ページの画像
PDF
ePub

and the frugivorous animals: the former, whose destructive passions, like those of ignorant man, lay waste all within their reach, are constantly tormented with hunger, which returns and rages in proportion to their own devastation; this creates that state of warfare or disquietude, which seeks, as in murderers, the night and veil of the forest; for should they appear on the plain, their prey escapes, or, scen by each other, their warfare begins. The frugivorous animals wander tranquilly on the plains, and testify their joyful existence by frisking and basking in the congenial rays of the sun, or browsing with convulsive pleasure on the green herb, evinced by the motion of the tail, or the joyful sparkling of the eyes, and the gambols of the herd. The same effect of aliment is discernible amongst the different species of man, and the peaceful temper of the frugivorous Asiatic, is strongly contrasted with the ferocious temper of the carnivorous European. ROUSSEAU.

124. [Acts. xv. 20.] The Tartars, who live wholly on animal food, possess a degree of ferocity of mind, and fierceness of character, which form the leading feature of all carnivorous animals. On the other hand, an entire diet of vegetable matter, as appears in the Brahmin and Gentoo, gives to the disposition a gentleness, softness, and mildness of feeling, directly the reverse of the former character: it has also a particular influence on the powers of the mind, producing liveliness of imagination, and acuteness of judgment, in an eminent degree. See Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of Health, vol. i. pp. 423, 429.

125.

The man who sheds the blood of an ox or of a sheep, will be habituated more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his fellow creatures; inhumanity takes possession of his soul; and the professions, whose object is to sacrifice animals for the purpose of supplying the necessities of meu, impart to those who exercise them a ferocity, which their relative connexions with society but imperfectly serve to mitigate. Encyclopedie Methodique, tome 7. part 1. livraison 65.,

translated into the Code of Health, vol. iii. p. 283.

126. [Exod. xx. 13.] In the East Indies the Pegu Clergy teach, that charity is the most sublime virtue, and therefore ought to be extensive enough to reach not only to the human species, but even to animals: wherefore they neither kill nor eat any; and they are so benevolent to mankind, that they cherish all alike, making no exception on account of Religion. (See CAPTAIN HAMILTON, in Pinkerton's Coll. part xxxiii. p. 426.)—In Cambia, the Indians will kill nothing, nor have any thing killed: they consequently eat no flesh, but live on roots, rice, fruits and milk.

See FITCH, in Pinkerton's Coll. vol. ix. p. 408, &c.

127. — India, in fact, of all the regions of the earth, is the only public theatre of justice and tenderness to brutes,

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

129.

From shedding the blood, or taking away the life, of any animal, both sexes of the Hindoos are strictly prohibited by their religion. Among the Wallachians, though there is no positive institution to the contrary, yet the women never destroy the life of any creature. Whether this custom were founded by some of their antient legislators, or whether it originated from incidental circumstances, is uncertain; but however that be, nothing can be more suitable to the gentleness and timidity, which form the most beautiful and engaging part of the female character.

Dr. W. ALEXANDER's History of Women, vol. i. p. 366.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

140. [Exod. xx. 13.] Though the Indian women breed fowl and other domestic animals in their cottages, they never eat them and even conceive such a fondness for them that they will not even sell them, much less kill them with their own hands; so that if a stranger, who is obliged to pass the night in one of these cottages, offers ever so much money for a fowl, they refuse to part with it.

ULLOA'S Voy. to S. America in Pinkerton's Coll. part lviii. p. 519.

141. Look at a young child, who is told that the chicken, which it has fed and played with, is to be killed. Are not the tears it sheds, and the agonies it endures, the voice of nature itself crying within us, and pleading the cause of humanity? We cannot hear even a fly assailed by a spider without compassion;-without wishing to relieve its distress, and to repel its enemy. This is, among civilized men, an essential property of human nature; and as such, it ought surely to be a law to man;-a guide of human conduct.

Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 245.

142. [Prov. xxii. 6.] When children are barbarous towards innocent animals, they will soon become the same towards men. Caligula, before imbruing his hands in human blood, had made a practice of destroying flies. It may be said that the moral behaviour of man to man commences in some measure with that of an infant towards insects. Never, therefore, let a child acquire a truth by means of a vice, nor extend its understanding at the expense of its heart. Let it not study the laws of nature in the pangs of sentient beings, but rather in the succession of their enjoyments.

St. PIERRE'S Harmonies of Nature, vol. i. p. 411.

143. [Gen. ix. 4, 5.] There is of all the multitude not one man in ten, but what will own (if not brought up in a slaughter-house) that, of all trades, he could never have been a butcher; and I question, whether ever any person so much as killed a chicken, without reluctancy, the first time. Some people are not to be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend their scruple no farther than to their own

poultry, and refuse to cat what they fed and took care of themselves. Yet all of them will feed heartily and without remorse on beef, mutton, and fowls, when they are bought in the market. In this behaviour, there appears something like a consciousness of guilt; it looks as if they endeavoured to save themselves from the imputation of a crime (which they know sticks somewhere), by removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves :-it is sufficient to demonstrate, that we are born with a repugnancy to the killing, and consequently, to the eating of animals.

MANDEVILLE'S Fable of the Becs, vol. i. p. 188.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

148.

Goodness, indeed, ever moves in a larger sphere than justice: the obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to creatures of every species; and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue from the living fountain. A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service. Thus the people of Athens, when they had finished the temple called Hecatompedon, set at liberty the beasts of burden that had been chiefly employed in that work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any further service. It is said, that one of these afterwards came of its own accord to work, and putting itself at the head of the labouring cattle, marched before them to the citadel; this pleased the people, and they made a decree that it should be kept at the public charge as long as it lived.

149.

PLUTARCH'S Lives, vol. ii. p. 310.

But animals, in our degenerate age, are every day perishing under the hands of barbarity, without notice, without mercy; famished, as if hunger were no evil; mauled, as if they had no sense of pain; and hurried about incessantly from day to day, as if excessive toil were no plague, or extreme weariness were no degree of suffering. Surely the sensibility of brutes entitles them to a milder treatment, than they usually meet with from hard and unthinking wretches. Man ought to look on them as creatures under his protection, and not as put into his power to be tormented. Few of them know how to defend themselves against him as well as he knows how to attack them. man therefore to torture a brute, shews a meanness of spirit (particularly, if he is slaughtering it for the table). See DEAN on the future Life of Brutes.

150.

For a

-The celebrated Mr. JOHN TWEDDELL in one of his letters thus expresses himself: "I no longer eat fleshmeat, nor drink fermented liquors. As for the latter, it is merely because I do not believe that they can ever be good for the constitution, and still more especially with a vegetable diet. With regard to the flesh of animals, I have many times thought on the subject. I am persuaded we have no other right, than the right of the strongest, to sacrifice to our monstrous appetites the bodies of living things, of whose qualities and relations we are ignorant. Different objections which struck me, as to the probability of good from the universality of this practice, have hitherto held me in indecision. I doubted whether, if this abstinence were universal, the animals, which we now devour, might not devour, in their turn, the fruits and vegetables reserved for our sustenance. I do not know whether this would be so-but I do

