the eighteenth century is its _Humanitarianism_--not visible, indeed,
in legislation or in the teaching of the ordinarily-accredited guides
of the public faith and morals, but proclaimed, nevertheless, by the
great prophets of that era. As far as ordinary life was concerned,
the last age is only too obnoxious to the charge of selfishness and
heartlessness. Callousness to suffering, as regards the non-human
species in particular, is sufficiently apparent in the common
amusements and “pastimes” of the various grades of the community.
Yet, if we compare the tone of even the common-place class of writers
with that of the authors of quasi-scientific treatises of the preceding
century--in which the most cold-blooded atrocities on the helpless
victims of human ignorance and barbarity are prescribed for the
composition of their medical _nostrums_, &c., with the most unconscious
audacity and ignoring of every sort of feeling--considerable advance is
apparent in the slow onward march of the human race towards the goal of
a true morality and religion.
To the author of _The Seasons_ belongs the everlasting honour of being
the first amongst modern poets earnestly to denounce the manifold
wrongs inflicted upon the subject species, and, in particular, the
savagery inseparable from the Slaughter-House--for Pope did not publish
his _Essay on Man_ until four years after the appearance of _Spring_.
James Thomson, of Scottish parentage, came to London to seek his
fortune in literature, at the age of 25. For some time he experienced
the poverty and troubles which so generally have been the lot of
young aspirants to literary, especially poetic, fame. _Winter_--which
inaugurated a new school of poetry--appeared in March, 1726. That the
publisher considered himself liberal in offering three guineas for the
poem speaks little for the taste of the time; but that a better taste
was coming into existence is also plain from the fact of its favourable
reception, notwithstanding the obscurity of the author. Three editions
appeared in the same year. _Summer_, his next venture, was published
in 1727, and the (Four) _Seasons_ in 1730, by subscription--387
subscribers enrolling their names for copies at a guinea each.
Natural enthusiasm, sympathy, and love for all that is really beautiful
on Earth (a sort of feeling not to be appreciated by vulgar minds)
forms his chief characteristic. But, above all, his sympathy with
suffering in all its forms (see, particularly, his reflections after
the description of the snowstorm in _Winter_), not limited by the
narrow bounds of nationality or of species but extended to all innocent
life--his indignation against oppression and injustice, are what most
honourably distinguish him from almost all of his predecessors and,
indeed, from most of his successors. _The Seasons_ is the forerunner
of _The Task_ and the humanitarian school of poetry. _The Castle of
Indolence_ in the stanza of Spenser, has claims of a kind different
from those of _The Seasons_; and the admirers of _The Faerie Queen_
cannot fail to appreciate the merits of the modern romance. Besides
these _chefs-d’œuvre_ Thomson wrote two tragedies, _Sophonisba_ and
_Liberty_, the former of which, at the time, had considerable success
upon the stage. In the number of his friends he reckoned Pope and
Samuel Johnson, both of whom are said to have had some share in the
frequent revisions which he made of his principal production.
It is with his _Spring_ that we are chiefly concerned, since it is in
that division of his great poem that he eloquently contrasts the two
very opposite diets. Singing the glories of the annual birth-time and
general resurrection of Nature, he first celebrates
“The living Herbs, profusely wild,
O’er all the deep-green Earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes,
(Whether he steals along the lonely dale
In silent search, or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way, or climbs the mountain-rock,
Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow).
With such a liberal hand has Nature flung
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare? Who pierce,
With vision pure, into those secret stores
Of health and life and joy--the food of man,
While yet he lived in innocence and told
A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood?
A stranger to the savage arts of life--
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease--
The Lord, and not the Tyrant, of the world.”
And then goes on to picture the feast of blood:--
“And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies,
Though with the pure exhilarating soul
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers
Beyond the search of Art, ’tis copious blessed.
For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined Man
Is now become the Lion of the plain
And worse. The Wolf, who from the nightly fold
Fierce drags the bleating Prey, ne’er drank her milk,
Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the Steer,
At whose strong chest the deadly Tiger hangs,
E’er ploughed for him. They, too, are tempered high,
With hunger stung and wild necessity,
Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.
