Yet, were I a man, had I the power of eloquence, I would go from
village to village, from town to town, and vehemently denounce
such horrors. I should think that I had achieved more than the
founders of all religions, if I should succeed in inspiring men
with sympathy for their fellow-beings. What is religious belief,
if it tolerates this murder, or rather sanctions it? What is all
Belief without Love? And what is a Love _that excludes from its
embrace the infinitely larger part of living beings_? Sweet and
fair indeed is it to live in a valley which harbours only mild and
loving people; but it is greater, and worthier of the high destiny
of human life, to battle amongst the Bad for Goodness, to contend
for the Light amongst the prisoners of Darkness. What is Life
without Doing? We women, indeed, cannot, and dare not ourselves
venture forth into the wild surge of rough and coarse men; but it
is our business at least to incite to all that is True, Beautiful,
and Good; to have regard for no man who is not ardent for what is
noble, to accept none of them who does not come before us adorned
with the ornament of worthy actions (der nicht mit dem Schmucke
würdigen Thaten vor uns tritt).
This eloquent discourse takes place while the three friends are
watching, during the night, at the bier of the supposed dead. At
the moment when the last funeral rites are to be performed, equally
with the spectators we are surprised and pleased at the unexpected
resuscitation of Mandaras, who, it appeared, had been in a trance,
from which at the critical moment he awoke. With what transports he
is welcomed back from the confines of the shadow-land, may easily be
divined. For some time they live together in uninterrupted happiness;
the young German, who had adopted their simple mode of living,
remaining with them. In the intervals of pleasing labours in the
field and the garden, they pass their hours of recreation in refined
intellectual discourse and speculation, the younger ones deriving
instruction from the experienced wisdom of the venerable sage. The
conversation often turns upon the relations between the human and
non-human races; and, in the course of one of his philosophical
prelections, the old man, with profound insight, declares that “so
long as other animals continue to be excluded from the circle of Moral
Existence, in which Rights and Duties are recognised, so long is there
no step forward in Morality to be expected. So long as men continue
to support their lives upon bodies essentially like to their own,
without misgiving and without remorse, so long will they be fast bound
by blood-stained fetters (_mit blutgetränkten Fesseln_) to the lower
planes of existence.”
At length the sorrowful day of separation arrives. It is decided that
Mandaras should return to Germany, a wider sphere of useful action than
the Himalayan valleys presented; and an additional reason is found
in the discovery that his mother herself had been German. With much
painful reluctance in parting from beloved friends, he recognises the
force of their arguments, and once more leaves his peaceful home for
the turmoil of European cities. After suffering shipwreck, in which
he rescues a mother and child--at the expense of what he had held
as his most precious possession, a casket of relics of his beloved
Urwasi--Mandaras lands once again at Livorno. He finds his old friends
as eager as ever for proselytising “the heathen,” and quite unconscious
of the need of conversion for themselves. At the death of the aged
father of Damajanti, she, with her friend Sunanda and Theobald, who
still remains with them, and (as may have been divined) is the devoted
lover of the charming Sunanda, determines to leave her ancestral abode
and join her brother in his adopted German home. When they arrive at
the appointed place of meeting they are overwhelmed with grief to find
that he, for whose sake so long a pilgrimage had been undertaken, had
been taken from them for ever. Having lost his passport he had been
arrested on suspicion and imprisoned. In confinement he had shrunk from
the European flesh-dishes, and, unsupplied with proper nourishment or a
sufficiency of it, had died (in the true sense of the word) a _martyr_,
to the last, to his moral principles. With great difficulty his final
words in writing are discovered, and these, in the form of letters to
his sister, declare his unshaken faith and hopes for the future of the
World. There are, also, found short poems, which are published at the
end of his Memoirs, and are fully worthy of the refined mind of the
author of _Mandaras_. Thus ends a romance which, for beauty of idea and
sentiment, may be classed with the _Aventures de Télémaque_ of Fénélon
and, still more fitly, with the _Paul et Virginie_ of St. Pierre.[274]
The space we have been tempted to give to _Mandaras’s Wanderings_
precludes more than one or two further extracts from Struve’s admirable
writings. His _Pflanzenkost_, perhaps the best known, as it is his
most complete, exposition of his views on Humane Dietetics, appeared
in the year 1869. In it he examines Vegetarianism in all its varied
aspects--in regard to Sociology, Education, Justice, Theology, Art and
Science, Natural Economy, Health, War and Peace, the practical and
real Materialism of the Age, Health, Refinement of Life, &c. From the
section which considers the Vegetable Diet in its relations to National
Economy we quote the following just reflections:--
“Every step from a lower condition to a higher is bound up with
certain difficulties. This is especially the case when it is a
question of shaking off habits strengthened by numbers and length
of time. Had the human race, however, not the power to do so,
then the step from Paganism to Christianity, from predatory life
to tillage, in particular from savage barbarousness to a certain
stage in civilisation, would have been impossible. All these steps
brought many struggles in their train, which to many thousands
produced some hardships (_Schaden_); to untold millions, however,
incalculable benefits. So, also, the steps onward from Flesh-Diet
cannot be established without some disturbances. The great majority
of men hold fast to old prejudices. They struggle, not seldom with
senseless rage, against enlightenment and reason, and a century
often passes away before a new idea has forced the way for the
spread of new blessings.
