These laws, thus infamously contrived for the exclusive benefit and aggrandisement of the makers, in perpetuating the feudal line of succession by entails upon immense tracts of land, again double the evil in a national point of view, by preventing the creation of that wealth, which never fails to arise from the proper division and subdivision of over-grown estates, the parcelling out of which is sure to be followed by a superior cultivation of the land. It is impossible to suppose that the people generally, of any country, were ever so grossly and stupidly ignorant, as to have a hand in forming such iniquitous institutions, and those who tolerate them are not worthy of better.*
* Napoleon observed that, "The people of a nation were not
deserving of better laws than those they submitted to."
"Nature's social union;" or that universal harmony which is
chiefly disturbed by the wanton, unfeeling dominion of man,
and thus fallaciously sanctioned by the "science of God."
These are samples of the grievances which may be expected to spring up, when aristocracies usurp and engross the legislation of countries; and when the contaminating arts of theology are allied to these, it is then that political evils of the first magnitude are engendered.
In the palmy days of our superstition, when a much denser cloud of ignorance, than even the present, had totally eclipsed the intellectual faculties of men, they were doomed through life by their tyrants, the magicians of supernaturalism, to endure an aggregate of mental and bodily misery far exceeding that of any other class of animals; and this is still the case in exact proportion to the prevalence of that delusion. But lest rebellious reason should induce people to be restive under these earthly sufferings, a mode of remuneration which costs these magicians nothing, was invented, not alone by the preternatural elevation to everlasting inheritance in the celestial regions, after death, but, in addition, all terrestrial animals were made over in fee-simple, as the absolute property of man, nothing else being in view when they were created, but the use and accommodation of the heaven-bound favorite, to kill, eat, and destroy; or if such be his interest or caprice, to hold them in that merciless state of oppression which soon leads to a cruel and lingering death. This is the usual way in which he shows his mighty superiority over them, as "inferior animals." The arrogant assumption of this absurd dogma is not only false in philosophy and analogy, but cruelly injurious in morals, and destructive.
These pernicious hatchings of theology are wholly unsanctioned by Nature, who, in her perfect impartiality towards every creature which her purely physical process organises into life, makes an even balance of all her grants and denials throughout the animated world: and though it may appear to the cursory observer that she has, upon the whole, favored some animals more than others, yet all these seeming advantages are counterbalanced or neutralised by other mental or physical qualities of an opposite or defective tendency which, in the most comprehensive sense, reduce the lives of all, as regards the amount' of pleasurable sensations through life, to nearly an equality.** On examining this matter still more closely, we shall find that the greatest proportion of evil or misery invariably falls to the share of those animals who depart the farthest from the laws or conditions of their nature. Of this fatal estrangement, man exhibits an instance that is almost solitary on this globe; for all other creatures obey the conditions of their existence, excepting such as have been compelled to deviate from them, in consequence of being subjected to his usurped dominion. His right to hold a horse or a dog in slavery, is precisely the same as that of holding a negro in bondage; and as for his carnivorous habit of using almost every animal as food, it is justified by his superstition alone, and utterly condemned by his nature. His right to kill and eat a sheep or a deer, is exactly the same in point of moral justice, as that of a shark or a tiger, when they subdue and eat their prey; in which they feel no compunctious visitations about including their pretended lord and master, man, himself. In all these cases, the rule of right is alone established by possession of the art or strength to conquer.
* Burns.
** Vide Eccles. iii., 19, 20,21.
Man's dominion over the other animals, is a pure usurpation: and though he differs from them in the structure of his body, he is superior to them only in some qualities, which have been greatly improved by the recorded experience of his species, handed down to him through a course of some thousands of years; and from which springs that combination in society which renders him formidable to his "fellow worms." This is proved beyond contradiction by comparing him, as the educated and armed production of society, with what he is in the wild or natural state for in the latter condition, he is so far from being "superior," that he becomes the prey of animals much smaller than himself, which look upon him as destined by nature for their subsistence, and use him as food accordingly. These facts are so well borne out by experience, that they will be denied only by that false pride which theology instils to answer its own ends.
* Man, like every other animal, is born without the quality
called reason; and like them, must gain it as the fruit of
experience, by which all acquire it to a certain degree; and
in some of them it is much more perfect than it is in man;
but his excessive pride and love of dominion, blinds him
against this great truth. That which he is taught to call
reason in himself, must, forsooth, be only instinct, when
applied to the mental faculties of those he calls brutes.
Here the difference is in distinction of terms:—
"Reason and instinct, how can ye divide?
'Tis the fool's folly, and the churchman's pride."
But if the cunning and ingenuity consequent upon man's extra allowance of brain has enabled him, by dint of combination in society, to subdue many animals for his use, has he by this means, and what he calls civilisation, really and truly improved his condition for the brief term of life which nature has allotted him? Are not the evils generated by education, in which hypocrisy and fraud are the chief ingredients—the vices—the crimes—the immoral and distracting systems of religion, which induce a general depravity of character, and the unnatural and iniquitous laws emanating from such a corrupt state of society, infinitely greater than the alleged advantages arising from this boasted civilisation? If we take the aggregate of morality in man, as he is at present produced and educated in the great manufactory of society, in which Christian theology with its concomitant evils, are the principal apparatus, we shall have difficulty in finding on the face of the earth, a more vicious, treacherous, and cruel animal. This is always denied in theory; but the conduct of every man recognises its woeful truth practically. Let the man of observation and true candor of mind lay his hand upon his heart, and honestly declare whether his fellow men, and in instances, even those he calls his friends, are not the sole source of all his inquietudes and miseries—whether this demi-god is not the animal that he is obliged to be more incessantly on his guard against than any other! This universal prevalence of vice and moral depravity is primarily accounted for by the priest and superstitionist, by the equally flagitious and absurd dogma about what they call original sin; but the true cause is very far from lurking in anything innately vicious in human nature, but on the contrary, is wholly engendered by their own unearthly delusions—the contagion of supernaturalism, and its distracting train of theological inventions. These are the fatal lures which have estranged and drawn man to apostatise from the wholesome principles of his nature—surrounded him with artificial circumstances wholly adverse to these principles, and as degrading to his position as an intelligent being, as they are inimical to his peace and happiness.
Whilst the elements of society shall continue to be thus contaminated, life will be a gift scarce worth receiving and though the ingenuous truth-loving mind may, on the approach of dissolution, feel dismayed at the idea of ceasing to contemplate the beautiful of nature—the sun, the green fields, the woods, the streams, and the mountains, in which alone it finds prayers and sermons; yet no reluctance can be experienced in quitting intercourse with fellow men, whose religion imposes the necessity of shunning truth in almost anything, affords an example of habitual deception,* and by placing the unnatural, in the chair of the natural, turns man into a pitiful caricature of what he ought to be, in the nobler destinies of humanity.