Therefore it is plain that no particular thing can be made by a machine at all; neither an atom, or matter, which is the only identity of matter; nor… - Lewis Gompertz
" "Therefore it is plain that no particular thing can be made by a machine at all; neither an atom, or matter, which is the only identity of matter; nor the soul, which is the only identity of a person (and this applies also to every other animal or vegetable, as every thing, if it feels, must, it appears, have an identical self or soul, similar to that of any other being). No feeling can, it appears, be without reference to some self or soul)
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About Lewis Gompertz
(1783/4 – 2 December 1861) was an English philosopher, writer, inventor, and social reformer. He was best known for his pioneering advocacy of the moral consideration of animals, early veganism, and opposition to animal exploitation. A founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (later the RSPCA), he later established the Animals' Friend Society to promote a more comprehensive ethical stance toward animals. His 1824 treatise, Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes, offered one of the first systematic critiques of animal use, combining philosophical argument with proposals for social reform. He also supported causes including women's rights, anti-slavery, and the welfare of the poor. In addition to his activism, Gompertz was an accomplished mechanical inventor who sought to develop alternatives to animal labour.
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Additional quotes by Lewis Gompertz
First, how do you prove that mankind is invested with the right of killing them, and that brutes have been created for the purpose you assert them to be? Secondly, it is to be observed that the flesh of man himself possesses the same nourishing and palatable qualities? And are we then to become cannibals for that reason?
Yet we are not always justified in concluding that the killing of animals causes a less number to exist; because some of them are carnivorous, and by being killed they can no longer kill others: while others are graminivorous, and when they can no longer eat up the fruits of the soil, other animals may live upon such fruits instead; still there is no justification of slaughter, as the identical lives are certainly thereby destroyed; and if such an excuse be admitted, it must apply by the same rule to the slaughter even of human beings. But however this may be, it is evident that by far the greatest number of animals live in terror and die by violence from their devourers, and the males also by the attacks of each other, besides pestilence, diseases, accidents and starvation, few living their natural time; while by means of many being sacrificed, a few are enabled to live like in a ship of short provision, though without an equitable casting of lots, but by the law of force over weakness; and this law not being confined to dumb animals, but ruling the lots of man as well as of animals, though its operations on human life may be more concealed, but here also population is kept in check by want of food and by warfare; among mankind itself justice is little more than a name, might being the chief law observed: here, too, the strong destroy and oppress the weak; some are enabled to live and multiply, while many starve and live in celibacy to prevent an overflow, which, notwithstanding, does arise: dispute and warfare then result in which some are destroyed and some preserved. But no person, however virtuous, can live in comfort without consuming more than his share. Such is the world we live in, however Pope may contend that "virtue alone is happiness below."
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