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cruel lacerations. In all this, we admit the utter heedlessness of pain; but we are not sure if even yet there be aught so hellishly revolting as any positive gratification in the pain itself or whether, even in the lowest walks of blackguardism in society, it do not also hold, that when sufferings even unto death are fully in sight, the pain of these sufferings is as fully out of mind.

effort, and of great strenuousness, to keep them down; and his heart is differently affected from that of other men, just because the regards of his mental eye are differently pointed from those of other men. The whole bent and engagement of his faculties are similar to those of another operator who is busied with the treatment of a piece of inanimate matter, and may almost be said to But the term science, so strangely applied subject it to the torture, when he puts it in as it has been in the example now quoted, the intensely heated crucible, or applies to reminds us of another variety in this most it the test, and the various searching operaafflicting detail. Even in the purely academictions of a laboratory. The one watches walk we read or hear of the most appalling every change of hue in the substance upon cruelties; and the interest of that philosophy which he operates, and waits for the rewherewith they have been associated, has sponse which is given forth by a spark, or been plead in mitigation of them. And just an effervescence, or an explosion; and the as the moral debasement incurred by an act other, precisely similar to him, watches of theft is somewhat redeemed, if done by every change of aspect in the suffering or one of Science's enamoured worshippers, dying creature that is before him, and marks when, overcome by the mere passion of every symptom of its exhaustion, or sorer connoisseurship, he puts forth his hand on distress, every throb of renewed anguish, some choice specimen of most tempting and every cry, and every look of that pain which irresistible peculiarity-even so has a like it can feel, though not articulate; marks indulgence been extended to certain perpe- and considers these in no other light than trators of stoutest and most resolved cruelty; as the exponents of its variously affected and that just because of the halo wherewith physiology. But still, could merely the the glories of intellect and of proud discovery same interesting phenomena have been have enshrined them. And thus it is, that, evolved without pain, he would like it betbent on the scrutiny of nature's laws, there ter. Only he will not be repelled from the are some of our race who have hardihood study of them by pain. Even he would enough to explore and elicit them at the ex- have had more comfort in the study of a pense of dreadest suffering--who can make complex automaton, that gave out the same some quaking, some quivering animal, the results on the same application. Only, he subject of their hapless experiment-who will not shrink from the necessary incisions, can institute a questionary process by which and openings, and separation of parts, alto draw out the secrets of its constitution, though, instead of a lifeless automaton, it and, like inquisitors of old, extract every should be a sentient and sorely agonized reply by an instrument of torture--who can animal. So that there is not even with him probe their unfaltering way among the any reversal of the law of sympathy. There vitalities of a system which shrinks, and may be the feebleness, or there may be the palpitates, and gives forth, at every move-negation of it. Certain it is, that it has given ment of their steadfast hand, the pulsations way to other laws of superior force in his of deepest agony; and all, perhaps, to ascer- constitution. And, without imputing to him tain and to classify the phenomena of sen-aught so monstrous as the positive love of sation, or to measure the tenacity of animal suffering, we may even admit for him a life, by the power and exquisiteness of ani- hatred of suffering, but that the love of mal endurance. And still, it is not because science had overborne it. of all this wretchedness, but in spite of it, In the views that we have now given, and that they pursue their barbarous occupation. which we deem of advantage for the right Even here it is possible, that there is nought practical treatment of our question, it may so absolutely Satanic as delight in those suf- be conceived that we palliate the atrociousferings of which themselves are the inflict-ness of cruelty. It is forgotten, that a charge ers. That law of emotion by which the of foulest delinquency may be made up alsight of pain calls forth sympathy, may not together of wants or of negatives; and, just be reversed into an opposite law, by which as the human face, by the mere want of the sight of pain would call forth satisfaction some of its features, although there should or pleasure. The emotion is not reversed—not be any inversion of them, might be an it is only overborne, in the play of other emotions, called forth by other objects. He is intent on the science of those phenomena which he investigates, and bethinks not himself of the suffering which they involve to the unhappy animal. So far from the sympathies of his nature being reversed, or even annihilated, there is in most cases an

object of utter loathsomeness to beholders, so the human character, by the mere absence of certain habits, or certain sensibilities, which belong ordinarily and constitutionally to our species, may be an object of utter abomination in society. The want of natural affection forms one article of the Apostle's indictment against our world; and

culty of attention, which might have opened the door, through which suffering without finds its way to sympathy within, is otherwise engaged; and the precise charge, on which either morality can rightfully condemn, or humanity be offended, is, that he wills to have it so.

It may be illustrated by that competition of speed which is held, with busy appliance of whip and of spur, betwixt animals. A similar competition can be imagined between steam-carriages, when, either to preserve the distance which has been gained, or to recover the distance which has been lost, the respective guides would keep up an incessant appliance to the furnace, and the safety-valve. Now, the sport and the excitement are the same, whether this appliance of force be to a dead or a living mechanism; and the enormity of the latter does not lie in any direct pleasure which is felt in the exhaustion, or the soreness, or, finally, in the death of the over-driven animal. If these awake any feeling at all in the barbarous rider, it is that of pain; and it is either the want or the weakness of this latter feeling, and not the presence of its opposite, which constitutes him a barbarian. He does not rejoice in animal suffering-but it is enough to bring down upon him the charge of barbarity, that he does not regard it.

certain it is, that the total want of it were stigma enough for the designation of a monster. The mere want of religion, or irreligion, is enough to make man an outcast from his God. Even to the most barbarous of our kind you apply, not the term of antihumanity, but of inhumanity-not the term of antisensibility: and you hold it enough for the purpose of branding him for general execration, that you convicted him of complete and total insensibility. He is regaled, it is true, by a spectacle of agony-but not because of the agony. It is something else, therewith associated, which regales him. But still he is rightfully the subject of most emphatic denunciation, not because regaled by, but because regardless of, the agony. We do not feel ourselves to be vindicating the cruel man, when we affirm it to be not altogether certain, whether he rejoices in the extinction of life; for we count it a deep atrocity, that, unlike to the righteous man of our text, he simply does not regard the life of a beast. You may perhaps have been accustomed to look upon the negatives of character, as making up a sort of neutral or midway innocence. But this is a mistake. Unfeeling is but a negative quality; and yet, we speak of an unfeeling monster. It is thus that even the profound experimentalist, whose delight is not in the torture which he inflicts, but in the truth which he elicits But these introductory remarks, although thereby, may become an object of keenest they lead, I do think, to some most imreprobation not because he was pleased portant suggestions for the management of with suffering, but simply because he did the evil, yet they serve not to abate its apnot pity it-not because the object of pain, palling magnitude. Man is the direct agent if dwelt upon by him, would be followed of a wide and continual distress to the lower up by any other emotion than that which animals, and the question is, Can any meis experienced by other men, but because, thod be devised for its alleviation? On this intent on the prosecution of another object, subject that scriptural image is strikingly reit was not so dwelt upon. It is found that alized, "The whole inferior creation groanthe eclat even of brilliant discovery does ing and travailing together in pain,” because not shield him from the execrations of a of him. It signifies not to the substantive public, who can yet convict him of nothing amount of the suffering, whether this be more than simply of negatives-of heed- prompted by the hardness of his heart, or lessness, of heartlessness, of looking upon only permitted through the heedlessness of the agonies of a sentient creature without his mind. In either way it holds true, not regard, and therefore without sensibility. only that the arch-devourer man stands The true principle of his condemnation is, pre-eminent over the fiercest children of the that he ought to have regarded. It is not wilderness as an animal of prey, but that for that, in virtue of a different organic struc- his lordly and luxurious appetite, as well as ture, he feels differently from others, when for his service or merest curiosity and amusethe same simple object is brought to bear ment, Nature must be ransacked throughout upon him. But it is, that he resolutely kept all her elements. Rather than forego the that object at a distance from his attention, veriest gratifications of vanity, he will wring or rather, that he steadily kept his attention them from the anguish of wretched and illaway from the object; and that, in opposi-fated creatures; and whether for the indulsition to all the weight of remonstrance gence of his barbaric sensuality, or barbaric which lies in the tremours, and the writh- splendour, can stalk paramount over the ings, and the piteous outcries of agonized sufferings of that prostrate creation which Nature. Had we obtained for these the re- has been placed beneath his feet. That gards of his mind, the relentings of his heart beauteous domain whereof he has been conmight have followed. His is not an anoma-stituted the terrestrial sovereign, gives out lous heart; and the only way in which he so many blissful and benignant aspects; and can brace it into sternness, is by barricad- whether we look to its peaceful lakes, or its ing the avenue which leads to it. That fa-flowery landscapes, or its evening skies, or

