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 Human Relations: Interpersonal, Job-Oriented Skills

CHAPTER 6
DEVELOPING TEAMWORK SKILLS
The purpose of this chapter is to present information, self-assessment quizzes, and skill-development
exercises that will assist the reader to develop teamwork skills. Being an effective team player is one of
the most important sets of behaviours in the modern workplace.

CHAPTER OUTLINE AND LECTURE NOTES

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

I. FACE-TO-FACE VERSUS VIRTUAL TEAMS

All workplace teams have the common element of people working together cooperatively and members
possessing a mix of skills.

A. Face-to-Face (Traditional) Teams

The best-known work team is a group of workers who take over much of the responsibility for
managing their own work. Face-to-face teams are used in a wide variety of activities. Team members
interact with other frequently rather than doing their work in isolation from each other.

B. Virtual Teams

Some teams conduct most of their work by sending electronic messages to each other rather than
conducting face-to-face meetings. A virtual team is a small group of people who conduct almost all of
their collaborative work by electronic communication, such as email or groupware, rather than face-to-
face meetings.

II. THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Teams, as well as groups in general, should not be regarded uncritically; they have both advantages
and disadvantages.

A. Advantages of Group Work and Team Work

Synergy - A group of knowledgeable people can bring about synergy, whereby the group’s total output
exceeds the sum of each individual's contribution. Groups help gain acceptance and commitment.
Team members often critically evaluate each other’s thinking, thus avoiding major errors. Working in
teams and other groups also enhances job satisfaction and need satisfaction, such as the need for
affiliation.

Work Accomplishments and High Productivity - Under the right circumstances, teams in the
workplace can enhance productivity and profitability.

Acceptance and Commitment – It becomes more difficult to object to a decision because your
contribution was included in the decision.

Avoidance of Major Errors – Team members often evaluate each other’s thinking, so the team is
likely to avoid major errors.

Increased Job Satisfaction – Being a member of a work group makes it possible to satisfy more
Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 2

needs than working alone.

B. Disadvantages of Group Work and Teamwork

Time Wasting - Groups and teams often talk too much and act too little. Teams who have been together
for a length of time may spend their meeting time in personal conversation rather than work tasks.

Pressure toward Conformity - A major problem in groups is pressure toward conformity to group
standards of performance and conduct which could hurt the organization.

Shirking of Individual Responsibility - Social loafing is the shirking of individual responsibility in a

group setting.

Fostering of Conflict - At their worst, groups foster conflict, with people bickering about matters such
as doing a fair share of work. Groups can become xenophobic, thus entering into conflict with other
groups.

Groupthink - A key potential problem is groupthink, a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality

testing, and moral judgment in the interest of group solidarity. Groupthink is extreme consensus.

To overcome potential disadvantages, members must strive to act like a team, and the task should be
well suited to group effort rather than individual effort.

III. TEAM MEMBER ROLES

A major challenge in becoming an effective team member is to choose the right roles to occupy.
Frequently observed positive roles are presented here.

1. Creative problem solver

This very gifted individual can often solve difficult problems, but he or she often becomes too
immersed in the given problem to communicate effectively with other team members.

2. Resource investigator

This enthusiastic worker is a great motivator and good communicator. He or she may become
disinterested once the initial enthusiasm wears off.

3. Coordinator

A natural team leader. Two downsides are that this person might seem manipulative or shirking of
responsibility.

4. Shaper

Thrives under pressure and will use determination and courage to overcome obstacles. He or she may
be easily provoked and ignore the feelings of others.

5. Motivator-evaluator

This worker sees “the big picture,” analyses correctly, and thinks strategically. A downside is that he or

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 3

she may lack motivation or not be able to motivate others.

6. Team worker

Is a good listener, avoids friction and confrontation, and focuses on relationships. May be indecisive in
a crunch situation or a crisis.

7. Implementer

The Implementer is disciplined, reliable, conservative, efficient, and practical. May also be inflexible
and slow to see new opportunities.

8. Completer-finisher

Conscientious, eager to get the job done, and also has a keen eye for details. This person may be a
worrier and reluctant to delegate.

9. Specialist

The specialist is a single-minded self-starter with strong dedication and possessing a specific skill
that is in short supply. On the downside, he or she may be stuck in a niche with little interest in
other knowledge and may dwell on technicalities.

IV. GUIDELINES FOR THE INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF TEAM PLAY

Understanding the skills, actions, and attitudes required can help one become an effective team player.
A convenient method for classifying team activities in pursuit of goals is people-related versus task-
related.

A. Trust Team Members

The cornerstone attitude of an outstanding team player is to trust team members, including the leader.
Working on a team is akin to a small business partnership. Trusting team members also includes
believing that their ideas are technically sound and rational until proven otherwise. Taking risks with
other team members is another manifestation of trust.

B. Display a High Level of Cooperation and Collaboration

Cooperation and collaboration are synonymous with teamwork. Collaboration at a team level refers to
working jointly with others to solve mutual problems. Achieving a cooperative team spirit is often a
question of making the first move.

C. Recognize the Interests and Achievements of Others

A fundamental tactic for establishing oneself as a solid team player is actively to recognize the interests
and achievements of others. Let others know that you care about their interests. Be prepared to
compliment any tangible achievement.

D. Give and Receive Helpful Criticism

The outstanding team player offers constructive criticism when needed but does so diplomatically.
Criticize the work, not the person. Ask a question rather than making a declarative statement.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 4

E. Share the Glory

An effective team player shares praise and other rewards for accomplishment even if he or she were the
most deserving. Shared praise is usually merited to some extent because teammates have probably
made at least some contribution to the achievement that received praise.

F. Take Care Not to Rain on Another Person’s Parade

We all have achievements and accomplishments that are sources of pride. Belittling the achievements
of others for no legitimate reasons brings about tension and anger. Suppress your feelings of petty
jealousy.

V. GUIDELINES FOR THE TASK ASPECTS OF TEAM PLAY

The task aspects of team play also make a key contribution to becoming an effective team player. A
task aspect usually has interpersonal consequences.

A. Provide Technical Expertise (or Knowledge of the Task)

Technical refers to the intimate details of any task, not just tasks in engineering, physical science, and
information technology. To be used to advantage, the expertise must be shared. The technical expert
must be able to communicate with team members in other disciplines who lack the same technical
background.

B. Assume Responsibility for Problems

The outstanding team player assumes responsibility for problems. If a problem is not yet assigned, he
or she says, “I’ll do it.”

C. See the Big Picture

Effective team players need to think conceptually, or see the big picture. The team leader who can help
the group focus on the broader purpose plays a vital role.

