Animal society

“ The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. ”

“ Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate. ”

“ It is upon this that depends all the social advance that animals have made, and the study of animal sociology would differ from that of human in dealing with instincts and adaptations instead of rational acts. ”

“ The animal kingdom is divided—like all Gaul—into three divisions: wild beasts, that are obliged to hustle for themselves; laboring and producing animals, for which man provides because they are useful to him—and dogs! Of all created things on our globe the canine race have the softest “snap.” The more one thinks about this curious exception in their favor the more unaccountable it appears. We neglect such wild things as we do not slaughter, and exact toil from domesticated animals in return for their keep. Dogs alone, shirking all cares and labor, live in idle comfort at man’s expense. ”

“ As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look; a mean-looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. ”

“ It would be easy to add a great number of other proofs of the all-sufficiency of the one leading characteristic of the human species—superior brain development—to account for all the important features that distinguish man from the lower animals, but those already mentioned will suffice.
The last question to be discussed is whether there is any generic distinction between human and animal association. Many animals are gregarious and some lead a truly social life. We all know how most domestic animals love to mingle with their kind. ”

“ The author correctly says that this is the condition under which animals in the wild state exist, and this is why political economy has been found so well adapted to the study of animal life. Man is, in a pain economy, to all intents and purposes, an animal, living under the biologic law of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. ”

“ When we watch a collie at a sheep-driving competition, or an elephant helping the forester, or a horse shunting waggons at a railway siding, we are apt to be too generous to the mammal mind. For in the cases we have just mentioned, part of man's mind has, so to speak, got into the animal's. On the other hand, when we study rabbits and guinea-pigs, we are apt to be too stingy, for these rodents are under the average of mammals, and those that live in domestication illustrate the stupefying effect of a too sheltered life. ”

“ That the colours and markings of animals have been acquired under the fundamental law of utility is indicated by a general fact which has received very little attention. As a rule, colour and marking are constant in each species of wild animal, while, in almost every domesticated animal, there arises great variability. We see this in our horses and cattle, our dogs and cats, our pigeons and poultry. Now, the essential difference between the conditions of life of domesticated and wild animals is, that the former are protected by man, while the latter have to protect themselves. ”

“ Among wild animals generally, there is a certain standard of excellence; if you shoot a bear or a bird, it is a fair sample of the species; you do not say, "O what an ugly one!" or "This must have been an invalid!"
Where we have domesticated any animal, and interfered with its natural habits, illness has followed; the dog is said to have the most diseases second to man; the horse comes next; but the wild ones put us to shame by their superior health and the beauty that belongs to right development. ”

“ First, let all humans inform themselves of the inevitable and eternal cruelty by the means of which only can animals be compelled to perform before revenue-paying audiences. Second, I suggest that all men and women, and boys and girls, who have so acquainted themselves with the essentials of the fine art of animal-training, should become members of, and ally themselves with, the local and national organizations of humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. ”

“ The zoological solutions are those which grow out of the false conception according to which human beings are animals; [pg 087] if humans are animals, the laws of human nature are the laws of animal nature; and so the social “sciences” of ethics, law, politics, economics, government become nothing but branches of zoology; as sciences, they are the studies of animal life; as arts, they are the arts of managing and controlling animals; according to this zoological philosophy, human wisdom about human beings is animal wisdom about animals. ”

“ The latter is essentially a biological study, and while psychological considerations are potent in both, those that belong to animal sociology relate exclusively to feeling while those that belong to human sociology relate chiefly to the intellect. The facts of animal association therefore—the remarkable resemblances to man's ways displayed by insects and the curious imitations of human customs in various departments of the animal world—prove to be only analogies and not true homologies, and as such have much less value to the sociologist than they appear at first view to possess. ”

“ Every nation, even those which are but just emerging from barbarism, has its domestic animals. With us the horse, the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hog, the dog, and the cat; in Italy the buffalo; in Lapland the rein-deer; in Peru the lama, the pacos, and the alco; in the eastern countries, the dromedary, the camel, and various species of oxen, sheep, and goats; in the southern ones the elephant; all these [26] animals have been reduced to servitude, or admitted into society; while the savage, hardly desirous of the society of his female, either fears or disdains that of other animals. ”

“ But, nevertheless, the relationships of man and his animal associates (slaves, domestic animals, rats, mice, parasites, etc.) form as truly an animal association as do those of the animals which live associated in some forest glade; and in all probability, before any approximately complete understanding can be had of the human associations, their roots and principles of activity must be known and understood in the less aristocratic portion of his animal relatives. ”

“ Such imperturbable good-nature and complacency, such naïveté, I have never before known animals to possess. They have been treated since their birth with so much consideration, they never imagine that their society may not always be desired. In fact, the animals and the people have innocent, friendly ways ”

“ For we can understand on no principle the wild dogs being driven away by the single one with its flock, except that they consider, from some confused notion, that the one thus associated gains power, as if in company with its own kind. F. Cuvier has observed that all animals that readily enter into domestication, consider man as a member of their own society, and thus fulfil their instinct of association. ”

