such numbers as were actually required. When they were worn out by old age or disease, they would, if incurable, be mercifully killed and buried.
8. “Ah,” says some more profound and metaphysical flesh-eater, “but observe that in thus diminishing the number of animals that are born into the world, you are also diminishing the sum of animal happiness. At present a large number of animals live a happy life, and die a speedy death, and the balance of pleasure must be surely in their favour. It is better for the animals themselves to live and to be killed, than not to live at all.”
Such reasoning, if accepted as a justification of flesh-eating, must also justify vivisection or any torture whatever. A vivisector who breeds rabbits for that purpose, might argue that it is better for the rabbits to live a year and be tortured an hour than not to live at all. The humane flesh-eater may be shocked, but if he will examine the argument he will find it precisely identical with his own. This may lead us to suspect the validity of such reasoning, yet it is so frequently advanced by persons of considerable intelligence and education that it
