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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1785-1837] Romantic Age » Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Original Stories

Treatment of Animals

[1788] Mary Wollstonecraft, "Treatment of Animals," in Original Stories from Real Life with Conversations, calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness [First Edition: 1788] (London, 1796; Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks.

With great gravity, Mrs. Mason asked how she dared to kill any thing, unless it were to prevent its hurting her?…You have already heard that God created the world, and every inhabitant of it. He is then called the Father of all creatures; and all are made to be happy, whom a good and wise God has created. He made those snails you despise, and caterpillars, and spiders; and when he made them, did not leave them to perish, but placed them where the food that is most proper to nourish them is easily found. They do not live long, but He who is their Father, as well as your's directs them to deposit their eggs on the plants that are fit to support their young, when they are not able to get food for themselves.—And when such a great and wise Being had taken care to provide every thing necessary for the meanest creature, would you dare kill it, merely because it appears to you ugly? (2)

Do you know the meaning of the word Goodness?…It is, first, to avoid hurting any thing; and then, to contrive to give as much pleasure as you can. If some insects are to be destroyed, to preserve my garden from desolation, I have it done in the quickest way. The domestic animals that I keep, I provide the best food for, and never suffer them to be tormented; and this caution arises from two motives:—I wish to make them happy; and, as I love my fellow-creatures still better than the brute creation, I would not allow those that I have any influence over to grow habitually thoughtless and cruel, till they were unable to relish the greatest pleasure life affords,—that of resembling God, by doing good. (4)