brute is an animal without reafon; and Reason says, that to put any creature to unmerited or unneceffary pain is unjust and unreafonable: Therefore, a man that is cruel is a brute in the shape of a

man.

But what! say you, Shall a man endued with an immortal Soul be compared unto a beast that perifheth? I answer, be this as it may happen. If a man acts like a brute, the comparison is juft, however difagreeable. But waving the comparison: If thou art cruel, thy boaft of Immortality is the most egregious folly. Thou art like a prifoner, making his boaft of the brightness and exquifite workmanship of his fetters.

Or,

Or, thou art like an unjust and haughty Steward of a great estate, counting over his Lord's money, and bragging of it as if it were his own; and flattering himself with the future favour of his mafter, though all the tenants groan under the weight of his oppreffion, and can and are ready to bear witness to his pride and perfidy, at their Lord's return, when a thoufand articles will be exhibited against the upftart fycophant, of wafte, mismanagement, negligence, abuse, tyranny, and injuftice. Yet this is thine own Cafe, this thine own Folly, if thy foul is polluted with malice and cruelty. Thou mayft glory in thy pretenfions to immortality now; but wilt thou glory in it hereafter, when the dreadful

time shall come that thou wilt wish thyself upon a level with the beast whom thou haft defpifed and abused; when thine Immortality will be thy greatest Burthen. Strange! therefore, to hear cruel men boast of that very Circumftance, which will make them truly wretched.

But I know not how it is; our hands are fo imbrued in blood, that in fpite of the fhame of it, we cannot wash them clean. We glory in that which, being mifapplied, is our difgrace; and when we feel ourselves wounded in our pride, we change the fcales; we drop the confideration of our own dignity, which avails us but little; and betake us to argu

I

ments

ments of another kind, which are equally inconclufive, when alledged in defence or excufe of the

wanton cruelty of man.

For thus it is argued—

That Man has a Permiffion, Ant that is, it is a univerfal prac- Pen tice with mankind, to eat the b

flesh of animals; which cannot be done without taking away their lives, and putting them to fome degree of pain.

-That there are fome animals Obnoxious to mankind; and the most compassionate of men make no fcruple to deftroy them. And

That there are fome Brutes of prey which wholly fubfift on the flesh of other brutes; and whose lives are one continued course of rapine and bloodshed.

IX.

!

These are the formidable arguments, which we fometimes have recourse to in vindication of our cruelty, our abuse, or unfeeling neglect; but to each I shall make a reply.

And, first, as it is a univerfal Practice, it fhall be taken for granted, that Man has a permiffion to eat the flesh of fome animals; and confequently, to kill them for food or neceffary ufe..

But this permiffion cannot authorize us to put them to unneceffary pain, or lingering death. Death they are all liable to; they must fubmit to it; and they do not feem to us to have any idea, or fear of death. Avoidance of pain is indeed as natural to brutes as it is

to