not believe it; it seems to me that their numbers would not augment in the proportion which is apprehended: if, on the one hand, we now consume them with our teeth, on the other, we might then abandon our schemes and inventions for augmenting the means of propagation. Let nature follow her own course with regard to all that lives. I am told that they would destroy each other:-In the first place, the two objections cannot exist together; if they would destroy each other, their numbers would not be excessive. And what is this mutual destruction to me? Who has constituted me dictator of the realms of nature? Why am I umpire between the mistress and her servants? Because two chickens fight till one dies, am I obliged to worry one of them to prevent their engagement? Exquisite and well imagined humanity! On the other hand let precautions be adopted against famine, when experience shall have shewn the necessity of them; in the mean while, we are not called upon to bury in our bowels the carcases of animals, which, a few hours before, lowed or bleated to flay alive and to dismember a defenceless creature-to pamper the unsuspecting beast which grazes before us, with the single view of sucking his blood and grinding his bones-and to become the unnatural murderers of beings, of whose powers and faculties, of whose modes of communication and mutual intercourse, of whose degree of sensibility and extent of pain and pleasure we are necessarily and fundamentally ignorant. The calamity does not appear to me to be sufficiently ascertained, which warrants so barbarous a proceeding, so violent a remedy, upon suspicion and by anticipation. That the human body cannot suffer from abstinence I am well convinced; and the mind, I am firmly persuaded, must gain by it."

See his Life and Remains, p. 215.

151. [Gen. ix. 2-6.] There exists within us a rooted repugnance to the spilling of blood. Had nature intended man to be an animal of prey, would she have implanted in his breast a principle so adverse to her purpose? The feelings of the heart point more unerringly than the dogmas and subtilties of men who sacrifice to custom the dearest sentiments of humanity. NICHOLSON.

Q mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn and pulse by nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesome herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of spring;
While earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury:
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.-
When man his bloody feasts on brutes began,
He after forg'd the sword to murder man.

E

OVID'S Metamorphoses, b. xv. l. 101, 145, 153.

[blocks in formation]

157.Though death be permanent on the earth, life may be said to descend in an uninterrupted current from heaven. A vegetable spark of life, descending from above, may be introduced into the seed contained in the germen, may call it into a state of growth, and augment its size both without and within, until, the plant being arrived at its complete bulk and term of existence, the animating principle returns unto the place from whence it came.

St. PIERRE's Harmonics of Nature, vol. i. p. 143.

158. [Gen. ii. 7.] The soul does not convert itself into body, nor commix itself with body so as to become body,

but takes body to itself: thus soul and body, though they be two distinct things, are still one man.

159.

SWEDENBORG, on the Athanasian Creed, n. 16.

The Elohim made man of such atoms as are in other animals,-a body with such dispositions as are in other brutes, to live as they live, &c.-What he infused was qualified to reason, and return to be accountable to Him, who gave it. This being, thus compounded of beast and of something little inferior to angel, had in this state of trial, ́ the essential properties of each: the beast in man was furnished with all the organs of a beast, and liable to all the necessities, appetites and accidents of a beast; the other part, even here, had all the powers that an angel has, only, whilst united to the material body, it was not admitted to immediate perceptions of God, or of things in the angelic state. Here was a double creature to be provided for. Introduc. to Moses' sine Principio, pp. xlvii, xlviii, cxiv ; by HUTCHINSON.

160. That mind and body often sympathize
Is plain: such is this union nature ties :
But then as often too they disagree,
Which proves the soul's superior progeny.
Sometimes the body in full strength we find,
Whilst various ails debilitate the mind;
At others, whilst the mind its force retains,
The body sinks with sickness and with pains:
Now did one common fate their beings eud,
Alike they'd sicken, and alike they'd mend.
JENYNS' Works, vol. ii. p. 31.

161. [Gen. ii. 18.] And the LORD God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him. 1 Cor. xii. 28.

That marriage is of divine appointment and institution, is taught in the plainest manner by our Lord, in Matt. xix. 4, 5, 6: where He says, "Have ye not read, that He who made mankind at the beginning, made them male and female? and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body. For we are members of the Lord's spiritual body, the church, of His flesh and of his bones. Eph. v. 23, 30 —Rev. xxi. 2, 9. As many as received him, to them gave he power to

become sons of God. John i. 12.

162. [Gen. ii. 21, 22.] “It appears in anatomy, that the ribs of man and woman are equal."

Sir KENELM DIGBY

[blocks in formation]

How happy must it be,

How pleasing, Lord, the sight,

When mutual love, and love to thee,
A married pair unite!

