"If men, from _superiority_ of their nature, cannot be considered, like lands, goods, or houses, among possessions, so neither can cattle: for being endued with life, motion, and sensibility, they are evidently _superiour_ to these." But this objection will receive its answer from those observations which have been already made; and will discover the true reason, why cattle are justly to be estimated as property.

For first, the right to empire over brutes, is _natural_, and not _adventitious_, like the right to empire over men.

There are, secondly, many and evident signs of the _inferiority_ of their nature; and thirdly, their liberty can be bought and sold, because, being void of reason, they cannot be _accountable_ for their actions.
We might stop here for a considerable time, and deduce many valuable lessons from the remarks that have been made, but that such a circumstance might be considered as a digression.

There is one, however, which, as it is so intimately connected with the subject, we cannot but deduce.

We are taught to treat men in a different manner from brutes, because they are so manifestly superiour in their nature; we are taught to treat brutes in a different manner from stones, for the same reason; and thus, by giving to every created thing its due respect, to answer the views of Providence, which did not create a variety of natures without a purpose or design.
But if these things are so, how evidently against reason, nature, and every thing human and divine, must they act, who not only force men into _slavery_, against their own _consent_; but treat them altogether as _brutes_, and make the _natural liberty_ of man an article of publick commerce! and by what arguments can they possibly defend that commerce, which cannot be carried on, in any single instance, without a flagrant violation of the laws of nature and of God?
* * * * * CHAP.