Animal Rights History » Thomas Taylor

» A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes, "That Brutes Possess Reason in Common with Men"

[Thomas Taylor], A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (London, 1792; Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1966; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003).

Chap. II

That Brutes possess Reason in common with Men.

But as our more immediate business at present is with brutes, and their rights, in order to accomplish in a becoming manner this arduous investigation, I shall prove, in the first place, that they are rational beings, as well as man; and in the second place, I shall enumerate some out of the numberless advantages which would arise from endeavouring to understand the language of brutes, and restoring them to their natural equality with mankind. At the same time, I would wish the Reader to take notice, that whatever is here asserted of brutes, is no less applicable to vegetables, and even minerals themselves; for it is an ancient opinion, that all things are endued with sense; and this doctrine is very acutely defended by Campanella, in his Treatise De Sensu Rerum, et Magia, and is indeed the natural result of that most sublime and comprehensive theory, which is the basis of the present work. So that there is some reason to hope, that this Essay will soon be followed by treatises on the rights of vegetables and minerals composed by persons of far greater abilities than I possess; that thus, the doctrine of perfect equality will become universal; dominion of every kind be exiled from the face of the earth; and that beautiful period be realized, which at present is believed to exist only in fable, when

"Man walk'd with beast joint tenant of the shade."

But in order to prove that brutes possess reason in common with men, I shall present the Reader with the substance of the Platonic philosopher Porphyry's arguments of this subject, which I have collected with great paints, from his Third Book, on Abstinence from Animal Food, as they appear to me to be admirably calculated for our present design; and are as follow:

It is a true and Pythagoric opinion, that every soul participating sense and memory is rational, and is endued with speech as well internal as external, by means of which, animals apparently irrational confer with each other. But that the words they employ for this purpose should not be distinguished by us, is not to be wondered at, if we consider, that the discourse of many Barbarians in unintelligible to us, and that they appear to make use of indistinct vociferation, rather than rational speech. Besides, if antiquity is to be believed, and the testimony of those who existed in our time, and that of our ancestors, there are some who have affirmed themselves capable of hearing and understanding the speech of animals, as among the ancients, Melampus and Tiresias, but among the moderns, Apollonius Tyaneus, who is reported to have told his friends who were present at the occasion, that one swallow informed other birds, that an ass had the misfortune to fall near the city, loaded with wheat, which was scattered on the ground, through the incursions of a porter; and one of our companions related to me, that he met with a boy, in capacity of a servant, who understood all the voices of birds, and affirmed, that they were divines, and prognosticators of future events; but at length, though his mother, who as fearful lest he should be sent as a present to the emperor, and on this account poured urine in his ear when asleep, he was deprived of this wonderful sagacity. But that brutes are endued with reason, may be argued from their signifying to each other their peculiar concerns; from their consulting for their own interest with diligent sagacity; f rom their providing for futurity; from their learning many things alternately of each other and of mankind, and from alternately instructing each other in things necessary to their existence. To all which we may add, that Plato, Aristotle, Empedocles, Democritus, and others, who have accurately investigated the truth concerning animals, have found them to partake of reason and discourse. But as Aristotle observes, there appears a diversity in the participation only, and not in the essence of reason; the difference consisting in more and less, which many think may be applied to the nature of gods and men, a diversity between these subsisting according to a perfect and imperfect habit of reason, and not according to a contrariety of essence.

So one and the same reason is common to men and brutes, but is distinguished by degrees of intension and remission. Aristotle further observes, that those animals are most prudent, that is, are most crafty and subtle, which excel in acuteness of sensation; but the difference of the corporeal organization renders animals easily, or with difficulty, passive to external objects, and is the occasion of their possessing reason in greater or less energy and vigour; but this cannot cause an essential variation of soul, since it neither compels the senses nor the passions to depart from their proper nature.

