ed because of the lack of sufficient food, and that
many persons are deprived of their property through cunning and
fraud. The life of animals we do take, and whatever secret
compunction we may have in the matter, the most confirmed
vegetarian will not regard himself in the light of a cannibal when he
partakes of animal food. The liberty of animals we do abridge
without scruple; we harness horses to our carriages, regardless of
what may be their inclinations, and we do not regard ourselves as
slaveholders when we thus use them. Why is there this enormous
distinction between animals and men? Are the Hottentots so
greatly elevated above the animal level; are the lowest classes of
negroes so much superior in intelligence to animals? Have the
black race and the brown race any claim to be treated as the equals
of the white? Among white men themselves is there not a similar
difference between inferiors and superiors? Such questions
naturally suggest themselves; and they have been asked at all
times. It seems obvious that value should be ascribed to those who
possess genius or even talent, or at least average intelligence; but
why should value be ascribed to every human being just because
he wears the human form?

The positive belief in human worth on which is based the belief in
human equality, so far as it has rooted itself in the world at all, we
owe to religion, and more particularly to the Hebrew and Christian
religions. The Hebrew Bible says: "In the image of God did He
create man"--it is this God-likeness that to the Hebrew mind
attests the worth of man. As some of the great masters on
completing a painting have placed a miniature portrait of
themselves by way of signature below their work, so the great
World-Artist when He had created the human soul stamped it with
the likeness of Himself to attest its divine origin. And the greatest
of the Hebrew thinkers conceived of this dignity as belonging to all
human beings alike, irrespective of race or creed. In practice,
however, the idea of equal human worth was more or less limited
to the Chosen People. At least, to keep within the bounds of the
artistic simile, the members of the Hebrew people were regarded
as first-proof copies, and other men as somewhat dim and less
perfect duplicates.

In the Christian religion a new idea was introduced. The belief in
the worth of man was founded on the doctrine of redemption. The
sacrifice of atonement had been offered up for the b