“Therefore, we need not wonder if we, also, who protest and stand
out against the evils of Flesh-Eating, and proclaim the advantages
of the Vegetable Diet, find violent opponents. The gain which would
accrue to the whole race of man by the acceptance of that diet is,
however, so great and so evidently destined, that our final victory
is certain....
“Doubtless the Political Economy of our days will be shaken to its
foundations by the step from the flesh to the non-flesh diet; but
this was also the case when the nomads began to practise tillage,
and the hunters found no more _game_. The relics of certain
barbarisms must be shaken off. All barbarians, or semi-barbarians,
will struggle desperately against this with their selfish
coarseness (_eigenthümlichen Rohheit_). But the result will be that
the soil which, under the influence of the Flesh-Régime supported
one man only, will, with the unfettered advantages of the Vegetable
Diet support five human beings. Liebig, even, recognised so much
as this--that the Flesh-Diet is twelve times more costly than the
Non-Flesh.”[275]
Struve’s _Seelenleben_,[276] published in the same year with the
_Pflanzenkost_, and his last important work, forms a sort of _résumé_
of his opinions already given to the world, and is, therefore, a more
comprehensive exposition of his opinions on Sociology and Ethics than
is found in his earlier writings. It is full of the truest philosophy
on the Natural History of Man, inspired by the truest refinement of
soul. In the section entitled _Moral_ he well exposes the futility
of hap-hazard speeches, meaning nothing, which, vaguely and in an
indefinite manner addressed to the child, are allowed to do duty for
_practical_ moral teaching:--
“They tell children, perhaps, that they must not be cruel either
to ‘Animals’ or to human beings weaker than themselves. But when
the child goes into the kitchen, he sees Pigeons, Hens, and Geese
slaughtered and plucked; when he goes into the streets, he sees
animals hung up with bodies besmeared with blood, feet cut off, and
heads twisted back. If the child proceeds still further, he comes
upon the slaughter-house, in which harmless and useful beings of
all kinds are being slaughtered or strangled. We shall not here
dwell upon all the barbarisms bound up in the butchery of animals;
but in the same degree in which men abuse their superior powers, in
regard to other species, do they usually cause their tyranny to be
felt by weaker human beings in their power.
“What avails all the fine talk about morality, in contrast with
_acts of barbarism and immorality presented to them on all sides_?
“It is no proof of an exalted morality when a man acts justly
towards a person stronger than himself, who can injure him.
_He alone acts justly who fulfils his obligatory duties
(Verpflichtungen) in regard to the weaker._ ... He, who has
no _human_ persons under him, at least can strike his horse,
barbarously drive his calf, and cudgel his dog. The relations
of men to the inferior species are so full of significance, and
exercise so mighty an influence upon the development of human
character, that Morality wants a wider province that shall embrace
those beings within it.”