D. Believe in Consensus

A major task-related attitude for outstanding team play is to believe that consensus has merit.
Consensus is the general acceptance by the group of a decision, including a willingness to support the
decision.

E. Focus on Deadlines

Differences in perception about the importance of deadlines influence the group’s ability to meet them.
Keeping the group focused on deadlines is valuable task behaviour because meeting them is vital to
team success.

F. Help Team Members Do Their Jobs Better

A person’s stature as a team player will increase if he or she takes the initiative to help co-workers
make needed work improvements. Identify a problem a co-worker is having, and then suggest
alternatives he or she might be interested in exploring.

G. Be a Good Organizational Citizen

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.
Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 5

This person goes beyond the expectations of his or her job description in working for the good of
the organization even without the promise of a specific reward.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 6

VI. DEVELOPING TEAM LEADERSHIP SKILLS

As organizations continue to increase their use of teams, some of the best opportunities for
practicing leadership occur as a team leader. Participative leadership involves sharing authority
with the group.

A. Engage in Shared Leadership

A major initiative for building teamwork is for the team leader to share, or distribute, leadership
responsibilities among group members (collective leadership.)

B. Build a Mission Statement

A starting point in developing teamwork is to specify the team’s mission, which should contain a
specific goal and purpose and should be optimistic and uplifting.

C. Show Your Team Members That They Are Trusted

A leader should recognize and reward ethical behaviour, particularly when there is a temptation to
be dishonest.

D. Establish a Sense of Urgency and High Performance Standards

Members need to believe that the team has urgent, constructive purposes.

E. Hold Question-and-Answer Sessions with the Team

An effective way of demonstrating participative or team leadership is to hold question-and-answer

sessions with team members.

F. Encourage Team Members to Recognize Each Other’s Accomplishments

A superficial type of camaraderie develops when team members avoid honestly criticizing one
another for the sake of group harmony. Avoiding criticism can result in groupthink.

G. Use Peer Evaluations

With peer-evaluation systems, the team members contribute to the evaluation by submitting
evaluations of one another. These evaluations can take many different forms.

H. Help Team Members See the Big Picture

When team members have a clear understanding of how their work contributes to the company, the
team is more likely to work together more smoothly.

I. Minimize Formation of In-Groups and Out-Groups

An established leadership theory, the leader-exchange model, helps to explain that group leaders
establish unique working relationships with group members, and by doing so, create in-groups and

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 7

out-groups.

ANSWERS TO CASE STUDIES

Interpersonal Relations Case 6-2: Leah Puts on her Team Player Face

This case illustrates the challenges of attempting to be perceived as a team player even when the
team member really is and wants to be a good team player.

1. How effective do you think Leah’s initiatives are in helping her develop a reputation as a
strong team player?

Leah is trying hard to develop her reputation as a team player, but she has to guard against
appearing a little contrived. For example, her donut initiative was not so well received.
Bringing in baked cookies might be more acceptable because it is more personal and does not
appear to cost as much as store-bought donuts.

2. If you were Leah’s supervisor how would you react to the e-mails she sent to the group?

Leah’s supervisor might think that she is overstepping her bounds because it should be the
supervisor’s responsibility to manage unbalanced workloads within the group. It might have
been better for Leah to inform her supervisor that she was willing to take on extra work when
she could spare the time. Leah’s coworkers would have been appreciative of Leah’s effort
without her appearing to have taken over part of the supervisor’s role.

3. What advice would you offer Lean to help her advance her reputation as a team player?

Leah is taking useful initiatives to be a good team player, but she might have to be more
subtle. Leah should also consider some of the guidelines for contributing to both the
interpersonal and task aspects of team play covered in this chapter. Two of many examples
would be finding ways to recognize the interests and achievements of others, and helping
team members do their jobs better.

Interpersonal Relations Case 6-2: Ruth Waves a Red Flag

This case illustrates how team members occupy different roles in an effective team. Often these
roles involve checks and balances.

1. What role, or roles, is Ruth occupying on the cost-reduction team?

Ruth’s most notable role is that of monitor-evaluator. She is cautioning the group not to
move too fast, and also questions the advisability of recommending that pensions be cut.
Ruth also shows some specialist activity because she wants to study potential negative
ramifications of pension cutting.

2. How effective does she appear to be in her role?

Ruth appears to be effective in her role because team leader Carlos is willing to hold back on
making a recommendation until the pension-cutting issue is explored further.

3. What role, or roles, is Jack occupying on the cost-reduction team?

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.
Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 8

Jack has placed himself in the creative problem-solver role. He thinks he has found a solution
to a difficult problem. We also see a hint of the completer-finisher role because Jack appears
eager to get the job done.

4. How effective does he appear to be in his role?

Jack appeared to be effective at first because several members of the team were willing to go
along with his recommendation about cutting pensions. However, Ruth stepped in and Jack’s
recommendation was cast aside at least temporarily.

5. How effective is Carlos in his role as a team leader?

Carlos appears to be effective in his role as team leader. He listens to the team members, and
he coordinates ideas. He also asks the team questions. He is a consensus-style leader. Perhaps
Carlos would be even more effective if he shared his opinion about the pension-cutting
alternative solution.

ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION AND REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. All of the following are advantages of group and team work except (c) conformity.

2. A good example of groupthink would be (b) a company team promoting the marketing and
selling of a new sports product without a detailed analysis of its safety.

3. All of the following are effective team member strategies except (a) never criticizing other
team members.

4. Participative leadership can be defined as (b) The team leader shares the leadership with the
team as a facilitator or coach.

5. Many skills that assist people in being effective team members also assist with being an
effective team leader, including (b) recognizing team member accomplishments.

6. Part of being a good team player is helping other members. How can members of a workplace
team help each other?

Helping teammates can take several forms, including giving assistance in solving problems,
offering advice, and giving emotional support. Workload sharing when a teammate is
overloaded is another important vehicle for help.

7. What should the other team members do when they uncover a social loafer?

A starting point would be for several, or all, the other members to discuss their perception of
his or her social loafing with the loafer. If confrontation and problem solving does not work,
the manager to whom the team reports might be asked to intervene.

8. What is the potential downside of heavily emphasizing the Specialist role?

There are numerous potential downsides. For one, the specialist is the person least likely to
be a team player, so building synergy may be difficult.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Chapter 6: Developing Teamwork Skills Page 9

9. What team roles do you feel are most important for motivating other team members to achieve
goals? Explain your reasoning.

A good mix of roles on either end of the spectrum would be helpful: having both
analyst/challenger types as well as gregarious, easy communicators would, working together,
help move a team forward. Team members would know they have achieved synergy when it
is apparent to them that something substantial has been accomplished that they could not
have achieved working independently. Each member might think, “I could never have
produced this myself.”

