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Respect for animals has always been a part of human consciousness. Poets, thinkers, philosophers, scientists and statesmen have long celebrated our compassion towards Earth's other beasts. Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb compiles the most significant statements of sensibility to animals in the history of thought. From the myths of the ancient world to the Middle Ages to Darwin and beyond, Preece captures the most telling and fascinating accounts of humankind's relationship to the wild world, placing them in historical context. Jung called it "an unconscious identity with animals," while Wordsworth saw it as the "primal sympathy which having been must ever be." Linking the diverse chords of human experience that are touched by the animal world, Preece shows that despite a historical thread of cruelty, there still remains in all humanity a constant underlying concern for other beings as an integral part of the moral community. With musings and meditations from Lao Tse to Mohammed, from Plato to Jane Goodall, from classical religion to parliamentary proceedings, Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb is an original, superbly researched history that deepens our understan of all living beings.
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Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb
Rod Preece
Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb A Chronicle of Sensibility to Animals
Routledge New York and London
Published in 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. "To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk." Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Published by arrangement with UBC Press. Copyright © UBC Press 2002 ISBN 0-203-49180-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57624-1 (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-415-94363-9 (Print Edition) Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress
For she who daily walks the walk As I do daily talk the talk, my gaea
you animals who are so innocent, what have you done worthy of death? —Richard de Wyche, Bishop of Chichester, c. 1235 If thy heart be right, then will every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine. —Thomas a Kempis, c. 1427 I pray, when a lion eats a man and a man eats an ox, why is the ox made more for the man than the man for the lion? —Thomas Hobbes, 1641 The well-taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye And feels for all that lives. —Anna Laetitia Barbauld, c. 1780 Boundless compassion for all living beings is the finest and surest guarantee of pure moral conduct… —Arthur Schopenhauer, 1841
Contents Acknowledgments/ Introduction/
xi xiv
1
Animals in Myth and Religion/
1
2
The Classical World/
32
3
The Dark Ages/
60
4
The Renaissance/
90
5
The Enlightenment/
124
6
The Utilitarian and Romantic Age/
181
7
The Legislative Era/
228
8
The Darwinian Age/
272
Postscript: The Ensuing Years/
365
Notes/
369
Index/
408
Acknowledgments
A book of this nature must depend heavily on what others have done before. The fol