Animism

In my novel, Menagerie, Lizbet can talk to animals. Sometimes this ability helps, and sometimes it hurts. It's definitely useful in book one as she struggles to find who is responsible for beating her mother. It'll be hurtful in book two as her relationship with Declan, a young atheist pre-med student, deepens.

Here's a few quotes. I'll use some of them for chapter headings.

Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life") is the worldview that non-human entities—such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects—possess a spiritual essence.

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

― Francis of Assisi

“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”

― Francis of Assisi

“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness."

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal. Charles Darwin

 

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin

 

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. Charles Darwin

 

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. Charles Darwin

 

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. 

Darwin

"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery."

--Charles Darwin

"If all the beasts were gone, man would die from loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beast, happens to the man."

        --Chief Seattle

"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all livings things, Man will not himself find peace."

        --Albert Schweitzer

By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe."

      --A. Schweitzer

"...We know from the truths of evolution and ecology that we are all related and interdependent. Anthropomorphism (crediting animals with human emotions and traits) is, however, outdated. Rather we know that we are like animals."

        --Michael W. Fox

"I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth."

        --Mohandas Gandhi

"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

        --Abraham Lincoln

"The Anti-Vivisector does not deny that physiologists must make experiments and even take chances with new methods. He says that they must not seek knowledge by criminal methods, just as they must not make money by criminal methods. He does not object to Galileo dropping cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa; but he would object to shoving off two dogs or American tourists."

        --George Bernard Shaw

"The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?"

        --Jeremy Bentham

"...we sacrifice other species to our own not because our own has any objective metaphysical privilege over others, but simply because it is ours. It may be very natural to have this loyalty to our own species, but let us hear no more from the naturalists about the "sentimentality" of anti-vivisectionists. If loyalty to our own species--preference for man simply because we are men--is not sentiment, then what is?"

        --C.S. Lewis

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

        --Ghandi

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."

        --Abraham Lincoln

 There are more things in heaven and earth … than are dreamt of--” 

-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 5, lines 167–68.

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