my own eyes, that there could be souls so ferocious as for the
simple pleasure of murder to be ready to perpetrate it; to hack
and dismember the limbs of others; to ransack their invention to
discover unheard-of tortures and new kinds of deaths--and that
without the incentive of enmity or of profit--with the mere view of
enjoying the pleasant spectacle of pitiable actions and movements,
of groans and lamentations, of a man dying in agony. For this is
the climax to which cruelty can attain--‘for a man without anger,
without fear, to kill another merely to witness his sufferings.’
“For my part I have never been able to see, without displeasure, an
innocent and defenceless animal, from whom we receive no offence
or harm, pursued and slaughtered. And when a deer, as commonly
happens, finding herself without breath and strength, without other
resource, throws herself down and surrenders, as it were, to her
pursuers, begging for mercy by her tears,
‘Questuque cruentus
Atque imploranti similis.’[110]
This has always appeared to me a very displeasing spectacle. I
seldom, or never, take an animal alive whom I do not restore to the
fields. Pythagoras was in the habit of buying their victims from
the fowlers and fishermen for the same purpose.
‘Primâque a cæde ferarum
Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum.’[111]
“Dispositions sanguinary in regard to other animals testify a
natural inclination to cruelty towards their own kind. After they
had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacle of the murders
[_meurtres_] of other animals, they proceeded to those of men and
gladiators. Nature has, I fear, herself attached some instinct
of inhumanity to man’s disposition. No one derives any amusement
from seeing other animals enjoy themselves and caressing one
another; and no one fails to take pleasure in seeing them torn in
pieces and dismembered. That I may not [he is cautious enough to
add] be ridiculed for this sympathy which I have for them, even
theology enjoins some respect for them,[112] and considering that
one and the same Master has lodged us in this palatial world for
his service, and that they are, as we, members of His family, it
is right that it should enjoin some respect and affection towards
them.”
Quoting instances of the extreme respect in which some of the
non-human races were held by people in Antiquity,[113] and Plutarch’s
interpretation of the meaning of the divine honours sometimes paid to
them--that they adored certain qualities in them as types of divine
faculties--Montaigne declares for himself that:--
“When I meet, amongst the more moderate opinions, arguments which
go to prove our close resemblance to other animals, and how much
they share in our greatest privileges, and with how much of
probability they are compared to us, of a truth I abate much from
our common presumption, and willingly abdicate that _imaginary_
royalty which they assign us over other beings.”
Wiser than the majority in later times, Montaigne well rebukes the
arrogant presumption of the human animal who affects to hold all other
life to be brought into being for his sole use and pleasure:--
“Let him shew me, by the most skilful argument, upon what
foundations he has built these excessive prerogatives which he
supposes himself to have over other existences. Who has persuaded
him that that admirable impulse of the celestial vault, the eternal
brightness of those Lights rolling so majestically over our heads,
the tremendous motions of that infinite sea of Globes, were
established and have continued so many ages for his advantage and
for his service. Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous
as that this pitiful [_chétive_], miserable creature, who is not
even master of himself, exposed to injuries of every kind, should
call itself master and lord of the universe, of which, so far from
being lord of it, he knows but the smallest part?... Who has given
him this sealed charter? Let him shew us the ‘letters patent’ of
this grand commission. Have they been issued [_octroyées_] in
favour of the wise only? They affect but the few in that case. The
fools and the wicked--are they worthy of so extraordinary a favour,
and being the worst part of the world [_le pire pièce du monde_],
do they deserve to be preferred to all the rest? Shall we believe
all this?
“Presumption is our natural and original disease. The most
calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most
arrogant.[114] It is through the vanity of this same imagination
that he equals himself to a god, that he attributes to himself
divine conditions, that he picks himself out and separates himself
from the crowd of other creatures, curtails the just shares of
other animals his brethren [_confrères_] and companions, and
assigns to them such portions of faculties and forces as seems to
him good. How does he know, by the effort of his intelligence, the
interior and secret movements and impulses of other animals? By
what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity
[_la bétise_] which he attributes to them?”
Montaigne quotes the example of his master, the just and benevolent
Plutarch, who made it a matter of justice and conscience not to sell
or send to the slaughter-house (according to the common selfish
ingratitude) a Cow who had served him faithfully and profitably for so
many years. With Plutarch and Porphyry he never wearies of denouncing
the unreasoning opinions, or rather prejudices, prevalent amongst men
as to the mental qualities of many of the non-human races, and, as we
have already seen, insists that the difference between them and us is
of _degree_ and not of _kind_:--
“Plato, in his picture of the ‘Golden Age,’ reckons amongst the
chief advantages of the men of that time the communication they had
with other animals, by investigating and instructing themselves in
whose nature they learned their true qualities and the differences
between them, by which they acquired a very perfect knowledge and
intelligence, and thus made their lives more happy than we can make
ours. Is a better test needed by which to judge of human folly in
regard to other species?
