seems to have adopted his extraordinary theory as to the non-human
races as a sort of _dernier resort_. In a letter to one of his friends
(Louis Racine) he declares himself driven to his theory by the rigour
of the dilemma, that (seeing the innocence of the victims of man’s
selfishness) it is necessary either that they should he insensible to
suffering, or that God, who has made them, should be unjust. Upon which
Gleïzès makes the following reflection: “This reasoning is conclusive.
One must either be a Cartesian, or allow that man is very vile. Nothing
is more rigorous than this consequence.”--(_Thalysie Ou La Nouvelle
Existence_). La Fontaine has well illustrated the absurdity of the
animated machine theory in _Fables_ x. 1.
[120] See “_Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton_.”
[121] _Suspecta mihi semper fuerit_ (he writes) _ipsa hominis_ φιλαυτία.
[122] See Gassendi’s Letter, _Viro Clarissimo et Philosopho ac Medico
Expertissimo Joanni Baptistæ Helmontio Amico Suo Singulari_. Dated,
Amsterdam, 1629.
[123] _Physics._ Book II. _De Virtutibus._
[124] See _Philosophiæ Epicuri Syntagma. De Sobrietate contra Gulam._
(“View of the Philosophy of Epikurus: On Sobriety as opposed to
Gluttony.”) Part III. Florentiæ, 1727. Folio. Vol. III.
[125] _Advancement of Learning_, iv., 2. Bacon’s suggestion seems
to imply that human beings were still vivisected, for the “good” of
science, in his time. Celsus, the well-known Latin physician of the
second century, had protested against this cold-blooded barbarity of
deliberately cutting up a living human body. The wretched victims
of the vivisecting knife were, it seems, slaves, criminals, and
captives, who were handed over by the authorities to the physiological
“laboratory.” Harvey, Bacon’s contemporary, is notorious (and, it ought
to be added, infamous) for the number and the unrelenting severity of
his experiments upon the non-human slaves, which, though constantly
alleged by modern vivisectors to have been the means by which he
discovered the “circulation of the blood,” have been clearly proved to
have served merely as demonstrations in physiology to his pupils. But
we no longer wonder at Harvey’s indifference to the horrible suffering
of which he was the cause, when we read the similar atrocities of
vivisection and “pathology” of our own time. From the cold-blooded
cruelties of Harvey, who was accustomed to amuse Charles I. and his
family with his demonstrations, it is a pleasant relief to turn to
the better feeling of Shakspere on that subject. See his _Cymbeline_
(i., 6), where the Queen, who is experimenting in poisons, tells her
physician,
“I will try the force of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging--but none human.”
and is reminded that she would “from this practice but make hard
her heart.” Such a rebuke is in keeping with the true feeling which
inspired the poet to picture the undeserved pangs of the hunted Deer in
_As You Like It_, ii., 1.
[126] _Advancement of Learning._ viii., 2.
[127] See _Acetaria_ (page 170). By John Evelyn.
[128] The tract of Samuel Hartlib, entitled, _A Design for Plenty,
by a Universal Planting of Fruit Trees_, which appeared during the
Commonwealth Government, no doubt suggested to Evelyn his kindred
publication. Hartlib (of a distinguished German family) settled in this
country somewhere about the year 1630. By his writings, in advocacy
of better agriculture and horticulture, he has deserved a grateful
commemoration from after-times. Cromwell gave him a pension of £300,
which was taken away by Charles II., and he died in poverty and
neglect. It was to him Milton dedicated his _Tractate on Education_.
[129] Locke (one of the very highest names in Philosophy) had already
exhorted English mothers to make their children abstain “wholly from
flesh,” at least until the completion of the fourth or fifth year. He
strongly recommends a very sparing amount of flesh for after years; and
thinks that many maladies may be traceable to the foolish indulgence of
mothers in respect to diet.--See _Thoughts on Education_, 1690.
[130] He quotes, amongst others, Tertullian _De Jejuniis_ (On Fasting),
cap. iv.; Jerome (_Adv. Jovin_); Clemens of Alexandria (_Strom._ vii.);
Eusebius, _Preparatio Evangelica_ (Preparation for the Gospel), who
cites several abstinents from amongst the philosophers of the old
theologies.
[131] _Acetaria_ (“A Discourse of Salads”). Dedicated to Lord Somers,
of Evesham, Lord High Chancellor of England, and President of the Royal
Society, London, 1699.
