“I omit to insist on the fact that, if we depend on the argument of necessity or utility, we cannot avoid admitting by implication that we ourselves were created only for the sake of certain destructive animals, such as crocodiles and snakes and other monsters, for we are not in the least _benefited_ by them. On the contrary, they seize and destroy and devour men whom they meet--in so doing acting not at all more cruelly than we. Nay, _they_ act thus savagely through want and hunger; _we_ from insolent wantonness and luxurious pleasure[87], amusing ourselves as we do also in the Circus and in the murderous sports of the chase. By thus acting, a barbarous and brutal nature becomes strengthened in us, which renders men insensible to the feeling of pity and compassion. Those who first perpetrated these iniquities fatally blunted the most important part of the civilised mind. Therefore it is that Pythagoreans consider kindness and gentleness to the lower animals to be an exercise of philanthropy and gentleness.” Porphyry unanswerably and eloquently concludes this division of his subject with the _à fortiori_ argument:-- “By admitting that [selfish] pleasure is the legitimate end of our action, justice is evidently destroyed. For to whom must it not be clear that the feeling of justice is fostered by abstinence? He who abstains from injuring other species will be so much the more careful not to injure his own kind. For he who loves all animated Nature will not hate any one tribe of innocent beings, and by how much greater his love for the whole, by so much the more will he cultivate justice towards a part of them, and to that part to which he is most allied.” In fine, according to Porphyry, he who extends his sympathies to _all_ innocent life is nearest to the Divine nature. Well would it have been for all the after-ages had this, the only sure foundation of any code of ethics worthy of the name, found favour with the constituted instructors and rulers of the western world. The fourth and final Book reviews the dietetic habits of some of the leading peoples of antiquity, and of certain of the philosophic societies which practised abstinence more or less rigidly. As for the Essenes, Porphyry describes their code of morals and manner of living in terms of high praise. We can here give only an abstract of his eloquent eulogium:--