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It makes the killing of an animal murder in
exactly the same sense as the killing of a man is murder. It is
sometimes necessary to kill men as it is always necessary to kill
tigers; but the old theoretic distinction between the two acts has been
obliterated by Evolution. When I was a child and was told that our dog
and our parrot, with whom I was on intimate terms, were not creatures
like myself, but were brutal whilst I was reasonable, I not only did not
believe it, but quite consciously and intellectually formed the opinion
that the distinction was false; so that afterwards, when Darwin's views
were first unfolded to me, I promptly said that I had found out all that
for myself before I was ten years old; and I am far from sure that my
youthful arrogance was not justified; for this sense of the kinship of
all forms of life is all that is needed to make Evolution not only a
conceivable theory, but an inspiring one. St Anthony was ripe for the
Evolution theory when he preached to the fishes, and St Francis when
he called the birds his little brothers.


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