The development of French literature about animals has been studied up to the year 1800. In the nineteenth century its character changed. Until then the story was chiefly one of philosophical debates about the souls of beasts, about animal behavior—whether it be mechanical, instinctive, intelligent, sentimental,— the virtue and vice of animals, their inferiority to or superiority over man. The second half of the 18th century saw the final defeat of animal mechanism and the general acceptance of the idea that animals suffer. Then a sentimental humanitarianism developed which denounced hunting, meat-eating, vivisection, and any form of cruelty to animals. The idea that animals are the friends and servants of man became popular and with it the opinion that man owed them kindness and gratitude. Finally, cruelty to animals came to be looked upon as a menace to human society, and pleas were heard for legislation for the protection of animals. The approach to the subject was philosophical, didactic, sentimental. The great and original contribution of the 18th century was the formulation and wide support of an ethical principle.