Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
Wagner had learned from his mentor Schopenhauer that mankind was a species distinguished from other animals only by our capacities for reason and compassion . Until now I have respected the activities of such societies, but always regretted that their educational contact with the general public has rested chiefly upon a demonstration of the usefulness of animals, and the uselessness of persecuting them. Although it may be useful to speak to the unfeeling populace in this way, I none the less thought it opportune to go a stage further and appeal to their fellow feeling as a basis for ultimately ennobling Christianity. Wagner is alluding to Schopenhauer's teaching that the best aspects of Christianity were those which it shared with Buddhism and Hinduism, whereas the worst aspects of Christianity were those which it had inherited from Judaism. That human dignity begins to assert itself only at the point where Man is distinguishable from the Beast by pity for it, since pity for man we ourselves may learn from the animals when treated reasonably and as becomes a human being.