INTRODUCTION 



profit and loss, the teaching children to 

 make pets of wild creatures, but I cannot 

 justify keeping any animal in a cage or in 

 a manner which makes a normal activity 

 impossible. The question of responsibility 

 for keeping them in captivity I leave in 

 others' cases to themselves; in my own, 

 there is more pain than pleasure in their 

 captivity. I apprehend that we know so 

 little about the sources of pain and pleasure 

 in animals that we may sometimes consider 

 that to be pain which is not so — and the 

 animal may be no more capable of choosing 

 its greatest happiness than are children, 

 whom we constantly prevent from doing 

 what they most desire to do. My Hans in 

 his eagerness to escape would probably have 

 gone to a speedy death — with me he had a 

 sure protection, and if, as a result of that 

 protection, he had his life shortened, his 

 chance of life was on the whole increased, 

 and, as the result showed, he found a certain 

 advantage in it. How far the balance lay 

 on the side of liberty or my form of captiv- 

 ity, no one can be entitled to decide ; each 



