THE VOICE OF HUMANITY. 467 
the sight of that Almighty Being who created all things, without 
whose knowledge 4 not a sparrow falleth to the ground V 
“ The individual in whose breast the great and generous feelings 
of true and rational humanity glow, will extend its exercise even 
towards minute circumstances; he will never permit suffering 
where it can be prevented without inconvenience; and as to the 
infliction of wanton cruelty, he will shrink from it intuitively. 
Some may endeavour to persuade us that reptiles, and other in¬ 
ferior animals, as they have not the same faculties as human 
beings, do not suffer in the same proportion ; but we are anxious 
to know how they have thus gained the confidence of these ani¬ 
mals, and why it is that when ‘ we prick them, they bleed’— 
when we 1 poison them, they die’—and when we torture them, they 
shrink and writhe? 
I will briefly advert to the different measures of satisfaction 
which humanity, or its opposite, will inevitably produce on the 
mind. Some, indeed, have been so lono' accustomed to close 
the avenues to their hearts against all the arguments for benevo¬ 
lence, that they are not aware of the gratification of which they 
deprive themselves—as the blind man, who perceives not the 
beauty of colours, knows not the privation of his own darkness. 
These, however, we would fain hope, are exceptions. Man, as 
the delegate of the Creator, has a despotic power over animals, 
which human laws can but very slightly affect or modify. Is 
there not, then, a striking analogy between his case and that of a 
sovereign of men, who is either a despot or a patriotic ruler ?— 
the former , repelling the sympathies and overawing the alle¬ 
giance of his subjects by compulsion and terror—wringing the 
means of his wealth and his pleasures from the hard efforts, the 
merciless tasks, the wants and the weakness, the sufferings and 
the agonies, of a wretched, afflicted, and prematurely ruined mul¬ 
titude; the latter , obeyed with cheerfulness and zeal by con¬ 
tented and happy beings, the alacrity of whose services renders 
them both complete and pleasurable. Bear this analogy in 
mind, and then look at the man who is possessed of various do¬ 
mestic animals, who are seen to approach him with confidence 
and pleasure, who are well fed and carefully protected, and, there¬ 
fore, preserve their original beauty, and fulfil their appointed 
tasks with ease and pleasure; then, look at him who never af¬ 
fords the slightest attention to the comforts of the animals whom 
he selfishly and mercenarily considers as mere machines contrived 
for his use—who abandons them to the carelessness or caprice of 
underlings, before whom he exhibits no example of kindness— 
who rules only by threats and terror, by the rod and the lash— 
whose abused and ill-treated cattle prematurely lose their powers, 
and are then sold for a trifling pittance, to drag out the remnant 