In the chapter devoted especially to Food and Drinks (_Speise und
Trank_) Struve warns those whom it most concerns that:--
“The monstrous evils and abuses, which gradually and stealthily
have invaded our daily foods and drinks, have now reached to such a
pitch that they can no longer be winked at. He who desires to work
for the improvement of the human species, for the elevation of the
human soul, and for the invigoration of the human body, dares not
leave uncontested the general dominant unnaturalness of living.
“With a people struggling for Freedom the Kitchen must be no
murderous den (_Mördergrube_); the Larder no den of corruption;
the Meal no occasion for stupefaction. In despotic states the
oppressors of the People may intoxicate themselves with spirituous
drink, and bring disease and feebleness upon themselves with
unlawful and unwholesome meats. The sooner such men perish (_zu
grunde gehen_) the better. But in free states (or in such as are
striving for Freedom), Simplicity, Temperance, Soberness must be
the first principles of citizen-life. No people can be free whose
individual members are still slaves to their own passions.[277]
Man must first free himself from these before he can, _with any
success_, make war upon those of his fellow-men.”
Weighty words coming from a student of Science and of Human Life.
Still weightier coming from one who had devoted so large a part of his
existence to assist, and had taken so active a part in, the struggles
of the people for Justice and Freedom.
XLIX.
DAUMER. 1800-1875.
One of the earliest pioneers of the New Reformation in Germany, chiefly
from what may be termed the religious-philosophical standpoint, and one
whose useful learning was equalled only by his true conception of the
significance of the religious sentiment, was born at Nürnberg, in the
last year of the eighteenth century.
Of a naturally feeble constitution, unable to mix in the ordinary
amusements of school-life, he found ample leisure for literature and
for music, to which especially he was devoted. Much of his time, also,
was given to theological, and, in particular, biblical reading, so that
his mother unhesitatingly fixed upon the clerical profession as his
future career. He attended the Gymnasium of his native town, at that
time under the direction of Hegel, who exercised a permanent influence
upon his mental development. In the eighteenth year of his age he
proceeded to the University of Erlangen for the study of theology.
Doubts, however, began to disturb his contentment with orthodoxy;
and, more and more dissatisfied with its systems, the young student
relinquished the course of life for which he had believed himself
destined; and, after attending the lectures of Schelling, he went
to Leipsic to apply himself wholly to philology. Having completed
the usual course of study, he was appointed teacher, and afterwards
Professor of Latin in the Nürnberg Gymnasium (1827). Unpleasant
relations with the Rector of the schools (whose orthodoxy seems to have
been less questionable than his amiability), and also, in part, his
feeble health, obliged him to resign this post, and from that time he
gave himself up exclusively to literary occupations, which were, for
the most part, in the domain of philosophic theology.
During his professoriate Daumer had written his _Urgeschichte des
Menschengeistes_ (“Primitive History of the Human Mind”), which was
succeeded, at an interval of some years, by his _Andeutungen eines
Systems Speculativer Philosophie_ (“Intimations of a System of
Speculative Philosophy”), in which he attempted to found and formulate
a philosophic Theism. The unreality of the professions and trifling of
those who had most reputation in the “religious” world, estranged him
more and more from the prevalent interpretations of Christianity.
His _Philosophie, Religion, und Alterthum_ appeared in 1833. Two
years later his _Züge zu einer neuen Philosophie der Religion
and Religionsgeschichte_ (“Indications for a New Philosophy of
Religion and History of Religion”). In 1842 was published _Der
Feuer-und-Moloch-Dienst der Hebräer_ (“The Fire and Moloch-Worship of
the Hebrews”), and (1847) _Die Geheimnisse des Christlichen Alterthums_
(“The Mysteries of Christian Antiquity”), in which he pointed out
that human sacrifice, and even cannibalism, were connected with the
old Baal-worship of the Jews, and maintained the newer religion to
be, in one important respect, not so much a purification of Judaism,
as an apparently retrograde movement to the still older religionism.
Besides these and other philosophic writings, Daumer published a free
translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. _Hafiz_ was followed by _Mahomed
und seine Werke: eine Sammlung Orientalischer Geschichte_ (“Mahommed
and his Actions: a Résumé of Oriental History”) 1848; and in 1855 by
_Polydora: ein Weltpoetisches Liederbuch_ (“Polydora: A Book of Lays
from the World’s Poetry”).
