1

"To conclude, there is certainly a degree of gratitude oweing to those animals that serve us ; as for such as are mortal or noxious, we have a right to destroy them; and for thofe that are neither of advantage 'nor' prejudice to us, the common enjoyment of life is what i cannot think we ought to deprive them of."

Man, who is every-where a tyrant or a flave, delights to inflict on each fenfible being within his power the treatment he receives from his own fuperiors: as the negro revengeës the cruelty of his owner upon the innocent dog. Every animal, wild or tame, of which he becomes the posfesfor, is his property, his prisoner, his flave; to be treated with caprice and cruelty, and put to death at his pleasure. Hear, upon this fubject, the poetical reflections of the amiable Thomfon:

"B. not the Muse afhame'd, here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man
Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage
From liberty confine'd, and boundless air.
Dull are the pretty flaves, their plumage dull,
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre loft;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes,

in this inftance, had all the fuccefs fhe intended. She would have acted more wifely, when she was about it, to have infufe'd a little humanity into the mind of her favourite.

Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.
O then, ye friends of love and love-taught fong,
Spare the foft tribes, this barbarous art forbear;
If on your bofom innocence can win,
Mufic engage, or piety perfuade." *

The beaver, whose tender plaintive accents, and whose firikeing example, draw tears of admiration and pity from the humane philofopher, who contemplates his life and manners; this harmless animal, which never hurts any liveing creature, neither carnivorous nor fanguinary, is become the object of mans moft earnest purfuit, and the one which the favageës hunt after with the greatest eagerness and cruelty: a circumstance oweing to the unmercyful rapaciousness of the most polifh'd nations of Europe.t

CHAP. V.

ANIMAL FOOD THE CAUSE OF HUMAN SACRI

FICEES..

SUPERSTITION is the mother of Ignorance and Barbarity. Priests began by perfuadeing people of the existence of certain invifible beings, which they pretended to be the creatours of the world, and the dispenfeërs of good and evil; and of whose wils, in fine, they were the fole interpreters. Hence arofe the necesfity of facrificeës to appease the wrath or procure the favour of imaginary gods, but, in reality, to gratify the gluttonous and unnatural appetites of real daemons. Domestick animals were the first victims. These were immediately under the eye of the priest, and he was please'd with their taste. This fatisfy'd for a time; but he had eaten the fame things fo repeatedly, that his luxurious ap petite call'd for variety. He had devour'd the fheep, and was now defirous to masticate the fhepherd. The anger of the gods, testify'd by an opportune thunder-ftorm, was not to be asfuage'd but by a facrifice of uncommon magnitude. The people tremble, and offer him their enemys, their flaves, their parents, their children,

to obtain a clear fky on a fummers day, or a bright moon by night. When, or upon what particular occafion, the first human creature was made a facrifice is not known, nor is it of any confequence to enquire. Goats and bullocks had been offer'd up allready, and the transition. was easey from the brute to the man. The practice, however, is of remote antiquity, and univerfal extent, there being fcarcely a country in the world in which it has not, at fome time or other, prevail'd. The most ancient facrificeës, it must be confefs'd, were, in all probability, holocaufts, entirely destroy'd by the fire, from which the priests, of course, would receive no advantage but, befide that these burnt offerings coft them nothing, it might be their intereft to have it believe'd that their god was partial to animal food, and delighted in the pleasant favour of roafting or broiling flesh.

The origin not onely of facrificeës, but of animal food, is related by Porphyry as follows:

"Allthough they report that the Syrians formerly abstain❜d from animals, and, therefor, neither did they immolate to the gods: but afterward admited them in facrificeës in order to avert certain evils: they did not, however, admit the ufe of flesh. But in procefs of time, as

fayth Neanthes of Cyzicum, and Afclepiades the Cyprian, about the age of Pygmalion, a Phoenician, truely, by birth, who reign'd over the Cy-, prians, the eating of flesh crept in by this sort of prevarication. At first indeed no animal was facrifice'd to the gods, neither was there any law upon this fubject, because it was prohibited by the law of nature. But a certain occafion requireing life for life, the first sacrifice was made of animateëd beings, and thence, they fay, a whole victim was confumed by fire. But, afterward, as the facrifice was burning a small part of the flesh fel upon the ground, which the priest took up, and being burn'd in touching it, he unadvife'dly put his fingers to his mouth, in order to, mitigate the pain proceeding from the burn. But when he had tafteed the fat, he was enflame'd with the defire thereof, nor could he abftain, but allfo gave part of it to his wife: which when Pygmalion had hear'd of, he caufe'd the priest with his wife to be thrown down a rock, and gave the priests office to another, who, not long after, celebrateing the fame facrifice, ate, in like manner, the flesh, and fel into the fame calamitys. The thing, however, proceeding further, and men useing the fame facrifice, and not abftaining through gluttony from tafteing flesh, the