Considering the feelings to which even the cultured mind is susceptible with reference to a mischievous beast, it is not difficult to understand the attitude of the ignorant. The savage, not only momentarily, while in a rage, but permanently and in cold blood, obliterates the boundaries between man and beast. He regards all animals as practically on a footing of equality with man. He believes that they are endowed with feelings and intelligence like men, that they are united into families and tribes like men, that they have various languages like human tribes, that they possess souls which survive the death of the bodies just as is the case with human souls. He tells of animals that have been the ancestors of men, of men that have become animals, of marriages that take place between men and beasts. He also believes that he who slays an animal will be exposed to the vengeance either of its disembodied spirit, or of all the other animals of the same species which, quite after human fashion, are bound to resent the injury done to one of their number.[51] Is it not natural, then, that the savage should give like for like? If it is the duty of animals to take vengeance upon men, is it not equally the duty of men to take vengeance upon animals?
[51] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 467 sqq. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 389 sqq. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 17. Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 373 sqq. Idem, ‘Animal Worship,’ in Open Court, xi. 705 sq. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. 180 (Negroes). von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 351. Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 350 sqq. Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, pp. 223, 253. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 331 (Tarahumares). Mooney, ‘Myths of the Cherokee,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. pp. 250, 261 sq. Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ ibid. xviii. 423. Hose and McDougall, ‘Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 173 sqq., especially p. 205 sq.
Nor are these beliefs restricted to savages. Muhammedans maintain, not only that animals will share with men the general resurrection, but that they will be judged according to their works. Their tradition says that God “will raise up animals at the last day to receive reward and to show His perfection and His justice. Then the hornless goat will be revenged on the horned one.”[52] We can hardly wonder that the Zoroastrian law inflicted punishments on dogs which hurt men or animals, when we read in the Vendîdâd that a dog has the characters of eight sorts of people.[53] The fable and the Märchen for a long time related in good earnest their stories of animals that behaved exactly like men.[54] Even to this day, in certain districts of Europe, as soon as a peasant is dead, it is customary for his heir to announce the change of ownership to every beast in the stall, and to the bees also;[55] and in some parts of Poland, when the corpse of the rustic proprietor is being carried out, all his cattle are let loose, that they may take leave of their old master.[56] In the Middle Ages animals were sometimes accepted as witnesses; a man who was accused of having committed a murder in his house appeared before the tribunal with his cat, his dog, and his cock, swore in their presence that he was innocent, and was acquitted.[57] It was not only the common people that ascribed intelligence to beasts. According to Porphyry, all the philosophers who have endeavoured to discover the truth concerning animals have acknowledged that they to a certain extent participate of reason;[58] and the same idea is expressed by Christian writers of a much later date. In the sixteenth century, Benoît wrote that animals often speak.[59] In the middle of the following century, Hieronymus Rorarius published a book entitled ‘Quod animalia bruta ratione utantur melius homine.’ And about the same time Johann Crell, in his ‘Ethica Christiana,’ expressed the opinion that animals at all events possess faculties analogous to reason and free-will, that they have something similar to virtues and vices, that they deserve something like rewards and punishments, and are consequently punished by God and man.[60] This, as it seems to me, is the correct explanation of the mediæval practice of punishing animals, even though, in some cases, as M. Ménabréa observes, the obnoxious animal was regarded as an embodiment of some evil spirit and was punished as such.[61] The beast or insect was retaliated upon for the simple reason that it was regarded as a rational being.
[52] Koran, vi. 38. Sell, Faith of Islám, p. 223.
[53] Vendîdâd, xiii. 44 sqq.
[54] See Grimm, Reinhart Fuchs, p. i. sqq.
[55] Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 315. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, p. 428.
[56] Ralston, op. cit. p. 318.
[57] Michelet, Origines du droit français, pp. 76, 279 sq. Chambers, op. cit. i. 129.
[58] Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu animalium, iii. 6.