[132] Translated by Cowper from the Latin poems of Milton. In a note
to the original poem Thomas Warton justly remarks that “Milton’s
panegyrics on temperance both in eating and in drinking, resulting from
his own practice, are frequent.”
[133] _Paradise Lost_, v. and xi. Cf. _Queen Mab_.
[134] _Le sang humain abruti ne pouvait plus s’élever aux choses
intellectuelles._ See _Discours sur L’Histoire Universelle_, a
historical sketch which, though necessarily infected by the theological
prejudices of the bishop, is, for the rest, considering the period in
which it was written, a meritorious production as one of the earliest
attempts at a sort of “philosophy of history.”
[135] _Penny Cyclopædia_, Article Mandeville.
[136] Upon which Ritson aptly remarks: “The sheep is not so much
‘designed’ for the _man_ as the _man_ is for the _tiger_, this animal
being naturally carnivorous, which man is not. But nature, and justice,
and humanity are not always one and the same thing.” To this remark we
may add with equal force, that almost all the living beings upon whom
our species preys have been so artificially changed from their natural
condition for the gratification of its selfish appetite as to be with
difficulty identified with the original stocks. So much for this theory
of creative _design_.
[137] _Fable of the Bees_, i. 187, &c.
[138] _Fable_ xxxvi., _Pythagoras and the Countryman_. This fable of
Gay may have been suggested by that of Æsop--preserved by Plutarch--who
represents a wolf watching a number of shepherds eating a sheep,
and saying to himself--“If _I_ were doing what _you_ are now about,
what an uproar you would make!” See also the instructive fable of La
Fontaine--_L’Homme et la Couleuvre_, one of the finest in the whole
twelve Books (_Livre_ x., 2), in which the Cow and Ox accuse the
base ingratitude of Man for the cruel neglect, and, finally, for the
barbarous slaughter of his fellow-labourers. The Cow, appealed to by
the Adder, replies:--
“Pourquoi dissimuler?
Je nourris celui-ci depuis longues années:
Il n’a sans mes bienfaits passé nulles journées.
Tout n’est que pour lui seul: mon lait et mes enfants
Le font à la maison revenir les mains pleines.
Même j’ai rétabli sa santé, que les ans
Avaient altérée; et mes peines
Ont pour but son plaisir ainsi que son besoin.
Enfin me voilà vieille. _Il me laisse
Sans herbe._ S’il voulait encore me laisser paître!
Mais je suis attachée.....
Force coups, peu de gré. Puis, quand il était vieux,
On croyait l’honorer chaque fois que les hommes
_Achetaient de son sang l’indulgence des dieux_.”
[139] _The Wild Boar and the Ram._ For admirable rebukes of human
arrogance, see _The Elephant and the Bookseller_ and _The Man and the
Flea_.
[140] He was at one time so corpulent that he could not get in and out
of his carriage in visiting his patients at Bath.
[141] One of the many excellences of the non-flesh dietary is this
essential quality of fruits and vegetables, that they contain in
themselves sufficient liquid to allow one to dispense with a large
proportion of all extraneous drinks, and certainly with all alcoholic
kinds. Hence it is at once the easiest and the surest preventive of all
excessive drinking. Much convincing testimony has been collected to
this effect by the English and German Vegetarian Societies.
[142] It is neither necessary nor possible for everyone to practise
so extreme abstemiousness; but it is instructive to compare it for a
moment with the ordinary and prevalent indulgence in eating.
[143] _A Life of George Cheyne, M.D._, Parker and Churchill, 1846. See
also _Biog. Britannica_.
[144] Dr. Samuel Johnson gave up wine by the advice of Cheyne, and
drank tea with Mrs. Thrale and Boswell till he died, æt. 75.
[145] Bayle, the author of the great _Dictionnaire Historique et
Critique_ (1690), to whom belongs the lasting honour of having
inaugurated the critical method in history and philosophy, which
has since led to such extensive and important results, seems also
to have been the first explicitly to state the difficulties of that
greatest _crux_ of Theology--the problem of the existence, or rather
dominance, of Evil. His rival Le Clerc, in his _Bibliothéque_, took up
the orthodox cudgels. Lord Shaftesbury, the celebrated theologian and
moralist, wrote his dialogue--_The Moralists_ (1709)--in direct answer
to Bayle, followed the next year by the _Theodike or Vindication of
the Deity_ of Leibnitz. Two of the most able and distinguished of the
Anti-Optimists are Voltaire and Schopenhauer, the former of whom never
wearies of using his unrivalled powers of irony and sarcasm on the
_Tout est Bien_ theory. As for the latter philosopher, he has carried
his Anti-Optimism to the extremes of Pessimism.