COMMENTS ABOUT QUIZZES AND EXERCISES

Team Player Attitudes (Self-Assessment Quiz 6-1)

A benefit of this self-assessment quiz is that it may point toward areas for development if one is to
become an outstanding team player.

Team Skills (Self-Assessment Quiz 6-2)

This quiz is useful in specifying a representative set of skills that senior managers think are important
for contributing to a team.

The Conformity Quiz (Self-Assessment 6-3)

Team Player Roles (Self-Assessment Quiz 6-4)

A benefit of this self-assessment quiz is that it may help sensitize the student to the importance of
playing positive roles within the group.

Team Member Roles (Skill-Building Exercise 6-1)

An important feature of this exercise is that it challenges the diagnostic skill of students. To be
successful in this exercise, students should carefully study the various roles before watching the role
players and making observations about the roles.

The Scavenger Hunt (Skill-Building Exercise 6-2)

Although this exercise might appear frivolous, students can be counted on to conduct it in a serious
manner yet still have a few laughs. A lot of the humor depends on how outrageous the items are on
the list. My experience is that the exercise leads to sensible comments about cooperation, but does
not lead to great revelations. It is helpful to discuss jobs for which trust in the cooperation and
physical capabilities of teammates is extraordinarily important. Examples include mountain
climbers, divers, and fishers who take out after dangerous prey while being tethered to the boat.

Habitat for the Homeless (Skill-Building Exercise 6-3)

An advantage of this activity is that it showcases the importance of teamwork. Many students will
enjoy the activity; however, they may need prodding to make astute comments about the level of
teamwork displayed.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

Other documents randomly have
different content
itself favoured their rapid development; the traveller in North Africa
must be struck by the extraordinary frequency with which the
symbols of Mithraism recur in the sculpture and mosaics of that once
great Roman dependency. Evidently the birthland of St. Augustine
bred in the matter-of-fact Roman colonist the same nostalgia for the
Unknowable which even now a lonely night under the stars of the
Sahara awakes in the dullest European soul. Personal immortality as
a paramount doctrine; a further life more real than this one; ritual
purification, redemption by sacrifice, mystical union with deity; these
were among the un-Roman and even anti-Roman conceptions which
lay behind the new, strange propaganda, and prepared the way for
the diffusion of Christianity. With the Italian peasants who clung to
the unmixed older faith no progress was made till persecution could
be called in as an auxiliary.

Photo: Mansell.

ASSYRIAN LION AND LIONESS IN PARADISE PARK.

British Museum.
 In such a time it was a psychological certainty that among the
other Eastern ideas which were coming to the fore, would be those
ideas about animals which are roughly classed under the head of
Pythagoreanism. The apostles of Christ in their journeys East or
West might have met a singular individual who was carrying on an
apostolate of his own, the one clear and unyielding point of which
was the abolition of animal sacrifices. This was Apollonius, of Tyana,
our knowledge of whom is derived from the biography, in part
perhaps fanciful, written by Philostratus in the third century to
please the Empress Julia Domna, who was interested in occult
matters. Apollonius worked wonders as well attested as those, for
instance, of the Russian Father John, but he seems to have
considered his power the naturally produced result of an austere life
and abstinence from flesh and wine which is a thoroughly Buddhist
or Jaina theory. He was a theosophist who refrained from attacking
the outward forms and observances of established religion when
they did not seem to him either to be cruel or else incongruous to
the degree of preventing a reverential spirit. He did not entirely
understand that this degree is movable, any more than do those
persons who want to substitute Gregorian chants for opera airs in
rural Italian churches. He did not mind the Greek statues which
appealed to the imagination by suggestions of beauty, but he
blamed the Egyptians for representing deity as a dog or an ibis; if
they disliked images of stone why not have a temple where there
were no images of any kind—where all was left to the inner vision of
the worshipper? In which question, almost accidentally, Apollonius
throws out a hint of the highest form of spiritual worship.
 Photo: Alinari.

LAMBS.
(Relief on fifth century tomb at Ravenna.)

The keenly intellectual thinkers whom we call the Fathers of the

Church saw that the majority of the ideas then agitating men’s
minds might find a quietus in Christian dogma which suited them a
great deal better than the vague and often grotesque shape they
had worn hitherto. But there was a residuum of which they felt an
instinctive fear, and peculiar notions about animals had the ill-luck of
being placed at the head of these. It could not have been a
fortunate coincidence that two of the most prominent men who held
them in the early centuries were declared foes of the new faith—
Celsus and Porphyry.
When the Church triumphed, the treatise written by Celsus would
have been no doubt entirely destroyed like other works of the same
sort, had not Origen made a great number of quotations from it for
the purpose of confutation. Celsus was no borné disputant after the
fashion of the Octavius of Minucius, but a man of almost
encyclopædic learning; if he was a less fair critic than he held
himself to be, it was less from want of information than from want of
that sympathy which is needful for true comprehension. The inner
feeling of such a man towards the Christian Sectaries was not near
so much that of a Torquemada in regard to heretics as that of an
old-fashioned Tory upholder of throne and altar towards dissent fifty
years ago. It was a feeling of social aloofness.
Yet Celsus wished to be fair, and he had studied religions to
enough purpose not to condemn as delusion or untruth everything
that a superficial adversary would have rejected at once; for
instance, he was ready to allow that the appearances of Christ to His
disciples after the Crucifixion might be explained as psychical
phenomena. Possibly he believed that truth, not falsehood, was the
ultimate basis of all religions as was the belief of Apollonius before
him. In some respects Celsus was more unprejudiced than
Apollonius; this can be observed in his remarks on Egyptian
zoomorphism; it causes surprise, he says, when you go inside one of
the splendid Egyptian temples to find for divinity a cat, a monkey or
a crocodile, but to the initiated they are symbols which under an
allegorical veil turn people to honour imperishable ideas, not
perishable animals as the vulgar suppose.
It may have been his recondite researches which led Celsus to
take up the question of the intelligence of animals and the
conclusions to be drawn from it. He only touches lightly on the
subject of their origin; he seems to lean towards the theory that the
soul, life, mind, only, is made by God, the corruptible and passing
body being a natural growth or perhaps the handiwork of inferior
spirits. He denied that reason belonged to man alone, and still more
strongly that God created the universe for man rather than for the
other animals. Only absurd pride, he says, can engender such a
thought. He knew very well that this, far from being a new idea, was
the normal view of the ancient world from Aristotle to Cicero; the
distinguished men who disagreed with it had never won more than a
small minority over to their opinion. Celsus takes Euripides to task
for saying—

“The sun and moon are made to serve mankind.”

