The Status of Animals in the Christian Religion

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THE STATUSOF ANIMALSIN THE CHRISTIANRELIGION

All proceeds of the sale of this book , are devoted to the work of UFAW. the copyright of text and drawings having been donated for that purpose.

THE STATUSOF ANIMALS IN THE CHRISTIANRELIGION by MAJOR C. W. HUME,

M.C., B.SC.

Secretary-General of UFAW (The Universities Federationfor Animal Welfare); Citoyen d'Honneur de Meurchin (P. de C.); Membre d'Ounour dou Riban d'Arle (B. du R.); Schweitzer Medallist, 1956.

with marginal drawings by FOUGASSE

THE UNrVERSITIES FEDERATION FOR ANIMAL WELFARE 7A

LAMB'S CONDUIT PASSAGE LONDON, W.C.l.

PREFACE For thirty years Fougasse and I have worked side by side, with others, to build up the philosophy and organization of UF AW. Pride in having my essay associated with his drawings is doubled by pleasure in the co-operation of such a well-tried ally and friend. Each sketch illustrates some friendly reference in the Bible to one or more animals. My grateful thanks are due to Miss Margaret Pattison for great help in preparing the typescript and for making the index; to Miss Ivy Halden for checking my scripture references; to Dr. W. H. Thorpe, F.R.S., and Dr. W. M. S. Russell for constructively criticizing my animal psychology (chapter 6); to Prof. E. H. Warmington and Miss Rosalind Hill for doing the same for my history; and to nearly all the members of the Executive Committee of UF AW for looking through my script and sending helpful comments. But I have followed only some, not all, of the advice I have received, and for what finally appears in print I must bear all the responsibility. My fellow-members of UF AW are not to blame for any mistakes that may be found, and naturally they will not be supposed to endorse every personal opinion expressed by a very unplatonical Anglican layman whose manner of thinking was first learned from the works of John Locke. On reaching chapter 3 some of my readers will think that I am "going to the Mont de Vergue to look for the Saint Pilon" in other words, going a long way round to get to the point. I would ask them to read at least chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9 as well as 1 and 2, and then turn back and give the remaining chapters a second chance; and not to ignore the Additional Notes. ft seems to me that if we are to achieve what Locke called " bottoming " ( Conduct of the Understanding, § 44) we must see Printed in England by the Courier Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd., Grove Hill Road, Tunbridge Wells. Kent.

iv

V

Ex. 23. 12

CONTENTS PAGE

our subject against a wider background. A mistaken supposition as to the way in which knowledge is got has led to a wrong outlook of which a wrong view of the status of animals is only one aspect. This is my excuse for some passages that may at first sight seem to be unjustifiable digressions.

Chapter 1 :

THE IMPATIENCE OF A LAYMAN

1

Chapter 2 :

ANIMALS IN THE BIBLE

3

Chapter 3 :

GREEK RATIONALISM

8

Chapter 4:

HOW PLATONISM WOUNDED

CHRISTIANITY

AND

17

KILLED SOENCE

25th July, 1956.

C.W.H.

Chapter 5:

HOW

ANIMALS LOST THEIR STATUS AND BEGAN

TO REGAIN IT

26

Chapter 6:

THE PROPER STATUS OF ANIMALS

36

Chapter 7:

ON THE FORMULATION OF POLICY

53

Chapter 8 :

SIN

68

Chapter 9:

"PREACH

77

THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE"

ADDITIONAL

NOTES

A.

Some meanings of the word " rationalism "

85

B.

Laws of nature and scientific explanation

86

C.

The ethical analogue of rationalism

87

D. Intolerance ...

Lou tCms que se refrejo e la marque salivo, Tout me dis que /'iver {'S arriba per ieu E que fau, li!u e Ieu, acampa mis 6ulivo En' 6ufri I' 0/i vierge a I' autar d6u ban Didu. Mistral, Lis Oulivado.

Jer. 4. l3

vi

89

E.

The problem of pain

91

F.

Benedictions of animals in the Roman liturgy : 1. Extracts from the Rituale Romanum 2. Comment of a liturgical historian

94 96

:1\

G. Some prayers for animals 99

Index

100 Zepb. 2, 14

~

'

,)

SYNOPSIS

1. The impatience of a layman. That kindness to animals is a virtue and cruelty a sin is only half-heartedly recognized by theologians. An Anglican layman's apology for enquiring into the origin and admissibility of this habit of mind. 2. Animals in the Bible. Both the Old and the New Testaments exhibit neighbourliness towards animals, which are regarded as forming with men a symbiotic community. 3. Greek rationalism. "Rationalism" here means the conviction that factual knowledge can be got wholly a priori. Through Greek influence this erroneous conviction came to dominate western thought, and Greek philosophy included at least three components which were intrinsically inimical to Christianity, to science, and to neighbourliness towards animals.

SYNOPSIS-continued.

field. Factual judgements and moral judgements. How the Church of England might formulate a policy. How the Church of England might implement a policy. 8. Sin. Among the English " sin " is almost a synonym for sex, but the gospel ethics hang upon love of God ~nd love of one's neighbour. Ethical priorities distorted by the mfl.uence of Gnosticism. Charity, humility, ungreediness. Antinomianism. 9. "Preach the gospel to every creature." More ways than one of preaching the gospel. " In earth as it is in heaven." The redemption of all creation. In what sense the gospel can be preached to animals. Neighbourliness to animals as a praeparatio evangelica.

4. How platonism wounded Christianity and killed science. The effects on Christianity and on science of neoplatonism, of the scholastic revival of Aristotle, and of the Renaissance. Some Franciscans contrasted with Dominicans.

5. How animals lost their status and began to regain it. The Bible's neighbourliness towards animals was continued in the lives of innumerable saints. Aquinas abandoned the Biblical outlook through adopting the metaphysics of Aristotle and the jurisprudence of ancient Rome. The Renaissance entailed a revival of pagan superstition and cruelty. Humanism. The Cartesians. Franciscan pioneers. To the rescue: the evangelical revival, and science reborn of Christian civilization. 6. The proper status of animals. "Animals have no souls." Maxima reverentia debetur rattis. Sensation. Pain. Instincts. Learning. Reasoning. Language. Attention. Emotions. Personality. The world to come. The importance of the distinction between killing and hurting. Inferiority often sanctions killing but never justifies hurting.

J/tf, Jj;..

7. On the formulation of policy. The Roman Catholic position. taken by several other Christian bodies. The mission

·11' • {1 Actions .~\

W?'

f1r \\\1'(',

Is. 1 - 3

viii

ix

ls. 60. 8

CHAPTER

I

THE IMPATIENCE OF A LAYMAN

0 magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ui animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio.

During the past thousand years consideration for animals has, on the whole, lain outside the purview of Christian theology, although throughout that period there have been individual teachers who spared a thought for these creatures. In quite recent times, however, several Christian communions have taken official cognizance of animals' rights. At present the Church of England has not done so, in spite of being the national church of that country which was the first ever to enact legislation on the subject. The Prayer Book does not contain any prayer about animals or indicate whether consideration for them is a Christian virtue and cruelty a sin. The Catechism does not refer to the subject. There are kindly references to birds and beasts in psalms, epistles and gospels, but there is no ground for supposing that these were put into the liturgy for that reason. The compilers of the Prayer Book seem to have assumed that the feelings of animals were something that the Church was not required to concern itself with. Some individual bishops and clergymen have taken a different view. The founder and first secretary of the R.S.P.C.A. was an Anglican priest, the Rev. Arthur Broome, who gave up his living in order to reform the treatment of animals. Owing to the apathy of the public he was soon in prison for the Society's debts, from which discouraging situation he was rescued by the generosity of a Jew and of a jovial Irish duellist and humanitarian, Richard Martin. Some of the clergy preach sermons on kindness to animals once a year, on a Sunday suggested by the R.S.P.C.A. as specially appropriate ; but it would be hard to guess how many of them are in possession of reliable information, for the subject has been made difficult by propaganda which is more notable for enthusiasm than for factual knowledge and sound judgement. Several times during the past twenty years the House of Lords . . has debated gin-trapping, which was alleged by the late Cmdr. ,t-"L. ~ Breck to be "the most awful horror ;n the history of the world,"·~?~/

l.:

X

Ps. 104.17

~

and was recent1y described by a Home Office Committee more soberly, but officially, as " diabolical " and as " causing an incalcu!able amount of suffering." None of the Lords Spiritual took pa~t 111 the_debaJes and divisions. The subject was regarded as one which, unlike divorce, premium bonds and commercial television does not call for an official pronouncement by the authoritativ; voice of the national Church. Only in some individual dioceses have _any directives been given for the guidance of the private consciences of churchmen as to the relations which ought to prevail between man and beast. Is this policy right, and if not_how did it come to be adopted, and ~hat ought t~ be done about it? In suggesting answers to these questions the wnter, a_ humble Anglican layman, takes courage f~om the example of Ehhu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the ki_ndred?f Ram, who answered and said: " Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgement. Therefore I said Hearken u~to me; I also will show mine opinion. The spirit within me constrameth me. Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent, it is ready to burst like new bottles."

CHAPTER

2

ANIMALS IN THE BIBLE The Philosophical Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society represent many stages in the development of the dogma of science, upwards from an early stage in which alchemy had not been replaced by chemistry, the diurnal motion of the earth was still an open question, and scientists believed in spontaneous generation, in the putting out of fires by salamanders spitting slime, and that you could kill a rattlesnake by making it smell pennyroyal. 1 Yet the Transactions and Proceedings constitute one journal in the sense in which an oak constitutes one tree, from the seedling stage until it becomes a noble piece of timber. Likewise the Bible represents many stages in the development of Christian dogma and ethics, upwards from an early stage in which human sacrifice was still under consideration 2 and monotheism was promoted by massacre; 3 yet the Bible constitutes one book, and it exhibits a notable unity in its attitude towards animals. Moreover the sawmills of Protestant modernism have not succeeded in reducing it to sawdust; when the most rationalistic of our divines have done their utmost, the Bible still remains the Christian's main source of spiritual enlightenment. Does it illuminate the present issue in any way ?4 Christianity relies little on specific commandments, much on the effects of character. Instead of explicitly and ineffectively condemning slavery, it modified the characters of Christians in such a way that they eventually saw slavery to be incompatible with their religious principles. 5 Similarly, although the Bible does not abound in specific injunctions against cruelty to animals, the devout and intelligent practice of biblical religion created a state of mind out of which the modern movement for the legal prohibition of cruelty to animals grew up. 1

Phil. Trans. vol. I, pp. 39, 43, 113, 249, 377 (A.D. 1665). Genesis, chap. xxii. 3 I Kings xviii, 40. Readers who know German may be interested in the following title: Mensch und Tier Biblische Betrachtungen by Max Huber (Schultess A-G, Zurich). 5 Matt. xii, 33; Philemon 16. 2 4

•To!,

39 .27

2

3

Ex. 23.4

Sheep and Iambs

To anybody who thinks of kindness to animals in terms of ~etting dogs_and cats Holy Scripture must seem to be singularly silent about 1t, but the reason clearly is that there were no pet cats ~nd few _petdogs in Palestine. 1 Down to modern times most dogs m the Middle East have been half-wild scavengers which have been accustomed to fend for themselves. The most familiar animal in Bible times was the sheep. Cruden's concordance gives about 140 references to sheep, about the same number to lambs, and many also to shepherds. Nathan's poor man 2 had a ewe lamb which grew up together with him and with his children;_" it_did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay m his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." When King David had been successfully drawn with a tale about a rich man who was alleged to have taken this lamb and killed it he burst out "As the Lord liveth, the man that bath done this thing shall surely die! and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he bath done this thing, and because he had no pity." Neighbourliness towards animals was such a deeply rooted tradition 3 among the Jews that it was taken for granted. The care of a shepherd for his sheep was the standard symbol of God's beneficence: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want ... surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life ". " He shall lead his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." 4 It is a notable fact that when our Lord required an analogy to represent God's quest for lost souls he chose for his purpose the case of a man going out to look for ~ lost animal.5 French Roman Catholics make a great point of Good Shephe~d Sunday, which is the second Sunday after Easter, when the Ep1stle6 and Gospel, 7 read also in the Church of England on that day, speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The ritual sacrifice of lambs may not seem to be a very neighbourly way of treating these animals, but it is an error to confuse 1

See, however, Tobit v, 16; xi, 4; Mk. vii, 28. 2 2 Sam. xii, 1-6. 3 . Acc(!rding to !he Talm~d, Baba Mezia, 85a, Rabbi Judah I was punished with physical suffermg for bemg unsympathetic to a calf and restored to health upon _being kind to some mice. (See the Jewish Encyciopaedia, art. " Cruelty to Ammals.")

p-

I,:.!:

•.~:• ll.

' Lk. x,~ 4-7. • I Pet.i;, 21-25. ' John x. ll-16.

the ethics of killing with the ethics of hurting.1 Moreover, the Jews have always regarded slaughtering as a serious matter. They have recognized a certain dignity in the victim, and accordingly when we come to the New Testament we find that the sacrificial lamb has become the symbol of the Saviour of the world. There is nothing here of that contemptuous attitude which was developed under later influences.2 Other domestic animals

But if the sheep was the favourite, it was by no means the only animal to participate in the humane tradition that runs through the Bible and treats men and animals as forming one symbiotic community. The fourth of the Ten Commandments prescribed a sabbath rest for a man's animals co-ordinately with the other members of his household : " Thou and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates." 3 As a matter of fair play men were not to muzzle the ox when it trod out the corn ;4 possibly as a matter of decent feeling as well as for other reasons they were not to seethe a kid in his mother's milk,5 nor take a hen bird with her eggs or young.6 It was therefore hardly necessary for our Lord to give any specific command to be kind to animals. He took it for granted that those whom he addressed would recognize that duty. An ox or an ass fallen into a ditch would be rescued, even on the sabbath day, 7 and even on that day a man's stock would be properly watered 8 out of kindness. 9 Yet there must have been cases of negligence in which an ox was galled by a badly-fitting yoke or a donkey was overloaded, and Jesus noted such things with pity.10 Wild animals

But not only towards domestic animals is the Bible neighbourly. The writers of the Old Testament show a lively interest in wild creatures. The lions roaring after their prey are said to seek their 1 It is true that schechita is not entirely painless, even in modern Britain and when casting pens are used, but when the rules were first introduced, some apparently with a specifically humane purpose, they made Jewish killing much more humane than killing as then practised by neighbouring Gentiles. 2 See chapter 5 of this essay. 3 Exod. xx, 10. 4 Deut. xxv, 4. 5 Exod. xxiii, 19. 5 Deut. xxii, 6. 7 Luke xiv, 5. 8 Luke xiii, 15. 9 Luke xiii, 16. 10 Matt. xi, 30.

5

Ps. 148. 10

meat from God 1 (though the point of view of the prey raises a dilemma which I have tried to discuss elsewhere2). When God answers Job out of the whirlwind it is with the mysteries of Nature, and especially of its fauna, that the limitations of Job's understanding are exposed.3 In the New Testament we find Jesus spending the period of the temptation in the wilderness with the wild beasts. 4 His references to wild birds on several occasions are on record, and there must have been many more. The Heavenly Father feeds them, 5 and not one small bird (" sparrow," strouthion) is forgotten before God. 6 St. Paul and St. John

St. Paul was a townsman and more interested in the allegorical use that could be made of the rule about oxen than in the oxen themselves,7 and he once shook off a snake into the fire,8 but as he himself said9 he did not claim to have attained perfection. As a young man he had been excessively cruel, 10 but from Christianity he had learned better and was still learning. Moreover the next year after he had allegorized the oxen, he put forward a very remarkable view, to which we shall return later on, as to the ultimate destiny of the lower creatures. 11 In the Apocalypse, St. John the Divine described a vision of heaven where in the midst of the throne of God, and round about the throne, he saw four representative animals, the first a wild mammal, the second a domestic mammal, the third a primate, and the fourth a bird; "and when those animals give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him. " 12 Whatever the symbolism of the vision may mean, the fact remains that the seer saw nothing incongruous in the worship of heaven being led by animals.

regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." 1 Man and the lower animals are thought of as constituting a single symbiotic community under God. " Behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you." 2 When Jonah, having prophesied that Nineveh should be destroyed within forty days, was sore because the city was to be spared after all, he was asked " Should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle ?" 3 In other words, he might at least have had a thought for the children and animals, even if he was going to be made to look foolish. God's tender mercies are over all his works. 4 A broadcasting evangelist said some time ago that " animals belong to the jungle and men belong to God." For the psalmist, on the other hand, the jungle also belongs to God: "All the beasts of the forest are mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls upon the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are in my sight." 5

The symbiosis of man and beast

In neither the Old nor the New Testament, therefore, is there to be found that contemptuous attitude towards subhuman creatures which went with the humanism of the Renaissance. If man's superior capacities confer on him a privileged position, privilege does not exempt him from responsibility: " A righteous man 1

3 6

10

2 See additional note E, page 9 I. Ps. civ, 21. 4 Mark i, 13. 5 Matt. vi, 26. Job xxxviii, 39 to xii, 34. 7 I Cor. ix, 9. 8 Acts xxviii, 5. 9 Phil. iii, 12. Luke xii, 6. Acts vii, 58; viii, 3; 1 Cor. xv, 9. 11 See page 82. 12 Rev. iv, 6-9.

Ps.84.3

6

1

Prov. xii, 10.

