ourselves is
scorn; the Burman's is compassion. You can see this spirit coming out in
every action of their daily life, in their dealings with each other, in
their thoughts, in their speech. 'You are so strong, have you no
compassion for him who is weak, who is tempted, who has fallen?' How
often have I heard this from a Burman's lips! How often have I seen him
act up to it! It seems to them the necessary corollary of strength that
the strong man should be sympathetic and kind. It seems to them an
unconscious confession of weakness to be scornful, revengeful,
inconsiderate. Courtesy, they say, is the mark of a great man,
discourtesy of a little one. No one who feels his position secure will
lose his temper, will persecute, will be disdainful. Their word for a
fool and for a hasty-tempered man is the same. To them it is the same
thing, one infers the other. And so their attitude towards animals is
but an example of their attitude to each other. That an animal or a man
should be lower and weaker than you is the strongest claim he can have
on your humanity, and your courtesy and consideration for him is the
clearest proof of your own superiority. And so in his dealings with
animals the Buddhist considers himself, consults his own dignity, his
own strength, and is kind and compassionate to them out of the greatness
of his own heart. Nothing is more beautiful than the Burman in his ways
with his children, and his beasts, with all who are lesser than himself.

Even to us, who think so very differently from him on many points, there
is a great and abiding charm in all this, to which we can find only one
exception; for to our ideas there is one exception, and it is this: No
Burman will take any life if he can help it, and therefore, if any
animal injure itself, he will not kill it--not even to put it out of its
pain, as we say. I have seen bullocks split on slippery roads, I have
seen ponies with broken legs, I have seen goats with terrible wounds
caused by accidental falls, and no one would kill them. If, when you are
out shooting, your beaters pick up a wounded hare or partridge, do not
suppose that they wring its neck; you must yourself do that, or it will
linger on till you get home. Under no circumstances will they take the
life even of a wounded beast. And if you ask them, they will say: 'If a
man be sick, do you shoot him? If he injure his spine so that he will be
a cripple for life, do you put him out of his pain?'

If