CRUELTY TO ANIMALS :

A SERMON

PREACHED IN EDINBURGH, ON THE 5TH OF MARCH, 1820

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."-Prov. xii. 10.

THE word regard is of two-fold signifi- of the exquisite adaptations in the mechancation, and may either apply to the moralism of the human frame may be observed or to the intellectual part of our nature. in the very imperfection of the human faIn the one application, the intellectual, it is culties. The most frequently adduced exthe regard of attention. In the other, the ample of this is, the limited power of that moral, it is the regard of sympathy, or organ which is the instrument of vision. kindness. We do not marvel at this com- The imagination is, that, did man look out mon term having been applied to two dif- upon Nature with microscopic eye, so that ferent things; for, in truth, they are most many of those wonders which now lie hid intimately associated; and the faculty by in deep obscurity should henceforth start which a transition is accomplished from into open revelation, and be hourly and the one to the other, may be considered as habitually obtruded upon his gaze, then, the intermediate link between the mind with his present sensibilities exposed to the and the heart. It is the faculty by which torture and the disturbance of a perpetual certain objects become present to the mind; and most agonizing offence from all possiand then the emotions are awakened in ble quarters of contemplation, he would be the heart, which correspond to these ob- utterly incapacitated for the movements of jects. The two act and re-act upon each familiar and ordinary life. Did he actually other. But as we must not dwell too long see, for example, in the beverage which he of generalities, we shall satisfy ourselves carried to his lips, that teeming multitude with stating, that as, on the one hand, if of sentient and susceptible creatures wherethe heart be very alive to any peculiar set with it is pervaded, or if it were alike palof emotions, this of itself is a predisposing pable to his senses, that, by the crush of cause why the mind should be very alert every footstep, he inflicted upon thousands in singling out the peculiar objects which the pangs of dissolution, then it is appreexcite them; so, on the other hand, that hended that, to man as he is, the world the emotions be specifically felt, the objects would be insupportable. For, beside the must be specifically noticed: and thus it is, irritation of that sore and incessant disgust, that the faculty of attention-a faculty at from which the power of escaping was dethe bidding of the will, and for the exer- nied to him, there would be another, and a cise of which, therefore, man is responsible most intense suffering, in the constantly -is of such mighty and commanding in- aggrieved tenderness of his nature. Or if fluence upon the sensibilities of our nature; by the operation of habit, all these sensiinsomuch that, if the regard of attention bilities were blunted, and he could behold could be fastened strongly and singly on unmoved the ruin and the wretchedness the pain of a suffering creature as its ob- that he strewed along his path, then he ject, we believe that no other emotion might attain to comfort in the midst of than the regard of sympathy or compassion this surrounding annoyance; but what would in any instance be awakened by it. would become of character in the utter exSo much is this indeed the case-so sure tinction of all the delicacies and the feelis this alliance between the mind simply ings which wont to adorn it? Such a noticing the distress of a sentient creature, change in his physical, could only be adand the heart being sympathetically affect-justed to his happiness, by a reverse and ed by it, that Nature seems to have limited most melancholy change in the moral and circumscribed our power of noticing, constitution of his nature. The fineness of and just for the purpose of shielding us his bodily perceptions would need to be from the pain of too pungent, or too inces- compensated by a proportional hardness sant a sympathy. And, accordingly, one in the temperament of his soul. With his 361

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now finer sensations, there behooved to be duller and coarser sensibilities; and to assort that eye, whose retina had become tenfold more soft and susceptible than before, its owner must be furnished with a heart of tenfold rigidity, and a nervous system as impregnable as iron,-that he might walk forth in ease and in complacency, while the conscious destroyer of millions by his tread, or the conscious devourer of a whole living and suffering hecatomb with every morsel of the sustenance which upheld him.

thoughts of the spirit should be kept, though even by the weight of its own lethargy, from too busy a converse with objects which are alike offensive or alike hazardous to both.

