come, vulgarity inadmissible.
Those who love certain animals selfishly, pampering them, as so many
mothers do their children with worse results, that they may be loved of
them in return, betray them to their enemies. They are not lovers of
animals, but only of favourites, and do their part to make the rest of
the world dislike animals. Theirs are the dogs that inhospitably growl
and bark and snap, moving the indifferent to dislike, and confirming
the unfriendly in their antagonism. Any dog-parliament, met in the
interests of their kind, would condemn such dogs to be discreetly
bitten, and their mistresses to be avoided. And certainly, if animals
are intended to live and grow, she is the enemy of any individual
animal, who stunts his moral and intellectual development by unwise
indulgence. Of whatever nature be the heaven of the animals, that animal
is not in the fair way to enter it. The education of the lower lies at
the door of the higher, and in true education is truest kindness.
But what shall I say of such as for any kind of end subject animals to
torture? I dare hardly trust myself to the expression of my judgment of
their conduct in this regard.
'We are investigators; we are not doing it for our own sakes, but for
the sake of others, our fellow-men.'
The higher your motive for it, the greater is the blame of your
unrighteousness. Must we congratulate you on such a love for your
fellows as inspires you to wrong the weaker than they, those that are
without helper against you? Shall we count the man worthy who, for the
sake of his friend, robbed another man too feeble to protect himself,
and too poor to punish his assailant? For the sake of your children,
would you waylay a beggar? No real good can grow in the soil of
injustice.
I cannot help suspecting, however, that the desire to know has a greater
share in the enormity than the desire to help. Alas for the science that
will sacrifice the law of righteousness but to behold a law of sequence!
The tree of knowledge will never prove to man the tree of life. There is
no law says, Thou shalt know; a thousand laws cry out, Thou shalt do
right. These men are a law unto themselves--and what a law! It is the
old story: the greed of knowing casts out righteousness, and mercy, and
faith. Whatever believed a benefit may or may not thus be wrought for
higher creatures, the injustice to the lower is nowise affected. Justice
has no respect of persons, but they are sure
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