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"Cruelty to Animals Censured," London Magazine

To PHILOTES.

I Fear I shall lose all my Credit with you as a Gardener, by this Specimen which I venture to send you, of the Produce of [606] my Walls. The Snails, indeed, have had more than their Share of Peaches and Nectarines this Season; but will you not smile, when I tell you that I deem it a Sort of Cruelty to suffer them to be destroyed ? I should scare dare to acknowledge this Weakness, (as the Generality of the World, no doubt, would call it) had I not experienced by many agreeable Instances, that I may safely lay open to you every Sentiment of my Heart. To confess the Truth then, I have some Scruples with Respect to the Liberty we assume in the unlimited Destruction of those lower Orders of Existence. I know not upon what Principle of Reason and Justice it is, that mankind have founded their Right over the Lives of every Creature that is placed in a subordinate Rank of Being to themselves. Whatever Claim they may have in Right of Food and Self-Defence, did they not extend their Privilege farther than those two Articles would reasonably carry them, numberless Beings might enjoy their Lives in Peace, who are now hurried out of them by the most wanton and unnecessary Cruelties. I cannot indeed discover, why it should be thought less inhuman to crush to Death an harmless Insect, whose single Offence is , that he eats that Food which Nature had prepared for him, than it would be to kill any more bulky Creature for the same Reason. There are few Tempers so hardened to the Impressions of Humanity, as not to shudder at the Thought of the latter, and yet the former is universally practiced without the least Check of Compassion. This seems to arise from the gross Error of supposing that every Creature is really in itself contemptible, which happens to be clothed with a Body infinitely disproportionate to our own, not considering that great and little are merely relative Terms. But the inimitable Shakespeare would teach us that,

—the poor Beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal Suff'rance feels a pang as great
As when a Giant dies. —

And that is not thrown out in the Latitude of poetical Imagination, but supported by the Discoveries of the most improved Philosophy : For there is every Reason to believe, that the Sensations of many insects are as exquisite as those of Creatures of far more enlarged Dimensions ; perhaps even more so. The Millepedes, for Instance, rolls itself round upon the slightest Touch, and the Snail gathers in her Horns upon the least Approach of your Hand. And not these the strongest Indications of their Sensibility ? And is it any Evidence of ours, that we are not therefore induced to treat them with a more sympathizing Tenderness ?

I was extremely pleased with a Sentiment I met with the other Day in honest Montague. That good-natur'd Author remarks, that there is a certain general Claim of Kindness and Benevolence, which every Species of Creatures has a Right to from us. It is to be regretted, that this generous Maxim is not more attended to in the Affair of Education, and pressed home upon tender Minds, in its full extent and Latitude. I am far, indeed, from thinking that the early Delight which Children discover in tormenting Flies, &c. is a Mark of any innateCruelty of Temper, because this Turn may be accounted for upon other Principles ; and is entertaining unworthy Notions of the Deity, to suppose he forms Mankind with a Propensity to the most detestable of all Dispositions. But most certainly, by being unrestrained in Sports of this Kind, they may acquire, by Habit, what they never would have learned from Nature, and grow up into a confirmed Inattention to every Kind of Suffering, but their own. Accordingly, the Supreme Court of Judicature at Athens thought an Instance of this Sort not below it Cognizance, and punished a Boy for putting out the Eyes of a poor Bird what had unhappily fallen into his Hands.

It might be of Service, therefore, it should seem, in order to awaken, as early as possible in Children, an extensive Sense of Humanity, to give them a View of several Sorts of Insects, as they may be magnified by the Assistance of Glasses, and to shew them that the same evident Marks of Wisdom and Goodness prevail in the Formation of the minutest Insect, as in that of the most enormous Leviathan ; that they are equally furnished with whatever is necessary, not only to the Preservation, but the Happiness of their Beings, in that Class of Existence to which Providence had assigned them ; in a Word, that the whole Construction of their respective Organs distinctly proclaims them the Objects of the Divine Benevolence, and therefore, that they justly ought to be so of ours, I am, &c.