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diff --git a/old/55785-0.txt b/old/55785-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9825bca..0000000 --- a/old/55785-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,20555 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ethics of Diet, by Howard Williams - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Ethics of Diet - A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh Eating - -Author: Howard Williams - -Release Date: October 21, 2017 [EBook #55785] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ETHICS OF DIET *** - - - - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - ###################################################################### - - Transcriber’s Notes - -This e-text is based on ‘The Ethics of Diet,’ from 1883. Inconsistent -and uncommon spelling and hyphenation have been retained; punctuation -and typographical errors have been corrected. Quotations, particularly -in languages other than English, have not been changed. Some footnote -anchors are missing in the original text. They have been restored in -the position where they make sense on the page in question. - -The succession of chapter titles in the table of contents has been -rearranged for chapters XLIII.–XLVII. to match the order of chapters -printed in the text. Neither the author Louis Lémery, referred to in -the index, nor any of his works could be located in the text; the -reference has been retained, though. - -Passages in italics have been surrounded by _underscores_; small -capitals have been converted to UPPERCASE LETTERS. - - ###################################################################### - - - - - THE ETHICS OF DIET. - - A Catena - OF - AUTHORITIES DEPRECATORY OF THE PRACTICE OF FLESH-EATING. - - BY - HOWARD WILLIAMS, M.A. - - “Man by Nature was never made to be a carnivorous animal, nor is - he armed at all for prey and rapine.” - --_Ray._ - - “Hommes, soyez _humains_! c’est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse - y-a-t-il pour vous hors de l’humanité?” - --_Rousseau._ - - “Der Mensch ist was er isst.” - --_German Proverb._ - - LONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW; JOHN HEYWOOL, 11, - PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, MANCHESTER: JOHN HEYWOOD, DEANSGATE AND - RIDGEFIELD. - - 1883. - - [_All Rights Reserved._] - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAP. PAGE. - - Preface i.-vi. - - I. Hesiod 1 - - II. Pythagoras 4 - - III. Plato 12 - - IV. Ovid 23 - - V. Seneca 27 - - VI. Plutarch 41 - - VII. Tertullian 51 - - VIII. Clement of Alexandria 56 - - IX. Porphyry 63 - - X. Chrysostom 76 - - XI. Cornaro 83 - - XII. Thomas More 90 - - XIII. Montaigne 94 - - XIV. Gassendi 100 - - XV. Ray 106 - - XVI. Evelyn 107 - - XVII. Mandeville 113 - - XVIII. Gay 115 - - XIX. Cheyne 120 - - XX. Pope 128 - - XXI. Thomson 134 - - XXII. Hartley 138 - - XXIII. Chesterfield 139 - - XXIV. Voltaire 141 - - XXV. Haller 156 - - XXVI. Cocchi 157 - - XXVII. Rousseau 159 - - XXVIII. Linné 164 - - XXIX. Buffon 166 - - XXX. Hawkesworth 168 - - XXXI. Paley 169 - - XXXII. St. Pierre 173 - - XXXIII. Oswald 179 - - XXXIV. Hufeland 184 - - XXXV. Ritson 185 - - XXXVI. Nicholson 190 - - XXXVII. Abernethy 196 - - XXXVIII. Lambe 198 - - XXXIX. Newton 205 - - XL. Gleïzès 208 - - XLI. Shelley 218 - - XLII. Phillips 235 - - XLIII. Lamartine 245 - - XLIV. Michelet 252 - - XLV. Cowherd 258 - - XLVI. Metcalfe 260 - - XLVII. Graham 264 - - XLVIII. Struve 271 - - XLIX. Daumer 282 - - L. Schopenhauer 286 - - - APPENDIX. - - I. Hesiod 293 - - II. The Golden Verses 294 - - III. The Buddhist Canon 295 - - IV. Ovid 299 - - V. Musonius 303 - - VI. Lessio 305 - - VII. Cowley 308 - - VIII. Tryon 309 - - IX. Hecquet 314 - - X. Pope 318 - - XI. Chesterfield 320 - - XII. Jenyns 322 - - XIII. Pressavin 324 - - XIV. Schiller 326 - - XV. Bentham 327 - - XVI. Sinclair 329 - - XVII. Byron 331 - - - - -PREFACE. - - -At the present day, in all parts of the civilised world, the once -orthodox practices of cannibalism and human sacrifice universally are -regarded with astonishment and horror. The history of human development -in the past, and the slow but sure progressive movements in the present -time, make it absolutely certain that, with the same astonishment -and horror will the now prevailing habits of living by the slaughter -and suffering of the inferior species--habits different in degree -rather than in kind from the old-world barbarism--be regarded by an -age more enlightened and more refined than ours. Of such certainty -no one, whose _beau idéal_ of civilisation is not a State crowded -with jails, penitentiaries, reformatories, and asylums, and who does -not measure Progress by the imposing but delusive standard of an -ostentatious Materialism--by the statistics of commerce, by the amount -of wealth accumulated in the hands of a small part of the community, -by the increase of populations which are mainly recruited from the -impoverished classes, by the number and popularity of churches and -chapels, or even by the number of school buildings and lecture halls, -or the number and variety of charitable institutions throughout the -country--will pretend to have any reasonable doubt. - -In searching the records of this nineteenth century--the minutes -and proceedings of innumerable learned and scientific societies, -especially those of Social and Sanitary Science Congresses--our more -enlightened descendants (let us suppose, of the 2001st century of the -Christian era), it is equally impossible to doubt, will observe with -amazement that, amid all the immeasurable talking and writing upon -social and moral science, there is discoverable little or no trace of -serious inquiry in regard to a subject which the more thoughtful Few, -in all times, have agreed in placing at the very foundation of all -public or private well-being. Nor, probably, will the astonishment -diminish when, further, it is found that, amid all the vast mass of -theologico-religious publications, periodical or other (supposing, -indeed, any considerable proportion of them to survive to that age), -no consciousness appeared to exist of the reality of such virtues as -Humaneness and Universal Compassion, or of any obligation upon the -writers to exhibit them to the serious consideration of the world: and -this, notwithstanding the contemporary existence of a long-established -association of humanitarian reformers who, though few in number, and -not in the position of dignity and power which compels the attention -of mankind, none the less by every means at their disposal--upon the -platform and in the press, by pamphlets and treatises appealing at once -to physical science, to reason, to conscience, to the authority of -the most earnest thinkers, to the logic of facts--had been protesting -against the cruel barbarisms, the criminal waste, and the demoralising -influences of Butchery; and demonstrating by their own example, and -by that of vast numbers of persons in the most different parts of the -globe, the entire practicability of Humane Living. - -When, further, it is revealed in the popular literature, as well as in -the scientific books and journals of this nineteenth century, that the -innocent victims of the luxurious gluttony of the richer classes in -all communities, subjected as they were to every conceivable kind of -brutal atrocity, were yet, by the science of the time, acknowledged, -without controversy, to be beings essentially of the same physical and -mental organisation with their human devourers; to be as susceptible -to physical suffering and pain as they; to be endowed--at all events, -a very large proportion of them--with reasoning and mental faculties -in very high degrees, and far from destitute of moral perceptions, the -amazement may well be conjectured to give way to incredulity, that -such knowledge and such practices could possibly co-exist. That the -outward signs of all this gross barbarism--the entire or mangled bodies -of the victims of the Table--were accustomed to be put up for public -exhibition in every street and thoroughfare, without manifestations of -disgust or abhorrence from the passers-by--even from those pretending -to most culture or fashion--such outward proofs of extraordinary -insensibility on the part of all classes to finer feeling may, -nevertheless, scarcely provoke so much astonishment from an enlightened -posterity as the fact that every public gathering of the governors or -civil dignitaries of the country; every celebration of ecclesiastical -or religious festivals appeared to be made the special occasion of the -sacrifice and suffering of a greater number and variety than usual -of their harmless fellow-beings; and all this often in the near -neighbourhood of starving thousands, starving from want of the merest -necessaries of life. - -Happily, however, there will be visible to the philosopher of the -Future signs of the dawn of the better day in this last quarter of the -nineteenth century. He will find, in the midst of the general barbarism -of life, and in spite of the prevailing indifferentism and infidelity -to truth, that there was a gradually increasing number of dissenters -and protesters; that already, at the beginning of that period, there -were associations of dietary reformers--offshoots from the English -parent society, founded in 1847--successively established in America, -in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, and, finally, in Italy; small -indeed in numbers, but strenuous in efforts to spread their principles -and practice; that in some of the larger cities, both in this country -and in other parts of Europe, there had also been set on foot _Reformed -Restaurants_, which supplied to considerable numbers of persons at once -better food and better knowledge. - -If the truth or importance of any Principle or Feeling is to be -measured, not by its popularity, indeed--not by the _quod ab -omnibus_--but by the extent of its recognition by the most refined -and the most earnest thinkers in all the most enlightened times--by -the _quod a sapientibus_--the value of no principle has better been -established than that which insists upon the vital importance of a -radical reform in Diet. The number of the protesters against the -barbarism of human living who, at various periods in the known history -of our world, have more or less strongly denounced it, is a fact -which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the most superficial -inquirer. But a still more striking characteristic of this large body -of protestation is the _variety_ of the witnesses. Gautama Buddha and -Pythagoras, Plato and Epikurus, Seneca and Ovid, Plutarch and Clement -(of Alexandria), Porphyry and Chrysostom, Gassendi and Mandeville, -Milton and Evelyn, Newton and Pope, Ray and Linné, Tryon and Hecquet, -Cocchi and Cheyne, Thomson and Hartley, Chesterfield and Ritson, -Voltaire and Swedenborg, Wesley and Rousseau, Franklin and Howard, -Lambe and Pressavin, Shelley and Byron, Hufeland and Graham, Gleïzès -and Phillips, Lamartine and Michelet, Daumer and Struve--such are some -of the more or less famous, or meritorious, names in the Past to be -found among the prophets of Reformed Dietetics, who, in various degrees -of abhorrence, have shrunk from the _régime_ of blood. Of many of those -who have revolted from it, it may almost be said that they revolted _in -spite of themselves_--in spite, that is to say, of the most cherished -prejudices, traditions, and sophisms of Education. - -If we seek the historical origin of anti-kreophagist philosophy, it is -to the Pythagorean School, in the later development of the Platonic -philosophy especially, that the western world is indebted for the -first systematic enunciation of the principle, and inculcation of the -practice, of anti-materialistic living--the first historical protest -against the _practical_ materialism of every-day eating and drinking. -How Christianity, which, in its first origin, owes so much to, and was -so deeply imbued with, on the one hand, Essenian, and, on the other, -Platonic principles, to the incalculable loss of all the succeeding -ages, has failed to propagate and develope this true and vital -spiritualism--in spite, too, of the convictions of some of its earliest -and best exponents, an Origen or Clemens, seems to be explained, in -the first instance, by the hostility of the triumphant and orthodox -Church to the “Gnostic” element which, in its various shapes, long -predominated in the Christian Faith, and which at one time seemed -destined to be the ruling sentiment in the Church; and, secondly, -by the natural growth of materialistic principles and practice in -proportion to the growth of ecclesiastical wealth and power; for, -although the virtues of “asceticism,” derived from Essenism and -Platonism, obtained a high reputation in the orthodox Church, they were -relegated and appropriated to the ecclesiastical order (theoretically -at least), or rather to certain departments of it. - -Such was what may be termed the sectarian cause of this fatal -abandonment of the more spiritual elements of the new Faith, operating -in conjunction with the corrupting influences of wealth and power. -As regards the _humanitarian_ reason of anti-materialistic living, -the failure and seeming incapacity of Christianity to recognise this, -the most significant of all the underlying principles of reformation -in Diet--the cause is not far to seek. It lay, essentially, in the -(theoretical) depreciation of, and contempt for, _present_ as compared -with _future_ existence. All the fatal consequence of this theoretical -teaching (which yet has had no extensive influence, even in the way -it might have been supposed to act beneficially), in regard to the -status and rights of the non-human species, has been well indicated -by a distinguished authority. “It should seem,” writes Dr. Arnold, -“as if the primitive Christians, by laying so much stress upon a -future life, and placing the lower beings out of the pale of hope [of -extended existence], placed them at the same time out of the pale of -sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of -[other] animals in the light of our fellow-beings. Their definition -of _Virtue_ was the same as that of Paley--that it was good performed -for the sake of ensuring everlasting happiness; which, of course, -excluded all the [so-called] brute creatures.”[1] Hence it comes about -that Humanitarianism and, in particular, Humane Dietetics, finds no -place whatever in the religionism or pseudo-philosophy of the whole -of the ages distinguished as the _Mediæval_--that is to say, from -about the fifth or sixth to the sixteenth century--and, in fact, -there existed not only a negative indifferentism, but even a positive -tendency towards the still further depreciation and debasement of the -extra-human races, of which the great doctor of mediæval theology, -St. Thomas Aquinas (in his famous _Summa Totius Theologiæ_--the -standard text book of the orthodox church), is especially the exponent. -After the revival of reason and learning in the sixteenth century, -to Montaigne, who, following Plutarch and Porphyry, reasserted the -rights of the non-human species in general; and to Gassendi, who -reasserted the right of innocent beings to life, in particular, -among philosophers, belongs the supreme merit of being the first -to dispel the long-dominant prejudices, ignorance, and selfishness -of the common-place teachers of Morals and Religion. For orthodox -Protestantism, in spite of its high-sounding name, so far at least as -its theology is concerned, has done little in _protesting_ against the -infringement of the moral rights of the most helpless and the most -harmless of all the members of the great commonwealth of Living Beings. - -The principles of Dietary Reform are widely and deeply founded upon the -teaching of (1) Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; (2) Humaneness, in -the two-fold meaning of Refinement of Living, and of what is commonly -called “Humanity;” (3) National Economy; (4) Social Reform; (5) -Domestic and Individual Economy; (6) Hygienic Philosophy, all of which -are amply displayed in the following pages. Various minds are variously -affected by the same arguments, and the force of each separate one -will appear to be of different weight according to the special bias -of the inquirer. The _accumulated_ weight of all, for those who are -able to form a calm and impartial judgment, cannot but cause the -subject to appear one which demands and requires the most serious -attention. To the present writer, the humanitarian argument appears -to be of double weight; for it is founded upon the irrefragable -principles of Justice and Compassion--universal Justice and universal -Compassion--the two principles most essential in any system of ethics -worthy of the name. That this argument seems to have so limited an -influence--even with persons otherwise humanely disposed, and of finer -feeling in respect to their own, and, also, in a general way, to other -species--can be attributed only to the deadening power of custom and -habit, of traditional prejudice, and educational bias. If they could be -brought to reflect upon the simple ethics of the question, divesting -their minds of these distorting media, it must appear in a light very -different from that in which they accustom themselves to consider it. -This subject, however, has been abundantly insisted upon with eloquence -and ability much greater than the present writer has any pretensions -to. It is necessary to add here, upon this particular branch of the -subject, only one or two observations. The popular objections to the -disuse of the flesh-diet may be classified under the two heads of -fallacies and subterfuges. Not a few candid inquirers, doubtless, -there are who sincerely allege certain _specious_ objections to the -humanitarian argument, which have a considerable amount of _apparent_ -force; and these fallacies seem alone to deserve a serious examination. - -In the general constitution of life on our globe, suffering and -slaughter, it is objected, are the normal and constant condition -of things--the strong relentlessly and cruelly preying upon the -weak in endless succession--and, it is asked, why, then, should the -human species form an exception to the general rule, and hopelessly -fight against Nature? To this it is to be replied, first: _that_, -although, too certainly, an unceasing and cruel internecine warfare -has been waged upon this atomic globe of ours from the first origin -of Life until now, yet, apparently, there has been going on a slow, -but not uncertain, progress towards the ultimate elimination of the -crueller phenomena of Life; _that_, if the _carnivora_ form a very -large proportion of Living Beings, yet the _non-carnivora_ are in the -majority; and, lastly, what is still more to the purpose, _that_ Man, -most evidently, by his origin and physical organisation, belongs not -to the former but to the latter; besides and beyond which, _that_ in -proportion as he boasts himself--and as he is seen _at his best_ (and -only so far) he boasts himself with justness--to be the highest of -all the gradually ascending and co-ordinated series of Living Beings, -so is he, in that proportion, bound to prove his right to the supreme -place and power, and his asserted claims to moral as well as mental -superiority, by his conduct. In brief, in so far only as he proves -himself to be the _beneficent ruler and pacificator_--and not the -selfish Tyrant--of the world, can he have any just title to the moral -pre-eminence. - -If the philosophical fallacy (the _eidolon specûs_) thus vanishes under -a near examination; the next considerable objection, upon a superficial -view, not wholly unnatural, that, if slaughtering for food were to be -abolished, there would be a failure of manufacturing material for the -ordinary uses of social life, is, in reality, based upon a contracted -apprehension of facts and phenomena. For it is a reasonable and -sufficient reply, that the whole history of civilisation, as it has -been a history of the slow but, upon the whole, continuous advance -of the human race in the arts of Refinement, so, also, has it proved -that _demand creates supply_--that it is the absence of the former -alone which permits the various substances, no less than the various -forces, yet latent in Nature to remain uninvestigated and unused. Nor -can any thoughtful person, who knows anything of the history of Science -and Discovery, doubt that the resources of Nature and the mechanical -ingenuity of man are all but boundless. Already, notwithstanding -the absence of any demand for them, excepting within the ranks of -anti-kreophagists, various non-animal substances have been proposed, in -some cases used, as substitutes for the prepared skins of the victims -of the Slaughter-house; and that, in the event of a general demand -for such substitutes, there would spring up an active competition -among inventors and manufacturers in this direction there is not the -least reason for doubt. Besides, it must be taken into account that -the process of conversion of the flesh-eating (that is to say, of the -richer) sections of communities to the bloodless diet will, only too -certainly, be very slow and gradual. - -As for the popular--perhaps the most popular--fallacy (the _eidolon -fori_), which exhibits little of philosophical accuracy, or, indeed, -of common reason, involved in the questions: “What is to become of -_the animals_?” and, “Why were they created, if they are not intended -for Slaughter and for human food?”