(P.) —— —— The
very Poor Liv’d better than the Rich before: Page 11.
Line 13.
IF we trace the most flourishing Nations in their
Origin, we shall find that in the remote Beginnings of
every Society, the richest and most considerable Men
among them were a great while destitute of a great
many Comforts of Life that are now enjoy’d by the
meanest and most humble Wretches: So that many things
which were once look’d upon as the Invention of
Luxury, are now allow’d even to those that are so
miserably poor as to become the Objects of publick
Charity, nay counted so necessary, that we think no
Human Creature ought to want them.
In the first Ages, Man, without doubt, fed on the
Fruits of the Earth, without any previous Preparation,
and reposed himself naked like other Animals on the
Lap of their common Parent: Whatever has contributed
since to make Life more comfortable, as it must have
been the Result of Thought, Experience, and some
Labour, so it more or less deserves the Name of
Luxury, the more or less trouble it required, and
deviated from the primitive Simplicity. Our Admiration
is extended no farther than to what is new
to us, and we all overlook the Excellency of Things we
are used to, be they never so curious. A Man would be
laugh’d at, that should discover Luxury in the plain
Dress of a poor Creature that walks along in a thick
Parish Gown and a course Shirt underneath it; and yet
what a number of People, how many different Trades,
and what a variety of Skill and Tools must be employed
to have the most ordinary Yorkshire Cloth?
What depth of Thought and Ingenuity, what Toil and
Labour, and what length of Time must it have cost,
before Man could learn from a Seed to raise and
prepare so useful a Product as Linen.
Must that Society not be vainly curious, among whom
this admirable Commodity, after it is made, shall not
be thought fit to be used even by the poorest of all,
before it is brought to a perfect Whiteness, which is
not to be procur’d but by the Assistance of all the
Elements join’d to a world of Industry and Patience? I
have not done yet: Can we reflect not only on the Cost
laid out upon this Luxurious Invention, but likewise
on the little time the Whiteness of it continues, in
which part of its Beauty consists, that every six or
seven Days at farthest it wants
cleaning, and while it lasts is a continual Charge to
the Wearer; can we, I say, reflect on all this, and
not think it an extravagant Piece of Nicety, that even
those who receive Alms of the Parish, should not only
have whole Garments made of this operose Manufacture,
but likewise that as soon as they are soil’d, to
restore them to their pristine Purity, they should
make use of one of the most judicious as well as
difficult Compositions that Chymistry can boast of;
with which, dissolv’d in Water by the help of Fire,
the most detersive, and yet innocent Lixivium
is prepar’d that Human Industry has hitherto been able
to invent?
It is certain, Time was that the things I speak of
would have bore those lofty Expressions, and in which
every Body would have reason’d after the same manner;
but the Age we live in would call a Man Fool who
should talk of Extravagance and Nicety, if he saw a
Poor Woman, after having wore her Crown Cloth Smock a
whole Week, wash it with a bit of stinking Soap of a
Groat a Pound.
The Arts of Brewing, and making Bread, have by slow
degrees been brought to the Perfection they now are in, but to
have invented them at once, and à priori,
would have required more Knowledge and a deeper
Insight into the Nature of Fermentation, than the
greatest Philosopher has hitherto been endowed with;
yet the Fruits of both are now enjoy’d by the meanest
of our Species, and a starving Wretch knows not how to
make a more humble, or a more modest Petition, than by
asking for a Bit of Bread, or a Draught of Small Beer.
Man has learn’d by Experience, that nothing was
softer than the small Plumes and Down of Birds, and
found that heap’d together they would by their
Elasticity gently resist any incumbent Weight, and
heave up again of themselves as soon as the Pressure
is over. To make use of them to sleep upon was, no
doubt, first invented to compliment the Vanity as well
as Ease of the Wealthy and Potent; but they are long
since become so common, that almost every Body lies
upon Featherbeds, and to substitute Flocks in the room
of them is counted a miserable Shift of the most
Necessitous. What a vast height must Luxury have been
arriv’d to before it could be reckon’d a Hardship to
repose upon the soft Wool of Animals!
From Caves, Huts, Hovels, Tents and Barracks, with
which Mankind took up at first we are come to warm and
well-wrought Houses, and the meanest Habitations to be
seen in Cities, are regular Buildings contriv’d by
Persons skill’d in Proportions and Architecture. If
the Ancient Britons and Gauls should
come out of their Graves, with what Amazement wou’d
they gaze on the mighty Structures every where rais’d
for the Poor! Should they behold the Magnificence of a
Chelsey-College, a Greenwich-Hospital
, or what
surpasses all them, a Des Invalides at Paris,
and see the Care, the Plenty, the Superfluities and
Pomp, which People that have no Possessions at all are
treated with in those stately Palaces, those who were
once the greatest and richest of the Land
would have Reason to envy the most reduced of our
Species now.