But Man, whom Nature formed of milder clay,
With every kind emotion in his heart,
And taught alone to weep; while from her lap
She pours ten thousand delicacies--herbs
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain
Or beams that gave them birth--shall he, fair form,
Who wears sweet smiles and looks erect on heaven,
E’er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd
And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,
Blood-stained, deserves to bleed. But you, ye Flocks,
What have you done? Ye peaceful people, what
To merit death? You who have given us milk
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat
Against the winter’s cold? And the plain Ox,
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he offended? He, whose toil,
Patient and ever ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest--shall he bleed,
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
E’en of the clowns he feeds, and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of the autumnal feast
Won by his labour?”[151]
And again in denouncing the _amateur_ slaughtering (euphemised by the
mocking term of _Sport_) unblushingly perpetrated in the broad light of
day:--
“When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunned the light,
Ashamed. Not so [he reproaches] the steady tyrant Man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of Power,
Inflamed beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e’er roamed the waste,
For Sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our _wanton_ rage,
For hunger kindles _you_, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in Nature’s bounty rolled--
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood--
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.”[152]
We conclude these extracts from _The Seasons_ with the poet’s indignant
reflection upon the selfish greed of Commerce, which barbarously
sacrifices by thousands (as it does also the innocent mammalia of the
seas) the noblest and most sagacious of the terrestrial races for the
sake of a superfluous luxury:--
“Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o’er Niger’s yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,
High raised in solemn theatre around,
Leans the huge Elephant, wisest of _brutes_!
O truly wise! with gentle might endowed:
Though powerful, not destructive. Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful Earth,
And empires rise and fall: regardless he
Of what the never-resting race of men
Project. Thrice happy! could he ’scape their guile
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps:
Or with his towering grandeur swell their state--
The pride of kings!--or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonished at the madness of mankind.”[153]
XXII.
HARTLEY. 1705-1757.
Celebrated as the earliest writer of the utilitarian school of morals.
At the age of fifteen he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, of which
he was afterwards elected a Fellow. Scruples of conscience about the
“Thirty-nine Articles” would not allow him to subscribe them and take
orders, and he turned to the medical profession, in which he reached
considerable eminence.
His _Observations on Man: his Frame, his Duties, and his Expectations_,
appeared in 1748. The principal interest in the book consists in the
fact of its containing the germs of that school of moral philosophy of
which Paley, Bentham, and Mill have been the most able expositors. He
had imbibed the teaching of Locke upon the origin of ideas, which that
first of English metaphysicians founded in Sensation and Reflection
or Association, in contradiction to the old theory of _Innateness_.
Although now universally received, it is hardly necessary to remark
that at its first promulgation it met with as great opposition as all
rational ideas experience long after their first introduction; and
Locke’s controversy with the Bishop of Worcester is matter of history.
It has already been stated that David Hartley was the friend of Dr.
Cheyne, whom he attended in his last illness, and he numbered amongst
his acquaintances some of the most eminent personages of the day. His
character appears to have been singularly amiable and disinterested.
His theology is, for the most part, of unsuspected orthodoxy. The
following sentences reveal the bias of his mind in the matter of
_kreophagy_:--
“With respect to animal diet, let it be considered that taking
away the lives of [other] animals in order to convert them into
food, _does great violence to the principles of benevolence and
compassion_. This appears from the frequent hard-heartedness and
cruelty found among those persons whose occupations engage them
in destroying animal life, as well as from the uneasiness which
others feel in beholding the butchery of [the lower] animals. It
is most evident, in respect to the larger animals and those with
whom we have a familiar intercourse--such as Oxen, Sheep, and
domestic Fowls, &c.--so as to distinguish, love, and compassionate
individuals. They resemble us greatly in the make of the body in
general, and in that of the particular organs of circulation,
respiration, digestion, &c.; also in the formation of their
intellects, memories, and passions, and in the signs of distress,
fear, pain, and death. They often, likewise, win our affections by
the marks of peculiar sagacity, by their instincts, helplessness,
innocence, nascent benevolence, &c., &c., and, if there be any
glimmering of hope of an hereafter for them--if they should
prove to be our _brethren and sisters_ in this higher sense, in
immortality as well as mortality--in the permanent principle of our
minds as well as in the frail dust of our bodies--this ought to be
still further reason for tenderness for them.
“This, therefore, seems to be nothing else,” he concludes, “than an
argument to stop us in our career, to make us sparing and tender
in this article of diet, and put us upon consulting experience
more faithfully and impartially in order to determine what is most
suitable to the purposes of life and health, our compassion being
made, by the foregoing considerations in some measure, a balance to
our impetuous bodily appetites.”[154]
Dr. Hartley is not the only theologian who has suggested the
possibility or probability of a future life for all or some of the
non-human races. This question we must leave to the theologians. All
that we here remark is, that Hartley is one of the very few amongst his
brethren who have had the consistency and the courage of their opinions
to deduce the inevitable inference.
XXIII.
CHESTERFIELD. 1694-1773.
Notwithstanding his strange self-deception as to the “general order
of nature,” by which he attempted (sincerely we presume) to silence
the better promptings of conscience, the remarkably strong feeling
expressed by Lord Chesterfield gives him some right to notice here.
