ABSTRACT
When God forbade man to eat flesh, He forbade him to slay beasts in any cruel way, or out of any liking for shrewness. Those natures that are sanguinary toward beasts discover a natural propension to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators. In the spacious days of Great Elizabeth, there were no humane societies to interfere with the pleasures of cruelty. Among the inferiour professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive. Some reproach methinks it is to learned men, that there should be so many animals still in the world, whose outward shape is not yet taken notice of, or described, much less their way of generation, food, manners, uses, observed.
