to men, therefore pain is the only ground of fear in brutes. : As to ourselves, We fear both pain and death; and our fear of death arifes from the fear of future pain, or from apprehenfions of what may happen to us after death and in fome men these apprehenfions are so terrifying, that they prefer exquifite pain to death. But the Brute, having no idea of an hereafter, cannot fuffer any terror on account of death. To him prefent pain is the only Evil; and prefent happiness the only Good; therefore, whilft he lives he has a right to happiness. And death, though it is to him the period of his present happiness of existence, (and fo far is a negative evil;) yet it is likewife the period to all his fears and future pain; and fo far as it removes him from the poffibility of future misery from the cruelty of men, it may be confidered as a pofitive good. But be this as it may, Death to a brute is nothing terrible. He muft die once as well as we; and though it is of fmall moment, whether my beaft is to die to-day or to-morrow; yet if I will not kill him till to-morrow, I ought not to put him to pain to-day; for, whilst he lives, he has a right to hap¬ piness, at least I have no right to make him miferable; and, when I kill him, I ought to dispatch him fuddenly, and with the leaft degree of pain. nion; and even This is my opi This is if I fhould be miftaken, miftaken, it appears to me to be false reasoning to say, that Because I have permiffion to kill a brute, and cannot kill him without putting him to fome degree of neceffary pain in the port article of death, Therefore I have permiffion to put him, or any other brute to unnecessary pain in the long article of life. It is as fallacious as to fay, that Because the future happiness of a family may depend upon the present gentle correction of the child of it, now that he is in fault, Therefore severity and moroseness are commendable and justifiable in a parent. Or, in general, that, Because some pain is a neceffary and unavoidable evil to promote fome good, Therefore all pain is good and defirable. Which would be granting too much. But, fecondly; It is alledged, That there are fome animals obnoxious to mankind; and the most compaffionate of men make no fcruple to deftroy them. It is true; Some animals are Obnoxious to us, and have it in their power to hurt us. But very feldom do they exert that power; and well it is for us that they have not the malice nor revenge that is in man. 'It is obfervable (fays 'the ingenuous writer of the Guardian, Vol. i. No 61.) of thofe noxious Animals, which have qualities most powerful to 'injure us, that they naturally ' avoid mankind, and never hurt us unless provoked, or neceffitated. by hunger. But Man, on the - other · I pur ' other hand, feeks out and 'fues even the most inoffenfive 'animals on purpose to perfecute ' and destroy them.' If this be the cafe; it appears, that Mercy preponderates in the fcale of brutes. For One injury which We may poffibly receive from the creatures, we offer Them a Thousand. A Horse may now and then, when provoked, give a man an unlucky kick; but what is this to the blows, and cuts, and spurs, which they receive every day and every hour from the brutal rage and unrelenting barbarity of men? The matter of wonder is that we do not oftener feel the effects of their power and refentment. If we confider the excruciating injuries offered on our part to the brutes, and the patience |