Another Piece of Luxury the Poor enjoy, that is not
look’d upon as such, and which there is no doubt but
the Wealthiest in a Golden Age would abstain from, is
their making use of the Flesh of Animals to eat. In
what concerns the Fashions and Manners of the Ages Men
live in, they never examine into the real Worth or
Merit of the Cause, and generally judge of things not
as their Reason, but Custom direct them. Time
was when the Funeral Rites in the disposing of the
Dead were perform’d by Fire, and the Cadavers of the
greatest Emperors were burnt to Ashes. Then burying
the Corps in the Ground was a Funeral for Slaves, or
made a Punishment
for the worst of Malefactors. Now nothing is decent or
honourable but interring, and burning the Body is
reserv’d for Crimes of the blackest dye. At some times
we look upon Trifles with Horror, at other times we
can behold Enormities without Concern. If we see a Man
walk with his Hat on in a Church, though out of
Service time, it shocks us, but if on a Sunday
Night we meet half a dozen Fellows Drunk in the
Street, the Sight makes little or no Impression upon
us. If a Woman at a Merry-making dresses in Man’s
Clothes, it is reckon’d a Frolick amongst Friends, and
he that finds too much Fault with it is counted
censorious: Upon the Stage it is done without
Reproach, and the most Virtuous Ladies will dispense
with it in an Actress, tho’ every Body has a full View
of her Legs and Thighs; but if the same Woman, as soon
as she has Petticoats on again, should show her Leg to
a Man as high as her Knee, it would be a very immodest
Action, and every Body will call her impudent for it.
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, as long as
the bountiful Earth so plentifully provides them with
Varieties of vegetable Dainties. I know that Reason
excites our Compassion but faintly, and therefore I
would not wonder how Men should so little commiserate
such imperfect Creatures as Crayfish, Oysters,
Cockles, and indeed all Fish in general: As they are
mute, and their inward Formation, as well as outward
Figure, vastly different from ours, they express
themselves unintelligibly to us, and therefore ’tis
not strange that their Grief should not affect our
Understanding which it cannot reach; for nothing stirs
us to Pity so effectually, as when the Symptoms of
Misery strike immediately upon our Senses, and I have
seen People mov’d at the Noise a live Lobster makes
upon the Spit, that could have kill’d half a dozen
Fowls with Pleasure. But in such perfect Animals as
Sheep and Oxen, in whom the Heart, the Brain and
Nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom the
Separation of the Spirits from the
Blood, the Organs of Sense, and consequently Feeling
it self, are the same as they are in Human Creatures;
I can’t imagine how a Man not hardned in Blood and
Massacre, is able to see a violent Death, and the
Pangs of it, without Concern.
In answer to this, most People will think it
sufficient to say, that all Things being allow’d to be
made for the Service of Man, there can be no Cruelty
in putting Creatures to the use they were design’d
for; but I have heard Men make this Reply, while their
Nature within them has reproach’d them with the
Falshood of the Assertion. There is of all the
Multitude not one Man in ten but what will own, (if he
was not brought up in a Slaughter-house) that of all
Trades he could never have been a Butcher;
and I question whether ever any body so much as killed
a Chicken without Reluctancy the first time. Some
People are not to be persuaded to taste of any
Creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted
with, while they were alive; others extend their
Scruple no further than to their own Poultry, and
refuse to eat what they fed and took care of
themselves; yet all of them will feed heartily and
without Remorse on Beef, Mutton and Fowls when they
are bought in the Market. In this Behaviour, methinks,
there appears something like a Consciousness of Guilt,
it looks as if they endeavour’d to save themselves
from the Imputation of a Crime (which they know sticks
somewhere) by removing the Cause of it as far as they
can from themselves; and I can discover in it some
strong remains of Primitive Pity and Innocence, which
all the arbitrary Power of Custom, and the violence of
Luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.
What I build upon I shall be told is a Folly that
wise Men are not guilty of: I own it; but while it
proceeds from a real Passion inherent in our Nature,
it is sufficient to demonstrate that we are born with
a Repugnancy to the killing, and consequently the
eating of Animals; for it is impossible that a natural
Appetite should ever prompt us to act, or desire
others to do, what we have an Aversion to, be it as
foolish as it will.
