Being maintained at the public expense,
he had ample leisure, and not content with limiting his attention to the
rights of animals, he wanted to reduce right and wrong to rules, to
consider the foundations of duty and of good and evil, and otherwise to
put all sorts of matters on a logical basis, which people whose time is
money are content to accept on no basis at all.
As a matter of course, the basis on which he decided that duty could
alone rest was one that afforded no standing-room for many of the old-
established habits of the people. These, he assured them, were all
wrong, and whenever any one ventured to differ from him, he referred the
matter to the unseen power with which he alone was in direct
communication, and the unseen power invariably assured him that he was
right. As regards the rights of animals he taught as follows:-
"You know," he said, "how wicked it is of you to kill one another. Once
upon a time your fore-fathers made no scruple about not only killing, but
also eating their relations. No one would now go back to such detestable
practices, for it is notorious that we have lived much more happily since
they were abandoned. From this increased prosperity we may confidently
deduce the maxim that we should not kill and eat our fellow-creatures.
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