De Anima

A thought occurred to me today in my Greek philosophy class about the change in the meaning of the word animal. Anima is Greek [Latin, actually] for soul. Thus anything that has a soul is an animal; living, breathing. When the ancients called beasts animals, they were in a sense raising them up; making them just below man, superior over plants and the non-living. However, when the modern man calls humans animals he intends to lower man to the same level of beasts; usually one with no morality and only superior by sheer cunning and brute force.

The State of Man

In the 20th century:

"A sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers...." ~Albert Camus The Fall 1956.


In the 21st century:

"A sentence will suffice for modern man: he just fornicated..." ~Justin Ranger in ingenio meo 2007.