The recognition of an original affinity between man and beast, however remote the kinship may be, or whether it be based upon the ancient dogma of me… - Edward Payson Evans

To the Hebrew decalogue and the Christian beatitudes must be added the first of Buddha's ten commandments:
Kill not for Pity's sake, nor dare to slay
The meanest creature on its upward way.

The ethical corollaries to Darwin's doctrine of the origin of species and to his theory of development through descent under the modifying influences of environment and natural selection have already passed these bounds of beneficence not only by demanding the mitigation of cruelty to slaves, but also by the abolition of slavery, and not only by inculcating the kind treatment of animals by individuals, but also by asserting the principle of animals' rights and the necessity of vindicating them by imposing judicial punishments for their violation.

In the higher organisms the higher faculties predominate, and in the lower organisms the lower faculties: but in all of them, from the highest to the lowest, the action is the resultant of impulses of sensation, perception, conception, and thought variously combined and inextricably blended.