The same writer, in one of his minor productions, says, "When a good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of beneficence, to one species of reform, he is apt to become narrowed into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to be done on earth but that self-same good to which he has put his hand, and in the very mode that best suits his own conceptions. All else is worthless. His scheme must be wrought out by the united strength of the whole world's stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover, powerful Truth, being the rich grape-juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating quality when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups."
At a dinner-party one day, Madame de Staël said to Lady Mackintosh, after Godwin was gone, "I am glad to have seen this man,--it is curious to see how naturally Jacobins become the advocates of tyrants."
"I have often blamed myself," said Boswell, "for not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do." "Sir," replied Johnson, "don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling."
A very large proportion of the men who during the French Revolution proved themselves most absolutely indifferent to human suffering, were deeply attached to animals. Fournier was devoted to a squirrel, Couthon to a spaniel, Panis to two gold pheasants, Chaumette to an aviary, Marat kept doves. Bacon has noticed that the Turks, who are a most cruel people, are nevertheless conspicuous for their kindness to animals, and he mentions the instance of a Christian boy who was nearly stoned to death for gagging a long-billed fowl. Abbas, the viceroy, when a boy, had his pastry-cook bastinadoed to death. Mehemet Ali mildly reproved him for it, as a European would correct a child for killing a butterfly. He explained to his little grandson that such things ought not to be done without a motive. Abbé Migne tells how one old Roman fed his oysters on his slaves; how another put a slave to death that a curious friend might see what dying was like; how Galen's mother tore and bit her waiting-women when she was in a passion with them. Caligula conferred the honor of priesthood upon his horse. "The day before the Circensian games," says Suetonius, "he used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighborhood, that the repose of the animal might not be disturbed. For this favorite, besides a marble stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jeweled frontlet, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of such as were invited in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said that he intended to make him consul." In Egypt there are hospitals for superannuated cats, and the most loathsome insects are regarded with tenderness; but human life is treated as if it were of no account, and human suffering scarcely elicits a care.