Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress

by Henry S. Salt

For that the difficulties involved in this animal question are many and serious, no one, I imagine, would dispute, and certainly no attempt has been made in this essay to minimize or deny them. It may suit the purpose of those who would retard all humanitarian progress to represent its advocates as mere dreamers and sentimentalists—men and women who befool themselves 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 sentimental illusions, and yet to hold a very firm belief in the principle of animals’ rights. We do not deny, or attempt to explain away, the existence of evil in nature, 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 grappling with the subject at all.

Nor are the hard unmistakable facts of the situation, when viewed in their entirety, by any means calculated to inspire with confidence the 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—a stronger fact than any that can be produced on the other side—that the instinct of compassion 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 nowhither. 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 partially awakened sensibility, yet opposing an eternal non possumus to any further improvement? Neither of these alternatives is for a moment conceivable; it is perfectly certain 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 inquiries 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 treatises 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, according 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 develop. And it should be observed that to advocate the rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion or justice towards 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 itself. Our true civilization, our race-progress, our humanity (in the best sense of the term) are concerned in this development; it is ourselves, our own vital instincts, that we wrong, when we trample on the rights of the fellow-beings, human or non-human, over whom we chance to hold jurisdiction.

This most important point is constantly overlooked by the opponents of humanitarian reform. They labour, unsuccessfully enough, to minimize the complaints of animals’ wrongs, on the plea that these wrongs, though great, are not so great as they are represented to be, and that in any case it is not possible, or not urgently desirable, for man to alleviate them. As if human interests also were not intimately bound up in every such compassionate endeavour!

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 Democracy”; and what has long been felt by the poet is now being scientifically corroborated by the anthropologist and philosopher. “The standpoint of modern thought,” says Büchner,[44] “no longer recognizes 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, evolutionary science finds itself in agreement with oriental tradition.

“The doctrine of metempsychosis,” says Strauss,[45] “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 civilized 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.”

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 intuitive faculty which is originally implanted in men and animals alike. Only by this return to the common fount of feeling will it be possible for man to place himself in right relationship towards the lower animals, and to break down the fatal barrier of antipathy that he has himself erected.[46] 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.

A not altogether unjustifiable complaint is made 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 sympathies must be recognized and regretted, but it is worse than useless for the one class of reformers to indulge in blame or recrimination against the other. It is certain that they are both working towards the same ultimate end; and if they cannot actually co-operate, they may at least refrain from unnecessarily thwarting and opposing each other.