Page:The obligation and extent of humanity to brutes.djvu/14



was made for society. There his most important duties were to be performed, and there his best pleasures await him. In order to prepare him for the situation in which he was to be placed, there was impressed on his nature a strong sympathy with the weal and woe of those around him. He must, indeed, be degraded and debased far below the common level, who feels no pleasure when those around him are happy; or who is altogether void of compassion when his friends or his neighbours, or even strangers, suffer. There is in the lowest of the low, in their best hours at least, a degree of exultation when all is happy about them, and an honest burst of indignation when a base or cruel action is perpetrated. Hence the deriva¬ tion of the words humane and humanity, from homo, a man. They are opposed to cruelty, or a fondness for or habit of in¬ flicting pain; and they are so opposed, because he who coolly and habitually can be guilty of cruelty is devoid of one of the most important and elevated characteristics of our nature ;— Each social feeling lost, While joyless inhumanity pervades And petrifies the heart. To love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity. In the religion which we profess it has received the sanction of a divine command: but it is also the great law of nature, and may be legitimately traced to that sympathy with the pleasures and pains of others which is implanted in every breast. B

2 INTRODUCTION. The claims of humanity, however they may be neglected or outraged in a variety of respects, are recognized by every ethical writer. They are truly founded on reason and on scripture, and, in fact, are indelibly engraven on the human heart. But to what degree are they recognized and obeyed ? To what extent are they inculcated, not only in many excellent treatises on moral philosophy, but by the great majority of the expounders of the scriptures? We answer with shame, and with an astonishment that increases upon us in proportion as we think of the subject,—the duties of humanity are represented as extending to our fellow men, to the victim of oppression or misfortune, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the slave, the beg¬ gared prodigal, and even the convicted felon—all these receive more or less sympathy; but, with exceptions, few and far between, not a writer pleads for the innocent and serviceable creatures—brutes, as they are termed—that minister to our wants, natural or artificial. Nevertheless, the claims of the lower animals to humane treatment, or, at least, to exemption from abuse, are as good as any that man can urge upon man. Although less intelligent, and not immortal, they are susceptible of pain: but because they cannot remonstrate, nor associate with their fellows in defence of their rights, our best theologians and philosophers have not condescended to plead their cause, or even to make mention of them; although, as just asserted, they have as much right to protection from ill usage as the best of their masters have. Nay ! the matter has been carried further than this. At no very distant period, the right of wantonly torturing the infe¬ rior animals, as caprice or passion dictated, was unblushingiy claimed; and it was asserted that the prevention of this was an interference with the rights and liberties of man! ! Strange that, at the beginning of the 19 th century, this should have been the avowed opinion of some of the British legislators ; and that the advocate of the claims of the brute should have been regarded as a fool or a madman, or a compound of both.