It is more properly with the second of these adaptations than the first, that our argument has to do with the inertness of our reflective faculties, rather than with the incapacity of our senses. It is in behalf of animals, and not of animalculæ, that we are called upon to address younot of that countless swarm, the agonies of But, for the purpose of a nice and deli- whose destruction are shrouded from obcate balance between the actual feelings servation by the vail upon the sight; but and faculties of our nature, something more of those creatures who move on the face is necessary than the imperfection of our of the open perspective before us, and not outward senses. The bluntness of man's as the others in a region of invisibles, and visual organs serves, no doubt, as a screen yet whose dying agonies are shrouded alof protection against both the nausea and most as darkly and as densely from general the horror of those many spectacles, which observation, by the vail upon the mind. would else have either distressed or dete- For you will perceive, that in reference to riorated the sensibilities that belong to him, the latter vail, and by which it is that But then, by help of the microscope, this what is out of sight is also out of mind, its screen can be occasionally lifted up; and purpose is accomplished, whether the obwhat the eye then saw, the memory might jects which are disguised by it be without retain, and the imagination might dwell the sphere of actual vision, or beneath the upon, and the associating faculty might surface of possible vision. Now it is with both constantly and vividly suggest; and out the sphere of your actual, although not thus, even in the absence of every provoca- beneath the surface of your possible vision, tive from without, the heart might be sub- where are transacted the dreadful mysteries jected either to a perpetual agitation, or a of a slaughter-house, and more especially perpetual annoyance, by the meddling im- those lingering deaths which an animal portunity of certain powers and activities has to undergo for the gratifications of a rewhich are within., It is not, therefore, an fined epicurism. It were surely most deadequate defence of our species, against a sirable that the duties, if they may be so very sore and hurtful molestation, that called, of a most revolting trade, were all there should be a certain physical incapa- of them got over with the least possible excity in our senses. There must, further-pense of suffering; nor do we ever feel so more, be a certain physical inertness in painfully the impression of a lurking canour reflective faculties. In virtue of the nibalism in our nature, as when we think former it is, that so many painful or disgusting objects are kept out of sight. But it seems indispensable to our happy or even tolerable existence, that, in virtue of the latter, these objects, when out of sight, should be also out of mind. In the one way, they lose their power to offend as objects of outward observation. In the other way, their power to haunt and to harass, by means of inward reflection, is also taken away. For the first purpose, Nature has struck with a certain impotency the organs of our material framework, For the second, she has infused, as it were, an opiate into the recesses of our mental economy, and made it of sufficient strength and sedative virtue for the needful tranquillity of man, and for upholding that average enjoyment in the midst both of agony and of loathsomeness, which either senses more acute, or a spirit more wakeful, must have effectually dissipated. It is to some such provision too, we think, that much of the heart's purity, as well as much of its tenderness is owing; and it is well that the

of the intense study which has been given to the connexion between modes of killing, and the flavour or delicacy of those viands which are served up to mild, and pacific, and gentle-looking creatures, who form the grace and the ornament of our polished society. One is almost tempted, after all, to look upon them as so many savages in disguise; and so, in truth, we should, but for the strength of that opiate whose power and whose property we have just endeavoured to explain; and in virtue of which, the guests of an entertainment are all the while most profoundly unconscious of the horrors of that preparatory scene which went before it. It is not, therefore, that there is hypocrisy in these smiles wherewith they look so benignly to each other. It is not that there is deceit in their words or their accents of tenderness. The truth is, that one shriek of agony, if heard from without, would cast most impressive gloom over this scene of conviviality; and the sight, but for a moment, of one wretched creature quivering towards death, would,

with Gorgon spell, dissipate all the gaieties | mit, is not once sympathized with; but it is which enlivened it. But Nature, as it were, just because the suffering itself is not once hath practised most subtle reticence, both thought of. It touches not the sensibilities on the senses and the spirit of her chil- of the heart; but just because it is never predren; or rather, the Author of Nature hath, sent to the notice of the mind. We allow by the skill of his master hand, instituted that the hardy followers in the wild romance the harmony of a most exquisite balance of this occupation, we allow them to be between the tenderness of the human feel-reckless of pain; but this is not rejoicing in ings and the listlessness of the human fa- pain. Theirs is not the delight of savage, culties, so as that, in the mysterious economy under which we live, he may at once provide for the sustenance, and leave entire the moral sensibilities of our species.

but the apathy of unreflecting creatures. They are wholly occupied with the chase itself, and its spirit-stirring accompaniments, nor bestow one moment's thought on the dread violence of that infliction upon sentient nature which marks its termination. It is the spirit of the competition, and it alone, which goads onward this hurrying career; and even he, who in at the death, is foremost in the triumph, although to him the death itself is in sight, the agony of its wretched sufferer is wholly out of mind.

