But some person, perhaps, will make an objection to one of the former
arguments. "If men, from _superiority_ of their nature, cannot be
considered, like lands, goods, or houses, among possessions, so neither
can cattle: for being endued with life, motion, and sensibility, they
are evidently _superiour_ to these." But this objection will
receive its answer from those observations which have been already made;
and will discover the true reason, why cattle are justly to be estimated
as property. For first, the right to empire over brutes, is
_natural_, and not _adventitious_, like the right to empire
over men. There are, secondly, many and evident signs of the
_inferiority_ of their nature; and thirdly, their liberty can be
bought and sold, because, being void of reason, they cannot be
_accountable_ for their actions.

We might stop here for a considerable time, and deduce many valuable
lessons from the remarks that have been made, but that such a
circumstance might be considered as a digression. There is one, however,
which, as it is so intimately connected with the subject, we cannot but
deduce. We are taught to treat men in a different manner from brutes,
because they are so manifestly superiour in their nature; we are taught
to treat brutes in a different manner from stones, for the same reason;
and thus, by giving to every created thing its due respect, to answer
the views of Providence, which did not create a variety of natures
without a purpose or design.

But if these things are so, how evidently against reason, nature, and
every thing human and divine, must they act, who not only force men into
_slavery_, against their own _consent_; but treat them altogether
as _brutes_, and make the _natural liberty_ of man an article