The obligation and extent of humanity to brutes; principally considered with reference to the domesticated animals / By W. Youatt.

  • William Youatt
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The obligation and extent of humanity to brutes; principally considered with reference to the domesticated animals / By W. Youatt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/236 page 7
    his children? and they are all his children, throughout the whole circle of animated existence. The more closely we contemplate the works of nature, the more overpowering is the evidence that the grand object of the Creator is the production of good. There is not an animal, an insect, or a plant, that we can examine which does not afford proofs of the most exquisite adaptation of means to one import¬ ant end, the boundless diffusion of life,—and that life connected with the greatest possible happiness. The means are simple, but the purposes to be accomplished are vast and innumerable. The means are simple, but the object of each is the production of good. The poet may well say, Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun Gilds India’s mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles, ’tis nought to me ; I cannot go where universal love not smiles around. “ It is a happy world after all,” says Paley, in a passage that has often been quoted, and which on each successive reading appears more beautiful and true; “ it is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, team with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of happy beings crowd on my view. Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee among the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon—so busy, so pleased; yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with others. “ If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of little fish frequent the margin of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, and their frolics in it, all shew their happiness. Walking by the sea side in a calm evening, and upon a sandy shore, and with
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3