to all that soft attire which overspreads the hills and the valleys, lighted up by smiles of sweetest sunshine, and where animals disport themselves in all the exuberance of gaiety-this surely were a more befitting scene for the rule of clemency, than for the iron rod of a murderous and remorseless tyrant. But the present is a mysterious world wherein we dwell. It still bears much upon its materialism of the impress of Paradise. But a breath from the air of Pandemonium has gone over its living generations. And so "the fear of man, and the dread of man, is now upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into man's hands are they delivered: every moving thing that liveth is meat for him; yea, even as the green herbs, there have been given to him all things." Such is the extent of his jurisdiction, and with most full and wanton license has he revelled among its privileges. The whole earth labours and is in violence because of his cruelties; and, from the amphitheatre of sentient Nature, there sounds in fancy's ear the bleat of one wide and universal suffering,-a dreadful homage to the power of Nature's constituted lord.

subject of our own species, there stands forth to view the same sentient apparatus, and furnished with the same conductors for the transmission of feeling to every minut est pore upon the surface. Theirs is unmixed and unmitigated pain-the agonies of martyrdom, without the alleviation of the hopes and the sentiments, whereof they are incapable. When they lay them down to die, their only fellowship is with suffering, for in the prison-house of their beset and bounded faculties, there can no relief be afforded by communion with other interests or other things. The attention does not lighten their distress as it does that of man, by carrying off his spirit from that existing pungency and pressure which might else be overwhelming. There is but room in their mysterious economy for one inmate; and that is, the absorbing sense of their own single and concentrated anguish. And so in that bed of torment, whereon the wounded animal lingers and expires, there is an unexplored depth and intensity of suffering which the poor dumb animal itself cannot tell, and against which it can offer no remonstrance; an untold and unknown amount of wretchedness, of which no articulate voice gives utterance. But there is an eloquence in its silence; and the very shroud which disguises it, only serves to aggravate its horrors.

We now come to the practical treatment of this question-to the right method of which, we hold the views that are now offered to be directly and obviously subservient.

These sufferings are really felt. The beasts of the field are not so many automata without sensation, and just so constructed as to give forth all the natural signs and expressions of it. Nature has not practised this universal deception upon our species. These poor animals just look, and tremble, and give forth the very indications of suf- First, then, upon this subject, we should fering that we do. Theirs is the distinct cry hold no doubtful casuistry. We should adof pain. Theirs is the unequivocal physiog-vance no pragmatic or controversial docnomy of pain. They put on the same aspect trine. We should carefully abstain from of terror on the demonstrations of a menacing all such ambiguous or questionable posiblow. They exhibit the same distortions of tions, as the unlawfulness of animal food, agony after the infliction of it. The bruise, or the unlawfulness of animal experiments. or the burn, or the fracture, or the deep We should not even deem it the right taeincision, or the fierce encounter with one tics for this moral warfare, to take up the of equal or superior strength, just affects position of the unlawfulness of field-sports, them similarly to ourselves. Their blood or yet the unlawfulness of those competicirculates as ours. They have pulsations tions, whether of strength or of speed, in various parts of the body like ours. which at one time on the turf, and at anThey sicken, and they grow feeble with other in the ring, are held forth to the view age, and, finally, they die just as we do. of assembled spectators. We are aware that They possess the same feelings; and what some of these positions are not so quesexposes them to like suffering from another tionable, yet we should refrain from the quarter, they possess the same instincts elaboration of them; for we hold, that this with our own species. The lioness robbed is not the way by which we shall most ef of her whelps causes the wilderness to ring fectually make head against the existing aloud with the proclamation of her wrongs; cruelties of our land. The moral force by or the bird whose little household has been which our cause is to be advanced, does not stolen, fills and saddens all the grove with lie even in the soundest categories of an melodies of deepest pathos. All this is pal- ethical jurisprudence-and far less in the pable even to the general and unlearned dogmata of any paltry sectarianism. We eye; and when the physiologist lays open have almost as little inclination for the conthe recesses of their system by means of troversy which respects animal food, as we that scalpel, under whose operation they have for the controversy about the eating just shrink and are convulsed as any living of blood; and this, we repeat, is not the

ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

way by which the claims of the inferior | not one moment might elapse between a animals are practically to be carried. To state of pleasurable existence and a state obtain the regards of man's heart in behalf of profound unconsciousness. Again, we of the lower animals, we should strive to do not foresee, but with the perfecting of draw the regards of his mind towards the two sciences of anatomy and physiothem. We should avail ourselves of the logy, the abolition of animal experiments; close alliance that obtains between the re- but we do foresee a gradual, and, at length, gards of his attention, and those of his sym- a complete abandonment of the experiments pathy. For this purpose, we should im- of illustration, which are at present a thouportunately ply him with the objects of sand-fold more numerous than the experisuffering, and thus call up its respondent ments of humane discovery. As to field-sports, we for the present, abemotion of sympathy, that among the other objects which have hitherto engross- stain from all prophecy, in regard, either to ed his attention, and the other desires or their growing disuse, or to the conclusive emotions which have hitherto lorded it extinction of them. We are quite sure, in over the compassion of his nature and over- the mean time, that casuistry upon this powered it, this last may at length be re- subject would be altogether powerless; and stored to its legitimate play, and reinstated nothing could be imagined more keenly, or in all its legitimate pre-eminence over the more energetically contemptuous, than the other affections or appetites which belong impatient, the impetuous disdain whereto him. It affords a hopeful view of our with the enamoured votaries of this gay cause, that so much can be done by the and glorious adventure would listen to any mere obtrusive presentation of the object to demonstration of its unlawfulness. We the notice of society. It is a comfort to shall therefore make no attempt to dogmaknow, that in this benevolent warfare we tise them out of that fond and favourite have to make head, not so much against amusement which they prosecute with all the cruelty of the public, as against the the intensity of a passion. It is not thus heedlessness of the public; that to hold that the fascination will be dissipated. And, forth a right view, is the way to call forth therefore, for the present, we should be ina right sensibility; and, that to assail the clined to subject the lovers of the chase, seat of any emotion, our likeliest process is and the lovers of the prize-fight, to the to make constant and conspicuous exhibi- same treatment, even as there exists betion of the object which is fitted to awaken tween them, we are afraid, the affinity of it. Our text, taken from the profoundest a certain common or kindred character. book of experimental wisdom in the world, There is, we have often thought, a kind keeps clear of every questionable or ca- of professional cast, a family likeness, by suistical dogma; and rests the whole cause which the devotees of game, and of all sorts of the inferior animals on one moral ele- of stirring or hazardous enterprise admit ment, which is, in respect of principle, of being recognized; the hue of a certain and on one practical method, which is, in assimilating quality, although of various respect of efficacy, unquestionable: "A gradations, from the noted champions of righteous man regardeth the life of his the hunt, to the noted champions of the beast." Let a man be but righteous in the ring or of the racing-course; a certain dash general and obvious sense of the word, and of moral outlawry, if I may use the exlet the regard of his attention be but di- pression, among all those children of high rected to the case of the inferior animals, and heated adventure, that bespeaks them and then the regard of his sympathy will a distinct class in society,-a set of wild be awakened to the full extent at which it and wayward humourists, who have broken is either duteous or desirable. Still it may them loose from the dull regularities of life, be asked to what extent will the duty go? and formed themselves into so many trusty. and our reply is, that we had rather push and sworn brotherhoods, wholly given over the duty forward than be called upon to de- to frolic, and excitement, and excess, in fine the extreme termination of it. Yet all their varieties. They compose a sepawe do not hesitate to say, that we foresee rate and outstanding public among themnot aught so very extreme as the abolition selves, nearly arrayed in the same pictuof animal food; but we do foresee the in- resque habiliments-bearing most distinctly definite abridgement of all that cruelty upon their countenance the same air of which subserves the gratifications of a base recklessness and hardihood-admiring the and selfish epicurism. We think that a same feats of dexterity or danger-indulgchristian and humanized society will at ing the same tastes, even to their very length lift their prevalent voice, for the literature-members of, the same sporting least possible expense of suffering to all the society-readers of the same sporting mavictims of a necessary slaughter-for a gazine, whose strange medley of anecdotes business of utmost horror being also a business of utmost despatch-for the blow, in short, of an instant extermination, that