Why mankind? he asks; why not ants and flies? Night serves them
also for rest and day for seeing and working. If it be said that we are
the king of animals because we hunt and catch them or because we
eat them, why not say that we are made for them because they
hunt and catch us? Indeed, they are better provided than we, for
while we need arms and nets to take them and the help of several
men and dogs, Nature furnishes them with the arms they require,
and we are, as it were, made dependent on them. You want to make
out that God gave you the power to take and kill wild animals, but at
the time when there were no towns or civilisation or society or arms
or nets, animals probably caught and devoured men while men
never caught animals. In this way, it looks more as if God subjected
man to animals than vice versâ. If men seem different from animals
because they build cities, make laws, obey magistrates and rulers,
you ought to note that this amounts to nothing at all, since ants and
bees do just the same. Bees have their “kings”; some command,
others obey; they make war, win battles, take prisoner the
vanquished; they have their towns and quarters; their work is
regulated by fixed periods, they punish the lazy and cowardly—at
least they expel the drones. As to ants, they practise the science of
social economy just as well as we do; they have granaries which
they fill with provisions for the winter; they help their comrades if
they see them bending under the weight of a burden; they carry
their dead to places which become family tombs; they address each
other when they meet: whence it follows that they never lose their
way. We must conclude, therefore, that they have complete
reasoning powers and common notions of certain general truths,
and that they have a language and know how to express fortuitous
events. If some one, then, looked down from the height of heaven
on to the earth, what difference would he see between our actions
and those of ants and bees? If man is proud of knowing magical
secrets, serpents and eagles know a great deal more, for they use
many preservatives against poisons and diseases, and are
acquainted with the virtues of certain stones with which they cure
the ailments of their young ones, while if men find out such a cure
they think they have hit on the greatest wonder in the world. Finally,
if man imagines that he is superior to animals because he possesses
notion of God, let him know that it is the same with many of them;
what is there more divine, in fact, than to foresee and to foretell the
future? Now for that purpose men have recourse to animals,
especially to birds, and all our soothsayers do is to understand the
indications given by these. If, therefore, birds and other prophetic
animals show us by signs the future as it is revealed to them by
God, it proves that they have closer relations with the deity than we;
that they are wiser and more loved by God. Very enlightened men
have thought that they understood the language of certain animals,
and in proof of this they have been known to predict that birds
would do something or go somewhere, and this was observed to
come true. No one keeps an oath more religiously or is more faithful
to God than the elephant, which shows that he knows Him.
Hence, concludes Celsus, the universe has not been made for man
any more than for the eagle or the dolphin. Everything was created
not in the interest of something else, but to contribute to the
harmony of the whole in order that the world might be absolutely
perfect. God takes care of the universe; it is that which His
providence never forsakes, that which never falls into disorder. God
no more gets angry with men than with rats or monkeys: everything
keeps its appointed place.
 In this passage Celsus rises to a higher level than in any other of
the excerpts preserved for us by Origen. The tone of irony which
usually characterises him disappears in this dignified affirmation of
supreme wisdom justified of itself not by the little standards of men
—or ants. It must be recognised as a lofty conception, commanding
the respect of those who differ from it, and reconciling all apparent
difficulties and contradictions forced upon us by the contemplation of
men and Nature. But it brings no water from the cool spring to souls
dying of thirst; it expounds in the clearest way and even in the
noblest way the very thought which drove men into the Christian
fold far more surely than the learned apologies of controversialists
like Origen; the thought of the crushing unimportance of the
individual.
The least attentive reader must be struck by the real knowledge of
natural history shown by Celsus: his ants are nearly as
conscientiously observed as Lord Avebury’s. Yet a certain suspicion
of conscious exaggeration detracts from the seriousness of his
arguments; he strikes one as more sincere in disbelieving than in
believing. A modern writer has remarked that Celsus in the second
half of the second century forestalled Darwin in the second half of
the nineteenth by denying human ascendancy and contending that
man may be a little lower than the brute. But it scarcely seems
certain whether he was convinced by his own reasoning or was not
rather replying by paradoxes to what he considered the still greater
paradoxes of Christian theology.
The shadow of no such doubt falls on the pages of the
neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry. To them the destiny of animals
was not an academic problem but an obsession. The questions
which Heine’s young man asked of the waves: “What signifies man?
Whence does he come? Whither does he go?” were asked by them
with passionate earnestness in their application to all sentient things.
Plotinus reasoned, with great force, that intelligent beast-souls must
be like the soul of man since in itself the essence of the soul could
not be different. Porphyry (born at Tyre, A.D. 233), accepting this
postulate that animals possess an intelligent soul like ours, went on
to declare that it was therefore unlawful to kill or feed on them
under any circumstances. If justice is due to rational beings, how is
it possible to evade the conclusion that we are also bound to act
justly towards the races below us? He who loves all animated nature
will not single out one tribe of innocent beings for hatred; if he loves
the whole he will love every part, and, above all, that part which is
most closely allied to ourselves. Porphyry was quite ready to admit
that animals in their own way made use of words, and he mentions
Melampus and Apollonius as among the philosophers who
understood their language. He quoted with approval the laws
supposed to have been framed by Triptolemus in the reign of
Pandion, fifth king of Athens: “Honour your parents; make oblations
of your fruits to the gods; hurt not any living creature.”
Neoplatonism penetrated into the early Church, but divested of its
views on animal destiny; even the Catholic neoplatonist Boëthius,
though he was sensitively fond of animals (witness his lines about
caged birds), yet took the extreme view of the hard-and-fast line of
separation, as may be seen by his poem on the “downward head,”
which he interpreted to indicate the earth-bound nature of all flesh
save man. Birds, by the by, and even fishes, not to speak of camel-
leopards, can hardly be said to have a “downward head.” Meanwhile,
the other manner of feeling, if not of thinking, reasserted its power
as it always will, for it belongs to the primal things. Excluded from
the broad road, it came in by the narrow way—the way that leads to
heaven. In the wake of the Christian Guru came a whole troop of
charming beasts, little less saintly and miraculous than their holy
protectors, and thus preachers of the religion of love were spared
the reproach of showing an all-unloving face towards creatures that
could return love for love as well as most and better than many of
the human kind. The saint saved the situation, and the Church
wisely left him alone to discourse to his brother fishes or his sister
turtle-doves, without inquiring about the strict orthodoxy of the
proceeding.
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.

“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.”
10. “L’Église et la Pitié envers les animaux,” Paris, 1903. An English edition has
been published by Messrs. Burns and Oates.

11. “Moral Philosophy,” p. 250.

