This 18th-century divine's influential Dissertation was once regarded as the foundation stone of the RSPCA. It is devoted to teaching kindness to animals as a duty, and takes into account the connection between racism and the exploitation of non-humans, and between the violence of the 18th century and the failure of society in general to suppress its cruelties.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1776 edition. Excerpt: ... iiiehts of another kind, which are equally inconclusive, when aU, ledged in defence or excuse of the Wanton cruelty of mam For thus it is DEGREESrgued--* --That Man has a Permiffionj /. ...--* that is, it is a universal prac- Jsw*- DEGREES' jicg with mankind, to eat the stesti of animals; which cannot be done without taking away their lives., and putting them to some degree of pain, -- That there are some animals Obnoxious to mankind; and the most compassionate of men make no scruple to destroy them. And -- That there are some Brutes if prey which wholly subsist on. the stem of other brutes; and whose lives are one continued course of rapine and bloodshed. E 2 These These are the formidable arguments, which we sometimes have recourse to in vindication of our cruelty, our abuse, or unfeeling neglect; but to each I shall make a reply. And, first, as it is a universal Practice, it shall be taken for granted, that Man has a permifJion to eat the flejh of some animals; and consequently, to kill them for food or necessary use. But this permission cannot authorize us to put them to unnecessarypain, or lingering death. Death they are all liable to; they must submit to it; and they do not seem to us to have any idea, or fear os death. Avoidance of pain is indeed as natural to brutes as it is to to men, therefore pain is the only ground of fear in brutes. As to ourselves, We fear both pain and death; and our fear of death arises from the fear of future pain, or from apprehensions of what may happen to us after death: and in some men these apprehensions are so terrifying, that they prefer exquisite pain to death. But the Brute, having no idea of an hereafter, cannot suffer any terror on account of death. To him present pain is the only Evil; and pr

Contains 46 articles by various authors concerned with cruelty to animals and how that relates to violent human relations.

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In Earth Polyphony, Suhasini Vincent analyzes the theory of ecocriticism in its entirety, and its existence in the global paradigm of climate change. Vincent shows how a polyphony of voices can affect law and decision making in the era of the Anthropocene, and aptly shows how voices can coexist as in Bakhtinian polyphony where multiple perspectives coexist despite contradictions and differences. Vincent argues that both material and non-material worlds are endowed with storied forms of knowledge that prompt ecocritical writers to engage in new experimental modes of expression. She explores the ‘material turn’, the ‘animal turn’ and the ‘narrative turn’ to highlight how law meets literature, prompts eco-activism, and how these crisscrossing narratives influence each other to spark judicial activism in forums around the planet.

A compassionate, sweeping history of the transformation in American attitudes toward animals by the best-selling authors of Rabid Over just a few decades at the end of the nineteenth century, the United States underwent a moral revolution on behalf of animals. Before the Civil War, animals' suffering had rarely been discussed; horses pulling carriages and carts were routinely beaten in public view, and dogs were pitted against each other for entertainment and gambling. But in 1866, a group of activists began a dramatic campaign to change the nation’s laws and norms, and by the century’s end, most Americans had adopted a very different way of thinking and feeling about the animals in their midst. In Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik, editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Monica Murphy offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life. On the side of reform were such leaders as George Angell, the inspirational head of Massachusetts’s animal-welfare society and the American publisher of the novel Black Beauty; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Caroline White of Philadelphia, who fought against medical experiments that used live animals; and many more, including some of the nation’s earliest veterinarians and conservationists. Caught in the movement’s crosshairs were transformational figures in their own right: animal impresarios such as P. T. Barnum, industrial meat barons such as Philip D. Armour, and the nation’s rising medical establishment, all of whom put forward their own, very different sets of modern norms about how animals should be treated. In recounting this remarkable period of moral transition—which, by the turn of the twentieth century, would give birth to the attitudes we hold toward animals today—Wasik and Murphy challenge us to consider the obligations we still have to all our kindred creatures.