2

Gen. ix, 9, 10.

3

Jonah iv, 11.

7

4

Ps. cxlv. 9.

5

Ps. 1, 10, 11.

Is. 5. 17

B

CHAPTER

3

GREEK RATIONALISM What is meant by " rationalism " The word " rationalism " is used in this essay in its philosophical sense ;1 that is to say it denotes the assumption that the laws of nature can be known a priori, like a theorem of mathematics or logic, by reasoning alone; 2 sometimes with the corollary that they are necessary laws.3 In reality no fact and no law of nature can be known in this way; not even one's own existence can be known a priori.4 All mathematical and logical theorems, as applied to real existents, are conditional and begin with the word" if," expressed or implied. For instance, although it is possible to know by reasoning alone that if two overlapping discs have circular outlines their outlines will intersect in two and only two real points; nevertheless, whether two such discs exist, and whether they are circular, can be known only by observation. Again, the ratio of their circumferences to their diameters can be ascertained a priori, by calculation, to be equal to pi if they are truly circular and if space is Euclidean ; but whether they are circular, and how closely space approximates to Euclidean flatness, can be known only by observation and measurement. The parallelogram of forces can be established by reasoning in so far as space is isotropic; but how far space is isotropic in our region of the universe must be inferred from measurements. The second law of thermodynamics follows necessarily from the basic laws of motion, but these must first have been verified experimentally; moreover, it is true only if there are no Maxwell's demons about. Even if a cosmology such as that of Eddington or of Milne, which purports to be deduced from one or a few basic assumptions - even if one of these cosmologies should be found to have logical cogency, its basic assumptions could be validated only by observational tests. 1 As to other meanings of the word " rationalism," see additional note A on page 85. 2 Cf. Spinoza, Ethics, Bk. II, note II to prop. 40, and props. 41-44. 4 See note 2 on page 32. a ibid. Bk. I, prop. 29 and Bk. II, prop. 44.

Ps. 42. 1

8

Nor is it possible to understand why any given set of causes should give rise to the effects which flow from them. All that can be done is to observe that events take place according to statistical rules which can be ascertained by inductive inference from suitably planned observations, 1 and to follow out the logical implications of the rules so ascertained. Thus science, unlike its logical and mathematical tools, but like Christianity, bottoms upon experience. The conclusions it reaches, unlike mathematical theorems, are probable, not certain; provisional, not final; statistical, not absolute. On the other hand they are categorical and not conditional. The rationalist approach has been unfavourable not only to Christianity and to physical science but also to the spirit ofneighbourliness towards animals, notably in the case of the Cartesian philosophy. The most probable explanation lies in the difficulty of ascertaining the facts about the psychology of animals in an objective way; this seems to have encouraged doctrinaire speculation on the subject on one hand and sentimentality on the other. The rationalismof Plato In the early Christian centuries philosophy came to be dominated by the teaching of Plato (428-348 B.C.) which was essentially rationalistic. Although Plato's disciple Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) recognized the need for observation in principle, and although he relied on experiments to some extent in his biology, yet in his physics and most other parts of his philosophy his method was to· a considerable extent rationalistic, 2 not scientific. Under the leadership of the Catechetical School (founded A.D. 180) in the University of Alexandria, many Christian theologians were seduced by platonism, especially in the form it assumed in the hands of later platonists such as Plotinus (A.D. 205-270).3 It 1 See Additional Note B on " Laws of nature and scientific explanation." page 86. 2 For instance, Aristotle reasoned that bodies must fall with velocities proportional to their weights and inversely proportional to the resistance of the medium, although a simple experiment would have shown this to be untrue, and he inferred that a vacuum is impossible (Physics, IV, viii). He reasoned that " there exists a simple body naturally so constituted as to move in a circle of its own nature" and deduced the existence of a fifth element (The Heavens, I, ii). Greek philosophers were at their best, so far as knowledge of nature is concerned, when they based their reasoning upon familiar facts of experience, as Archimedes did in his discovery about hydrostatic pressure. 3 I have used the word " platonists," as St. Augustine did, to include the neoplatonists, who found in Plato's philosophy a congenial soil on which to cultivate gnostical weeds unknown to Plato himself.

9

Ps. 104. 12

attracted them because it used lofty language about God and because it reached conclusions that seemed to be compatible with Christian piety; except, of course, when it was openly attacking Christianity or defending paganism. What they failed to see was that its methods, being dialectical or rationalistic, were fallacious and therefore calculated to lead astray. In addition to, or because of, this methodological failing, Greek rationalism exhibited three kinds of pride, all of which were intrinsically inimical to Christianity, to science, and to neighbourliness towards animals. These three kinds of pride were intellectual, moral and social respectively. Intellectual pride as inimical to Christianity

The intellectual pride of Greek rationalism lay in its exalting the intellect or reason or ratiocinative power above all other human powers, and confounding intellectual excellence with moral excellence. Now reason, which is the subject-matter of logic and appears to be the factor measured by Spearman's g, consists in the ability to perceive relations between ideas1 and to perceive the implications of propositions. By its exercise concepts are formed, and these include, inter alia, those general ideas, or attributes of classes, or universals, to which Plato paid a superstitious reverence. To make matters worse, the platonists confused ratiocination with moral and resthetic judgements, and Plato himself tried to resolve factual questions by reference to what is good and beautiful. Straight thinking demands, on the other hand, that factual, ethical and resthetic judgements should be made in complete independence ,of one another. For Plotinus the divine thought, the Nous, " is a sort of mediation to us of the unknowable One, and connotes the highest really (sic ? " reality ") knowable; it is the universal intelligence containing all particular intelligences, and the totality of the divine thoughts known in the language of Plato as the ideas ". 2 Neoplatonist religion aimed to rise above sensation to contemplation of the Nous. (It also spoke of rising further still into a state of ecstasy above the level of the intellect, but as Plotinus is only said to have experienced it on four occasions and Porphyry once, this need not concern us.) Plato used the word " idea " narrowly to mean a concept. John Locke, following Descartes, gave it a wider meaning, making it denote " whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate object of perception, thought or understanding." The word is used in Locke's sense in this essay. • 2 G. H. Turnbull, The Essence of Plotinus, p. 14. 1

Job 28.

10

These misapprehensions of the nature and function of ratiocination were inimical to Christianity in that the knowledge of God, as mediated by Jesus Christ, is available to persons of limited intelligence as well as to intellectuals. 1 The apostles, apart from St. Paul, were not drawn from the intelligentsia. Christians have, it is true, sometimes used the same terminology as platonists, but so long as they were talking sense they have meant different things by it. When St. Paul wrote 2 "We have received the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, because they are spiritually discerned " he was not thinking of the logic of universals and did not mean what a platonist might have meant by the same phraseology; his preaching was " unto the Greeks foolishness ". 3 The curious thing is that nowadays the airy speculations of Plotinus and Porphyry interest nobody except a few mangeurs de regardelles, whereas the gospel of the Galilean fishermen is a best-seller in more than a thousand modern languages and dialects. On the other hand, however, the vague rhetoric and equivocal metaphors of neoplatonism have indirectly infected contemporary Christian preaching and writing, to the disadvantage of us all. Intellectual pride as inimical to science

To science this feature of Greek rationalism was inimical because science bottoms upon observations made by means of the senses (and, in the case of psychology, of introspection) whereas the platonists sought to rise above the senses and leave them behind. "One wishing to contemplate the Intellectual Nature (Nous) will lay aside all representations of the senses, and so may see what transcends the realm of sense ". 4 Thus, although the platonists made excellent progress in geometry, they despised sensory data. Plato's own idea of scientific method was as follows: "We have to determine what are the four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some are capable of resolution into one another; for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements. And then we shall not be willing to allow that there are any distinct kinds of 1 " Une simple femme peu cultivee, si elle est pieuse, a plus le sentiment du bien moral qu'un theologien sans vertu." Le R. P. M.-J. Lagrange, L'Evangile de Jesus-Christ (Librairie Lecoffre, 1954), p. 312. 2 I Cor. ii, 12, 14. 3 I Cor. i, 23. 4 Plotinus, Ennead V, v in Turnbull, p. 164.

II

Matt.19.24

(1~

~\'1~

visible bodies fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to say that we have sufficiently apprehended their nature. Now of the two triangles the isosceles .... " Here is an example of Plato's approach to physics. Discussing colour mixtures he says: " The law of proportion according to which the several colours are formed, even if a man knew, he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any necessary reason ... " and his fanciful account of the subject ends: " He who should attempt to verify all this by experiment would forget the difference of the human and divine natures. For God only has the knowledge and also the power which is able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one into many." 1 The principal controversy which later divided the medireval schoolmen was that between the realists and the nominalists. The realists, who at first had the support of ecclesiastical authority, stood for Plato's rationalism, while the nominalists were feeling their way towards a scientific outlook. Intellectual pride as inimical to animals

The reasoning powers of animals are rudimentary at best; we shall return to that subject in chapter 6 of this essay. It follows that a philosophy which glorified the intellect above all else was bound to be detrimental to their status: " Those that have lived wholly to sense become " said Plotinus 2 " animals; according to their particular temper of life, ferocious or gluttonous animals." 3 But earlier still Aristotle had marked animals down for their lack of intellect, and his intellectual snobbery eventually passed into the Thomist philosophy. The most striking achievement of the human intellect, and the one which contributes most to the glory of mankind, is mathematics. St. Augustine, who adopted a good deal of platonism, instanced arithmetic in support of Plato's glorification of a-priori theorems 1

Plato, Timaeus, Vol. 2. pp. 34, 47, in Jowett's translation of the Dialogues. Ennead III, iv, in Turnbull, p. 89. 3 Plato himself half believed in a kind of reversed evolution. Men were created first, and then those who were cowards or lived unrighteous lives became women in the second generation; innocent light-minded men became birds, those who had no philosophy in their thoughts became wild pedestrian animals, the most foolish of all became reptiles, and the most entirely senseless and ignorant, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression, became fish and oysters, as a punishment for their outlandish ignorance. (Timaeus, Jowett's translation of the Dialogues, Vol. 2, pp. 67, 68). 2

~ ~-----

Jonah 1. 17

12

and of the eternal archetypal ideas or universals. He wrote " I do not know how long anything I touch by a bodily sense will persist, as, for instance, this sky and this land, and whatever other bodies I perceive in them. But seven and three are ten not only now but always ... this incorruptible truth of number is common to me and anyone at all who reasons." 1 And Plato said" The knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing or transient ... Geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down." 2 Now it has been found that electronic digital computers can perform complicated mathematical and other logical processes much more accurately and much faster than the human intellect can. If the platonists are right, therefore, it would appear that the worth of electronic digital computers should be exalted above the worth of man as much as that is above the worth of animals. The spiritual pride of neoplatonism

The spiritual pride of neoplatonism lay in its contempt for matter, including the human body; it regarded matter as worthless and the cause of evil.3 Plotinus "seemed ashamed of being in the body," refused to take baths, and would not allow his portrait to be taken, and Porphyry (A.D. 233-303) at one time thought of committing suicide in order, apparently, to rid himself of such an undesirable encumbrance as a body. 4 The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation was condemned by the pagan platonists who held such views. Celsus (A.D. 150?180), who was more platonist than epicurean, considered that incarnation in a material body entailed" impurity," to which Origen (185-254 A.O.) retorted that" The nature of the body is not impure; 1 Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, book 2, chap. 8, sec. 21, as quoted by A. C. Crombie. 2 Plato, Republic, Book VII, Jowett's translation, p. 229. 3 Plotinus, Ennead I, viii in Turnbull, p. 57. 4 Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, sections 1, 2, 11. Some of the Church fathers, who were constantly at grips with the platonist enemies of Christianity, carried too far the principle fas est ab haste doceri and rivalled their opponents in contempt for the body. St. Jerome considered that "dirty clothes are a sign of a pure mind" (Epist. CXXV, 22) and strongly disapproved of nuns having baths: "Mihi omnino in adulta virgine lavacra displicent" (Epist. CVII, 22). (To this day in some convent schools the girls are taught to dress and undress under the bedclothes.) On the other hand St. Augustine did allow nuns to have baths at the intervals usual in the hot climate of North Africa, viz., once a month (Epist. CCXI, 13), and he rejected the platonist view that the body is evil (De Civitate Dei XIV, 5).

13

Ps. 102. 7

for in so far as it is bodily nature it does not possess vice, which is the generative principle of impurity ". 1 St Augustine, who made free use of platonistic thought but exercised an independent judgement upon it, devoted a chapter to the heading: " Of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the impious platonists shame to acknowledge " and wrote " Porphyry says ... that the soul must leave the body entirely, ere it can be joined to God," and " Those proud fellows scorn to have God for their master, because ' the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us' ". 2 Science consists in the study of matter and material bodies on the basis of observations made by means of the senses. A philosophy which despised matter and distrusted the senses was, therefore, inimical to it. Interest in scientific research declined as Plato's influence extended, and was extinct by the end of the second century A.D.

The most obvious characteristic of animals is their possession of bodies, and they are most familiar to casual observers in connection with the use of their bodies for food, with their physical activities, and with those carnal functions of eating and drinking, mating and breeding, which neoplatonists looked down upon. And since animals were not supposed to have souls, the possession of a soulless body was calculated to bring them into contempt; hence all those misbegotten terms of abuse which are still in common use - '' brutal," " beastly," " dirty dog," "little rat," " swine," "vermin," "cochon ! ", "chameau! ". 3 The social pride of platonism

The social pride of platonism also was intrinsically inimical to the three good causes we have been considering. Platonism was a philosophy, and neoplatonism a religion, for cultured gentlemen of leisure. It is true that superficially Plato was so democratic as to propose that " all wives and children should be common, so that no one should ever know his own child," but at a deeper level he deviated from this ideology, for he added that " the chief magistrates should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be no quarreling on this account, for they would imagine that the Origen Contra Celsum, III, 41, 42. De Civitate Dei, Book X, chap. 29. 3 Admittedly the last of these epithets is more often addressed unzoologically to horses than to humans. 1 2

Is. 34. 11

14

union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot "; and he further taught that " the children of the good parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens." 1 He considered that you should be kind to slaves but keep them in their place : " Slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited. The language used to a servant ought always to be that of a command, and we ought not to jest with them." 2 Plato would not have approved of the message which St. Paul sent to Philemon about the latter's runaway slave, Onesimus: " Perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou shouldest receive him for ever, not now as a slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved." 3 Celsus objected against the Christians that their teachers included " workers in wool and leather, and fullers, and persons of the most uncultured and rustic character " 4 and he was right on his facts. St. Paul wrote " Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." 5 Justin Martyr considered it a merit of Christianity that this religion enabled the highest virtues to be taught by illiterate persons: " You may hear and learn these things from such among us as are not able to distinguish a letter; rude indeed, and barbarous in speech, but in mind wise and faithful. " 6 To science, also, the social snobbery of platonism was inimical, because even pure science needs to be associated with arts and manufactures which suggest problems for research and provide instruments for carrying it on. The platonists were not interested in arts and manufactures: Plato suggested that these should be delegated to artisans who were not to be citizens, and a citizen who " inclined to any other art than the study of virtue " (in other words, than philosophical speculation) was to be " punished with disgrace and infamy." 7 The natural effect of social snobbery on neighbourliness towards animals is all too obvious. Such merits as they may possess fidelity, affection, lovableness and so on - are also to be found in Laws, Vol. II, pp. 4, 5 (Jowett). ibid. p. 537. 3 Epistle to Philemon, 15, 16. 4 Origen Contra Celsum, III, 55. s 1 Cor. i, 26-28. 6 Apology LXXVIII, early in the second century A.D. 7 Plato, Laws, VIII: Vol. II, p. 595, Jowett. 1

2

15

Job 38. 39

some ungrammatical and ill-shaved humans, and animals lack most of the refinements of polite society. Victorian England was deeply shocked when Darwin suggested that the brutes are in fact man's poor relations. Some valuable animal, such as a thorough-bred race-horse, might be held in esteem, but those which are classed as vermin because they share man's food-preferences and diseases are even now treated with callous contempt. This state of things will be considered further in chapter 6. Greek rationalism contained, then, features which were likely to be inimical to Christianity, to science, and to neighbourliness towards animals. Let us consider how these three causes fared in the sequel.

CHAPTER

4

HOW PLATONISM WOUNDED CHRISTIANITY AND KILLED SCIENCE A question of relevance

At first sight it may seem that this chapter is an irrelevant digression, but on closer inspection the reader may find that there really does seem to be some correlation between Christianity, science, and neighbourliness towards animals, so that these three good causes tend in the long run to flourish or fade together. 1 Under " science " I do not include either technology or popular science, because both of these are concerned with results and conclusions, in other words with the dogma of science, rather than its methods, whereas the cultural value of science lies in its methodology. The conclusions apart from the methods by which they are reached are unedifying. Perhaps the link between the three good causes referred to may be this, that each of them demands a particular mental attitude, and the three attitudes have some features in common. Honesty or objectivity is one of these. A Christian's examination of his conscience has to be honest if it is to be of any use. Honesty is a first requirement in a scientist; Kammerer committed suicide because, apparently through a misunderstanding, he was under suspicion of having faked experimental results. For the fair treatment of animals, also, straight thinking is required; we shall presently notice some of the harm done by uncritical assumptions about their psychology. No doubt the rationalist philosophers tried hard to think straight, but their efforts did not always meet with success. 1 The kinship of Christianity with science is noted in Prof. John Baillie's philosophical discourse delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Edinburgh meeting in 1951, with the title: Natural Science and the Spiritual Life (0. U .P .). Prof. C. A. Coulson, F .R.s., in his McN air Lectures entitled Science and Christian Belief (O.U.P.) takes the view that scientific research is a religious activity inasmuch as it contemplates the work of God. He compares the scientific and Christian accounts of the universe to two complementary views, such as plan and sectional elevation, of a building, or the two optical images in stereoscopic vision.