Every body knows, that Surgeons in the Cure of
dangerous Wounds and Fractures, the Extirpations of Limbs, and
other dreadful Operations, are often compell’d to put
their Patients to extraordinary Torments, and that the
more desperate and calamitous Cases occur to them, the
more the Outcries and bodily Sufferings of others must
become familiar to them; for this Reason our
English Law, out of a most affectionate Regard
to the Lives of the Subject, allows them not to be of
any Jury upon Life and Death, as supposing that their
Practice it self is sufficient to harden and
extinguish in them that Tenderness, without which no
Man is capable of setting a true Value upon the Lives
of his Fellow-creatures. Now if we ought to have no
Concern for what we do to Brute Beasts, and there was
not imagin’d to be any Cruelty in killing them, why
should of all Callings Butchers, and only they
jointly with Surgeons, be excluded from being
Jury-men by the same Law?
I shall urge nothing of what Pythagoras and
many other Wise Men have said concerning this
Barbarity of eating Flesh; I have gone too much out of
my way already, and shall therefore beg the Reader, if
he would have any more of this, to run over the
following Fable, or else, if he be tired, to let it
alone, with an Assurance that in doing of either he
shall equally oblige me.
A Roman Merchant in one of the Carthaginian
Wars was cast away upon the Coast of Africk:
Himself and his Slave with great Difficulty got safe
ashore; but going in quest of Relief, were met by a Lion of a
mighty Size. It happened to be one of the Breed that
rang’d in Æsop’s Days, and one that could not
only speak several Languages, but seem’d moreover very
well acquainted with Human Affairs. The Slave got upon
a Tree, but his Master not thinking himself safe
there, and having heard much of the Generosity of
Lions, fell down prostrate before him, with all the
Signs of Fear and Submission. The Lion, who had lately
fill’d his Belly, bids him rise, and for a while lay
by his Fears, assuring him withal, that he should not
be touch’d, if he could give him any tolerable Reasons
why he should not be devoured. The Merchant obeyed;
and having now received some glimmering Hopes of
Safety, gave a dismal Account of the Shipwrack he had
suffered, and endeavouring from thence to raise the
Lion’s Pity, pleaded his Cause with abundance of good
Rhetorick; but observing by the Countenance of the
Beast that Flattery
and fine Words made very little Impression, he betook
himself to Arguments of greater Solidity, and
reasoning from the Excellency of Man’s Nature and
Abilities, remonstrated how improbable it was that the
Gods should not have designed him for a better use
than to be eat by Savage Beasts. Upon this the Lion
became more attentive, and vouchsafed now and then a
Reply, till at last the following Dialogue ensued
between them.
Oh Vain and Covetous Animal, (said the Lion)
whose Pride and Avarice can make him leave his Native
Soil, where his Natural Wants might be plentifully
supply’d, and try rough Seas and dangerous Mountains
to find out Superfluities, why should you esteem your
Species above ours? And if the Gods have given you a
Superiority over all Creatures, then why beg you of an
Inferior? Our Superiority (answer’d the
Merchant) consists not in bodily force but
strength of Understanding; the Gods have endued us
with a Rational Soul, which, tho’ invisible, is much
the better part of us. I desire to touch nothing
of you but what is good to eat; but why do you value
your self so much upon that part which is invisible? Because
it is Immortal, and shall meet with Rewards after
Death for the Actions of this Life, and the Just
shall enjoy eternal Bliss and Tranquillity with the
Heroes and Demi-Gods in the Elysian Fields. What
Life have you led? I have honoured the Gods, and
study’d to be beneficial to Man. Then why do you
fear Death, if you think the Gods as just as you have
been? I have a Wife and five small Children that
must come to Want if they lose me. I have two
Whelps that are not big enough to shift for
themselves, that are in want now, and must actually be
starv’d if I can provide nothing for them: Your
Children will be provided for one way or other; at
least as well when I have eat you as if you had been
drown’d.
As to the Excellency of either Species, the value of
things among you has ever increas’d with the Scarcity
of them, and to a Million of Men there is hardly one
Lion; besides that, in the great Veneration Man
pretends to have for his Kind, there is little
Sincerity farther than it concerns the Share which
every ones Pride has in it for himself; ’tis a Folly
to boast of the Tenderness shewn and Attendance given
to your young ones, or the excessive and lasting
Trouble bestow’d in the Education of ’em : Man being
born the most necessitous and most helpless Animal,
this is only an Instinct of Nature, which in all
Creatures has ever proportion’d the Care of the
Parents to the Wants and Imbecillities of the
Offspring. But if a Man had a
real Value for his kind, how is it possible that often
Ten Thousand of them, and sometimes Ten times as many,
should be destroy’d in few Hours for the Caprice of
two? All degrees of Men despise those that are
inferior to them, and if you could enter into the
Hearts of Kings and Princes, you would hardly find any
but what have less Value for the greatest Part of the
Multitudes they rule over, than those have for the
Cattle that belong to them. Why
should so many pretend to derive their Race, tho’ but
spuriously, from the immortal Gods; why should all of
them suffer others to kneel down before them, and more
or less take delight in having Divine Honours pay’d
them, but to insinuate that themselves are of a more
exalted Nature, and a Species superior to that of
their Subjects?
