Now what is it that moves our very hearts and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? ... They have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. ... There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Now what is it that moves our very hearts and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? ... They have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. ... There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power." in the context of "John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons (1868), as quoted in [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT30 Dominion] (2002) by Matthew Scully." to mean that wisdom is timeless.