His early _instinctive_ aversion for the food which is the product
of torture and murder is much better founded, we shall be apt to
believe, than the fallacious sophism by which he seems eventually to
have succeeded in stifling the voices of Nature and Reason in seeking
refuge under the shelter of a superficial philosophy. At all events
his example is a forcible illustration of Seneca’s observation that
the better feelings of the young need only to be evoked by a proper
education to conduct them to a true morality and religion.[155]
As it is we have to lament that he had not the greater light (of
science) of the present time, if, indeed, the “deceitfulness of riches”
would not have been for him, as for the mass of the rich or fashionable
world, the shipwreck of just and rational feeling.
Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, succeeded to the family title in
1726. High in favour with the new king--George II.--he received the
appointment of Ambassador-extraordinary to the Court of Holland in
1728, and amongst other honours that of the knighthood of the Garter.
In 1745 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in which post,
during his brief rule, he seemed to have governed with more success
than some of his predecessors or successors. He was soon afterwards a
Secretary of State: ill-health obliged him to relinquish this office
after a short tenure. He wrote papers for _The World_--the popular
periodical of the time--besides some poetical pieces, but he is
chiefly known as an author by his celebrated _Letters to his Son_,
which long served as the text-book of polite society. It contains some
remarks in regard to the relations of the sexes scarcely consonant
with the custom, or at least with the outward code of sexual morals of
the present day. His sentiments upon the subject in question are as
follow:--
“I remember, when I was a young man at the University, being so
much affected with that very pathetic speech which Ovid puts into
the mouth of Pythagoras against the eating of the flesh of animals,
that it was some time before I could bring myself to our college
mutton again, with some inward doubt whether I was not making
myself an accomplice to a murder. My scruples remained unreconciled
to the committing of so horrid a meal, till upon serious reflection
I became convinced of its legality[156] from the general order of
Nature which has instituted the universal preying [of the stronger]
upon the weaker as one of her first principles: though to me it has
ever appeared an incomprehensible mystery that she, who could not
be restrained by any want of materials from furnishing supplies for
the support of her numerous offspring, should lay them under the
necessity of devouring one another.[157]
“I know not whether it is from the clergy having looked upon this
subject as too trivial for their notice, that we find them more
silent upon it than could be wished; for as slaughter is at present
no branch of the priesthood, it is to be presumed that they have as
much compassion as other men. The _Spectator_ has exclaimed against
the cruelty of roasting lobsters alive, and of whipping pigs to
death, but the misfortune is the writings of an Addison are seldom
read by cooks and butchers. As to the _thinking_ part of mankind,
it has always been convinced, I believe, that however conformable
to the _general_ rule of nature our devouring animals may be,
we are nevertheless under indelible obligation to prevent their
suffering any degree of pain more than is absolutely unavoidable.
“But this conviction lies in such heads that I fear _not one
poor creature in a million has ever fared the better for it_,
and, I believe, never will: since people of condition, the only
source from whence [effectual] pity is to flow, are so far from
inculcating it to those beneath them, that a very few years ago
they suffered themselves to be entertained at a public theatre
by the performances of an unhappy company of animals who could
only have been made actors by the utmost energy of whipcord and
starving.”[158]
The writer might have instanced still more frightful results of this
insensibility on the part of the influential classes of the community:
nor indeed, the better few always excepted, were he living now could he
present a much more favourable picture of the morals (in this the most
important department of them) of the ruling sections of society.
Ritson supplements the virtual adhesion of Lord Chesterfield to
the principles of Humanity, with some remarks of Sir W. Jones, the
eminent Orientalist, who (protesting against the selfish callousness
of “Sportsmen” and even of “Naturalists” in the infliction of pain)
writes: “I shall never forget the couplet of Ferdusi[159] for which
Sadi,[160] who cites it with applause, pours blessings on his departed
spirit:--
“Ah! spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain:
He lives with pleasure and he dies with pain.”
To which creditable expression of feeling we would append a word
of astonishment at that very common inconsistency, and failure in
elementary logic, which permits men--while easily and hyperbolically
commiserating the fate of an emmet, a beetle, or a worm--to ignore
the necessarily infinitely greater sufferings of the highly-organised
victims of the _Table_.”
XXIV.
VOLTAIRE. 1694-1778.
Of the life and literary productions of the most remarkable name in
the whole history of literature--if at least we regard the extent and
variety of his astonishing genius, as well as the immense influence,
contemporary and future, of his writings--only a brief outline can
be given here. Yet, as the most eminent humanitarian prophet of the
eighteenth century, the principal facts of his life deserve somewhat
larger notice than within the general scope of this work.
François Marie Arouet--commonly known by his assumed name of
Voltaire--on his mother’s side of a family of position recently
ennobled, was born at Chatenay, near Paris. He was educated at the
Jesuits’ College of Louis XIV., where, it is said, the fathers already
foretold his future eminence. Like many other illustrious writers he
was originally destined for the “Law,” which was little adapted to his
genius, and, like his great prototype, Lucian, and others, he soon
abandoned all thought of that profession for letters and philosophy.
