That there may be a constant succession of beings, it is necessary there should be a mutual destruction; that animals may subsist and be nourished, vegetables, or other animals must be destroyed; and as, before and after the destruction, the quantity of life remains always the same, it should, as if it was indifferent to nature which species were more or less consumed; like an economical mother, however, in the midst of abundance, she has fixed bounds to her expences, and prevents unnecessary waste, in giving but to a few animals the instinct of feeding on flesh, while she has abundantly multiplied both the species and individuals which feed on plants and vegetables. She seems to have been prodigal to the vegetable kingdom, and to have bestowed on each great profusion and fecundity; greatly perhaps to second her views, in maintaining and even establishing this order on the earth; for in the sea, we find almost all the species are voracious; they live on their own kind, or on others, and devour perpetually, without ever destroying any particular species, because the fecundity is as great as the depredation, and because all the consumption turns to the profit of reproduction. Man knows how to exercise his power on animals; he has chosen those whose flesh pleases his taste, has made them his domestic slaves, and multiplied them more than nature would have done; and by the pains he takes for their increase, seems to have acquired a right to slaughter them; but he extends this right much farther than his wants require; for he also makes war with savage animals, birds, and fishes, and does not even confine himself to those of the climate which he inhabits, but seeks at a distance, and even in the midst of the ocean, for new food. All nature seems insufficient to satisfy the intemperance, and the inconstant variety of his appetites. Man alone consumes more flesh than all the other animals together devour; he is, then, the greatest destroyer; and this more from custom than necessity. Instead of using with moderation the blessings which are offered him, instead of disposing of them with equity, instead of increasing them in proportion as he destroys, the rich man places all his glory in consuming, in one day, at his table, as much as would be necessary to support many families; he equally abuses both animals and his fellow-creatures, some of whom remain starving and languishing in misery, and labour only to satisfy his immoderate appetite, and more insatiable vanity, and who, by destroying others through wantonness, destroys himself by excess.