We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
Henry Beston
We patronize the animals
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I love this passage and its truth. I first saw it in a vet’s office many years ago. It’s from Beston’s book, The Outermost House about his time on Cape Cod. It’s a short book well worth reading.