of Peter's draught of fishes, which the Saviour blesses so signally
that the boats are overladen, and begin to sink (_Luke_ v. 1-10),
forms a characteristic contrast to what is related of Pythagoras. It
is said that the latter, initiated as he was in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians, bought the draught from the fishermen, while the net was
still under water, in order to at once set at liberty the captive
denizens of the sea. (Apuleius: _De Magia_, p. 36: edit. Bipont.)[10]
Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of
character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel
to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion
manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of
justice and loving-kindness towards men. Thus, for instance, people
of delicate sensitiveness, on realising that in a fit of ill-humour,
or anger, or under the influence of wine, they punished their dog,
their horse, their ape undeservedly, or unnecessarily, or excessively,
are seized with the same remorse, feel the same dissatisfaction with
themselves, as when they are conscious of having done some wrong to
one of their fellows. The only difference--a purely nominal one--is
that in the latter case this remorse, this dissatisfaction is called
the voice of conscience rising in rebuke. I remember having read of
an Englishman, who, when hunting in India, had killed a monkey, that
he could not forget the dying look which the creature cast on him; so
that he never fired at these animals again. Another sportsman, William
Harris by name, a true Nimrod, has much the same story to tell. During
the years 1836-7 he travelled far into the heart of Africa, merely to
indulge his passion for the chase. A passage in his book, published at
Bombay in 1838, describes how he shot his first elephant, a female.
Next morning on going to look for his game, he found that all the
elephants had fled from the neighbourhood, except a young one which had
spent the night beside its dead mother. Seeing the huntsmen, it forgot
all fear, and came to meet them, with the clearest and most lively
signs of disconsolate grief, and put its tiny trunk about them, as if
to beg for help. "Then," says Harris, "I was filled with real remorse
for what I had done, and felt as if I had committed a murder."