incidentally given in the book; and during the last few years the advance has been steadily continued. Attention has been drawn, for instance, to the antiquated methods employed in the slaughter of animals for food; and this has corresponded with an increase in the practice of vegetarianism. The treatment of other domestic animals, such as pit ponies, and the worn-out horses exported to the Continent, has stirred the public conscience; and at the same time the cruelty and folly of what is technically known as âthe wild animal industryâ--the kidnapping of âspecimensâ for exhibition in zoological gardens, or as âperforming animalsâ on the stage--are becoming better understood. Again, the disgust caused by the ravages of âmurderous millineryâ (a term first used as a chapter-heading in this book) has taken visible shape in the recent Act for the regulation of the plumage trade; and even âsport,â the last and dearest stronghold of the savage, has been seriously menaced, not only by the discontinuance of the Royal Buckhounds in 1901, but also lately by the emphatic condemnation of pigeon-shooting. The core of the contention for a recognition of the rights of animals will be found in the following passage of a letter addressed by Mr. Thomas Hardy to the Humanitarian League in 1910: âFew people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called âThe Golden Ruleâ from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom.... While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the âinferiorâ races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable.â It may be taken, perhaps, as a sign of the extension of humane ideas that, since its first appearance in 1892, this essay on âAnimalsâ Rightsâ has passed through numerous editions, and has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Swedish, and other European tongues. Valuable suggestions concerning the book have reached me from several friends: in particular I am indebted to Sir George Greenwood, who has been actively associated, both in Parliament and elsewhere, with the cause of justice to animals. H. S. S. _January 1922._ CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALSâ RIGHTS 1 II. THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS 23 III. THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS 34 IV. THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD 41 V. SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY 50 VI. MURDEROUS MILLINERY 59 VII. EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE 67 VIII. LINES OF REFORM 77 APPENDICES 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY 117 INDEX 123 ANIMALSâ RIGHTS. CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALSâ RIGHTS. Have the lower animals ârightsâ? Undoubtedly--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 rights, which at the present time is looked upon with suspicion 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 vague, there is nevertheless 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 basis. If men have not ârightsâ--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 lives, subject to the necessity of respecting the equal freedom of other people. Such is the doctrine of rights as formulated by Herbert Spencer. âEvery man,â he says, âis free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal liberty of any other man.â And again, âWhoever admits that each man must have a certain restricted freedom, asserts that it is _right_ he should have this restricted freedom.... And hence the several particular freedoms deducible may fitly be called, as they commonly are called, his _rights_â (âJustice,â pp. 46, 62).[1] 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 ârightsâ is little else than an academic battle over words, which leads to no practical conclusion. I shall assume, therefore, that men are possessed of ârights,â in the sense of Herbert Spencerâs 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.[2] 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 Buddhist and Pythagorean canons, dominated perhaps by the creed of reincarnation, included the maxim ânot to kill or injure any innocent animal.â The humanitarian philosophers of the Roman empire, among whom Seneca, Plutarch, and Porphyry were the most conspicuous, took still higher ground in preaching humanity on the broadest principle of universal benevolence. âSince justice is due to rational beings,â wrote Porphyry, âhow is it possible to evade the admission that we are bound also to act justly towards the races below us?â 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 the rights and wrongs of the lower races. Then, with the Reformation and the revival of learning, came a revival also of humanitarian feeling, as may be seen in many passages of Erasmus and More, Shakespeare and Bacon; but it was not until the eighteenth century, the age of enlightenment and âsensibility,â of which Voltaire and Rousseau were the spokesmen, that the rights of animals obtained more deliberate recognition. From the great Revolution of 1789 dates the period when the world-wide spirit of humanitarianism, which had hitherto been felt by but one man in a million--the thesis of the philosopher 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 produced in England at this time by the publication of such revolutionary works as Thomas Paineâs âRights of Manâ and Mary Wollstonecraftâs âVindication of the Rights of Womanâ; 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 inevitable. In fact, such a claim was anticipated--if only in bitter jest--by a contemporary writer, who furnishes us with a notable instance of how the mockery of one generation may become the reality of the next. There was published anonymously in 1792 a little volume entitled âA Vindication of the Rights of Brutes,â[3] a _reductio ad absurdum_ of Mary Wollstonecraftâs essay, written, as the author informs us, âto evince by demonstrative arguments the perfect equality of what is called the irrational species to the human.