-- -

Ps. 114. 4

16

17

Jer. 8. 7

Akin to this requirement is humility, which is a standard Christian virtue but is found also in scientific research. Whereas technology tends to beget a hubristic mentality by giving men power over nature, and popular science masks the fact that knowledge is provisional, science proper tends to beget humility, partly because its horizon is always receding and partly because it often has to make do provisionally with hypotheses which are imperfectly self-consistent.1 Neighbourliness towards animals likewise demands humility: a farmer who respects his stock as being something more than marketable property, a biologist who respects his laboratory mice as being something more than test tubes, a rodent operative2 who respects his victims enough to choose humane methods of carrying out his functions, are all exercising humility in their respective fields. Another common factor is the relatively low value attached to money. This is a frequent topic in the New Testament. 3 Many scientists will choose to spend their energies in a research that interests them rather than to sell their services in the highest market. 4 The major cruelties practised on animals in civilized countries to-day arise out of commercial exploitation, and the fear of losing profits is the chief obstacle to reform. Another common characteristic is the love of nature. The interest of scientists and animal-lovers in this is obvious. Christianity took over a similar interest from the Jews, and clenched it by the doctrine of the Incarnation. Yet other common characteristics are doggedness, hopefulness, and resistance to tyranny. But why should rationalism be inimical to these three good causes? By dispensing with the need for observation it dispenses with science. It is calculated to undermine Christian belief by its negative tendency (any fool can see logical difficulties and 1 The classical example of a scientific paradox relates to the nature of light. Newton and Brewster held it to consist of particles, the continental physicists favoured the wave theory. There is experimental evidence in favour of each of these two incompatible hypotheses. The paradox has now been resolved by thinking of both photons and material particles as associated with waves of probability in a non-existent medium, but until this elucidation had been reached the matter was imperfectly perspicuous. 2 Formerly known as a rat-catcher. 3 E.g., Matt. vi, 19, 20; Luke xviii, 22; 2 Cor. viii, 9; 1 Tim. vi, 9; Heb. xi, 26; Jas. ii, 5; 1 Pet. v, 2; etc., etc. 4 Cf. "Human motives in fundamental research," Nature, 26 May 1956, vol. 177, p. 951.

Cant. 2. 12

18

contradictions, but positive belief demands a greater mental effort); 1 it discourages neighbourliness towards animals by encouraging unfounded speculations about their minds, and also through the ethical approach which is cognate with it.2 But above all it fosters pride, 3 of which three examples were given in the preceding chapter. The impact of Greek thought on Christianity

During the early centuries of its existence Christianity was subjected to bitter attacks not only by pagan mobs and magistrates but also by neoplatonist philosophers who undertook to defend paganism, notably Celsus, Porphyry (not Plotinus), and the Emperor Julian (A.D. 331-363). In the course of these struggles some Christian theologians absorbed more platonistical philosophy than was good for them, but during the barbarian invasions which overran Europe in the following centuries platonism was little studied except in so far as its influence appeared at second hand in the works of Christian writers, especially St. Augustine and Boethius. There was also Aristotle's logic, which was wholesome enough. The works of the Venerable Bede (A.D. 673-735) are a sample of what intelligent monks thought about in those days. At the end of his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation he gave a list of the books he had written, and these seem to have comprised about sixty commentaries on various parts of the Bible; two homilies on the gospel and a transcription of all he could find in St. Augustine upon " the Apostle "; a book of hymns, one of epigrams, a number of lives of saints; and half a dozen works on some of the seven secular subjects that constituted the school curriculum, the trivium comprising grammar, logic and rhetoric, and the quadrivium comprising arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music. But from the ninth century onwards the Arab philosophers increasingly injected into the West a much larger dose of Aristotle's speculations, mixed with neoplatonism and Moslem commentaries; and be it remembered that, although Aristotle had seen the error Cf. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, Chapter VI. See Additional Note C, page 87. 3 Cicero's rationalistic Epicurean, Velleius, spoke "fidenter sane, ut solent isti, nihil tarn verens quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur, tamquam modo ex deorum concilio et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset " - " very confidently, as the Epicureans do, fearing nothing" (he means "nothing else") " so much as to seem doubtful about anything, as if he had just stepped down from the council of the gods and the interplanetary spaces of Epicurus " (De Natura Deorum, I, viii). 1

2

19

II Sam. 2 .18

of Plato's ways to some extent, that extent was limited. 1 Moreover, as early as the ninth century one Johannes Scotus (Erigena), a forerunner of the modern metaphysical Scot, translated from the Greek the writings of a neoplatonist who was erroneously supposed to have been Dionysius the Areopagite. This pseudo-Dionysius (not to be confused with St. Denys, the patron saint of France) became very popular and was freely quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas. The school of Chartres in the twelfth century interested itself also in the speculations about natural phenomena which Plato had set out in the Tima:us. The mixture of Aristotle, neoplatonism and Moslem thought which occupied the schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries represented what were at that time the assured results of modern scholarship; modernists like Amalric, therefore, swallowed it whole, but the fundamentalists dug up Amalric's bones and reburied them in unconsecrated ground (1209 A.D.). St. Thomas Aquinas (12251274 A.D.), who had a massive intellect of his own, was more discriminating, but he riveted a great part of Aristotle's philosophy so firmly to the Christian faith that our Roman Catholic brethren have never since got rid of it. Finally, in the fifteenth century there came the Renaissance, a full-blooded revival of pagan Greek culture. How platonismwoundedChristianity The neoplatonists' attempt to murder Christianity in its cradle was unsuccessful and the Church emerged victorious from all its struggles, but not without some nasty scars. The worst scars seem to have been incurred in the following way. Theologians, in applying their reasoning powers to spiritual data as a scientist applies his to sensory data, have to use such intellectual tools as are available to them at the time, and if the tools are blunt or dirty their work suffers. Moreover apologists, especially, feel a temptation to recommend Christianity to their contemporaries by adapting it to the ambient climate of opinion, however transitory and misbegotten some features of that climate may be. Now the intellectual tools available to theologians in the pre-scientific era were provided by Greek rationalism, and very blunt and dirty tools they were. The platonistic confusion of intellectual excellence with spiritual excellence betrayed many Christian leaders into attaching to the 1 " Ch'est del' flammique parell' a ch'pain," as we say in the Pas de Calais. When a farmer's wife was making bread she would sprinkle a little sugar on some of the dough and call that a cake, known as a" flammique." Hence the proverb, " It's flammique just like bread."

Matt. 15. 27

20

conceptual analysis and verbal formulation of beliefs an importance which was too great in comparison with the importance of the beliefs1 themselves, so that they spent an undue proportion of their energies in philosophical disputes. 2 It is like the difference between inventing a new electrical circuit and defining its novel features in words for the purpose of a patent claim; plenty of people can do the former who would only make a misleading tangle of the latter. The analysis of what is implied in the data of Christianity had to be effected in the fourth century with platonist tools, and the dirt from these helped to set up a septically uncharitable state of mind in the theologians. 3 The Orations of Athanasius (A.D. 296-373) Against the Arians are bestrewn with personal insults; for instance in the first oration: " They miserably go astray who call the Arians Christians ... The amusement of fools and buffoons over their cups ... they deceitfully put on false colours, and disguise their odious novelties with words improperly applied ... "; and patati and patata. Later, in the wars of religion and in the mutual persecutions of Roman Catholics and Protestants, political motives were no doubt paramount, but when theologians as such took a part in these things they did so because they had learned to attach more importance to correct logical analysis and verbal expression than to spiritual progress and Christian living. Very different in spirit was St. Paul's wish: " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 4 Having failed to kill Christianity, therefore, Greek rationalism left it with these nasty scars.5 Further, Roman Catholics seem to be permanently saddled with the Thomist philosophy, 6 and the souls of Protestants are fed all too often with airy platonistical 1 By a man's beliefs I mean those factual assumptions which, when combined with motives, serve to guide his behaviour. 2 A man can be spiritually heretical but verbally orthodox, and vice versa. With what shuddering horror did John Henry Newman suddenly realize that, without ever having noticed the fact, he had been in the position of a Monophysite ! (Apologia pro Vita Sua, summer vacation, 1839). 3 See Additional Note D, page 89. 4 Eph. vi, 24. Cf. Mark ix, 40; xii, 34; Matt. xxv, 37-40; Acts x, 34, 35; etc., etc. 5 One must not, of course, blame Plato every time a man loses his temper in an argument. St. John himself never really grew out of his Boanergic temperament (Mark iii, 17; Luke ix, 54; Mark ix, 38; 2 John 9-11; 3 John 9; Rev. xx 10; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III, xxciii; IV, xiv). Nevertheless intoleranc~ is a logical corollary of a rationalist epistemology (see Additional Note D) and the dependence of Christian controversialists on Greek philosophy must therefore have tended to encourage this weakness in them. 6 See, however, page 53.

21

Ps.11.1

phrases about the Absolute, and the Infinite, and majuscular Goodness, Truth and Beauty, which turn out, on analysis, to mean just nothing at all. How Greek rationalism killed science

The fate of science at the hands of Greek rationalism was rather different. Scientific research (as distinct from pure mathematics) was starved to death by that philosophy and was not reborn for another thousand years, unless alchemy can be regarded as science in embryo.I The earlier Greek philosophers had made considerable progress in astronomy and some progress in acoustics, optics and biology, but from about 300 B.C. onwards interest in science began to diminish, except for an occasional flash in the pan like the mechanics of Archimedes (287-212 B.C.), and even Archimedes was more interested in geometry than in science. By 200 A.D. all progress was dead; the philosophers had all turned platonist. The blame for this has been wrongfully laid on Christianity, 2 but in the period between A.D. 65 and A.D. 202 there were five general persecutions of Christians by the Emperors, apart from partial ones, and all were carried out with extreme cruelty. Since the Church had not enough influence to prevent these, it could not have had enough to arrest scientific research even if it had wished to do so. There were nine general persecutions in two and a half centuries, and no sooner had the Church emerged victorious but shattered and disorganized from all these trials, than the West was overwhelmed by successive waves of barbarian invasion, which left no time to think about such things. It has to be admitted that the fathers of the Church were so simple-minded as to suppose that it was more important to learn how to love God and one's neighbour than to understand the way in which the forms of cold, hot, wet and dry produce the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, or how the conjunctions of the heavenly bodies affect health; and if they were alive to-day they might think it unfortunate that some people have learned how to make hydrogen bombs without first learning how to be good neighbours. But what is really significant is, not that Christianity The alchemists did for chemistry what Freud did for psychological theory: like him they devised new techniques, but, like him again, they construed the observations made by means of these in terms of fanciful speculations which were not subjected to scientific control. 2 E.g., Sir James Jeans, The Growth of Physical Science, p. 71 (1951); Sedgwick and Tyler, A Short History of Science, p. 171 (1939); Sir W. Dampier, A History of Science, p. 65 (1948). I

Deut. 28. 49

22

should have failed to give rebirth to science at that time, but that the monasteries should have contrived to save from the wreck so much of the ancient culture as they did save. It was Greek rationalism, not Christianity, that had murdered science in its cradle. When Aristotle's philosophy, having been taken to Persia by the Nestorian Christians, had been picked up there by the Arabs and brought back to Europe, it was the speculative elements in his physics and metaphysics that roused the greatest interest, especially among the Dominicans. I In due course the Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas made a modified Aristotelian philosophy into the predominant, though not obligatory or exclusive, philosophy of the Roman Catholic church, and at a later date it was the Dominicans who forced Galileo to recant his deviation from Aristotle's opinions. These intellectual upheavals were followed by that deterioration in Christian practice which provoked the Reformation and a great increase in superstition and in cruelty. The iniquitous crusade against the Albigensians began in A.D. 1208. As for witchcraft, "When the Church first conquered the world, magical fertility cults and other forms of witchcraft were regarded by intelligent men as relics of paganism and not much feared. St. Boniface (680-755 A.D.) classed belief in witches among the wiles of the Devil, and the laws of Charlemagne made it murder to put anyone to death on a charge of witchcraft." 2 But these wise counsels did not survive the impact of Greek rationalism. " St. Thomas Aquinas exercised his subtle ingenuity in explaining away the former attitude of the Church towards witchcraft" and "Pope Innocent VIII in 1484 gave the formal sanction of the Church to the popular belief in the active evil powers of sorcerers and witches." 3 That date, 1484, is significant. J. A. Symons chose the year A.D. 1453 as the "starting point in time of the Renaissance," 4 though others might choose a date half a century earlier. At all events, the Renaissance was a revival of paganism and gave new life to all sorts of pagan superstitions such as witchcraft and astrology. In the two centuries that followed the year 1484 at least I Though the Dominican Albertus Magnus, whose friend and disciple Aquinas was, was himself keenly interested in scientific problems as well as theology and philosophy. 2 Sir W. C. Dampier (formerly Whetham), A History of Science, 4th edition, p. 42. 3 ibid. 4 Encyclop(J!diaBritannica, art. "Renaissance."

23

Ps. 104. 18

C

three-quarters of a million persons, perhaps many ?lore, were tortured and burned for alleged witchcraft. The Renaissance also created the cult of humanism, which made man the centre of all things. Thus, so far as religion and science are concerned, important effects of the impact of Greek thought on Europe were to implant that admiration for dialectics which nourishes controversy and heresy-hunting; to put new life into superstition; to fos_tercruelty; and to substitute the worship of man for the worship of God. Before we consider how the status of animals fared during these changes, let us notice that the clouds had a silver lining. The turn of the tide In fairness it has to be admitted that both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas recognized the importance of observation and experiment in theory, but in practice they_ la:psed ~o~ the _mo~t part into rationalism. The rebirth of the scientific spmt, which 1s akin to the Christian spirit in important respects,1 came from a different source. The Franciscans 2 were founded in A.D. 1208 and the outlook of their founder was such that some of them came to take a keen interest in natural phenomena. As a result, " Side by side with Thomism there flourished a so?lewhat different type of medireval philosophy, which is of great mt~rest from t~e ~act that it was the direct ancestral form of modern science. Its prmcipal representatives were connected with_the Fra~ciscan ~rder: from t~e point of view of our present subJ~Ct, t~eir most important distinguishing quality was that they avoided, m a greater or less degree, the erroneous Aristotelian physics and cosmology ". 3 Thus: " The line of descent of the modern physicist is to be traced not from the humanists of the Renaissance, but from the ~choolm~n of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who translated mto Latm the Arabic versions of Greek mathematics and science." 4 . '!he chief of these Franciscan pioneers of modern science were Bntish. Robert Grosseteste (A.D. 1175-1283),though not actually a member of the order was Rector of the Franciscans at Oxford, a stouthearted refo;mer, a student of Scripture, and a far-seeing pioneer See page 17. . . . It is interesting that the first schoolman to mention the dmrn~l rotat1on_of the earth was a Franciscan, Frarn;ois de Meyronnes (A.C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, p. 62). a Space and Spirit by Sir E. T. Whittaker, _F.R.s., p. 43 (Nelson). This little book deserves to be read and re-read many times. 4 ibid, p. 135.

of the correct use of mathematics in combination with experiment and observation, notably in optics. His pupil Roger Bacon (?12191294)1 was a Franciscan friar, who incidentally attached great importance to the study of the New Testament in the original Greek. " That which marked Bacon out from among the other philosophers of his time - indeed of the whole of the European Middle Ages - was his clear understanding that experimental methods alone give certainty in science." 2 Two other British Franciscans, Duns Scotus (1265-1308), who was another metaphysical Scot and probably came from Duns in Berwickshire, and William of Occam (deceased A.D. 1347, born at Ockham in Surrey) were philosophers rather than scientists; nevertheless by undermining the platonic realism which had obstructed progress in the understanding of nature they prepared the way for modern research. The Franciscan Order became very variegated; for example St. Bonaventure, far from being a scientist, was severely infected with neoplatonism. Nevertheless to some Franciscans was due the rebirth of physical science, which had been killed in its cradle by the platonists. Now here are some curious coincidences. The Dominicans were the great persecutors of heretics, and founders of the Inquisition; it was they who in practice favoured the rationalistic elements in Aristotle, and obtained the condemnation of Galileo for deviating from Aristotle's teaching; and it was they who, as we shall see, must bear no small part of the blame for the decline of the Church's tradition of neighbourliness towards animals. The Franciscans, on the other hand, made more of Christian charity than of intellectual speculation ; they studied the Christian gospels more than the Physics and the Metaphysics; their founder had an enthusiastic love of nature, as his Song of the Creation shows; certain of them were the pioneers of the rebirth of scientific method; and the neighbourliness towards animals exhibited by St. Francis has passed into a proverb. Can these coincidences be purely accidental? We have considered how Christianity and science fared at the hands of Greek rationalism. What was the fate of the third good cause, neighbourliness towards animals? To this we must turn in the next chapter.