--it is scarcely possible to -return a grave reply. The brief answer, of course, is--that those -variously-tortured beings have been brought into existence, and their -numbers maintained, by selfish human invention only. Cease to breed -for the butcher, and they will cease to exist beyond the numbers -necessary for lawful and innocent use; they were “created” indeed, -but they have been created by man, since he has vastly modified and, -by no means, for the benefit of his helpless dependants, the natural -form and organisation of the original types, the parent stocks of the -domesticated Ox, Sheep, and Swine, now very remote from the native -grandeur and vigour of the Bison, the Mouflon, and the wild Boar. - -There remains one fallacy of quite recent origin. An association has -been formed--somewhat late in the day, it must be allowed--consisting -of a few sanitary reformers, who put forward, also, humane reasons, for -“Reform of the Slaughter-Houses,” one of the secondary propositions -of which is, that the savagery and brutality of the Butchers’ trade -could be obviated by the partial or general use of less lingering and -revolting modes of killing than those of the universal knife and axe. -No humanitarian will refuse to welcome any sign, however feeble, of -the awakening of the conscience of the Community, or rather of the -more thoughtful part of it, to the paramount obligations of common -Humanity, and of the recognition of the claims of the subject species -to _some_ consideration and to _some_ compassion, if not of the -recognition of the claims of Justice; or will refuse to welcome any -sort of proposition to lessen the enormous sum total of atrocities to -which the lower animals are constantly subjected by human avarice, -gluttony, and brutality. But, at the same time, no earnest humanitarian -can accept the sophism, that an attempt at a mitigation of cruelty and -suffering which, fundamentally, are _unnecessary_, ought to satisfy -the educated conscience or reason. Vainly do the more feeling persons, -who happen to have some scruples of conscience in respect to the -sanction of the barbarous practice of Butchering, think to abolish the -cruelties, while still indulging the appetite for the flesh luxuries, -of the Table. The vastness of the demands upon the butchers--demands -constantly increasing with the pecuniary resources of the nation, -and stimulated by the pernicious example of the wealthy classes; the -immensity of the traffic in “live stock” (as they complacently are -termed) by rail and by ship,[2] the frightful horrors of which it has -often been attempted, though inadequately, to describe; the utter -impossibility of efficiently supervising and regulating such traffic -and such slaughter--even supposing the desire to do so to exist to -any considerable extent--and the inveterate indifferentism of the -Legislature and of the influential classes, sufficiently declare the -futility of such expectation and of the indulgence of such comfortable -hope. It is, in brief, as with other attempts at patching and mending, -or at applying salves to a hopelessly festered and gangrened wound, -merely to put the “flattering unction” of compromise to the conscience. -“Diseases, desperate grown, by desperate appliances are relieved, or -not at all;” the foul stream of cruelty must be stopped at its source; -the fountain and origin of the evil--the Slaughter-House itself--must -be abolished. _Delendum est Macellum._ - -It has been well said by one of the most eloquent of the prophets -of Humane Living, that there are steps on the way to the summit of -Dietetic Reform, and, if only one step be taken, yet that that single -step will be not without importance and without influence in the world. -The step, which leaves for ever behind it the barbarism of slaughtering -our fellow-beings, the Mammals and Birds, is, it is superfluous to add, -the most important and most influential of all. - -As for the plan of the present work, living writers and -authorities--numerous and important as they are--necessarily have been -excluded. Its bulk, already extended beyond the original conception -of its limits, otherwise would have been swollen to a considerably -larger size. For its entire execution, as well as for the collection -and arrangement of the matter, the compiler alone is responsible; -and, conscious that it must fall short of the completeness at which -he aimed, he can pretend only to the merits of careful research and -an eclectic impartiality. To the fact that the work already has -appeared in the pages of the _Dietetic Reformer_, to which it has been -contributed periodically during a space of time extending over five -years, is owing some repetition of matter, which also, necessarily, is -due to the nature of the subject. Errors of inadvertence, it is hoped, -will be found to be few and inconsiderable. For the rest, he leaves the -_Ethics of Diet_ to the candour of the critics and of the public. - - - - -THE ETHICS OF DIET. - - - - -I. - -HESIOD. EIGHTH CENTURY B.C. - - -HESIOD--the poet _par excellence_ of peace and of agriculture, -as Homer is of war and of the “heroic” virtues--was born at Ascra, a -village in Bœotia, a part of Hellas, which, in spite of its proverbial -fame for beef-eating and stupidity, gave birth to three other eminent -persons--Pindar, the lyric poet, Epameinondas, the great military -genius and statesman, and Plutarch, the most amiable moralist of -antiquity. - -The little that is known of the life of Hesiod is derived from his -_Works and Days_. From this celebrated poem we learn that his father -was an emigrant from Æolia, the Greek portion of the north-west corner -of the Lesser Asia; that his elder brother, Perses, had, by collusion -with the judges, deprived him of his just inheritance; that after this -he settled at Orchomenos, a neighbouring town--in the pre-historical -ages a powerful and renowned city. This is all that is certainly known -of the author of the _Works and Days_, and _The Theogony_. Of the -genuineness of the former there has been little or no doubt; that of -the latter--at least in part--has been called in question. Besides -these two chief works, there is extant a piece entitled _The Shield -of Herakles_, in imitation of the Homeric Shield (_Iliad_ xviii.) The -_Catalogues of Women_--a poem commemorating the heroines beloved by the -gods, and who were thus the ancestresses of the long line of heroes, -the reputed founders of the ruling families in Hellas--is lost. - -The charm of the _Works and Days_--the first didactic poem extant--is -its apparent earnestness of purpose and simplicity of style. The -author’s frequent references to, and rebuke of, legal injustices--his -sense of which had been quickened by the iniquitous decisions of the -judges already referred to--are as _naïve_ as they are pathetic. - -Of the _Theogony_, the subject, as the title implies, is the history of -the generation and successive dynasties of the Olympian divinities--the -objects of Greek worship. It may, indeed, be styled the Hellenic Bible, -and, with the Homeric Epics, it formed the principal theology of the -old Greeks, and of the later Romans or Latins. The “Proœmium,” or -introductory verses--in which the Muses are represented as appearing -to their votary at the foot of the sacred Helicon, and consecrating -him to the work of revealing the divine mysteries by the gift of a -laurel-branch--and the following verses, describing their return to the -celestial mansions, where they hymn the omnipotent Father, are very -charming. To the long description of the tremendous struggle of the -warring gods and Titans, fighting for the possession of heaven, Milton -was indebted for his famous delineation of a similar conflict. - -The _Works and Days_, in striking contrast with the military spirit -of the Homeric epic, deals in plain and simple verse with questions -ethical, political, and economic. The ethical portion exhibits much -true feeling, and a conviction of the evils brought upon the earth by -the triumph of injustice and of violence. The well-known passages in -which the poet figures the gradual declension and degeneracy of men -from the golden to the present iron race, are the remote original of -all the later pleasing poetic fictions of golden ages and times of -innocence. - -According to Hesiod, there are two everlastingly antagonistic agents -at work on the Earth; the spirit of war and fighting, and the peaceful -spirit of agriculture and mechanical industry. And in the apostrophe in -which he bitterly reproaches his unrighteous judges-- - - “O fools! they know not, in their selfish soul, - How far the half is better than the whole: - The good which Asphodel and Mallows yield, - The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field”-- - -he seems to have a profound conviction of the truth taught by -Vegetarianism--that luxurious living is the fruitful parent of -selfishness in its manifold forms.[3] - -That Hesiod regarded that diet which depends mainly or entirely upon -agriculture and upon fruits as the highest and best mode of life is -sufficiently evident in the following verses descriptive of the “Golden -Age” life:-- - - “Like gods, they lived with calm, untroubled mind, - Free from the toil and anguish of our kind, - Nor did decrepid age mis-shape their frame. - - * * * * * - - Pleased with earth’s unbought feasts: all ills removed, - Wealthy in flocks,[4] and of the Blest beloved, - Death, as a slumber, pressed their eyelids down: - All Nature’s common blessings were their own. - The life-bestowing tilth its fruitage bore, - A full, spontaneous, and ungrudging store. - They with abundant goods, ’midst quiet lands, - All willing, shared the gatherings of their hands. - When Earth’s dark breast had closed this race around, - Great Zeus, as demons,[5] raised them from the ground; - Earth-hovering spirits, they their charge began-- - The ministers of good, and guards of men. - Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide, - And compass Earth, and pass on every side; - And mark, with earnest vigilance of eyes, - Where just deeds live, or crooked ways arise, - And shower the wealth of seasons from above.”[6] - -The second race--the “Silver Age”--inferior to the first and wholly -innocent people, were, nevertheless, guiltless of bloodshed in the -preparation of their food; nor did they offer sacrifices--in the poet’s -judgment, it appears, a damnable error. For the third--the “Brazen -Age”--it was reserved to inaugurate the feast of blood:-- - - “Strong with the ashen spear, and fierce and bold, - Their thoughts were bent on violence alone, - The deed of battle, and the dying groan. - _Bloody their feasts, with wheaten food unblessed._” - -According to Hesiod, who is followed by the later poets, the “immortals -inhabiting the Olympian mansions” feast ever on the pure and bloodless -food of _Ambrosia_, and their drink is _Nectar_, which may be taken to -be a sort of refined dew. He represents the divine Muses of Helicon, -who inspire his song, as reproaching the shepherds, his neighbours, -“that tend the flocks,” with the possession of “mere fleshly appetites.” - -Ovid, amongst the Latins, is the most charming painter of the innocence -of the “Golden Age.” Amongst our own poets, Pope, Thomson, and -Shelley--the last as a prophet of the future and actual rather than the -poet of a past and fictitious age of innocence--have contributed to -embellish the fable of the Past and the hope of the Future. - - - - -II. - -PYTHAGORAS. 570-470 B.C. - - -“A greater good never came, nor ever will come, to mankind, than -that which was imparted by the gods through Pythagoras.” Such is the -expression of enthusiastic admiration of one of his biographers. To -those who are unacquainted with the historical development of Greek -thought and Greek philosophy it may seem to be merely the utterance -of the partiality of hero-worship. Those, on the other hand, who know -anything of that most important history, and of the influence, direct -or indirect, of Pythagoras upon the most intellectual and earnest -minds of his countrymen--in particular upon Plato and his followers, -and through them upon the later Jewish and upon very early Christian -ideas--will acknowledge, at least, that the name of the prophet of -Samos is that of one of the most important and influential factors in -the production and progress of higher human thought. - -There is a true and there is a false hero-worship. The latter, whatever -it may have done to preserve the blind and unreasoning subservience -of mankind, has not tended to accelerate the progress of the world -towards the attainment of truth. The old-world occupants of the popular -Pantheon--“the patrons of mankind, gods and sons of gods, destroyers -rightlier called and plagues of men”--are indeed fast losing, if they -have not entirely lost, their ancient credit, but their vacant places -have yet to be filled by the representatives of the most exalted -ideals of humanity. Whenever, in the place of the representatives of -mere physical and mental force, the _true_ heroes shall be enthroned, -amongst the moral luminaries and pioneers who have contributed to -lessen the thick darkness of ignorance, barbarism, and selfishness, -the name of the first western apostle of humanitarianism and of -spiritualism must assume a prominent position. - -It is a natural and legitimate curiosity which leads us to wish to -know, with something of certainty and fulness, the outer and inner life -of the master spirits of our race. Unfortunately, the _personality_ -of many of the most interesting and illustrious of them is of a vague -and shadowy kind. But when we reflect that little more is known of the -personal life of Shakspere than of that of Pythagoras or Plato--not to -mention other eminent names--our surprise is lessened that, in an age -long preceding the discovery of printing, the records of a life even so -important and influential as that of the founder of Pythagoreanism are -meagre and scanty. - -The earliest account of his teaching is given by Philolaus (“Lover of -the People,” an auspicious name) of Tarentum, who, born about forty or -fifty years after the death of his master--was thus contemporary with -Sokrates and Plato. His _Pythagorean System_, in three books, was so -highly esteemed by Plato that he is said to have given £400 or £500 -for a copy, and to have incorporated the principal part of it in his -_Timæus_. Sharing the fate of so many other valuable products of the -Greek genius, it has long since perished. Our remaining authorities -for the Life are Diogenes of Laerte, Porphyry, one of the most erudite -writers of any age, and Iamblichus. Of these, the biography of the -last is the fullest, if not the most critical; that of Porphyry wants -the beginning and the end; whilst of the ten books of Iamblichus _On -the Pythagorean Sect_ (Περὶ Πυθαγόρου Αἱρέσεως), of which only five -remain, the first was devoted to the life of the founder. Diogenes, -who seems to have been of the school of Epikurus, belongs to the -second, while Porphyry and Iamblichus, the well-known exponents of -Neo-Platonism, wrote in the third and fourth centuries of our era. - -Pythagoras was born in the Island of Samos, somewhere about the year -570 B.C. At some period in his youth, Polykrates--celebrated by the -fine story of Herodotus--had acquired the _tyranny_ of Samos, and his -rule, like that of most of his compeers, has deserved the stigma of the -modern meaning of the Greek equivalent for princely and monarchical -government. The future philosopher, we are told, unable to descend to -the ordinary arts of sycophancy and dissimulation, left his country, -and entered, like the Sirian philosopher of Voltaire, upon an extensive -course of travels--extensive for the age in which he lived. How far he -actually travelled is uncertain. He visited Egypt, the great nurse of -the old-world science, and Syria, and it is not impossible that he may -have penetrated eastwards as far as Babylon, perhaps as the captive -of the recent conqueror of Egypt--the Persian Kambyses. It was in the -East, and particularly in Egypt, that he probably imbibed the dogma of -the immortality of the soul, or, as he chose to represent it to the -public, that of the _metempsychosis_--a fancy widely spread in the -eastern theologies. - -It has been asserted that he had already abandoned the orthodox diet -at the age of nineteen or twenty. If this was actually the fact, he -has the additional merit of having adopted the higher life by his -own original force of mind and refinement of feeling. If not, he may -have derived the most characteristic as well as the most important -of his teachings from the Egyptians or Persians, or, through them, -even from the Hindus--the most religiously strict abstainers from -the flesh of animals. It is remarkable that the two great apostles -of abstinence--Pythagoras and Sakya-Muni, or Buddha--were almost -contemporaries; nor is it impossible that the Greek may, in whatever -way, have become acquainted with the sublime tenets of the Hindu -prophet, who had lately seceded from Brahminism, the established -sacerdotal and exclusive religion of the Peninsula, and promulgated his -great revelation--until then new to the world--that religion, at least -his religion, was to be “a religion of mercy to all beings,” human and -non-human.