Humanity

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Sections (Content) :

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Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.

• 2

...man's morality towards the lower animals is a vital and indeed fundamental part of his morality towards his fellow-men.

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Man falls much more short of perfect wisdom, and even of his own ideas of perfect wisdom, than animals do...

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The lives of men depend upon the same laws as the lives of all other animals...

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It will not be denied that human interests have evolved out of animal desires, and are ultimately continuous with them; and an understanding of animal behavior can throw light on human problems...

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In the mountains I've faced tigers without incident,
But in the plains I've been seized by my fellow men.

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...it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.

• 8

Most of the good memories of my childhood, and up to the age of about twenty, are in some way connected with animals.

["Such, Such Were The Joys," by George Orwell, 1947. First published: Partizan Review. — GB, London. — September-October 1952. ]

• 9

...arguments proving a possible future life for man hold likewise for the lower animals; so that if man be judged immortal, they should be also, and if they be mortal, so also is man.

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The wolf has a social system of dominant and submissive individuals not dissimilar to that of people -- every individual knows his or her place in both the wolf packs and the human community.

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...it does not appear that any animal naturally makes war on man, except in case of self-defense or excessive hunger...

• 12

Yet human flesh is chemically identical with animal flesh, and if it be true that to boil an egg is the same thing as to roast an ox, it follows that to butcher an ox is the same thing as to murder a man.

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There are two principles at work in Nature -- the law of competition and the law of mutual aid. There are carnivorous animals and non-carnivorous, predatory races and sociable races; and the vital question is -- to which does man belong?

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The emancipation of men from cruelty and injustice will bring with it in due course the emancipation of animals also. The two reforms are inseparably connected, and neither can be fully realized alone.

• 15

...I feel as strongly as ever that food-reform, like Socialism, has an essential part to play in the liberation of man-kind. I cannot see how there be any real and full recognition of Kinship, as long as men continue either to cheat, or to eat, their fellow-beings!

• 16

...while we certainly desire to touch fewer and fewer things with whip, hob-nailed boot, hunting-knife, scalpel, or pole-ax, we equally desire to get into touch with more and more of our fellow-beings by means of that sympathetic intelligence which tells us that they are closely akin to ourselves. Why, ultimately, do we object to such practices as vivisection, blood-sports, and butchery? Because of the cruelty inseparable from them, no doubt; but also because of the hateful narrowing of our own human pleasures which these barbarous customs involve.

• 17

For in spite of all the barriers and divisions that prejudice and superstition have heaped up between the human and the non-human, we may take it as certain that, in the long run, as we treat out fellow-beings, “the animals,” so shall we treat our fellow-men.

• 18

Into the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said, "There is something evil in the taste of human flesh." And ever after, when the flesh-pots were filled with man-flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not; then, as the years passed, none ate.

• 19

Do not ask how your bread is buttered; it will make you sick, if you do -- and the like. A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.

• 20

Could he [mankind] not heighten the tints of flowers and the melody of birds?... What is the part of magnanimity to the whale and the beaver? Should we not fear to exchange places with them for a day, lest by their behavior they should shame us? Might we not treat with magnanimity the shark and the tiger, not descend to meet them on their own level, with spears of sharks' teeth and bucklers of tiger's skin? We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal.

• 21

It is the secret of majesty in the rolling gait of the elephant, and of all grace in action and in art. Always the line of beauty is a curve. When with pomp a huge sphere is drawn along the streets, by the efforts of a hundred men, I seem to discover each striving to imitate its gait, and keep step with it,—if possible to swell to its own diameter. But onward it moves, and conquers the multitude with its majesty.

• 22

...pinning a butterfly: the husk is captured, but the flying is lost. Why not be content with simply experiencing it?

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...there is no difference in form between the early slave mill and the mill turned by animals...

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When the last grand scene arrives, the Secularist, having done his duty, lies down quietly to rest, and sleeps the long sleep from which, so far as we know, there is no waking. What has he to fear? He knows that death is the consequence of life, that nothing possesses immortality. The plant that blooms in the garden, the bird that flutters in the summer sun, the bee that flies from flower to flower, and the lower animals of every kind, all pass into a state of unconsciousness when their part is played and their work is done. Why should man be an exception to the universal law? His body is built up on the same principle as that of everything else that breathes, and his mental faculties differ in degree, but not in character, from theirs. He is subject to the same law as the rest of existence...

• 25

Then along comes Po Lo. "I'm good at handling horses!" he announces, and proceeds to singe them, shave them, pare them, brand them, bind them with martingale and crupper, tie them up in a stable and stall. By this time two or three out of ten horses have died. He goes on to starve them, make them go thirsty, race them, prance them, pull them into line, force them to run side-by-side, in front of them the worthy of bit and rein, behind them the terror of whip and crop. By this time over half the horses have died.

Chronology :

April 11, 2020 : Humanity -- Added.

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