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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1660-1785] Enlightenment » John Hildrop

John Hildrop

Free Thoughts Upon the Brute Creation

[1742] John Hildrop, Free Thoughts Upon the Brute-Creation or, An Examination of Father Bougeant's Philosophical Amusement [First Edition: London, 1742] in vol 1 of The Miscellaneous Works of John Hildrop (London, 1754); Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks).

Do but examine your own compassionate Heart, and tell me, Do you not think it a Breach of natural Justice, wantonly, and without Necessity to torment, much more to take away, the Life of any Creature, except for the Preservation and Happiness of our own Being; which, in our present State of Enmity and Discord, is sometimes unavoidable? I know you do: And can you think that infinite Mercy, who made them to be happy, could, in the primary Intention of their Nature, resolve to deprive them of that Happiness (or at least a Possibility of recovering it again) by an utter Extinction of their Being?…But I expect you will tell me as many grave Authors of great Learning and little Understanding have done before you, that there is not even the Appearance of Injustice or Cruelty in this Procedure; that if the Brutes themselves had Power to speak, to complain, to appeal to a Court of Justice, and plead their own Cause, they could have no just Reason for Complaint: This you may say, but I know you too well to believe you think so; but it is an Objection thrown in your Way by some serious Writers upon this Subject; they tell you that their Existence was given them upon this very Condition, that it should be temporary and short, that after they had fluttered, or crept, or swam, or walked about their respective Elements for a little Season, they should be swept away by the Hand of Violence, or the Course of Nature, into an entire Extinction of Being, to make room for their Successors in the same Circle of Vanity and Corruption. But pray, who told them so? Where did they learn this Philosophy? Does either Reason or Revelation give the least Countenance to such a bold Assertion? So far from it, that it seems a direct Contradiction to both. (254-6)

[1892] Henry Salt, "Bibliography of the Rights of Animals: John Hildrop, Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation," in Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress, with a Bibliographical Appendix (London & New York, 1892; 1894).