A Book Should Be An Axe To

The Mode Of Consciousness Of Nonhuman Species Is Quite Different From Human Consciousness.

It Is A World Of Words That Creates A World Of Things.

There Is First Of All The Problem Of The Opening, Namely, How To Get Us From Where We Are, Which Is, As Yet, Nowhere, To The Far Bank. It Is A Simple Bridging Problem, A Problem Of Knocking Together A Bridge. People Solve Such Problems Every Day. They Solve Them, And Having Solved Them Push On.

But It Is The Knowledge Of How Contingent My Unease Is, How Dependent On A Baby That Wails Beneath My Window One Day And Does Not Wail The Next, That Brings The Worst Shame To Me, The Greatest Indifference To Annihilation. I Know Somewhat Too Much; And From This Knowledge, Once One Has Been Infected, There Seems To Be No Recovering. I Ought Never To Have Taken My Lantern To See What Was Going On In The Hut By The Granary. On The Other Hand, There Was No Way, Once I Had Picked Up The Lantern, For Me To Put It Down Again. The Knot Loops In Upon Itself; I Cannot Find The End.

The Most Important Of All Rights Is The Right To Life, And I Cannot Foresee A Day When Domesticated Animals Will Be Granted That Right In Law.