Status Updates From The Island of Dr. Moreau

Before they had been beasts. their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand ; their mock human existence began in an agony

Poor Brutes! I began to see the viler aspect of Moreau's cruelty. I had not thought before of the pain and trouble that came to these poor victims after they had passed from Moreau's hands. I had shivered only at the days of actual torment in the enclosure. But now that seemed the lesser part.

It seems a strange contradiction to me - I cannot explain the fact - but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes, and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its humanity.

'Not to eat flesh or fish; that is the law."
"That law has been broken."
"Who is he?"
"Evil is he who breaks the law."
"Who breaks the Law goes back to the house of pain."

The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals - humanised animals - triumphs of vivisection.

They may once have been animals. But I never before saw an animal trying to think.