Quote#Politics & Power
Does it follow that a person is to withhold the performance of the…
Quote byLewis Gompertz · 1783–1861
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824), Chapter 13, p. 160.
English (original)
Does it follow that a person is to withhold the performance of the good which may be within his power, because he does not attempt that which may seem beyond it?
— Lewis Gompertz
More from Lewis Gompertz
[W]e should never admit of the propriety of the will or volition of one animal being the agent of another, unless we should perceive its own good to result from it, or that justice should require it.
Axiom 8. That the importance of any action is measured by the degree of pleasure or pain that it causes or prevents.
[T]his seems to be still the age of infancy, and baby-like do we cry. This is all made for me! The land and the ocean abound with myriads of animated beings of admirable construction only for me to play with, to torment, and to destroy. …
[H]owever the state of man may be above that of other animals, if the superiority be owing to his being differently situated, we must not dazzle ourselves by gazing on the brilliancy of the situation, but learn how to estimate their true …
Axiom 5. That we should never admit of the propriety of the will or volition of one animal being the agent of another, unless we should perceive its own good to result from it, or that justice should require it.
First, how do you prove that mankind is invested with the right of killing them, and that brutes have been created for the purpose you assert them to be? Secondly, it is to be observed that the flesh of man himself possesses the same …