[146] Pope here is scarcely logical upon his own premiss. It seems
impossible, upon any grounds of reason or analogy, to deny to the
lower animals a posthumous existence while vindicating it for
ourselves, inasmuch as the _essential_ conditions of existence are
identical for many other beings. To the serious thinker the question
of a post-terrestrial state of existence must stand or fall for both
upon the same grounds. Yet what can well be more weak, or more of
a subterfuge, than the pretence of many well-meaning persons, who
seek to excuse their indifferentism to the cruel sufferings of their
humble fellow-beings by the expression of a belief or a hope that
there is a future retributive state for them? It must be added that
this idle speculation--whether the non-human races are capable of
post-terrestrial life or no--might, to any serious apprehension,
seem to be wholly beside the mark. But what can be more monstrously
ridiculous (γέλοιον, in Lucian’s language) than the inconsistency
of those who would maintain the affirmative, and yet persist in
_devouring_ their clients? _Risum teneatis, amici!_
[147] _Spence’s Anecdotes_ and _The Guardian_, May 21, 1713. His
indignation was equally aroused by the tortures of the vivisectors of
the day. And he demands how do men know that they have “a right to kill
beings whom they [at least, the vast majority] are so little above, for
their own curiosity, or even for some use to them.”
[148] See _Travels_, &c. Part IV.
[149] _Dict. Phil._, in article _Viande_, where it is lamented that
his book, as far as appeared, had made no more converts than had the
Treatise of Porphyry fifteen centuries before.
[150] See the amusing scene of the gourmand Canon Sedillo and Dr.
Sangrado, who had been called in to the gouty and fever-stricken
patient: “‘Pray, what is your ordinary diet?’ [asks the physician.] ‘My
usual food,’ replied the Canon, ‘is broth and juicy meat.’ ‘Broth and
juicy meat!’ cried the doctor, alarmed. ‘I do not wonder to find you
sick; such dainty dishes are poisoned pleasures and snares that luxury
spreads for mankind, so as to ruin them the more effectually.... What
an irregularity is here! what a frightful regimen! You ought to have
been dead long ago. How old are you, pray?’ ‘I am in my sixty-ninth
year,’ replied the Canon. ‘Exactly,’ said the physician; ‘an early old
age is always the fruits of intemperance. If you had drunk nothing
else than pure water all your life, and had been satisfied with
simple nourishment--such as boiled apples, for example--you would
not now be tormented with the gout, and all your limbs would perform
their functions with ease. I do not despair, however, of setting you
to rights, provided that you be wholly resigned to my directions.’”
(_Adventures of Gil Blas_, ii., 2.) We may comment upon the satire
of the novelist (for so it was intended), that irony or sarcasm is a
legitimate and powerful weapon when directed against falsehood; that
there was, and is, only too much in the practice and principles of the
profession open to ridicule; but that the attempted ridicule of the
better living does not redound to the penetration or good sense of the
satirist.
[151] Compare the similar thoughts of the Latin poet, _Metam._ xv.
[152] _Autumn._ Read the verses which immediately follow, describing,
with profound pathos, the sufferings and anguish of the hunted Deer and
Hare.
[153] _Summer._
[154] _Observations on Man, II., 3._
[155] Quam vehementes haberent tirunculi impetus primos ad optima
quæque _si quis exhortaretur, si quis impelleret_! The general failure
Seneca traces partly to the fault of the schoolmasters, who prefer to
instil into the minds of their pupils a knowledge of _words_ rather
than of _things_--of _dialectics_ rather than of _dietetics_ (nos
docent disputare non vivere), and partly to the fault of parents who
expect a head in place of a heart training. (See _Letters to Lucilius_,
cviii.) _Quis doctores docebit?_
[156] An instance of the common confusion of thought and logic. The too
obvious fact that a large proportion of animals are carnivorous neither
proves nor justifies the carnivorousness of the _human_ species.
The real question is, is the human race originally _frugivorous_ or
_carnivorous_? Is it allied to the Tiger or to the Ape?
[157] “Who is this female personification ‘Nature’? What are ‘her
principles,’ and where does she reside?” asks Ritson quoting this
passage.
[158] _The World._ No. 190, as quoted by Ritson.
[159] Persian poets of the tenth and thirteenth centuries of our era.
