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… - Edward Payson Evans

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 metempsychosis or the modern doctrine of evolution, necessarily creates a current of sympathy extending even to the most insignificant members of the great and widely diversified family of sentient beings, and rendering it impossible willfully to neglect or maltreat the "poor relations," to whom we are united by the warm and living ties of blood.

To what absurdities of presumption the anthropocentric conception has paved the way is evident from the belief, once universally entertained, that the sun, moon, and stars were placed in the firmament with express reference to man, and exerted a benign or baleful influence upon his destiny from the cradle to the grave.

Ethnocentric geography, which caused each petty tribe to regard itself as the centre of the earth, and geocentric astronomy, which caused mankind to regard the earth as the centre of the universe, are conceptions that have been gradually outgrown and generally discarded—not, however, without leaving distinct and indelible traces of themselves in human speech and conduct. But this is not the case with anthropocentric psychology and ethics, which treat man as a being essentially different and inseparably set apart from all other sentient creatures, to which he is bound by no ties of mental affinity or moral obligation. Nevertheless, all these notions spring from the same root, having their origin in man's false and overweening conceit of himself as the member of a tribe, the inhabitant of a planet, or the lord of creation.