“I have said all this in order to bring us back and reunite
ourselves to the crowd [_presse_]. We are [in the accidents of
mortality] neither above nor below the rest. ‘All who are under
the sky,’ says the Jewish sage, ‘experience a like law and fate.’
There is some difference, _there are orders and degrees_, but
they are under the aspect of one and the same nature. Man must be
constrained and ranged within the barriers of this police [_Il
faut contraindre l’homme, et le ranger dans les barrières de cette
police_]. The wretch has no right to encroach [_d’enjamber_]
beyond these; he is fettered, entangled, he is subjected to like
necessities with other creatures of his order, and in a very
mean condition without any true and essential prerogative and
pre-excellence. That which he confers upon himself by his own
opinion and fancy has neither sense nor substance; and if it be
conceded to him that he alone of all animals has that freedom of
imagination and that irregularity of thought representing to him
what he is, what he is not, and what he wants, the false and the
true, it is an advantage which has been very dearly sold to him,
and of which he has very little to boast, for from that springs the
principal source of the evils which oppress him--crime, disease,
irresolution, trouble, despair.”
Rejecting the still received prejudice which will not allow our humble
fellow-beings the privilege of reason, but invents an imaginary faculty
called “instinct,” he repeats that--
“There is no ground for supposing that other beings do by
_natural and necessary inclination_ the same things that we do
by choice, and while we are bound to infer from like effects
like faculties--nay, from greater effects, greater faculties--we
are forced to confess, consequently, that that same reason, that
same method which we employ in action are also employed by the
lower animals, or else that they have some still better reason
or method. Why do we fancy in them that natural necessity or
impulse [_contrainte_]--_we_ who have no experience of that sort
ourselves.[115]
“As for use in eating, it is with us as with them, natural
and without instruction. Who doubts that a child, arrived at
the necessary strength for feeding itself, could find its own
nourishment? The earth produces and offers to him enough for his
needs without artificial labour, and if not for all seasons,
neither does she for the other races--witness the provisions
which we observe the ants and others collecting for the sterile
seasons of the year. Those nations whom we have lately discovered
[the peoples of Hindustan and of parts of America], so abundantly
furnished with natural meat and drink without care and without
labour, have just instructed us that bread is not our sole food,
and that without toil our mother Nature has furnished us with every
plant we need, to shew us, as it seems, how superior she is to all
our _artificiality_; while the extravagance of our appetite outruns
all the inventions by which we seek to satisfy it.”[116]
XIV.
GASSENDI. 1592-1655.
Gassendi, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the
purpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in
the seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the
first directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch
and Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and
Montaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate
barbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction
of the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to
enlighten the world upon this fundamental truth.
He was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest
years he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was
professor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated “Essays against the
Aristotleians” (_Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos_)
was his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years
earlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides
with the _Novum Organon_ of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost
contemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon
the old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of
Aristotle, during some three or four centuries of mediæval darkness
had kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at
once raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the
old orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of
falsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five
of the Books of the _Exercitationes_, by the advice of his friends,
who dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In
the Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not
the courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity
of the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while
the Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal
recommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and
Virtue are synonymous terms.
In the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted
himself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy,
as well as to literary studies. “As the result of his anatomical
researches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to
live upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human
constitution, is baneful and unwholesome.”[117] He was the first to
observe the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun’s disc (1631),
previously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the
opponent of Descartes in his _Disquisitiones Anticartesianæ_ (1643)--a
work justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent
German critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic
world was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient
to observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in
other respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that
the non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and
perception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation
for common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part
of the world. Yet this “animated machine” theory, incredible as it
may appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist
of the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and
experience--a theory about which it needs only to be said that it
deserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous
conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable
criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the
end _that they might not feel and reason_. It was not thus, as the same
writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118]
In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the
University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners
of all classes. His _Life and Morals of Epikurus_ (_De Vitâ et Moribus
Epicuri_), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a
triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations
connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous
of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages.
Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted
by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity
of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the
luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:--
“He had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home,
and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where
he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part
of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of
Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own
doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several
astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which
those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He
is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism,
the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an
eminent degree. Even in his _Syntagma Philosophicum_ he treats
every subject, at first historically from all points of view....
Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined
to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the
fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He
long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On
returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen
fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.”
Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to
vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:--
“The reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually
ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi.
Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his
Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes
which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a
result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of
hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences
resulting from them became completely interfused.”[119]
Although of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often
happens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle,
writing at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as
“the greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar
amongst philosophers;” and Newton conceived the same high esteem for
the great vindicator of Epikurus.[120]
It is in his celebrated letter to his friend Van Helmont, that Gassendi
deals with the irrational assertions of certain physiologists,
apparently more devoted to the defence of the orthodox diet than to the
discovery of unwelcome truth, as to the character of the human teeth:--
“I was contending,” he writes to his medical friend, “that from
the conformation of our teeth we do not appear to be adapted by
Nature to the use of a flesh diet, since all animals (I spoke of
terrestrials) which Nature has formed to feed on flesh have their
teeth long, conical, sharp, uneven, and with intervals between
them--of which kind are lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, cats, and
others. But those who are made to subsist only on herbs and fruits
have their teeth short, broad, blunt, close to one another, and
distributed in even rows. Of this sort are horses, cows, deer,
sheep, goats, and some others. And further--that men have received
from Nature teeth which are unlike those of the first class, and
resemble those of the second. It is therefore probable, since men
are land animals, that Nature intended them to follow, in the
selection of their food, not the carnivorous tribes, but those
races of animals which are contented with the simple productions
of the earth.... Wherefore, I here repeat that from the primæval
institution of our nature, the teeth were destined to the
mastication, not of flesh, but of fruits.
