love of truth and of love of knowledge, for its own sake) in schools
which tends to intensify, if not produce, the _selfism_ dominant in all
ranks of the community. Not the least meritorious of his exhortations
to Governments is his desire that they would employ themselves in such
useful works as the general planting of trees, producing nourishing
foods, in place of devastating the earth by wars, &c.
[195] The reason, as given by himself, for his abandonment in after
years of his self-imposed reform, is worthy neither of his philosophic
acumen nor of his ordinary judgment. It seems that on one occasion,
while his companions were engaged in sea-fishing, he observed that the
captured fish, when opened, revealed in its interior the remains of
another fish recently devoured. The young printer seemed to see in this
fact the ordinance of Nature, by which living beings live by slaughter,
and the justification of human carnivorousness. (See _Autobiography_.)
This was, however, to use the famous Sirian’s phrase, “to reason
badly;” for the sufficient answer to this alleged justification of
man’s flesh-eating propensity is simply that the fish in question was,
by natural organisation, _formed_ to prey upon its fellows of the sea,
whereas man is _not formed_ by Nature for feeding upon his fellows of
the land; and, further, that the larger proportion of _terrestrials_ do
not live by slaughter.
[196] _Wealth of Nations_ iii., 341. See, too, Sir Hans Sloane
(_Natural History of Jamaica_, i., 21, 22), who enumerates almost
every species of vegetable food that has been, or may be, used for
food, in various parts of the globe; the philosophic French traveller,
Volney (_Voyages_), who, in comparing flesh with non-flesh feeders, is
irresistibly forced to admit that the “habit of shedding blood, or even
of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiment of humanity;” the Swedish
traveller Sparrman, the disciple of Linné, who corrects the astonishing
physiological errors of Buffon as to the human digestive apparatus;
Anquetil (_Récherches sur les Indes_), the French translator of the
_Zend-Avesta_ who, from his sojourn with the vegetarian Hindus and
Persians, derived those more refined ideas which caused him to discard
the coarser Western living; and Sir F. M. Eden (_State of the Poor_).
[197] _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxvi.
Notwithstanding Gibbon’s expression of horror, we shall venture to
remark that the “unfeeling murderers” of the Tartar steppes, in
slaughtering each for himself, are more just than the _civilised_
peoples of Europe, with whom a pariah-class is set apart to do the
cruel and degrading work of the community.
[198] _The Task._ When Cowper wrote this (in 1782) the Law was entirely
silent upon the rights of the lower animals to protection. It was not
until nearly half a century later that the British Legislature passed
the first Act (and it was a very partial one) which at all considered
the rights of any non-human race. Yet Hogarth’s _Four Stages of
Cruelty_--to say nothing of literature--had been several years before
the world. It was passed by the persistent energy and courage of one
man--an Irish member--who braved the greatest amount of scorn and
ridicule, both within and without the Legislature, before he succeeded
in one of the most meritorious enterprises ever undertaken. Martin’s
Act has been often amended or supplemented, and always with no little
opposition and difficulty.
[199] The term “Mercy,” it is important to observe, is one of those
words of ambiguous meaning, which are liable, in popular parlance, to
be misused. It seems to have a double origin--from _misericordia_,
“Pity” (its better parentage), and _merces_, “Gain,” and, by deduction,
“Pardon” granted for some consideration. It is in this latter sense
that the term seems generally to be used in respect of the non-human
races. But it is obvious to object that “pardon,” applicable to
_criminals_, can have no meaning as applied to the innocent. _Pity_
or _Compassion_, still more _Justice_--these are the terms properly
employed.
[200] The observation of a _non-Christian_ moralist (_Juvenal_, xv.) It
is the motto chosen by Oswald for his title page.
[201] In the Hindu sacred scriptures, and especially in the teaching
of the great founder of the most extensive religion on the globe, this
regard for non-human life, however originating, is more obvious than
in any other sacred books. But it is most charmingly displayed in that
most interesting of all Eastern poetry and drama--_Sakuntala; or The
Fatal Ring_, of the Hindu Kalidâsa, the most frequently translated of
all the productions of Hindu literature. We may refer our readers also
to _The Light of Asia_, an interesting versification of the principal
teaching of Sakya-Muni or Gautama.
[202] _The Cry of Nature: an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice on behalf
of the Persecuted Animals._ By John Oswald. London, 1791.
