redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the notion of our having any kind of obligation to them has never been inculcated-has never, I believe, been even admitted by Catholic theologians. In the popular legends, and in the recorded traits of individual amiability, it is curious to observe how constantly those who have sought to inculcate kindness to animals have done so by endeavouring to associate them with something distinctively Christian. The legends I have noticed glorified them as the companions of the saints. The stag was honoured as especially commissioned to reveal the relics of saints, and as the deadly enemy of the serpent. In the feast of asses, that animal was led with veneration into the churches, and a rude hymn proclaimed its dignity, because it had borne Christ in His flight to Egypt, and on His entry into Jerusalem. St. Francis always treated lambs with a peculiar tenderness, as being symbols of his Master. Luther grew sad and thoughtful at a hare hunt, for it seemed to him to represent the pursuit of souls by the devil. Many popular legends exist, associating some bird or animal with some incident in the evangelical narrative, and securing for them, in consequence, an unmolested life. But such influences have never extended far. There are two distinct objects which may be considered by moralists in this sphere. They may regard the character of the men, or they may regard the sufferings of the animals. The amount of callousness or of conscious cruelty displayed or elicited by amusements or practices that inflict sufferings on animals, bears no kind of proportion to the intensity of that suffering. Could we follow with adequate realisation the pangs of the wounded birds that are struck down in our sports, or of the timid hare in the long course of its flight, we should probably conclude that they were not really less than those caused

by the Spanish bull-fight, or by the English pastimes of the last century. But the excitement of the chase refracts the imagination; the diminutive size of the victim, and the undemonstrative character of its suffering, withdraw it from our sight, and these sports do not, in consequence, exercise that prejudicial influence upon character which they would exercise if the sufferings of the animals were vividly realised, and were at the same time accepted as an element of the enjoyment. That class of amusements of which the ancient combats of wild beasts form the type, have no doubt nearly disappeared from Christendom, and it is possible that the softening power of Christian teaching may have had some indirect influence in abolishing them; but a candid judgment will confess that it has been very little. little. During the periods, and in the countries, in which theological influence was supreme, they were unchallenged.1 They disappeared2 at last, because a luxurious and industrial civilisation involved a refinement of manners; because a fastidious taste recoiled with a sensation of disgust from pleasures that an uncultivated taste would keenly relish; because the drama, at once reflecting and accelerating the change, gave a new form to popular amusements, and because, in consequence of this

1 I have noticed, in my History of Rationalism, that although some Popes did undoubtedly try to suppress Spanish bull-fights, this was solely on account of the destruction of human life they caused. Full details on this subject will be found in Concina, De Spectaculis (Romæ, 1752). Bayle says, 'Il n'y a point de casuiste qui croie qu'on pèche en faisant combattre des taureaux contre des dogues,' &c. (Dict. philos. Rorarius, C.')

2 On the ancient amusements of England the reader may consult Seymour's Survey of London (1734), vol. i. pp. 227-235; Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the English People. Cock-fighting was a favourite children's amusement in England as early as the twelfth century. (Hampson's Medi Evi Kalendarii, vol. i. p. 160. It was, with foot-ball and several other amusements, for a time suppressed by Edward III., on the ground that they were diverting the people from archery, which was necessary to the miliLary greatness of England.

revolution, the old practices being left to the dregs of society, they became the occasions of scandalous disorders. In Protestant countries the clergy have, on the

