+Kindness is the recognition that a feeling of another being is of just
as much consequence as a feeling of my own.+--Now we have seen that in
some respects animals are precisely like ourselves. Kindness recognizes
this bond of the kind, or kinship, as far as it extends. Kindness to
animals does not go so far as kindness to our fellow-men; because the
kinship between animals and man does not extend as far as kinship
between man and man. So far as it does extend, however, kindness to
animals treats them as we should wish to be treated by a person who had
us in his power. Kindness will inflict no needless suffering upon an
animal; make no unreasonable requirement of it; expose it to no needless
privation.
THE REWARD.
+Kindness toward animals reacts upon our hearts, making them tender and
sympathetic.+--Every act we perform leaves its trace in tendency to act
in the same way again. And in its effect upon ourselves it matters
little whether the objects on which our kindness has been bestowed have
been high or low in the scale of being. In any case the effect remains
with us in increased tenderness, not only toward the particular objects
which have called it forth, but toward all sentient beings. Kindness to
animals opens our hearts toward God and our fellow-men.
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
THE TEMPTATION.
+We are tempted to forget this sensitive nature of the animal, and to
treat it as a mere thing.+--We have a perfect right to sacrifice the
pleasure of an animal to the welfare of ourselves. We have no right to
sacrifice the welfare of the animal to our capricious feelings. We have
no right to neglect an animal from sheer unwillingness to give it the
reasonable attention which is necessary to provide it with proper food,
proper care, proper shelter, and proper exercise. A little girl,
reproved for neglecting to feed her rabbits, when asked indignantly by
her father, "Don't you love your rabbits?" replied, "Yes, I love them
better than I love to feed them." This love which doesn't love to feed
is sentimentality, the fundamental vice of all personal relations, of
which we shall hear more later. The temptation arises even here in our
relations to the animal. It is always so much easier to neglect a claim
made upon us from without, than to realize and respect it.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
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