At an early date, in the heart of official Catholicism, an

inconsistency appeared which is less easily explained than homilies
composed for fishes or hymns for birds; namely, the strange
business of animal prosecutions. Without inquiring exactly what an
animal is, it is easy to bestow upon it either blessings or curses. The
beautiful rite of the blessing of the beasts which is still performed
once a year in many places involves no doctrinal crux. In Corsica the
priest goes up to the high mountain plateaux where the animals
pasture in the summer, and after saying Mass in presence of all the
four-footed family, he solemnly blesses them and exhorts them to
prosper and multiply. It is a delightful scene, but it does not affect
the conception of the moral status of animals, nor would that
conception be affected by a right-down malediction or order to quit.
What, however, can be thought of a regular trial of inconvenient or
offending animals in which great care is taken, to keep up the
appearance of fair-play to the defendants? Our first impression is,
that it must be an elaborate comedy; but a study of the facts makes
it impossible to accept this theory.
The earliest allusions to such trials that seem to exist belong to
the ninth century, which does not prove that they were the first of
the kind. One trial took place in 824 A.D. The Council of Worms
decided in 866 that if a man has been killed by bees they ought to
suffer death, “but,” added the judgment, “it will be permissible to eat
their honey.” A relic of the same order of ideas lingers in the habit
some people have of shooting a horse which has caused a fatal
accident, often the direct consequence of bad riding or bad driving.
The earlier beast trials of which we have knowledge were conducted
by laymen, the latter by ecclesiastics, which suggests their origin in
a folk-practice. A good, characteristic instance began on September
5, 1370. The young son of a Burgundian swineherd had been killed
by three sows which seemed to have feared an attack on one of
their young ones. All members of the herd were arrested as
accomplices, which was a serious matter to their owners, the
inmates of a neighbouring convent, as the animals, if convicted,
would be burnt and their ashes buried. The prior pointed out that
three sows alone were guilty; surely the rest of the pigs ought to be
acquitted. Justice did not move quickly in those times; it was on
September 12, 1379, that the Duke of Burgundy delivered judgment;
only the three guilty sows and one young pig (what had it done?)
were to be executed; the others were set at liberty “notwithstanding
that they had seen the death of the boy without defending him.”
Were the original ones all alive after nine years? If so, would so long
a respite have been granted them had no legal proceedings been
instituted?
An important trial took place in Savoy in the year 1587. The
accused was a certain fly. Two suitable advocates were assigned to
the insects, who argued on their behalf that these creatures were
created before man, and had been blessed by God, who gave them
the right to feed on grass, and for all these and other good reasons
the flies were in their right when they occupied the vineyards of the
Commune; they simply availed themselves of a legitimate privilege
conformable to Divine and natural law. The plaintiffs’ advocate
retorted that the Bible and common sense showed animals to be
created for the utility of man; hence they could not have the right to
cause him loss, to which the counsel for the insects replied that man
had the right to command animals, no doubt, but not to persecute,
excommunicate and interdict them when they were merely
conforming to natural law “which is eternal and immutable like the
Divine.”
The judges were so deeply impressed by this pleading that to cut
the case short, which seemed to be going against him, the Mayor of
St. Julien hastened to propose a compromise; he offered a piece of
land where the flies might find a safe retreat and live out their days
in peace and plenty. The offer was accepted. On June 29, 1587, the
citizens of St. Julien were bidden to the market square by ringing the
church bells, and after a short discussion they ratified the agreement
which handed over a large piece of land to the exclusive use of the
insects. Hope was expressed that they would be entirely satisfied
with the bargain. A right of way across the land was, indeed,
reserved to the public, but no harm whatever was to be done to the
flies on their own territory. It was stated in the formal contract that
the reservation was ceded to the insects in perpetuity.
All was going well, when it transpired that, in the meantime, the
flies’ advocates had paid a visit to that much-vaunted piece of land,
and when they returned, they raised the strongest objection to it on
the score that it was arid, sterile, and produced nothing. The
mayor’s counsel disputed this; the land, he said, produced no end of
nice small trees and bushes, the very things for the nutrition of
insects. The judges intervened by ordering a survey to find out the
real truth, which survey cost three florins. There, alas! the story
ends, for the winding up of the affair is not to be found in the
archives of St. Julien.
Records of 144 such trials have come to light. Of the two I have
described, it will be remarked that one belongs, as it were, to
criminal and the other to civil law. The last class is the most curious.
No doubt the trial of flies or locusts was resorted to when other
means of getting rid of them had failed; it was hoped, somehow,
that the elaborate appearance of fair-play would bring about a result
not to be obtained by violence. We can hardly resist the inference
that they involved some sort of recognition or intuition of animals’
rights and even of animal intelligence.
In the dawn of modern literature animals played a large, though
artificial, part which must not be quite ignored on account of its
artificiality, because in the Bestiaries as in the Æsopic and Oriental
fables from which they were mainly derived, there was an
inextricable tangle of observations of the real creature and arbitrary
ascription to him of human qualities and adventures. At last they
became a mere method for attacking political or ecclesiastical
abuses, but their great popularity was as much due to their outer as
to their inner sense. There is not any doubt that at the same time
floods of Eastern fairy-tales were migrating to Europe, and in these
the most highly appreciated hero was always the friendly beast. In a
romance of the thirteenth century called “Guillaume de Palerme” all
previous marvels of this kind were outdone by the story of a Sicilian
prince who was befriended by a were-wolf!
It is not generally remembered that the Indian or Buddhist view of
animals must have been pretty well known in Europe at least as
early as the fourteenth century. The account of the monastery
“where many strange beasts of divers kinds do live upon a hill,”
which Fra Odoric, of Pordenone, dictated in 1330, is a description,
both accurate and charming, of a Buddhist animal refuge, and in the
version given of it in Mandeville’s “Travels,” if not in the original, it
must have been read by nearly every one who could read, for no
book ever had so vast a diffusion as the “Travels” of the elusive
Knight of St. Albans.
With the Italian Renaissance came the full modern æsthetic
enjoyment of animals; the admiration of their beauty and perfection
which had been appreciated, of course, long before, but not quite in
the same spirit. The all-round gifted Leo Battista Alberti in the
fifteenth century took the same critical delight in the points of a fine
animal that a modern expert would take. He was a splendid rider,
but his interest was not confined to horses; his love for his dog is
shown by his having pronounced a funeral oration over him. We feel
that with such men humanity towards animals was a part of good
manners. “We owe justice to men,” said the intensely civilised
Montaigne, “and grace and benignity to other creatures that are
capable of it; there is a natural commerce and mutual obligation
between them and us.” Sir Arthur Helps, speaking of this, called it
“using courtesy to animals,” and when one comes to think of it, is
not such “courtesy” the particular mark and sign of a man of good
breeding in all ages?
The Renaissance brought with it something deeper than a
wonderful quickening of the æsthetic sense in all directions; it also
brought that spiritual quickening which is the co-efficient of every
really upward movement of the human mind. Leonardo da Vinci,
greatest of artist-humanists, inveighed against cruelty in words that
might have been written by Plutarch or Porphyry. His sympathies
were with the vegetarian. Meanwhile, Northern Churchmen who
went to Rome were scandalised to hear it said in high ecclesiastical
society that there was no difference between the souls of men and
beasts. An attempt was made to convert Erasmus to this doctrine by
means of certain extracts from Pliny. Roman society, at that time,
was so little serious that one cannot believe it to have been serious
even in its heterodoxy. But speculations more or less of the same
sort were taken up by men of a very different stamp; it was to be
foreseen that animals would have their portion of attention in the
ponderings of the god-intoxicated musers who have been called the
Sceptics of the Renaissance. For the proof that they did receive it we
have only to turn to the pages of Giordano Bruno. “Every part of
creation has its share in being and cognition.” “There is a difference,
not in quality, but in quantity, between the soul of man, the animal
and the plant.” “Among horses, elephants and dogs there are single
individuals which appear to have almost the understanding of men.”
Bruno’s prophetic guess that instinct is inherited habit might have
saved Descartes (who was much indebted to the Nolan) from giving
his name an unenviable immortality in connexion with the theory
which is nearly all that the ignorant know now of Cartesian
philosophy. This was the theory that animals are automata, a
sophism that may be said to have swept Europe, though it was not
long before it provoked a reaction. Descartes got this idea from the
very place where it was likely to originate, from Spain. A certain
Gomez Pereira advanced it before Descartes made it his own, which
even led to a charge of plagiarism. “Because a clock marks time and
a bee makes honey, we are to consider the clock and the bee to be
machines. Because they do one thing better than man and no other
thing so well as man, we are to conclude that they have no mind,
but that Nature acts within them, holding their organs at her
disposal.” “Nor are we to think, as the ancients do, that animals
speak, though we do not know their language, for, if that were so,
they, having several organs related to ours, might as easily
communicate with us as with each other.”
About this, Huxley showed that an almost imperceptible
imperfection of the vocal chord may prevent articulated sounds.
Moreover, the click of the bushmen, which is almost their only
language, is exceedingly like the sounds made by monkeys.
Language, as defined by an eminent Italian man of science,
Professor Broca, is the faculty of making things known, or expressing
them by signs or sounds. Much the same definition was given by
Mivart, and if there be a better one, we have still to wait for it.
Human language is evolved; at one time man had it not. The babe in
the cradle is without it; the deaf mute, in his untaught state, is
without it; ergo the babe and the deaf mute cannot feel. Poor babes
and poor deaf mutes should the scientific Loyolas of the future adopt
this view!
I do not know if any one has remarked that rural and primitive folk
can never bring themselves to believe of any foreign tongue that it is
real human language like their own. To them it seems a jargon of
meaningless and uncouth sounds.
Chanet, a follower of Descartes, said that he would believe that
beasts thought when a beast told him so. By what cries of pain, by
what looks of love, have not beasts told men that they thought! Man
himself does not think in words in moments of profound emotion,
whether of grief or joy. He cries out or he acts. Thought in its
absolutely elementary form is action. The mother thinks in the kiss
she gives her child. The musician thinks in music. Perhaps God
thinks in constellations. I asked a man who had saved many lives by
jumping into the sea, “What did you think of at the moment of doing
it?” He replied: “You do not think, or you might not do it.”
The whole trend of philosophic speculation worthy of the name
lies towards unity, but the Cartesian theory would arbitrarily divide
even man’s physical and sensational nature from that of the other
animals. To remedy this, Descartes admitted that man was just as
