THE LOVE AND HATRED OF ANIMALS

Love and hatred are common to the whole sensitive creation. ◦ Their causes have such a simple nature that they can easily be supposed to operate on animals. • There is no force of reflection or penetration required. • Everything is conducted by springs and principles, which are not peculiar to man or any one species of animals. • The conclusion from this is obvious in favour of the foregoing system.

Love in animals comprehends almost every sensible and thinking being. • A dog naturally: ◦ loves a man above his own species ◦ very commonly meets with a return of affection.

Animals are little susceptible of the imagination’s pleasures or pains, they can judge objects only by the sensible good or evil the objects produce. ◦ From that, animals must regulate their affections towards them. • By benefits or injuries we produce their love or hatred. • By feeding and cherishing any animal, we quickly acquire his affections. • By beating and abusing him, we always draw his enmity and ill-will.

• Love in beasts is not caused so much by relation, as in our species.
    ◦ Because their thoughts are not so active as to trace relations, except in very obvious instances.
• Yet sometimes, love has a considerable influence on them.
• Acquaintance has the same effect as relation.
    ◦ Thus, it always produces love in animals to men or to other animals.
    ◦ For the same reason, any likeness among them is the source of affection.
        ▪ An ox, confined to a park with horses, will naturally join their company.
        ▪ But he will always enjoy the company of his own species if he has the choice of both.

• The affection of parents to their young proceeds from a peculiar instinct in animals, as well as in our species.

• Sympathy, or the communication of passions, takes place among animals, no less than among men.
• Fear, anger, courage, and other affections are frequently communicated from one animal to another, without them knowing the cause which produced the original passion.
• Grief likewise:
    ◦ is received by sympathy
    ◦ produces almost all the same consequences
    ◦ excites the same emotions as in our species.
• A dog’s howlings and lamentations produce a sensible concern in his fellows.
• Almost all animals use the same body parts in playing and in fighting:
    ◦ lions, tigers, and cats use their paws
    ◦ oxen use their horns
    ◦ dogs use their teeth
    ◦ horses use their heels
• It is remarkable that they most carefully avoid harming their companion, even though they have nothing to fear from his resentment.
    ◦ This is an evident proof of the sense which animals have of each other’s pain and pleasure.

• Everyone has observed how much more dogs are animated when they hunt in a pack, than when they pursue their game apart.
    ◦ This can proceed from nothing but sympathy.
• When two packs, that are strangers to each other, are joined, hunters know that dogs become more animated, sometimes even too animated. .
    ◦ We might be unable to explain this phenomenon, if we did not have a similar experience in ourselves.

• Envy and malice are passions very remarkable in animals.
    ◦ They are perhaps more common than pity, as requiring less effort of thought and imagination.