Talk:Edward Payson Evans

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Throughthemind in topic Animal rights

Animal rights edit

@Throughthemind: I found a dissertation that mentions material about Evans and animal rights, including this strange paragraph:

E. Evans, Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture(London: William Heinemann, 1896) and The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals(London: William Heinemann, 1906). The latter is a particularly fascinating overview –including the text of original documents in their original languages –of instances in which criminal charges were formally brought against animals, including those in which the animals sometimes were executed as a result. Many cases, as with the French pig hanged in 1408 for eating a small child, were domestic animals that had killed humans or done significant damage to crops. Others were the unfortunate (and most likely unwilling) partners in crime of humans charged with bestiality. But Evans also noted there was evidence, even in the medieval era, that humans occasionally felt obliged to concede what would now be called basic rights to various animals, and moreover, to do so within the established legal framework. In a case involving a 1587 infestation of locusts or harvest-flies, for instance, representatives of both the human plaintiffs and the arthropod defendants agreed that the insects themselves should have a small plot of land set aside for them, since they had the "right...to adequate means of subsistence, suited to their nature" (22-50). [1]

I would like to expand a section on Evans work on animal rights. I will look for reliable sources. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I don't have access to all these yet but Evans also authored "Progress and Perfectibility in the Lower Animals," Popular Science Monthly 40 (Dec. 1891), 174; "The Nearness of Animals to Man," Atlantic Monthly 69 (Feb. 1892), 172; "The Aesthetic Sense and Religious Sentiment in Animals," Popular Science Monthly 42 (Feb. 1893), 472; and "Ethical Relations Between Man and Beast," Popular Science Monthly45 (Sept. 1894), 634. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:39, 22 August 2021 (UTC)Reply
Nice work on finding these, I found "The Nearness of Animals to Man" here and "Progress and Perfectibility in the Lower Animals" here. Some of the others are on Wikisource Throughthemind (talk) 17:48, 23 August 2021 (UTC)Reply
Ah, the first link is actually a response to the article, rather than the actual thing Throughthemind (talk) 17:49, 23 August 2021 (UTC)Reply