THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 275 



terrestrial inhabitants are mere ' animals,' mere 

 'brutes,' and 'beasts of the field,' 'livestock' and 

 'vermin.' Every crime capable of being perpe- 

 trated by one being upon another is day after day 

 rained upon them, and with an equanimity that 

 would do honour to the managers of an inferno. 

 Human beings preach as the cardinal rule of 

 morality — and they seem never to tire of its 

 reiteration — that they should do unto others as 

 they would that others would do unto them; but 

 they hypocritically confine its application to the 

 members of their own crowd, notwithstanding 

 there are the same reasons identically for extending 

 it to all creatures. The happiness of the human 

 species is assumed to be so much more precious 

 than that of others that the most sacred interests 

 of others are unhesitatingly sacrificed in order 

 that human desires may all be fastidiously catered 

 to. Even for a tooth or a feather or a piece of 

 skin to wear on human vanity, forests are depopu- 

 lated and the land filled with the dead and 

 dying. Assassination is the commonest and most 

 fashionable of human pastimes. Jaded systems 

 are regularly recuperated by massacre. Men arm 

 themselves — men who roar about ' rights,' and 

 even ministers of mercy — and go out on killing 

 expeditions with as little compunction as savages 

 put on war-paint. They come baxk from their 

 campaigns of crime like the cut-throats of old 

 Rome, trailing their victims as trophies, and 

 expecting to be hailed as heroes for the hells they 

 have established. Barbarians preponderate, and 



18—2 



