[T]his seems to be still the age of infancy, and baby-like do we cry. This is all made for me! The land and the ocean abound with myriads of animated… - Lewis Gompertz

The slaying of animals for the most trifling purposes is defended on the ground, that if not done, they would be too numerous, and consequently troublesome to man, and unhappy in themselves; while the promotion of their increase is defended on the assumption, that we are then the authors of much happiness. But let us apply a cautious ear to such reasoning. If the promoting the increase of animals is being the author of increased happiness, destroying them must be positive evil. For our own parts, we prefer neutrality as much as possible on these points, because we know not whether the life of animals generally, abound most with pleasure or pain. We confess that in our view of the question, pain seems to predominate; and the more so the more the numbers of animals are increased; indeed, we neither approve the promoting of the increase of animals, nor of destroying them.

Y: But the whole species of the carnivorous kind would then become extinct. Were they created to be annihilated?
Z: I do not see why the whole species of one animal is more important than an equal number of another, although that number might not comprise the whole species of the latter: and, besides, it is not proved that the whole species would perish; as some might feed on the bodies of those animals which they might find that were in a fit state; and also upon vegetables, which they will eat occasionally. It is known that wolves will live in the two ways mentioned, when deprived of other means.

Every animal possesses something which distinguishes it from all other animals; and this is what I understand by personal identity, or rather the identical self. This in every animal is perfectly distinct and indivisible, since the only knowledge we have of it is when it is entire; and divisibility of this is what we cannot conceive: but if indivisible, it must also be indestructible, and must always have existed. It is not possessed of any kind of consciousness: but no consciousness can, it appears, exist without it; as life itself seems to be composed of personal identity, and other essentials of the mind or body, and that it is the combination which produces consciousness.