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gives impressive exhibition of that one and pervading characteristic for which we are contending; anecdotes of the chase, and

anecdotes of the high-breathed or bloody | proceeded from them. An endowment for contest, and anecdotes of the gaming-table, an annual discourse upon a given theme, is, and, lastly, anecdotes of the high-way. we believe, a novelty in Scotland; though We do not just affirm a precise identity between all the specimens or species in this very peculiar department of moral history. But, to borrow a phrase from natural history, we affirm, that there are transition processes, by which the one melts, and demoralises, and graduates insensibly into the other. What we have now' to do with, is the cruelty of their respective entertainments-a cruelty, however, upon which we could not assert, even of the very worst and most worthless among them, that they rejoice in pain, but that they are regardless of pain. It is not by the force of a mere ethical dictum, in itself, perhaps, unquestionable, that they will be restrained from their pursuits. But when transformed by the operation of unquestionable principle, into righteous and regardful men, they will spontaneously abandon them. Meanwhile, we try to help forward our cause, by forcing upon general regard, those sufferings which are now so unheeded and unthought of. And we look forward to its final triumph, as one of those results that will historically ensue, in the train of an awakened and a moralized society.

The institution of a yearly sermon against cruelty to animals, is of itself a likely enough expedient, that might at least be of some auxiliary operation, along with other and more general causes, towards such an awakening. It is not by one, but by many successive appeals, that the cause of justice and mercy to the brute creation will at length be practically carried. On this subject I cannot, within the limits of a single address, pretend to aught like a full or a finished demonstration. This might require not one, but a whole century of sermons; and many therefore are the topics which necessarily I must bequeath to my successors, in this warfare against the listlessness and apathy of the public. And, beside the force and the impression of new topics, if there be any truth in our doctrine, there is a mighty advantage gained upon this subject of all others by the repetition of old topics. It is a subject on which the public do not require so much to be instructed, as to be reminded; to have the regard of their attention directed again and again to the sufferings of poor helpless creatures, that the regard of their sympathy might at length be effectually obtained for them. This then is a cause to which the institution of an anniversary pleading in its favour, is most precisely and peculiarly adapted. And besides, we must confess, in the general, our partiality for a scheme that has originated the Boyle, and the Bampton, and the Warburtonian lectureships of England, with all the valuable authorship which has

it is to similar institutions that much of the best sacred and theological literature of our sister country is owing. We should rejoice if, in this our comparatively meagre and unbeneficed land, both these themes and these endowments were multiplied. We recommend this as a fit species of charity, for the munificence of wealthy individuals. Whatever their selected argument shall be, whether that of cruelty to animals, or some one evidence of our faith, or the defence and illustration of a doctrine, or any distinct method of Christian philanthropy for the moral regeneration of our species, or aught else of those innumerable topics that lie situated within the reach and ample domain of that revelation which God has made to our world-we feel assured that such a movement must be responded to with beneficial effect, both by the gifted pastors of our Church, and by the aspiring youths of greatest power or greatest promise among its candidates. Such institutions as these would help to quicken the energies of our establishment; and through means of a sustained and reiterated effort, directed to some one great lesson, whether in theology or morals, they might impress, and that more deeply every year, some specific and most salutary amelioration on the principles or the practices of general society.

Yet ye are loath to quit our subject with out one appeal more in behalf of those poor sufferers, who, unable to advocate their own cause, possess, on that very account, a more imperative claim on the exertions of him who now stands as their advocate before you.

And first, it may have been felt that, by the way in which we have attempted to resolve cruelty into its elements, we instead of launching rebuke against it, have only devised å palliation for its gross and shocking enormity. But it is not so. It is true, we count the enormity to lie mainly in the heedlessness of pain; but then we charge this foully and flagrantly enormous thing, not on the mere desperadoes and barbarians of our land, but on the men and the women of general, and even of cultivated and highbred society. Instead of stating cruelty to be what it is not, and then confining the imputation of it to the outcast few, we hold it better, and practically far more important, to state what cruelty really is, and then fasten the imputation of it on the commonplace and, the companionable many. Those outcasts to whom you would restrict the condemnation, are not at present within the reach of our voice. But you are; and it lies with you to confer a ten-fold greater boon on the inferior creation, than if all barbarous sports, and all bloody experi

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