But there is a still more wondrous limitation than this, wherewith he hath bounded and beset the faculties of the human spirit. You already understand how it is, that the sufferings of the lower animals may, when out of sight, be out of mind. But more than this, these sufferings may be in sight, and yet out of mind. This is strikingly exemplified in the sports of the field, in the midst We are inclined to carry this principle of whose varied and animating bustle, that much farther. We are not even sure if, cruelty which all along is present to the within the whole compass of humanity, senses, may not, for one moment, have been fallen as it is, there be such a thing as depresent to the thoughts. There sits a some-light in suffering, for its own sake. But, what ancestral dignity and glory on this without hazarding a controversy on this, favourite pastime of joyous old England; we hold it enough for every practical obwhen the gallant knighthood, and the hearty ject, that much, and perhaps the whole of yeomen, and the amateurs or virtuosos of this world's cruelty, arises not from the enthe chase, and the full assembled jockeyship joyment that is felt in consequence of others' of half a province, muster together in all pain, but from the enjoyment that is felt in the pride and pageantry of their great em- spite of it. It is something else in the specprize-and the panorama of some noble tacle of agony which ministers pleasure landscape, lighted up with autumnal clear- than the agony itself; and many is the eye ness from an unclouded heaven, pours fresh which glistens with transport at the fray of exhilaration into every blithe and choice animals met together for their mutual despirit of the scene-and every adventurous struction, and which might be brought to heart is braced, and impatient for the hazards weep, if, apart from all the excitements of of the coming enterprise-and even the such a scene, the anguish of wounded or high-breathed coursers catch the general dying creatures were placed nakedly before sympathy, and seem to fret in all the res-it. Were it strictly analyzed, it would be tiveness of their yet checked and irritated found that the charm, neither of the ancient fire, till the echoing horn shall set them at gladiatorships, nor of our modern prizes liberty-even that horn which is the knell fights, lies in the torture which is thereby of death to some trembling victim, now inflicted; for we should feel the very same brought forth of its lurking place to the charm, and look with the very same intentdelighted gaze, and borne down upon withness, on some doubtful, yet strenuous collithe full and open cry of its ruthless pursuers. Be assured that, amid the whole glee and fervency of this tumultuous enjoyment, there might not, in, one single bosom, be aught so fiendish as a principle of naked and abstract cruelty. The fear which gives its lightning speed to the unhappy animal; the thickening horrors which, in the progress of exhaustion, must gather upon its flight; its gradually sinking energies, and, at length, the terrible certainty of that de struction which is awaiting it; that piteous cry, which the ear can sometimes distinguish amid the deafening clamour of the blood-hounds, as they spring exultingly upon their prey; the dread massacre and dying agonies of a creature so miserably torn;-all this weight of suffering, we ad

sion, even among the inanimate elements of nature-as, when the water and the fire contended for mastery, and the inherent force of the one was met by a plying and a powerful enginery that gave impulse and direction to the other. It is even so, when the enginery of bones and of muscles comes into rivalship; and every spectator of the ring fastens on the spectacle with that identical engrossment which he feels in the hazards of some doubtful game, or in the desperate conflict and effervescence even of the altogether mute unconscious elements. To him it is little else than a problem in dynamics. There is a science connected with the fight, which has displaced the sen sibilities that are connected with its expiring moans, its piteous and piercing oute-in

cruel lacerations. In all this, we admit the utter heedlessness of pain; but we are not sure if even yet there be aught so hellishly revolting as any positive gratification in the pain itself--or whether, even in the lowest walks of blackguardism in society, it do not also hold, that when sufferings even unto death are fully in sight, the pain of these sufferings is as fully out of mind.

