He deprives himself and all around him of every passing enjoyment, to accumulate wealth that he may purchase other men’s labour, in the vain hope of adding happiness to his own.
He omits to make effective laws to protect the poor against the oppressions of the rich, and then wears out his existence under the fear of becoming poor, and being the victim of his own neglect and injustice.
He arms himself with murderous weapons; and on the slightest instigation, and for hire, practises murder as a science, follows this science as a regular profession, and honours its chiefs above benefactors and philosophers, in proportion to the quantity of blood they have shed, or the mischiefs they have perpetrated.
He disguises the most worthless of the people in showy liveries, and then excites them to murder men whom they never saw, by the fear of being killed if they do not kill.
He revels in luxury and gluttony, and then complains of the diseases which result from repletion.
He tries in all things to counteract or improve the provisions of nature, and then afflicts himself at his disappointments.
He multiplies the chances against his own life and health by his numerous artifices, and then wonders at their fatal results.
He shuts his eyes against the volume of truth as presented by Nature, and, vainly considering that all was made for him, founds on this false assumption various doubts in regard to the justice of eternal causation.
He interdicts the enjoyment of all other creatures, and regarding the world as his property, in mere wantonness destroys myriads on whom have been bestowed beauties and perfections.
He forgets that to live and let live is a maxim of universal justice, extending not only to his fellow creatures, but to inferior ones, to whom his moral obligations are greater, because they are more in his power.