Saint Francis

The first ethical writers ofpagan antiquity to advocate the duty of kindness towards the brute creation werePythagoras and Empedocles. Holding thedoctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration ofhuman souls into the bodies of lower animals after death, these philosophers taught that animals share in humanrights, and that it is a crime to kill them. These ideas, together with an appreciation of the services rendered by domesticanimals to man, found some expression in early Roman legislation. The error of ascribing human rights toanimals is condemned by Cicero (De Finibus, Book III, xx).

Old Testament

The Old Testamentinculcates kindness towardsanimals. The Jews were forbidden to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn (Deuteronomy 25:4) or toyolk together an ox and anass (Deuteronomy 22:10). Some other texts which are frequently quoted as instances are not so much to recommend kind treatment of animals as to insist uponduties of neighbourly goodwill. The prohibition against seething the kid in its mother's milk, a process in which there is no cruelty at all, and the one against taking a mother-bird with her young, seem to have areligious rather than a humanitarian significance.

New Testament

The New Testament is almost silent on this subject. Even when St. Paul cites theMosaic prohibition against muzzling the ox, he brushes aside the literal in favour of asymbolic signification (1 Corinthians 9:9 sq.). TheFathers of the Church insist but little on this point of duty. Nevertheless, Christianteaching and practice from the beginning respect in a general way the Scripturalideal of righteousness which is expressed in the words: "The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel" (Proverbs 12:10). Thehagiological literature ofmonastic life in the Middle Ages, which so largely formed and guided the moralsentiment of the Christian world, as Lecky sets forth with ample evidence, "represents one of the most striking efforts made inChristendom to inculcate a feeling of kindness and pity towards the brute creation" (History of European Moralsfrom Augustus to Charlemagne, II, 161 sqq.). This considerate feeling was a characteristic of many holypersonages, even before St. Francis of Assisi and some of his followers carried it to a degree that seems almost incredible.

The Scholastics

The scholastic theologianscondemn the infliction of needless suffering onanimals, chiefly because of the injurious effects on thecharacter of the perpetrator. Thus St. Thomas, in hisSumma Contra Gentiles (Book II, 112), after refuting theerror that it is not lawful to take the lives of brutes, explains the import of the above-mentioned texts ofScripture. He says that these prohibitions are issued either

lest anyone by exercising cruelty towards brutes may become cruel also towards men; or, because an injury to brutes may result in loss to the owner, or on account of somesymbolic signification.

Elsewhere (Summa Theologica I-II:102:6 ad 8um) he states that God's purpose in recommending kind treatment of the brutecreation is to dispose men to pity and tenderness for one another. While thescholastics rest their condemnation of cruelty to animals on its demoralizing influence, their general teaching concerning thenature of man's rights andduties furnishes principles which have but to be applied in order to establish the direct and essentialsinfulness of cruelty to the animal world, irrespective of the results of such conduct on the character of those who practise it.

Catholic doctrine

Catholic ethics has beencriticized by some zoophilists because it refuses to admit thatanimals have rights. But it is indisputable that, when properly understood and fairly judged, Catholic doctrine — though it does not concede rights to the brute creation — denouncescruelty to animals as vigorously and as logicallyas do those moralists who make our duty in this respect the correlative of a right in the animals.

In order to establish a binding obligation to avoid the wanton infliction of pain on the brutes, it is notnecessary to acknowledge any right inherent in them. Our duty in this respect is part of our duty towardsGod. From the juristic standpoint the visible world with which man comes in contact is divided intopersons and non-persons. For the latter term the word "things" is usually employed. Only a person, that is, a being possessed of reasonand self-control, can be the subject of rights and duties; or, to express the same ideain terms more familiar to adherents of other schoolsof thought, only beings who are ends in themselves, and may not be treated as mere means to the perfection of other beings, can possessrights. Rights and duties aremoral ties which can existonly in a moral being, orperson. Beings that may be treated simply as means to the perfection of personscan have no rights, and to this category the brutecreation belongs. In the Divine plan of the universethe lower creatures are subordinated to the welfare of man.

But while these animals are, in contradistinction topersons, classed as things, it is none the less true that between them and the non-sentient world there exists a profound difference ofnature which we are bound to consider in our treatment of them. The very essence of the moral law is that we respect and obey the order established by the Creator. Now, the animal is a nobler manifestation of His power and goodness than the lowerforms of material existence. In imparting to the brutecreation a sentient naturecapable of suffering — anature which the animal shares in common with ourselves — God placed on our dominion over them a restriction which does notexist with regard to our dominion over the non-sentient world. We are bound to act towards them in a manner conformable to theirnature. We may lawfully use them for our reasonable wants and welfare, even though such employment of them necessarily inflicts pain upon them. But the wanton infliction of pain is not the satisfaction of any reasonable need, and, being an outrage against the Divinely established order, is therefore sinful. This principle, by which, at least in the abstract, we may solve the problem of the lawfulness of vivisection and other cognate questions, is tersely put by Zigliara:

The service of man is the end appointed by theCreator for brute animals. When, therefore, man, with no reasonable purpose, treats the brute cruelly he does wrong, not because he violates the right of the brute, but because his actionconflicts with the order and the design of theCreator (Philosophia Moralis, 9th ed., Rome, p. 136).

With more feeling, but with no less exactness, the lateCardinal Manning expressed the same doctrine:

It is perfectly true thatobligations and dutiesare between moralpersons, and therefore the lower animals are not susceptible of the moralobligations which we owe to one another; but we owe a seven-foldobligation to the Creatorof those animals. Ourobligation and moral dutyis to Him who made them and if we wish to knowthe limit and the broad outline of our obligation, I say at once it is His nature and His perfections, and among these perfections one is, most profoundly, that ofEternal Mercy. And therefore, although apoor mule or a poorhorse is not, indeed, amoral person, yet theLord and Maker of the mule is the highestLawgiver, and His natureis a law unto Himself. And in giving a dominion over His creatures toman, He gave it subject to the condition that it should be used in conformity to Hisperfections which is His own law, and therefore our law (The Zoophilist, London, 1 April, 1887).

While Catholic ethicaldoctrine insists upon the merciful treatment ofanimals, it does not place kindness towards them on the same plane of duty as benevolence towards our fellow-men. Nor does it approve of unduly magnifying, to the neglect of higher duties, our obligationsconcerning animals.Excessive fondness for them is no sure index of moralworth; it may be carried to un-Christian excess; and it can coexist with grave laxity in far more important matters. There are many imitators of Schopenhauer, who loved his dog and hatedhis kind.