effort, and of great strenuousness, to keep them down; and his heart is differently af fected from that of other men, just because the regards of his mental eye are differently pointed from those of other men. The whole bent and engagement of his faculties are similar to those of another operator who is busied with the treatment of a piece of inanimate matter, and may almost be said to But the term science, so strangely applied subject it to the torture, when he puts it in as it has been in the example now quoted, the intensely heated crucible, or applies to reminds us of another variety in this most it the test, and the various searching operaafflicting detail. Even in the purely academictions of a laboratory. The one watches walk we read or hear of the most appalling every change of hue in the substance upon cruelties; and the interest of that philosophy which he operates, and waits for the rewherewith they have been associated, has sponse which is given forth by a spark, or been plead in mitigation of them. And just an effervescence, or an explosion; and the as the moral debasement incurred by an act other, precisely similar to him, watches of theft is somewhat redeemed, if done by every change of aspect in the suffering or one of Science's enamoured worshippers, dying creature that is before him, and marks when, overcome by the mere passion of every symptom of its exhaustion, or sorer connoisseurship, he puts forth his hand on distress, every throb of renewed anguish, some choice specimen of most tempting and every cry, and every look of that pain which irresistible peculiarity-even so has a like it can feel, though not articulate; marks indulgence been extended to certain perpe- and considers these in no other light than trators of stoutest and most resolved cruelty; as the exponents of its variously affected and that just because of the halo wherewith physiology. But still, could merely the the glories of intellect and of proud discovery same interesting phenomena have been have enshrined them. And thus it is, that, evolved without pain, he would like it bet bent on the scrutiny of nature's laws, there ter. Only he will not be repelled from the are some of our race who have hardihood study of them by pain. Even he would enough to explore and elicit them at the ex-have had more comfort in the study of a pense of dreadest suffering-who can make complex automaton, that gave out the same some quaking, some quivering animal, the results on the same application. Only, he subject of their hapless experiment-who will not shrink from the necessary incisions, can institute a questionary process by which and openings, and separation of parts, alto draw out the secrets of its constitution, though, instead of a lifeless automaton, it and, like inquisitors of old, extract every should be a sentient and sorely agonized reply by an instrument of torture-who can animal. So that there is not even with him probe their unfaltering way among the any reversal of the law of sympathy. There vitalities of a system which shrinks, and may be the feebleness, or there may be the palpitates, and gives forth, at every move-negation of it. Certain it is, that it has given ment of their steadfast hand, the pulsations way to other laws of superior force in his of deepest agony; and all, perhaps, to ascer-constitution. And, without imputing to him tain and to classify the phenomena of sen-aught so monstrous as the positive love of sation, or to measure the tenacity of animal suffering, we may even admit for him a life, by the power and exquisiteness of ani- hatred of suffering, but that the love of mal endurance. And still, it is not because science had overborne it. of all this wretchedness, but in spite of it, In the views that we have now given, and that they pursue their barbarous occupation. which we deem of advantage for the right Even here it is possible, that there is nought practical treatment of our question, it may so absolutely Satanic as delight in those suf- be conceived that we palliate the atrociousferings of which themselves are the inflict-ness of cruelty. It is forgotten, that a charge ers. That law of emotion by which the of foulest delinquency may be made up alsight of pain calls forth sympathy, may not together of wants or of negatives; and, just be reversed into an opposite law, by which as the human face, by the mere want of the sight of pain would call forth satisfaction some of its features, although there should or pleasure. The emotion is not reversed-not be any inversion of them, might be an it is only overborne, in the play of other object of utter loathsomeness to beholders, emotions, called forth by other objects. He so the human character, by the mere ab is intent on the science of those phenomena which he investigates, and bethinks not himself of the suffering which they involve to the unhappy animal. So far from the sympathies of his nature being reversed, or even annihilated, there is in most cases an

sence of certain habits, or certain sensibili ties, which belong ordinarily and constitu tionally to our species, may be an object of utter abomination in society. The want of natural affection forms one article of the Apostle's indictment against our world; and

culty of attention, which might have opened the door, through which suffering without finds its way to sympathy within, is otherwise engaged; and the precise charge, on which either morality can rightfully condemn, or humanity be offended, is, that he wills to have it so.

of barbarity, that he does not regard it.

