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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1837-1901] Victorian » Animal Rights Quotes » Henry Salt

Animal Rights Quotes » Henry Salt

References to "Rights" of Animals in Historical Literature

HAVE the lower animals "rights?" Undoubtedly—if men have. (Animals' Rights, Principle of Animals' Rights)

The present condition of the more highly organized domestic animals is in many ways very analogous to that of the negro slaves of a hundred years ago: look back, and you will find in their case precisely the same exclusion from the common pale of humanity: the same hypocritical fallacies, to justify that exclusion; and, as a consequence, the same deliberate stubborn denial of their social 'rights'. (Animals' Rights, Principle of Animals' Rights)

If 'rights' exist at all—and both feeling and usage indubitably prove that they do exist—they cannot be consistency awarded to men and denied to animals, since the same sense of justice and compassion apply in both cases. (Animals' Rights, Principle of Animals' Rights)

Animals have rights, and these rights consist in the 'restricted freedom' to live a natural live a natural life—a life that is, which permits of the individual development—subject to the limitations imposed by the permanent needs and interests of the community. (Animals' Rights, Principe of Animals' Rights)

To advocate the rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion or justice towards the victims of ill-usage; it is not only, and not primarily, for the sake of the victims that we plead, but for the sake of mankind itself. Our true civilization, our race-progress, our humanity (in the best sense of the term) are concerned in this development; it is ourselves, our own vital instincts, that we wrong, when we trample on the rights of the fellow-beings, human or animal, over whom we chance to hold jurisdiction. (Animals' Rights, Lines of Reform)

Above all, the sense of ridicule that at present attaches to the supposed 'sentimentalism' of an advocacy of animals' rights must be faced and swept away. The fear of this absurd charge deprives the cause of humanity of many workers who would otherwise lend their aid, and accounts in part for the unduly diffident and apologetic tone which is too often adopted by humanitarians. We must meet this ridicule, and retort it without hesitation on those to whom it properly pertains. The laugh must be turned against the true 'cranks' and 'crotchet-mongers'—noodles who can give no wiser reason for the infliction of suffering on animals than that it is 'better for the animals themselves'—the flesh-eaters who labour under the pious belief that animals were 'sent' to us as food—the silly women who imagines that the corpse of a bird is a becoming article of head-gear—the half-witted sportsmen who vow that the vigour of the English race is dependent on the practice of fox-hunting—and the half-enlightened scientists who are unaware that vivisection has moral and spiritual, no less than physical, consequences. (Animals' Rights, Lines of Reform)