THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS 209 



effect that all the life of this sphere is akin in its origin 

 and that our subjects are not very far away from our own 

 ancestral line. 



It is characteristic of sympathetic movements that, while 

 they are slowly prepared for, their final development is very 

 rapid. Thus it has come about that within one hundred 

 years the conception of the rights of animals has advanced 

 with almost startling rapidity. No other moral gain has been 

 made with such speed or has so rapidly become a part of the 

 property of civilized man. The steps are those which have 

 been taken in all the other great moral advances : at first there 

 were but a few who, in the manner of the skirmishers of 

 armies, set the standards far on in the new ground ; gradually 

 the less ardent win their way to them, only to be led the further 

 by their natural guides. As the great advance is still making, 

 it is difficult to see how far it may attain ; it is, however, easy 

 to recognize some of the important gains and to foretell the 

 path if not the field of full accomplishment of the conquest. 

 A century ago a man, so far as the law was concerned, owned 

 his living chattels as he did the inanimate things of his prop- 

 erty. He could torture or slay them as whim or malice 

 might dictate ; there were no limitations by statute, and public 

 opinion, where it might reprobate, was too weak to influence 

 his conduct. Now the statute books of all countries which 

 are moving in the path of moral advance show that public 

 opinion has attained the point where it begins to formulate 

 itself in statutes which restrict the relations of men to their 

 domesticated animals or, in other words, endow them with 

 definite rights. He may, of course, force them to do him 

 their fit service ; he may at his need slay them ; but he must 

 exercise his authority without brutality ; he must, in form at 