[7] - -As the natural and necessary result of his pure living, we are told -by Iamblichus that “his sleep was brief, his soul vigilant and pure, -and his body confirmed in a state of perfect and invariable health.” -He appears to have passed the period of middle life when he returned -to Samos, where his reputation had preceded him. Either, however, -finding his countrymen hopelessly debased by the corrupting influence -of despotism, or believing that he would find a better field for the -propagandism of his new revelation, he not long afterwards set out for -Southern Italy, then known as “Great Greece,” by reason of its numerous -Greek colonies, or, rather, autonomous communities. At Krotona his -fame and eloquence soon attracted, it seems, a select if not numerous -auditory; and there he founded his famous society--the first historical -anti-flesh-eating association in the western world--the prototype, in -some respects, of the ascetic establishments of Greek and Catholic -Christendom. It consisted of about three hundred young men belonging to -the most influential families of the city and neighbourhood. - -It was the practice of the Egyptian priestly caste and of other -exclusive institutions to reserve their better ideas (of a more -satisfactory sort, at all events, than the system of theology that was -promulgated to the mass of the community), into which only privileged -persons were initiated. This esoteric method, which under the name -of the _mysteries_ has exercised the learned ingenuity of modern -writers--who have, for the most part, vainly laboured to penetrate the -obscurity enveloping the most remarkable institution of the Hellenic -theology--was accompanied with the strictest vows and circumstances of -silence and secrecy. As for the priestly order, it was their evident -policy to maintain the superstitious ignorance of the people and to -overawe their minds, while in regard to the philosophic sects, it was -perhaps to shield themselves from the priestly or popular suspicion -that they shrouded their scepticism in this dark and convenient -disguise. The parabolic or esoteric method was, perhaps, almost a -necessity of the earlier ages. It is to be lamented that it should be -still in favour in this safer age, and that the old exclusiveness of -the _mysteries_ is in esteem with many modern authorities, who seem to -hold that to unveil the spotless Truth to the multitude is “to cast -pearls before swine.” - -It was probably from the philosophic motive that the founder of the new -society instituted his grades of catechumens and probationary course, -as well as vows of the strictest secrecy. The exact nature of all his -interior instruction is necessarily very much matter of conjecture, -inasmuch as, whether he committed his system to writing or not, nothing -from his own hand has come down to us. However this may be, it is -evident that the general spirit and characteristic of his teaching -was self-denial or self-control, founded upon the great principles of -justice and temperance; and that communism and asceticism were the -principal aim of his sociology. He was the founder of communism in the -West--his communistic ideas, however, being of an aristocratic and -exclusive rather than of a democratic and cosmopolitan kind. “He first -taught,” says Diogenes, “that the property of friends was to be held in -common--that friendship is equality--and his disciples laid down their -money and goods at his feet, and had all things common.” - -The moral precepts of the great master were much in advance of the -conventional morality of the day. He enjoined upon his disciples, the -same biographer informs us, each time they entered their houses to -interrogate themselves--“How have I transgressed? What have I done? -What have I left undone that I ought to have done?” He exhorted them to -live in perfect harmony, to do good to their enemies and by kindness -to convert them into friends. “He forbade them either to pray for -themselves, seeing that they were ignorant of what was best for them; -or to offer slain victims (σφαγια) as sacrifices; and taught them to -respect a _bloodless_ altar only.” Cakes and fruits, and other innocent -offerings were the only sacrifices he would allow. This, and the -sublime commandment “Not to kill or injure any innocent animal,” are -the grand distinguishing doctrines of his moral religion. So far did he -carry his respect for the beautiful and beneficent in Nature, that he -specially prohibited wanton injury to cultivated and useful trees and -plants. - -By confining themselves to the innocent, pure, and spiritual dietary -he promised his followers the enjoyment of health and equanimity, -undisturbed and invigorating sleep, as well as a superiority of mental -and moral perceptions. As for his own diet, “he was satisfied,” says -Porphyry, “with honey or the honeycomb, or with bread only, and he did -not taste wine from morning to night (μεθ’ἣμεραν); or his principal -dish was often kitchen herbs, cooked or uncooked. Fish he ate rarely.” - -Humanitarianism--the extension of the sublime principles of justice -and of compassion to all innocent sentient life, irrespective of -nationality, creed, or species--is a very modern and even now very -inadequately recognised creed; and, although there have been here and -there a few, like Plutarch and Seneca, who were “splendidly false,” -to the spirit of their age, the recognition of the obligation (the -_practice_ has always been a very different thing) of benevolence and -beneficence, so far from being extended to the non-human races, until -a comparatively recent time has been limited to the narrow bounds of -country and citizenship; and patriotism and internationalism are, -apparently, two very opposite principles. - -The obligation to abstain from the flesh of animals was founded by -Pythagoras on mental and spiritual rather than on humanitarian grounds. -Yet that the latter were not ignored by the prophet of _akreophagy_ is -evident equally by his prohibition of the infliction of pain, no less -than of death, upon the lower animals, and by his injunction to abstain -from the bloody sacrifices of the altar. Such was his abhorrence of -the Slaughter-House, Porphyry tells us, that not only did he carefully -abstain from the flesh of its victims, but that he could never bring -himself to endure contact with, or even the sight of, butchers and -cooks. - -While thus careful of the lives and feelings of the innocent non-human -races, he recognised the necessity of making war upon the ferocious -_carnivora_. Yet to such a degree had he become familiar with the -habits and dispositions of the lower animals that he is said, by the -exclusive use of vegetable food, not only to have tamed a formidable -bear, which by its devastations on their crops had become the terror -of the country people, but even to have accustomed it to eat that -food only for the remainder of its life. The story may be true or -fictitious, but it is not incredible; for there are well-authenticated -instances, even in our own times, of true _carnivora_ that have been -fed, for longer or shorter periods, upon the non-flesh diet.[8] - -“Amongst other reasons, Pythagoras,” says Iamblichus, “enjoined -abstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to -peace. For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of -other animals, as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more -unjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war.” Specially, he -“exhorted those politicians who are legislators to abstain. For if they -were willing to act justly in the highest degree, it was indubitably -incumbent upon them not to injure any of the lower animals. Since how -could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were -proved to be indulging an insatiable avidity by devouring these animals -that are allied to us. For through the communion of life and the -same elements, and the sympathy thus existing, they are, as it were, -conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance.”[9] Maxims how different from -those in favour in the present “year of grace,” 1877! If the refined -thinker of the sixth century B.C. were now living, what would be his -indignation at the enormous slaughter of innocent life for the public -banquets at which our statesmen and others are constantly _fêted_, -and which are recorded in our journals with so much magniloquence and -minuteness? His hopes for the regeneration of his fellow-men would -surely be terribly shattered. We may apply the words of the great Latin -satirist, Juvenal, who so frequently denounces in burning language the -luxurious gluttony of his countrymen under the Empire--“What would not -Pythagoras denounce, or whither would he not flee, could he see these -monstrous sights--he who abstained from the flesh of all other animals -as though they were human?” (_Satire_ xv.) - -How long the communistic society of Krotona remained undisturbed is -uncertain. Inasmuch as its reputation and influence were widely spread, -it may be supposed that the outbreak of the populace (the origin of -which is obscure), by which the society was broken up and his disciples -massacred, did not happen until many years after its establishment. -At all events, it is commonly believed that Pythagoras lived to an -advanced age, variously computed at eighty, ninety, or one hundred -years. - -It is not within our purpose to discuss minutely the scientific or -theological theories of Pythagoras. In accordance with the abstruse -speculative character of the Ionic school of science, which inclined -to refer the origin of the universe to some one primordial principle, -he was led by his mathematical predilections to discover the cosmic -element in numbers, or proportion--a theory which savours of John -Dalton’s philosophy, now accepted in chemistry, and a virtual -enunciation of what we now call _quantitative_ science. Pythagoras -taught the Kopernican theory prematurely. He regarded the sun as more -_divine_ than the earth, and therefore set it in the _centre_ of the -earth and planets. The argument was surely a mark of genius, but it -was too transcendental for his contemporaries, even for Plato and -Aristotle. His elder contemporary, the celebrated Thales of Miletus, -with whom in his early youth he may have been acquainted, may claim, -indeed, to be the remote originator of the famous nebular hypothesis -of Laplace and modern astronomy. Another cardinal doctrine of the -Pythagorean school was the musical, from whence the idea, so popular -with the poets, of the “music of the spheres.” To music was attributed -the greatest influence in the control of the passions. In its larger -sense, by the Greeks generally, the term “Music” (_Musice_--pertaining -to the Muses) denoted, it is to be remembered, not alone the “concord -of sweet sounds,” but also an artistic and æsthetic education in -general--all humanising and refining instruction. - -The famous doctrine of the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of -Souls also was, doubtless, a prominent feature in the Pythagorean -system; but it is probable that we may presume that by it Pythagoras -intended merely to convey to the “uninstructed,” by parable, the -sublime idea that the soul is gradually purified by a severe course -of discipline until finally it becomes fitted for a fleshless life -of immortality.[10] We are chiefly concerned with his attitude in -regard to flesh eating. There can be no question that abstinence was -a fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics--little -in sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life, -or, indeed, with self-denial of any kind--have sometimes affected -either to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence, -thus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most -important residuum of Pythagoreanism. In support of this scepticism -the fact of the celebrated athlete Milo, whose prodigies of strength -have become proverbial, has been quoted. Yet if these critics had been -at the pains of inquiring somewhat further, they would have learned, -on the contrary, that the non-flesh diet is exactly that which is -most conducive to physical vigour; that in the East there are at this -day non-flesh eaters, who in feats of strength might put even our -strongest men to the blush. The extraordinary powers of the porters -and boatmen of Constantinople have been remarked by many travellers; -and the Chinese coolies and others are almost equally notorious for -their marvellous powers of endurance. Yet their food is not only of -the simplest--rice, dhourra (_i.e._, millet), onions, &c.--but of the -scantiest possible. Moreover, the elder Greek athletes themselves, for -the most part, trained on vegetarian diet. Not to multiply details, -the fact that, upon a moderate calculation, two-thirds at least of the -population of our globe--including the mass of the inhabitants of these -islands--live, _nolentes, volentes_, on a dietary from which flesh is -almost altogether necessarily excluded, is on the face of it sufficient -proof in itself of the non-necessity of the diet of the rich. - -While the general consent of antiquity and of later times has received -as undoubted the obligation of strict abstinence on the part of the -immediate followers of Pythagoras, it seems that as regards the -uninitiated, or (to use the ecclesiastical term) _catechumens_, the -obligation was not so strict. Indeed relaxation of the rules of the -higher life was simply a _sine quâ non_ of securing the attention of -the mass of the community at all; and, like one still more eminent than -himself in an after age, he found it a matter of necessity to present -a teaching and a mode of living not too exalted and unattainable by -the grossness and “hardness of heart” of the multitude. Hence, in all -probability, the seeming contradictions in his teaching on this point -found in the narratives of his followers. - -If his critics had been more intent on discovering the excellence of -his rules of abstinence than on discussing, with frivolous diligence, -the probable or possible reasons of his alleged prohibition of beans, -it would have redounded more to their credit for wisdom and love of -truth. Assuming the fact of the prohibition, in place of collecting -all the most absurd gossip of antiquity, they might perhaps have found -a more rational and more solid reason in the hypothesis that the bean -being, as used in the ballot, a symbol and outward and visible sign of -political life, was employed by Pythagoras parabolically to dissuade -his followers from participating in the idle strife of party faction, -and to exhort them to concentrate their efforts upon an attempt to -achieve the solid and lasting reformation of mankind.[11] But to be -much concerned in a patient inquiry after truth unhappily has been not -always the characteristic of professional commentators. - -Blind hero-worship or idolatry of genius or intellect, even when -directed to high moral aims, is no part of our creed; and it is -sufficient to be assured that he was human, to be free to confess -that the historical founder of _akreophagy_ was not exempt from human -infirmity, and that he could not wholly rise above the wonder-loving -spirit of an uncritical age. Deducting all that has been imputed to -him of the fanciful or fantastic, enough still remains to force us to -recognise in the philosopher-prophet of Samos one of the master-spirits -of the world.[12] - - - - -III. - -PLATO. 428-347 B.C. - - -The most renowned of all the prose writers of antiquity may be said to -have been almost the lineal descendant, in philosophy, of the teacher -of Samos. He belonged to the aristocratic families of Athens--“the -eye of Greece”--then and for long afterwards the centre of art and -science. His original name was Aristokles, which he might well have -retained. Like another equally famous leader in literature, François -Marie Arouet, he abandoned his birth-name, and he assumed or acquired -the name by which he is immortalised, to characterise, as it is said, -either the breadth of his brow or the extensiveness of his mental -powers. In very early youth he seems to have displayed his literary -aptitude and tastes in the various kinds of poetry--epic, tragic, and -lyric--as well as to have distinguished himself as an athlete in the -great national contests or “games,” as they were called, the grand -object of ambition of every Greek. He was instructed in the chief -and necessary parts of a liberal Greek education by the most able -professors of the time. He devoted himself with ardour to the pursuit -of knowledge, and sedulously studied the systems of philosophy which -then divided the literary world. - -In his twentieth year he attached himself to Sokrates, who was then -at the height of his reputation as a moralist and dialectician. After -the judicial murder of his master, 399, he withdrew from his native -city, which, with a theological intolerance extremely rare in pagan -antiquity, had already been disgraced by the previous persecution of -another eminent teacher--Anaxagoras--the instructor of Euripides and of -Perikles. Plato then resided for some time at Megara, at a very short -distance from Athens, and afterwards set out, according to the custom -of the eager searchers after knowledge of that age, on a course of -travels. - -He traversed the countries which had been visited by Pythagoras, but -his alleged visit to the further East is as traditional as that of -his predecessor. The most interesting fact or tradition in his first -travels is his alleged intimacy with the Greek prince of Syracuse, -the elder Dionysius, and his invitation to the western capital of -the Hellenic world. The story that he was given up by his perfidious -host to the Spartan envoy, and by him sold into slavery, though not -disprovable, may be merely an exaggerated account of the ill-treatment -which he actually received. - -His grand purpose in going to Italy was, without doubt, the desire to -become personally known to the eminent Pythagoreans whose headquarters -were in the southern part of the Peninsula, and to secure the best -opportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted with their -philosophic tenets. At that time the most eminent representative of -the school was the celebrated Archytas, one of the most extraordinary -mathematical geniuses and mechanicians of any age. Upon his return to -Athens, at about the age of forty, he established his ever-memorable -school in the suburban groves or “gardens” known as Ἀκαδημία--whence -the well-known _Academy_ by which the Platonic philosophy is -distinguished, and which, in modern days, has been so much vulgarised. -All the most eminent Athenians, present and future, attended his -lectures, and among them was Aristotle, who was destined to rival the -fame of his master. From about 388 to 347, the date of his death, he -continued to lecture in the Academy and to compose his Dialogues. - -In the intervals of his literary and didactic labours he twice visited -Sicily; the first time at the invitation of his friend Dion, the -relative and minister of the two Dionysii, the