â The further opinion is expressed that âafter those wonderful productions of Mr. Paine and Mrs. Wollstonecraft, such a theory as the present seems to be necessary.â It _was_ 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 humanitarianism. To Jeremy Bentham, in particular, belongs the high honour of first asserting the rights of animals with authority and persistence. âThe legislator,â he wrote, âought 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 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 absence 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 protection 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.â[4] So, too, wrote one of Benthamâs contemporaries: âThe 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 recognized the _jus animalium_, which ought surely to form a part of the jurisprudence of every system founded on the principles of justice and humanity.â[5] A 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 established both in private usage and by legal enactment. It is interesting to note the exact commencement of this new principle in law. When Lord Erskine, speaking in the House of Lords in 1811, 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 âMartinâs Act,â in July, 1822, is a memorable date in the history of humane legislation, less on account of the positive protection afforded by it, for it applied only to cattle and âbeasts of burden,â than for the invaluable precedent which it created. From 1822 onward, the principle of that _jus animalium_ for which Bentham had pleaded, was recognized, 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 maintain that ârightsâ 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?[6] 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 manâs moral relation towards the lower animals. Hitherto even the leading advocates of animalsâ rights seem to have shrunk from basing their claim on the only argument which can ultimately be held to be a 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 ârestricted freedomâ to which Herbert Spencer alludes. It is of little use to claim ârightsâ for animals in a vague general way, if with the same breath we explicitly show our determination to subordinate those rights to anything and everything that can be construed into a human âwantâ; 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[7] that âthe 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 pleasures of sentient creatures must be reduced, in their case, to the abstinence from unnecessary destruction of life.â Now, with respect to this statement, I must say that the notion of the life of an animal having âno moral purposeâ belongs to a class of ideas which cannot possibly be accepted by the advanced humanitarian thought of the present day--it is a purely arbitrary assumption, at variance with our best science, and absolutely fatal (if the subject be clearly thought out) to any full realization of animalsâ rights. If we are ever going to do justice to the lower races, we must get rid of the antiquated notion of a âgreat gulfâ fixed between them and mankind, and must recognize the common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood. As far as any excuses can be alleged, in explanation of the insensibility or inhumanity of the western nations in their treatment of animals, these excuses may be mostly traced back to one or the other of two theories, wholly different in origin, yet alike in this--that both postulate an absolute difference of nature between men and the lower kinds. The first is the so-called âreligiousâ notion, which awards immortality to man, but to man alone, thereby furnishing (especially in Catholic countries) a quibbling justification for acts of cruelty to animals, on the plea that they âhave no souls.â âIt should seem,â says Mrs. Jameson,[8] âas if the primitive Christians, by laying so much stress upon a future life, in contradistinction to _this_ life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of hope, placed them at the same time out of the pale of sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of animals in the light of our fellow-creatures.â I am aware that a quite contrary argument has, in a few isolated instances, been founded on the belief that animals have âno souls.â âCruelty to a brute,â says an old writer,[9] âis an injury irreparable,â because there is no future life to be a compensation for present afflictions; and there is an amusing story, told by Mr. Lecky in his âHistory of European Morals,â of a certain humanely-minded Cardinal, who used to allow vermin to bite him without hindrance, on the ground that âwe shall have heaven to reward us for our sufferings, but these poor creatures have nothing but the enjoyment of this present life.â But this is a rare view of the question which need not, I think, be taken into very serious account; for, on the whole, the denial of immortality to animals (unless, of course, it be also denied to men) tends strongly to lessen their chance of being justly and considerately treated. Among the many humane movements of the present age, none is more significant than the growing inclination, noticeable both in scientific circles and in religious, to believe that mankind and the lower animals have the same destiny before them.