But their bodily feelings are alike; and they are in their due
proportions, susceptible of pain. The nature therefore of man and of
animals is alike in this particular. He can anticipate and know their
feelings by his own. He cannot therefore subject them to any action
unnecessarily, if on account of a similar construction of his own
organs, such an action would produce pain to himself. His own power of
feeling strongly commands sympathy to all that can feel: and that
general sympathy, which arises to a man, when he sees pain inflicted on
the person of any individual of his own species, will arise, in the
opinion of the Quakers, to the renovated man, when he sees it inflicted
on the body of a brute.
CHAP. VIII.
_Objections started by philosophical moralists to the preceding system
of education--this system a prohibitory one--prohibitions sometimes the
cause of greater evil than they prevent--they may confuse morality--and
break the spirit--they render the vicious more vicious--and are not to
be relied upon as effectual, because built on a fake foundation--ignorance
no guardian of virtue--causes, not sub-causes, are to be contended against
--no certain security but in knowledge and a love of virtue--prohibitions,
where effectual, produce but a sluggish virtue.
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