It is laid down as a legal maxim by mediæval jurisprudents that no animal devoid of understanding can commit a fault (_nec enim potest animal injuriam fecisse quod sensu caret_). This doctrine is endorsed by the great theologian and scholastic Thomas of Aquino. If we regard the lower animals, he says, as creatures coming from the hand of God and employed by him as agents for the execution of his judgments, then to curse them would be blasphemous; if, on the other hand, we curse them _secundem se_, i.e. merely as brute beasts, then the malediction is odious and vain and therefore unlawful (_est odiosum et vanum et per consequens illicitum_). There is, however, another ground, on which the right of excommunication or anathematization may be asserted and fully vindicated, namely, that the lower animals are satellites of Satan “instigated by the powers of hell and therefore proper to be cursed,” as the Doctor angelicus puts it. Chassenée refers to this opinion in the treatise already cited (I. § 75), and adds “the anathema then is not to be pronounced against the animals as such, but should be hurled inferentially (_per modum conclusionis_) at the devil, who makes use of irrational creatures to our detriment.” This notion seems to have been generally accepted in the Middle Ages, and the fact that evil spirits are often mentioned in the Bible metaphorically or symbolically as animals and assumed to be incarnate in the adder, the asp, the basilisk, the dragon, the lion, the leviathan, the serpent, the scorpion, etc., was considered confirmatory of this view. But not all animals were regarded as diabolical incarnations; on the contrary, many were revered as embodiments and emblems of divine perfections. In a work entitled _Le Liure du Roy Modus et de la Reyne Racio_ (The Book of King Mode and Queen Reason), which, as the colophon records, was “printed at Chambery by Anthony Neyret in the year of grace one thousand four hundred and eighty-six on the thirtieth day of October,” King Mode discourses on falconry and venery in general. Queen Reason brings forward, in reply to these rather conventional commonplaces, “several fine moralities,” and dilates on the natural and mystic qualities of animals, which she divides into two classes, sweet beasts (_bestes doulces_) and stenchy beasts (_bestes puantes_). Foremost among the sweet beasts stands that which Milton characterizes as “Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind.”