Background for Snarl
From the book's Preface
"Animals confirm the atrocities of death. They also seldom have the opportunity for a holy submission, bound up in hope. They do yearn, though, to no longer be eaten, to no longer kill in order to survive. Any study of animals finds that they enjoy each other when their stomachs are full. Violence comes from being wary and predatory, not from being satisfied. Happy creatures run in circles like newborns when they get simple things, like a drink of water.
When given the choice, semi-to-fully sentient creatures would grasp the opportunity to choose life in paradise among all living creatures with glee. Does that, in fact, happen for animals? I’m prone to think it does.
Shall I reckon up for you the differences of the other animals, both from us and from each other — differences of nature, and of production, and of region, and of temper, and as it were of social life? How is it that some are gregarious and others solitary, some herbivorous and others carnivorous, some fierce and others tame, some fond of man and domesticated, others untamable and free? And some we might call bordering on reason and power of learning, while others are altogether destitute of reason . . . some strong, others weak, some apt at self-defense, others timid and crafty . . . some attached to one spot, some amphibious; some delight in beauty and others are unadorned . . . Is this not the clearest proof of the majestic working of God?”
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Second Theological Oration (Oration 28), #’s 23-26, A.D. 381
