A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the depth of consciousness and intelligence in animals, challenging the idea that they are merely instinctive beings.
William Henry Hudson asserts that true understanding of animals reveals their complexity and intelligence, countering the simplistic view of them as mere machines acting on instinct. He highlights the importance of recognizing the minds of animals, suggesting that they possess an inner life and thoughts comparable to humans.
In practice
In a speech about animal rights, one might reference this quote to highlight the complexity of animal minds.
For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shame-faced to hide itself in dim churches, flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?
What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run.
Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.
To be able to function in late capitalism without being a psychological wreck, it is necessary to accept the insane as standard.
What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
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