443
Perkins presents in his book Romanticism and Animal Rights, “a cruel boy becomes
a murderer as an adult, is hanged, and ends as a corpse dissected in an anatomy
demonstration”.
9
Perkins deftly illustrates other writers and philosophers of the mid-eighteenth
century who were entirely in league with Hildrop’s Theorem, as we might liken it.
Said John Locke, “Children should from the beginning be bred up in abhorrence of
killing and tormenting any living creature”.
10
Such dire motives and intent are
described in Hogarth’s own “Autobiographical Notes”: “The four stages of cruelty,
where done in hopes of preventing in some degree that cruel treatment of poor
Animals which makes the streets of London more disagreeable to the human mind,
than any thing what ever [sic], the very describing of which gives pain…”.
11
Perkins invokes other animal rights luminaries of Hildrop’s era, men like Robert
Southey, Bishop Joseph Butler, the clergyman Richard Dean who, quoting passages
from the Bible, wonders whether it might not be necessary for humans to “impeach
the divine Goodness” (God) for the “undeserved pain” that humanity inflicts on
innocent animals. Or Peter Buchan declaring that this realm of suffering suggests
that God must absolutely provide some “future state” for these animals that have so
endured. Others also followed Hildrop (and the Frenchman Bougeant): an anonymously published Clemency to Brutes (1769); James Granger’s An Apology for the
Brute Creation (1771); Humphry Primatt’s Duty of Mercy & Sin of Cruelty to Beasts
(1776);Thomas Young’s An Essay on Humanity in Animals (1789); Richard Mant’s
Reflections on the Sinfulness of Cruelty to Animals (1807); Lord Thomas Erskine’s
introduction to Parliament in 1813 of his famed anti-cruelty bill, and another, by
Richard Martin, in 1822; James Plumptre’s Three Discourses on the Case of Animal
Creation, and the Duties of Man to Them (1816); and in 1838, the Presbyterian
minister William Drummond’s The Rights of Animals: And Man’s Obligation to
Treat Them with Humanity.
12
There were, in addition, numerous other treatises on
vegetarianism, as well as the great classics scholar and translator of Porphyry’s own
Four Books on Abstinence From Animal Food (London, 1823) Thomas Taylor, for
example, who magnificently argued that only a thorough shift in human diet could
alleviate the agonies meted out to animals, a critical transformation in human behavior fully in keeping with the widely publicized developmental psychology as
described by both David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, 1739) and John Locke’s
9 David Perkins, Romanticism And Animal Rights, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK,
2003, p. 21.
10 Quoted by Perkins from John Locke’s Thoughts on Education (1693), in Works, T. Tegg, London,
1823, ix, 112–113, on p. 20 of Perkins’ book.
11 See “The Animal Question and Women – Jane Austen and Animals,” by Barbara K. Seeber, in
Jane Austen – Environment and Nature, A Routledge College, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, https://
www.scribd.com/document/357184876/Jane-Austen-Environment-and-Nature, Accessed May 3,
2020. Material from Barbara K. Seeber’s book, Jane Austen and Animals, Routledge, UK, 2013.
12 See Perkins, op. cit., pp. 28, 176–177.
48.1 Bougeant and Hildrop
Perkins presents in his book Romanticism and Animal Rights, “a cruel boy becomes
a murderer as an adult, is hanged, and ends as a corpse dissected in an anatomy
demonstration”.
9
Perkins deftly illustrates other writers and philosophers of the mid-eighteenth
century who were entirely in league with Hildrop’s Theorem, as we might liken it.
Said John Locke, “Children should from the beginning be bred up in abhorrence of
killing and tormenting any living creature”.
10
Such dire motives and intent are
described in Hogarth’s own “Autobiographical Notes”: “The four stages of cruelty,
where done in hopes of preventing in some degree that cruel treatment of poor
Animals which makes the streets of London more disagreeable to the human mind,
than any thing what ever [sic], the very describing of which gives pain…”.
11
Perkins invokes other animal rights luminaries of Hildrop’s era, men like Robert
Southey, Bishop Joseph Butler, the clergyman Richard Dean who, quoting passages
from the Bible, wonders whether it might not be necessary for humans to “impeach
the divine Goodness” (God) for the “undeserved pain” that humanity inflicts on
innocent animals. Or Peter Buchan declaring that this realm of suffering suggests
that God must absolutely provide some “future state” for these animals that have so
endured. Others also followed Hildrop (and the Frenchman Bougeant): an anonymously published Clemency to Brutes (1769); James Granger’s An Apology for the
Brute Creation (1771); Humphry Primatt’s Duty of Mercy & Sin of Cruelty to Beasts
(1776);Thomas Young’s An Essay on Humanity in Animals (1789); Richard Mant’s
Reflections on the Sinfulness of Cruelty to Animals (1807); Lord Thomas Erskine’s
introduction to Parliament in 1813 of his famed anti-cruelty bill, and another, by
Richard Martin, in 1822; James Plumptre’s Three Discourses on the Case of Animal
Creation, and the Duties of Man to Them (1816); and in 1838, the Presbyterian
minister William Drummond’s The Rights of Animals: And Man’s Obligation to
Treat Them with Humanity.
12
There were, in addition, numerous other treatises on
vegetarianism, as well as the great classics scholar and translator of Porphyry’s own
Four Books on Abstinence From Animal Food (London, 1823) Thomas Taylor, for
example, who magnificently argued that only a thorough shift in human diet could
alleviate the agonies meted out to animals, a critical transformation in human behavior fully in keeping with the widely publicized developmental psychology as
described by both David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, 1739) and John Locke’s
9 David Perkins, Romanticism And Animal Rights, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK,
2003, p. 21.
10 Quoted by Perkins from John Locke’s Thoughts on Education (1693), in Works, T. Tegg, London,
1823, ix, 112–113, on p. 20 of Perkins’ book.
11 See “The Animal Question and Women – Jane Austen and Animals,” by Barbara K. Seeber, in
Jane Austen – Environment and Nature, A Routledge College, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, https://
www.scribd.com/document/357184876/Jane-Austen-Environment-and-Nature, Accessed May 3,
2020. Material from Barbara K. Seeber’s book, Jane Austen and Animals, Routledge, UK, 2013.
12 See Perkins, op. cit., pp. 28, 176–177.
48.1 Bougeant and Hildrop