Animals? (From Penarth Times)

Animals?

IN LAST week's Penarth Times, Miss Simons suggests in her letter, human beings are no more than animals. Indeed, we see people who do behave that way, but, lacking the innocence of animals, their behaviour is inhuman.

To be humane means to be tender, merciful, compassionate, forgiving - ennobling.

Most of us have a long way to go to become fully human. What ennobles us? Curiously, we have the possibility of making something of ourselves, a criminal, musician, carpenter, nurse, whatever. To do so, we have to put ourselves into what we do, exert our will, through which we can gain new capacities, new, more compassionate qualities, perhaps.

From initially "egoing" our own development, we can then put new capacities to use. Rather than being self-centred, experience empathy, fellow feeling, centred in the Self. This second Self is only gained when I discover how to lose myself! Interesting!

Humans can think, experience wonder, compassion and conscience. The major problems in the world are unlikely to be solved by yet more research based on a science locked into reductionist concepts. The underlying problems are not simply economic, political or scientific, but mor-al problems. This is unique to human beings - and does not apply to the animal kingdom.

Vital as genetic inheritance and upbringing are, what "I make of them" is what makes all the difference.

Much more could be said in defence of the true "I".

Russell Evans Millbrook Heights Dinas Powys