[10] The second and not less fruitful source of modern inhumanity is to be found in the âCartesianâ doctrine--the theory of Descartes and his followers--that the lower animals are devoid of consciousness and feeling; a theory which carried the âreligiousâ notion a step further, and deprived the animals not only of their claim to a life hereafter, but of anything that could, without mockery, be called a life in the present, since mere âanimated machines,â as they were thus affirmed to be, could in no real sense be said to _live_ at all! Well might Voltaire turn his humane ridicule against this most monstrous contention, and suggest, with scathing irony, that God âhad given the animals the organs of feeling, to the end that they might _not_ feel!â âThe theory of animal automatism,â says Professor Romanes, âwhich is usually attributed to Descartes, can never be accepted by common sense.â Yet it is to be feared that it has done much, in its time, to harden âscientificâ sense against the just complaints of the victims of human arrogance and oppression.[11] Let me here quote a most impressive passage from Schopenhauer. âThe unpardonable forgetfulness in which the lower animals have hitherto been left by the moralists of Europe is well known. It is pretended that the beasts have no rights. They persuade themselves that our conduct in regard to them has nothing to do with morals, or (to speak the language of their morality) that we have no duties towards animals: a doctrine revolting, gross, and barbarous, peculiar to the west, and having its root in Judaism. In philosophy, however, it is made to rest upon a hypothesis, admitted in despite of evidence itself, of an absolute difference between man and beast. It is Descartes who has proclaimed it in the clearest and most decisive manner; and in fact it was a necessary consequence of his errors. The Cartesian-Leibnitzian-Wolfian philosophy, with the assistance of entirely abstract notions, had built up the ârational psychology,â and constructed an immortal _anima rationalis_: but, visibly, the world of beasts, with its very natural claims, stood up against this exclusive monopoly--this _brevet_ of immortality decreed to man alone--and silently Nature did what she always does in such cases--she protested. Our philosophers, feeling their scientific conscience quite disturbed, were forced to attempt to consolidate their ârational psychologyâ by the aid of empiricism. They therefore set themselves to work to hollow out between man and beast an enormous abyss, of an immeasurable width; by this they wish to prove to us, in contempt of evidence, an impassable difference.â[12] The fallacious idea that the lives of animals have no moral purpose is at root connected with these religious and philosophical pretensions which Schopenhauer so powerfully condemns. To live oneâs own life--to realize oneâs true self--is the highest moral purpose of man and animal alike; and that animals possess their due measure of this sense of individuality is scarcely open to doubt. âWe have seen,â says Darwin, âthat the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.â[13] Not less emphatic is the testimony of the Rev. J. G. Wood, who, speaking from a great experience, gives it as his opinion that âthe manner in which we ignore individuality in the lower animals is simply astounding.â He claims for them a future life, because he is âquite sure that most of the cruelties which are perpetrated on the animals are due to the habit of considering them as mere machines without susceptibilities, without reason, and without the capacity of a future.â[14] The long-maintained distinction between human âreasonâ and animal âinstinctâ is being given up by recent scientific writers, as, for example, by Dr. Wesley Mills in his work on âThe Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence,â and by Mr. E. P. Evans in âEvolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology.â âThe trend of investigation,â says Dr. Mills, âthus far goes to show that at least the germ of every human faculty does exist in some species of animal.... Formerly the line was drawn at reason. It was said that the âbrutesâ cannot reason. Only persons who do not themselves reason about the subject with the facts before them can any longer occupy such a position. The evidence of reasoning power is overwhelming for the upper ranks of animals, and yearly the downward limits are being extended the more the inferior tribes are studied.â We have to get rid, as Mr. Evans points out, of those âanthropocentricâ delusions which âtreat man as a being essentially different and inseparably set apart from all other sentient creatures, to which he is bound by no ties of mental affinity or moral obligation.â âMan is as truly a part and product of Nature as any other animal, and this attempt to set him up as an isolated point outside of it is philosophically false and morally pernicious.â This, then, is the position of those who assert that animals, like men, are possessed of certain limited rights, which cannot be withheld from them, as they are now withheld, without tyranny and injustice. They have individuality, character, reason; and to have those qualities is to have the right to exercise them, in so far as surrounding circumstances permit. No human being is justified in regarding an animal as a meaningless automaton, to be worked, or tortured, or eaten, as the case may be, for the mere object of satisfying the wants or whims of mankind. Together with the destinies and duties that are laid on them and fulfilled by them, animals have also the right to be treated with gentleness and consideration, and the man who does not so treat them, however great his learning or influence may be, is, in that respect, an ignorant and foolish man, devoid of the highest and noblest culture of which the human mind is capable. Something must here be said on the important subject of nomenclature. It is to be feared that the ill-treatment of animals is largely caused--or at any rate the difficulty of amending that treatment is largely aggravated--by the common use of such terms as âbrute-beast,â âlive-stock,â etc., which implicitly deny to the lower races that intelligent individuality which is undoubtedly possessed by them. It was long ago remarked by Bentham, in his âIntroduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation,â that, whereas human beings are styled _persons_, âother animals, on account of their interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient jurists, stand degraded into the class of _things_â; and Schopenhauer also has commented on the mischievous absurdity of the idiom which applies the neuter pronoun âitâ to such highly-organized animals as the dog and the ape. A word of protest is needed also against such an expression as âdumb animals,â which, though often cited as âan immense exhortation to pity,â[15] has in reality a tendency to influence ordinary people in quite the contrary direction, inasmuch as it fosters the idea of an impassable barrier between mankind and their dependents. It is convenient to us men to be deaf to the entreaties of the victims of our injustice; and, by a sort of grim irony, we therefore assume that it is _they_ who are afflicted by some organic incapacity--they are âdumb animals,â forsooth! although a momentâs consideration must prove that they have innumerable ways, often quite human in variety and suggestiveness, of uttering their thoughts and emotions. Even the term âanimals,â as applied to the lower races, is incorrect, and not wholly unobjectionable, since it ignores the fact that _man_ is an animal no less than they. My only excuse for using it in this volume is that there is no better brief term available. So anomalous is the attitude of man towards the lower animals, that it is no marvel if many humane thinkers have wellnigh despaired over this question. âThe whole subject of the brute creation,â wrote Dr. Arnold, âis to me one of such painful mystery, that I dare not approach itâ; and this (to put the most charitable interpretation on their silence) appears to be the position of the majority of moralists and teachers at the present time. Yet there is urgent need of some solution of the problem; and in no other way can this be found than by the admission of the lower races within the pale of human sympathy. All the promptings of our best and surest instincts point us in this direction. âIt is abundantly evident,â says Lecky, âboth from history and from present experience, that the instinctive shock, or natural feelings of disgust, caused by the sight of the sufferings of men, is not generically different from that which is caused by the sight of the suffering of animals.â If this be so, can it be seriously contended that the same humanitarian tendency which has already emancipated the slave, will not ultimately benefit the lower races also? Here, again, the historian of âEuropean Moralsâ has a significant remark: âAt one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity; and finally its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world. In each of these cases a standard is formed, different from that of the preceding stage, but in each case the same tendency is recognized as virtue.â But, it may be argued, vague sympathy with the lower animals is one thing, and a definite recognition of their ârightsâ is another; what reason is there to suppose that we shall advance from the former phase to the latter? Just this; that every great liberating movement has proceeded exactly on such lines. Oppression and cruelty are invariably founded on a lack of imaginative sympathy; the tyrant or tormentor can have no true sense of kinship with the victim of his injustice. When once the sense of affinity is awakened, the knell of tyranny is sounded, and the ultimate concession of ârightsâ is simply a matter of time. The present condition of the more highly-organized domestic animals is in many ways very analogous to that of the negro slaves of a hundred years ago: look back, and you will find in their case precisely the same exclusion from the common pale of humanity; the same hypocritical fallacies, to justify that exclusion; and, as a consequence, the same deliberate stubborn denial of their social ârights.â Look back--for it is well to do so--and then look forward, and the moral can hardly be mistaken. We find so great a thinker as Aristotle seriously pondering, in his âEthics,â whether a slave may be considered as a fellow-being. In emphasizing the point that friendship is founded on propinquity, he expresses himself as follows: âNeither 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 lifeless slave. Yet, considered as a man, a slave may be an object of friendship, for certain rights seem to belong to all those capable of participating in law and engagement.â Slaves, says Bentham, âhave 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.â 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 brutality and mistrust; we cannot, in all cases, suddenly relax these habits, or do full justice even where we see that justice will have to be done. A perfect ethic of 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 animalsâ 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 encouragement of humanitarian workers, that these obstacles 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 impossible; indeed, when the opponents of a great cause begin to demonstrate its âimpossibility,â 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 beginning. The persons who offer this futile sort 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 request 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 sufficient general knowledge of his course and destination. Our main principle is now clear. If ârightsâ exist at all--and both feeling and usage indubitably 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. âPain is pain,â says Humphry Primatt, âwhether 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 possibly be answered by it, but merely to exhibit power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and Injustice in him that occasions it.â I commend this outspoken utterance to the attention of those ingenious moralists who quibble about the âdisciplineâ of suffering, and deprecate immediate attempts to redress what, it is alleged, may be a necessary instrument for the attainment of human welfare. It is perhaps a mere coincidence, but it may be observed that those who are most forward 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-beings. But ânature is one with rapine,â say some, and this utopian theory of ârights,â 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 learned economists and men of science, who set themselves to play the defenders of the social _status quo_, have seen their own weapons of ânatural selection,â âsurvival of the fittest,â and what not, snatched from their hands and turned against them, and are therefore beginning to explain to us, in a scientific manner, what we untutored humanitarians had previously 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 animalsâ rights--indeed, we see already unmistakable signs of a similar reversal of the scientific judgment.[16] The charge of âsentimentalismâ is frequently brought against those who plead for animalsâ rights. Now âsentimentalism,â 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 âphilanthropistsâ on the one hand, and âfriends of animalsâ on the other, and most of all among those acute âmen of the world,â 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 âmercyâ) 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; for it is only by a wide and disinterested study of _both_ subjects that a solution of either is possible. âFor he who loves all animated nature,â says Porphyry, âwill 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 towards a part of them, and that part to which he is most allied.â To omit all worthier reasons, it is too late in the day to suggest the indefinite postponement of a consideration of animalsâ rights, for from a moral point of view, and even from a legislative point of view, we are daily confronted with the problem, and the so-called âpracticalâ people who affect to ignore it are simply shutting their eyes to facts which they find it disagreeable to confront. Once more then, animals have rights, and these rights consist in the ârestricted freedomâ 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 community. 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 we must kill, whether it be man or animal, let us kill and have done with it; if we must inflict 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 _is_ necessary; let us not wantonly trade on the needless miseries of other beings, and then attempt to lull our consciences by a series of shuffling excuses which cannot endure a momentâs candid investigation. As Leigh Hunt well says: âThat there is pain and evil, is no rule That I should make it greater, like a fool.â Thus far the general principle of animalsâ 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 possibility of its better observance in the future. CHAPTER II. THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. The main principle of animalsâ rights, if admitted 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 extent and importance. It is convenient, however, to consider the subject of the domestic animals apart from that of the wild ones, inasmuch 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 dealings with vast races of beings, the very conditions of whose existence have been modified by human civilization. An incalculable mass of drudgery, at the cost of incalculable suffering, is daily, hourly 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 community 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 animalsâ labour, without recognizing that they owe them some consideration in return? The question is one that carries with it its own answer.[17] But the human mind is subtle to evade the full significance of its duties, and nowhere is this more conspicuously seen than in our treatment 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 certainty) 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 âbetter for the animals themselves.â The wish is father to the thought in 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 âlay down the terms of the social contract between animals and himself,â because, forsooth, âthe general life of a domestic animal is one of very great comfort--according to the animalâs own standard (_sic_) probably one of almost perfect happiness.â[18] Now this prating about âthe animalâs own standardâ 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 opportune 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 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.[19] An abstract question of this sort, however interesting 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 dispense 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, 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 âdomestic,â and those _ferÃ¦ naturÃ¦_, of wild nature. In the Act of 1849, in which a penalty was imposed for cruelty to âany animal,â it was expressly provided that âThe word _animal_ shall be taken to mean any horse, mare, gelding, bull, ox, cow, heifer, steer, calf, mule, ass, sheep, lamb, hog, pig, sow, goat, dog, cat, or any other domestic animal.â But as time went on, and public opinion was more sensitive, the interpretation of this vague reference to âany other domestic animalâ became a point of considerable importance, since it closely affected the welfare of certain captive animals which, though regarded as wild, and therefore outside the pale of protection, were to all intents and purposes in a state of domestication. The Act of 1849 was accordingly amended by the Wild Animals in Captivity Act of 1900, which made it an offence to maltreat a wild animal while actually in a state of captivity. (_See also_ the Act of 1911, _infra_ p. 34.) âFood, rest, and tender usage,â were declared by Humphry Primatt, the old author already quoted, to be the three rights of the domestic animals. Lawrenceâs opinion was to much the same effect. âMan is indispensably bound 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.â 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 immunity from ill-usage. âWe owe justice to men,â wrote Montaigne, âand grace and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it; there is a natural commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us.â Sir Arthur Helps admirably expressed this sentiment in his well-known reference to the duty of âusing courtesy to animals.â[20] 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 âbeasts of burden,â the horse, the ass, and the mule, is from beginning to end a rude negation of their individuality and intelligence; they are habitually addressed and treated as stupid instruments of manâs 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 manâs ânot educating the horse, not trying to develop his nature, but merely getting work out of himâ; 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 for these facts, as showing that the current of English 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 âcivilization.â Watch the cab traffic in one of the crowded thoroughfares 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 with a large degree of sensibility and intelligence, must one not feel that the fate to which they are thus mercilessly subjected 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 manâs service! âA good man,â said Plutarch, âwill 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 living beings like shoes and household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away.â 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 âthrow awayâ their superannuated 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 catâs-meat man. The use of machinery is often condemned, on Ã¦sthetic 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 such forces are 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.[21] Herein Thoreau is a wiser teacher than Ruskin. âIf all were as it seems,â he says, âand men made the elements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over the farmerâs fields, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort.â 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 âbrute-beasts.â 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 âlive-stockâ; while pigs, poultry, rabbits, and other marketable âfarm-produce,â meet with even less consideration, and are constantly treated with 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. The question of the castration of animals may here be briefly referred to.[22] That nothing but imperative necessity could justify such a practice must, I think, be admitted; for 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 precise amount of truth I cannot pretend to determine--that man would not otherwise be able to maintain his dominion over the domestic 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 ânecessaryâ 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 increase their size and improve their flavour for the table, is, even at the present time, utterly needless and unjustifiable. âThe bull,â as Shelley says, âmust be degraded into the ox, and the ram into the wether, by an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the flaccid fibre may offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature.â In all its aspects, this is a disagreeable 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;[23] 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 experimental 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 Quincey was in the main correct, when he remarked that âthe groans and screams of this poor persecuted race, if gathered into some great echoing hall of horrors, would melt the heart of the stoniest.â The institution of âHomesâ
{'title': "Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress by Henry S. Salt", 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}