An admirable definition of Rights is given by Mr. G. W. Foote in his contribution to “The New Charter”: “Rights are of three sorts—legal, moral, and natural. The legal meaning of ‘Rights’ is undoubtedly the primary one ... and this is the only definite sense, in which the word can be used.... Moral Rights are widespread new sentiments, demanding incorporation into Legal Rights; and Natural Rights are still newer sentiments, aspiring to recognition as Moral Rights, with a view to ultimate incorporation as Legal Rights.... They are respectively, a solid fact, a general demand, and a growing aspiration.”
[2]This remark implies not the “disparagement of logic and of all careful use of language,” with which Professor D. G. Ritchie has charged me in his book on “Natural Rights,” but simply that social reformers cannot be debarred from using the best available terms because no logically exact term is forthcoming. See Appendix I.
[3]Attributed to Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.
[4]“Principles of Penal Law,” chap, xvi., 1780.
[5]John Lawrence, “Philosophical Treatise on the Moral Duties of Man towards the Brute Creation,” 1796.
[6]Professor Ritchie contends in his “Natural Rights” that domestic animals have not been granted rights in English law. “Because a work of art, or some ancient monument, is protected by law from injury, do we speak of the rights of pictures or stones?” But the distinction is obvious—works of art are protected only as property, domestic animals as sentient beings, whether owned or unowned.
[7]“Fraser,” November, 1863; “The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes,” by Frances Power Cobbe.
[8]“Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies,” 1854.
[9]Humphry Primatt, D.D., author of “The Duty of Mercy to Brute Animals” (1776).
[10]See the article on “Animal Immortality,” “The Nineteenth Century,” Jan., 1891, by Norman Pearson. The upshot of his argument is that, “if we accept the immortality of the human soul, and also accept its evolutional origin, we cannot deny the survival, in some form or other, of animal minds.”
[11]Prof. Huxley’s remarks, in “Science and Culture,” give a partial support to Descartes’ theory, but do not bear on the moral question of rights. For, though he concludes that animals are probably “sensitive automata,” he classes men in the same category. See Appendix II.
[12]Schopenhauer’s “Foundation of Morality.” I quote the passage as translated in Mr. Howard Williams’s “Ethics of Diet.”
[13]“Descent of Man,” chap. iii.
[14]“Man and Beast, here and hereafter,” 1874.
[15]In Sir A. Helps’s “Animals and their Masters.” See an article on “Dumb Animals,” in “The Humanitarian,” November, 1912. Also the chapter on “Speech as a Barrier between Man and Beast,” in Mr. E. P. Evans’s work on “Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology,” 1898.
[16]See Prince Kropotkine’s articles on “Mutual Aid among Animals,” “Nineteenth Century,” 1890, where the conclusion is arrived at that “sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.” A similar view is expressed in the “Study of Animal Life,” 1892, by J. Arthur Thomson. “What we must protest against,” he says, in an interesting chapter on “The Struggle of Life,” “is that one-sided interpretation according to which individualistic competition is nature’s sole method of progress.”
Another and more recent work, which has a very important bearing on this question, is “Symbiosis: a Socio-Physiological Study of Evolution,” by H. Reinheimer, 1920.
[17]Auguste Comte included the domestic animals as an organic part of the Positivist conception of humanity.
[18]“Moral Duty towards Animals,” “Macmillan’s Magazine,” April, 1882, by the then Bishop of Carlisle.
[19]See Lewis Gompertz’ “Moral Inquiries” (1824), where it is argued that “at least in the present state of society it is unjust, and considering the unnecessary abuse they suffer from being in the power of man, it is wrong to use them, and to encourage their being placed in his power.”
[20]“Animals and their Masters,” p. 101.
[21]See Appendix III.
[22]Under the Animals (Anaesthetics) Act, 1919, an anæsthetic is now required in certain cases, but the scope of the Act needs to be greatly enlarged.
[23]The use of dogs for purposes of draught was prohibited in London in 1839, and in 1854 this enactment was extended to the whole kingdom.
