It
seems to me sometimes as though I could woo the birds to build in my
beard as they do in the headgear of some cathedral saint! After all,
this is the natural state and the true relation of man toward all
inferior creatures. If man was what he ought to be he would be adored by
the animals, of whom he is too often the capricious and sanguinary
tyrant. The legend of Saint Francis of Assisi is not so legendary as we
think; and it is not so certain that it was the wild beasts who attacked
man first.... But to exaggerate nothing, let us leave on one side the
beasts of prey, the carnivora, and those that live by rapine and
slaughter. How many other species are there, by thousands and tens of
thousands, who ask peace from us and with whom we persist in waging a
brutal war? Our race is by far the most destructive, the most hurtful,
and the most formidable, of all the species of the planet. It has even
invented for its own use the right of the strongest--a divine right
which quiets its conscience in the face of the conquered and the
oppressed; we have outlawed all that lives except ourselves. Revolting
and manifest abuse; notorious and contemptible breach of the law of
justice! The bad faith and hypocrisy of it are renewed on a small scale
by all successful usurpers.
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