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the one hand, how the devils can tempt us; and on the other, how beasts can think,know, have sentiments, and a spiritual soul, without any way striking at the doctrines of religion. I am no longer surprised to see them have forecast, memory and judgment. I

should rather have occasion to wonder at their having no more, since their soul very likely is more perfect than ours. But I dis

cover the reason of this: it is because, in beasts as well as in ourselves, the operations of the mind are dependent on the material organs of the machine to which it is united; and those organs being grosser and less perfect than in us, it follows, that the knowledge, the thoughts, and the other spiritual operations of the beasts, must of course be less perfect than ours: And if these proud spirits know their own dismal state, what a humiliation must it be to them thus to see themselves reduced to the condition of beasts! But, whether they know it or not, so shameful a degradation is still, with regard to them, the primary effect of the divine vengeance I just mentioned; it is an anticipated hell.”

Having mentioned the prejudices against this hypothesis, such particularly as the pleasure which people of sense and religion take in beasts and birds, especially all sorts of do

mestic animals; he proceeds, "Do we love beasts for their own sakes? No. As they are altogether strangers to human society, they can have no other appointment but that of being useful and amusing.* And what care

we whether it be a devil or any other creature that amuses us? The thought of it, far from shocking, pleases me mightily. I with gratitude admire the goodness of the Creator, who gave me so many little devils to serve and amuse me. If I am told that these

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*Few will agree with this: for it must be obvious to all those who view things aright that, there are many thousands of animals in the towering woods of Africa :—in the untrodden deserts of America:-in the mountainous and snowy regions of Greenland :—and in the torrid and burning zones of the Indies, that are neither useful nor amusing to man; nor were ever designed as such, but to be left at freedom to pursue their own course of pleasures.-There are myriads of fishes and fowls who enjoy tl.e same; besides the unwieldy whale in the Greenland seas, the numerous herds of elephants which graze the extensive regions betwixt the river Senegal and the Cape of Good Hope; and the gigantic ostrich of the sandy borders of Egypt and Palestine, which roam as much at large. as the winged insect that flits from flower to flower, or the invisible animalcule which swims in the liquid drop. The polar bear of the Artic Circle, wrapt up in his shaggy covering, the ermine of Siberia in his furry mantle, and the water-fowl with her thick set oily feathers, the Barbary cow almost naked, the rhinoceros with his coat of mail, and the monstrous hippopota mus, (the Behemoth of Job) range unknown to man.

Foor devils are doomed to suffer eternal tortures, I admire God's degrees, but I have no manner of share in that dreadful sentence; Í leave the execution of it to the Sovereign Judge: and, notwithstanding this, I live with 'my little devils as I do with a multitude of people, of whom religion informs me that a great number shall be damned. But the cure of a prejudice is not to be effected in a moment: it is done by time and reflection: give me leave then lightly to touch upon this difficulty, in order to observe a very important thing to you.

"Persuaded as we are that beasts have intelligences, have we not all of us a thousand times pitied them for the excessive evils which the majority are exposed to, and in reality suffer? How unhappy is the condition of horses; we are apt to say upon seeing a horse whom an unmerciful carman is murdering with blows. How miserable is the dog whom they are breaking for hunting! How dismal is the fate of beasts living in woods! they are perpetually exposed to the injuries of the weather; always seized with apprehensions of becoming the prey of hunters, or some wilder animal; for ever obliged, after long fatigue, to look out for some poor insipid food; ofien suffering cruel hunger; and

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subject, moreover, to illness and death! If men are subject to a multitude of miseries that overwhelm them, religion acquaint us with the reason of it; viz. the being born sinners. But what crimes can beasts have committed by birth to be subject to evils so very cruel? What are we then, to think of the horrible excesses of miseries undergone by. beasts? miseries, indeed, far greater than those endured by men. This is, in any other, system,an incomprehensible mystery; whereas nothing is more easy to be conceived from what I propose. The rebellious spirits deserve a punishment still more rigorous, and happy, it is for them that their punishment is deferred. In a word, God's goodness is vindicat-, ed, man himself is justified: for what right can we have, without necessity, and often in the way of mere diversion, to take away the life of millions of beasts if God had not authorised us so to do? And beasts being as sensible as ourselves of pain and death, how could a just and merciful God have given man that privilege, if they were not so many guilty victims of the divine vengeance?

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"But hear still something more convincing, and of greater consequence: beasts, by nature, are extremely vicious. We know well E

that they never sin, because they are not free; but this is the only condition wanting to make them sinners. The voracious birds and beasts of prey are cruel. Many insects of one and the same species devour one another. Cats are perfidious and ungrateful; monkeys are mischievous; and dogs envious. All beasts in general are jealous and revengeful to excess; not to mention many other vices we observe in them: and at the same time that they are by nature so very vicious, they have, say we, neither the liberty nor any helps to resist the bias that hurries them into so many bad actions. They are, according to the schools, necessitated to do evil, to disconcert the general order, to commit whatever is most contrary to the notion we have of natural justice and of the principle of virtue, What monsters are these in a world originally created for order and justice to reign in? This is, in good part, what formerly persuaded the Manicheans, that there were of neces sity two orders of things, one good, and another bad, and that the beasts were not the work of the good principle; a monstrous error! But how then shall we believe that beasts came out of the hands of their Creator with qualities so very strange! If man is so very wicked and corrupt, it is because he has

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