“ In that interaction between instinct and intelligence which, when further detailed work has sifted and purified our knowledge of the psychology of animal communities, may prove sufficient to account for the well-established facts, animal tradition will probably have to be recognized as of no little importance. When a newly emerging ant or bee, or a young bird or mammal is born into a community where certain modes of behaviour are already in full swing, an imitative tendency of the follow-my-leader type may lead it to fall in line with the traditional habits. ”

“ It is clear that their mental endowments, though considerable, are very much more remote from our own than are those of the vertebrated [197] animals with which we have formed a friendly association. Moreover, the type of life of the creatures in a way excludes them from any kind of share in human society. Each of them is, from its birth to its death, entirely devoted to the interests of its little commonwealth. Every impulse of their being relates to the economy of their hive. ”

“ When a want could be supplied by obtaining from another country an animal bred to live with man and serve him, the long and difficult task of softening down the wild instincts of a beast taken from the forests or the hills and acclimatising its constitution to a domestic life was not likely to be attempted. ”

“ Now, though none of the pets I have mentioned were made miserable by restraint, and evidently must have found themselves perfectly happy in the society of man, it is very remarkable that, though all of them must have had (and the bird certainly had) frequent opportunities of making the acquaintance of their species as they roamed the jungle at night, they regularly returned to the society of man. ”

“ Could any thing be more like human heroism than the conduct of the poor collie who drove home her master's sheep, leaving her new-born puppies by the side of the road? Or, to avoid particular instances, is there a barrister in England who can blush half so expressively as a dog found out in sharp practice—blushing, of course, being taken in a sense applicable to the dog's tail? Whether wild animals have such a sense of the value of any positive laws is more than we know; but wild animals, down to the lowest orders, show at least the maternal instinct. ”

“ In those days dogs were a necessity to the frontiersman for his protection, and as much of a necessity on that account as any other animal he possessed, and consequently every settler owned from three to five dogs, and some more. ”

“ And it is this environment which is undergoing progressive evolution and playing on the rational faculties of those which are submitted to its moulding influence. There is no sufficient evidence of anything of the kind in the social communities of animals. This, of course, must be accepted merely as an expression of opinion. But on the hypothesis that animals are rational beings, capable of reflection, it is difficult to understand why they should remain at so low a level of social achievement. ”

“ Thus were they instructed by living experience, that heaven cannot be given to any one from immediate mercy."—Ibid. 525.
We see this great law of affinity exemplified here on earth—among animals as well as the human race. Those of the same species or general characteristics, always prefer the society of each other. Beavers love to be with beavers, bears with bears, wolves with wolves, mice with mice. None of these creatures feel quite contented or at home in the society of animals of a totally different nature. ”

“ That every animal should fight or work individually for food is the natural law—the spirit of prey is one from which Man himself is never exempt. But has any one ever heard of several thousand lions or bears taking up a stand against each other and slaying each other wholesale for a disputed portion of territory? ”

“ If it be true—as my personal experiences and observations lead me firmly to believe is the case—that man's contact with the domesticated animals has been and is ever to be one of [6] the most effective means whereby his sympathetic, his civilized motives may be broadened and affirmed, there is clearly reason for giving to this side of life a larger share of attention than it has received. So far the presence of these lower creatures in our society has generally been accepted as a matter of course. ”

“ Since man in so many respects only goes on to develop the previous achievements of animal experience, it may be supposed that he made use of the social experience of animals as the firm foundation of his higher advancement. ”

“ Civilization, however, has driven away nearly all these animals, especially the larger ones; but they are replaced by the domestic species so useful to man, both for food and clothing, as well as being of valuable assistance in his labors. ”

“ He brought to his writings of animal life a new point of view—namely, that human beings and wild animals are kin; that animals are motivated with passions and desires and, to some extent, ideas, just as human beings are. Thus he wrote with sympathy and with creative imagination and revealed the new life and being of wild animals, and he hoped to achieve the practical result of quickening the sympathies of man toward animals and stopping the thoughtless extermination of many of our harmless wild creatures. ”

“ Besides the creatures that breed in the building, I keep a good many animals, which furnish my people with employment and amusement. I am heartily glad to have something for them to do, as otherwise they would get terribly homesick. For what better resource is left us in our isolation than seeking to forget our cares in the society of animals? ”

“ Finally, I return to my zoophilists, a vast but formless class of people, both in and outside of the other classes mentioned, and one which includes every man, woman and child with any fondness for wild life, from zoologists to tourists. There are higher considerations, never to be forgotten. ”

“ The restlessness of cage-birds and domestic fowls at migrating time, the mimic dipping and sporting of ducks when confined to a terrestrial habitat, the grave marshalling of geese by the chief gander of the band, the ferocity of cows, ewes, and the females of other domestic animals during the first few days of motherhood, the hunting instinct of dogs kept as shepherds and pets, the squatting of young pigs when suddenly alarmed—all of these are vestigial instincts, functional in the wild state, but now useless and absurd. ”