younger of whom had -succeeded to his father’s throne, and whom Dion hoped to win to justice -and moderation by the eloquent wisdom of the Athenian sage. Such hopes -were doomed to bitter disappointment. His second visit to Syracuse -was undertaken at the urgent entreaties of his Pythagorean friends, -of whose tenets and dietetic principles he always remained an ardent -admirer. For whatever reason, it proved unsuccessful. Dion was driven -into exile, and Plato himself escaped only by the interposition of -Archytas. Thus the only chance of attempting the realisation of his -ideal of a communistic commonwealth--if he ever actually entertained -the hope of realising it--was frustrated. Almost the only source of the -biographies of Plato are the _Letters_ ascribed to him, commonly held -to be fictitious, but maintained to be genuine by Grote. The narrative -of the first visit to Sicily is found in the seventh Letter. - -We can refer but briefly to the nature of the philosophy and -writings of Plato. In the notice of Pythagoras it has been stated -that Plato valued very highly that teacher’s methods and principles. -Pythagoreanism, in fact, enters very largely into the principal -writings of the great disciple and exponent (and, it may safely -be added, improver) of Sokrates, especially in the _Republic_ -and the _Timæus_. The four cardinal virtues inculcated in the -_Republic_--justice or righteousness (Δικαιοσύνη), temperance or -self-control (Εγκρατεία or Σωφροσύνη), prudence or wisdom (Φρονήσις), -fortitude (Ἀνδρεία)--are eminently pythagorean. - -The characteristic of the purely speculative portion of Platonism -is the theory of _ideas_ (used by the author in the new sense of -_unities_, the original meaning being _forms_ and _figures_), of which -it may be said that its merit depends upon its poetic fancy rather -than upon its scientific value. Divesting it of the verbiage of the -commentators, who have not succeeded in making it more intelligible, -all that need be said of this abstruse and fantastic notion is, that by -it he intended to convey that all sensible objects which, according to -him, are but the shadows and phantoms of things unseen, are ultimately -referable to certain abstract conceptions or ideas, which he termed -_unities_, that can only be reached by pure thinking. Hence he asserted -that “not being in a condition to grasp the idea of the Good with -full distinctness, we are able to approximate to it only so far as -we elevate the power of thinking to its proper purity.” Whatever may -be thought of the premiss, the truth and utility of the deduction -may be allowed to be as unquestionable as they are unheeded. This -characteristic theory may be traced to the belief of Plato not only -in the immortality, but also in the past eternity of the soul. In the -_Phædrus_, under the form of allegory, he describes the soul in its -former state of existence as traversing the circuit of the universe -where, if reason duly control the appetite, it is initiated, as it -were, into the essences of things which are there disclosed to its -gaze. And it is this ante-natal experience, which supplies the fleshly -mind or soul with its ideas of the beautiful and the true. - -The subtlety of the Greek intellect and language was, apparently, an -irresistible temptation to their greatest ornaments to indulge in the -nicest and most mystic speculation, which, to the possessors of less -subtle intellects and of a far less flexible language, seems often -strangely unpractical and hyperbolic. Thus while it is impossible -not to be lost in admiration of the marvellous powers of the Greek -_dialectics_, one cannot but at the same time regret that faculties so -extraordinary should have been expended (we will not say altogether -wasted) in so many instances on unsubstantial phantoms. If, however, -the transcendentalism of the Platonic and other schools of Greek -thought is matter for regret, how must we not deplore the enormous -waste of time and labour apparent in the theological controversies -of the first three or four centuries of Christendom--at least of -Greek Christendom--when the omission or insertion of a single letter -could profoundly agitate the whole ecclesiastical world and originate -volumes upon volumes of refined, indeed, but useless verbiage. Yet -even the ecclesiastical Greek writers of the early centuries may lay -claim to a certain originality and merit of style which cannot be -conceded to the “schoolmen” of the mediæval ages, and of still later -times, whose solemn trifling--under the proud titles of Platonists and -Aristotelians, or Nominalists and Realists, and the numerous other -appellations assumed by them--for centuries was received with patience -and even applause. Nor, unfortunately, is this war of Phantoms by any -means unknown or extinct in our day. It was the lament of Seneca, -often echoed by the most earnest minds, that all, or at least the -greater part of, our learning is expended upon words rather than upon -the acquisition of wisdom.[13] - -Plato deserves his high place among the Immortals not so much on -account of any very definite results from his philosophy as on -account of its general _tendency_ to elevate and direct human -thought and aspirations to sublime speculations and aims. Of all his -_Dialogues_, the most valuable and interesting, without doubt, is -the _Republic_--the one of his writings upon which he seems to have -bestowed the most pains, and in which he has recorded the outcome of -his most mature reflections. Next may be ranked the _Phædo_ and the -_Phædrus_--the former, it is well known, being a disquisition on the -immortality of the soul. In spite of certain fantastic conceptions, -it must always retain its interest, as well by reason of its -speculations on a subject which is (or rather which ought to be) the -most interesting that can engage the mind, as because it purports to -be the last discourse of Sokrates, who was expecting in his prison the -approaching sentence of death. The _Phædrus_ derives its unusual merit -from the beauty of the language and style, and from the fact of its -being one of the few writings of antiquity in which the charms of rural -nature are described with enthusiasm. - -The _Republic_, with which we are here chiefly concerned, since it -is in that important work that the author reproduces the dietetic -principles of Pythagoras, may have been first published amongst his -earlier writings, about the year 395; but that it was published in a -larger and revised edition at a later period is sufficiently evident. -It consists of ten Books. The question of Dietetics is touched upon -in the second and third, in which Plato takes care to point out the -essential importance to the well-being of his ideal state, that both -the mass of the community and, in a special degree, the _guardians_ or -rulers, should be educated and trained in proper dietetic principles, -which, if not so definitely insisted upon as we could wish them to have -been, sufficiently reveal the bias of his mind towards Vegetarianism. -In the second Book the discussion turns principally upon the nature -of Justice; and there is one passage which, still more significant -for the age in which it was written, is not without instruction -for the present. While Sokrates is discussing the subject with his -interlocutors, one of them is represented as objecting: - - “With much respect be it spoken, you who profess to be admirers - of justice, beginning with the heroes of old, have every one - of you, without exception, made the praise of Justice and the - condemnation of Injustice turn solely upon the reputation and - honour and gifts resulting from them. But what each is in itself, - by its own peculiar force as it resides in the soul of its - possessor, unseen either by gods or men, has never, in poetry or - prose, been adequately discussed, so as to show that Injustice is - the greatest bane that a soul can receive into itself, and Justice - the greatest blessing. Had this been the language held by you all - from the first, and had you tried to persuade us of this from our - childhood, we should not be on the watch to check one another in - the commission of injustice, because everyone would be his own - watchman, fearful lest by committing injustice he might attach to - himself the greatest of evils.” - -Very useful and necessary for those times, and not wholly inapplicable -to less remote ages, is the incidental remark in the same book, that -“there are quacks and soothsayers who flock to the rich man’s doors, -and try to persuade him that they have a power at command which -they procure from heaven, and which enables them, by sacrifices and -incantations, performed amid feasting and indulgence, to make amends -for any crime committed either by the individual himself or by his -ancestors.... And in support of all these assertions they produce the -evidence of poets--some, to exhibit the facilities of vice, quoting the -words:-- - - “Whoso wickedness seeks, may even in masses obtain it - Easily. Smooth is the way, and short, for nigh is her dwelling. - Virtue, heaven has ordained, shall be reached by the sweat of - the forehead.” - - --_Hesiod_, _Works and Days_, 287.[14] - -It is the fifth Book, however, which has always excited the greatest -interest and controversy, for therein he introduces his Communistic -views. Our interest in it is increased by the fact that it is the -original of the ideal Communisms of modern writers--the prototype of -the _Utopia_ of More, of the _New Atlantis_ of Francis Bacon, the -_Oceanica_ of Harrington, and the _Gaudentio_ of Berkeley, &c. - -In maintaining the perfect natural equality of women to men,[15] and -insisting upon an identity of education and training, he advances -propositions which perhaps only the more advanced of the assertors -of women’s rights might be prepared to entertain. Whatever may have -been said by the various admirers of Plato, who have been anxious to -present his political or social views in a light which might render -them less in conflict with modern Conservatism, there can be no doubt -for any candid reader of the _Republic_ that the author published to -the world his _bonâ fide_ convictions. One of the _dramatis personæ_ -of the dialogue, while expressing his concurrence in the Communistic -legislation of Sokrates, at the same time objects to the difficulty of -realising it in actual life, and desires Sokrates to point out whether, -and how, it could be really practicable. Whereupon Sokrates (who it is -scarcely necessary to remark, is the convenient mouthpiece of Plato) -replies: “Do you think any the worse of an artist who has painted the -_beau idéal_ of human beauty, and has left nothing wanting in the -picture, because he cannot prove that such a one as he has painted -might possibly exist? Were not we, likewise, proposing to construct, -in theory, the pattern of a perfect State? Will our theory suffer at -all in your good opinion if we cannot prove that it is _possible_ for a -city to be organised in the manner proposed?” - -As has been well paraphrased by the interpreters to whom we are -indebted for the English version: “The possibilities of realising such -a commonwealth in actual practice is quite a secondary consideration, -which does not in the least affect the soundness of the method or the -truth of the results. All that can fairly be demanded of him is to -show how the imperfect politics at present existing may be brought -most nearly into harmony with the perfect State which has just been -described. To bring about this great result one fundamental change -is necessary, and only one: the highest political power must, by -some means or other, be vested in philosophers.” The next point -to be determined is, What is, or ought to be, implied by the term -_philosopher_, and what are the characteristics of the true philosophic -disposition? “They are--(1) an eager desire for the knowledge of all -real existence; (2) hatred of falsehood, and devoted love of truth; (3) -contempt for the pleasures of the body; (4) indifference to money; (5) -high-mindedness and liberality; (6) justice and gentleness; (7) a quick -apprehension and a good memory; (8) a musical, regular, and harmonious -disposition.” But how is this disposition to be secured? Under the -present condition of things, and the corrupting influences of various -kinds, where temptations abound to compromise truth and substitute -expediency and self-interest, it would seem wellnigh impossible and -Utopian to expect it. - -“How is this evil to be remedied? The State itself must regulate the -study of philosophy, and must take care that the students pursue it on -right principles, and at a right age. And now, surely, we may expect -to be believed when we assert that if a State is to prosper it must be -governed by philosophers. If such a contingency should ever take place -(and why should it not?), our ideal State will undoubtedly be realised. -So that, upon the whole, we come to this conclusion: The constitution -just described is the best, if it can be realised; and to realise it is -difficult, but not impossible.” At this moment, when the question of -compulsory education, under the immediate superintendence of the State, -is being fought with so much fierceness--on one side, at least--to -recur to Plato might not be without advantage. - -In the most famous dialogue of Plato--the _Republic_, or, as it might -be termed _On Justice_--the principal interlocutors, besides Sokrates, -are Glaukon, Polymachus, and Adeimantus; and the whole piece originates -in the chance question which rose between them, “What is Justice?” -In the second Book, from which the following passage is taken, the -discussion turns upon the origin of society, which gives opportunity -to Sokrates to develop his opinions upon the diet best adapted for the -community--at all events, for the great majority:-- - - “‘They [the artisans and work-people generally] will live, I - suppose, on barley and wheat, baking cakes of the meal, and - kneading loaves of the flour. And spreading these excellent cakes - and loaves upon mats of straw or on clean leaves, and themselves - reclining on rude beds of yew or myrtle-boughs, they will make - merry, themselves and their children, drinking their wine, weaving - garlands, and singing the praises of the gods, enjoying one - another’s society, and not begetting children beyond their means, - through a prudent fear of poverty or war.’ - - “Glaukon here interrupted me, remarking, ‘Apparently you describe - your men feasting, without anything to relish their bread.’[16] - - “‘True,’ I said, ‘I had forgotten. Of course they will have - something to relish their food. Salt, no doubt, and olives, and - cheese, together with the country fare of boiled onions and - cabbage. We shall also set before them a dessert, I imagine, - of figs, pease, and beans: they may roast myrtle-berries and - beech-nuts at the fire, taking wine with their fruit in moderation. - And thus, passing their days in tranquillity and sound health, - they will, in all probability, live to an advanced age, and dying, - bequeath to their children a life in which their own will be - reproduced.’ - - “Upon this Glaukon exclaimed, ‘Why, Sokrates, if you were founding - a community of swine, this is just the style in which you would - feed them up!’ - - “‘How, then,’ said I, ‘would you have them live, Glaukon?’ - - “‘In a civilised manner,’ he replied. ‘They ought to recline on - couches, I should think, if they are not to have a hard life of it, - and dine off tables, and have the usual dishes and dessert of a - modern dinner.’ - - “‘Very good: I understand. Apparently we are considering the - growth, not of a city merely, but of a _luxurious_ city. I dare - say it is not a bad plan, for by this extension of our inquiry we - shall perhaps discover how it is that justice and injustice take - root in cities. Now, it appears to me that the city which we have - described is the _genuine_ and, so to speak, _healthy_ city. But - if you wish us also to contemplate a city that is suffering from - inflammation, there is nothing to hinder us. Some people will not - be satisfied, it seems, with the fare or the mode of life which we - have described, but must have, in addition, couches and tables and - every other article of furniture, as well as viands.... Swineherds - again are among the additions we shall require--a class of persons - not to be found, because not wanted, in our former city, but needed - among the rest in this. We shall also need great quantities of all - kinds of cattle for those who may wish to eat them, shall we not?’ - - “‘Of course we shall.’ - - “‘Then shall we not experience the need of medical men also to a - much greater extent under this than under the former _régime_?’ - - “‘Yes, indeed.’ - - “‘The country, too, I presume, which was formerly adequate to - the support of its then inhabitants, will be now too small, and - adequate no longer. Shall we say so?’ - - “‘Certainly.’ - - “‘Then must we not cut ourselves a slice of our neighbours’ - territory, if we are to have land enough both for pasture and - tillage? While they will do the same to ours if they, like us, - permit themselves to overstep the limit of necessaries, and plunge - into the unbounded acquisition of wealth.’ - - “‘It must inevitably be so, Sokrates.’ - - “‘Will our next step be to go to war, Glaukon, or how will it be?’ - - “‘As you say.’ - - “At this stage of our inquiry let us avoid asserting either that - war does good or that it does harm, confining ourselves to this - statement--that we have further traced the origin of war to causes - which are the most fruitful sources of whatever evils befall a - State, either in its corporate capacity or in its individual - members.” (Book II.)[17] - -Justly holding that the best laws will be of little avail unless the -administrators of them shall be just and virtuous, Sokrates, in the -Third Book, proceeds to lay down rules for the education and diet of -the magistrates or executive, whom he calls--in conformity with the -Communistic system--_guardians_:-- - - “‘We have already said,’ proceeds Sokrates, ‘that the persons in - question must refrain from drunkenness; for a guardian is the last - person in the world, I should think, to be allowed to get drunk, - and not know where he is.’ - - “‘Truly it would be ridiculous for a guardian to require a guard.’ - - “‘But about eating: our men are combatants in a most important - arena, are they not?’ - - “‘They are.’ - - “‘Then will the habit of body which is cultivated by the trained - fighters of the Palæstra be suitable to such persons?’ - - “‘Perhaps it will.’ - - “‘Well, but this is a sleepy kind of regimen, and produces a - precarious state of health; for do you not observe that men in the - regular training sleep their life away, and, if they depart only - slightly from the prescribed diet, are attacked by serious maladies - in their worst form?’ - - “‘I do.’ - - * * * * * - - “‘In fact, it would not be amiss, I imagine, to compare this whole - system of feeding and living to that kind of music and singing - which is adapted to the panharmonicum, and composed in every - variety of rhythm.’ - - “‘Undoubtedly it would be a just comparison.’ - - “‘Is it not true, then, that as in music variety begat - dissoluteness in the soul, so here it begets disease in the body, - while simplicity in gymnastic [diet] is as productive of health as - in music it was productive of temperance?’ - - “‘Most true.’ - - “‘But when dissoluteness and diseases abound in a city, are not - law courts and surgeries opened in abundance, and do not Law - and Physic begin to hold their heads high, when numbers even - of well-born persons devote themselves with eagerness to these - professions?’ - - “‘What else can we expect?’ - - * * * * * - - “‘And do you not hold it disgraceful to require medical aid, unless - it be for a wound, or an attack of illness incidental to the time - of the year--to require it, I mean, owing to our laziness and the - life we lead, and to get ourselves so stuffed with humours and - wind, like quagmires, as to compel the clever sons of Asklepios to - call diseases by such names as _flatulence_ and _catarrh_?’ - - “‘To be sure, these are very strange and new-fangled names for - disorders.’” (Book III.) - -Elsewhere, in a well-known passage (in _The Laws_), Plato pronounces -that the springs of human conduct and moral worth depend principally -on diet. “I observe,” says he, “that men’s thoughts and actions are -intimately connected with the threefold need and desire (accordingly as -they are properly used or abused, virtue or its opposite is the result) -of eating, drinking, and sexual love.” He himself was remarkable for -the extreme frugality of his living. Like most of his countrymen, he -was a great eater of figs; and so much did he affect that frugal repast -that he was called, _par excellence_, the “lover of figs” (φιλόσυκος). - -The Greeks, in general, were noted among the Europeans for their -abstemiousness; and Antiphanes, the comic poet (in Athenæus), terms -them “leaf-eaters” (φυλλοτρῶγες). Amongst the Greeks, the Athenians and -Spartans were specially noted for frugal living. That of the latter is -proverbial. The comic poets frequently refer, in terms of ridicule, -to what seemed to them so unaccountable an indifferentism to the -“good things” of life on the part of the witty and refined people of -Attica. See the _Deipnosophists_ (dinner-philosophers) of Athenæus (the -great repertory of the _bon-vivantism_ of the time), and Plutarch’s -_Symposiacs_. - -It has been pointed out by Professor Mahaffy, in his recent work on -old Greek life, that slaughter-houses and butchers are seldom, or -never, mentioned in Greek literature. “The eating of [flesh] meat,” he -observes, “must have been almost confined to sacrificial feasts; for, -in ordinary language, butchers’ meat was called _victim_ (ἱερεῖον). -The most esteemed, or popular, dishes were _madsa_, a sort of porridge -of wheat or barley; various kinds of bread (see _Deipn._ iii.); honey, -beans, lupines, lettuce and salad, onions and leeks. Olives, dates, -and figs formed the usual fruit portion of their meals. In regard to -non-vegetable food, fish was the most sought after and preferred to -anything else; and the well-known term _opson_, which so frequently -recurs in Greek literature, was specially appropriated to it. - -Contemporary with the great master of language was the great master of -medicine, Hippokrates, (460-357) who is to his science what Homer is -to poetry and Herodotus to history--the first historical founder of -the art of healing. He was a native of Kōs, a small island of the S.W. -coast of Lesser Asia, the traditional cradle and home of the disciples -of Asklepios, or Æsculapius (as he was termed by the Latins), the -semi-divine author and patron of medicine. And it may be remarked, in -passing, that the College of Asklepiads of Kōs were careful to exercise -a despotism as severe and exclusive as that which obtains, for the most -part, with the modern orthodox schools. - -Amongst a large number of writings of various kinds attributed to -Hippokrates is the treatise _On Regimen in Acute Diseases_ (περὶ -Διαίτης Ὀξέων), which is generally received as genuine; and _On the -Healthful Regimen_ (περὶ Διαίτης Ὑγιεινῆς), which belongs to the same -age, though not to the _canonical_ writings of the founder of the -school himself. He was the author, real or reputed, of some of the -most valuable apophthegms of Greek antiquity. _Ars longa--Vita brevis_ -(education is slow; life is short) is the best known, and most often -quoted. What is still more to our purpose is his maxim--“Over-drinking -is _almost as bad_ as over-eating.” Of all the productions of this most -voluminous of writers, his _Aphorisms_ (Ἀφορισμοί), in which these -specimens of laconic wisdom are collected, and which consists of some -four hundred short practical sentences, are the most popular. - -About a century after the death of Plato appeared a popular exposition -of the Pythagorean teaching, in hexameters, which is known by the title -given to it by Iamblichus--the _Golden Verses_. “More than half of -them,” says Professor Clifford, “consist of a sort of versified ‘Duty -to God and my Neighbour,’ except that it is not designed by the rich to -be obeyed by the poor; that it lays stress on the laws of health; and -that it is just such sensible counsel for the good and right conduct of -life as an Englishman might now-a-days give to his son.” - -Hierokles, an eminent Neo-Platonist of the fifth century, A.D., gave -a course of lectures upon them at Alexandria--which since the time of -the Ptolemies had been one of the chief centres of Greek learning and -science--and his commentary is sufficiently interesting. Suïdas, the -lexicographer, speaks of his matter and style in the highest terms of -praise. “He astonished his hearers everywhere,” he tells us, “by the -calm, the magnificence, the width of his superlative intellect, and -by the sweetness of his speech, full of the most beautiful words and -things.” The Alexandrian lecturer quotes the old Pythagorean maxims: - - “You shall honour God best by becoming godlike in your thoughts. - Whoso giveth God honour as to one that needeth it, that man in his - folly hath made himself greater than God. The wise man only is a - priest, is a lover of God, is skilful to pray; ... for that man - only knows how to worship, who begins by offering himself as the - victim, fashions his own soul into a divine image, and furnishes - his mind as a temple for the reception of the divine light.” - -The following extracts will serve as a specimen of the religious or -moral character of the _Golden Verses_:-- - - “Let not sleep come upon thine eyelids till thou hast pondered thy - deeds of the day. - - “Wherein have I sinned? What work have I done, what left undone - that I ought to have done? - - “Beginning at the first, go through even unto the last, and then - let thy heart smite thee for the evil deeds, but rejoice in the - good work. - - “Work at these commandments and think upon them: these commandments - shalt thou love. - - “They shall surely set thee in the way of divine righteousness: - yea, by Him who gave into our soul the _Tetrad_,[18] well-spring of - life everlasting. - - * * * * * - - “Know so far as is permitted thee, that Nature in all things is - like unto herself: - - “That thou mayest not hope that of which there is no hope, nor be - ignorant of that which may be. - - “Know thou also, that _the woes of men are the work of their own - hands_. - - “Miserable are they, _because they see not and hear not the good - that is very nigh them_: and the way of escape from evil few there - be that understand it. - - * * * * * - - “Verily, Father Zeus, thou wouldst free all men from much evil, if - thou wouldst teach all men what manner of spirit they are of. - - * * * * * - - “Keep from the meats aforesaid, using judgment both in cleansing - and setting free the soul. - - “Give heed to every matter, and set reason on high, who best - holdeth the reins of guidance.[19] - - “Then when thou leavest the body, and comest into the free æther, - thou shalt be a god undying, everlasting, neither shall death have - any more dominion over thee.” - -Referring to these verses, which inculcate that the human race is -itself responsible for the evils which men, for the most part, prefer -to regret than to remedy, Professor Clifford, to whom we are indebted -for the above version of the _Golden Verses_, remarks on the merits of -this teaching, that it reminds us that “men suffer from _preventible_ -evils, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.”[20] Thus we find -that the principal obstructions, in all ages, to human progress and -perfectibility may be ever found in IGNORANCE and SELFISHNESS. - - - - -IV. - -OVID. 43 B.C.--18 A.D. - - -The school of Pythagoras and of Plato, although it was not the -fashionable or popular religion of Rome, counted amongst its disciples -some distinguished Italians, and the name of Cicero, who belonged -to the “New Academy,” is sufficiently illustrious. The Italians, -however, who borrowed their religion as well as their literature from -the Greeks, were never distinguished, like their masters, for that -refinement of thought which might have led them to attach themselves -to the Pythagorean teaching. Under the bloody despotism of the Empire, -the philosophy which was most affected by the _literati_ and those who -were driven to the consolations of philosophy was the _stoical_, which -taught its disciples to consider _apathy_ as the _summum bonum_ of -existence. This school of philosophy, whatever its other merits, was -too much centred in self--paradoxical as the assertion may seem--to -have much regard for the rest of mankind, much less for the non-human -species. Nor, while they professed supreme contempt for the luxuries -and even comforts of life, did the disciples of the “Porch,” in -general, practice abstinence from any exalted motive, humanitarian or -spiritual. They preached indifference for the “good things” of this -life, not so much to elevate the spiritual and moral side of human -nature as to show their contempt for human life altogether. - -That the Italian was essentially of a more barbarous nature than the -Greek is apparent in the national spectacles and amusements. The -savage scenes of gladiatorial and non-human combat and internecine -slaughter of the Latin amphitheatres, of which the famous Colosseum -in the capital was the model of many others in the provinces, were -abhorrent to the more refined Greek mind.[21] In view of scenes so -sanguinary--the “Roman holiday”--it is scarcely necessary to observe -that humanitarianism was a creed unknown to the Italians; and it -was not likely that a people, addicted throughout their career as -a dominant race to the most bloody wars, not only foreign but also -internecine, with whom fighting and slaughter of their own kind was an -almost daily occupation, should entertain any feeling of pity (to say -nothing of justice) towards their non-human dependants. Nevertheless, -even they were not wholly inaccessible, on occasion, to the prompting -of pity. Referring to a grand spectacle given by Pompeius at the -dedication of his theatre (B.C. 55), in which a large number -of elephants, amongst others, were forced to fight, the elder Pliny -tells us:-- - - “When they lost the hope of escape, they sought the compassion - of the crowd with an appearance that is indescribable, bewailing - themselves with a sort of lamentation so much to the pain of - the populace that, forgetful of the imperator and the elaborate - munificence displayed for their honour, they all rose up in tears - and bestowed imprecations on Pompeius, of which he soon after - experienced the effect.”[22] - -Cicero, who was himself present at the spectacle of the Circus, in a -letter to a friend, Marcus Marius, writes:-- - - “What followed, for five days, was successive combats between a - man and a wild beast. (_Venationes binæ._) It was magnificent. - No one disputes it. But what pleasure can it be to a person of - refinement, when either a weak man is torn to pieces by a very - powerful beast, or a noble animal is struck through by a hunting - spear?... The last day was that of the elephants, in which there - was great astonishment on the part of the populace and crowd, but - no enjoyment. Indeed there followed a degree of compassion, and a - certain idea that there is a sort of fellowship between that huge - animal and the human race.” (Cicero, _Ep. ad Diversos_ vii., 1.) - -Testimonies which might induce one almost to think that, had not they -been systematically and industriously accustomed to these horrible -and gigantic butcheries by their rulers, even the Roman populace -might have been susceptible of better feelings and desires than those -inspired by their amphitheatres, though these savage exhibitions were -perhaps hardly worse than the combats and slaughter in the bull-rings -of Seville or Madrid, or at the courts of the Mohammedan princes of -India recently sanctioned by the presence of English royalty. It is -worth noting, in passing, that while the _gladiatorial_ slaughters were -discontinued some years after the triumph of Christianity, the other -part of the entertainment--the indiscriminate combats and slaughter -of the _non-human_ victims--continued to be exhibited to a much later -period. - -If we reflect that the rise of the humanitarian spirit in Christian -Europe, or rather in the better section of it, is of very recent -origin, it might appear unreasonable to look for any distinct -exhibition of so exalted a feeling in the younger age of the -world. Yet, to the shame of more advanced civilisations, we find -manifestations of it in the writings of a few of the more refined -minds of Greece and Italy; and Plutarch and Seneca--the former -particularly--occupy a distinguished place amongst the first preachers -of that sacred truth.[23] - -Publius Ovidius Naso, the Latin versifier of the Pythagorean -philosophy, was born B.C. 43. He belonged to the equestrian -order, a position in the social scale which corresponds with the -“higher middle class” of modern days. Like so many other names eminent -in literature, he was in the first instance educated for the law, -for which, also like many other literary celebrities, he soon showed -his genius to be unfitted and uncongenial. He studied at the great -University of that age--Athens--where he acquired a knowledge of -the Greek language, and probably of its rich literature. The most -memorable event in his life--which, in accordance with the fashion of -his contemporaries of the same rank, was for the most part devoted -to “gallantry” and the accustomed amatory licence--is his mysterious -banishment from Rome to the inhospitable and savage shores of the -Euxine, where he passed the last seven years of his existence, dying -there in the sixtieth year of his age. The cause of his sudden exile -from the Court of Augustus, where he had been in high favour, is one -of those secrets of history which have exercised the ingenuity of his -successive biographers. According to the terms of the imperial edict, -the freedom of the poet’s _Ars Amatoria_ was the offence. That this was -a mere pretext is plain, as well from the long interval of time which -had passed since the publication of the poem as from the character of -the fashionable society of the capital. Ovid himself attributes his -misfortune to the fact of his having become the involuntary witness of -some secret of the palace, the nature of which is not divulged. - -His most important poems are (1) _The Metamorphoses_, in fifteen books, -so called from its being a collection of the numerous transformations -of the popular theology. It is, perhaps, the most _charming_ of Latin -poems that have come down to us. Particular passages have a special -beauty. (2) _The Fasti_, in twelve books, of which only six are extant, -is the Roman Calendar in verse. Its interest, apart from the poetic -genius of the author, is great, as being the grand repertory of the -Latin feasts and their popular origin. Besides these two principal -poems he was the author of the famous _Loves_, in three books; the -_Letters of the Heroines_, _The Remedies of Love_, and _The Tristia, or -Sad Thoughts_. He also wrote a tragedy--_Medea_--which, unfortunately -has not come down to us. All his poems are characterised by elegance -and a remarkable smoothness and regularity of versification, and in -much of his productions there is an unusual beauty and picturesqueness -of poetic ideas. - -The following passage from the fifteenth book of the _Metamorphoses_ -has been justly said by Dryden, his translator, to be the finest part -of the whole poem. It is almost impossible to believe but that, in -spite of his misspent life, he must have felt, in his better moments at -least, something of the truth and beauty of the Pythagorean principles -which he so exquisitely versifies. In the touching words which he puts -into the mouth of the jealous Medea--the murderess of her children--he -might have exclaimed in his own case-- - - “Video meliora proboque - Deteriora sequor.”[24] - - “He [Pythagoras], too, was the first to forbid animals to be served - up at the table, and he was first to open his lips, indeed full - of wisdom yet all unheeded, in the following words: ‘Forbear, O - mortals! to pollute your bodies with such abominable food. There - are the _farinacea_ (_fruges_), there are the fruits which bear - down the branches with their weight, and there are the grapes - swelling on the vines; there are the sweet herbs; there are those - that may be softened by the flame and become tender. Nor is the - milky juice denied you; nor honey, redolent of the flower of thyme. - The lavish Earth heaps up her riches and her gentle foods, and - offers you dainties without blood and without slaughter. The lower - animals satisfy their ravenous hunger with flesh. And yet not - all of them; for the horse, the sheep, the cows and oxen subsist - on grass; while those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the - tigers of Armenia and the raging lions, and the wolves and bears, - revel in their bloody diet. - - “‘Alas! what a monstrous crime it is (_scelus_) that entrails - should be entombed in entrails; that one ravening body should grow - fat on others which it crams into it; that one living creature - should live by the death of another living creature! Amid so great - an abundance which the Earth--that best of mothers--produces does, - indeed, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sad - produce of the wounds you inflict and to imitate the habits of - the Cyclops? Can you not appease the hunger of a voracious and - ill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another being? Yet - that age of old, to which we have given the name of _golden_, was - blest in the produce of the trees and in the herbs which the earth - brings forth, and the human mouth was not polluted with blood. - - “‘Then the birds moved their wings secure in the air, and the hare, - without fear, wandered in the open fields. Then the fish did not - fall a victim to the hook and its own credulity. Every place was - void of treachery; there was no dread of injury--all things were - full of peace. In later ages some one--a mischievous innovator - (_non utilis auctor_), whoever he was--set at naught and scorned - this pure and simple food, and engulfed in his greedy paunch - victuals made from a carcase. It was he that opened the road to - wickedness. I can believe that the steel, since stained with blood, - was first dipped in the gore of savage wild beasts; and that was - lawful enough. We hold that the bodies of animals that seek our - destruction are put to death without any breach of the sacred laws - of morality. But although they might be put to death they were - not to be eaten as well. From this time the abomination advanced - rapidly. The swine is believed to have been the first victim - destined to slaughter, because it grubbed up the seeds with its - broad snout, and so cut short the hopes of the year. For gnawing - and injuring the vine the goat was led to slaughter at the altars - of the avenging Bacchus. Its own fault was the ruin of each of - these victims. - - “‘But how have you deserved to die, ye sheep, you harmless - breed that have come into existence for the service of men--who - carry nectar in your full udders--who give your wool as soft - coverings for us--who assist us more by your life than by your - death? Why have the oxen deserved this--beings without guile and - without deceit--innocent, mild, born for the endurance of labour? - Ungrateful, indeed, is man, and unworthy of the bounteous gifts of - the harvest who, after unyoking him from the plough, can slaughter - the tiller of his fields--who can strike with the axe that neck - worn bare with labour, through which he had so often turned up the - hard ground, and which had afforded so many a harvest. - - “‘And it is not enough that such wickedness is committed by men. - They have involved the gods themselves in this abomination, and - they believe that a Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the - slaughter of the laborious and useful ox. The spotless victim, - excelling in the beauty of its form (for its very beauty is the - cause of its destruction), decked out with garlands and with gold - is placed before their altars, and, ignorant of the purport of - the proceedings, it hears the prayers of the priest. It sees the - fruits which it cultivated placed on its head between its horns, - and, struck down, with its life-blood it dyes the sacrificial knife - which it had perhaps already seen in the clear water. Immediately - they inspect the nerves and fibres torn from the yet living being, - and scrutinise the will of the gods in them. - - “‘From whence such a hunger in man after unnatural and unlawful - food? Do you dare, O mortal race, to continue to feed on flesh? Do - it not, I beseech you, and give heed to my admonitions. And when - you present to your palates the limbs of slaughtered oxen, know and - feel that you are feeding on the tillers of the ground.’”