He had the good fortune, at an early age, to gain the favour of the
celebrated Ninon de Lenclos, who left him a legacy of 2,000 livres for
the purchase of a library--an important event which was doubtless the
means of confirming his intellectual bias.
Voltaire’s first literary conceptions were formed in the Bastile, that
infamous representative of despotic caprice, to which some verses of
which he was the reputed author, satirising the licentious extravagance
of the Court of the late king, Louis XIV., had consigned him at the age
of twenty. Soon afterwards appeared the tragedy of _Ædipe_ (founded
upon the well-known dramas of Sophocles), the first modern drama in
which the universal and traditional love scenes were discarded. This
contempt for the conventionalities, however, excited the indignation
of the play-goers, and the _Ædipe_ was, at its first representation,
hissed off the stage. The author found himself forced to sacrifice
to the popular tastes, and his tragedy was received with applause.
Two memorable verses indicated the bias of the future antagonist of
ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and naturally provoked the hostility of the
profession which he had dared so openly to assail:--
“Nos prêtres ne sont pas ce qu’un vain peuple pense:
Notre credulité fait toute leur science.”
It was during this imprisonment, too, that he formed the first idea
of the _Henriade_ (or _The League_, as it was originally called),
the only epic poem worthy of the name in the French language. A
chance quarrel with an insolent courtier was the cause of Voltaire’s
second incarceration in the Bastile with, at the end of six months, a
peremptory order to absent himself from the capital. These experiences
of despotic caprice and of sophisticated society he long afterwards
embodied in two of his best romances, _L’Ingénu_ and _Micro-mégas_ (the
“Little-Big Man”), one of the most exquisite productions of Satire.
The youthful victim of these malicious persecutions determined upon
seeking refuge in England, whose freer air had already inspired
Newton, Locke, Shaftesbury, and other eminent leaders of Thought. A
flattering welcome awaited him--and subscriptions to the _Henriade_,
better received here than in France, gratified his pride and filled
his purse. During his sojourn of three years in this country, he made
the most of his time in studying its best literature, and cultivating
the acquaintance of its most eminent living writers. His tragedy of
_Brutus_ was followed by _La Mort de César_ which, from its taint of
liberalism, was not allowed to be printed in France. Upon his return
to Paris he published his _Zaïre_--finished in eighteen days--the first
tragedy in which, deserting the footsteps of Corneille and Racine, he
ventured to follow the bent of his own genius. The plan of _Zaïre_ has
been pronounced to be one of the most perfect ever contrived for the
stage.
More important, by its influence upon contemporary thought, was
his famous _Letters on the English_--a work designed to inform his
countrymen generally of the literature, thought, and political and
theological parties of the rival nation, and, more especially, of the
discoveries of Newton and Locke. Descartes, at this moment supreme
in France, had succeeded to the vacant throne of the so-called
Aristotelian Schoolmen. His system, a great advance upon the old,
broached some errors in physics, amongst others the theory of
“Vortices” to explain the planetary movements. A much more pernicious
and reprehensible error was his absurd denial of conscious feeling
and intelligence to the lower races, which was admirably exposed by
Voltaire in his _Elémens de Newton_ and elsewhere. In England, Newton’s
extraordinary discoveries had already made Descartes obsolete, as far
as the _savans_ were concerned at least, but the French scientific
world still clung, for the most part, to the Cartesian principles. As
for Locke, he had overturned the orthodox creed of “innate ideas,”
supplying instead sensation and reflection. This advocacy of the new
philosophy, added to the success of his tragedies for the theatre,
“Drew [says Voltaire in his _Mémoires_] a whole library of
pamphlets down upon me, in which they proved I was a bad poet,
an atheist, and the son of a peasant. A history of my life was
printed in which this genealogy was inserted. An industrious German
took care to collect all the tales of that kind which had been
crammed into the libel, they had published against me. They imputed
adventures to me with persons I never knew, and with others who
never existed. I have found while writing this a letter from the
Maréchal de Richelieu which informed me of an impudent lampoon
where it was proved his wife had given me an elegant couch, with
something else, at a time when he had no wife. At first I took
some pleasure in making collections of these calumnies, but they
multiplied to such a degree I was obliged to leave off. Such are
the fruits I gathered from my labours. I, however, easily consoled
myself, sometimes in my retreat at Cirey, and at other times in
mixing with the best society.”
Amongst other subjects the _Lettres_ (a masterpiece of criticism and
sort of essays, since often imitated but seldom or never, perhaps,
equalled in their kind) contains an admirable essay upon the Quakers,
to whom he did justice. He introduces one of them in conversation with
him, thus apologising for his _eccentricities_: