Political Science Of The State

432 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
them, or of transporting them to market in a way that ex-
poses them to suffering and injury. The reason why men
make such laws lies not mainly in the fear lest cruelty to ani-
mals may cherish the same feeling towards men, nor in the
evils of public shows of cruelty, but in the feeling that the
conduct is unworthy of a man, and in the indignation aroused
by the sight. Not all nations have had laws against this
wrong. The mild Hindoos, especially the Buddhists, taught
the evil of killing animals, since their philosophy saw in other
living creatures the souls of men. The Buddhists forbade the
killing of anything that had life, taught the exercise of com-
passion towards brutes, and required that old and sick ani-
mals should be cared for. But no laws, that I know of,
against cruelty to animals, were made by this race. The
Hebrews have a number of provisions in their law against im-
proper uses of animals, some of which breathe the spirit of
enlightened humanity, while others may be explained on
other grounds. The prohibition in Lev., xix., 19, may be re-
garded as an extension of the law against unnatural crime,
and is plainly dictated by a moral feeling excited by the un-
cleanness of bastard animals. In another passage, Lev., xxii.,
27, it is forbidden to kill for an offering the young of a cow,
sheep, or goat, before it is eight days old ; and the dam is not
to be slaughtered on the same day with her young. The first
of these prohibitions maybe explained on the ground that the
young animal ought not to be eaten—as at the sacrificial
feast—immediately after its birth ; the other seems, without
question, to be dictated by humane feeling (Comp. Knobel,
in loc.), and probably, as Saalschlitz contends (Mos. R., p. 179),
this is true in both cases. The command not to boil a kid in
its mother's milk (Ex., xxiii., 19, and in two other places) may
be explained in the same way, but most probably had its ori-
gin in idolatrous sacrifices of the kind specified. (Com. Kno-
belj in loc.) The law that the ox and ass' shall rest on the
Sabbath, may be understood as ensuring the more completely
the rest of the owner himself; but that other law, to the effect
that the ox which threshes the corn must not be muzzled,