er moral estate.

The last great excursion of sympathy which has characterized the
English Aryans--one dating its beginning to this century--is that
relating to the rights of our domesticated animals. This has come
about, like the other movements, in a way unconsciously. Prophetic
spirits have seen beyond the vision of their fellows; they have given
their messages, which have found an echo in the souls of men. The
motive originated in the recognition of the essential likeness of the
minds of the lower animals to our own. But it has been greatly
reenforced by the teachings of the naturalists to the effect that all
the life of this sphere is akin in its origin and that our subjects are
not very far away from our own ancestral line.

It is characteristic of sympathetic movements that, while they are
slowly prepared for, their final development is very rapid. Thus it has
come about that within one hundred years the conception of the rights of
animals has advanced with almost startling rapidity. No other moral gain
has been made with such speed or has so rapidly become a part of the
property of civilized man. The steps are those which have been taken in
all the other great moral advances: at first there were but a few who,
in the manner of the skirmishers of armies, set the standards far on in
the new ground; gradually the less ardent win their way to them, only to
be led the further by their natural guides. As the great advance is
still making, it is difficult to see how far it may attain; it is,
however, easy to recognize some of the important gains and to foretell
the path if not the field of full accomplishment of the conquest. A
century ago a man, so far as the law was concerned, owned his living
chattels as he did the inanimate things of his property. He could
torture or slay them as whim or malice might dictate; there were no
limitations by statute, and public opinion, where it might reprobate,
was too weak to influence his conduct. Now the statute books of all
countries which are moving in the path of moral advance show that public
opinion has attained the point where it begins to formulate itself in
statutes which restrict the relations of men to their domesticated
animals--or, in other words, endow them with definite rights. He may, of
course, force them to do him their fit service; he may at his need slay
them; but he must exercise his authority without brutality; he must, in
form at least, be merciful unto his b