It must be granted therefore, that the difference of reason in these subsists according to more and less, nor must we deprive other animals of reason entirely, because we participate an higher degree of intellection. As we do not deny that partridges can fly, because hawks soar with greater rapidity; for indeed it may be admitted, that the soul is subject to passion from its union with the body, and is affected according to the good or bad temperament of its constitution; but that the nature of the soul is changed in consequence of this passivity, must by no means be allowed: but if it is passive only from this union, and uses the body as an instrument, when this instrument is differently organized from ours, it performs many things which we are unable to effect; and indeed it is passive from the particular constitution of the body, but it does not on this account change it peculiar nature. But those who affirm that brutes, in their rational operation, act from nature, do not sufficiently perceive that they are naturally endued with a rational power, nor that the reason we participate is the gift of nature, although its perfection depends on an increase beyond what we derived from nature. Nor is it an argument against the rationality of brutes, that their reason is not derived from discipline; since it is true in other animals as well as in men, that many things are taught them from nature, but that they acquire much information from after instruction. Again, some have endeavoured, and I think not absurdly, to shew, that many animals are more prudent than we are, from the places in which they reside; for as the inhabitants of œther are more rational than mankind, this is likewise true, say they, of the next to these, the inhabitants of air; afterwards the residents in water and in earth differ from each other in gradations of reason. For if we measure the dignity of divinities from the excellency of place, it is equally just to apply the same standard to every kind of animal nature. Again, Socrates, and before him Rhadamanthus, used to swear by animals ; but the Egyptians believed that certain animals were gods; whether this was their real opinion, or whether they designedly gave the countenance of an ox and the face of birds to the forms of gods, that they might induce men to abstain from animals, as much as from their own species; or whether this proceeded from some more secret cause of which we are ignorant. Thus too the Greeks placed the horns of a ram on the stature of Jupiter; but the horns of a bull on that of Bacchus, and composed the statue of Pan from the junction of a goat and a man. To the Muses and Sirens, Love and Mercury, they gave wings; and they relate, that Jupiter assumed, at different times, the form of a bull, of an eagle, and of a swan. By all which the ancients testified the honours they bestowed on animals, and this in a still greater degree, when they affirm that a goat was the nurse of Jupiter.

But Fables indicate that brute animals accord with mankind in the nature of the soul, when they affirm that through the indignation of the gods, human souls pass into the bodies of brutes; and that, when thus transmigrated, they excite the pity of the divinities; signifying by such narrations, that all animals are endued with reason, which , though imperfect in most of the brutal kind, is not entirely wanting in any.

Hence it is unjust to destroy animals, since they are not entirely alienated from our nature, but participate of reason in common with mankind, thought in an inferior degree. But we, indulging in wantonness and cruelty, destroy many of them in theatrical sports, and in the barbarous exercise of the chase, by which means the brutal energies of our nature grow strong, and savage desires encrease. On the contrary, the Pythagoreans exercised gentleness and clemency towards brutes as a specimen of humanity and pity. Again, that brutes participate of reason may be argued as follows: Every thing which is perfectly inanimate, since it is destitute of reason and intellect, is opposed to that, which together with soul participates of reason and certain intelligence. For every animated sensitive being possesses also a phantasy, as a kind of reason; and Nature, which forms ever thing for the sake of some purpose, and with reference to some end, formed also an animal, sensitive; not that it might simply perceive and suffer, but that it might distinguish what is convenient to its nature from what is inconvenient, and pursue the one and avoid the other. Sense therefore procures to every animal the knowledge of what is noxious or beneficial; but that conduct, which is the result of sensation, I mean the prosecution of things useful, and the avoiding such as are destructive, can only be present with beings endued with a certain ratiocination, judgment and memory. Indeed Strato, the physiologist, justly observes, that sense cannot at all operate without intelligence, since we often run over writings with our eyes, and expose our ears to discourse, without any attendant consciousness, the soul being intent on some other concern; and afterwards consider and pursue the meaning they contain, by recollecting what was before unnoticed. From whence it is well said by the poet,

"'Tis mind alone that sees and hears,
"And all besides is deaf and blind."

For indeed, though our eyes and ears become passive to external objects, yet perception cannot take place unless intellect is present. On which account King Cleomenes, when a certain discourse was praised at a banquet at which he was present, being asked whether it did not appear to him excellent—that must be determined by you, says he, for my soul was that the time in Peloponsus. But although we should admit that sense does not require intellect in the prosecution of its energies, yet when it places a difference between tow objects pursuing the one and avoiding the other, and sagaciously invents the middle term of pursuit and declination, we may justly attribute such inventions to the operations of reason, and conclude, that these powers are peculiar to a rational nature, and are present in different degrees to all animals possessing a progressive motion.