No animal shall kill any other animal

The Sixth Commandment, "No animal shall kill any other animal," was one of the seven foundational laws inscribed on the end wall of the big barn by Snowball shortly after the Rebellion. It represented a core ethical prohibition, distinguishing the new animal society from the cruelty of human rule. For a time, this commandment was observed: no animal killed another, not even a rat, and the farm was free of the bloodshed that had characterized Mr. Jones's regime.

Origin and Original Meaning

The commandment was first written by Snowball on the tarred wall of the big barn, in great white letters that could be read thirty yards away. It was the sixth of the Seven Commandments, which the pigs had reduced from the principles of Animalism. The original wording was absolute: "No animal shall kill any other animal." This prohibition was a direct expression of Old Major's teaching that "no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind" and that "all animals are equal." The animals nodded in complete agreement when Snowball read it aloud, and the cleverer ones began to learn it by heart.

The First Violation and the Executions

The commandment was first broken during the purge that followed the expulsion of Snowball. Napoleon, with his nine dogs, forced confessions from animals accused of being Snowball's secret agents. The four pigs who had protested the abolition of the Sunday Meetings confessed to collaborating with Snowball and were immediately torn to death by the dogs. Three hens who claimed Snowball had appeared to them in a dream were also slaughtered, followed by a goose, a sheep, and two more sheep, all of whom confessed to various crimes. The pile of corpses grew before Napoleon's feet, and the air grew heavy with the smell of blood. The animals were shaken and miserable, and it seemed to them that this was far worse than the bloodshed of the old days, because now it was happening among themselves.

The Textual Alteration

A few days after the executions, some animals remembered—or thought they remembered—that the Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." Though no one dared mention it in the hearing of the pigs or dogs, it was felt that the killings did not square with this. Clover asked Benjamin to read her the commandment, but he refused to meddle. She then fetched Muriel, who read it aloud. The commandment now ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal WITHOUT CAUSE." Somehow, the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory. They saw now that the commandment had not been violated, for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball. This alteration—adding the phrase "without cause"—transformed an absolute prohibition into a conditional one, granting the ruling pigs the power to define what constituted "cause" and thus to authorize executions at will.

Thematic Significance

The alteration of the Sixth Commandment exemplifies the pigs' systematic rewriting of the farm's laws to consolidate power. It parallels the earlier modifications of the Fourth Commandment (adding "with sheets") and the Fifth Commandment (adding "to excess"), showing a pattern of textual manipulation that retroactively justifies the pigs' behavior. The commandment's evolution from a clear ethical boundary to a flexible instrument of state violence mirrors the farm's descent from an ideal of equality into a tyranny indistinguishable from human rule. By the novel's end, the Seven Commandments have been reduced to a single, cynical maxim: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." The Sixth Commandment's fate is a key step in this process, demonstrating how language can be used to erase the very principles it was meant to enshrine.