[203] _Long Life, or the Art of Prolonging Human Existence._
[204] See the _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_ for complete
enumeration of his writings.
[205] _Makrobiotik._
[206] Afterwards Sir Richard Phillips, whose admirable exposition of
his reasons for abandoning flesh-eating, published in the _Medical
Journal_, July 1811, is quoted in its due place.
[207] _Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty_, IX. Ritson, in a
note, quotes the expression of surprise of a French writer, that
whereas abstinence “from blood and from things strangled” is especially
and solemnly enjoined by the immediate successors of Christ, in a
well-known prohibition, yet this sacred obligation is daily “made of
none effect” by those calling themselves _Christians_.
[208] “I have known,” says Dr. Arbuthnot, “more than one instance of
irascible passions having been much subdued by a vegetable diet.”--Note
by Ritson.
[209] Written in 1802. Since that time the “pastime” of worrying
bulls and bears, has in this country become illegal and extinct.
Cock-fighting, though illegal, seems to be still popular with the
“sporting” classes of the community.
[210] _General Advertiser_, March 4th, 1784. Since Ritson quoted this
from the newspaper of his day, 80 years ago, the same scenes of equal
and possibly of still greater barbarity have been recorded in our
newspapers, season after season, of the royal and other hunts, with
disgusting monotony of detail. Voltaire’s remarks upon this head are
worthy of quotation: “It has been asserted that Charles IX. was the
author of a book upon hunting. It is very likely that if this prince
had cultivated less the art of torturing and killing other animals,
and had not acquired in the forests the habit of seeing blood run,
there would have been more difficulty in getting from him the order of
St. Bartholomew. The chase is one of the most sure means for blunting
in men the sentiment of pity for their own species; an effect so much
the more fatal, as those who are addicted to it, placed in a more
elevated rank, have more need of this bridle.”--_Œuvres_ LXXII., 213.
In Flaubert’s remarkable story of _La Légende de St. Julien_ the hero
“developes by degrees a propensity to bloodshed. He kills the mice in
the chapel, the pigeons in the garden, and soon his advancing years
gave him opportunity of indulging this taste in hunting. He spends
whole days in the chase, caring less for the ‘sport’ than for the
slaughter.” One day he shoots a Fawn, and while the despairing mother,
“looking up to heaven, cried with a loud voice, agonising and human,”
St. Julien remorselessly kills her also. Then the male parent, a
noble-looking Stag, is shot last of all; but, advancing, nevertheless,
he comes up to the terrified murderer, and “stopped suddenly, and with
flaming eyes and solemn tone, as of a just judge, he spoke three times,
while a bell tolled in the distance, ‘Accursed one! ruthless of heart!
thou shalt slay thy father and mother also,’ and tottering and closing
his eyes he expired.” The blood-stained man on one occasion is followed
closely by all the victims of his wanton cruelty, who press around him
with avenging looks and cries. He fulfils the prophecy of the Stag, and
murders his parents.--See _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1878.
[211] It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that a quarter of
a century later (1827), when Martin had the courage to introduce the
first bill for the prevention of cruelty to certain of the domesticated
animals (a very partial measure after all), the humane attempt was
greeted by an almost universal shout of ridicule and derision, both in
and out of the Legislature.
[212] See Appendix.
[213] Quoted from an article in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, (August,
1787), signed _Etonensīs_, who, amongst other particulars, states of
the hero of his sketch that he was “one of the most original geniuses
who have ever existed.... He was well skilled in natural philosophy,
and might be said to have been a moral philosopher, not in _theory_
only, but in strict and uniform _practice_. He was remarkably humane
and charitable; and, though poor, was a bold and avowed enemy to every
species of oppression.... Certain it is, that he accounted the murder
(as he called it) of the meanest animal, except in self defence, a
very criminal breach of the laws of nature; insisting that the creator
of all things had constituted man not the _tyrant_, but the lawful
and limited _sovereign_, of the inferior animals, who, he contended,
answered the ends of their being better than their little despotic
lord.... He did not think it
‘Enough
In this late age, advent’rous to have touched
Light on the precepts of the Samian Sage,’
for he acted in strict conformity with them.... His vegetable and milk
diet afforded him, in particular, very sufficient nourishment; for
when I last saw him, he was still a tall, robust, and rather corpulent
man, though upwards of fourscore.” He was reported it seems, to be a
believer in the _Metempsychosis_. “It was probably so said,” remarks
Ritson, “by ignorant people who cannot distinguish justice or humanity
from an absurd and impossible system. The compiler of the present book,
like Pythagoras and John Williamson, abstains from flesh-food, but he
does not believe in the _Metempsychosis_, and much doubts whether it
was the _real_ belief of either of those philosophers.”--_Abstinence
from Animal Food a Moral Duty_, by Joseph Ritson. R. Phillips, London,
1802.
