Historical Literature on Humanity Against Cruelty to Animals, Timeline of Animal Rights History

Animal Rights History »» William Godwin

1805 | Fleetwood: or, the New Man of Feeling

I loved the country, without feeling any partiality to what are called the sports of the country. My temper, as I have already said, was somewhat unsocial; and so far as related to the intercourse of my species, except when some strong stimulus of humanity called me into action, unenterprising. I was therefore no hunter. I was inaccessible to the pitiful ambition of showing, before a gang of rural squires, that I had a fine horse, and could manage him gracefully.— I still had further and more direct reason for my rejection of the sports of the field. I could not with patience regard torture, anguish, and death, as sources of amusement. My natural temper, or my reflective and undebauched habits as a solitare, prevented me from overlooking the brutality and cruelty of such pursuits. In very early youth I had been suduced, first by a footman of my father, and afterward by my tutor, who was a great lover of the art, to join in angling. But, after a short trial, I abjured the amusement for ever; and it was one amoung the causes of the small respect I entertained for my tutor, that he was devoted to so idle and unfeeling an avocation. (William Godwin, Fleetwood: or, the New Man of Feeling [1805]).

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1805 | William Godwin, Fleetwood: Or, the New Man of Feeling [First Edition: London, 1805] (London, 1853; Digitized by Google, 2007).

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