Note 136 — XVII. BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE. 1670–1733.

Upon which Ritson aptly remarks: “The sheep is not so much ‘designed’ for the man as the man is for the tiger, this animal being naturally carnivorous, which man is not. But nature, and justice, and humanity are not always one and the same thing.” To this remark we may add with equal force, that almost all the living beings upon whom our species preys have been so artificially changed from their natural condition for the gratification of its selfish appetite as to be with difficulty identified with the original stocks. So much for this theory of creative design.