[214] In a sketch of the life of George Nicholson, contributed to a
Manchester journal, by Mr. W. E. A. Axon.
[215] Perhaps the fallacy of this line of apology, on the part of the
ordinary dietists, cannot be better illustrated than by the example
of the man-eating tribes of New Zealand, Central Africa, and other
parts of the world, who confessedly are (or were) _hominivorous_, and
who have been by travellers quoted as some of the finest races of men
on the globe. The “wholesome nutriment” of their human food was as
forcible an argument for their stomach as the “agreeable flavour” was
attractive for their palates. Such glaring fallacy might be illustrated
further by the example of the man-eating tiger who, we may justly
imagine, would use similar apologies for his practice.
[216] _On the Conduct, &c._, and _The Primeval Diet of Man_, &c., by
George Nicholson, Manchester and London, 1797, 1801. The author assumes
as his motto for the title-page the words of Rousseau--_Hommes, soyez
humains! C’est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse y a-t-il pour vous
hors de l’humanité?_ “Humans, be _humane_! It is your first duty. What
wisdom is there for you without humanity?”
[217] _Surgical Observations on Tumours._ John Abernethy, M.D., F.R.C.S.
[218] Excessive poverty of blood, it is obvious to remark, is caused,
not by abstaining from flesh but by abstaining from a _sufficient_
amount of _nutritious_ non-flesh foods.
[219] _Additional Reports_, 1814. Amongst valuable diagnoses of this
kind the reader may be referred in particular to the highly interesting
one of the Rev. C. H. Collyns, M.A., Oxon, which originally appeared
in the _Times_ newspaper, and which twice has been republished by the
Vegetarian Society. The success of the pure regimen in first mitigating
and, finally, in altogether subduing long-inherited gouty affections,
was complete and certain. The recently published evidence of the
President of the newly-formed French Society, Dr. A. H. de Villeneuve,
is equally satisfactory. (See _Bulletin de la Société Végétarienne_ of
Paris, as quoted in _Nature_, Jan., 1881.)
[220] See, too, the testimony of Newton, _Return to Nature_, and of
Shelley in his _Essay on the Vegetable Diet_, in which he describes
these children as “the most beautiful and healthy beings it is possible
to conceive. The girls are the most perfect models for a sculptor.
Their dispositions, also, are the most gentle and conciliating.”
[221] _The Life of William Lambe, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians._ By E. Hare, C.S.I., Inspector-General of Hospitals, to
which valuable biography we are indebted for the present sketch. In
Mr. Hare’s memoir will be found, among other testimonies to the truths
of Vegetarianism, a highly-interesting letter, written to him by his
friend Dr. H. G. Lyford, an eminent physician of Winchester.
[222] _Life of Shelley_, by Jefferson Hogg, quoted by Mr. Hare in Life
of Dr. Lambe. Hogg adds that he conformed for good fellowship, and
found the purer food an agreeable change.
[223] See the _Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger_, August,
1873.
[224] _Pythagoran, Anytique reum, doctumque Platona_: “Pythagoras and
the Man accused by Anytus [Socrates] and the learned Plato.”--_Satires_
of Horace.
[225] This is, perhaps, scarcely just to Pythagoras and his school. It
is, without doubt, deeply to be lamented that they did not more widely
promulgate a doctrine of such vital importance to the world; but the
reasons of their reserve and partial reticence have been indicated
already in our notice of the founder of _Akreophagy_. In a word--like
the Founder of Christianity in a later age--they had many things to say
which the world could not then learn. Moreover, as Gleïzès remarks, the
teachers themselves could not have, from the nature of the case, the
full knowledge of later times.
