“And yet those channels of sympathy for inferior animals, long--a very long--custom has not been able altogether to stifle. Even now, notwithstanding the narrow, joyless, and hard-hearted tendency of the prevailing superstitions; even now we discover, in every corner of the globe, some good-natured _prejudice_ in behalf of [certain of] the persecuted animals; we perceive, in every country, certain privileged animals, whom even the ruthless jaws of gluttony dare not to invade. For, to pass over unnoticed the vast empires of India and of China, where the lower orders of life are considered as relative parts of society, and are protected by the laws and religion of the natives,[201] the Tartars abstain from several kinds of animals; the Turks are charitable to the very dog, whom they abominate; and even the English peasant pays towards the _red-breast_ an inviolable respect to the rights of hospitality. “Long after the perverse practice of devouring the flesh of animals had grown into inveterate habit among peoples, there existed still in almost every country, and of every religion, and of every sect of philosophy, a wiser, a purer, and more holy class of men who preserved by their institutions, by their precepts, and by their example, the memory of primitive innocence [?] and simplicity. The Pythagoreans abhorred the slaughter of any animal life; Epicurus and the worthiest part of his disciples bounded their delights with the produce of their garden; and of the first Christians several sects abominated the feast of blood, and were satisfied with the food which Nature, unviolated, brings forth for our support.... “Man, in a state of nature, is not, apparently, much superior to other animals. His organisation is, without doubt, extremely happy; but then the dexterity of his figure is counterpoised by great advantages in other beings. Inferior to the Bull in force, and in fleetness to the Dog, the _os sublime_, or erect front, a feature he bears in common with the Monkey, could scarcely have inspired him with those haughty and magnificent ideas which the pride of human refinement thence endeavours to deduce. Exposed, like his fellow-creatures, to the injuries of the air, urged to action by the same physical necessities, susceptible of the same impressions, actuated by the same passions, and equally subject to the pains of disease and to the pangs of dissolution, the simple savage never dreams that his nature was so much more noble, or that he drew his origin from a purer source or more remote than the other animals in whom he saw a resemblance so complete.