Undue love for animals (zoöphilism) such as so frequently finds expression in antivivisection fanaticism, has frequently been found associated with various forms of degeneracy and especially with its mental expressions in connection with suspicional and persecutory conceptions.
As the Journal pointed out some time ago, the suspicional world-betterers whose cruelty marred the French Revolution were all of them zoöphilists whose love for animals contrasted markedly with their severities toward human beings. The fanatics who were guilty of such brutalities during the East Indian mutiny were intensely opposed to the taking of animal life. Very frequently the suspicional ideas are especially extended toward blood relatives. The mother of Savage, the poet, who persecuted him with such malignity, was very fond of cats and lap-dogs. The fifth (or "wicked") Lord Byron, the immediate predecessor of the poet, was notorious for his dueling propensities, for his disregard of major and minor morality, for