The only question can be of charity. Have we
duties of charity to the lower animals? Charity is an extension of the
love of ourselves to beings like ourselves, in view of our common
nature and our common destiny to happiness in God. (c. iv., nn. 1, 2,
p. 239.) It is not for the present treatise to prove, but to assume,
that our nature is not common to brute beasts but immeasurably above
theirs, higher indeed above them than we are below the angels. Man
alone speaks, man alone hopes to contemplate for ever, if not--in the
natural order--the Face of his Father in Heaven, at least the
reflected brightness of that Divine Face. (_Ethics_, c. ii., s. iv.,
nn. 3, 4.) We have then no duties of charity, nor duties of any kind,
to the lower animals, as neither to stocks and stones.
2. Still we have duties _about_ stones, not to fling them through our
neighbour's windows; and we have duties _about_ brute beasts. We must
not harm them, when they are our neighbour's property. We must not
break out into paroxysms of rage and impatience in dealing with them.
It is a miserable way of showing off human pre-eminence, to torture
poor brutes in malevolent glee at their pain and helplessness.
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