Il8 ON THE RIGHTS OF BEASTS. 



no other mean; and that they who form a 

 judgment upon a lefs laboured procefs, will 

 obtain only a fuperficial knowledge, which 

 may urge them to determinations, in oppo- 

 fition to the laws of juftice and humanity, and 

 to the general interefts of fociety, with which 

 their own mud be neceflarily involved. This 

 obfervation applies materially to the fubje£l 

 before us. The barbarous, unfeeling, and 

 capricious conduct, of man to the brute crea- 

 tion, has been the reproach of every age and 

 nation. Whence does it originate? How 

 happens it, that fo large a portion of cruelty 

 remains to tarnifh the glory of the prefent 

 enlightened times, and even to fully the Eng- 

 lilh character, fo univerfally renowned for the 

 fofter feelings of humanitv? We are to fearch 

 for the caufe of this odious vice, rather in 

 cuftom, which flatters the indolence of man, 

 by faving him the trouble of inveftigation, and 

 in the defect, of early tuition, than in a natural 

 want of fenfibility in the human heart, or in 

 the demands of human intereft. 



It has ever been, and Hill is, the invariable 

 cuftom of the bulk of mankind, not even ex- 

 cepting legiflators, both religious and civil, to 

 look upon brutes as mere machines; animated 

 yet without ibuls; endowed with feelings, but 

 utterly devoid of rights; and placed without 

 the pale of juftice. From thefe fuppofed de- 

 lects, 



