are speaking, is now at length beginning to vibrate also in the West. For the rest, we may observe that compassion for sentient beings is not to carry us to the length of abstaining from flesh, like the Brahmans. This is because, by a natural law, capacity for pain keeps pace with the intelligence; consequently men, by going without animal food, especially in the North, would suffer more than beasts do through a quick death, which is always unforeseen; although the latter ought to be made still easier by means of chloroform. Indeed without meat nourishment mankind would be quite unable to withstand the rigours of the Northern climate. The same reasoning explains, too, why we are right in making animals work for us; it is only when they are subjected to an excessive amount of toil that cruelty begins.

(8) It is