As for flesh, true, indeed, it is that man is sustained on flesh.
But _how many things_, let me ask, _does man do every day which are
contrary to, or beside, his nature_? So great, and so general, is
the perversion of his mode of life, which has, as it were, eaten
into his flesh by a sort of deadly contagion (_contagione veluti
quâdam jam inusta est_), that he appears to have put on another
disposition. Hence, the whole care and concern of philosophy and
moral instruction ought to consist in leading men back to the paths
of Nature.”
Helmont, it seems, had rested his principal argument for flesh-eating,
not altogether in accordance with _Genesis_, and certainly not in
accordance with Science, on the presumption that man was formed
expressly for carnivorousness. To this Gassendi replied that, without
ignoring theological argument, he still maintained comparative Anatomy
to be a satisfactory and sufficient guide. He then applies himself to
refute the physiological prejudice of Helmont about the teeth, &c.
(as already quoted), and begins by warning his friend that he is not
to wonder if the self-love of men is constantly viewed by him with
suspicion.[121]
“For, in fact, we all, with tacit consent, conspire to extol our
own nature, and we do this commonly with so much arrogance that, if
people were to divest themselves of this traditional and inveterate
prejudice, and seriously reflect upon it, their faces must be
immediately suffused with burning shame.”
He repeats Plutarch’s unanswerable challenge:--
“Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this
food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as
furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from
seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and
lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. Well, but
if it were the intention of Nature that man should eat _cooked_
flesh, she would surely have provided him with ready-made cooks;
or, rather, she would have herself cooked it as she is wont to
do fruits, which are best and sweetest without the intervention
of fire. Nature, surely, does not fail in providing necessary
provision for her children, according to the common boast. But what
is more necessary than to make food pleasurable? And, as she does
in the case of sexual love by which she procures the preservation
of the _species_, so would she procure the preservation of the
_genus_.
“Nor let anyone say that Nature in this is corrected, since, to
pass over other things, that is tantamount to convicting her of
a blunder. Consider how much more benevolent she would be proved
to be, in that case, towards the savage beasts than towards us.
Again, since our teeth are not sufficient for eating flesh, even
when prepared by fire, the invention of knives seems to me to be
a strong proof. Because, in fact, we have no teeth given us for
rending flesh, and we are therefore forced to have recourse to
those _non-natural_ organs, in order to accomplish our purpose. As
if, forsooth, Nature would have left us destitute in so essential
things! I divine at once your ready reply: ‘think that Nature
has given man reason to supply defects of this kind.’ But this,
I affirm, is always to accuse Nature, _in order to_ defend our
unnatural luxury. So it is about dress--so it is about other things.
“What is clearer [he sums up] than that man is not furnished for
hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem
to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for
other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other
animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry
ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then,
behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make
weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of
Nature? Can a use so noxious be called _natural_? Faculty is given
by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of
it.”
He, finally, refutes the popular objection about the strength-giving
properties of flesh-meat, and instances Horses, Bulls, and others.[122]
In his _Ethics_ (affixed to his Books on _Physics_) he quotes and
endorses the opinions of Epikurus on the slaughter of innocent life:--
“There is no pretence,” he asserts, “for saying that any right has
been granted us by law to kill any of those animals which are not
destructive or pernicious to the human race, for there is no reason
why the innocent species should be allowed to increase to so great
a number as to be inconvenient to us. They may be restrained within
that number which would be harmless, and useful to ourselves.”[123]
With that Great Master he thus rebukes the fashionable “hospitality”:--
“I, for my part, to speak modestly of myself, lived contented
with the plants of my little garden, and have pleasure in that
diet, and I wish inscribed on my doors: ‘Guest, here you shall
have good cheer! here the _summum bonum_ is Pleasure. The guardian
of this house, _humanely_ hospitable, is ready to entertain you
with pearl-barley (_polenta_), and will furnish you abundantly
with water. These little gardens do not increase hunger, but
extinguish it; nor do they make thirst greater by the very
potations themselves, but satisfy it by a natural and gratuitous
remedy.’”[124]
There is one name which, in reputation, occupies a pre-eminent
position in philosophy, belonging to this period--Francis Bacon. But,
for ourselves, for whom true ethical and humanitarian principles have
a much deeper significance than mere mental force undirected to the
highest aims of truth and of justice, the name of the modern assertor
of the truths of Vegetarianism will challenge greater reverence than
even that of the author of the _New Instrument_.