Animal Rights History »» The Age of Enlightenment »» Bernard Mandeville

Bernard Mandeville

1670-1733

1714 | Bernard Mandeville [Bernard de Mandeville], "The Very Poor Liv'd Better than the Rich Before," Remark P [Transcribed from the 9th ed, Edinburg, 1755]in The Fable of the Bees [offsite ebook], [Originally published as the English poem, The Grumbling Hive, 1705; First Published with Remarks as The Fable of the Bees, 1714] 6th ed. (London, 1729).

I have often thought, if it was not for this tyranny which custom usurps over us, that men of any tolerable good-nature could never be reconcil'd to the killing of so many animals for their daily food.

When a creature has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of the terrors upon him, and the pains and agonies he feels, is there a follower of DesChartres so inur'd to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the philosophy of that vain reasoner?

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