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JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



or a horse? Have unreasoning ma- 

 chines instinct and affection? 



Opposed to this shallow, mechanical 

 theory of Descartes are Plato and 

 Cicero. They said that the lower an- 

 imals had will and were self -direct- 

 ing. During these somewhat bar- 

 barous centuries animals have had 

 some great admirers and sympathi- 

 zers: Homer, who glorified the horse 

 and dog; Buddhists; Pythagoreans; 

 Plato; Cicero, the only Roman as far 

 as it is known, that ever protested 

 against the cruelties of the amphi- 

 theater; Plutarch, who reproached 

 Cato for refusing to allow the horse 

 that had borne him in safety through 

 many a bloody battle to be carried 

 from Spain to Rome at the expense of 

 the Government; St. Francis, of As- 

 sisi, the sole celebrated animal lover 

 during the Dark Ages, from the 4th 

 to the 14th century; Montaigne; Eras- 

 mus; Sir Thomas More; Shakspeare; 

 Bacon, who said that there is implant- 

 ed by nature in the heart of man a 

 noble and excellent affection of mercy 

 extending even to the brute creation, 

 and that the more noble the mind, the 

 more enlarged is this affection. More 

 than two hundred years ago, Sir Mat- 

 thew Hale said, in the Court of the 

 King's Bench, "Justice is due from 

 man even to these sensible creatures, 

 that he take them for food sparingly; 

 for necessity, not for luxury. Exces- 

 sive and unreasonable use of the crea- 

 ture's labor is an injustice for which 

 man must account. It is unlawful to 

 destroy these creatures for recrea- 

 tion's sake." Pope said that a cat or 

 a goose may consider man made for 

 its service as well as man may consid- 

 er a cat or a goose made for his. 

 Cowper would not enter on his list 

 of friends "the man who needlessly 

 sets foot upon a worm." Burns, ac- 

 cidentally turning a little mouse out of 

 its nest with his ploughshare, thus 

 addressed, it calling it his fellow mor- 

 tal: 



"Wee, sleekit, cow'riu', tim'rous beastie, 

 Oh what a panic 's in thy breastie." 



Condorcet said to his daughter, "Do 

 not confine your sympathy to the suf- 

 ferings of men. Let your humanity 

 extend to animals. Do not make un- 

 happy those that belong to you. Do 

 not disdain to attend to their comfort. 

 Be not indifferent to their gratitude 

 and never put them to needless pain." 

 Lord Erskine was the first man that 



ever brought before a legislative body 

 a bill for the prevention of cruelty to 

 animals. Sir Walter Scott's love of 

 animals is so well known that we need 

 only mention his name. Byron's love 

 of his dog Boatswain was intense. Af- 

 ter a short life Boatswain died of 

 madness. Byron attended him to the 

 last, fearlessly wiping the poisonous 

 virus from the animal's mouth with 

 his hand. Byron erected aiuonument 

 to his dog's memory, in the garden of 

 Newstead Abbey, with the following 

 inscription, "Near this spot are de- 

 posited the remains of one that had 

 all the virtues of man without his 

 vices." Wprdsworth tells us 



"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 

 With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels," 



Lord Brougham accuses man of jeal- 

 ousy, considering it as an abridgment 

 of his rights that the lower animals 

 should have any consideration shown 

 them. Daniel Webster asked, before 

 he died, that all his cattle should be 

 driven to his window that he might 

 see them, and as they came, one by 

 one, he called them each by name. 

 We may also mention Voltaire, Rous- 

 seau, Jeremy Bentham, Cuvier, Hum- 

 boldt and Coleridge. 



These men will yet receive a great 

 increment of honor because they saw 

 so early the light of truth, sympathy 

 and pity; because they were the 

 Morning Stars, the Reformers before 

 the Reformation, in this important 

 subject. It has been reserved for the 

 twentieth century to grant animals 

 their rights and to complete the Refor- 

 mation so nobly begun by Bergh and 

 other philanthropists of the last half 

 of the nineteenth century. 



Man has dominion over other ani- 

 mals but his sovereignty is not ab- 

 solute. It is limited by moral laws. 

 Man must not interfere with the hap- 

 piness and comfort of animals more 

 than is consistent with their welfare 

 and his limited rights. Happiness is 

 the birthright of animals. Look at 

 the happy and playful young and the 

 quiet and peaceful mature animals. 

 Man must not unnecessarily interfere 

 with this happiness and peace if he 

 would be innocent. All ill-treatment 

 of animals is unnecessary. It is a 

 well known economic fact that the 

 domestic animals are most profitable 

 to their owners when well fed and 

 kindly treated. 



I need not attempt to portray the 



i 