Savage I am, but no Creature can be call’d cruel but
what either by Malice or Insensibility extinguishes
his natural Pity: The Lion was born without
Compassion; we follow the Instinct of our Nature; the
Gods have appointed us to live upon the Waste and
Spoil of other Animals, and as long as we can meet
with dead ones, we never hunt after the Living. ’Tis
only Man, mischievous Man, that can make Death a
Sport. Nature taught
your Stomach to crave nothing but Vegetables; but your
violent Fondness to change, and greater Eagerness
after Novelties, have prompted you to the Destruction
of Animals without Justice or Necessity, perverted
your Nature and warp’d your Appetites which way soever
your Pride or Luxury have call’d them. The Lion has a
Ferment within him that consumes the toughest Skin and
hardest Bones as well as the Flesh of all Animals
without Exception: Your squeamish Stomach, in which
the Digestive Heat is weak and inconsiderable, won’t
so much as admit of the most tender Parts of them,
unless above half the Concoction has been perform’d by
artificial Fire beforehand; and yet what Animal have
you spared to satisfy the Caprices of a languid
Appetite? Languid I say; for what is Man’s Hunger if
compar’d to the Lion’s? Yours, when it is at the
worst, makes you
Faint, mine makes me Mad: Oft have I tried with Roots
and Herbs to allay the Violence of it, but in vain;
nothing but large Quantities of Flesh can any ways
appease it.
Yet the Fierceness of our Hunger notwithstanding,
Lions have often requited Benefits received; but
ungrateful and perfidious Man feeds on the Sheep that
clothes him, and spares not her innocent young ones,
whom he has taken into his Care and Custody. If you
tell me the Gods made Man Master over all other
Creatures, what Tyranny was it then to destroy them
out of Wantonness? No, fickle timorous Animal, the
Gods have made you for Society, and design’d that
Millions of you, when well join’d together, should
compose the strong Leviathan. A single Lion
bears some Sway in the Creation, but what is single
Man? A small and inconsiderable part, a trifling Atom
of one great Beast. What Nature designs she executes,
and ’tis not safe to judge of what she purpos’d, but
from the Effects she shews: If she had intended that
Man, as Man from a Superiority of Species, should lord
it over all other Animals, the Tiger, nay, the Whale
and Eagle, would have obey’d his Voice.
But if your Wit and Understanding exceeds ours, ought
not the Lion in deference to that Superiority to
follow the Maxims of Men, with whom nothing is more
sacred than that the Reason of the strongest is ever
the most prevalent? Whole
Multitudes of you have conspir’d and compass’d the
Destruction of one, after they had own’d the Gods had
made him their Superior; and one has often ruin’d and
cut off whole Multitudes, whom by the same Gods he had
sworn to defend and maintain. Man never acknowledg’d
Superiority without Power, and why should I? The
Excellence I boast of is visible, all Animals tremble
at the sight of the Lion, not out of Panick Fear. The
Gods have given me Swiftness to overtake, and Strength
to conquer whatever comes near me. Where is there a
Creature that has Teeth and Claws like mine; behold
the Thickness of these massy Jaw-bones, consider the
Width of them, and feel the Firmness of this brawny
Neck. The nimblest Deer, the wildest Boar, the
stoutest Horse, and strongest Bull are my Prey
wherever I meet them. Thus spoke
the Lion, and the Merchant fainted away.
The Lion, in my Opinion, has stretch’d the Point too
far; yet when to soften the Flesh of Male Animals, we
have by Castration prevented the Firmness their
Tendons and every Fibre would have come to without it,
I confess, I think it ought to move a human Creature
when he reflects upon the cruel Care with which they
are fatned for Destruction. When a large and gentle
Bullock, after having resisted a ten times greater
force of Blows than would have kill’d his Murderer,
falls stunn’d at last, and his arm’d Head is fasten’d
to the Ground with Cords; as soon as the wide Wound is
made, and the Jugulars are cut asunder, what Mortal
can without
Compassion hear the painful Bellowings intercepted by
his Blood, the bitter Sighs that speak the Sharpness
of his Anguish, and the deep sounding Grones with loud
Anxiety fetch’d from the bottom of his strong and
palpitating Heart; Look on the trembling and violent
Convulsions of his Limbs; see, while his reeking Gore
streams from him, his Eyes become dim and languid, and
behold his Strugglings, Gasps and last Efforts for
Life, the certain Signs of his approaching Fate? 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 Descartes
so inur’d to Blood, as not to refute, by his
Commiseration, the Philosophy of that vain Reasoner?