166 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 



cart was worth more than the animal, they would 

 hold the latter as the catastrophe the most to be la- 

 mented. Even those who do not ill use animals, re- 

 frain from doing so from interest, or sometimes 

 kindness of disposition ; but they cannot be brought 

 to the idea that dumb animals have the comparative 

 legitimate right to consideration. They seem to hold 

 that man has precisely the same right over his beast 

 as he has over his waggon ; they will in no shape 

 admit that dumb animals have any claim as humbler 

 members of living society ; they are not satisfied 

 with holding man as supreme head of such, and 

 that there is a descending scale from him to the 

 worm, each having his claim on the world's produce, 

 and man's consideration. They do not seem to hold 

 the life of man to be valuable only, if his conduct 

 is valuable, and his loss only to be deplored if it is 

 the loss of a valuable member of society ; but they 

 consider it so because he is man. I must think the 

 loss of a very useful ox, a greater one than that of 

 a perfectly useless man, and a thousand times more 

 so than the loss of a bad one. 