1

2

Ex.23.4

24

1 Not to be confused with Francis Bacon (A.D. 1561-1626), who devised and set forth at enormous length a method of investigating nature which never has been, and never will be, of the slightest use to any research ~orker_; but_he lavished such eloquent praise on it that he has largely succeeded m gettmg himself taken at his own valuation. 2 Dampier, A History of Science, 4th edition, p. 90.

25

Matt. 13. 32

CHAPTER

5

HOW ANIMALS LOST THEIR STATUS AND BEGAN TO REGAIN IT Saints and animals

The neighbourly attitude of the Bible towards animals was retained by the early Church. "In Christian art, animal forms have always occupied a place of far greater importance than was ever accorded to them in the art of the pagan world. In the early days of Latin and Byzantine Christianity, as well as in the period of its full bloom in the Middle Ages, a prodigious number of representations of anim4Is is found not only in monumental sculpture, but in illuminated manuscripts, in stained-glass windows, and in tapestry as well." 1 St. Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407) wrote: "The Saints are exceedingly loving and gentle to mankind, and even to brute beasts," and " Surely we ought to show them great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves." 2 The lives of the saints contain hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stories of friendship with all sorts of animals. St. Jerome has regularly been depicted as living, together with his tame Iamb or donkey, with a lion which appointed itself to be his bodyguard after he had befriended it by getting a thorn out of its paw. St. Giles, patron saint of cripples, received his injury through defending a tame hind. The Blessed Martin of Perres " is represented with a basket in his hand surrounded by rats, either that he is about to feed them or to take them from the sacristy and gather them in the garden, in order to supply them with the leavings of the house." The cell of the anchorite St. Theonas was constantly frequented by buffaloes, goats, and wild asses. But such stories could be The Catholic Encyclopa:dia, art. "Animals in Christian Art." Chrysostom, Homily xxxix, 35, on the Epistle to Romans, and as quoted in the Catena Gra:ca. See the Catholic Truth Society's pamphlet " Kindness to Animals," pp. 14, 15. 1

2

Prov. 30. 25

26

multiplied indefinitely.1 Whether or not they all have a historical basis, they show what was expected of a saint in those days. The scanty library of the early Middle Ages included the Natural History of Pliny who, though a pagan, was not a platonist. This . work was kindly and congenial to the Christian spirit and was highly valued. Pliny told some tall stories (including one about a woman of Gaetulia who, on being captured by a pride of lions, made such an eloquent appeal to their sense of honour that they consented to let her go), but his errors were factual rather than ethical. He imputed to animals a greater share of human endowments than they really possess, but it is better to err on that side than on the other. Two streams of thought about animals in the Middle Ages

This neighbourly view of animals never wholly died, even in the least kindly times, but from the thirteenth century onwards it was for the most part elbowed out by that revival of Aristotelian and neoplatonist philosophy which has been referred to in the preceding chapter. Thus we can distinguish two different streams in medireval thought about animals. The Thomist philosophy, set forth by the Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274), was unfavourable to their status, and its effects in that direction have sometimes gone to extremes which he himself might not have approved of. The other stream of thought may for convenience be called " Franciscan " because, although it was really a survival of the earlier Christian tradition, it received new life from the example set by St. Francis of Assisi. Some expressions of this Franciscan attitude became embedded in the Roman liturgy and have survived in it down to the present day. In the second nocturn before the midnight mass on Christmas Eve the_response is : "0 great mystery, and wondrous sacrament, that ammals should see the Lord born and lying in a manger." 2 A somewhat similar spirit is expressed in the services for blessing stables and animals which are to be found in the Rituale Romanum 3 1 A_~umber of them_were collected by the Marquise de Rambures in L'Eglise ~t la Pme envers les Ammaux (Lecoffre, Gagalda et Cie., Paris) and reproduced m The Church and Kindness to Animals (Burns & Oates). See also Beasts and Saints by Helen Waddell (Constable) and page 98 of this essay. 2 " 0 magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio." 3 These are given in Additional Note F, page 94.

27

Ps. 119. 176

and notably in the benediction of sick animals, which ends with the words: " Be thou to them, 0 Lord, the defender of their life and the restorer of their health." To them, not merely to their owners. In the fourteenth century the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales was presumably typical of her kind, and " ... for to speken of her conscience She was so charitable and pitons She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caught in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde," and was likewise a lover of dogs. In the illuminated bestiaries which became popular in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries numerous real and fabulous animals were described and shown. As contributions to scientific zoology these documents might not receive the nihil obstat of a Royal Society referee nor the imprimatur of that authority's Publications Committee, but they showed a respectful attitude to animal neighbours and used them symbolically for teaching Christianity. A trace survives in the phrase "pie pellicane " in a hymn 1 by St. Thomas Aquinas which is still is use. Again "the thirteenth-century glass artists were real naturalists and introduced animals into their work in a very interesting way. They were capable of putting their sentiments about animals into their pictures." 2 In fifteenth-century cathedrals in France, and notably in Notre Dame in Paris, animal sculpture reached great perfection. In the medireval trials of animals in the ecclesiastical courts the defendants had much the same status as human beings and were provided with counsel, who sometimes swayed the decisions of the judges. " In a society which accepted without question the fact that Balaam's ass showed a good deal more perception and good sense than Balaam himself, there was much less pitying condescension towards the animal world than there is to-day." 3 So much for what I have called the " Franciscan " view. Unfortunately it came to be more and more pushed aside by the Thomist view, to which we must turn next. The Thomist view of animals

This is what St. Thomas Aquinas himself wrote on the subject: " If in Holy Scripture there are found some injunctions forbidding 1 "

Adoro te devote." The Rev. Dr. S. G. Brade-Birks, himself a professional zoologist (private communication). 3 Rosalind Hill, Both Small and Great Beasts, a charming and informative sketch by a specialist in medireval history, illustrated by Fougasse (UFAW). 2

Ps. 104. 25

28

the infliction of some cruelty towards brute animals ... this is either for removing a man's mind from exercising cruelty towards other men, lest anyone, from exercising cruelty upon brutes, should go on hence to human beings; or because the injury inflicted on . animals turns to a temporal loss for some man, either the person who inflicts the injury or some other; or for some other meaning, as the Apostle expounds Deut. xxv, 4 "; 1 and again " God's purpose in recommending kind treatment of the brute creation is to dispose men to pity and tenderness towards one another." 2 The effects of this teaching were reinforced by Aquinas's doctrine of rights, which he got not from Greek philosophy but from Roman jurisprudence. In the jurisprudence of ancient Rome nobody could have rights unless he was legally a person, persona, and originally you could not be a person unless you were free (a slave was not a person), nor unless you were a citizen (foreigners were not persons), nor unless you were a paterfamilias (sons, daughters and wives were not persons, and had no rights; a father could put his son to death at pleasure). 3 Gradually more and more new classes of human beings acquired personality and with it legal rights, but animals never did so. " Only a person, that is, a being possessed of reason and self-control, can be the subject of rights and duties" 4 though in medireval trials animals long continued to be held responsible for their actions. Thus rights were asserted as basic, and then the duties which others owe to those who possess rights were deduced from these; and since rights were so defined that animals could have none, there could be no duty towards animals. This conclusion was reached because Roman jurisprudence began at the wrong end. Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, II, I 12. Summa Theologi(£,I-II, Q, cii, a.6, ad 8am. 3 A study of the jurisprudence of animals' rights was made by Pierre Giberne in his thesis for the doctorate of laws of Montepellier (mention " tres bien "), afterwards published as La Protection Juridique des Animaux (lmprimerie Thierry, Nimes). Dr. Giberne is now a judge in the Tribunal of Nimes (Gard). 4 Catholic Encyclop(Rdia, art. ' Cruelty to Animals " and Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Sec~nda secun~ae,_QQ cv~iet_seq. An implicatfon w~ich is logically inescapable but is not app!Jed m practice is that a newborn_mfant is not a person and has no rights so that if it inherits an estate everybody is morally free to help himself to the pr~perty. The rule is ~pplied to anima~s, but not to infant~, i_n French law· the Loi Grammont forbids cruelty to ammals only when this is practised in 'public. The most horrible cruelty would be perfectly legal in France if practised in private, for fun, because it could not then offend any human sensibilities and could not, therefore, infringe the rights of any legal person. Spanish bull-fighting, being public, was illegal in France until it was recently legalized, in certain cities, by a new statute. I understand that Portuguese law embodies a similar reference to publicity. 1 2

29

Jer. 48. 28

To begin at the right end it is necessary to see that the notion of rights and duties comes out of a man's conscience, and consequently starts from the perception of duties; then if A has a duty towards B, it follows that B has a corresponding right against A. Thus duties are fundamental and rights are only corollaries deduced from them. (This is congruous with the Christian principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive.) Now in Britain a man's duty to avoid cruelty to animals has been established by law, and this is the same thing as saying that legal rights have been accorded to animals. But we are anticipating. To return to our two streams of medireval thought about animals: this Thomist philosophy, though it has never been binding on the conscience of Roman Catholics, gradually came to dominate the interpretation of Christian dogma, and so the broad-minded, realistic, generous neighbourliness which the Bible exhibits came to be replaced by a narrow spirit of academic anthropocentricity. We have seen that pagan neoplatonism contained factors which were intrinsically inimical to Christianity, to science, and to neighbourliness towards animals; that it caused the death of scientific research; that it tried to do the same for Christianity, but only succeeded in mauling that victim; that it returned to the attack on the back of Aristotle in the Middle Ages; that the Dominican Aquinas harnessed Catholic theology to this incongruous yoke-fellow; and that the Dominicans persecuted heretics and suppressed Galileo on the strength of it, though the Franciscans preferred the Christian gospel. This must be at least a partial explanation of the decline of Christian charity where animals are concerned. 1 Why else is it that while the more practical saints and the Franciscans have been remarkable for their neighbourliness towards these creatures, so many academic theologians 2 have been remarkable for their je-m'en-foutisme? The Renaissance, a pagan revival

But another new development helped to undermine goodneighbourly relations between man and animals. Miss Rosalind 1 Attention was called to this aspect of Aristotle's influence by Prof. Harold Smith in The Influence of Religion on Man's Attitude towards Animals, pp. 9, 11 (UFAW). 2 It may be significant that, although St. Gertrude of Nivelles was clearly a devoted lover of rats and mice and is generally depicted, as an abbess, with these animals at her feet or running up her cloak or pastoral staff, yet in the twelve folio pages and more of close print devoted to her in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (1735) neither species appears to be so much as mentioned.

~

Ps. 102. 6

30

Hill has pointed out 1 that "you got a tendency, in towns and along the trade routes, to develop a much more urban, mercantile economy, so that people lived away from their animals and regarded them as expendable. It is rather interesting to find that the worst period of cruelty to human beings (practised because of fear) coincides with this - e.g., much more torture, burning of heretics (on both sides), and witch-hunting, none of which had been very common in the Middle Ages. Right through this period and until the 18th century you had extremely brutal sports with animals, coinciding with public brutality to humans (Tyburn executions, autos da fe, and so on), and as far as the evidence goes the populace enjoyed both." The Renaissance proper, which may be dated from the 15th century and which, as the price of its bestowal of literary and artistic gifts, exacted a decline of spiritual religion, an eruption of superstition, and all the horrors of witch-burning and heresy-hunting, also created the new religion of humanism which tended to dethrone God and to put man in God's place. In humanism man became the centre of the universe and the object of his own worship; animals did not count except in so far as they provided man with food, labour and entertainment; they had no rights against his supreme dominance, and were not entitled to any consideration except in so far as they were useful property. Obviously, not everybody became a narrow-minded anthropocentric humanist; more sensible views survived and have never wholly perished. But the humanism of the fifteenth-century Renaissance, combined with the thirteenthcentury impact of the neoplatonized Aristotle, and combined also with the effect of urban life on the climate of lay opinion, helped to dechristianize the Church's relations with God's sub-human creatures. In Christian art, " with the Renaissance animals were used only as an accessory to the human figure, and no thought of individual symbolism was retained." 2 Among the laity the new religion of humanism found expression in cruel sports among other things. These included bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cock-throwing (throwing sticks at a fowl tied to a post), and the sort of sadistic amusements that were pilloried by Hogarth in his " Four Stages of Cruelty." In the more backward parts of Western Europe bull-fighting survives to this day, a throw1

2

Private communication. The New Catholic Dictionary, art. "Animals in Christian Art."

31

Is. 1. 3

back t~ the beast-baitings, gladiatorial shows, and martyrdoms that so delighted the aficionados of the amphitheatre in ancient Rome. 1 Cruelty for cruelty's sake is a way of asserting dominance· the perpetrator feels himself to be superior to his victim inasmuch as he is showing his power over the latter. I do not think it is fanciful, therefore, to associate these sadistic actions with the enthusiastic exaltation of the glory of man which the Renaissance brought with it.

of the time and was not too greatly at variance with the physiology. The only opposition came from the good sense of some men of the world, such as M. Liancourt, who had been sportsmen or cavalrymen and knew what to think of this animal machinery." 1 (Tr.). Descartes had a far-reaching influence on European thought, and the theory of the robot animal, though contrary to common sense and refuted by experimental psychology, still persists in the subconscious minds of many who ought to know better.

The Cartesians

The revival of neighbourliness We have noted in the preceding chapter the injuries inflicted

Descartes was a rat~o~alist; that is, he held that valid knowledge ~a? be got by mer~ly s1ttmg down and reasoning. He thought that if ideas were sufficiently clear and distinct for the relations between them to be perceived with certainty, the necessary and sufficient c?nditions for knowing would be satisfied. He even purported to give a-priori proofs of the immortality of the soul and of the existence of himself,2 of other persons, and of God. Although h~ _made_funda?1e~tal contributions to mathematics, thereby prov1dmgscience with mvaluable tools, to science itself he added nothing and in France his vortex theory was long an obstacle to the accept~ ance of Newton's mechanics. With th~ followers of Descartes the attitude of philosophy towards ammals touched bottom in the seventeenth century. Desc~rtes argued t~a~ be~au~e animals lack intellect and language ther~ 1sno way of d1stmgu~shmgthem from machines,3 and although h~ himself kept an open mmd on the subject4 his followers in general did not. Most of the Port-Royalists, including Pascal, 5 adopted the robot !heory. In 1651 A.D. "there was scarcely one of the solitaires who did not talk of the automata. They dissected dogs without pity to observe the circulation of the blood, and Arnauld would have a~swered, and ~id answer, like Malebranche later on as he gave his do~ a good kick, ' What ? Don't you know that it doesn't feel ?' What m fact were the screams? Simply the creaking of the gearing and the turnspit." 6 Again "Above all, the idea of the automata applied to animals, caught on and ran riot; it suited the theolo~ 1

Cf. The UFA W Courier, No. 7 (Autumn, 1952). His "Cogito, ergo sum" is obviously a fallacy. By putting "cogito" m the first person he assumes what he purports to prove. 3 Descartes, Discours de la Metlzode, towards the end of the fifth part. 4 Descartes, Lettre a Un Seigneur, Oeuvres Completes (Paris 1824) vol 9, P; 424; and Lettres a M. Marus, 5 Feb. & 15 Apr., 1649, vol. x,'pp. 204-208: 0 ~-A. Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal, note 21 to Bk. 2, chap. 16. 6 1b1d.Bk. 2, chap. 16 (vol. 1, p. 758 in Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, 1953). .

2

Luke 17. 7

32

by rationalism on Christianity and on science, and in this chapter we have noted how it led theologians and philosophers to an unneighbourly attitude towards animals. But the victory of rationalism was never complete. Some of the Franciscans, in particular, kept alive that spiritual religion which is exemplified in the Imitation of Christ, written by some monk who was strongly influenced by the example of St. Francis; some of them prepared the way for a revival of experimental science; and their founder set them an example of neighbourliness towards animals. Eventually a more explicit sense of Christian duty towards the latter began to be revived, though not by Protestantism as such, for that was too much preoccupied with bellicose argumentation. It was with the evangelical movement started by the Wesleys in the eighteenth century that the revival began. Out of this grew the demand for social reform, including the abolition of slavery, and the prevention of cruelty to animals was part of the programme. One may well question the sincerity or the mental balance of people who profess sympathy with one part of the programme and indifference to other integral parts; certainly those social reformers who gave the most practical proof of their sincerity by the work they did for mankind proved it also by being good neighbours to animals. Powell Buxton was chairman of the first meeting of the R.S.P.C.A., William Wilberforce was a member of its committees, Shaftesbury was a warm supporter of the movement. On the other hand John Colam, Secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was active in the founding of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Richard Martin secured the first law for the protection of animals, and also championed the abolition of the undue use of the death penalty. Charity 1 ibid. Bk. 6, chap. 5, (vol. 3, p. 322); and see note 9 (p. 912). Mme. de Sevigne also ridiculed the theory in her letter dated 23rd March, 1672, and addressed to her daughter. See also her letter dated 2nd September, 1671.

33

Prov. 30. 19

is indivisible. If a man resents practical sympathy being bestowed on animals on the ground that all ought to be reserved for the species to which he himself happens to belong, he must have a mind the size of a pin's head. In recent times duty of neighbourliness towards animals has been officially recognized by several religious bodies, as we shall see in Chapter 7. For the moment it will be sufficient to note that among the French Roman Catholics there is going on a religious revival which is characterized by missionary zeal, piety, a sense of social responsibility, and charity even towards Protestants. In some ways it resembles the evangelical revival in eighteenth-century England. The sincerity of such a movement can be tested by its attitude towards animals and, as will appear in chapter 7, the result of the test is to some extent positive. The relatively great cautiousness of the Roman church gives rise to a relatively long delay in her response to new ideas, but that does not mean that she does not eventually respond.

time are the ethologists led by Konrad Lorenz and N. Tinbergen, and it is noteworthy that, although they yield to none in their rigorous objectivity on the levels at which objective methods are applicable, they have also excelled in their understanding of the animal mind on the level at which analogy with the human mind is the· proper clue to such understanding.I At the moment when this essay is going to press there has appeared Dr. W. H. Thorpe's acute and learned treatise, 2 which represents the most comprehensive interpretation of animal behaviour now available. All that need be said of it here is that its author is not only a most authoritative exponent of the experimental study of animal behaviour, but a good Christian and a good neighbour to animals.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century another good neighbour came to the rescue. Science, murdered long before by the neoplatonists but already conceived again by the medireval Franciscans, had been reborn of Christian civilization during the seventeenth century, and in the nineteenth science in its turn helped to inject sanity into man's dealings with animals. Charles Darwin provided a scientific basis for what St. Chrysostom had asserted on religious grounds, that animals " are of the same origin as ourselves "; and like that saint he saw that kindness to them is a moral duty.I The physical kinship which Darwin showed to exist reinforces the Biblical view of man and beast as forming one symbiotic community. The contribution made by science did not end there. The experimental study of animal behaviour brings increasingly to light the fact that the animal mind is analogous to the human mind. If the somewhat obsolescent 2 behaviourist school has tended to represent animals as machines, it has done exactly the same for human beings; it lends no support to that alienation of man from beast with which rationalism has infected western thought. In the van of progress in scientific animal psychology at the present 1 He was one of the most energetic promoters of the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, which regulates experiments on animals. 2 Obsolescent as regards its theoretical speculations but not as regards its experimental methods.

\

Jer. 49. 16

34

1 Konrad Lorenz's King Solomon's Ring and Man meets Dog are the outstanding examples. 2 W. H. Thorpe, F.R.s., Learning and Instinct in Animals (Methuen, 1956).

35

Is.35.6

CHAPTER

6

THE PROPER STATUS OF ANIMALS " Animals have no souls " This assertion is often put forward as an excuse not necessarily for positive cruelty to animals but for indifference to their welfare. The word" soul" is ambiguous. No doubt what is usually meant is that animals cannot look forward to a future life, that there is no hope of wrongs done to them here being righted hereafter. If there is no such hope we ought surely to make them as happy as we can in the only life they are to have, but the opposite inference is commonly drawn.

We also say that a person "has no soul" if he is indifferent to moral questions or art or religion. Hence the assertion that " animals have no souls " is probably meant to imply in a general way that they are inferior beings, and many people feel that inferior beings are not entitled to consideration - the sort of people, I mean, who are rude to servants, and fawn upon anybody with money, and sneer at the unsuccessful. And despise bicycles. For a Christian, who must " not mind high things, but be neighbourly with the lowly '',1 the fact that animals are inferior beings is no justification for indifference to their welfare. Prejudices

Lloyd Morgan 2 introduced into animal psychology a systematic error which has led others far astray. In a well-designed research, precautions are taken to eliminate systematic bias; hence the elaborate Latin-square and other designs, and techniques for Rom. xii, 16. Dr. '!horpe and Dr. Russell (see Preface, page v) consider that I have been unfair to Lloyd Morgan. Dr. Thorpe, who will deal with the canon in question in his forthcoming Presidential Address to Section D of the British !,.ss~ciat_ion,finds that 1:-,loydMorgan " was e":tremely circumspect and balanced m his views, though his canon has been qmte unjustifiably used by others." I have let the text stand as a record of an impression I had formed but would not try to maintain i~ agai!)~t Dr. Thorpe's com~rehensive knowledge' and understandmg of such thmgs. I would as soon thmk of contradicting a bishop " as Dr. Johnson said in relation to George Psalmanazar. • 1 2

Ps. 114. 4

36

randomized sampling, which are now used in biological experiments. 1 Analogous precautions against bias are requisite in interpreting observations, but Lloyd Morgan laid it down that " In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one· which stands lower in the psychological scale." 2 It is as if you were to agree that in a parliamentary election all spoilt voting papers shall be counted to the socialist candidates. The action of closing the eyes in man is sometimes reflex (as in response to a sudden glare), sometimes either instinctive or habitual (as in kissing), and sometimes deliberate (to facilitate active thinking). It would clearly be wrong to assume that the closing of the eyes should invariably be construed as reflex in the absence of positive proof to the contrary. A scientific investigator ought to suspend judgement in any given case until he has grounds for choosing one or another of several possible interpretations of an animal's behaviour. Lloyd Morgan's canon resulted from a strong reaction against anecdotal psychology, but the fault of anecdotal psychology lay not in its using anthropomorphic interpretations but in its doing so in an uncritical way. To this day the more conventional biologists suffer from an obsessional fear of anthropomorphism, and even put such words as "hunger" and "fear" between quotes (a literary solecism in any case) when writing about animals. The quotes are a way of saying " I cannot get on without Anthropomorphism, but I am ashamed to be seen with her in public." 3 Some of the clergy may still be influenced by a different prejudice. Most of them (but not Charles Kingsley nor F. D. Maurice) were at first reluctant to admit physical kinship between man and beast as enunciated by Darwin, and some may still be reluctant to admit the mental kinship which is a corollary of that. If the mind of an animal, however rudimentary, is akin to that of man, the suggestion arises that both may be on a similar footing in respect of life after death; and since, rightly or wrongly, it is generally taken for granted that animals will have none, a negative inference may come to be drawn in regard to man. But even if such reasoning were valid, it would still be blameworthy to reject a conclusion on the ground that it may have dangerous implications. That is not the way to arrive at truth. 1 2 3

R. A. Fisher, The Design of Experiments (Oliver & Boyd), passim. C. Lloyd Morgan, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 53. Every behaviourist would be a solipsist if he were consistent.

37

Is. 34. 15

The existence of pain in animals presents a formidable problem for theodicy. Some theologians have consequently been tempted to deny that animals can feel, and others to ignore the fact. But this nettle must be grasped, not evaded, and nemesis awaits the church that fails to grasp it. I have offered some tentative suggestions elsewhere.1 Maxima reverentia debetur rattis

There are two animals whose psychology has been much more thoroughly studied than that of any other species; one is man himself and the other is the rat. Wild grey rats were first used in psychological experiments in 1894. Next year they were replaced by white rats, which are a domesticated variety of the same species, and white and hooded rats have been extensively used ever since. In 1950 Munn gave a bibliography containing references to over 2,500 scientific papers on the subject, 2 and an immense amount of work has been done on it since then. In his Presidential Address to the American Psychological Association in 1938, the behaviourist E. C. Tolman, who has made many contributions to scientific psychology, said " I, in my future work, intend to go ahead imagining how, if I were a rat, I would behave as a result of such and such a demand combined with such and such an appetite and such and such a degree of differentiation. I shall try to state these latter in some kind of objective and respectable-sounding terms such as vectors, valences, barriers and the like." 3 " General acceptance of the white rat as an animal for behaviour research has gone hand in hand with an increasing appreciation of the value and systematic significance of behaviour studies in general. The rat has been used more than any other animal because of its peculiar advantages for research purposes. It is small, clean, easy to house and to handle, and inexpensive to maintain. Its docility and general adaptability to environmental conditions make it a good subject for studies of learning and activity." 4 " What is it that we rat-runners still have to contribute to the understanding of the deeds and misdeeds, the absurdities and the tragedies of our friend, and our enemy - homo sapiens? The See Additional Note E, page 91. Norman L. Munn. Handbook of Psychological Research on the Rat (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, etc.) 1950. 3 Quoted ibid., p. 2. 4 Munn, ibid., p. 4. 1

answer is that whereas man's successes, persistences and socially unacceptable divagations - that is his inte~ligences, his motivations and his instabilities - are all ultimately shaped and mate~ialized by specific cultures, it is still true that most of the formal underlying laws of intelligence, motivation and instability can ·be studied in rats as well as, and more easily than, in men .... Everything important in psychology (except such matters as the building of a super-ego, that is everything save such matters as involve society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of rat behaviour at a choice-point in the maze. " 1 This is a rhetorical exaggeration, but Woodworth and Marquis, in their judicious elementary textbook, put it thus: " The power to learn seen in both men and animals, is one of the most remarkable facts 'of nature . . . Such phenomena are a challenge to the scientist. He wants to know what goes on in the process of learning, whether in men or animals. He believes, too, that the more fundamental his knowledge, the more useful will it prove to be in the life of m~nkind. The rat learning the psychologist's mazes may help mankmd to solve the international problems of the atomic age." 2 Wild rats have to be destroyed because they share man's food and diseases and also share, in an exaggerated degree, his unfortunate proclivity for increasing in numbers out of all proportion to w~at is reasonable. Some individual rats also share man's huntmg instincts. Man must, therefore, systematically kill rats. Now when human beings are not very intelligent they find it difficult to ki!I without hating. This is very evident in war-time; in two w~rs_1t was unfortunately necessary to kill Germans, and for the maJonty of our population that meant hating them, in spite of the fact that many of Hitler's victims were themselves Germans. In the case of rats many persons who are not very bright have de~elop~d a phobia, and as a result the rat has become a test case for mtelhge~t humanitarianism. It is necessary to kill rats, but anybody who is indifferent to the choice of means for doing so must clearly be of inferior mental and moral quality. The revulsion which many people feel against such animals as rats is not instinctive but is an acquired phobia; that is, a neurotic weakness like bed-wetting in a child. W. M. S. Russell, confirming

2

~ ~

Prov. 30. 19

38

Tolman, quoted ibid., p. 5. .. R. S. Woodworth and D. G. Marquis, Psychology, p. 492 (20th ed1tJon, 1949, Methuen). 1

2

39

Job 39. 9

0

the work of Adorno and others, found that callousness towards rat~ an~ other pests is correlated with the authoritarian syndrome, which 1s generally regarded as pathological. I Rats, whether tame or wild, are not only a very intelligent and interesting species but, in my personal opinion, the most lovable of all. Your tame rat 2 cannot round up your sheep, or guard your house, or carry your walking-stick, but he gives you all he has to give, his devoted affection. Sensation Sensory discrimination varies from species to species. An eagle can distinguish a small object further off than a man can, but cave-dwelling fish are blind. Bats can detect the echo of a sq~eak with enough accuracy to judge the distance of a reflecting obJect, but many human beings cannot hear such high-pitched sounds. A large part of a pig's cortex, unlike that of a man, is related to tactile sensations in the snout. Fineness of discrimination depends in part on the distribution of the peripheral receptors serving the sensory system concerned, and in part on the cortical organization. The intensity of a sensation, on the other hand, depends primarily on the number of nerve impulses per second reaching the sensorium, which in vertebrates and some invertebrates is the brain; and for each sense, and in each individual, there is a threshold of intensity which must be reached by the stimulus before any sensation is felt. Pain But there is another, rather indefinite, threshold, which I shall call the hedonic threshold, and above which a sensation becomes first unpleasant and then distressing. A very bright light, a very loud sound, the touch of a very hot object are all distressing, and so is any other sensation which is very strong, whatever be its timbre or quality. The word " pain " appears to me to be used in two different senses. We speak of any sensation as "painful" if it is so strong as to be distressing, but there is also a sensation of a specific timbre 1 W. M. S. Russell, "On Misunderstanding Animals" UFAW Courier No. 12, page 34. ' ' 2 . It is, ho:,v~ver,verY:wrong to allow children to keep caged pets unless under stnct superv1s10n._ Chlldren_ lack_ the systematic habits requisite for animal any mtent1_on~lcruel!)'., may easily let a captive animal husbandry and, w1tho1;1t suffer from hunger, thirst or unhyg1emc conditions. Instructions for the proper care of pets are given in Animals in Schools by John Volrath (UFA W).

Prov. 30. 31

40

or quality which is mediated by naked nerve endings associated with the pain nerve fibres. In the past two or three years the study of peripheral sensations has made rapid progress which I am not conversant with; but it seems safe to say that, while the sensation which is characterized by the pain timbre has an extremely low hedonic threshold, so that whenever we have occasion to notice it it is painful in the sense of being distressing, at a very low level of stimulation it may conceivably be perceptible as, possibly, a tingling sensation, without being actually unpleasant. Let us hope so, at least; for it appears to be the most primitive and universal sensation of all. If this is a true view, we must suppose that the hedonic threshold is raised by a drug such as Largactil, of which it is said that the treated patient " feels pain but does not mind it." However, at usual levels of stimulation, as by cutting, burning, crushing, or bruising, the sensation mediated by the pain nerve fibres is intensely distressing in both humans and animals. I In the brain these fibres terminate in the thalamus, and an animal whose cortex had been destroyed while its thalamus remained intact might be capable of feeling pain, though not of locating its source. I do not think that any serious biologist nowadays adheres to the seventeenth-century notion that" animals cannot feel", at all events as regards vertebrates, though there is still some wishful thinking of that kind as regards invertebrates. The objective test for determining whether any given organism can feel pleasure and pain lies in the possibility of conditioning its behaviour by means of rewards and punishments. Such conditioning depends on two factors which are distinct, and perhaps uncorrelated, though it is difficult if not impossible to devise experiments for testing them separately. These factors are (l) sensibility to pleasure and pain, which makes possible the difference between positive and negative responses; and (2) the associative process, which might be denoted by the ambiguous term " intelligence " though that is perhaps tendentious, whereby a given sign stimulus comes to be mentally connected with a painful or pleasant concomitant experience. Thus the fact that any living creature can be conditioned proves that it can feel,2 and very lowly creatures can be conditioned (even a performing flea can be taught not to jump), though they may become so only slowly because their 1 See The Scientific Basis of Kindness to Animals, by Dr. John R. Baker, Reader in Zoology, Oxford; and The Sense of Pain in Animals, by the Cambridge psychologist, Dr. G. C. Grindley; both published by UFAW. 2 Grey Walter's electronic tortoises notwithstanding, though this is not the place to discuss them.

41

Ps. 104 .17

intelligence is small, and hence not necessarily through lack of sensitiveness. There has been some confusion of thought about self-consciousness in animals. Several writers have assumed first that animals are devoid of self-consciousness, and secondly that a creature which is not self-conscious cannot feel pain. Both assumptions are devoid of evidence and are, indeed, untrue. As to the first, jealousy, dominance and defence of territory presumably depend on a distinction between meum and tuum, and hence between me and te, though some might dispute this. The second assumption is certainly wrong, and confuses the experience of pain, which appears to be mediated by the thalamus, with thought about pain (such as locating it in a particular limb), which is mediated by the cortex. Instincts By " instincts " is meant inborn patterns of sterotyped behaviour. The main generic difference between human and animal instincts lies in the relative ease with which the resulting behaviour can be modified by learning and volition in human beings; in other words the much greater flexibility of human than of animal behaviour. A typical human instinct is that which impels young girls to play with dolls. Learning Learning turns out to be a much more complicated process than appears at first sight, and it is in this field that animal studies have made their chief contribution to the understanding of human mental processes. The literature is of such vast extent that only a specialist could hope to do justice to it; here it must, therefore, suffice to mention one or two points of special interest. The Gestalt psychology owes much to the study of animals, especially apes and rats, and it is extensively used in education. To it are due those modern methods of teaching reading which are known to teachers as the " look and see " and the " sentence " methods. The lessons learned by animals are comparatively simple, though they entail the same principles as human learning. Some of the techniques used, especially in America, have been callous and unjustifiable, but the results show the kinship of man and beast. The methods include the conditioning of responses, discrimination tests, learning to run through a maze to get food, puzzle boxes (pulling levers, strings or the like to get a reward), multiple-choice experiments, and so on, in a great variety of designs.

Gen. 8.8

42

All this has thrown light on the factors in human learning which facilitate or impair memory, on the relative values of rewards and punishments as incentives in learning, on whether it is better to learn a task as a whole or in successive parts, on the transfer of skill learned in one task to the learning of another, and on the effect on ease of learning of physical conditions such as temperature, nutrition, drugs, and so on. Reasoning Reasoning in animals is a more difficult and controversial subject. In the course of his ill-starred Lamarckian experiment, William McDougall taught large numbers of rats to open a sequence of latches in order to get at food. The average rat could learn up to three latches, some moron rats could not learn any, but a very few genius rats seemed to grasp the general principle and could go on to open any number of latches in succession. McDougall showed two of these genius rats privately at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1926 (his wife having smuggled them through the Customs in her muff) and truly adorable animals they were. It is difficult to test reasoning in an animal because he cannot talk, but a testable function which is related to, though not necessarily identical with, reasoning has been defined as follows:" Whereas learning requires that an animal should combine two or more experiences that have been presented in contiguity, higher mental processes require that an animal should combine spontaneously two non-contiguous past experiences.'' 1 Much research has been done on the subject2 but, perhaps as an inevitable result of the limitations of behavioural tests, the interpretation of the observations is not free from ambiguity. It seems safe to say, however, first that reasoning processes are to be found in many animals, and secondly that they are very rudimentary, even in apes. 3 1 D. A. Hanson, "The Influence of Age and Sex on Reasoning" (in rats), Journal of Experimental Biology, 26, 317 (1949). 2 See, for instance, N.R.F. Maier, " Reasoning in White Rats," Comp. Psycho!. Mono., 6, (1929) and " In Defence of Reasoning in Rats," J. Comp. Psycho!., 19, 197, (1935); Loevinger, J., "Reasoning in Maze-bright and Mazedull Rats," J. Comp. Psycho!., 26, 413 (1938); Wentworth, K.L. "The Effect of a Native Mexican Diet on Learning and Reasoning in White Rats," J. Comp. Psycho!., 22, 255 (1936). 3 David Hume had no doubt of the reasoning power of animals: see his Treatise of Human Nature, I, iii, 16 and Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, sec. 9. T. H. Huxley agreed with him: see his volume on Hume in English (sic) Men of Letters, part II, chap. 5. Hume clearly distinguished between reasoning and learning, though he applied the word " reason " generically to both.

43

Luke 13. 15

Language The vocal language of mammals consists of very few words; a few grunts and squeals and whistles seem to do duty for all kinds of communications. Probably it is more complicated than it seems, slight inflections• which escape us being noticeable by them; very trivial signs were observed by the Elberfeld horses. Birds have a greater variety of sounds at their disposal. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the animals' vocabulary is even smaller, and the animals' notion of syntax even more wanting, than that of the average human being. Ceremonial is a form of language, used both by human beings and by other species, which has the disadvantages and also the advantages of non-rigidity of meaning. Ceremonial is used by animals in mating, in entering one another's territory, and for other purposes, and serves them as a kind of language. Von Frisch's discovery of the way honey bees convey information by dancing is now well known. Social mammals such as wolves may communicate by complex and subtle facial expressions. Attention A human being has considerable control over his attention, and this gives him many advantages. He may not be able to " hold a fire in his hand by thinking on the frosty Caucasus, or cloy the hungry edge of appetite by bare imagination of a feast " but he can divert his attention from a disagreeable experience if it is not too severe. Presumably an animal cannot; and Dr. Russell has pointed out that this fact entitles the animal to specially considerate treatment. Aesthetics It is generally accepted that the singing of birds fulfils the biological function of laying claim to a territory, attracting mates, and repelling intruders, but we need not suppose that the singers are aware of this function. A bird presumably sings because he enjoys singing, and a starling seems to get a lot of fun out of imitating other creatures, from cats to peewits. A dog barks sometimes biologically, by way of threat or warning, but sometimes also for welcome or for the pleasure of communication with a distant dog. Gilbert White said of the peacock's note that " the yelling of cats is not more noisome," but presumably peacocks and cats see beauty where he could not, for do not many human beings get genuine enjoyment from current kinds of music that are more noisome than anything a cat or a peacock can do ?

~

I Kings 4. 28

44

The leading authority on bower birds writes: " In ascribing an essentially utilitarian function to the bower and associated activities, it is not suggested that bower-birds do not enjoy their extraordinary performances. Further, it is emphasized that bowerbirds appear to have developed their display beyond the bounds of strict utilitarianism, since some individuals successfully reproduce without painting their bowers, and it has been experimentally shown that reproduction (in the aviary without competition) can take place in the absence of coloured decorations." 1 Play is common throughout the animal kingdom, especially in young animals. This again, on Roos's theory, has a biological function, but playful animals can hardly be aware of it; they play because they want to, and enjoy it. It is interesting that children and animals like to play together, and when they are at play there is little to choose bet\veen the two in respect of behaviour. Hediger considers that boredom is the main hardship to which the more intelligent species of animals are exposed in captivity. 2 Emotions " It is a curious fact that the scientific mind and the activities of the reasoning faculty are so frequently written down as ' inhuman.' Actually this cold power of abstraction, this ' inhuman ' reason, is the one emergent property which the human species alone possesses, while our warm human emotions we share with the brutes. There can be no reasonable doubt that other mammals are subject to the same kinds of passions, feel the same sorts of emotion, as we ourselves. Our sheep can be frightened; our dog is glad when we come home, feels something closely akin to shame when caught in some misdeed; our cats can experience anger and disappointment. But the capacity to subtract eleven from twentyfour ... to attach any meaning to abstract terms such as space and truth - this is all distinctively and exclusively human. There are only the barest germs of such capacities in other creatures." 3 Mme. de Sevigne once wrote to her daughter, who was an ardent Cartesian: " Just talk to the Cardinal about your machines, machines that love, machines that feel friendship for somebody, machines that are jealous, machines that are afraid. Go on, you 1 A. J. Marshall, Biol. Rev., vol. 29, pp. l-45 (1954). l am indebted to Dr. ~ W. M. S. Russell for this reference. 2 H. Hediger, Wild Animals in Captivity, pp. 158 et seqq. (Butterworth, 1950). a H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G. P. Wells, How Animal1· Behave, p. 200 (Cassell, 1937).

45

Ps. 55. 6

are joking; Descartes never tried to make us believe it." 1 If there is ?ne thing in which subhuman vertebrates, at all events, excel, it 1saffection for their young, their mates, their companions, and even extra-specific friends including humans. Dogs, cats, and horses· rats and squirrels; pigs, hamsters, budgerigars, foxes, otters and be~vers; even snakes and tortoises; there is hardly any species of a~1mal that cannot ~e made friends with, in a greater or less degree.2 Smee Charles Darwm, nobody has done more to inject sanity into man's attitude towards animals than a leading scientific ethologist o~ our day, !(o~rad Lorenz, rigorous objectivist but understanding fnend of wild Jackdaws, greylag geese, ducklings and numerous other unconventional creatures. 3 Fear is an emotion which all animals appear to be capable of. Thei~ P?Ysiological and behavioural reactions to threats and dangers are Siillllar to those of human beings, and must be presumed to be ~ccompanied by feelings of the same nature, and at least as great mtens1ty, as the feelings of humans. The burden of proof lies on anybody who would question this inference. . _W. H. R. Rivers suggested that if a butterfly did not suppress ~tsimpulse t?behave like a caterpillar, and if a frog did not suppress its tadpole impulse to wag a phantom tail, these creatures would suffer from mental conflicts ... 4 In more recent times many attempts have been made to induce experimental neuroses in animals. The techniques have often been very inhumane, and serious mistakes have been made; for instance, audiogenic seizures which were formerly taken as an index of neurosis in rodents turn out to be normal reactions. Experimenters in this field could learn a lesson fr:om Archi~edes; he found out more by good hard thinking about his overflo~!ng ba~h than he could have learned by blundering about empmcally, like a rat confronted with a puzzle box for the first time, with hundreds of baths of different shapes and sizes and filled with water of varying colour and smell. It seems doubtful whether genuine neuroses, as distinct from conscious stress and fear reactions, have been produced in animals; be it remembered !hat repressi?n i~ the Freud_ian sense is a process affecting the mtellect, a d1vers10nof attent10n. Dr. W. M. S. Russell has given 1 Mme. d~ Sevigne, Lettres (to Mme. Grignan) 23 March, 1672. Cf. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, part II, sec. 12. 2 Cf. Gilbert White, Natural History of Se/borne, Letter cxxi, dated 15 August, 1775. 3 Lorenz, K., King Solomon's Ring. 4 W. H. R. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, p. 69 (C.U.P. 1920).

Prov. 30. 17

46

me the following op1mon: " Inferences about human psychopathology from the so-called experimental neuroses produced in lower animals must be treated with reserve. Direct comparison is fraught with difficulties. In particular, there has been a widespread tendency in interpreting such experiments to overlook the primarily social origin and nature of human mental disorder. Hediger's discussion1 of learning experiments is valuable, and may usefully be applied to this field also. Procedures of this kind are unavoidably unattractive from the humane point of view, and in my opinion experimental work in this field should take the greatest possible account of specific social conditions in both man and the selected experimental species, in order to get a maximal yield of directly applicable results." And also the following quotation from a leading New York psychoanalyst: "The experimentally induced disturbances in animals are quasi-neuroses, not in any true sense identical with human neuroses - not unless we are to use this word to indicate something wholly different from that which the term means in human psychopathology ... the imitation in animals of the emotional states which attend neuroses in man is not the experimental production of the essence of the neurosis itself." 2 Personality

A distinguished writer has made the suggestion that animals develop personality through association with human beings.3 But apart from the fact that association with human beings is more likely to degrade an animal than to edify it, 4 the notion that the members of wild species are devoid of personality is erroneous and arises from inadequate observation. For instance, Barnett and others when studying wild rats under natural conditions found they had such marked individual personalities that the observers were 1 H. Hediger, Psychology of Animals in Zoos and Circuses, Butterworth, 1955. ~ L. S. Kubie, Yale J. of Biology and Medicine, 11, May, 1939, pp. 541-5. 3 C. S. Lewis, Pain, p. 127. His idea was that animals which had thus acquired personality would have a future life, the others not. 4 In hen batteries and A.I. centres for instance. The pig is by nature a gentlemanly animal; it is through associating with human beings that he has learned to wallow in mire. In the 1880's there was a sweep in Wimbledon who not only got drunk himself every Saturday night, but made his pony drunk too. The pony used to whinny for a bucket of beer (which sweeps could afford to buy bucketfulls of, in those days), and having drunk that got up on its hind legs and danced with the sweep in the street. I had this from my mother, who saw it happen.

47

Job 12. 8

forced involuntarily to give them personal names. 1 Dr. Peter Crowcroft, when mouse-watching for the Ministry of Agriculture, similarly found that wild mice have marked individualities. 2 Julian Huxley writes as follows: " When one watches birds day by day, year in and year out, one gets to know them individually, and finds that the behaviour of individuals differs much more than most people would suppose ... Only when birds have lost their fear can a human observer really begin to be let into the secrets of their Jives, and discover the degree of their intelligence." 3 Whether or in what sense animals may have the rudiments of a moral sense must be a matter of guesswork. On occasion the behaviour of dogs suggests shame or remorse by analogy with human behaviour. Moreover, most species normally live according to rules (which they do not, of course, formulate) relating to territory, dominance, mating, care of the young and so on, but abnormally they break these rules. Vixens on a fox ranch and sows on a farm normally care for their young, but in abnormal cases will eat them. Barnett on one occasion saw a male rat attack a female, though that is against the rules for rats. 4 Does an animal which breaks the rules have some dim sense that it is doing so and ought not? One can only guess, but " yes " seems a more probable guess than " no." Animals must be supposed to have no knowledge of God in the sense of knowing things about God, and no religion in the sense of formal worship. But human religion bottoms upon either an actual spiritual awareness of God, or a capacity for this which predicates the existence of God in the way in which thirst predicates the existence of water in Nature. 5 Such an awareness need not be identified with the ecstasies experienced by Plotinus and by the more exuberant of the Christian mystics, about which one may be pardoned for feeling some doubt. Rather should one think of an analogy with self-consciousness, by which a person is intuitively aware of his own existence although the way in which that awareness comes about eludes introspection. Now it is conceivable that animals, in some dim, rudimentary way, may have an obscure sense of dependence on their Creator. Whether this is so or not there is no 1 Oral communication. The work ilself is reported in J. Hygiene 49, 22-25 (1951); 51, 16-34 (1953): Behaviour, 111, 229-242. 2 Private communication. 3 Julian Huxley, foreword to Len Howard's Birds as Individuals (Collins). •; Oral communication. 5 Augustine, Confessions, I (1).

Ps. 104. 11

48

possible means of knowing. To deny it would be at least as unreasonable as to affirm it. The life of the world to come Explicit references to a future life, even for man, are alm~st though not quite absent from the Old Testament, although belief in it is implicit as a corollary in what is there taught. 1 I~ th_e_New Testament the question whether animals are to have md1v1dual immortality is never put nor answered, one way or the other. No occasion for considering it seems to have arisen. The categorically negative answer came not from Christianity but from Aristotle. Aristotle taught that the soul has three parts, the nutritive part (which plants also have), the sensitive part (which a~im~ls also have), and the thinking part. He taught _that ~nly the thmk~ng part is immortal, and that animals are dev01d of 1t. 2 He was mclmed to believe in individual human immortality, but his commentator Averroes (1126-1198 A.D.) held that when a man dies his intellect goes back into a central pool of universal intellectuali~y, wh~ch al~ne is immortal. The reasoning from which the Anstotehan view seems to have originated is a fanciful analogy between permanen~e in one sense - the sense in which a concept, such as a number, 1s permanent, whereas individual sensations vary from moment to moment - and permanence in a quite different sense, viz. that in which an immortal soul is permanent.

When Aquinas integrated Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology he adopted Aristotle's teaching on this subject, except that he definitely posited the immortality of the individual human soul. He attributed only a sensitive soul to animals, and this he conside~ed to be mortal.3 Thus the doctrine that animals have no souls which can survive death is of pagan, not Christian, origin. The R. P. Jean Gautier, a Director at the Great Seminary of St. Sulpice, after describing the Aristotelian and Th?mist doctrin~, writes: "This is the doctrine commonly accepted m the Catholic Church. There are, however, some theologians belonging to the Franciscan school and a small number of our contemporaries, like Mgr. Gay, who ;How, though on a purely hypothetical basis, a survival of the souls of animals. They say that God does not destroy Matt. xxii, 32. Aristotle, De Anima, II, 2, 3, 4; HI, 12. a Aquinas, Summa Theologfre, part I, quest. 76, art. 3. 1

2

49

Luke 12. 24

that which he has created in the case of beings which love, feel and act, as animals do in various degrees." After elaborating this point of view he continues: " Although this hypothesis, which is in specific contradiction to the Thomist school, seems improbable to the majority of theologians, it has not been prohibited by the Church." He says that the placing of any kind of religious emblem on the grave of a pet animal is by no means authorized, but on the other hand " one could not blame those who decorate the tomb of their dog with flowers." (Tr.). 1 Bishop Butler (A.D. 1692-1752),when defending belief in human immortality, had to deal with objectors who alleged that he had proved too much, for " it is said, that these observations are equally applicable to brutes; and it is thought an insuperable difficulty, that they should be immortal, and, by consequence. capable of everlasting happiness." He gives two answers: first " Suppose the invidious thing designed in such a manner of expression were really implied in the natural immortality of brutes; namely that they must arrive at great attainments, and become rational and moral agents; even this would be no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and capacities they may be endowed with." 2 Secondly he said that "the natural immortality of brutes does not in the least imply, that they are endued with any latent capacities of a rational or moral nature. And the economy of the universe might require that there should be living creatures without any capacities of this kind. " 3 It is unnecessary to reach a conclusion on this subject here. Our duty towards animals is a binding one, whether Aristotle was right or wrong. The question of survival is complicated because before you can analyse the idea of individual immortality you must analyse the idea of personal identity, and if that is difficult4 in the case of human beings, it is even more difficult in the case of animals. However, the Christian belief in immortality is based not on the capacity of the intellect for forming concepts but on the revelation of Jesus Christ and on the character attributed to God. CluttonBrock has argued that belief in a future life for animals should 1

Un Pretre et son Chien, pp. 95, 96. (See footnote on p. 55 of this essay). Charles Darwin had read Butler's Analogy. :i The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, Part 1, chap. 1 (II). 4 John Locke,. Essa! on Human Understanding, Bk. 2, Chap. 27, and Bp. Joseph Butler, D1ssert1on on Personal Identity. 2

ls. 31. 5

50

follow as a corollary from it, and that rejection of the latter belief has led to decay of the former. 1 The solution of the problem

Madame Roland (guillotined A.D. 1793) said "Plus je vois les hommes, plus je respecte les chiens," and it cannot be said that man has shown himself to be a very amiable or respectable being on the whole. Nevertheless, let it be admitted that intellectually and in some other ways the other animals are inferior to him. Let it further be supposed, for the sake of argument, that animals are not adjudged fit to have any part in the life of the world to come. What follows from the utmost possible attribution of inferiority to animals? In order to hold the balance fairly between man and beast it is necessary to make a sharp distinction between killing and hurting. It is in confusing these two things that Hinduism and Buddhism have gone astray. To kill an important being is a more serious matter than to kill an unimportant one, but to inflict pain or fear on an unimportant being is just as serious as to inflict it on an important one. Human beings are more important than animals, and it is a much more serious thing to kill a man than to kill an animal. If a cock sparrow is killed by the cat, his hen will in due course find another mate and in the long run nobody will be any the worse. But when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his plans for abolishing slavery progressively were assassinated also. But for his premature death, many assaults on whites and many lynchings of negroes might never have occurred, and America might not have been left with an embarrassing colour problem. If the eleven apostles had all been executed on the first Good Friday, there would have been no Christian Church and no Christian civilization. Truly they were of more value than many sparrows. So much for killing. But when it comes to hurting, very different considerations arise. It is no less wicked to inflict a given degree of unnecessary pain on a person whose value to the community has been lessened by old age, or blindness, or loss of a limb, than to cause the same degree of pain to a Minister of the Crown or an Archbishop. Similarly, although animals are killed every day in the slaughterhouse (and legitimately, provided they be killed humanely), whereas to kill an innocent human being in peacetime 1 In Immortality, a symposium edited by Canon Streeter. See also sec. 5 of the present writer's article " The Religious Attitude towards Animals " published in the Hibbert Journal and reprinted by UFAW.

51

Job 39. 5

is murder, nevertheless it is just as wicked to inflict pain or fear on an animal as to inflict it on a human being. For if not, why n~t_?. No argument to the contrary will stand up to analysis and cntJc1sm. Animals are, generally speaking, less intelligent, less valuable, less highly esteemed, and less important than human beings. But a Samaritan was chosen as hero of the parable of the Good Samaritan in order to show that the most despised sort of person is entitled to be treated as a neighbour. Jesus was especially kind to publicans and sinners, thereby indicating that the duty of good-neighbourliness is not conditioned by the esteem in which its object is held.

CHAPTER

7

ON THE FORMULATION OF POLICY The late and deeply lamented Bishop Spencer Leeson of Peterborough had some thought of bringing the claims of animals to the official notice of the episcopate, and it was as a result of conversation held with and initiated by him that the present essay began to be planned, though he died before the script could be submitted to him for criticism. I shall accordingly address this seventh chapter primarily to the Church of England, of which, however unworthily, I am a communicant member, but I must first say something about the position of certain other religious bodies in relation to animals. The Roman Catholic position

In order to understand the Roman Catholic position, two things must be borne in mind. First that Thomism, which is unfavourable to any recognition of rights in animals, is the predominant philosophy among Roman Catholic theologians; and secondly that, on the other hand, Thomism is by no means binding on the consciences of Roman Catholics. It is a brilliant and pontifically commended thirteenth-century commentary on Roman Catholic dogma, but it is not itself de fide. If some theologians, such as the late Fr. Joseph Rickaby, have followed out its denial of animals' rights to a logical conclusion in a way that is shocking to the conscience, others, highly esteemed in the Roman communion, have either circumvented such views or rejected them outright. No doubt these have been partly responsible for the relatively backward state of animal welfare in most Roman Catholic countries, but be it remembered that Protestant England was the animals' hell before the nineteenth century, and the Dominions, the Colonies, and the United States are still very backward in the protection of animals. As has already been mentioned, certain neighbourly references to animals survive in the Roman liturgy, notably a Christmas

JL

Judges 14 . 18

52

53

Ps. 84.3

nocturn 1 and the services for blessing animals and stables. 2 The R. Pere Philippeau, a leading authority on liturgical history, writes: "I have already pointed out (Maison-Dieu 18, p. 75) the very belated nature of the insertion in the French catechism, under the incontestable influence of scoutism, of the notion of an ethical attitude towards animals" (Tr.), 3 and he is of opinion that, in Christian antiquity and the middle ages, domestic animals were considered to be under the control of good angels, noxious and fierce animals to form part of the empire of Satan, and merely wild animals to be in a sort of no man's land, this theory being reflected in the liturgy. On the other hand, there are many legends of saints consorting with wolves, lions and the like. For instance " St. Gent is a sort of demigod for the peasants of the Durance . . . He was ploughing with two cows. One day when a wolf had killed one of them, Gent caught the wolf, harnessed it to the plough, and made it work, yoked to the other cow." (Tr.) 4 In the Palais des Papes at A vignon there used to be a fine triptych of St. Gent and his wolf, one picture showing the wolf lamenting over his grave, but it has been taken away and is said to have been sent to the Louvre. The theory by which humane Thomists circumvent the denial of rights to animals seems to amount to this, that while man owes duties to man directly, he owes them to animals indirectly as a corollary of his duty to God. Subtleties of this sort are necessitated by that ethical analogue of rationalism which I have tried to rebut in Additional Note C at the end of this essay. An example is afforded by the following valiant excuse for daring to say that right is right and wrong is wrong: "The service of man is the end appointed by the Creator for brute animals. When, therefore, man, with no reasonable purpose, treats the brute cruelly he does See page 27. See Appendix F, page 94. These benedictions are still carried out, e.g. on the feast of St. Eloi, in Brittany, the Massif Central, Provence and elsewhere, but the Abbaye de Ferigoulet (see page 69) moves with the times. The following paragraph recently appeared in the Meridional under the rubric "Tarascon Echos de la Tarasque - Abbaye de Frigolet (sic) - Benediction des autos.Dimanche 27 mai a 16 heures a !'emplacement accoiltume, apres les souhaits de bienvenue et une courte allocution, le R. Pere Norbert Calmels, Abbe de Frigo let (sic), benira les autos, motes, scooters et vespas." Unpowered bicycles were not invited. a See page 96. 4 F. Mistral, Memorie Raconte, VI. 1 2

Job 27. 18

54

wrong, not because he violates the right of the brute, but because his action conflicts with the order and design of the Creator.'' 1 A very different approach is adopted by the R. Pere Sertillanges, who writes: " If matter exists for spirit, if the lower life is directed towards the higher life, we must see in animality a sort of apprenticeship for the life of man, an effort in that direction, an effort which has become static since its end has been achieved. When we consider the world we must see in it one family, the eldest of which has succeeded, the eldest of which has got through, the other remaining behind without on that account ceasing to be dependent, deriving the reason for his existence from the big brother whose situation shows the initial purpose of creation. A marvellous plan which was primed by the appearance of the first particle of protoplasm on the earth. In virtue of its realization, the animals are bound to our destiny by a common final cause, which is ours. The animals are ours." (Tr.). 2 In a little book which has already been quoted, and is to receive a grand prix of the French Academy in 1957, the R. P. Jean Gautier, Docteur en Droit Canonique, a Directeur at the Grand Seminaire de Paris (St. Sulpice) and a distinguished authority on Roman Catholic spirituality, has made an earnest plea for a Christian attitude towards animals, and concludes with certain " conseils de protection animale." Though in practice mainly interested in dogs, in principle he holds without restriction that " for cruelty to defenceless beings we shall one day have to answer before him who trieth the heart and the reins. Not with impunity is the weakness of animals abused." (Tr.) 3 He writes: "I wrote this book because I wished to fix the memory of my dog Yuni, whose qualities were great and whose death caused and still causes me much sorrow; I wished also to call people's attention to unfortunate dogs; and my final object has been to show the clergy of my country, who have little understanding of things that concern animals, that man is not a centre but that all creation - man, animals, plants - is oriented towards God and that, in fact, we are all of a piece (solidaires)." (Tr.) 4 1 Zigliara, Philosophia Moralis, p. 136 (ninth edition, Rome) as quoted in the Catholic Encyclopcedia, art. "Cruelty to Animals." 2 Le Probleme du Mai (Editions Aubier), quoted by the R. P. Jean Gautier, Un Pretre et son Chien, pp. 100, 101. a Jean Gautier, Un Pretre et son Chien (Crepin-Leblond et Cie, 12 Rue Duguay-Trouin, Paris 6e., 500 fr.), p. 104. 4 Private communication.

55

Prov. 30. 26

In Britain Cardinal Manning was a very ardent, if not always a well-informed, champion of animals, and Fr. Aloysius Roche has published a plea on their behalf which has received the nihil obstat and imprimatur of Westminster.1 There is a gallant little body called the Catholic Study Circle for Animal Welfare which, with its journal The Ark, is putting up a stout fight for the recognition of kindness as a Christian duty. It does not enjoy such broadlybased support as one would wish for; in part, perhaps, because like most theologically-minded persons who enter this field it has listened too much to that section of the animal-welfare movement which makes much of abstract principles and relies on its feelings as a source of facts. (All ministers of religion need to be on their guard against the risk of bombinating in vacuo which arises in this way). Nevertheless the Circle has made its mark and is doing invaluable work. Officially the Roman Catholic Church is more advanced than the Church of England in its teaching about animals. The Holy Office, which is authoritative for Roman Catholics, has answered two specific questions as follows: "Does the Holy Office hold it to be sinful to torture dumb animals?- Yes. Does the Holy Office hold such sins to be degrading to the soul and disposition of the tormentor?- Yes." 2 In the church of Notre Dame de France, Leicester Square, London, which has recently been rebuilt after being bombed, there is a particularly pleasing reredos representing the Blessed Virgin surrounded in her youth by a squirrel, a fawn, a sheep, butterflies, birds and two fish. It was recently designed by the French Benedictine monk Dom Robert of Buckfast Abbey, was embroidered at Aubusson, and was presented by the French Government. Finally, the catechism with which French children are prepared for confirmation and first communion has recently been rewritten and includes the following question and answer: "Is it permissible for you to cause suffering to animals without good reason ?-No, it is not permissible for me to cause suffering to animals without

1 The Rev. Aloysius Roche, These Animals of Ours (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1939). 2 Quoted by Dom Ambrose Agius, O.S.B., in Animal Welfare, p. 15. (Catholic Truth Society, 1937).

Cant. 2. 9

56

good reason. To hurt them unnecessarily is an act of cruelty" (Tr.)1 (question 366), and question 22 quotes Matt. vi, 26. This does not take us very far, but it recognizes the principle, whereas our own catechism completely ignores the subject. Actions taken by several other Christianbodies It may next be useful to notice some actions which have been taken officially by various other bodies of Christians.2 Very kindly references to animals are made from time to time in the religious services broadcast by the B.B.C. In November, 1929, the Anglican Synod in Cape Town unanimously resolved " That the clergy should bring before their congregations the need for the proper care and treatment of animals." 3 At the same time the Archbishop of Cape Town composed a prayer, and this was adopted in various dioceses of the Union of South Africa.4 At least two English bishops, the late Bishop Kirk of Oxford and the late Bishop Spencer Leeson of 1 "Vous est-il permis de faire souffrir s_ansraiso~ les animaux_? - NoJ?-, il ne m'est pas permis de faire sou~r\; sans.raison l_esammaux. LJ?S~a1resouffnr This question (No. 366) 1s m lesson 57 inutilement est un acte de cruaute. (" Respect de Ja vie "). It is to be hoped that it may eventually b~ transferred to lesson 50 (" La vertu de charite ") in order to prevent confusion between killing and hurting. . . Answer 22 reads: " Dieu est bon et il prend soin de tout~s ses crfatures! 11 Jes conserve et Jes gouverne par sa rrovide~ce . . . Je~us n!-'usd1t dans 1 Evang1Je: 'Les oiseaux du ciel ne sement m ne m01ssonnent, ils n amassent pas dans les . greniers, et le Pere cele?te les nourrit ' ... " . . . . This catechism which replaces the various catechisms previously used m different dioceses, 'is reprinted in, for instance, _Vivre en Chretien dans mon Quartier by Yvan Daniel (Editions Ouvrieres, Pans, 1943). Not; added in proof. At the conclusion of the international dog show at Cauterets, on 29 July, the Bishop of Tarbes and Loui:_descelebrated :11assand preached a sermon in which he q~tedfro_m ~n Pret,:e et _so_nChien.. (See "Louange Divine apres une Expos1t10nCanme, Bulletin Relzg1euxdu Dwcese de Tarbes et Lourdes, 2 aoi\t 1956, p. 258). 2 Two symposia organized by ULA WS (The Uniyersity ?f London Animal Welfare Society) at King's College, London, were mterestmg_on .account. of their being broadly based. At the first, held on 31st May, 1928, with ~If Frederick Hobday, F.R.c.v.s., in the Chair, the _addresseswert?g_1venby Rabbi Dr. Samuel Daiches, the Jesuit Fr. C. C. Martmdale, Comffi!ss1onerI. Unswor_th of the Salvation Army, and Dr. W. R. Matthews and the Rev. C. Bourch1_erof the Church of England. At the second, held on 28th October, 1_937,with Archbishop Lang in the Chair, the speakers were Do~ Ambrose _Agms,o.s.B., of_the Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. J. H. Martm representmg the Methodists, and the Rev. Dr. (afterwards Prof.) Harold Smith of the Church of England. a This was done at the request of the Anim~ls' Welfare Soc~ety of Sout~ Africa. My information comes from a leaflet published by the National Council for Animals' Welfare, London. 4 See Additional Note G, page 99.

57

I Kine• 17 .4

Peterborough, have taken some such action in their own dioceses, but the Church of England as a whole has taken none as yet. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, adopted on 27th May, 1947, a deliverance in the following terms:- " The General Assembly, recognizing kindness to animals and their protection from ill-treatment as a practical application of Christianity, urge members of the Church to be active in this Christian duty, and commend to their support the work of the Scottish S.P.C.A." A somewhat similar pronouncement made on 30th May, 1939, recommended all ministers "to devote all or part of a sermon on one Sunday in the year to the general subject of mercy and kindness to all living creatures." The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland adopted the following resolution in June, 1956: "The General Assembly, recognizing the welfare of animals and their just treatment as an essential part of Christian responsibility, urge members of the Church to be active in this sphere of service, and commend to their support the work of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals throughout Ireland. They recommend that this matter be kept before congregations, Sunday Schools, and organisations of the Church, through instruction and intercession, particularly during Animal Welfare Week, at the beginning of May, or on any other convenient Sabbath in each year." A Methodist Conference on the Treatment of Animals passed on 13th July, 1951, a long resolution which represents the official guidance of the Methodist Church. It notes, among other things, that "God has, in His wisdom, placed animals under man's dominion, and he must so treat them as one who will have to give an account of his office to God." After dealing with pest-control, field sports, captive animals, markets, transport, and experiments on animals, it concludes: " The over-riding consideration is, not only what we must refrain from doing, but what we can do positively to secure the well-being of those who with ourselves inhabit the earth, and fulfil the creative joy and purpose of Almighty God." The Society of Friends has published officially a wise little twopenny booklet called Advices and Queries. The General Advices, which are to be read at least once a year at First-day Morning Meetings for Worship and annually in Monthly Meeting, include the following : "Let the law of kindness know no limits. Show a loving consideration for all God's creatures." A larger official

Mau. 8 .20

58

publication entitled Christian Life, Faith and Thought in the Society of Friends quotes thus from John Woolman (1720-1772 A.D.): " I believe where the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the Great Creator intends for them under our government." The kindly attitude which distinguishes the Christian Scientists is extended by them to animals on the basis of an underlying principle which is set out thus on page 550 of their basic textbook, Science and Health: " God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men." Theosophy derives more from India, Pythagoras, and ancient Egypt than from Christianity, but some theosophists try to combine these disciplines. They hold a very neighbourly view of animals. Mohammedanism may be regarded as a Christian heresy. " Mohammedanism, like Christianity, came under the sway of Aristotelianism, which created a gulf between man and the animals, in spite of their basic kinship in the world of sense. There are, however, passages in the Qur'an and the Sayings of the Prophet showing sympathy for animal life." 1 Monsieur Delon, who is in charge of the American Fondouk in Fez, has collected a considerable number of kindly references2 to animals from the Coran and the Hadith. The treatment of animals in Mohammedan countries is extremely backward at present, but UF AW is acquainted with several individual Mohammedans who are very humane. The mission field

It is in the mission field that a truly Christian view is in the strongest contrast with non-Christian practice. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who is equally famous as medical missionary, theologian, and friend to animals, has given a lead in this connection, and I wished to find out how far his policy had been adopted by other missionaries, especially but not exclusively in the delicate 1 Prof. F. Harold Smith, The Influence of Religions on Man's Attitude towards Animals, p. 9 (UFAW, 1951). 2 These will probably be published in a polyglot edition by UFAW.

59

Ps. 104. 14

case of missionary medical colleges in which laboratory animals are used. I therefore ventured to send UF AW's pamphlet, Suggestions for the Protection of Laboratory Animals Overseas,1 to a number of missionary societies and to beg for information in relation to the following questions: I. In the teaching of catechumens, is it assumed that the love of God is restricted to the human species, or is kindness to all sentient creatures taught as a duty binding on the Christian conscience? 2. In medical mission colleges: (i) Are the students precluded, as in Britain, from experimenting on live animals during their training? (ii) Is the British rule as to demonstrations applied? (see para. 5 of Suggestions). 3. Where laboratory animals are used: (i) Is full amesthesia insisted upon for all vertebrates during surgical operations? (ii) Is the Pain Rule (see para. 16 of Suggestions) strictly insisted upon? (iii) Are the laboratory assistants carefully trained in the humane handling and care of the animals? (iv) Is the opportunity taken for teaching kindness to all species, including the humblest, as a duty binding on the Christian conscience? (v) What precautions are taken to prevent suffering from being inflicted by the native staff or students? The Universities Mission to Central Africa replied without hesitation as follows : I. In the teaching of catechumens in our part of the mission field the love of God is certainly not restricted to the human species. That animals should be kindly treated is taught both by precept and example, and both our missionaries and African teachers have given active support to such work as that of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 2. (i) Yes, most emphatically. (ii) Yes, certainly. 1

This pamphlet, which has been prepared by UFA W with the collaboration of humane research workers, summarizes the British law and practice and suggests • certain improvements and adaptations.

~

~--.::.·

I Chr. 12. g

60

3. (i) In none of our hospitals are any experiments ever carried out upon living animals. The only occasions on which surgery is practised on animals is when they have been injured in some way and the surgery is for their own benefit. They are then fully anresthetized. (ii) Yes. (iii) Yes. (iv) This seems to be answered under (i) (v) Native staff and students have no such opportunities. The reply from the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society was equally favourable, and I have seen a humane statement issued by the Vellore Christian Medical College, Madras. The British Board of the Moravian Church, which has no medical colleges, answered question 1 thus: " I can assure you that kindness to animals is taught in our Mission Schools and Churches." The Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, which does not use laboratory animals, wrote inter alia: "We do try to teach our Christians to love animals but they don't often respond! ... In spite of Hindu teaching of the sacredness of all life we have observed extreme callousness towards animals, who are subjected to cruelty and starvation. There is very little we can do about it except by example." The four other societies that had replied at the time of going to press did not appear to have concerned themselves with such matters. 1 One harassed secretary wrote: " The questions you ask would involve a correspondence with our various missions . . . The missions, of course, are largely autonomous." It may be doubted whether, if the question had been "Is your society opposed to slavery, drunkenness and prostitution?" even the most harassed of secretaries would have replied " Our missions are largely autonomous ... " Factual judgementsand moral judgements Let us now consider the position of the Church of England. The formulation of a policy on any subject entails making judgements of either two or three different kinds: judgements of fact, and judgements of moral and/or resthetic principle. It is important that judgements of each of these kinds should be made in complete independence of judgements of each of the other two kinds. 1 Note added in proof. Since this was written it has been learned that a conference of representatives of missionary societies is to be called for the purpose of formulating a policy in relation to animals, and UFA W has been asked to supply relevant information.

