Does not this give the reason why we do not eat dogs and horses? We, more than other nations, recognize in the horse, as well as in the dog, a life and intelligence akin to our own. We also believe that both animals reciprocate the affection we feel towards them. (Coleridge in Table Talk says: “The dog alone, of all brute animals, has a στοργή or affection upwards to man.”)
When I am playing with my Cat, who knowes whether she have more sport in dallying with me, than I have in gaming with her? We entertaine one another with mutual apish trickes: If I have my houre to begin or to refuse, so hath she hers.
Montaigne (Bk. II, ch. 12).
O what are these Spirits that o’er us creep,
And touch our eyelids and drink our breath?
The first, with a flower in his hand, is Sleep;
The next, with a star on his brow, is Death.