certain it is, that the total want of it were stigma enough for the designation of a monster. The mere want of religion, or irreligion, is enough to make man an outcast from his God. Even to the most barbarous of our kind you apply, not the term of antihumanity, but of inhumanity-not the term of antisensibility: and you hold it enough It may be illustrated by that competition for the purpose of branding him for general of speed which is held, with busy appliance execration, that you convicted him of com- of whip and of spur, betwixt animals. A plete and total insensibility. He is regaled, similar competition can be imagined beit is true, by a spectacle of agony-but not tween steam-carriages, when, either to prebecause of the agony. It is something else, serve the distance which has been gained, therewith associated, which regales him. or to recover the distance which has been But still he is rightfully the subject of most lost, the respective guides would keep up emphatic denunciation, not because regaled an incessant appliance to the furnace, and by, but because regardless of, the agony. the safety-valve. Now, the sport and the We do not feel ourselves to be vindicating excitement are the same, whether this apthe cruel man, when we affirm it to be not pliance of force be to a dead or a living altogether certain, whether he rejoices in mechanism; and the enormity of the latter the extinction of life; for we count it a deep does not lie in any direct pleasure which is atrocity, that, unlike to the righteous man felt in the exhaustion, or the soreness, or, of our text, he simply does not regard the finally, in the death of the over-driven anilife of a beast. You may perhaps have been mal. If these awake any feeling at all in accustomed to look upon the negatives of the barbarous rider, it is that of pain; and it is character, as making up a sort of neutral or either the want or the weakness of this latter midway innocence. But this is a mistake. feeling, and not the presence of its opposite, Unfeeling is but a negative quality; and yet, which constitutes him a barbarian. He does we speak of an unfeeling monster. It is not rejoice in animal suffering-but it is thus that even the profound experimental-enough to bring down upon him the charge ist, whose delight is not in the torture which he inflicts, but in the truth which he elicits But these introductory remarks, although thereby, may become an object of keenest they lead, I do think, to some most imreprobation not because he was pleased portant suggestions for the management of with suffering, but simply because he did the evil, yet they serve not to abate its apnot pity it not because the object of pain, palling magnitude. Man is the direct agent if dwelt upon by him, would be followed of a wide and continual distress to the lower up by any other emotion than that which animals, and the question is, Can any meis experienced by other men, but because, thod be devised for its alleviation? On this intent on the prosecution of another object, subject that scriptural image is strikingly reit was not so dwelt upon. It is found that alized, "The whole inferior creation groanthe eclat even of brilliant discovery does ing and travailing together in pain," because not shield him from the execrations of a of him. It signifies not to the substantive public, who can yet convict him of nothing amount of the suffering, whether this be more than simply of negatives-of heed- prompted by the hardness of his heart, or lessness, of heartlessness, of looking upon only permitted through the heedlessness of the agonies of a sentient creature without his mind. In either way it holds true, not regard, and therefore without sensibility. only that the arch-devourer man stands The true principle of his condemnation is, pre-eminent over the fiercest children of the that he ought to have regarded. It is not wilderness as an animal of prey, but that for that, in virtue of a different organic struc- his lordly and luxurious appetite, as well as ture, he feels differently from others, when for his service or merest curiosity and amusethe same simple object is brought to bear ment, Nature must be ransacked throughout upon him. But it is, that he resolutely kept all her elements. Rather than forego the that object at a distance from his attention, veriest gratifications of vanity, he will wring or rather, that he steadily kept his attention them from the anguish of wretched and illaway from the object; and that, in opposi-fated creatures; and whether for the indulsition to all the weight of remonstrance gence of his barbaric sensuality, or barbaric which lies in the tremours, and the writh- splendour, can stalk paramount over the ings, and the piteous outcries of agonized sufferings of that prostrate creation which Nature. Had we obtained for these the re- has been placed beneath his feet. That gards of his mind, the relentings of his heart beauteous domain whereof he has been conmight have followed. His is not an anoma-stituted the terrestrial sovereign, gives out lous heart; and the only way in which he so many blissful and benignant aspects; and can brace it into sternness, is by barricad- whether we look to its peaceful lakes, or its ing the avenue which leads to it. That fa-flowery landscapes, or its evening skies, or