[226] The eloquence and style of Buffon, it need scarcely be remarked,
are more indisputable than his scientific accuracy. Amongst his many
errors, none, however, is more surprising than his assertion of the
carnivorous anatomical organisation of man, which has been corrected
over and over again by physiologists and _savants_ more profound than
Buffon.
[227] “_Lachrymas--nostri pars optima sensus._”
[228] In newly-discovered countries, no decided predominance of one
species over another has been found; and the reason is, that qualities
are pretty nearly equally divided, and that the strongest animal is not
at the same time the most agile or the most intelligent.--_Note_ by
Gleïzès.
[229] Upon this, not the least interesting and important of the
side views of Vegetarianism, we refer our readers, amongst numerous
authorities, to the opinions of Paley, Adam Smith, Prof. Newman,
Liebig, and W. R. Greg (in _Social Problems_).
[230] That the victims of the Slaughter-House have, in fact, a full
presentiment of the fate in store for them, must be sufficiently
evident to every one who has witnessed a number of oxen or sheep
driven towards the scene of slaughter--the frantic struggles to escape
and rush past the horrible locality, the exertions necessary on the
part of the drovers or slaughtermen to force them to enter as well as
the frequent breaking away of the maddened victim--maddened alike by
the blows and clamours of its executioners and the presentiment of
its destiny--who frantically rushes through the public streets and
scatters the terrified human passengers--all this abundantly proves
the transparent falsity of the assertion of the unconsciousness or
indifference of the victims of the shambles. See a terribly graphic
description of a scene of this kind in _Household Words_, No. 14,
quoted in _Dietetic Reformer_ (1852), in _Thalysie_, and in the
_Dietetic Reformer_, _passim_. Also in _Animal World_, &c., &c.
[231] _Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence_: Par J. A. Gleïzès. Paris,
1840, in 3 vols., 8vo. See also preface to the German version of R.
Springer, Berlin, 1872. Our English readers will be glad to learn
that a translation by the English Vegetarian Society is now being
contemplated.
[232] _Poeta_, in its original Greek meaning, marks out a _creator_ of
new, and, therefore, (it is presumable) true ideas.
[233] Compare the fate of Gibbon, who, at the same age, found himself
an outcast from the University for a very opposite offence--for having
embraced the dogmas of Catholicism. (See _Memoirs of my Life and
Writings_, by Edw. Gibbon.) The future historian of _The Decline and
Fall_, it may be added, speedily returned to Protestantism, though not
to that of his preceptors.
[234] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds. Macmillan, 1887.
[235] Hogg’s _Life of Shelley_. Moxon (1858).
[236] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds.
[237] Cuvier’s _Leçons d’Anatomie Comp._, Tom. III., pages 169, 373,
443, 465, 480. Rees’ _Cyclop._, Art Man.
[238] Inasmuch as at this moment there are in this country more than
two thousand persons of all classes, very many for thirty or forty
years strict abstinents from flesh-meat, enrolled members of the
Vegetarian Society (not to speak of a probably large number of isolated
individual abstinents scattered throughout these islands, who, for
whatever reason, have not attached themselves to the Society), and
that there have long been Anti-flesh eating Societies in America and
in Germany, the _à fortiori_ argument in the present instance will be
allowed to be of _double_ weight.
[239] “See Mr. Newton’s Book [_Return, to Nature._ Cadell, 1811.] His
children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible
to conceive. The girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their
dispositions also are the most gentle and conciliating. The judicious
treatment they receive may be a correlative cause of this. In the first
five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500
die of various diseases--and how many more that survive are rendered
miserable by maladies not immediately mortal! The quality and quantity
of a mother’s milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh.
On an island, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the
children invariably die of _tetanus_ before they are three weeks old,
and the population is supplied from the mainland.--Sir G. Mackenzie’s
_History of Iceland_--note by Shelley.”
[240] _Revolt of Islam_, v. 51, 55, 56.
[241] Lately given to the world by Mr. Forman who has carefully
collated and printed from Shelley’s MSS.
[242] _English Cyclopædia._
[243] _Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Edited by Mrs. Shelley. Moxon.
[244] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds.
[245] See preface to _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_.
