Unhappily the more direct inheritors of neoplatonist dreams were not left alone. A trend of tendency towards Pythagoreanism runs through their different developments from Philo to the Gnostics, from the Gnostics, through the Paulicians to the Albigenses. It passes out of our sight when these were suppressed in the thirteenth century by the most sanguinary persecution that the world has seen, but before long it was to reappear in one shape or another, and we may be sure that the thread was never wholly lost. [Illustration: “IL BUON PASTORE.” (_Mosaic at Ravenna._)] An effort has been made to prove that the official as well as the unofficial Church always favoured humanity to animals. The result of this effort has been wholly good; not only has it produced a delightful volume,[10] but, indirectly, it was the cause of Pope Pius X. pronouncing a blessing on every one who is working for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the world. _Roma locuta est._ To me this appears to be a landmark in ethics of first-class importance. Nevertheless, historically speaking, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the diametrically opposite view expressed by Father Rickaby in a manual intended for use in the Jesuit College at Stonyhurst,[11] more correctly gives the measure of what had been the practical teaching of the Church in all these ages. Even now, authoritative Catholics, when enjoining humanity to animals, are careful to add that man has “no duties” towards them, though they may modify this by saying with Cardinal Manning (the most kind-hearted of men) that he owes “a sevenfold obligation” to their Creator to treat them well. Was it surprising that the Neapolitan peasant who heard from his priest that he had no duties to his ass went home, not to excogitate the sevenfold obligation but to belabour the poor beast soundly? Though the distinction is capable of philosophical defence, granted the premises, to plain people it looks like a juggling with words. When St. Philip Neri said to a monk who put his foot on a lizard, “What has the poor creature done to you?” he implied a duty to the animal, the duty of reciprocity. He spoke with the voice of Nature and forgot, for the moment, that animals were not “moral persons” nor “endowed with reason,” and that hence they could have “no rights.” Footnote 10: “L’Église et la Pitié envers les animaux,” Paris, 1903. An English edition has been published by Messrs. Burns and Oates. Footnote 11: “Moral Philosophy,” p. 250.