In his _Anthropologismus und Kriticismus_ (“Anthropology and
Criticism”), 1844, are many assaults upon the orthodox dietetic
practices; and in _Enthüllungen über Kaspar Hauser_ (“Revelations
in regard to Kaspar Hauser”) he displays the noxious influences of
flesh-eating upon a “wild boy of the woods,” who had been deserted or
lost by his parents in his childhood, and who had lived an entirely
natural life in the forests, eating only wild fruits. When he had
been reclaimed from the _savage_ state, his guardians, it seems,
thought that the most effectual method of “civilising” their charge
was to force him to discard fruits for flesh. The result, as shown by
Professor Daumer, who watched the case with the greatest interest,
was not reassuring for the orthodox believers. The inveteracy of the
practice of kreophagy, which blinds men to its essential barbarism, as
well as its anti-ethical, anti-humanising influences, is eloquently
insisted upon:--
“Among the reforms necessary for the triumph of true refinement and
true morality, which ought to be our earnest aim, is the Dietetic
one, which, if not the weightiest of all (_allerwichtigste_), yet,
undoubtedly, is one of the weightiest. Still is the ‘civilised’
world stained and defiled by the remains of a horrible barbarity;
while the old-world revolting practice of slaughter of animals and
feeding on their corpses still is in so universal vogue, that men
have not the faculty even of recognising it as such, as otherwise
they would recognise it; and aversion from this horror provokes
censure of such eccentricity, and amazement at any manifestion of
tendency to reform, as at something absurd and ridiculous--nay,
arouses even bitterness and hate. To extirpate this barbarism is a
task, the accomplishment of which lies in the closest relationship
with the most important principles of humaneness, morality,
æsthetics, and physiology. A foundation for real culture--a
thorough civilising and refining of humanity--is clearly impossible
so long as an organised system of murder and of corpse-eating
(_organisirten Mord-und-Leichenfratz System_) prevails by
recognised custom.
“That through a manner of living, of a character so fostering of
corrupting and putrefying principles, is generated and nourished a
whole host of diseases which, otherwise, would not exist, is so
easy to see, that only an extremely obstinate love of flesh-meat
can blind one to the fact. Before I renounced flesh-eating, which,
unhappily, I had not the courage to do before I had lived a half
century, I suffered from time to time from a frightful neuralgia,
which tortured me many long days and nights. Since I abstained from
that diet I have rid myself of this evil entirely. Observations of
other individuals, in respect of the same and other maladies, have
led me to the same conclusion. Worms, for instance, from which it
formerly suffered, have entirely disappeared in a child, when it no
longer was fed upon flesh.
“That through the _cadaverous_ diet, also, very great disadvantages
are derived to the spiritual and moral nature of men, appears to me
to be proved by my experience in the case of my former foster-son,
the celebrated Kaspar Hauser. This young man, maintained during his
close confinement upon bread and water, for a long time after his
introduction to the world ate nothing else, and wished for nothing
else, as food. While he was accustomed, without ill-effect, to take
bread-sops, oatmeal, and plain chocolate, from flesh, which had
for him an intolerable odour, he had conceived a violent aversion.
Living in this way he always looked sufficiently well-nourished,
he developed a remarkable intelligence, and exhibited an
extraordinarily refined and tender feeling. He was induced at last,
but only by the most extraordinary caution and gradually, to take
the usual flesh-dishes, by being given at first only a few drops
of flesh-soup in his bread-sops, and, when he had grown in some
measure accustomed to it, by infusing stronger ingredients, and so
on.
“There was now manifested the most disastrous change in his mind
and disposition: learning became for him strangely difficult--the
nobility of his nature disappeared into the background, and he
turned out to be nothing more than a very ordinary individual.