61

Ps. !02. 6

. On matt~rs ?f moral principle the Church of England speaks with authority m England as the national church, but for pronouncements on mundane matters of fact she is on the same level as any other body of educated men. Hence it is a delicate matter calli_ngfor great ~~tion, for the Church to formulate a policy on: for mstance, a political question, which depends on economic and psychological facts as well as on ethical considerations. . If the Church t~kes no cognizance of matters of fact when dealing with moral quest10ns she must content herself with enunciating vague moral principles without giving any concrete illustrations of their practical application, and this by itself has little effect. If, on !h~ other hand, she formulates a concrete policy, she must base 1t m part on factual judgements and must then take the risk of getting entangled in non-ecclesiastical controversies. This dilemma cannot be avoided by attaching a moral quality to means, as distinct from ends, because he who wills the means wills also the consequences which may be expected to flow from their use.I How the Church of England might formulate a policy concernino animals ""

. There ~re four w~ys in w~ich the Church of England copes with the dilemma which has Just been outlined. (1) In the first place she makes sure that general principles shall not be overlooked as for instance by having the two Great Commandments (though sometimes the more specific Ten Commandments) read and assented to at the communion service. (2) Secondly she lays down concrete rules_of conduct wherever the facts are obvious and beyond dispute; for mstance, nobody can doubt that stealing, slandering and selfishness infringe the second of the two Great Commandments and the Church condemns them specifically. (3) Thirdly, when mor~ disputable questions are in issue she sometimes appoints a commission, including lay experts as well as clerics, to advise her. This has been done, for instance, in relation to various aspects of marriage and to gambling in general. (4) Finally, when the available evidence is such that factual conclusions cannot be reached with sufficient unanimity she will leave a question open, as in the case of teetotalism or of a proposal to nationalize some industry. All the~e methods would be needed if the Church of England should decide to formulate a policy in relation to neighbourliness towards animals. 1

See Additional Note C, page 87.

Jer, 8. 7

62

She could introduce appropriate references to the subject in general terms at suitable points in her liturgy; some suggestions will be made in that connection presently. A strong recommendation by the Bishops could have as much practical effect as a statutory amendment of the Prayer Book. As regards the second kind of action: there are a number of instances in which the facts are beyond dispute and can readily be ascertained. The extreme cruelty entailed in whaling and sealing as at present practised, and in gin-trapping, are obvious examples.I To understand and practise the proper husbandry of the animals for which one is responsible on the farm or in the home or laboratory is a binding though troublesome duty; in particular it seems probable that children's caged pets not infrequently suffer thirst and starvation through neglect after their novelty has worn off. Methods of slaughtering have been regulated by law in the British Isles in a manner which is satisfactory in principle though not always in practice, but in most parts of the British Commonwealth and in the United States little of this kind has been enacted. Skilful systematic publicity is being inspired by the Spanish bull-fighting industry to attract British tourists; this is a commercial exploitation of sadism decked up as ballet. One can imagine the storm of protest that would be raised by religious leaders if the Spaniards were to advertise brothels as an attraction for tourists, 2 but the use of sadism for the same purpose has not elicited any storm. On these and certain other subjects the Church could safely break her silence. There is a third class of topics which is characterized in that some differences of opinion are admissible in relation to them, and it would be advantageous if the Church could appoint a 1_ T~e use of the_gin trap will be illeg~l in Great Britain after 31st July, 1958, but 1s likely to continue on a vast scale m other English-speaking countries as ' well as in other parts of the world. 2 The Spanish corrida must not be confused with the traditional course a coc0;rdesof Provence,_a humane sport in which there is no wounding or killing ?f animals ~ut casualt1e~ among the razeteurs are frequent. The corrida was introduced mto France m 1863 by Napoleon III to please his Spanish bride. It h~s gradually spread to the chief cities of southern France, was recently legahzed by an amendment of the Loi Grammont, and appears now to be spreading northwards. At the same time another sadistic spectacle all-in wrestling (" catch "), has become the most popular entertainment in French television. " More spectacular than any other sport, it gives many people a chance to let off, unknowingly, their instincts, their revenge complexes therr unslaked hatred ... to pour out the overflow of their rancour in the over:volted atmosphere of a bout of catch." (Tr.) Regards sur Meurchin (parish magazine) May, 1956, p. 7.

63

Job 6. 5

commission to inquire into these 1. Such a commission would have to take account of the fact that much of the propaganda relating to the welfare of animals has been distorted by sentimentality, which may be defined as" feeling divorced from fact and thought." Sentimentality

In the present connection sentimentality shows itself in four ways. First, whereas the priorities accorded to the claims which animals have upon us ought to be based solely on the intensity of suffering which a given breach of neighbourliness entails, on its mean duration, on the number of animals affected, and on the feasibility of reform, we find that in practice priority is too often based on the degree of popularity which a given species happens to enjoy in a particular place at a particular time. Dogs are specially popular in England and cows in India, but dogs are unpopular in the Middle East and cows are merely agricultural machine tools in England. Everywhere those animals are unpopular which are classed as vermin because they happen to share man's food-preferences and diseases. It is the unpopular animals, obviously, that are in the greatest need of protection against cruelty. Secondly, practices which make a vivid impact on the imagination have attracted much more attention than others which are more cruel but less striking. The pink coat of the huntsman catches the eye, a packet of some cruel poison does not. A third kind of sentimentality consists in confusing killing, which is often desirable, with hurting, which never is so. Fourthly, the feelings of the human onlooker, such as revulsion from the sight of blood, may be confused with those of the animal concerned; the most humane way of killing an animal is not always the one that is least unpleasant for the human onlooker. The Church will, no doubt, set its face firmly against sentimentality and in favour of humaneness. Some thorny questions

As regards experiments on animals, the facts are complex, technical, and easily misunderstood, and have been gravely misrepresented by propagandists. Sweeping generalizations on either side of the controversy that bedevils this subject can be safely rejected. It would be desirable for the Church in consultation with 1 The most important topics in the first, second and third classes are summarized in a brochure entitled Expanding Justice and published by UFAW (at present under revision).

Ps. 79. l3

64

humane scientists1 to enunciate some basic principles, but it might be inadvisable for her to go deeply into technical details. It is difficult to get unbiased information about the alleged cruelty inflicted on performing animals. The best source would seem to be the local veterinary surgeons who are called in occasionally when a circus is in their neighbourhood. Speculations as to what would be involved or might be expected to be involved are of no value; what is wanted is first-hand observation. Hence much of the propaganda devoted to this subject is unreliable. The subject of field sports is a delicate one. On one hand nobody can pretend that to chase or kill an animal for amusement is a neighbourly way of behaving towards it. On the other hand it is an established though paradoxical fact that a large proportion of those who have most effectively put themselves out to better the lot of animals have been sportsmen; W. H. Buckley, M.F.H., for instance, and the late Dr. Kirkman. It has been suggested that field sports are legitimate if the quarry dies a less distressing death than it would die in the course of nature, but at present comparatively little is known of the way in which wild animals do die on the average. What can be said incontrovertibly is that there is a vast difference between what is suffered at the hands of a competent and conscientious sportsman and what is inflicted by an incompetent and callous one, especially in shooting. Some ways in which the Church of England might implement a humanitarian policy

Let it be supposed that at some future date the appropriate authority in the Church of England will define an official policy in relation to animals. It will then be necessary to devise means for implementing that policy. The following additions to the liturgy may be suggested. A variety of short prayers have been published. The four which I personally like best are given in additional note G on page 99, but others can be obtained from the R.S.P.C.A. and the National Council for Animals' Welfare. 1 UF AW, in consultation with outside research workers and in response to a request for advice received from two pathologists in a Middle East country, drew up and published a pamphlet entitled Suggestions for the Legal Protection of Laboratory Animals Overseas. More recently it has engaged a team of highlyqualified scientists to study laboratory techniques with a view to accelerating progress in their improvement from a humane point of view. UFA W publishes the UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory Animals, the standard textbook on that subject.

65

Gen. 8.7

Collects and special prayers of this kind are, however, liable to fall into disuse. A more effective measure would be to insert a few appropriate words at the end of the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions of Men; after '' the blessings of this life " in the General Thanksgiving; after "from envy, hatred and malice, Good Lord deliver us" in the Litany, and again after "That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men "; and after " trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity " in the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church. Popular notions of religion are got largely from hymns, and it is a pity that there are so few usable hymns that allude in a neighbourly way to animals, except for some pleasing but fanciful references in Christmas carols1 . There are no hymns for animals in Hymns Ancient and Modern, but Songs of Praise contains one, No. 305. In the English Hymnal I could find none except the regrettably anthropocentric No. 62. A typical example of the hymnological outlook is that of the hymn " There is a book who runs may read," which is all about Nature but refers solely to inanimate objects, without a thought for animals. It is a fact to be pondered over that these hymn-writers, living in a world that is brim full of the sentient works of the Creator, brought to all of them except man himself the same quality of appreciation that an illiterate person brings to a page of print which he cannot read. On the other hand, the Ulster S.P.C.A. has collected several zoophilic hymns that are not in the hymn books, and the R.S.P.C.A. publishes a good one with music.

Special needs and opportunities

It is in the mission field that the truly Christian attitude towards animals is in the strongest contrast with non-Christian practice. Here, and in church schools and Sunday schools, particularly appropriate opportunities for a word in season arise. UF AW has some publications that may be helpful in this connection and issues a list entitled Educational Aids. The Catechism of the Church of England, unlike that of the Roman Catholic Church in France, does not contain any reference to kindness or cruelty to animals. It is to be hoped that this omission may be supplied in due course.

However, what would be far more useful than hymns about animals would be neighbourly references to animals in hymns on other subjects. There is one such in No. 295 A. and M., and one in No. 288 of the English Hymnal; these are all I have been able to find.2

1 For instance, in " How far is it to Bethlehem?". Saboly's carols, which are very popular in Provence and Languedoc, include one in which, in the universal rejoicing, "L'ase respond 'Hi! Ho!'" One of Rournanille's carols, L' Ase e ZouBiou, contains the lines: " Dison que Ii dous anirnau, Tant Jou nistoun ie fague gau, Erne respet s'ageinouieron -A si petoun e Ii liperon "-" It is said that the gentle animals (so greatly did the new-born rejoice them) with reverence knee!ed down at his feet and licked them." 2 The line " Even a worm may bend the knee " in one old hymn must surely be metaphorical.

f;,

Job 39. 13

66

67

Matt. 8.20

CHAPTER

8

SIN Suppose that a parish priest has to give spiritual counsel to (1) a kind-hearted young woman who would not hurt a fly but has been all too kind to a boy friend during her husband's absence, and now is sorry for it; and (2) a conventionally virtuous matron whose person is decorously covered by a musquash coat. What will he say to them? Sin and sex For the English, such words as " sin " and " immorality " are almost synonymous with " sex." If a woman's neighbours say she is " leading an immoral life " they do not mean that she is taking some unfair advantage of the Rent Restriction Act. When Tennyson wrote " The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust " he was not using the word " lust " as the Authorized Version of the Bible1 uses it, to denote desire in general, reputable or otherwise. If I were to say that two persons are " living in sin," few would realize what I was referring to if this happened to be an habitual use of red squill for destroying rats 2 . This obsession with sex is correlated with contempt for the lower animals, the normal mating habits of most species being different from those which are appropriate for human beings. It seems to have been imported into England by the Puritans. Calvin looked back to Augustine, and Augustine considered that even marital intercourse was shameful.3 His speculations on the biological relation between Adam and Eve before the fall are a tour de force in neurological extrapolation.' 1 2

E.g. Gal. v, 17.

Cf. Rats and Mice, by the Staff of the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford (O.U.P.) Vol. 1, p. 33: "Red squill, from interpretation of various symptoms, is a cruel poison; death only supervenes after several days and the symptoms are unpleasant." This is an understatement. The assay of red squill in the laboratory is prohibited by the Home Office on the ground that it inflicts " severe suffering which is likely to endure." 3 De Civitate Dei, XIV, chap. 18 et seqq. 4 ibid chap. 24. He said he knew men who could move their ears by an effort of the will, and one who, by lightly pressing his stomach, could bring up an incredible quantity and variety of things he had swallowed, producing them whole as if out of a bag; and another who at pleasure could break wind continuously so as to make a noise like singing.

Ps. 104. 26

68

The influence of Neoplatonists and Gnostics The notion that sex is sinful per se, almost the most important of all sins, led to many extravagances. For instance Origen (185-254 A.D.) castrated himself with a knife, and he was not the only one of his kind, for the Church had more than once to legislate against the practice. 1 The one-eyed shoemaker of Baghdad(? 1257 A.D.) had, in the course of his business, carelessly permitted himself to admire a well-turned ankle 2 , and thereupon been so smitten with remorse that he had gouged out an eye with an instrument of his trade 3 . The first of these puritan heroes had put upon Matt. xix, 12, and the second upon Matt. v, 29, as literal a construction as some put upon Mark x, 11. Later on Origen adopted a more sensible exegesis4,but it was too late then to do anything about it.

No doubt these ascetical views of Augustine, Origen and others were partly due to disgust with the vices of pagan society (Petronius is enough to make the least squeamish feel quite sick), but they must also have been due in large part to infection with Gnostic 5 and Neoplatonist teaching. Origen was a Christian Neoplatonist with Gnostical leanings. Augustine had been a Manichee before his conversion, and the Manichees looked on sex as satanic and forbade their elect to marry.

1

For references see Lenain de Tillemont, Histoire Ecclesiastique, Vol. 3,

p. 507 (1695). 2 My less solemn readers may relish two modern parallels. The Abbey of Ferigoulet (thyme), where le Reverend Pere Gaucher made his famous elixir with disastrous results, and where Tartarin de Tarascon purported to defend the Peres Premontres from eviction by government troops - this abbey is once more occupied by the Peres Premontres, manufactures and sells the elixir du Pere Gautier, and receives gay crowds on occasion. But not too gay: observe the notice at the entrance-" Entree interdite aux femmes en short!" See also page 54. Admirers of Ferdinand Fabre will remember the church of St. Alexandre at Bedarieux, where his aunt, la Tante Angele of Mon Ami Gajfarot, had to shorten vestments because " Dieu, pour des fins qui nous echappent, n'a pas voulu que les cures eussent tous la meme taille." Until recently there was on the door of this St. Alexandre a notice explaining how devout ladies ought to dress; it seems to have disappeared, but one phrase has stuck in my mind - " Le decolletage de 2 cm. au maximum" (datum level not specified) "et collant." 3 Marco Polo, Travels, I, 8. 4 In his commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel, ad foe. 6 Timothy (1 Tim. iv, 3) was warned against some early Gnostics who were described as "giving heed to seducing spirits ... forbidding to marry ... " St. Paul's only reason for celibacy was a purely practical one, that women take up busy men's time and attention and vice versa (I Cor. vii, 32-34, and cf. verses 3-5, 28).

69

Jer. 8. 7

The gospel scale of priorities

All thi~ preoccupation with sex has had the unfortunate effects ~f p~om?trng contempt for animals and diverting attention from the weightier maUers of the law, justice and mercy and good faith."I In th~ ~~w Testament we get back to sanity and a different scale ?f_ pnonties. Not that licentiousness is there condoned; obviously I! 1s not'. but a sense of proportion is preserved, and the disproport10~ate importance attached to sex by Gnostics is absent. The et~1cs of the Gospel hang upon love of God and love of one's ne1ghbour2 • St. _Paul gives~ a ~ist of sixteen4 "works of the flesh," only one ~f which (po~~eia) 1s unambiguously sexual. Akatharsia (A.V. un~lean_ness ) mea?s any sort of uncleanness (eating of pease puddrng rn one classical author), and aselgeia (A.V. "lasciviousn_ess") means anr sort of undisciplined behaviour 5 . The remaining s!ns of_the flesh hsted by St. Paul are such things as hatred, emulations U~alousy), wrath, strife, and envy, which would not literally be specially attributed to the body as opposed to the mind. 1:he command to love one's neighbour would be an impracticable one,!f the verb " love " were understood as meaning " feel affection f~r. You cann?t feel affection to order 6 ; a good many amatory disagreements ~:mghthave been avoided if you could. Personally I have found 1t easy to feel affection for Joan of Arc and John Locke _and_Frede~ic_~istral, and for cats and rats and coypus, but a physical 1mposs1b1Iityto feel any for people like the Black Prince or Torquemada, or the Abbe du Cheyla, or several of our con~ temporaries whom it will be better not to name. But the command to_love one's neighbour becomes practicable when, in accordance ~1th good ethological principles, the word " love " is understood m. terms o_f behaviour 7 instead of feeling, so that to love one's neighbour 1s to be kind to one's neighbour. 8 For instance,. though 2 -~Matt. xxiii_,23._ Matt. xxii, 37-40. a Gal. v, 19-21. Or fift~n if, w1tp ~~stcott and Hort and the Revised Version, you omit the Alexandr!an r