“In this world, where there are so many other evils to combat, one feels that it is more rational to attack the more important first.”
“Ah! there is nothing like an evil to bolster up an evil,” cried Professor Fortescue; “the argument never fails. Every abuse may find shelter behind it. The slave trade, for instance; have we not white slavery in our midst? How inconsistent to trouble about negroes till our own people are truly free! Wife-beating? Sad; but then children are often shamefully ill-used. Wait till they are fully protected before fussing about wives. Protect children? Foolish knight-errant, when you ought to know that drunkenness is at the root of these crimes! Sweep away this curse, before thinking of the children. As for animals, how can any rational person consider their sufferings, when there are men, women, and children with wrongs to be redressed?”
Professor Theobald laughed.
“My dear Fortescue, I knew you would have some ingenious excuse for your amiable weaknesses.”
“It is easier to find epithets than answers, Theobald,” said the Professor with a smile. “I confess I wonder at a man of your logical power being taken in with this cheap argument, if argument it can be called.”
“It is my attachment to logic that makes me crave for consistency,” said Theobald, not over pleased at his friend’s attack.
Professor Fortescue stared in surprise.
“But do you really mean to tell me that you think it logical to excuse one abuse by pointing to another?”
“I think that while there are ill-used women and children, it is certainly inconsistent to consider animals,” said Theobald.
“It does not occur to you that the spirit in man that permits abuse of power over animals is precisely the same devil-inspired spirit that expresses itself in cruelty towards children. Ah,” continued Professor Fortescue, shaking his head, “then you really are one of the many who help wrong to breed wrong, and suffering to foster suffering, all the world over. It is you and those who reason as you reason, who give to our miseries their terrible vitality. What arguments has evil ever given to evil! What shelter and succour cruelty offers eternally to cruelty!”