‘Take every creature in, of every kind’

The eighteenth century witnessed profound changes in the conceptualization of animals and their relation with man: cruelty towards brutes, censured since antiquity for the damage it might cause to the human community, began to be considered from a different perspective, and the recognition of rights stemming from the capacity to feel – common to humans and animals alike – provided the main argument for the burgeoning anti-cruelty movement. Other discourses, however, addressed the nature of anima