--_Metam._ - xv., 73-142. - - - - -V. - -SENECA. DIED 65 A.D. - - -Lucius Annæus Seneca, the greatest name in the stoic school of -philosophy, and the first of Latin moralists, was born at Corduba -(Cordova) almost contemporaneously with the beginning of the Christian -era. His family, like that of Ovid, was of the equestrian order. He was -of a weakly constitution; and bodily feebleness, as with many other -great intellects, served to intensify if not originate, the activity -of the mind. At Rome, with which he early made acquaintance, he soon -gained great distinction at the bar; and the eloquence and fervour he -displayed in the Senate before the Emperor Caligula excited the jealous -hatred of that insane tyrant. Later in life he obtained a prætorship, -and he was also appointed to the tutorship of the young Domitius, -afterwards the Emperor Nero. On the accession of that prince, at the -age of seventeen, to the imperial throne, Seneca became one of his -chief advisers. - -Unfortunately for his credit as a philosopher, while exerting his -influence to restrain the vicious propensities of his old pupil, he -seems to have been too anxious to acquire, not only a fair proportion -of wealth, but even an enormous fortune, and his villas and gardens -were of so splendid a kind as to provoke the jealousy and covetousness -of Nero. This, added to his alleged disparagement of the prince’s -talents, especially in singing and driving, for which Nero particularly -desired to be famous, was the cause of his subsequent disgrace and -death. The philosopher prudently attempted to anticipate the will of -Nero by a voluntary surrender of all his accumulated possessions, and -he sought to disarm the jealous suspicions of the tyrant by a retired -and unostentatious life. These precautions were of no avail; his death -was already decided. He was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of -Piso, and the only grace allowed him was to be his own executioner. The -despair of his wife, Pompeia Paulina, he attempted to mitigate by the -reflection that his life had been always directed by the standard of a -higher morality. Nothing, however, could dissuade her from sharing her -husband’s fate, and the two faithful friends laid open their veins by -the same blow. - -Advanced age and his extremely meagre diet had left little blood in -Seneca’s veins, and it flowed with painful slowness. His tortures were -excessive and, to avoid the intolerable grief of being witnesses of -each other’s suffering, they shut themselves up in separate apartments. -With that marvellous intrepid tranquillity which characterised some -of the old sages, Seneca calmly dictated his last thoughts to his -surrounding friends. These were afterwards published. His agonies being -still prolonged, he took hemlock; and this also failing, he was carried -into a vapour-stove, where he was suffocated, and thus at length ceased -to suffer. - -In estimating the character of Seneca, it is just that we should -consider all the circumstances of the exceptional time in which his -life was cast. Perhaps there has never been an age or people more -utterly corrupt and abandoned than that of the period of the earlier -Roman Cæsars and that of Rome and the large cities of the empire. -Allowing the utmost that his detractors have brought against him, the -moral character of the author of the _Consolations_ and _Letters_ -stands out in bright relief as compared with that of the immense -majority of his contemporaries of equal rank and position, who were -sunk in the depths of licentiousness and of selfish indifference to -the miseries of the surrounding world. That his public career was not -of so exalted a character altogether as are his moral precepts, is -only too patent to be denied and, in this shortcoming of a loftier -_ideal_, he must share reproach with some of the most esteemed of the -world’s luminaries. If, for instance, we compare him with Cicero or -with Francis Bacon, the comparison would certainly be not unfavourable -to Seneca. The darkest stigma on the reputation of the great Latin -moralist is his connivance at the death of the infamous Agrippina, the -mother of his pupil Nero. Although not to be excused, we may fairly -attribute this act to conscientious, if mistaken, motives. His best -apology is to be found in the fact that, so long as he assisted to -direct the counsels of Nero, he contrived to restrain that prince’s -depraved disposition from those outbreaks which, after the death of the -philosopher, have stigmatised the name of Nero with undying infamy. - -The principal writings of Seneca are:-- - -1. _On Anger._ His earliest, and perhaps his best known, work. - -2. _On Consolation._ Addressed to his mother, Helvia. An admirable -philosophical exhortation. - -3. _On Providence; or, Why evils happen to good men though a divine -Providence may exist._ - -4. _On Tranquillity of Mind._ - -5. _On Clemency._ Addressed to Nero Cæsar. One of the most meritorious -writings of all antiquity. It is not unworthy of being classed with the -humanitarian protests of Beccaria and Voltaire. The stoical distinction -between clemency and pity (_misericordia_), in book ii., is, as Seneca -admits, merely a dispute about words. - -6. _On the Shortness of Life._ In which the proper employment of time -and the acquisition of wisdom are eloquently enforced as the best -employment of a fleeting life. - -7. _On a Happy Life._ In which he inculcates that there is no happiness -without virtue. An excellent treatise. - -8. _On Kindnesses._ - -9. _Epistles to Lucilius._ 124 in number. They abound in lessons and -precepts in morality and philosophy, and, excepting the _De Irâ_, have -been the most read, perhaps, of all Seneca’s productions. - -10. _Questions on Natural History._ In seven books. - -Besides these moral and philosophic works, he composed several -tragedies. They were not intended for the stage, but rather as moral -lessons. As in all his works, there is much of earnest thought and -feeling, although expressed in rhetorical and declamatory language. - -What especially characterises Seneca’s writings is their remarkably -_humanitarian_ spirit. Altogether he is imbued with this, for the -most part, very modern feeling in a greater degree than any other -writer, Greek or Latin. Plutarch indeed, in his noble _Essay on Flesh -Eating_, is more expressly denunciatory of the barbarism of the -Slaughter House, and of the horrible cruelties inseparably connected -with it, and evidently felt more deeply the importance of exposing -its evils. The Latin moralist, however, deals with a wider range of -ethical questions, and on such subjects, as, _e.g._, the relations of -master and slave, is far ahead of his contemporaries. His treatment of -_Dietetics_, in common with that of most of the old-world moralists, is -rather from the spiritual and ascetic than from the purely humanitarian -point of view. “The judgments on Seneca’s writings,” says the author -of the article on Seneca in Dr. Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Latin -Biography_, “have been as various as the opinions about his character, -and both in extremes. It has been said of him that he looks best in -quotations; but this is an admission that there is something worth -quoting, which cannot be said of all writers. That Seneca possessed -great mental powers cannot be doubted. He had seen much of human life, -and he knew well what man is. His philosophy, so far as he adopted a -system, was the stoical; but it was rather an eclecticism of stoicism -than pure stoicism. His style is antithetical, and apparently laboured; -and where there is much labour there is generally affectation. Yet his -language is clear and forcible--it is not mere words--there is thought -always. It would not be easy to name any modern writer, who has treated -on morality and has said so much that is practically good and true, or -has treated the matter in so attractive a way.” - -Jerome, in his _Ecclesiastical Writers_, hesitates to include him in -the catalogue of his saints only because he is not certain of the -genuineness of the alleged literary correspondence between Seneca and -St. Paul. We may observe, in passing, on the remarkable coincidence -of the presence of the two greatest teachers of the old and the new -faiths in the capital of the Roman Empire at the same time; and it is -possible, or rather highly probable, that St. Paul was acquainted with -the writings of Seneca; while, from the total silence of the pagan -philosopher, it seems that he knew nothing of the Pauline epistles -or teaching. Amongst many testimonies to the superiority of Seneca, -Tacitus, the great historian of the empire, speaks of the “splendour -and celebrity of his philosophic writings,” as well as of his “amiable -genius”--_ingenium amœnum_. (_Annals_, xii., xiii.) The elder Pliny -writes of him as “at the very head of all the learned men of that -time.” (xiv. 4.) Petrarch quotes the testimony of Plutarch, “that great -man who, Greek though he was freely confesses ‘that there is no Greek -writer who could be brought into comparison with him in the department -of _morals_.’” - -The following passage is to be found in a letter to Lucilius, in which, -after expatiating on the sublimity of the teaching of the philosopher -Attalus in inculcating moderation and self-control in corporeal -pleasures, Seneca thus enunciates his _dietetic_ opinions:-- - - “Since I have begun to confide to you with what exceeding ardour - I approached the study of philosophy in my youth, I shall not be - ashamed to confess the affection with which Sotion [his preceptor] - inspired me for the teaching of Pythagoras. He was wont to - instruct me on what grounds he himself, and, after him, Sextius, - had determined to abstain from the flesh of animals. Each had a - different reason, but the reason in both instances was a grand - one (_magnifica_). Sotion held that man can find a sufficiency - of nourishment without blood shedding, and that cruelty became - habitual when once the practice of butchering was applied to the - gratification of the appetite. He was wont to add that ‘It is our - bounden duty to limit the materials of luxury. That, moreover, - variety of foods is injurious to health, and not natural to our - bodies. If these maxims [of the Pythagorean school] are true, then - to abstain from the flesh of animals is to encourage and foster - _innocence_; if ill-founded, at least they teach us frugality - and simplicity of living. And what loss have you in losing your - cruelty? (Quod istic crudelitatis tuæ damnum est?) I merely deprive - you of the food of lions and vultures.’ - - “Moved by these and similar arguments, I resolved to abstain from - flesh meat, and at the end of a year the habit of abstinence was - not only easy but delightful. I firmly believed that the faculties - of my mind were more active,[25] and at this day I will not take - pains to assure you whether they were so or not. You ask, then, - ‘Why did you go back and relinquish this mode of life?’ I reply - that the lot of my early days was cast in the reign of the emperor - Tiberius. Certain foreign religions became the object of the - imperial suspicion, and amongst the proofs of adherence to the - foreign cultus or superstition was that of abstinence from the - flesh of animals. At the entreaties of my father, therefore, who - had no real fear of the practice being made a ground of accusation, - but who had a hatred of philosophy,[26] I was induced to return to - my former dietetic habits, nor had he much difficulty in persuading - me to recur to more sumptuous repasts.... - - “This I tell,” he proceeds, “to prove to you how powerful are the - early impetuses of youth to what is truest and best under the - exhortations and incentives of virtuous teachers. We err partly - through the fault of our guides, who teach us _how to dispute_, not - _how to live_; partly by our own fault in expecting our teachers - to cultivate not so much the _disposition of the mind_ as the - faculties of the intellect. Hence it is that in place of a love - of wisdom there is only a love of words (Itaque quæ _philosophia_ - fuit, facta _philologia_ est).”--_Epistola_ cviii.[27] - -Seneca here cautiously reveals the jealous suspicion with which the -first Cæsars viewed all foreign, and especially quasi-religious, -innovations, and his own _public_ compliance, to some extent, with the -orthodox dietetic practices. Yet that in private life he continued -to practise, as well as to preach, a radical dietary reformation -is sufficiently evident to all who are conversant with his various -writings. The refinement and gentleness of his ethics are everywhere -apparent, and exhibit him as a man of extraordinary sensibility and -feeling. - -As for _dietetics_, he makes it a matter of the first importance, on -which he is never weary of insisting. “_We must so live, not as if we -ought to live for, but as though we could not do without, the body._” -He quotes Epikurus: “_If you live according to nature, you will never -be poor; if according to conventionalism, you will never be rich. -Nature demands little; fashion_ (opinio) _superfluity_.” In one of his -letters he eloquently describes the riotous feasting of the period -which corresponds to our festival of Christmas--another illustration of -the proverb, “History repeats itself”:-- - - “December is the month,” he begins his letter, “when the city - [Rome] most especially gives itself up to riotous living - (_desudat_). Free licence is allowed to the public luxury. Every - place resounds with the gigantic preparations for eating and - gorging, just as if,” he adds, “the whole year were not a sort of - _Saturnalia_.” - -He contrasts with all this waste and gluttony the simplicity and -frugality of Epikurus, who, in a letter to his friend Polyænus, -declares that his own food does not cost him sixpence a day; while his -friend Metrodorus, who had not advanced so far in frugality, expended -the whole of that small sum:-- - - “Do you ask if that can supply due nourishment? Yes; and pleasure - too. Not, indeed, that fleeting and superficial pleasure which - needs to be perpetually recruited, but a solid and substantial - one. Bread and pearl-barley (_polenta_) certainly is not luxurious - feeding, but it is no little advantage to be able to receive - pleasure from a simple diet of which no change of fortune can - deprive one.... Nature demands bread and water only: no one is poor - in regard to those necessaries.”[28] - -Again, Seneca writes:-- - - “How long shall we weary heaven with petitions for superfluous - luxuries, as though we had not at hand wherewithal to feed - ourselves? How long shall we fill our plains with huge cities? How - long shall the people slave for us unnecessarily? How long shall - countless numbers of ships from every sea bring us provisions for - the consumption of a single month? An Ox is satisfied with the - pasture of an acre or two: one wood suffices for several Elephants. - Man alone supports himself by the pillage of the whole earth and - sea. What! Has Nature indeed given us so insatiable a stomach, - while she has given us so insignificant bodies? No: it is not the - hunger of our stomachs, but insatiable covetousness (_ambitio_) - which costs so much. The slaves of the belly (as says Sallust) are - to be counted in the number of the lower animals, not of men. Nay, - not of them, but rather of the dead.... You might inscribe on their - doors, ‘These have anticipated death.’”--(_Ep._ lx.) - -The extreme difficulty of abstinence is oftentimes alleged:-- - - “It is disagreeable, you say, to abstain from the pleasures of - the customary diet. Such abstinence is, I grant, difficult at - first. But in course of time the desire for that diet will begin - to languish; the incentives to our unnatural wants failing, the - stomach, at first rebellious, will after a time feel an aversion - for what formerly it eagerly coveted. The desire dies of itself, - and it is no severe loss to be without those things that you have - ceased to long for. Add to this that there is no disease, no - pain, which is not certainly intermitted or relieved, or cured - altogether. Moreover it is possible for you to be on your guard - against a threatened return of the disease, and to oppose remedies - if it comes upon you.”--(_Ep._ lxxviii.) - -On the occasion of a shipwreck, when his fellow-passengers found -themselves forced to live upon the scantiest fare, he takes the -opportunity to point out how extravagantly superfluous must be the -ordinary living of the richer part of the community:-- - - “How easily we can dispense with these superfluities, which, when - necessity takes them from us, we do not feel the want of.... - Whenever I happen to be in the company of richly-living people I - cannot prevent a blush of shame, because I see evident proof that - the principles which I approve and commend have as yet no sure - and firm faith placed in them.... A warning voice needs to be - published abroad in opposition to the prevailing opinion of the - human race: ‘You are out of your senses (_insanitis_); you are - wandering from the path of right; you are lost in stupid admiration - for superfluous luxuries; you value no one thing for its proper - worth.’”