The same beneficent motive was next extended towards human slaves. In this matter English people led; and to them it was almost altogether due that this evil has come nearly to an end except among the Mohammedans, who are bound as in chains to their sacred books and cannot win their way to progress through statutes. In a like manner, in the care of the poor, of prisoners for debt, and even of malefactors, our English folk on both sides of the Atlantic have led in the ongoing towards a higher moral estate. The last great excursion of sympathy which has characterized the English Aryans--one dating its beginning to this century--is that relating to the rights of our domesticated animals. This has come about, like the other movements, in a way unconsciously. Prophetic spirits have seen beyond the vision of their fellows; they have given their messages, which have found an echo in the souls of men. The motive originated in the recognition of the essential likeness of the minds of the lower animals to our own. But it has been greatly reenforced by the teachings of the naturalists to the effect that all the life of this sphere is akin in its origin and that our subjects are not very far away from our own ancestral line. It is characteristic of sympathetic movements that, while they are slowly prepared for, their final development is very rapid. Thus it has come about that within one hundred years the conception of the rights of animals has advanced with almost startling rapidity. No other moral gain has been made with such speed or has so rapidly become a part of the property of civilized man. The steps are those which have been taken in all the other great moral advances: at first there were but a few who, in the manner of the skirmishers of armies, set the standards far on in the new ground; gradually the less ardent win their way to them, only to be led the further by their natural guides. As the great advance is still making, it is difficult to see how far it may attain; it is, however, easy to recognize some of the important gains and to foretell the path if not the field of full accomplishment of the conquest. A century ago a man, so far as the law was concerned, owned his living chattels as he did the inanimate things of his property. He could torture or slay them as whim or malice might dictate; there were no limitations by statute, and public opinion, where it might reprobate, was too weak to influence his conduct. Now the statute books of all countries which are moving in the path of moral advance show that public opinion has attained the point where it begins to formulate itself in statutes which restrict the relations of men to their domesticated animals--or, in other words, endow them with definite rights. He may, of course, force them to do him their fit service; he may at his need slay them; but he must exercise his authority without brutality; he must, in form at least, be merciful unto his beasts. With this limitation the