Humanity should respect animals.

[Tenet Nosce]

Love is the springboard, and it may take "many, many essays into compassion" to get to that love; thus compassion seems to be the springboard into the springboard!

Yes, it would seem like that... to you!

The fact that- to your perception- love and compassion appear to be so inextricably intertwined is evidence that you are working on advanced lessons in relation to these! For those of us who are working on earlier lessons, this is not so perceived. Love and compassion seem to be separated.

Maybe, maybe not. I agree that it's far easier for 3D entities to feel compassion for other humans, than for 2D entities, especially if they were taught that 2D entities don't matter or are just things for us to use and consume.

I suppose we could mince words, but this is essentially the same statement I made! It is "easier" for humans to feel compassion toward one another precisely because that is an earlier lesson.

But, as Pickle has repeatedly pointed out, much of that is programmed behavior.

Pickle is right about that. It is programmed behavior. People working on those lessons program their incarnations for earlier lessons, and these programs are then delivered by their parents and other "societal" conditioning in precise accordance with the free will of the pre-incarnative entity.

Many children naturally feel compassion for animals.

Many children are working on advanced lessons of compassion.

But that doesn't explain why it's so difficult for Wanderers.

To the contrary, it explains exactly why! It is a late 4D lesson, therefore it is very possible to have graduated to higher densities without having teach/learned it.