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Timeline of wild-animal suffering

976 bytes added, 08:54, 29 February 2020
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| 1487–1501 || || Publication || {{w|Leonardo da Vinci}} || Leonardo da Vinci in his notebooks laments the suffering experienced by wild animals due to predation and reproduction.<ref>{{Cite book|last=da Vinci|first=Leonardo|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5000|title=The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete|date=2004-01-01|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=1888|pages=|at=folio 1219|language=English|translator-last=Richter|translator-first=Jean Paul|quote=Why did nature not ordain that one animal should not live by the death of another? Nature, being inconstant and taking pleasure in creating and making constantly new lives and forms, because she knows that her terrestrial materials become thereby augmented, is more ready and more swift in her creating, than time in his destruction; and so she has ordained that many animals shall be food for others. Nay, this not satisfying her desire, to the same end she frequently sends forth certain poisonous and pestilential vapours upon the vast increase and congregation of animals; and most of all upon men, who increase vastly because other animals do not feed upon them; and, the causes being removed, the effects would not follow. This earth therefore seeks to lose its life, desiring only continual reproduction; and as, by the argument you bring forward and demonstrate, like effects always follow like causes, animals are the image of the world.}}</ref>
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| 1779 || || Publication || {{w|David Hume}} || David Hume in his posthumous work ''{{w|Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion}}'' makes reference to the antagonism experienced and inflicted by wild animals upon each other.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hume|first=David|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4583|title=Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion|date=|publisher=|year=1779|isbn=|location=|pages=|language=English|quote= Observe [...] the curious artifices of nature, in order to embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying about infix their stings in him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and destruction.}}</ref>|-| 1822 || || Publication || {{w|Lewis Gompertz}} || Lewis Gompertz in ''Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes'' explores predation as a moral issue and advocates intervening to prevent it in certain circumstances.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gompertz|first=Lewis|url=https://archive.org/details/moralinquiriesonthesituationofmanandofbrutes-lewisgompertz|title=Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes|date=|publisher=Centaur|year=1992|isbn=|editor1-last=Singer|editor1-first=Peter|location=Fontwell|pages=93–94|language=English|quote=Y: As you think it wrong for man to kill other animals for food, do you also think it wrong that animals should devour each other? As this is the general law of nature.<br>Z: It appears wrong, according to the rules by which we govern our own actions to each other; and should I witness the attempt in any animal of destroying another, I would endeavour to frustrate it; though this might probably be wrong.}}</ref>
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| 1851 || || Publication || {{w|Arthur Schopenhauer}} || Arthur Schopenhauer compares the pleasure experienced by a predator to the pain experienced by the prey to argue that the world contains more pain than pleasure.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schopenhauer|first1=Arthur|title=On the Sufferings of the World|date=1851|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Sufferings_of_the_World|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720223325/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Sufferings_of_the_World<!--https://archive.fo/GMP30-->|archivedate=2018-07-20|deadurl=no|quote=The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.}}</ref>
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