[24]“On Cruelty to the Inferior Animals,” by Soame Jenyns, 1782.
[25]Mr. E. B. Nicholson. See Appendix IV.
[26]Unfortunately they are not of much value even for that purpose, owing to the deterioration of health and vigour caused by their imprisonment. “The skeletons of aged carnivora,” says Dr. W. B. Carpenter, “are often good for nothing as museum specimens, their bones being rickety and distorted.”
[27]“La Bible de l’Humanité.”
[28]See the Humanitarian League pamphlets on “Cattle-ships,” and “The Reform of the Slaughter-house.”
[29]“The Rights of an Animal,” 1879.
[30]Edward Carpenter, “England’s Ideal.”
[31]As in the article by Sir Herbert Maxwell on “Our Obligations to Wild Animals,” “Blackwood’s Magazine,” August, 1899.
[32]Soame Jenyns, 1782.
[33]See the chapter on Fallacies of Sportsmen in the volume of essays entitled “Killing for Sport” (George Bell and Sons, 1915). Several of the sophisms by which fox-hunting is commonly defended were employed by Dr. Lang, Archbishop of York, in an address which he gave (November 16, 1913) when dedicating a stained window to the memory of a deceased blood-sportsman.
[34]“The Horrors of Sport,” Humanitarian League pamphlet, by Lady Florence Dixie.
[35]“It is extremely difficult to see why these tame deer of park and paddock should not be held to be domestic animals within the meaning of the Acts for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Indeed, if they have ceased to be feræ naturæ they must be domestic animals, unless there be some miserable tertium quid which is neither one nor the other. I am not aware that there ever has been a definite decision of the High Court upon this matter, and I venture to think that if a suitable case were to be taken up and properly argued, it is possible that a judgment welcome to humanitarians might be obtained.”—Sir George Greenwood (“Humane Review,” January, 1908).
[36]Letter to “Pall Mall Gazette,” March 24th, 1892, by Lady Florence Dixie.
[37]Since this was written, more than thirty years ago, there has been a welcome growth of public feeling, resulting in a better control of the plumage trade.
[38]See Appendix V.
[39]We are told that in this country such barbarities are no longer possible, because, by the Act of 1876, vivisections may be performed by none but licensed persons, and the use of anaesthetics is made obligatory. It has to be remembered, however, that special licences can be obtained to dispense with anaesthetics, or, if an anæsthetic be administered, to allow the vivisector to keep the animal alive after the effect of the anæsthetic has passed away, in order to watch the results of the experiment, during which period the animal frequently has to endure great suffering.
[40]On the reference to this passage in “The Confessions of a Physician,” by V. Veresaeff, see Appendix VI.
[41]It is said that the first Lord Aberdare, in presiding over a meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in warning the society against entering on an anti-vivisection crusade, gave utterance to the delightfully irrelevant remark that he had himself been thrice operated on, and was all the better for it!
[42]See J. Cotter Morrison’s article on “Scientific versus Bucolic Vivisection,” “Fortnightly Review,” 1885.
[43]Professor Jevons, “Fortnightly Review,” 1876.
[44]“Mind in Animals,” translated by Annie Besant.
[45]“The Old Faith and the New.”
[46]See Appendix VII.
[47]See Appendix VIII.
[48]“They tell children, perhaps, that they must not be cruel to animals.... What avails all the fine talk about morality, in contrast with acts of barbarism and immorality presented to them on all sides?”—Gustav von Struve.
[49]“Principles of Political Economy.”
[50]See p. 3.
[51]See p. 10.
[52]See p. 29.
[53]See p. 37.
[54]See p. 69.
[55]See p. 71.
[56]From the translation by Simeon Linden, London, 1904; pp. 158, 159.
[57]See p. 84.
[58]Daily News, April 10, 1906.
[59]See p. 86.
[60]It has not been attempted in the following pages to give a complete bibliography of the doctrine of Animals’ Rights, but merely a list of some of the chief works, in English, that touch directly on that subject.