“I remember, when I was a young man at the University, being so much affected with that very pathetic speech which Ovid puts into the mouth of Pythagoras against the eating of the flesh of animals, that it was some time before I could bring myself to our college mutton again, with some inward doubt whether I was not making myself an accomplice to a murder. My scruples remained unreconciled to the committing of so horrid a meal, till upon serious reflection I became convinced of its legality[156] from the general order of Nature which has instituted the universal preying [of the stronger] upon the weaker as one of her first principles: though to me it has ever appeared an incomprehensible mystery that she, who could not be restrained by any want of materials from furnishing supplies for the support of her numerous offspring, should lay them under the necessity of devouring one another.[157] “I know not whether it is from the clergy having looked upon this subject as too trivial for their notice, that we find them more silent upon it than could be wished; for as slaughter is at present no branch of the priesthood, it is to be presumed that they have as much compassion as other men. The _Spectator_ has exclaimed against the cruelty of roasting lobsters alive, and of whipping pigs to death, but the misfortune is the writings of an Addison are seldom read by cooks and butchers. As to the _thinking_ part of mankind, it has always been convinced, I believe, that however conformable to the _general_ rule of nature our devouring animals may be, we are nevertheless under indelible obligation to prevent their suffering any degree of pain more than is absolutely unavoidable. “But this conviction lies in such heads that I fear _not one poor creature in a million has ever fared the better for it_, and, I believe, never will: since people of condition, the only source from whence [effectual] pity is to flow, are so far from inculcating it to those beneath them, that a very few years ago they suffered themselves to be entertained at a public theatre by the performances of an unhappy company of animals who could only have been made actors by the utmost energy of whipcord and starving.”[158] The writer might have instanced still more frightful results of this insensibility on the part of the influential classes of the community: nor indeed, the better few always excepted, were he living now could he present a much more favourable picture of the morals (in this the most important department of them) of the ruling sections of society.