CRUELTY is the disposition to inflict unnecessary pain or the actual infliction of it. It would appear at the first blush that some human beings, even children, have such a disposition. Dr. Pfister (The Psycho-analytic Method, 1915) reports the case of a boy whom the sight of a charming kitten promptly filled with the desire to ill-treat it. "A fearful interest seized him until he had procured a stick and struck the sleeping animal on the nose with all his strength. The young cat was half dead from pain and fright, but the boy had a strong feeling of pleasure." The same boy, we are told, enjoyed putting flies to death as slowly as possible. Nevertheless, the independent existence of such a disposition cannot be said to be established. It is remarkable that no such disposition has been observed among the lower animals; and lovers of animals rather resent the common identification of cruelty with brutality as an insult to the innocent brutes. The fact is that manifestations of cruelty among human beings are usually accompanied by such emotional attitudes as anger or masterfulness, and it is not altogether easy to disentangle the moment of cruelty in the total disposition from the element of masterfulness or of anger and its multifarious causes. It is note worthy that cruelty is sometimes found together with a spirit of destructiveness, as was the case with the above-mentioned boy. And destructiveness is frequently merely a manifestation of instinctive self-assertion or masterfulness, or just an expression of superfluous energy uncontrolled by imagination or intelligence. When acts of cruelty are carried out in a fit of anger or wrath, it seems clear that they are not the result of a cruel disposition but of an emotion which notoriously blinds the agent so that he does not realize the results of his conduct adequately, much less sympathetically. Now anger arises whenever a strong impulse is thwarted, and so it is not surprising that some cases of cruelty arise in connection with the repression of sexual impulses. The view that cruelty is not a primary tendency or disposition but rather the result of other tendencies and deficiencies, is borne out to some extent by cases in which cruelty has a definite range. That the sympathy of most people is limited to certain spheres is a familiar fact ; and, something similar happens in some cases with the disposition to cruelty. Prof. G. Stanley Hall (Ado lescence, 1905) has drawn attention to such cases. Presumably in such cases cruelty begins where the limited sympathy and in sight end. "Many youthful murderers (writes Stanley Hall), callous to the sufferings of their victims, have had the keenest sympathy with pets and even with children. . . . The juvenile torturers often seem to have specialized psychic zones, where tenderness is excessive, as if to compensate for their defect. They weep over the pain, actual or imaginary, of their pets while utterly hardened to the normal sentiments of kindness and help for suffering." On the whole, it would appear that cruelty is not an independent instinct or disposition but rather a derivative phenomenon re sulting positively from self-assertion or masterfulness, and nega tively from the blindness caused by anger or by limitations of sympathy.
The English common law has never taken cognizance of the commission of acts of cruelty upon animals, and direct legislation upon the subject, dating from the 19th century, was due in a great measure to public agitation, supported by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (founded in 1824). Various acts were passed in 1822 (known as Martin's Act), 1837, 1849 and 1854, and the law relating to domestic and captive animals is now to be found in the Protection of Animals Act 1911 and the amending Act of 1912 together with various minor amendment acts down to 1927. These statutes replace the acts of 1849 and 1854. The Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 was passed for the purpose of regulating the practice of vivisection (q.v.) . The Ground Game Act 1880 prohibits night shooting, or the use of spring traps above ground, or poison. The Diseases of Animals Acts and orders thereunder are for the purpose of securing animals from unnecessary suffering, as well as from disease. Finally, the Wild Birds Protection Acts 1880 to 1908, with various game acts (see GAME LAWS), extend the protection of the law to wild birds and their eggs, and impose penalties for the setting of pole traps and the taking of a wild bird by means of a hook or other similar instrument. Other statutes relating to the subject, whose purpose is disclosed by their titles, are the Poultry Act 1911, the Exporta tion of Horses Act 1914, the Animals Anaesthetics Act 1919, the Captive Birds Shooting (Prohibition) Act 1921, the Protection of Birds Act 1925, the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925.
For the law relating to the prevention of cruelty to children see CHILDREN, PROTECTIVE LAWS; for cruelty in the sense of such conduct as entitles a husband or wife to judicial separation see DIVORCE.