[160] _Asiatic Researches._ iv. 12
[161] _Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton_, v. Haller, the founder
of modern physiology, assures us that “Newton, while he was engaged
upon his _Optics_, lived almost entirely on bread, and wine, and
water” (_Newtonus, dum_ Optica _scribebat, solo pœnè vino pane et aquâ
vixit_).--_Elements of Physiology_, vi., 198.
[162] A fact which brings out into strong relief the entirely
superfluous luxuries of living of the English residents.
[163] _Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_, introduction
section xvi., and chap. iii. and iv.
[164] See _Gen._ ix. and _Ecclesiastes_ iii., 18, 19.--Note by Voltaire.
[165] See _Lettres d’Amabed à Shastasid_. See also article _Viande_ in
the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_.
[166] _La Princesse de Babylone._ Cf. _Dialogue du Chapon et de la
Poularde_.
[167] See article _Bêtes_ in the _Dict. Phil._
[168] _Elements of Physiology._
[169] Cf. Virgil’s “Magna parens frugum.”
[170] See the _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_. Didot, Paris.
[171] _Græcorum Chirurgici Libri._ Firenze, 1754.
[172] _Dissertazione sopra l’uso esterno appresso gli Antichi
dell’acqua fredda sul corpo umano._ Firenze, 1747.
[173] _Del Vitto Pithagorico Per Uso Della Medicina: Discorso D’Antonio
Cocchi._ Firenze, 1743. A translation appeared in Paris in 1762 under
the title of _Le Régime de Pythagore_.
[174] _Del Vitto Pithagorico._ Amongst the heralds and forerunners
of Cocchi deserve to be mentioned with honour Ramazzini (1633-1714),
who earned amongst his countrymen the title of Hippokrates the Third;
Lessio (in his _Hygiastricon_, or Treatise on Health), in the earlier
part of the 17th century; and Lemcry, the French Physician and Member
of the Académie, author of _A Treatise on all Sorts of Food_, which was
translated into English by D. Hay, M.D., in 1745.
[175] Rousseau adds in a note: “I know that the English boast loudly of
their humanity and of the good disposition of their nation, which they
term ‘good nature,’ but it is in vain for them to proclaim this far and
wide. Nobody repeats it after them.” Gibbon, in the well-known passage
in his xxvith chapter, in which he speculates upon the influence of
flesh-eating in regard to the savage habits of the Tartar tribes,
quoting this remark of Rousseau, in his ironical way, says: “Whatever
we may think of the general observation, _we_ shall not easily allow
the truth of his example.”--_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,
xxvi.
[176] He corrects this mistake in a note: “One of my English
translators has pointed out this error, and both [of my translators]
have rectified it. Butchers and surgeons are received as witnesses, but
the former are not admitted as jurymen or peers in _criminal_ trials,
while surgeons are so.” Even this amended statement needs revision.
[177] How the French apostle of humanitarianism and refinement of
manners, if he were living, would regard the recently reported practice
of French and other physicians of sending their patients to the
slaughter-houses to drink the blood of the newly-slaughtered oxen may
be more easily imagined than expressed.
[178] Rather _carnes consumere nati_--“born simply to devour.”--See
_Hor._, Ep. I., 2.
[179] _Emile: ou de l’Education_, II.
[180] _Julie_ IV., _Lettre_ 10. See also her protests against shooting
and fishing.
[181] _Confessions._ One of his friends, Dussault, surprised him, it
seems, on one occasion eating a “cutlet.” Rousseau, conscious of the
betrayal of his principles, “blushed up to the whites of his eyes.”
(See Gleïzè’s _Thalysic_.) In truth, as we have already observed, his
principles on the subject of _dietetics_, as on some other matters,
were better than his practice. His sensibility was always greater than
his strength of mind.
[182] _Amœnitates Academicæ_, x., 8.
[183] This little word “seems” here, as in very many other
controversies, has a vast importance and needs a double emphasis.
[184] Buffon here entirely ignores the true cause of the “inanition” of
the poor classes of the community. It is not the want of _flesh_-meats,
but the want of all solid and nutritious _meat_ of any kind, which
is to be found amply in the abundant stores supplied by Nature at
first hand in the various parts of the vegetable world. Were the poor
able to procure, and were they instructed how best to use, the most
nourishing of the various _farinacea_, fruits, and kitchen herbs,
supplied by the home and foreign markets, we should hear nothing or
little of the scandalous scenes of starvation which are at present of
daily occurrence in our midst. The example of the Irish living upon
a few potatoes and buttermilk, or of the Scotch peasantry, instanced
by Adam Smith, proves how all-sufficient would be a diet judiciously
selected from the riches of the vegetable world. For, _à fortiori_, if
the Irish, living thus meagrely, not only support life, but exhibit
a _physique_ which, in the last century, called forth the admiration
of the author of _The Wealth of Nations_, might not our English poor
thrive upon a richer and more substantial vegetable diet which could
easily be supplied but for the astounding indifference of the ruling
classes?
