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before their altars? And there is no cause, then, for pleasure in the sacrifices, as we see, nor is there a reason why they should be offered ... "-Ibid. pp. 310-311.
This one thing I ask, above all, What reason is there if I kill a pig, that a god changes his state of mind, and lays aside his angry feelings and frenzy; that if I consume a pullet, a calf under his eyes and on his altars, he forgets the wrong [which I did to him], and abandons completely all sense of displeasure? What passes from this act to modify his resentment? Or of what service is a goose, a goat, or a peacock, that from its blood relief is brought to the angry god? Do the gods, then, make insulting them a matter of payment? and as little boys, to induce them to give up their fits of passion and to desist from their wailings, get little sparrows, dolls, ponies, puppets, with which they may be able to divert themselves, do the immortal gods in such wise receive these gifts from you, that for them they may lay aside their resentment, and be reconciled to those who offended them?... So if some ox, or any animal you please, which is slain to mitigate and appease the fury of the deities, were to take a man's voice and speak these words: 'Is this, then, O Jupiter, or whatever god thou art, humane or right, or should it be considered at all just, that when another has sinned I should be killed, and that you should allow satisfaction to be made to you with my blood, although I never did you wrong, never wittingly or unwittingly did violence to your divinity and majesty, being, as thou knowest, a dumb creature, not departing from the simplicity of my nature, nor inclined to be fickle in my manners? . . . What, then, is the reason that the crime of another is atoned for with my blood, and that my life and innocence are made to pay for wickedness with which I have nothing to do? Is it because I am a base creature, and am not possessed of reason and wisdom, as those declare who call themselves men, and by their ferocity make themselves beasts? Did not the same nature both beget and form me from the same beginnings? Is it not one breath of life which sways both man and me? Do I not respire and see, and am I not affected by the other senses as they are? They have livers, lungs, hearts, intestines, bellies; and do I not have as many members? They love their young, and come together to beget children; and do I not both take care to procure offspring, and delight in it when it has been begotten? ..
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JAINISM, CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE
