eprobated by the
ancients; but not until well on in the present century do we find any
indication that reason had come to the help of pity in an effort to
frame rules having the weight of law and the support of sanctions,
either those of public opinion or the more direct penalties of the
courts, to limit the conduct of men towards the lower animals. The great
tide of mercy and justice which marks our modern civilization had first
to break down the grievous and strongly founded evils of human slavery.
Having effected that great work, the sympathetic motives are moving on
to a similar conflict with the moral ills which arise from an improper
treatment of those slaves of a lower estate, the domesticated animals.

It is impossible to see our position in relation to the matter of the
rights of animals without looking somewhat carefully into the
intellectual and moral steps which have at length brought us to the
consideration of the question. First let us note that while the rights
of their fellows have been impressed on men by the precepts of
religions, particularly by those of Christianity, the rules of conduct
which guide us in our contacts with beings below the level of our
species have never been determined by the canons of our faith, for the
reason that they are the product of very modern conditions; they are the
thought of our own time. New as are these tenets, however, they may
fairly be received as but the last though not the final expression of
that most interesting of all natural series--the succession in the
development of sympathy which, step by step in the progress of organic
life, has led from the original dull insensitiveness of the lower
animals upwards to the outgoing spirit of man.

In the lower stages of animal life we find no traces of appreciation of
the neighbor except those which necessarily relate to the selection and
capture of food and perhaps to the selection of mates. Further on in the
process of development we note the love of offspring, and, as a
consequence of that love, the growth of the family sense, which rarely
is maintained beyond the time when the young can shift for themselves.
Among the species of the higher groups--certain insects, the greater
part of the birds, and the nobler of the mammals--the instinct of the
family is extended until it includes the tribe, or perhaps goes yet
further and leads to a certain kindliness to all the individuals of the
race. Thus it comes about that the