Library of Animal Rights History » Animal Welfare-Animal Rights Activists-Advocates-Quotes Against Cruelty to Animals

Mary Wollstonecraft

1759-1797

English author and feminist, she was an early proponent of educational equality between men and women, and her Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) was the first great feminist document.…Her daughter, Mary, [by William Godwin]…became the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. (Bartleby.com, "Mary Wollstonecraft")

1788 | Mary Wollstonecraft, 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); Online at Google Books.

Original Stories

The Treatment of Animals

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?

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.

1792 | Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects [First Edition: London, 1792] 3rd ed. (London, 1796); Online at Google Books. [Inspired A Vindication of the Rights of Beasts (1792) by Thomas Taylor]

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

To render the perfect person, physical and moral beauty ought to be attained at the same time; each lending and receiving force by the combination. Judgment must reside on the brow, affection and fancy beam in the eye, and humanity curve the cheek, or vain is the sparkling of the finest eyes or the elegantly turned finish of the fairest features: whilst in every motion that displays the active limbs and well-knit joints, grace and modesty should appear. But this fair assemblage is not to be brought together by chance; it is the reward of exertions calculated to support each other; for judgment can only be acquired by reflection, affection by the discharge of duties, and humanity by the exercise of compassion to every living creature.

Humanity to animals should be particularly inculcated as a part of national education, for it is not at present one of our national virtues. Tenderness for their humble domestics, amongst the lower class, is oftener to be found in a savage than civilized state. For civilization prevents that intercourse which creates affection in the rude hut, or mud hovel, and leads uncultivated minds who are only depraved by the refinements which prevail in the society, where they are trodden under foot by the rich, to domineer over them to revenge the insults that they are obliged to bear from their superiors.

This habitual cruelty is first caught at school, where it is one of the rare sports of the boys to torment the miserable brutes that fall in their way. The transition, as they grow up, from barbarity to brutes to domestic tyranny over wives, children, and servants is very easy. Justice, or even benevolence, will not be a powerful spring of action unless it extend to the whole creation; nay, I believe that it may be delivered as as an axiom, that those who can see pain, unmoved, will soon learn to inflict it.