much an automatic machine as other creatures. By what right, then,
does he complain when he happens to have a toothache? Because,
says Descartes triumphantly, man has an immortal soul! The child
thinks in his mother’s womb, but the dog, which after scenting two
roads takes the third without demur, sure that his master must have
gone that way, this dog is acting “by springs” and neither thinks nor
feels at all.
The misuse of the ill-treated word “Nature” cannot hide the fact
that the beginning, middle, and end of Descartes’ argument rests on
a perpetually recurrent miracle. Descartes confessed as much when
he said that God could make animals as machines, so why should it
be impossible that He had made them as machines? Voltaire’s clear
reason revolted at this logic; he declared it to be absurd to imagine
that God had given animals organs of feeling in order that they
might not feel. He would have endorsed Professor Romanes’ saying
that “the theory of animal automatism which is usually attributed to
Descartes can never be accepted by common sense.”
On the other hand, while Descartes was being persecuted by the
Church for opinions which he did not hold, this particular opinion of
his was seized upon by Catholic divines as a vindication of creation.
Pascal so regarded it. The miraculous element in it did not disturb
him. Malebranche said though opposed by reason it was approved
by faith.
Descartes said that the idea that animals think and feel is a relic of
childhood. The idea that they do not think and feel might be more
truly called a relic of that darkest side of perverse childhood, the
existence of which we are all fain to forget. Whoever has seen a
little child throwing stones at a toad on the highway—and sad
because his hands are too small to take up the bigger stones to
throw—will understand what I mean. I do not wish to allude more
than slightly to a point which is of too much importance to pass over
in silence. Descartes was a vivisector: so were the pious people at
Port Royal who embraced his teaching with enthusiasm, and liked to
hear the howls of the dogs they vivisected. M. Émile Ferrière, in his
work “L’âme est la fonction du cerveau,” sees in the “souls” of beasts
exactly the same nature as in the “soul” of man; the difference, he
maintains, is one of degree; though generally inferior, it is
sometimes superior to “souls” of certain human groups. Here is a
candid materialist who deserves respect. But there is a school of
physiologists nowadays which carries on an unflagging campaign in
favour of belief in unconscious animal machines which work by
springs, while denying that there is a God to wind up the springs,
and in conscious human machines, while denying that there is a
soul, independent of matter, which might account for the difference.
“The wish is father to the thought.” Non ragionam di lor ma guarda e
passa.
The strongest of all reasons for dismissing the machine theory of
animals is their variety of idiosyncrasy. It is said that to the shepherd
no two sheep look alike; it is certain that no two animals of any kind
have the same characters. Some are selfish, some are unselfish,
some are gentle, some irretrievably ill-tempered both to each other
and to man. Some animals do not show much regret at the loss of
their offspring, with others it is manifestly the reverse. Édouard
Quinet described how on one occasion, when visiting the lions’ cage
in the Jardin des Plantes, he observed the lion gently place his large
paw on the forehead of the lioness, and so they remained, grave
and still, all the time he was there. He asked Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,
who was with him, what it meant. “Their lion cub,” was the answer,
“died this morning.” “Pity, benevolence, sympathy, could be read on
those rugged faces.” That these qualities are often absent in sentient
beings what man can doubt? But they are not to be found in the
best mechanical animals in all Nuremberg!
Nor do machines commonly act as did the dog in the following
true story which relates to something that happened during the
earthquake of Ash Wednesday, 1887. At a place called Ceriana on
the Italian Riviera a poor man who earned his living as a milk-carrier
was supposed to have gone on his ordinary rounds, on which he was
used to start at four o’clock in the morning. No one, therefore,
thought of inquiring about him, but the fact was, that having taken a
glass or two of wine in honour of the last night of the Carnival, he
had overslept himself, and was still asleep when his cottage fell
down upon him. He had a large dog which drew the little cart
bearing the milk up the mountain paths, and the dog by chance was
outside and safe. He found out where his master lay and succeeded
in clearing the masonry so as to uncover his head, which was
bleeding. He then set to work to lick the wounds; but, seeing that
they went on bleeding, and also that he could not liberate the rest of
the body, he started in search of help, running up and down among
the surrounding ruins till he met some one, whom he caught hold of
by the clothes. The man, however, thought that the dog was mad
and fled for his life. Luckily, another man guessed the truth and
allowed himself to be guided to the spot. History repeats itself, at
least the history of devoted dogs. The same thing happened after
the greater earthquake at Messina, when a man, one of the last to
be saved, was discovered through the insistence of his little dog,
who approached a group of searchers and whined piteously till he
persuaded them to follow him to the ruins which concealed his
master.
Nor, again, do machines act like a cockatoo I heard of from a
witness of the scene. A lady was visiting the zoological gardens in a
German town with her daughter, when the little girl was seized with
the wish to possess a pretty moulted feather which was lying on the
ground in the parrots’ cage. She made several attempts to reach it,
but in vain. Seeing which, an old cockatoo hopped solemnly from the
back of the cage and taking up the feather in his beak, handed it to
the child with an air of the greatest politeness.
One of the first upholders of the idea of legislative protection of
animals was Jeremy Bentham, who asked why the law should refuse
its protection to any sensitive being? Most people forget the degree
of opposition which was encountered by the earlier combatants of
cruel practices and pastimes in England. Cobbett made a furious
attack on a clergyman who (to his honour) was agitating for the
suppression of bull-baiting, “the poor man’s sport,” as Cobbett called
it. That it demoralised the poor man as well as tormented the bull
never entered into the head of the inimitable wielder of English
prose, pure and undefiled, who took it under his (happily) ineffectual
protection. “The common law fully sanctions the baiting of bulls,” he
wrote, “and, I believe, that to sell the flesh of a bull which has not
been baited is an offence which is punishable by that very law to
which you appeal” (“Political Register,” June, 1802).
Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had, in their day,
to undergo almost as much criticism and ridicule in England as they
now meet with in some parts of the Continent. Even the
establishment of the Dogs’ Home in London raised a storm of
disapproval, as may be seen by any one who turns over the files of
the Times for October, 1860. If the friends of humanity persevere,
the change of sentiment which has become an accomplished fact in
England will, in the end, triumph elsewhere.
Unfortunately, humane sentiment and humane practice do not
progress on a level line. As long ago as 1782 an English writer
named Soame Jenyns protested against the wickedness of shooting
a bear on an inaccessible island of ice, or an eagle on the mountain’s
top. “We are unable to give life and therefore ought not to take it
away from the meanest insect without sufficient reason.” What
would he say if he came back to earth to find whole species of
beautiful winged creatures being destroyed to afford a barbarous
ornament for women’s heads?
The “discovery” of Indian literature brought prominently forward in
the West the Indian ideas of animals of which the old travellers had
given the earliest news. The effect of familiarity with those ideas
may be traced in many writers, but nowhere to such an extent as in
the works of Schopenhauer, for whom, as for many more obscure
students, they formed the most attractive and interesting part of
Oriental lore. Schopenhauer cannot speak about animals without
using a tone of passionate vehemence which was, without doubt,
genuine. He felt the intense enjoyment in observing them which the
lonely soul has ever felt, whether it belonged to saint or sinner. All
his pessimism disappears when he leaves the haunts of man for the
retreats of beasts. What a pleasure it is, he says, to watch a wild
animal going about undisturbed! It shows us our own nature in a
simpler and more sincere form. “There is only one mendacious being
in the world, and that is man. Every other is true and sincere.” It
strikes me that total sincerity did not shine on the face of a dog
which I once saw trotting innocently away, after burying a rabbit he
had caught in a ploughed field near a tree in the hedge—the only
tree there was—which would make it easy for him to identify the
spot. But about that I will say no more. The German “Friend of the
Creature” was indignant at “the unpardonable forgetfulness in which
the lower animals have hitherto been left by the moralists of
Europe.” The duty of protecting them, neglected by religion, falls to
the police. Mankind are the devils of the earth and animals the souls
they torment.
Full of these sentiments, Schopenhauer was prepared to welcome
unconditionally the Indian conception of the Wheel of Being and to
close his eyes to its defects. Strauss, too, hailed it as a doctrine
which “unites the whole of Nature in one sacred and mysterious
bond”—a bond in which, he goes on to say, a breach has been made
by the Judaism and dualism of Christianity. He might have observed
that the Church derived her notions on the subject rather from
Aristotle than from Semitic sources.
Schopenhauer came to the conclusion that the ill-treatment of
animals arose directly from the denial to them of immortality, while it
was ascribed to men. There is and there is not truth in this. When all
is said, the well-conditioned man always was and always will be
humane; “the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.” And
since people reason to fit their acts rather than act to fit their
reasoning, he will even find a motive for his humanity where others
find an excuse for the lack of it. Humphry Primatt wrote in 1776:
“Cruelty to a brute is an injury irreparable because there is no future
life to be a compensation for present afflictions.”
Mr. Lecky, in his “History of European Morals,” tells of a Cardinal
who let himself be bitten by gnats because “we have heaven, but
these poor creatures only present enjoyment!” Could Jaina do more?
Strauss thought that the rising tide of popular sentiment about
animals was the direct result of the abandonment by science of the
spiritualistic isolation of man from Nature. I suspect that those who
have worked hardest for animals in the last half-century cared little
about the origin of species, while it is certain that some professed
evolutionists have been their worst foes. The fact remains, however,
that by every rule of logic the theory of evolution ought to produce
the effect which Strauss thought that it had produced. The discovery
which gives its name to the nineteenth century revolutionises the
whole philosophic conception of the place of animals in the Universe.
Lamarck, whom Cuvier so cruelly attacked, was the first to discern
the principle of evolution. At one time he held the Chair of Zoology
at the University of Paris; but the opposition which his ideas met
with crushed him in body, though not in soul, and he died blind and
in want in 1829, only consoled by the care of an admirable daughter.
His last words are said to have been that it is easier to discover a
truth than to convince others of it.
An Italian named Carlo Lessona was one of the first to be
convinced. He wrote a work containing the phrase, “The intelligence
of animals”—which work, by the rule then in force, had to be
presented to the ecclesiastical Censor at Turin to receive his permit
before publication. The canon who examined the book fell upon the
words above mentioned, and remarked: “This expression,
‘intelligence of animals,’ will never do!” “But,” said Lessona, “it is
commonly used in natural history books.” “Oh!” replied the canon,
“natural history has much need of revision.”[12]
12. See Dr. F. Franzolini’s interesting monograph on animal psychology from the
point of view of science (“Intelligenza delle Bestie,” Udine, 1899).