They ascribed this, of course, to every other cause than to
his habituation to the flesh-diet. I myself was at that time
very remote from the opinion of which I now am. From my present
standpoint, however, I certainly cannot doubt that dietetic
barbarism is for man of the most essential harm, not alone in a
physical, but also in an intellectual and moral, point of view,
however much it may, at present, be taken under the patronage of
physiologists and physicians--upon no other ground, apparently,
than because they themselves, to a melancholy degree, are devotedly
attached to this inhuman diet. For, alas! man is wont to make use
of his reason to justify by specious show of reasoning what he
likes and delights in upon quite other grounds.”[278]
Of the rest of the little band of the propagators of the truer
Philosophy in Germany no longer living--who resolutely bore aloft
the standard of the Humanitarian Creed, at a time when it was yet
more scouted and scorned by the infidels than even at the present
day--deserving as they are of everlasting gratitude and remembrance
at the hands of their more fortunate successors, the limits of this
book compel us to be content with recording here the witness of one
or two more only; while for acquaintance with the numerous able and
eloquent expositions of their living representatives--of such earnest
humanitarian and social reformers as Ed. Baltzer, Emil Weilshäuser,
Theodor Hahn, Dr. Aderholdt, A. von Seefeld, R. Springer, and
others-- we must refer our readers, who wish to form an adequate idea
of contemporary German _anti-kreophagistic_ literature (as also in
regard to the equally extensive contemporary English literature of the
subject), to the original works themselves.
From _Der Weg zum Paradiese_ (“The Way to Paradise”) the following
extract sufficiently represents the inspiration of the writer, Dr. W.
Zimmermann:--
“Men are almost entirely everything that they are by the force of
custom; and this force, for the most part, resists every other
power, and remains victorious over all. Reason itself, morality,
and conscience are submissive to it. In the matter of Dietary
Reform it displays itself as the enemy _par excellence_ (_die
Hauptmacht_). People will fall back upon alleged _impossibilities_,
although it is a question only of will and resolution. They will
reject many of the dietetic propositions hitherto advanced as
dangerous ‘abstractions,’ although they are founded in history,
reason, and human destiny; although a brief enquiry ought to
suffice to convince one of the first importance of the Reform. For
although one must suppose that all would prefer a long, healthy,
and happy existence to a feeble, painful life upon the old regimen,
yet will the majority of human beings think it easier to attempt to
assuage their torments and pains by uncertain, and, by no means,
unhazardous medicine, rather than to remove them by obedience to
Nature’s laws. As it is with most of the highest truths, so is
it especially with Dietary Reform. People will reject it as an
_abstraction_, and pronounce it an _impossibility_. In the future,
however, by the greater number of the higher minds--for such a
sacrifice of the lower and unnatural appetite we dare not expect
from the ordinary run of men--will it be regarded in practice as
a great blessing. For even now there are many exceptions in the
social organism for whom Nature’s laws are superior to unreasoning
impulse; for whom morality is superior to materialistic and mere
sensual living; for whom duty is superior to superfluity. Besides,
we are advancing towards a humaner century; and, as the present
is a humaner time than the century before, so later will there
be a milder _régime_ than now. Just as, in our days, exposure
of children, combats of gladiators, torture of prisoners, and
other atrocities are held to be scandalous and shameful, while
in earlier times they were thought quite justifiable and right,
so in the future will the murder of animals, to feed upon their
corpses, be pronounced to be immoral and indefensible. Already
(1846) are associations being formed for the protection of these
beings; already now are there many who, like the nobler spirits
of antiquity, apply to their diet the watchword of morality (_das
Losungswort der Moral_) _to do good and to abstain from wrong is
always, and above everything, possible_, and no longer give their
sanction, by feeding on animals, to the torture and killing of
innocent sentient beings.
“According to the _number_ of proselytes will the importance of
the evidence be adjudged. When thousands, practising natural diet,
are observed in the midst of diseased flesh-eaters to be in the
enjoyment of a prolonged, happy, old age, without disease and the
sufferings of a vicious method of life, then will the way be laid
down for _the many_ to abandon the living upon the corpses of other
animals.”
Of a like inspiration is the indignant protest of another of the
apostles of Humanitarianism in Germany:--
“What humiliation, what disgrace for us all, _that it should be
necessary_ for one man to exhort other men not to be inhuman and
irrational towards their fellow-creatures!