1 The decline of these amusements in England began with the great development of the theatre under Elizabeth. An order of the Privy Council, in July 1591, prohibits the exhibition of plays on Thursday, because on Thursdays bear-baiting and suchlike pastimes had been usually practised, and an injunction to the same effect was sent to the Lord Mayor, wherein it was stated that, in divers places the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and like pastimes, which are maintained for Her Majesty's pleasure.'— Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (ed. 1823), vol. i. p. 438. The reader will remember the picture in Kenilworth of the Duke of Sussex petitioning Elizabeth against Shakespeare, on the ground of his plays distracting men from bear-baiting. Elizabeth (see Nichols) was extremely fond of bearbaiting. James I. especially delighted in cock-fighting, and in 1610 was present at a great fight between a lion and a bear. (Hole, Every Day Book, vol. i. pp. 255-299). The theatres, however, rapidly multiplied, and a writer who lived about 1629 said, 'that no less than seventeen playhouses had been built in or about London within threescore years.' (Seymour's Survey, vol. i. p. 229.) The Rebellion suppressed all public amusements, and when they were re-established after the Restoration, it was found that the tastes of the better classes no longer sympathised with the bear-garden. Pepys' (Diary, August 14, 1666) speaks of bull-baiting as a very rude and nasty pleasure,' and says he had not been in the bear-garden for many years. Evelyn (Diary, June 16, 1670), having been present at these shows, describes them as 'butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties,' and says he had not visited them before for twenty years. A paper in the Spectator (No. 141, written in 1711) talks of those who seek their diversion at the bear-garden, . . . where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them.' In 1751, however, Lord Kames was able to say, 'The bear-garden, which is one of the chief entertainments of the English, is held in abhorrence by the French and other polite nations.'-Essay on Morals (1st ed.), p. 7; and he warmly defends (p. 30) the English taste. During the latter half of the last century there was constant controversy on the subject (which may be traced in the pages of the Annual Register), and several forgotten clergymen published sermons upon it, and the frequent riots resulting from the fact that the bear-gardens had become the resort of the worst classes assisted the movement. The London magistrates took measures to suppress cock-throwing in 1769 (Hampson's Med. Æv. Kalend. p. 160); but bull-baiting continued far into the present century. Windham and Canning strongly defended it; Dr. Parr is said to have been fond of it (Southey's Commonplace Book, vol. iv. p. 585); and as late as 1824, Sir Robert (then Mr.) Peel argued strongly against its prohibition. (Parlia mentary Debates, vol. x. pp. 132-133, 491-495.)

...

whole, sustained this movement. In Catholic countries it has been much more faithfully represented by the school of Voltaire and Beccaria. In treating, however, amusements which derived their zest from a display of the natural ferocious instincts of animals, and which suggest the alternative between death endured in the frenzy of combat and that endured in the remote slaughter-house, a judicious moralist may reasonably question whether they have, in any appreciable degree, added to the sum of animal misery, and will dwell less upon the suffering inflicted upon the animal than upon the injurious influence the spectacle may sometimes exercise on the character of the spectator. But there are forms of cruelty which must be regarded in a different light. The horrors of vivisection, often so wantonly, so needlessly practised,1 the prolonged and atrocious tortures, sometimes inflicted in

1 Bacon, in an account of the deficiencies of medicine, recommends vivisection in terms that seem to imply that it was not practised in his time. As for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in live; which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly reproved, yet, in regard of the great use of this observation, the enquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive, which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts, may sufficiently satisfy this enquiry.'-Advancement of Learning, x. 4. Harvey speaks of vivisections as having contributed to lead him to the discovery of the circulation of blood. (Acland's Harveian Oration (1865), p. 55.) Bayle, describing the treatment of animals by men, says, 'Nous fouillons dans leurs entrailles pendant leur vie afin de satisfaire notre curiosité.'-Dict. philos. art. 'Rorarius, C.' Public opinion in England was very strongly directed to the subject in the present century, by the atrocious cruelties perpetrated by Majendie at his lectures. See a most frightful account of them in a speech by Mr. Martin (an eccentric Irish member, who was generally ridiculed during his life, and has been almost forgotten since his death, but to whose untiring exertions the legislative protection of animals in England is due).—Parliament. Hist. vol. xii. p. 652. Mandeville, in his day, was a very strong advocate of kindness to animals.--Commentary on Fable of the Bees.

order to procure some gastronomic delicacy, are so far removed from the public gaze, that they exercise little influence on the character of men. Yet no humane man can reflect upon them without a shudder. To bring these things within the range of ethics, to create the notion of duties towards the animal world, has, so far as Christian countries are concerned, been one of the peculiar merits of the last century, and, for the most part, of Protestant nations. However fully we may recognise the humane spirit, transmitted to the world in the form of legends, from the saints of the desert, it must not be forgotten that the inculcation of humanity to animals on a wide scale is mainly the work of a recent and a secular age; that the Mohammedans and the Brahmins have in this sphere considerably surpassed the Christians, and that Spain and Southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply planted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to animals is most wanton and most unrebuked.

The influence the first form of monachism has exercised upon the world, as far as it has been beneficial, has been chiefly through the imagination, which has been fascinated by its legends. In the great periods of theological controversy, the Eastern monks had furnished some leading theologians, but in general, in Oriental lands, the hermit life predominated, and extreme maceration was the chief merit of the saint. But in the West monachism assumed very different forms, and exercised far higher functions. At first the Oriental saints were the ideals of Western monks. The Eastern St. Athanasius had been the founder of Italian monachism. St. Martin of Tours excluded labour from the discipline of his monks, and he and they, like the Eastern saints, were accustomed to