--(_Ep._ lxxxvii.) - -Again:-- - - “I now turn to you, whose insatiable and unfathomable gluttony - (_profunda et insatiabilis gula_) searches every land and every - sea. Some animals it persecutes with snares and traps, with - hunting-nets [the customary method of the _battue_ of that period], - with hooks, sparing no sort of toil to obtain them. Excepting - from mere caprice or daintiness, there is no peace allowed to any - species of beings. Yet how much of all these feasts which you - obtain by the agency of innumerable hands do you even so much as - touch with your lips, satiated as they are with luxuries? How much - of that animal, which has been caught with so much expense or - peril, does the dyspeptic and bilious owner taste? Unhappy even in - this! that you perceive not that you hunger more than your belly. - Study,” he concludes his exhortation to his friend, “not to know - _more_, but to know _better_.” - -Again:-- - - “If the human race would but listen to the voice of reason, it - would recognise that [fashionable] cooks are as superfluous as - soldiers.... Wisdom engages in all useful things, is favourable to - peace, and summons the whole human species to concord.”--(_Ep._ xc.) - - “In the simpler times there was no need of so large a supernumerary - force of medical men, nor of so many surgical instruments or of - so many boxes of drugs. Health was simple for a simple reason. - Many dishes have induced many diseases. Note how _vast a quantity - of lives one stomach absorbs_--devastator of land and sea.[29] No - wonder that with so discordant diet disease is ever varying.... - Count the cooks: you will no longer wonder at the innumerable - number of human maladies.”--(_Ep._ xcv.) - -We must be content with giving our readers only one more of Seneca’s -exhortations to a reform in diet:-- - - “You think it a great matter that you can bring yourself to live - without all the apparatus of fashionable dishes; that you do not - desire wild boars of a thousand pounds weight or the tongues of - rare birds, and other portents of a luxury which now despises whole - carcases,[30] and chooses only certain parts of each victim. I - shall admire you then only when you scorn not plain bread, when - you have persuaded yourself that herbs exist not for other animals - only, but for man also--if you shall recognise that vegetables are - sufficient food for the stomach into which we now stuff valuable - lives, as though it were to keep them for ever. For what matters - it what it receives, since it will soon lose all that it has - devoured? The apparatus of dishes, containing the spoils of sea and - land, gives you pleasure, you say.... The splendour of all this, - heightened by art, gives you pleasure. Ah! those very things so - solicitously sought for and served up so variously--no sooner have - they entered the belly than one and the same foulness shall take - possession of them all. Would you contemn the pleasures of the - table? Consider their final destination” (_exitum specta_).[31] - -If Seneca makes _dietetics_ of the first importance, he at the same -time by no means neglects the other departments of _ethics_, which, for -the most part, ultimately depend upon that fundamental reformation; and -he is equally excellent on them all. Space will not allow us to present -our readers with all the admirable _dicta_ of this great moralist. We -cannot resist, however, the temptation to quote some of his unique -teaching on certain branches of humanitarianism and philosophy little -regarded either in his own time or in later ages. Slaves, both in pagan -and Christian Europe, were regarded very much as the domesticated -non-human species are at the present day, as born merely for the will -and pleasure of their masters. Such seems to have been the universal -estimate of their _status_. While often superior to their lords, -nationally and individually, by birth, by mind, and by education, -they were at the arbitrary disposal of too often cruel and capricious -owners:-- - - “Are they slaves?” eloquently demands Seneca. “Nay, they - are men. Are they slaves? Nay, they live under the same roof - (_contubernales_). Are they slaves? Nay, they are humble friends. - Are they slaves? Nay, they are fellow-servants (_conservi_), if - you will consider that both master and servant are equally the - creatures of chance. I smile, then, at the prevalent opinion - which thinks it a disgrace for one to sit down to a meal with - his servant. Why is it thought a disgrace, but because arrogant - _Custom_ allows a master a crowd of servants to stand round him - while he is feasting?” - -He expressly denounces their cruel and contemptuous treatment, and -demands in noble language (afterwards used by Epictetus, himself a -slave):-- - - “Would you suppose that he whom you call a slave has the same - origin and birth as yourself? has the same free air of heaven with - yourself? that he breathes, lives, and dies like yourself?” - -He denounces the haughty and insulting attitude of masters towards -their helpless dependants, and lays down the precept: “So live with -your dependant as you would wish your superior to live with you.” He -laments the use of the term “slaves,” or “servants” (_servi_), in place -of the old “domestics” (_familiares_). He declaims against the common -prejudice which judges by the _outward_ appearance:-- - - “That man,” he asserts, “is of the stupidest sort who values - another either by his dress or by his condition.” Is he a slave? - He is, it may be, _free in mind_. He is the _true_ slave who is a - slave to cruelty, to ambition, to avarice, to pleasure. “Love,” - he declares, insisting upon humanity, “cannot co-exist with - fear.”--(_Ep._ xlviii.) - -He is equally clear upon the ferocity and barbarity of the gladiatorial -and other shows of the _Circus_, which were looked upon by his -contemporaries as not only interesting spectacles, but as a useful -school for war and endurance--much for the same reason as that on -which the “sports” of the present day are defended. Cicero uses this -argument, and only expresses the general sentiment. Not so Seneca. He -speaks of a chance visit to the Circus (the gigantic Colosseum was -not yet built), for the sake of mental relaxation, expecting to see, -at the period of the day he had chosen, only innocent exercises. He -indignantly narrates the horrid and bloody scenes of suffering, and -demands, with only too much reason, whether it is not evident that such -evil examples receive their righteous retribution in the deterioration -of character of those who encourage them:-- - - “Ah! what dense mists of darkness do power and prosperity cast - over the human mind. He [the magistrate] believes himself to be - raised above the common lot of mortality, and to be at the pinnacle - of glory, when he has offered so many crowds of wretched human - beings to the assaults of wild beasts; when he forces animals of - the most different species to engage in conflict; when in the - full presence of the Roman populace he causes torrents of blood - to flow, a fitting school for the future scenes of still greater - bloodshed.”[32] - -In his treatise _On Clemency_, dedicated to his youthful pupil Nero, -he anticipates the very modern theory--_theory_, for the prevalent -_practice_ is a very different thing--that _prevention_ is better than -_punishment_, and he denounces the cruel and selfish policy of princes -and magistrates, who are, for the most part, concerned only to punish -the criminals produced by unjust and unequal laws:-- - - “Will not that man,” he asks, “appear to be a very bad father - who punishes his children, even for the slightest causes, with - constant blows? Which preceptor is the worthier to teach--the one - who scarifies his pupils’ backs if their memory happens to fail - them, or if their eyes make a slight blunder in reading, or he - who chooses rather to correct and instruct by admonition and the - influence of shame?... You will find that those crimes are most - often committed which are most often punished.... Many capital - punishments are no less disgraceful to a ruler than are many deaths - to a physician. Men are more easily governed by mild laws. The - human mind is naturally stubborn and inclined to be perverse, and - it more readily follows than is forced. The disposition to cruelty - which takes delight in blood and wounds is the characteristic of - wild beasts; it is to throw away the human character and to pass - into that of a denizen of the woods.” - -Speaking of giving assistance to the needy, he says that the genuine -philanthropist will give his money-- - - “Not in that insulting way in which the great majority of those who - wish to seem merciful disdain and despise those whom they help, and - shrink from contact with them, but as one mortal to a fellow-mortal - he will give as though out of a treasury that should be common to - all.”[33] - -Next to the _De Clementiâ_ and the _De Irâ_ (“On Anger”), his treatise -_On the Happy Life_ is most admirable. In the abundance of what is -unusually good and useful it is difficult to choose. His warning (so -unheeded) against implicit confidence in authority and tradition cannot -be too often repeated:-- - - “There is nothing against which we ought to be more on our guard - than, like a flock of sheep, following the crowd of those who have - preceded us--going, as we do, not where we ought to go, but where - men have walked before. And yet there is nothing which involves - us in greater evils than following and settling our faith upon - authority--considering those dogmas or practices best which have - been received heretofore with the greatest applause, and which have - a multitude of great names. We live not according to reason, but - according to mere fashion and tradition, from whence that enormous - heap of bodies, which fall one over the other. It happens as in a - great slaughter of men, when the crowd presses upon itself. Not - one falls without dragging with him another. The first to fall are - the cause of destruction to the succeeding ranks. It runs through - the whole of human life. No-one’s error is limited to himself - alone, but he is the author and cause of another’s error.... We - shall recover our sound health if only we shall separate ourselves - from the herd, for the crowd of mankind stands opposed to right - reason--the defender of its own evils and miseries.[34] ... Human - history is not so well conducted, that the better way is pleasing - to the mass. The very fact of the approbation of the multitude is - a proof of the badness of the opinion or practice. Let us ask what - is _best_, not what is _most customary_; what may place us firmly - in the possession of an everlasting felicity, not what has received - the approbation of the vulgar--the worst interpreter of the - truth. Now I call “the vulgar” _the common herd of all ranks and - conditions_” (_Tam chlamydatos quam coronatos_).--(_De Vitâ Beatâ_ - i. and ii.) - -Again:-- - - “I will do nothing for the sake of opinion; everything for the sake - of conscience.” - -He repudiates the doctrines of Egoism for those of Altruism:-- - - “I will so live, as knowing myself to have come into the world for - others.... I shall recognise the _world_ as my proper country. - Whenever nature or reason shall demand my last breath I shall - depart with the testimony that I have loved a good conscience, - useful pursuits--that I have encroached upon the liberty of no one, - least of all my own.” - -Very admirable are his rebukes of unjust and insensate anger in regard -to the non-human species:-- - - “As it is the characteristic of a madman to be in a rage with - lifeless objects, so also is it to be angry with dumb animals,[35] - inasmuch as there can be no injury unless _intentional_. Hurt - us they can--as a stone or iron--_injure_ us they cannot. - Nevertheless, there are persons who consider themselves insulted - when horses that will readily obey one rider are obstinate in - the case of another; just as if they are more tractable to some - individuals than to others of _set purpose_, not from custom or - _owing to treatment_.”--(_De Irâ_ ii., xxvi.) - -Again, of anger, as between human beings:-- - - “The faults of others we keep constantly before us; our own we hide - behind us.... A large proportion of mankind are angry, not with the - _sins_, but with the _sinners_. In regard to reported offences; - _many speak falsely to deceive, many because they are themselves - deceived_.” - -Of the use of self-examination, he quotes the example of his excellent -preceptor, Sextius, who strictly followed the Pythagorean precept to -examine oneself each night before sleep:-- - - “Of what bad practice have you cured yourself to-day? What vice - have you resisted? In what respect are you the better? Rash anger - will be moderated and finally cease when it finds itself daily - confronted with its judge. What, then, is more useful than this - custom of thoroughly weighing the actions of the entire day?” - -He adduces the feebleness and shortness of human life as one of the -most forcible arguments against the indulgence of malevolence:-- - - “Nothing will be of more avail than reflections on the nature of - mortality. Let each one say to himself, as to another, ‘What good - is it to declare enmity against such and such persons, as though - we were born to live for ever, and to thus waste our very brief - existence? What profit is it to employ time which might be spent - in honourable pleasures in inflicting pain and torture upon any of - our fellow-beings?’ ... Why rush we to battle? Why do we provoke - quarrels? Why, forgetful of our mortal weakness, do we engage in - huge hatreds? Fragile beings as we are, why will we rise up to - crush others?... Why do we tumultuously and seditiously set life - in an uproar? Death stands staring us in the face, and approaches - ever nearer and nearer. That moment which you destine for another’s - destruction perchance may be for your own.... Behold! death comes, - which makes us all equal. Whilst we are in this mortal life, let - us cultivate humanity; let us not be a cause of fear or of danger - to any of our fellow-mortals. Let us contemn losses, injuries, - insults. Let us bear with magnanimity the brief inconveniences of - life.” - -Again, in dealing with the weak and defenceless:-- - - “Let each one say to himself, whenever he is provoked, ‘What right - have I to punish with whips or fetters a slave who has offended me - by voice or manner? Who am I, whose ears it is such a monstrous - crime to offend? Many grant pardon to their enemies; shall I not - pardon simply idle, negligent, or garrulous slaves?’ Tender years - should shield childhood--their sex, women--individual liberty, a - stranger--the common roof, a domestic. Does he offend now for the - first time? Let us think how often he may have pleased us.”--(_De - Irâ_ iii., passim.) - -As to the conduct of life:-- - - “We ought so to live, as though in the sight of all men. We ought - so to employ our thoughts, as though someone were able to inspect - our inmost soul--and there is one able. For what advantages it that - a thing is hidden from men; nothing is hidden from God. (_Ep._ 83.) - ... Would you propitiate heaven? Be good. He worships the gods, who - imitates [the higher ideal of] them. How do we act? What principles - do we lay down? That we are to refrain from human bloodshed? Is it - a great matter to refrain from injuring him to whom you are bound - to do good? The whole of human and divine teaching is summed up in - this one principle--we are all members of one mighty body. Nature - has made us of one kin (_cognatos_), since she has produced us - from the same elements and will resolve us into the same elements. - She has implanted in us love one for another, and made us for - living together in society. She has laid down the laws of right - and justice, by which ordinance it is more wretched to injure than - to be injured; and by her ordering, our hands are given us to help - each the other.... Let us ask what things _are_, not what they _are - called_. Let us value each thing on its own merits, without thought - of the world’s opinion. Let us love temperance; let us, before all - things, cherish justice.... Our actions will not be right unless - the will is first right, for from that proceeds the act.” - -Again:-- - - “The will will not be right unless the _habits_ of mind are right, - for from these results the will. The habits of thought, however, - will not be at the best unless they shall have been based upon _the - laws of the whole of life_; unless they shall have tried all things - by the test of truth.”--(_Ep._ xcv.) - -Excellent is his advice on the choice of books and of reading:-- - - “Be careful that the reading of many authors, and of every sort of - books, does not induce a certain vagueness and uncertainty of mind. - We ought to linger over and nourish our minds with, writers of - assured genius and worth, if we wish to extract something which may - usefully remain fixed in the mind. A multitude of books distracts - the mind. Read always, then, books of approved merit. If ever you - have a wish to go for a time to other kinds of books, yet always - return to the former.”[36]--(_Ep._ ii.) - -In his 88th Letter Seneca well exposes the folly of a learning which -begins and ends in _mere words_, which has no real bearing on the -conduct of life and the instruction of the _moral_ faculties:-- - - “In testing the value of books and writers, let us see whether - or no they teach _virtue_.... You inquire minutely about the - wanderings of Ulysses rather than work for the prevention of error - in your own case. We have no leisure to hear exactly how and where - he was tossed about between Italy and Sicily.... The tempests of - the soul are ever tossing us, and evildoing urges us into all the - miseries of Ulysses.... Oh marvellously excellent education! By - it you can measure circles and squares, and all the distances of - the stars. There is nothing that is not within the reach of your - geometry. Since you are so able a mechanician, measure the human - mind. Tell me how great it is, how small it is (_pusillus_). You - know what a straight line is. What does it profit you, if you - know not what is straight (_rectum_) in life.”