preservation.txt

preservation.txt
Source:	phil_arc
Date:	1796 CE
Area:	Star World C

preservation.txt is a text document stored in terminal C08 in Star World C.

Contents

I viewed, with a mixture of pity and horror, these beings training to be sold to slaughter, or be slaughtered, and fell into reflections on an old opinion of mine, that it is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of the Deity throughout the whole of Nature. Blossoms come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their spawn where it will be devoured; and what a large portion of the human race are born merely to be swept prematurely away! 156C(6966#6520 697 (3 206D6F72 6520 7468 616E 2061 2064 7265.616D: 1796CE-/$% [WOLLSTONECRAFT, MARY
Does not this waste of budding life emphatically assert that it is not men, but Man, whose preservation is so necessary to the completion of the grand plan of the universe? Children peep into existence, suffer, and die; men play like moths about a candle, and sink into the flame; war, and "the thousand ills which flesh is heir to," mow them down in shoals; whilst the more cruel prejudices of society palsy existence, introducing not less sure though slower decay.

Notes

• The text originates from Letter XXII of the personal travel narrative Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by British writer Mary Wollstonecraft, published in 1796.