314 GENERAL TREATMENT. 



or servants is very far from being what it should be, and 

 what in all probability, it is to be hoped, it will yet be. 



There is perhaps a much greater prevalence of injudicious 

 treatment, or of neglect of proper treatment, than of delibe- 

 rate ill-treatment. Many a man, when his errors in treat- 

 ment are pointed out, may quite honestly exclaim in the 

 words of Hood 



It never was in my soul to play so ill a part, 



But evil is wrought by want oftliouglit as well as want of heart. 



Man's errors in treatment arise in all probability much 

 less frequently from 



1. Intentional cruelty: a delight in witnessing torture 

 and in the infliction of pain, involving a callousness to 

 suffering ; from selfishness, or cupidity ; momentary passion, 

 loss of temper, for instance in grooms, riders or drivers ; 

 wilfulness or wantonness ; tyranny, or the iniquitous use of 

 superior power ; than from 



2. Mere ignorance, for instance of the fact that other 

 animals are sensitive to bodily pain. 



3. Thoughtlessness or inadvertence, want of consideration 

 or reflection as" to the possible results of certain actions. 



They also arise from 



4. Prejudice or superstition, including foolish, groundless 

 terrors, such as those relating to the ' madness ' of dogs ; or 

 from 



5. Mere want of sympathy between the higher and the 

 lower animal, between man and his animal servant or slave. 



6. Contempt for all lower animals, the result of a morbid 

 or misplaced pride, an overweening idea of man's place in 

 the zoological scale and of his importance as a moral and 

 intellectual being. 



7. InjudiciousnesSy often well-meant errors of judgment. 



8. Carelessness or neglect, unintentional or unwitting. 

 Of all these causes of the popular errors that lead to so 



disastrous results in man's management of inferior creatures, 

 by far the most important, prevalent, and powerful is igno- 

 rance of the natural history of the lower animals, and 

 especially of their moral and intellectual endoiuments. For, 



