It enjoins entire benevolence to all beings that have life. It enjoins obedience to all the laws of life and health, so far as consists with the general good. It requires us to do what we can, to promote the life, and health, and well being of others. It requires us to treat our own health and life, and the health and life of all men and animals, according to their relative value in the scale of being. Happiness is a good in itself.
Life is an indispensable condition of happiness.
The destruction and waste of life is a destruction and waste of the means of happiness. The greater the amount of life, the greater the means of happiness. The good of the universe demands, that life should be considered and treated as of great value. As perfect and universal benevolence or good willing, is the duty of all moral beings, so it is their duty to regard and treat life, as an indispensable means of promoting individual and universal happiness. This precept is plainly only declaratory of the one great universal law of love.