Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent on to the Planet Earth

“ ‘But here on Earth, men have even divided beings of all other forms into the clean and the unclean.

“ ‘Tell me what guided them when they made this division?

“ ‘Why, for instance, is a sheep clean, and a lion unclean? Are they both not equally beings?

“ ‘This also was invented by people. . . . And why have they invented it, and made this division? Simply because a sheep is a very weak being and moreover stupid, and they can do to it just what they like.

“ ‘But people call the lion unclean simply because they dare not do to it what they like.

“ ‘A lion is cleverer and, what is more, stronger than they.

“ ‘A lion will not only not allow itself to be destroyed, but will not even permit people to approach near. If any man should venture to approach near to it, then this ”Mister Lion” would give him such a crack on the noddle that our valiant’s life would at once fly off to where “people from Albion’s Isles” have not yet been.

“ ‘I repeat . . . a lion is unclean simply because men are afraid of it; it is a hundred times higher and stronger than they; a sheep is clean merely because it is much weaker than they and again I repeat, much more stupid.

“ ‘Every being, according to its nature and to the gradation of its Reason attained by its ancestors and transmitted by heredity, occupies its definite place among beings of other forms.

“A good example for clarifying what I have just said is the difference between the already definitely crystallized presences of the psyche of your dog and of your cat.

“ ‘If you pet your dog a little and get it used to anything you please, it will become obedient and affectionate to the point of abasement.

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