[185] _Hist. Naturelle, Le Bœuf._
[186] Edition of Swift’s Works. Canon Sydney Smith, equally celebrated
as a _bon-vivant_ and as a wit, at the termination of his life writes
thus to his friend Lord Murray: “You are, I hear, attending more to
diet than heretofore. If you wish for anything like happiness in the
_fifth_ act of life _eat and drink about one-half what you could
eat and drink_. Did I ever tell you my calculation about eating and
drinking? Having ascertained the weight of what I could live upon, so
as to preserve health and strength, and what I did live upon, I found
that, between ten and seventy years of age, I had eaten and drunk
_forty-four horse wagon-loads of meat and drink more than would have
preserved me in life and health_! The value of this mass of nourishment
I considered to be worth seven thousand pounds sterling. It occurred
to me _that I must, by my voracity, have starved to death fully a
hundred persons_. This is a frightful calculation, but irresistibly
true.” Commentary upon this candid statement is superfluous. _Ab uno
disce omnes._ If amongst the richer classes the ordinary liver may
consume a somewhat smaller quantity of life during his longer or
shorter existence, at all events the _sum total_ must be a sufficiently
startling one for all who may have the courage and candour to reflect
upon this truly appalling subject. Another thought irresistibly
suggests itself. What _proportion_ of human lives thus supported is of
any real value in the world?
[187] In reply to this sort of apology it is obvious to ask--“Have
the _frugivorous_ races, who form no inconsiderable proportion of the
_mammals_, no claim to be considered?”
[188] To this very popular fallacy it is necessary only to object that
Nature may very well be supposed able to maintain the proper balance
for the most part. For the rest, man’s proper duty is to harmonise and
regulate the various conditions of life, as far as in him lies, not
indeed by satisfying his selfish propensities, but by assuming the
part of a benevolent and beneficent superior. To this we may add with
some force, that man appeared on the scene within a comparatively very
recent geological period, so that the Earth fared, it seems, very well
without him for countless ages.
[189] And, in point of fact, two-thirds at least of the whole human
population of our globe.
[190] This popular excuse is perhaps the feeblest and most disingenuous
of all the defences usually made for flesh-eating. Can the mere gift
of life compensate for all the horrible and frightful sufferings
inflicted, in various ways, upon their victims by the multiform
selfishness and barbarity of man? To what unknown, as well as known,
tortures are not every day the victims of the slaughter-house
subjected? From their birth to their death, the vast majority--it is
too patent a fact--pass an existence in which freedom from suffering of
one kind or other--whether from insufficient food or confined dwellings
on the one hand, or from the positive sufferings endured _in transitu_
to the slaughter-house by ship or rail, or by the brutal savagery of
cattle-drivers, &c.--is the exception rather than the rule.
[191] _Moral and Political Philosophy_, i., 2. It is deeply to be
deplored that Dr. Paley is in a very small minority amongst christian
theologians, of candour, honesty, and feeling sufficient to induce
them to dispute at all so orthodox a thesis as the right to slaughter
for food. That he is compelled, by the force of truth and honesty, to
abandon the popular pretexts and subterfuges, and to seek refuge in the
_supposed_ authority of the book of _Genesis_, is significant enough.
Of course, to all reasonable minds, such a course is tantamount to
giving up the defence of kreophagy altogether; and, if it were not for
theological necessity, it would be sufficiently surprising that Paley’s
intelligence or candour did not discover that if flesh-eating is to be
defended on biblical grounds, so, by parity of reasoning, are also to
be defended--slavery, polygamy, wars of the most cruel kind, &c.
[192] _The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_, xii., 11.
See, amongst others, the philosophical reflections of Mr. Greg in his
_Enigmas of Life_, Appendix. But the subject has been most fully and
satisfactorily dealt with by Professor Newman in his various Addresses.
[193] Compare the similar observation of Flourens, Secretary of the
French Academy of Sciences, in his _Treatise on the Longevity of Man_
(Paris, 1812). He quotes Cornaro, Lessio, Haller, and other authorities
on the reformed regimen.