Animal welfare; Hunting -- Moral and ethical aspects; Hunting -- Religious aspects
I am driven to the conclusion that my sense of kinship with animals
is greater than most people feel. It amuses me to talk to animals in
a sort of jargon I have invented for them; and it seems to me that it
amuses them to be talked to, and that they respond to the tone of the
conversation, though its intellectual content may to some extent escape
them. I am quite sure, having made the experiment several times on
dogs left in my care as part of the furniture of hired houses, that an
animal who has been treated as a brute, and is consequently undeveloped
socially (as human beings remain socially undeveloped under the same
circumstances) will, on being talked to as a fellow-creature, become
friendly and companionable in a very short time. This process has been
described by some reproachful dog owners as spoiling the dog, and
sincerely deplored by them, because I am glad to say it is easier to
do than to undo except by brutalities of which few people are capable.
But I find it impossible to associate with animals on any other terms.
Further, it gives me extraordinary gratification to find a wild bird
treating me with confidence, as robins sometimes do. It pleases me to
conciliate an animal who is hostile to me. What is more, an animal who
will not be conciliated offends me. There is at the Zoo a morose maned
lion who will tear you to pieces if he gets half a chance. There is
also a very handsome maneless lion with whom you may play more safely
than with most St. Bernard dogs, as he seems to need nothing but plenty
of attention and admiration to put him into the best of humors. I
do not feel towards these two lions as a carpenter does towards two
pieces of wood, one hard and knotty, and the other easy to work; nor
as I do towards two motor bicycles, one troublesome and dangerous, and
the other in perfect order. I feel towards the two lions as I should
towards two men similarly diverse. I like one and dislike the other.
If they got loose and were shot, I should be distressed in the one
case whilst in the other I should say “Serve the brute right!” This
is clearly fellow-feeling. And it seems to me that the plea of the
humanitarian is a plea for widening the range of fellow-feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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