“there are no duties to be fulfilled towards animals.” Such a view is one of revolting coarseness, a barbarism of the West, whose source is Judaism. In philosophy, however, it rests on the assumption, despite all evidence to the contrary, of the radical difference between man and beast, — a doctrine which, as is well known, was proclaimed with more trenchant emphasis by Descartes than by any one else: it was indeed the necessary consequence of his mistakes.

When Leibnitz and Wolff, following out the Cartesian view, built up out of abstract ideas their Rational Psychology, and constructed a deathless anima rationalis (rational soul); then the natural claims of the animal kingdom visibly rose up against this exclusive privilege, this human patent of immortality, and Nature, as always in such