Theriophily is a word coined in 1933 by the author
of this article to name a complex of ideas which express
an admiration for the ways and character of the ani-
mals. Theriophilists have asserted with various
emphases that the beasts are (1) as rational as men,
or less rational than men but better off without reason,
or more rational than men; (2) that they are happier
than men, in that Nature is a mother to them but a
cruel stepmother to us; (3) that they are more moral
than men.
The whole idea or movement, insofar as it is a fairly
widespread set of attitudes, is a reaction against the
dogma of the superiority of mankind to all other forms
of life. The dogma, as it influenced Western Europe,
had two sources: one in pagan antiquity, one in the
Bible. The former maintained that man's uniqueness
lay in his rational animality. He shared his senses and
appetites, as Aristotle puts it in his De anima (413b)
and elsewhere, with the beasts and the plants; but his
reason was his possession alone and it elevated him
above all creation. It is clear that anti-intellectualists
would not agree with the second clause in this sentence
and would put a higher value on instinct than on
rationality. The biblical source of man's superiority is
Genesis 1:28, where God gives man dominion “over
every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” In the
later history of theriophily the biblical verse, as
revealed evidence of human uniqueness and nobility,
is used to refute the idea of animal nobility. The matter,
however, was complicated since the pagans did not
deny that the beasts had souls, whereas the Christians
either denied it outright or granted them an inferior
kind of soul which could not be said to survive
death—a soul which in the words of Deuteronomy
12:23 was in their blood or was identical with it.
