“We tread them to death, and a troop of them dies Without our regard or concern,” cheerfully remarked Dr. Watts concerning ants; but he might have said the same of our “unconcern” in the case of the cruel destruction of thousands of harmless birds and beasts and the starvation of their young, and of the all but universal recklessness of men in dealing with creatures not representing value in money. It is not, however, to be reckoned as surprising that our forefathers did not dream of such a thing as duty to animals. They learned very slowly that they owed duties to _men_ of other races than their own. Only on the generation which recognized thoroughly for the first time (thanks in great measure to Wilberforce and Clarkson) that the negro was “a man and a brother” did it dawn that, beyond the negro, there were other still humbler claimants for benevolence and justice. Within a few years passed both the emancipation of the West Indian slaves and that first act for prevention of cruelty to animals of which Lord Erskine so truly prophesied that it would prove, “not only an honor to the Parliament of England, but an era in the civilization of the world.” But the noble law of England--which thus forestalled the moralists and set an example which every civilized nation, with one solitary exception, has followed--remains even to this day, after sixty years, still in advance of the systematic teachers of human duty. Even while every year sermons specially inculcating humanity to animals are preached all over the kingdom, nobody (so far as the present writer is aware) has attempted formally to include Duty to the Lower Animals in any complete system of ethics as an organic part of the Whole Duty of Man.[22] Without pretending for a moment to fill up this gap in ethics, I would fain offer to those who are interested in the subject a suggestion which may possibly serve as a scaffolding till the solid edifice be built by stronger hands. We must perchance yet wait to determine what are the right _actions_ of man to brute; but I do not think we need lose much time in deciding what must be the right _sentiment_, the general feeling wherewith it is fit we should regard the lower animals. If we can but clearly define that sentiment, it will indicate roughly the actions which will be consonant therewith.