this world as a child can have; nay, more, if it, be his only inheritance.— Dean's "Essay on Brutes."
Of all rapacious animals, man is the most universal destroyer. The destruction of carnivorous quadrupeds, birds and insects, is, generally, limited to particular kinds; but the rapacity of man has scarcely any limitation. His empire over other animals, which inhabit this globe, is almost universal. He subdues or devours every species. Of the horse, and dog, he makes domestic slaves, and tho' he does not eat them, he either compels them to labour or keeps them for amusement. The ox, the horse, and the ram, he changes from their natural state, by a barbarous and cruel operation, and after receiving the emoluments of his labour and fertility, he rewards them with death, and then feeds upon the carcase! Many other species, tho' not commonly used as food, are daily massacred in millions, for the purposes of commerce, luxury, and caprice. Myriads of quadrupeds are annually destroyed for the sake of their furs, their hides, their tusks, their odoriferous secretions, &c. His sagacity and address has domesticated turkeys, geese, and various kinds of poultry. These be multiplies without end, and devours at pleasure. Others he imprisons in cages, to afford him the melody of song. Neither do the inhabitants of the waters escape the rapacity of man. No element can defend its inhabitants from the destructive industry of the human species.—Smellie's Philos. of Nat. Hist, i, 375. See also Buffon's Hist, of the Horse.
Mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion over creatures of the lower rank of beings, than for the exercise of tyranny over their own species. It is observable of those noxious animals which have qualities most powerful
