What happened, so far as I could collect it
from the best authorities, was as follows:-
Some two thousand five hundred years ago the Erewhonians were still
uncivilised, and lived by hunting, fishing, a rude system of agriculture,
and plundering such few other nations as they had not yet completely
conquered. They had no schools or systems of philosophy, but by a kind
of dog-knowledge did that which was right in their own eyes and in those
of their neighbours; the common sense, therefore, of the public being as
yet unvitiated, crime and disease were looked upon much as they are in
other countries.
But with the gradual advance of civilisation and increase in material
prosperity, people began to ask questions about things that they had
hitherto taken as matters of course, and one old gentleman, who had great
influence over them by reason of the sanctity of his life, and his
supposed inspiration by an unseen power, whose existence was now
beginning to be felt, took it into his head to disquiet himself about the
rights of animals--a question that so far had disturbed nobody.
All prophets are more or less fussy, and this old gentleman seems to have
been one of the more fussy ones.
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