somewhat different from the former, and who hide it out of their fear
of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth,
or, rather, the restoring it to it again, it being thus cut off from
being useful either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the
owner, having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now
sure of it. If it should be stole, the owner, though he might live
perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find
no difference between his having or losing it, for both ways it was
equally useless to him.
“Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight
in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only
heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us,
‘What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?’
(for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often
should give one a surfeit of it); ‘and what pleasure can one find in
hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than
pleasant sounds?’ Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs
run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if
the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same
entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the
same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed
and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak,
harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and
cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the
Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already
said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest
parts of a butcher’s work, for they account it both more profitable and
more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to
mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an
animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure,
from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of
the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already
corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so
brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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