ABSTRACT
One of the inspirations of man is his conscience; but if you give this inspiration free rein, it may end by persuading you that it is murder to boil an egg. For if you say it is wrong to inflict injury 228on any creature or to deprive it of any good, then all life would presently appear wicked and self-contradictory, since it is a choice between incompatible goods, and a competition between rival persons. Or if, to avoid condemning existence altogether, you say that it is wrong to inflict any felt injury, but not to destroy the life of a potential chicken as yet unconscious, it might follow that to put a man to death painlessly in his sleep would be, like boiling an egg, a harmless exercise of your scientific domination.
