[February 17.]
Still, many who would not think entirely to excuse the conduct in question can find palliations for it and extenuating circumstances, some of which it will be well to examine.
In the first place it is said that the sport is not found in the sufferings of the victim, but in the awkward and ludicrous situations and embarrassments into which he is thrown. Now I admit, that, if these awkwardnesses and absurdities could be entirely disconnected with the idea of pain, they might amuse even a good mind; but as they can not be thus disconnected—as all this is known and seen to be the expression of anguish either of body or mind, or to be the consequence of some natural defect or misfortune, or some cruel imposition on weakness or good nature—I affirm as before, that he whose mirth is not checked by this single consideration betrays a want of true benevolence, and even of common humanity. Neither will it help the matter much to say that the pain and mortification are not known, are not seen, or at least are not attended to; that this view of the subject is entirely overlooked, the mind being wholly taken up with its ludicrous aspects. For how comes it that we have so quick a sense to everything ludicrous in the situation and conduct of others, but no sense at all to their sufferings? Our hearts, it would seem, are not as yet steeled against all sympathy in the sufferings and misfortunes of our neighbors, provided we can be made to apprehend and realize them; and this is well; but why so slow to apprehend and realize them? If, though directly before our eyes, the thought of them never occurs to our minds; if we can say, and say with truth, that while we enjoy the sport it never once occurred to us that it was at the expense of another’s feelings, though this fact was all the time staring us in the face—does it not at least betray a degree of indifference or carelessness about the feelings of others, which is only compatible with a cold and selfish temper? Put whatever construction you will, therefore, on this kind of sport, it argues a bad state of the affections; for either its connection with the pain and mortification of others is perceived, and then it is downright cruelty; or it is not perceived, and then it is downright insensibility.
Another ground is sometimes taken. There are those who will say, “We cannot help it. Persons of a constitution less susceptible to the ludicrous, or less quick to observe it, may do differently, but we cannot.” Obviously, however, reasonings of this sort, if intended as a valid excuse, betray a singular and almost hopeless confusion of moral ideas. They cannot help it? Of course they do not mean that they would be affected in the same way by the same thing, under all circumstances and in all states of feeling. Let the coarse jest be at the expense of a parent, or of a sister; or let its tendency be to bring derision on an office, a cause, or a doctrine which we have much at heart; or let it offend beyond a certain point against the conventional usages of what is called good society—and, instead of provoking mirth, it provokes indignation or contempt. All they can mean, therefore, is simply this: Their sense of the ludicrous is so keen, that, when not restrained by some present feeling of justice, humanity, or decorum, it becomes irrepressible. Undoubtedly it does; but this is no more than what might be said of the worst crimes of sensuality and excess. What would you think if a sordid man should plead, that being sordid by nature, and not having any high principle or feeling to restrain him, he cannot help acting sordidly? Does he not know that it is this want of high principle and feeling which constitutes the very essence of his sin? We have shown that to find sport in what gives pain, argues a bad state of the principles and affections. Manifestly, therefore, it is to no purpose to urge as an excuse, that in the existing state of our principles and affections we can not help it; for the existing state of our principles and affections is the very thing which is complained of and condemned.
It may be contended, as a last resort, that this state of mind is consistent, to say the least, with amiable manners, companionable qualities, and good nature. But if herein is meant to be included real kindness of heart, or the highest forms of generosity and nobleness of soul, I deny that it can be. There is no necessity of trying to make it out that men of this stamp are worse than they really are. Unquestionably they can and often do make themselves agreeable and entertaining, especially to those who are not very scrupulous about the occasions of their mirth, and feel no repugnance to join in a laugh which perhaps they would hesitate to raise. Good-natured also they may be, if nothing more is meant by this than the absence of an unaccommodating, morose, and churlish disposition; for there are two sorts of good nature, the good nature of benevolence, and the good nature of ease and indifference. The first will not consist, as we have seen, with wrong-doing from wantonness or in sport; but the last may; yet even when it does, not much credit can accrue from this circumstance. Worthy of all honor is that good nature which springs from genuine kindness and sympathy, or a desire to make and to see everybody happy; but the same can hardly be said of what often passes for good-nature in the world, though it is nothing but the result of an easy temper and loose principles.
[February 24.]
Still, I can not but think that a large majority of those who sometimes look for sport in wrong-doing have enough of humanity and of justice to restrain them, if they could only be made to understand and feel the extent of the injury thus occasioned. Take, for example, jesting with sacred things. Its influence on those who indulge in it is worse than that of infidelity, for it destroys our reverence, and it is harder to recover our reverence, after it has been lost, than our convictions. Nay, it is often worse than that of daring crime; the latter puts us in opposition to religion, but it does not necessarily undermine our respect for it, or the sentiment on which the whole rests. Consider, too, its effect on others. The multitude are apt to mistake what is laughed at by their superiors for what is ridiculous in itself. In France it was not the sober arguments of a knot of misguided atheists, but the scoffs and mockeries and ill-timed pleasantries in which the higher classes generally shared, which destroyed the popular sense of the sanctity of religion; and when this great regulative principle of society was gone, it was not long before the mischief came back, amidst scenes of popular license and desperation, “to plague the inventors.” And so of cruel sports. In reading the Sermon on the Mount, you must have been struck with the fact that, while he who is angry with his brother is only said to be in danger of the judgment, “whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” But, on second thoughts, is this anything more than a simple recognition of what we all know to be true; that hatred does not inflict half so deep or bitter a feeling of wrong as scorn? Much is said about the disorganizing doctrines and theories of the day, but, bad as these are, they are not likely to do so much to exasperate the poor against the rich, and break down the bulwarks of order and law, as the conduct of some among the rich themselves. The time was when the few could trample with indifference on the interests and feelings of the many, and make sport of their complaints with impunity, but that time has passed away.
One word also on those cruel sports where animals, and not men, are the sufferers. Cruelty to animals is essentially the same feeling with cruelty to a fellow-creature, and in some respects it is even more unbecoming. Man is as a god to the inferior races. To abuse the power which this gives us over the helpless beings that Providence has placed at our mercy, is as mean as it is inhuman. If we would listen to the pleadings of what is noble and generous in our natures, it would be as impossible for us needlessly to harm an unoffending animal, as it would be to strike an infant or an idiot. Shame on the craven who quails before his equals, and then goes away and wreaks his unmanly resentments on a creature which he knows can neither retaliate nor speak! Besides, we may suppose that there are orders of beings above us, as well as below us. Look then at our treatment of the lower animals, and then ask yourselves what we should think, if a superior order of beings should mete out to us the same measure. What if in mere wantonness, or to pamper unnatural tastes, they should subject us to every imaginable hardship and wrong? What if they should make a show, a public recreation, of our foolish contests and dying agonies? Nay, more; what if it should come to this, that in their language a man-killer should be called a sportsman by way of distinction?