The place of animals in human thought

The germination of this book, according to the author’s introduction, was an international conference on religions in 1909. However, the contents of the book must have been in an advance state of preparedness, as it was published just a few months later. The subject matter, as the title implies, is the human relationship and attitude towards animals throughout history, starting from the earliest records of ancient civilizations, and tracing it from a secular as well as religious standpoint. After reviewing Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman attitudes through examples of contemporary art and literature, the author then embarks on an ambitious analysis of the attitude to animals by all the major religions – Buddhism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Knowing that the author’s father was a high churchman in England, while her two sisters took holy orders as nuns, and the author herself married into the Italian aristocracy, the unbiased analysis of religions is quite remarkable for the age in which these thoughts were put together. The book contains many interesting and unusual ideas, and is well worth a read if taken slowly. This is not a book to rush through.