At its noblest [the humanitarian cause] meant a sort of mystical identification of our life with the whole life of nature. [...] Man might be a network of exquisite nerves running over the whole universe, a subtle spider’s web of pity.  This was a fine conception; though perhaps a somewhat severe enforcement of the theological conception of the special divinity of man.  For the humanitarians certainly asked of humanity what can be asked of no other creature; no man ever required a dog to understand a cat or expected the cow to cry for the sorrows of the nightingale.

Hence this sense has been strongest in saints of a very mystical sort; such as St. Francis who spoke of Sister Sparrow and Brother Wolf.

-George Bernard Shaw (1909)