From those celestial springs,
Such streams of comfort flow,

As no accomplish'd beauty brings,
Nor riches can bestow.

Both in their stations move,
And each performs a part

In all the cares of life and love
With sympathizing heart.
Form'd for the purest joys,
By one desire possess'd;

One aim the zeal of both employs,
To make each other bless'd.

No bliss can equal theirs,
Where such affections meet;

They join in praise, they join in pray'rs,
And feel communion sweet.

'Tis the same pleasure fills

The breast in worlds above;
Where joy like morning dew distils,
And all the air is love.

PARADISE.

164. [Gen. ii. 8.] And the LORD God planted a garden, eastu-ard in Eden.

Asia, the first peopled of the four quarters of the globe, may likewise be said to be marked by the traits of advanced years. She unites the advantages of the three other quarters by the varieties of her climate; Cochinchina and Siam being as moist as America; Hindostan as warm as Africa; Persia, and a part of Tartary, as temperate as Europe. In many parts of Asia the soil is elevated, the sky clear, the air pure and dry. Nature has collected there that wealth which in other parts lies in a scattered state; and she seems to have put, in the productions of each kingdom of Nature, species of a superior quality to those that are found in other countries of the world. The steel of Damas cus, the gold and copper of Japan, the pearls of Ormus, the diamonds of Golconda, the rubies of Pegu, the spiceries of the Moluccas, the cotton, muslin, and rich dyes of India, the coffee of Mocha, the tea, the porcelain, and the silks of China, the fleecy goat of Angora, and the richly plumed

pheasant of China; in short a number of the animals and products which constitute leading objects of European luxury, are produced in Asia.

St. PIERRE'S Harmonies of Nature, vol. iii. p. 57.

165. Tartary, in its greatest extent, is situate between fifty-seven and one hundred and sixty degrees of longitude; and between the thirty-seventh and fifty-fifth degrees of latitude being bounded on the north by Siberia; on the west, by the rivers Don, the Wolga, and Kama; on the south by the Euxine and Caspian seas, Korazm, the two Bukharias, China, and Korea; and on the east, by the Oriental or Tartarian ocean. From this account it appears, that Tartary, or Great Tartary, as we call it, is a vast region situate almost in the middle of Asia, and extending the whole length of it, in that part from west to east, the space of one hundred and four degrees in longitude, or four thousand one hundred and forty-five geographical miles: but its breadth is not proportionable; being not more than nine hundred and sixty miles where broadest, and, where narrowest, three hundred and thirty. Again: this vast region is divided into two great parts; the one called the Western, the other the Eastern Tartary: which latter is scarcely one-fourth part so large as the former; beginning at about the one hundred and thirty-ninth degree of longitude, and ending at the one hundred and sixty-first. Hence it contains only twenty-two degrees of longitude, or is but nine hundred geographical miles from west to east, though eight hundred and eighty broad, from south to north.

166.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 8.

There is in the neighbourhood of Benares

a large country, where what is called the golden age still exists. We find indeed among the institutions of all antient nations, the saturnalian festivals; that commemoration of a period when men were equal and happy; that picture of the golden age, which owes its effect in no degree to the art of contrast, but where virtue displays itself alone in a pure and gentle light, without the mixture of the lightest shade. The nations where the remembrance of this age still exists, are colonies of a more antient people.

I have met with facts, says M. BAILLY, which satisfy me that this primitive light in Asia might have first shone under the parallel of from 49° to 50°.

167.

Antient Hist. of Asia, vol. i. pp. 44, 107, 112, 197.

There is preserved a noble monument of foreign teachers, of an alien philosophy, and, indeed, of instruction received in India, without a single vestige of subsequent progress; viz. the Sanscrit; a learned language, which was abandoned by the people who spoke it, to a people who do not so much as understand it. Thus the Sanscrit is a monument of their actual existence, and a trace perfectly preserved of their passage into India.

Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 9, 13, 14

« 前へ次へ »