Edited by Mrs. Shelley. New edition. London, 1869. The increasing
reputation of Shelley is proved, at the present time, by the increasing
number of editions of his writings, and by the increasing number of
thoughtful criticisms and biographies of the poet, by some of the most
cultured minds of the day. Since the time, indeed, when a popular
writer but sometimes rash critic, with condemnable want of discernment
and still more condemnable prejudice, so egregiously misrepresented to
his readers the character as well of the poet as of his poems--which
latter, nevertheless, he was constrained to admit to be the most
“melodious” of all English poetry excepting Shakespere, and (their
“utopian” inspiration apart) the most “perfect”--(_Thoughts on Shelley
and Byron_, by Rev. C. Kingsley, “Fraser,” 1853,) the pre-eminence
of the poet, both morally and æsthetically, has been sufficiently
established.
[246] In another place he indulges his ironical wit at the expense of
the beef-eaters, in representing a certain Cretan personage in Greek
story to have
“Promoted breeding cattle,
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle;
For we all know that English people are
_Fed upon beef_.....
We know, too, _they are very fond of war_--
A pleasure--like all pleasures--rather dear.”
[247] See _Life and Letters_. Murray.
[248] _Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Sir R. Phillips._
London, 1808.
[249] They had been published by him several years earlier in the
_Medical Journal_ for July 27 1811.
[250] _Golden Rules of Social Philosophy: being a System of Ethics._
1826.
[251] _A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation._ 1833.
London: Sherwood & Co. It will be seen that the origin of his revolt
from orthodox dietetics, given by himself, differs from that narrated
in the Life from which we have quoted above. It is possible that both
incidents may have equally affected him at the moment, but that the
spectacle of the London slaughter-house remained most vividly impressed
upon his mind.
[252] _Million of Facts_, p. 176. For the substance of the greater part
of this biography, our acknowledgments are due to the researches of Mr.
W. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L., F.S.S.
[253] _La Chute d’un Ange. Huitième Vision._
[254] _Les Confidences_, par Alphonse de Lamartine, Paris, 1849-51,
quoted in _Dietetic Reformer_, August, 1881. It is in this book,
too, that he commemorates some of the many atrocities perpetrated by
schoolboys with impunity, or even with the connivance of their masters,
for their amusement, upon the helpless victims of their unchecked
cruelty of disposition.
[255] The question of kreophagy and anti-kreophagy had already been
mooted, it appears, in the _Institut_, at the period of the great
Revolution of 1789, as a legitimate consequence of the apparent general
awakening of the human conscience, when slavery also was first publicly
denounced. What was the result of the first raising of this question in
the French Chamber of Savans does not appear, but, as Gleïzès remarks,
we may easily divine it. One interesting fact was published by the
discussion in the Deputies’ Chamber--viz., that in the year 1817, in
Paris, the consumption of flesh was less than that of the year 1780 by
40,000,000lb., in proportion to the population (see Gleïzès, _Thalysie,
Quatrième Discours_), a fact which can only mean that the rich, who
support the butchers, had been _forced_ by reduced means to live less
_carnivorously_.
[256] In the same strain an eminent _savan_, Sir D. Brewster, has given
expression to his feeling of aversion from the slaughter-house--a
righteous feeling which (strange perversion of judgment) is so
constantly repressed in spite of all the most forcible promptings of
conscience and reason! These are his words: “But whatever races there
be in other spheres, we feel sure that there must be one amongst whom
there are no man-eaters--no heroes with red hands--no sovereigns with
bloody hearts--and no statesmen who, leaving the people untaught,
educate them for the scaffold. In the Decalogue of that community will
stand pre-eminent, in letters of burnished gold, the highest of all
social obligations--‘_Thou shalt not kill_, neither for territory,
for fame, for lucre, _nor for food_, _nor for raiment_, _nor for
pleasure_.’ The lovely forms of life, and sensation, and instinct, so
delicately fashioned by the Master-hand, shall no longer be destroyed
and trodden under foot, but shall be the objects of increasing love and
admiration, the study of the philosopher, the theme of the poet, and
the companions and auxiliaries of Man.”--_More Worlds than One._
[257] _Bible de l’Humanité--Redemption de la Nature, VI._
[258] Cf. a recently published Essay, in the form of a letter to the
present Premier, Mr. Gladstone, entitled _The Woman and the Age_. The
author, one of the most refined thinkers of our times, has at once
admirably exposed the utter sham as well as cruelty of a vivisecting
science, and demonstrated the necessary and natural results to the
human race from its shameless outrage upon, and cynical contempt for,
the first principles of morality.