The earliest examples of human association were those practically of autocentricism. Each individual considered himself the only or chief end for whi… - J. Howard Moore

The doctrine of Universal Kinship is not a new doctrine, born from the more brilliant loins of modern understanding. It is as old almost as human philosophy. It was taught by Buddha twenty-four hundred years ago. And the teachings of this divine soul, spreading over the plains and peninsulas of Asia, have made unnumbered millions mild. It was taught also by Pythagoras and all his school of philosophers, and rigidly practised in their daily lives. Plutarch, one of the grandest characters of antiquity, wrote several essays in advocacy of it. In these essays, as well as in many passages of his writings generally, he demonstrates that he was far ahead of his contemporaries in the breadth and intensity of his moral nature, and in advance even of all except a very few of those living to-day, 2,000 years after him. Shelley among the poets of modern times, and Tolstoy in these latter days, are others among the eminent adherents of this holy cause.

The purpose of all penal schemes should be, not reciprocity, but reformation pure and simple; not the relentless and absurd infliction of misery commensurate with the crimes committed, but the achievement of the largest possible reformation with the gentlest and most strategic deprivation.

The Universal Kinship means the kinship of all the inhabitants of the planet Earth. Whether they came into existence among the waters or among desert sands, in a hole in the earth, in the hollow of a tree, or in a palace; whether they build nests or empires; whether they swim, fly, crawl, or ambulate; and whether they realise it or not, they are all related, physically, mentally, morally—this is the thesis of this book. But since man is the most gifted and influential of animals, and since his relationship with other animals is more important and more reluctantly recognised than any other, the chief purpose of these pages is to prove and interpret the kinship, of the human species with the other species of animals.