n blasting all the west
With rapine and with murder. Tyrant power
Here sits enthroned in blood; the baleful charms
Of superstition there infect the skies,
And turn the sun to horror. Gracious Heaven!
What is the life of man? Or cannot these,
Not these portents thy awful will suffice?
That, propagated thus beyond their scope,
They rise to act their cruelties anew
In my afflicted bosom, thus decreed
The universal sensitive of pain,
The wretched heir of evils not its own!

A poet of antiquity, whose name I do not recollect, is said to have written
a book describing the miseries of the world, and to have destroyed himself
at the conclusion of his task. This sympathy, with all sensitive beings,
has been carried so far by some individuals, and even by whole tribes, as
the Gentoos, as not only to restrain them from killing animals for their
support, but even to induce them to permit insects to prey upon their
bodies. Such is however the condition of mortality, that the first law of
nature is, "Eat or be eaten." We cannot long exist without the destruction
of other animal or vegetable beings, either in their mature or their
embryon state. Unless the fruits, which surround the seeds of some
vegetables, or the honey stolen from them by the bee, may be said to be an
exception to this assertion. See Botanic Garden, P. I. Cant. I. l. 278.
Note. Hence, from the necessity of our nature, we may be supposed to have a
right to kill those creatures, which we want to eat, or which want to eat
us. But to destroy even insects wantonly shews an unreflecting mind or a
depraved heart.

Nevertheless mankind may be well divided into the selfish and the social;
that is, into those whose pleasures arise from gratifying their appetites,
and those whose pleasures arise from their sympathizing with others. And
according to the prevalence of these opposing propensities we value or
dislike the possessor of them.

In conducting the education of young people, it is a nice matter to inspire
them with so much benevolent sympathy, or compassion, as may render them
good and amiable; and yet not so much as to make them unhappy at the sight
of incurable distress. We should endeavour to make them alive to sympathize
with all remediable evils, and at the same time to arm them with fortitude
to bear the sight of such irremediable evils, as the accidents of life must
frequently present before their eyes. About this I have treated more at