“There is in man a disposition to compassion as generally diffused as his other instincts. Newton had _cultivated_ this sentiment of humanity, and he extended it to the lower animals. With Locke he was strongly convinced that God has given to them a proportion of ideas, and the same feelings which he has to us. He could not believe that God, who has made nothing in vain, would have given to them organs of feeling _in order that they might have no feeling_.
“He thought it a very frightful inconsistency to believe that animals feel and _at the same time to cause them to suffer_. On this point his morality was in accord with his philosophy. _He yielded but with repugnance to the barbarous custom of supporting ourselves upon the blood and flesh of beings like ourselves_, whom we caress, and he never permitted in his own house the putting them to death by slow and exquisite [_recherchées_] modes of killing for the sake of making the food more delicious. This compassion, which he felt for other animals, culminated in true charity for men. In truth, _without humanity, a virtue which comprehends all virtues_, the name of philosopher would be little deserved.”[161]
At Cirey some of his best tragedies were composed--_Alzire_, _Mérope_, and _Mehemet_; the _Discours sur l’Homme_, a moral poem in the style of Pope’s Essays, pronounced to be one of the finest monuments of French poetry; an _Essay on Universal History_, (for his friend’s use, to correct as well as supplement Bossuet’s splendid but little philosophic history), the foundation of perhaps his most admirable production the _Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_, and many lesser pieces, including a large correspondence. Besides these literary works, he engaged in mathematical and scientific studies, which resulted in some _brochures_ of considerable value.
About this time (1740) news arrived of the death of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. Most readers know the extraordinary character of this strange personage, who caned the women and his clergy in the streets of his capital, and who was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering his son’s execution. Narrowly escaping with his life the prince had devoted himself to literary pursuits, and had kept up a correspondence with the leading men of letters of France, and above all with the author of _Zaïre_ whom he regarded as little less than divine. The new king set about inspecting his territories, and proceeded _incognito_ to Brussels, where the first interview between the two future most eminent persons in Europe took place. Repairing to his majesty’s quarters--