From Gods to Machines to Quasi-Humans: 
The Animal’s Quest For a Soul
Animals are intriguing creatures, being so close yet so distant from us. We can recognize in them our body parts. They show many emotions that we can recognize and
identify as our own: love; fear; happiness; and sadness. But they cannot speak and tell us what they feel, see or want with the objectivity and certainty that words allow.
Throughout history humans have engaged in the study of animals, attempting to understand their nature. Our interpretation of their nature has been determined by the tools
we use to study them and by our own cultural environment. In this regard, I distinguish three stages: mystic, mechanic, and currently, anthropomorphic.
Animals were the source of food and fear for the primitive hunter-gatherer. Humans were an easy prey for animals because they were smaller and lacked powerful weapons.
Imagine for a moment living with the fear of being killed by a large cat every time you went to get a drink of water or grab a snack. At the same time, a successful hunt
would fill the stomachs and give life to a village. Thus, the relationship between humans and animals was built around fear – of being preyed upon – and security – of a
food source. In other words: goodness and evil. Animals were a larger power that determined life and death for the human. They gave humans life and sustenance, but also
took it away. Not surprisingly, primitive deities were embodied as animals.
The discovery of agriculture allowed humans to secure food without engaging in the dangerous tasks of hunting or gathering. With more food available, the population
expanded and found free time to engage in technological innovation. Armed with sophisticated weapons, humans became the predators, gradually losing their fear of the God-like
animal. However, the mystical view of animals remained in some powerful figures that we find in ancient records. Early Christian teaching included examples of animals as messengers of
god, as exemplars of piety and even as saints. Such was the case with Saint Guinefort, and by some accounts, Saint Christopher – dogs worshiped as saints. This, of course,
was not to last. The worship of animals was condemned as heretic, and severely suppressed by the Inquisition.
However, it was the scientific revolution which finally stripped animals of any remnant of divinity, and reduced them, in men's minds, to automatons. The French philosopher and
mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650), considered to be the father of the scientific revolution, declared that animals had no feelings and were simple soulless machines.
Technology gave humans the weapons that reduced the fear of being killed by an animal and gave them the power to destroy animals. Scientific philosophy removed any
moral barrier that might prevent humans from destroying animals, since there was no longer considered to be anything mystic or divine in them that demanded respect.
In fact, humans now justify oppression and genocide simply by equating their targeted human group with animals. Dehumanizing the victim by equating it with an animal
appears to be a necessary step in committing murder.
In the 19th and early 20th century, humanism tried to offer a counterbalance to such a desolate view of animals. Vivisection and cruelty to animals were deemed
inhumane, a term that has a reference to the human, not to the animal. The 20th century saw the development of cinematography as a mass medium for entertainment and
the promotion of ideas. Disney documentaries allowed us to watch wild animals in action, acting just like any of us going about our daily lives: going to work/hunt,
teaching their young, playing. Cartoons introduced us to an animal world that we could easily understand because animals spoke our language and had the same conflicts,
loves, and fears. So today we might reject deer hunting because we identify with Bambi. We even have specialists who communicate with animals in human language, getting
certain and unequivocal answers in English. Our children are growing up under the influence of Nemo and Dr. Doolittle, believing that animals are just humans with a
different body. Thus, in the 20th century we’ve put the soul back into the animals. But it is a human soul.
This would seem to be a positive development. However, as easily as we once took the animal’s soul away, and then returned it, we may just take it back again.
Our technological superiority makes it unlikely that we will ever return to fearing animals and seeing them as mystical creatures in their own right, unless we end up
pushing the planet to the brink of destruction and wiping out all of our technological advances. But there has to be an alternative solution, one where we may accept
animals as they are: distinct from us, walking parallel paths in distinct worlds, with small windows allowing us a glimpse of each other’s worlds. We may look for those
windows every time that we carefully look at a dog staring into an open field.
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