The great and cautious Darwin said that the senses, intuitions,
emotions, and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity,
imitation, reason, of which man boasts, may be found in an
incipient, or even, sometimes, in a well-developed condition in the
lower animals. “Man, with all his noble qualities, his God-like
intellect, still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his
lowly origin. Our brethren fly in the air, haunt the bushes, and swim
in the sea.” Darwin agreed with Agassiz in recognising in the dog
something very like the human conscience.
Dr. Arnold said that the whole subject of the brute creature was
such a painful mystery that he dared not approach it. Michelet called
animal life a “sombre mystery,” and shuddered at the “daily murder,”
hoping that in another globe “these base and cruel fatalities may be
spared to us.” It is strange to find how many men of very different
types have wandered without a guide in these dark alleys of
speculation. A few of them arrived at, or thought they had arrived
at, a solution. Lord Chesterfield wrote that “animals preying on each
other is a law of Nature which we did not make, and which we
cannot undo, for if I do not eat chickens my cat will eat mice.” But
the appeal to Nature will not satisfy every one; our whole human
conscience is a protest against Nature, while our moral actions are
an attempt to effect a compromise. Paley pointed out that the law
was not good, since we could live without animal food and wild
beasts could not. He offered another justification, the permission of
Scripture. This was satisfactory to him, but he must have been
aware that it waives the question without answering it.
Some humane people have taken refuge in the automata
argument, which is like taking a sleeping-draught to cure a broken
leg. Others, again, look for justice to animals in the one and only
hope that man possesses of justice to himself; in compensation after
death for unmerited suffering in this life. Leibnitz said that Eternal
Justice ought to compensate animals for their misfortunes on earth.
Bishop Butler would not deny a future life to animals.
Speaking of her approaching death, Mrs. Somerville said: “I shall
regret the sky, the sea, with all the changes of their beautiful
colouring; the earth with its verdure and flowers: but far more shall I
grieve to leave animals who have followed our steps affectionately
for years, without knowing for certainty their ultimate fate, though I
firmly believe that the living principle is never extinguished. Since
the atoms of matter are indestructible, as far as we know, it is
difficult to believe that the spark which gives to their union life,
memory, affection, intelligence, and fidelity, is evanescent.”
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, seven or eight small
works, written in Latin in support of this thesis, were published in
Germany and Sweden. Probably in all the world a number,
unsuspectedly large, of sensitive minds has endorsed the belief
expressed so well in the lines which Southey wrote on coming home
to find that a favourite old dog had been “destroyed” during his
absence:—

... “Mine is no narrow creed;

And He who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless man! There is another world
For all that live and move—a better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
Infinite Goodness to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee!”

The holders of this “no narrow creed” start with all the advantages
from the mere point of view of dialectics. They can boast that they
have placed the immortality of the soul on a scientific basis. For
truly, it is more reasonable to suppose that the soul is natural than
supernatural, a word invented to clothe our ignorance; and, if
natural, why not universal?
They have the right to say, moreover, that they and they alone
have “justified the ways of God.” They alone have admitted all
creation that groaneth and travaileth to the ultimate guerdon of the
“Love which moves the sun and other stars.”
INDEX
Abdâls, 261-262
Abu Djafar al Mausur, Caliph, 232
Abu Jail, 241-243
Achilles, 26-27, 298
Adi Granth, 201
Æsop’s fables, 25, 29-30, 80-81
Aethe, 26
Aethon, 26
Afghan ballad, 241-243
African pastoral tribes, 95
Agamemnon, 25-26, 29
Agassiz, 364
Agora Temple, 77
Ahimsa, 166-167, 172, 193
Ahriman, 124-126, 143, 145-146, 149-151, 158-159
Ahriman, hymn to, 125
Ahuna-Vairya, 138
Ahura Mazda, 116, 121-122, 136, 138-139, 143, 154, 158-159
Alberti, Leo Battista, 154, 158-159, 352
Albigenses, 346
Alexander the Great, 75, 133
Alfonso, King of Spain, 291-292
Alger, W. R., 286
Alhambra, 229
Al Rakîm, 230
Amatongo, 107-109
Amazulu, 107
L’âme est la fonction du cerveau, 357
Ammon, Temple of, 31
Amon Ra, 103
Amritsar, 201
Anaxandrides, 82
Anchorites, 179, 252-254
Andromache, 26
Animals, treatment of, in India, 19;
the purgatory of men, 21;
slaying of, by Greeks, 24-25;
naming of, 26;
prophetic powers of, 27-28;
talking, 29;
Roman treatment of, 45-46;
butchery of, at Colosseum, 51;
imported for arena, 51-52;
humanity of, 53-54;
performing, 54-55;
Plutarch on kindness to, 64-71;
Plutarch on animal intelligence, 67-71;
instances of discrimination of, 75-76;
 domestication of, 90-91;
value of, 94-95;
excuses for killing, 100;
attitude of savages to, 107-108;
killing of, by priests, 148-150;
Zoroastrian treatment of, 147-157;
in sacred books, 188;
Hebrew treatment of, 212-220;
hunting of, by Moslems, 224-225, 232, 241-243;
musical instinct in, 245-246;
and the Messiah, 247-252;
and saints, 259;
stories of, 306-316;
theory of Celsus as to intelligence of, 340-344;
theory of Porphyry, 344;
the Church and humanity, 346;
animal prosecutions, 347-351;
Renaissance admiration of, 352-353;
animals and thought, 355;
automata
theory, 353-359, 365;
societies to protect, 359-360;
ill-treatment and immortality, 362;
principle of evolution, 363
Antelope, 240
Ants, wisdom of, 76-77;
killing of, 149-150;
Hebrew proverb, 216;
in the Koran, 227;
social economy of, 341-342
Apis, 102, 144
Apollo, 246