MAN’S RESPONSIBILITY TO THE ANIMALS by Bernard Parsons              

When the Theosophical Society was founded the key teaching was and still is, Universal Brotherhood. This teaching is basic to the Society’s philosophy and is no sentimental emotion but a fact in Nature itself. Madam Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, developed the universality of this cornerstone with great brilliance and consistency until she died in 1891. In the subject of today’s study, Man’s relationship with the animals, it is possible to trace very clearly the humanising effect her work has had on the world in many countries if not all. A century ago in our country cockfights and dog fights were common, horses were spurred and whipped cruelly and wanton ill-treatment to animals went unpunished or was tolerated. We can see in the following period a growing swing of community opinion toward a more enlightened view of Man’s responsibilities to his younger brothers, the animals. First let us address the question, if we call animals our younger brothers, what do we have in common in our respective constitutions? 

Enshrined within our physical body is an animal soul. These we share with the animals of this world, a body and a conscious soul. This animal soul of ours is the seat of our animal desires, our hunger and thirsts and our instinctive behaviour. Just as the animals show joy, determination and affection as well as dignity, so also do we. Enshrined within our animal soul is a human soul. This is the seat of our awareness of our self and our human desires. Enshrined within our human soul is our spiritual soul. This soul is the seat of our intellect. Enshrined within our spiritual soul is our buddhic soul. The buddhic soul is the seat of what is or may develop into our wisdom, our compassion, our intuition, our artistry. Enshrined within this buddhic soul is the Celestial Buddha or Monad – the ‘Christos’ within us all. 

Now how much of this range does the animal world share? All of men and animals have a physical body and a Monad - the same father monad as we do. The animals are in truth, because of this monadic ancestry, our brothers. They are, however, not as fully developed as we are. They are following us up the ladder of life under the impulse and guidance of their own inner god. There are strong links between mankind and his younger brothers. Millions of years ago, according to ancient tradition, when Man’s body was less physical and the human form more or less spherical, the body sweated off seeds or spores of various kinds according to whereabouts on the body these sweat-born offspring exuded. Exudations seeding from what corresponds to our genitalia were true to type human in form. Those exuding from elsewhere on the body showed different characters and from these developed our animal life.             

This account ascribes to us not only the role of parenting our animal world, it charges us with a responsibility toward them that is eternal and inescapable.You may object that science says that Man is at the top of the tree of evolution – the “Johnny come lately”. Well, counter to that is the point that the human being is enormously more complex, as his animal nature is now unfolded, than is his animal brother. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that Man is an older member of the evolutionary procession than even the most developed animal. 

The relationship is not only one of kinship. Animals share the life forces that ebb and flow through space, appearing now as pure energies and again as units of substance – life atoms. We share these life atoms. They can flow freely and swiftly to wherever they are attracted and to where it is appropriate.             The ancients held that animals should be treated with respect. The Jains of India made concern for animal life an important feature of their religious life. In Spartan Greece, a community that went overboard in imposing a fierce code of discipline on its citizens, they would punish a child who was found guilty of cruelty to an animal – characteristically if not wisely – with death. The Hindus teach that even as the humans received the divine fire of knowledge of the difference between right and wrong so many millions of years ago, so in a similarly far distant time some animals will when ready take the next step into human-like self consciousness. In the mean-time animals are our responsibility. We do this best, not by fussing too much over them but most certainly by not taking advantage of them. 

I think it is monstrous that today in a country pledged to the ideal of freedom, animals are vivisected cruelly, not for the impersonal advancement of science but so that some researcher might receive praise from his peers for the results of his experiments. On a less horror-filled note, and there is plenty of horror in the subject of vivisection, many instances exist of a special rapport between certain animals and humans and certain sorts of animals and other species.             Perhaps you have heard the saying that people grow to look like the pets they keep? Perhaps the link was there before those persons were born. The Aborigines of Australia at a time of initiation into manhood appoint to each candidate a totemic bird or beast. This beast he may not kill or eat, and it is said between the man and his totemic animal a bond of trust grows. There are instances in plenty of animals seeking contact with humans. On the North-West coast of Australia at a little hamlet called Monkey Mia, dolphins have for years come into the shallows to be patted, fed, and to introduce their young to the locals swimming there. A zoologist from

England studying the dolphins was packing up his gear while his son was having a last swim in the autumn evening before they left off work for the year. The dolphin the man had been particularly studying came up to the eleven-year old lad, put his head between the boy’s legs and gave him a ride round the boat harbour!             

Another marvellous story is that of a farmer who had the care of an eagle that was injured in a storm. The farmer later retired and came to live in South Melbourne. The eagle had come back for short visits at the farm, but one day the farmer found the eagle sitting on the back fence of his

South Melbourne home. It had sought him out and found him, from among so many similar dwellings, at such a great distance from their original home. 

I was given a strong lesson in good manners by a pointer bitch mothering five pups. As they became ready for weaning she continued to play with them a little but mostly she would jump up to a place out of reach and let the pups tumble over each other ‘til meal time came. At last there was only one pup left and mum set to work to play games with it. She chased the pup and rolled it over and ran away in pretended fright, followed by the enthusiastic pup. I saw this stately old hound doing this and I laughed. She never played with that pup again whilst I was watching and it took me a week to get her to wag when I patted her.             

There is the case of swans who mate for life and such is their constancy that should one die the mate joins a group for company but never mates again. There is the case of the sun bird which will build a large oval decorated nest commonly near a house, in northern Australia. People hang ropes down in hope the birds will build on them. The birds show little fear of mankind and will fly into the house and out again without showing fear.             

Many animals show flashes of almost human quality in their life. Another example is the albatross that breeds near Dunedin in

New Zealand, which has a unique courting ritual. Two birds meeting and not having room to dance on the rocky windswept cliffs where the nests are made, the two birds take to the sky. There they spread their marvellous flexible wings, flying in ever changing harmony, a soundless dance, dipping and weaving until a rapport is established. One wonders if in the misty southern oceans hunting for fish often out of earshot or out of sight, they find each other. Is this the skill they practice in the courting dance? Find each other they do. They, too, mate for life.             

Just as we share our life atoms with the animals, let us hope to their advantage, so it is conceivable that we share the life atoms of the gods. It is a brave thought. Remember the saying of Jesus the Master – In as much as you do it to the least among you so shall it be done to you. This is the great Law of Karma. It applies to every being in the universe, gods, men, animals and so on. The Law of Karma is one aspect – the negative, of what Dr. de Purucker calls The Law of Laws of the Universe – Self-forgetfulness, living unto all things, not the doctrine that each species-individual must live for itself in order to develop itself.             

Man is no doubt more complex in his intellect and consciousness than our animal brothers – the differences are the degree - correspondingly more responsible. This responsibility is not a matter of sentiment so that we are required by Nature to provide – say –overcoats for wild animals. Far better we do not try to play God. Better still if we become aware of the support they give us, the examples they show us of all sorts of noble behaviour and of how all beings make a complex tapestry where every thread contributes its own special part to the whole loom of life.

Bookmark this page to: