enjoy it.

God has been pleased to create numberless animals intended for our
sustenance; and that they are so intended, the agreeable flavour of
their flesh to our palates, and the wholesome nutriment which it
administers to our stomachs, are sufficient proofs: these, as they are
formed for our use, propagated by our culture, and fed by our care, we
have certainly a right to deprive of life, because it is given and
preserved to them on that condition; but this should always be performed
with all the tenderness and compassion which so disagreeable an office
will permit; and no circumstances ought to be omitted, which can render
their executions as quick and easy as possible. For this Providence has
wisely and benevolently provided, by forming them in such a manner that
their flesh becomes rancid and unpalateable by a painful and lingering
death; and has thus compelled us to be merciful without compassion, and
cautious of their sufferings, for the sake of ourselves: but, if there
are any whose tastes are so vitiated, and whose hearts are so hardened,
as to delight in such inhuman sacrifices, and to partake of them without
remorse, they should be looked upon as demons in human shape, and expect
a retaliation of those tortures which they have inflicted on the
innocent, for the gratification of their own depraved and unnatural
appetites.

So violent are the passions of anger and revenge in the human breast,
that it is not wonderful that men should persecute their real or
imaginary enemies with cruelty and malevolence; but that there should
exist in nature a being who can receive pleasure from giving pain, would
be totally incredible, if we were not convinced, by melancholy
experience, that there are not only many, but that this unaccountable
disposition is in some manner inherent in the nature of man; for, as he