[37] What then? Are - liberal studies of no avail? For other things much; for virtue - nothing.... They do not lead the mind to virtue--they only clear - the way. - - “Humanity forbids us to be arrogant towards our fellows; forbids us - to be grasping; shows itself kind and courteous to all, in word, - deed, and thought; thinks no evil of another, but rather loves its - own highest good, chiefly because it will be of good to another. - Do liberal studies [always] inculcate these maxims? No more than - they do simplicity of character and moderation; no more than they - do frugality and economy of living; no more than they do mercy, - which is as sparing of another’s blood as it is of its own, and - recognises that man is not to use the services of his fellows - unnecessarily or prodigally. - - “Wisdom is a great, a vast subject. It needs all the spare time - that can be given to it.... Whatever amount of natural and moral - questions you may have mastered, you will still be wearied with the - vast abundance of questions to be asked and solved. So many, so - great, are these questions, all superfluous things must be removed - from the mind, that it may have free scope for exercise. Shall I - waste my life in mere words (_syllabis_)? Thus does it come about - that the learned are more anxious to talk than to live. Mark what - mischief _excessive_ subtlety of mind produces, and how dangerous - it may be to truth.”--(_Ep._ lxxxviii.) - -Elsewhere he indignantly demands:-- - - “What is more vile or disgraceful than a learning which catches at - popular applause (_clamores_)?”--(_Ep._ lii.) - -Anticipating the ultimate triumph of Truth, he well says:-- - - “No virtue is really lost--that it has to remain hidden for a time - is no loss to itself. A day will come which will publish the truth - at present neglected and oppressed by the malignity (_malignitas_) - of its age. He who thinks the world to be of his own age only, is - born for the few. Many thousands of years, many millions of people, - will supervene. Look forward to that time. Though the envy of - your own day shall have condemned you to obscurity, there will - come those who will judge you without fear or favour. If there is - any reward for virtue from fame, that is imperishable. The talk of - posterity, indeed, will be nothing to us. Yet it will revere us, - even though we are insensible to its praise; and it will frequently - consult us.... What now deceives has not the elements of duration. - Falsehood is thinly disguised; it is transparent, if only you look - close enough.”--(_Ep._ lxix.) - -In his _Questions on Nature_, in which he often shows himself to have -been much in advance of his contemporaries, and, indeed, of the whole -mediæval ages, in scientific acumen, he takes occasion to reprobate the -common practice of glorifying the lives and deeds of worthless princes -and others, and exclaims in the modern spirit:-- - - “How much better to try to extinguish the evils of our own age than - to glorify the bad deeds of others to posterity! How much better - to celebrate the works of Nature [_deorum_] than the piracies of - a Philip or Alexander and of the rest who, become illustrious - by the calamities of nations, have been no less the pests of - mankind than an inundation which devastates a whole country, or a - conflagration in which a large proportion of living creatures is - consumed.”--(_Quæst. Nat._ iii.) - -It will be sufficiently apparent, from what we have presented to our -readers, that Seneca, though nominally of the Stoic school, belonged in -reality to no special sect or party. _Nullius addictus jurare in verba -magistri._ Bound to the words of no one master, he sought for truth -everywhere. The authority whom he most frequently quotes with approval -is Epicurus, the arch-enemy of Stoicism. Wiser and more candid than -the great mass of sectaries, he scorns the tactics of partisanship. He -justly recognises the fact that the “luxurious egoists have not derived -their impulse or sanction from Epicurus; but, abandoned to their vices, -they disguise their selfishness in the name of his philosophy.” He -professes his own conviction to be “against the common prejudice of -the popular writers of my own school, that the teaching of Epicurus -was just and holy, and, on a close examination, essentially grave -and sober.... I affirm this, that he is ill-understood, defamed, and -depreciated.” (_De Vitâ Beatâ_, xii, xiii.) - -It will also be sufficiently clear that the ethics of Seneca consist -of no mere trials of skill in logomachy; in finely-drawn distinctions -between words and names, as do so large a proportion both of modern -and ancient dialectics. If so daring a heresy may possibly be forgiven -us, we would venture to suggest that the authorities of our schools -and universities might, with no inconsiderable advantage, substitute -judicious excerpts from the _Morals_ of Seneca for the _Ethics_ of -Aristotle; or, as Latin literature is now in question, even for the -_De Officiis_ of Cicero. This, however, is perhaps to indulge Utopian -speculation too greatly. The mediæval spirit of scholasticism is not -yet sufficiently out of favour at the ancient schools of Aquinas and -Scotus. - - - - -VI. - -PLUTARCH. 40-120 A.D. (?) - - -The years of the birth and death of the first of biographers and the -most amiable of moralists are unknown. We learn from himself that he -was studying philosophy at Athens under Ammonius, the Peripatetic, at -the time when Nero was making his ridiculous progress through Greece. -This was in 66 A.D., and the date of his birth may therefore -be approximately placed somewhere about the year 40. He was thus a -younger contemporary of Seneca. Chæronea, in Bœotia, claims the honour -of giving him birth. - -He lived several years at Rome and in other parts of Italy, where, -according to the fashion of the age and the custom of the philosophic -rhetoricians (of whom, probably, he was one of the very few whose -_prælections_ were of any real value), he gave public lectures, -attended by the most eminent literary as well as social personages -of the time, among whom were Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Quintilian, -and perhaps Juvenal. These lectures may have formed the basis, if not -the entire matter, of the miscellaneous essays which he afterwards -published. When in Italy he neglected altogether the Latin language and -literature, and the reason he gives proves the estimation in which he -was held: “I had so many public commissions, and so many people came -to me to receive instruction in philosophy.... it was, therefore, not -till a late period in life that I began to read the Latin writers.” In -fact, the very general indifference, or at least silence, of the Greek -masters in regard to Latin literature is not a little remarkable. - -It is asserted, on doubtful authority (Suidas), that he was preceptor -of Trajan, in the beginning of whose reign he held the high post -of Procurator of Greece; and he also filled the honourable office -of _Archon_, or Chief Magistrate of his native city, as well as of -priest of the Delphic Apollo. He passed the later and larger portion -of his life in quiet retirement at Chæronea. The reason he assigns -for clinging to that dull and decaying provincial town, although -residence there was not a little inconvenient for him, is creditable -to his citizen-feeling, since he believed that by quitting it he, -as a person of influence, might contribute to its ruin. In all the -relations of social life Plutarch appears to have been exemplary, -and he was evidently held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens. As -husband and father he was particularly admirable. The death of a young -daughter, one of a numerous progeny, was the occasion of one of his -most affecting productions--the _Consolation_--addressed to his wife -Timoxena. He himself died at an advanced age, in the reign of Hadrian. - -Plutarch’s writings are sufficiently numerous. The _Parallel Lives_, -forty-six in number, in which he brings together a Greek and a Roman -celebrity by way of comparison, is perhaps the book of Greek and Latin -literature which has been the most widely read in all languages. “The -reason of its popularity,” justly observes a writer in Dr. Smith’s -_Dictionary_, “is that Plutarch has rightly conceived the business of a -biographer--his biography is true portraiture. Other biography is often -a dull, tedious enumeration of facts in the order of time, with perhaps -a summing up of character at the end. The reflections of Plutarch are -neither impertinent nor trifling; his sound good sense is always there; -his honest purpose is transparent; his love of humanity warms the -whole. His work is and will remain, in spite of all the fault that can -be found with it by plodding collectors of facts and small critics, the -book of those who can nobly think and dare and do.” - -His miscellaneous writings--indiscriminately classed under the title -_Moralia_, or _Morals_, but including historical, antiquarian, -literary, political, and religious disquisitions--are about eighty in -number. As might be expected of so miscellaneous a collection, these -essays are of various merit, and some of them are, doubtless, the -product of other minds than Plutarch’s. Next to the _Essay on Flesh -Eating_[38] may be distinguished as amongst the most important or -interesting, _That the Lower Animals Reason_,[39] _On the Sagacity -of the Lower Animals_--highly meritorious treatises, far beyond the -ethical or intellectual standard of the mass of “educated” people even -of our day--_Rules for the Preservation of Health_, _A Discourse on -the Training of Children_, _Marriage Precepts, or Advice to the Newly -Married_, _On Justice_, _On the Soul_, _Symposiacs_--in which he deals -with a variety of interesting or curious questions--_Isis and Osiris_, -a theological disquisition; _On the Opinions of the Philosophers_, -_On the Face that Appears in the Moon_,[40] _Political Precepts_, -_Platonic Questions_, and last, not least, his _Consolation_, addressed -to Timoxena. Plutarch also wrote his autobiography. If it had come -down to us it would have been one of the most interesting remains -of Antiquity, dealing, as we may well imagine it did deal, with some -of the most important phenomena of the age. Possibly we might have -had the expression of his feeling and attitude in regard to the new -religion (established some 200 years later), which, strangely enough, -is altogether overlooked or ignored as well by himself as by the other -eminent writers of Greece and Italy.[41] - -Plutarch was an especial admirer of Plato and his school, but he -attached himself exclusively to no sect or system. He was essentially -eclectic: he chose what his reason and conscience informed him to be -the most good and useful from the various philosophies. As to the -influence of his literary labours in instructing the world, it has been -truly remarked by the author of the article in the _Penny Cyclopædia_ -that, “a kind, humane disposition, and a love of everything that is -ennobling and excellent, pervades his writings, and gives the reader -the same kind of pleasure that he has in the company of an esteemed -friend, whose singleness of heart appears in everything that he says -or does.” His personal character is, in fact, exactly reflected in his -publications. That he was somewhat superstitious and of a conservative -bias is sufficiently apparent;[42] but it is also equally clear, in his -case, that the moral perceptions were not obscured by a selfishness -which is too often the product of optimism, or self-complacent -contentment with things as they are. In metaphysics, with all earnest -minds oppressed by the terrible fact of the dominance of evil and -error in the world, he vainly attempted to find a solution of the -enigma in that prevalent Western Asiatic prejudice of a dualism of -contending powers. He found consolation in the persuasion that the two -antagonistic principles are not of _equal_ power, and that the Good -must eventually prevail over the Evil. - -The _Lives_ has gone through numerous editions in all languages. Of the -_Morals_, the first translation in this country was made by Philemon -Holland, M.D., London, 1603 and 1657. The next English version was -published in 1684-1694, “by several hands.” The fifth edition, “revised -and corrected from the many errors of the former edition,” appeared -in 1718. The latest English version is that of Professor Goodwin, of -Harvard University (1870), with an introduction by R. W. Emerson. It -is, for the most part, a reprint of the revision of 1718, and consists -of five octavo volumes. It is a matter equally for surprise and -regret that, in an age of so much literary, or at least publishing, -enterprise, a judicious selection from the productions of so estimable -a mind has never yet been attempted in a form accessible to ordinary -readers.[43] - -In his _Symposiacs_, discussing (_Quest._ ii.), “whether the sea -or land affords the better food,” and summing up the arguments, he -proceeds:-- - - “We can claim no great right over land animals which are nourished - with the same food, inspire the same air, wash in and drink the - same water that we do ourselves; and when they are slaughtered - they make us ashamed of our work by their terrible cries; and - then, again, by living amongst us they arrive at some degree of - familiarity and intimacy with us. But sea creatures are altogether - strangers to us, and are brought up, as it were, in another world. - Neither does their voice, look, or any service they have done us - plead for their life. This kind of animals are of no use at all to - us, nor is there any obligation upon us that we should love them. - The element we inhabit is a hell to them, and as soon as ever they - enter upon it they die.” - -We may infer that Plutarch advanced gradually to the perfect knowledge -of the truth, and it is probable that his essay on _Flesh-eating_ -was published at a comparatively late period in his life, since in -some of his miscellaneous writings, in alluding to the subject, -he speaks in less decided and emphatic terms of its barbarism and -inhumanity: _e.g._, in his _Rules for the Preservation of Health_, -while recommending moderation in eating, and professing abstinence from -flesh, he does not so expressly denounce the prevalent practice. Yet he -is sufficiently pronounced even here in favour of the reformed diet on -the score of health:-- - - “Ill-digestion,” says he, “is most to be feared after flesh-eating, - for it very soon clogs us and leaves ill consequences behind it. It - would be best to accustom oneself _to eat no flesh at all_, for the - earth affords plenty enough of things fit not only for nourishment - but for delight and enjoyment; some of which you may eat without - much preparation, and others you may make pleasant by adding - various other things.” - -That the non-Christian humanitarian of the first century was far -ahead--we will not say of his contemporaries, but of the common crowd -of writers and speakers of the present age in his estimate of the -just rights and position of the innocent non-human races--will be -sufficiently apparent from the following extract from his remarkable -essay entitled, _That the Lower Animals Reason_, to which Montaigne -seems to have been indebted. The essay is in the form of a dialogue -between Odysseus (Ulysses) and Gryllus, who is one of the transformed -captives of the sorceress Circe (see _Odyssey_ ix.) Gryllus maintains -the superiority of the non-human races generally in very many -qualities and in regard to many of their habits--_e.g._, in eating and -drinking:-- - - “Being thus wicked and incontinent in inordinate desires, it is no - less easy to be proved that men are more intemperate than other - animals even in those things which are necessary--_e.g._, in eating - and drinking--the pleasures of which we [the non-human races] - always enjoy with some benefit to ourselves. But you, pursuing - the pleasures of eating and drinking beyond the satisfaction of - nature, are punished with many and lingering diseases[44] which, - arising from the single fountain of superfluous gormandising, - fill your bodies with all manner of wind and vapours not easy for - purgation to expel. In the first place, all species of the lower - animals, according to their kind, feed upon one sort of food which - is proper to their natures--some upon grass, some upon roots, - and others upon fruits. Neither do they rob the weaker of their - nourishment. But man, such is his voracity, _falls upon all_ to - satisfy the pleasures of his appetite, tries all things, tastes all - things; and, as if he were yet to seek what was the most proper - diet and most agreeable to his nature, among all animals is the - only _all-devourer_.[45] He makes use of flesh _not out of want - and necessity_, seeing that he has the liberty to make his choice - of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible; but - out of luxury and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks after - impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter of living - beings; by this showing himself more cruel than the most savage of - wild beasts. For blood, murder, and flesh are proper to nourish - the kite, the wolf, and the serpent: _to men they are superfluous - viands_. The lower animals abstain from most of other kinds and are - at enmity with only a few, and that only compelled by necessities - of hunger; but neither fish, nor fowl, nor anything that lives upon - the land escapes your tables, though they bear the name of humane - and _hospitable_.” - -Reprobating the harshness and inhumanity of Cato the Censor, who is -usually regarded as the type of old Roman virtue, Plutarch, with his -accustomed good feeling, declares:-- - - “For my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like - so many horses and oxen, or turning them off or selling them - when grown old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit, - which thinks that the sole tie between man and man is interest or - necessity. But goodness moves in a larger sphere than [so-called] - justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, - but kindness and beneficence should be extended to beings of every - species. And these always flow from the breast of a well-natured - man, as streams that flow from the living fountain. - - A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while - they are young, but when old and past service. Thus the people of - Athens, when they had finished the temple of _Hecatompedon_, set at - liberty the lower animals that had been chiefly employed in that - work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any further - service.... We certainly ought not to treat living beings like - shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw - away; and _were it only to learn benevolence to human kind_, we - should be compassionate to other beings. For my own part, I would - not sell even an old ox that had laboured for me; much less would - I remove, for the sake of a little money, a man, grown old in my - service, from his accustomed place--for to him, poor man, it would - be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the - buyer than he was to the seller. But Cato, as if he took a pride - in these things, tells us that, when Consul, he left his war-horse - in Spain, to save the public the charge of his freight. Whether - such things as these are instances of greatness or of littleness of - soul, let the reader judge for himself.”[46] - -If we shall compare these sentiments of the pagan humanitarian with the -every-day practices of modern christian society in the matter, _e.g._, -of “knackers’ yards,” and other similar methods of getting rid of dumb -dependants after a life-time of continuous hard labour--perhaps of bad -usage, and even semi-starvation--the comparison scarcely will be in -favour of christian ethics. From the essay _On Flesh-Eating_ we extract -the principal and most significant passages:-- - - -PLUTARCH--ESSAY ON FLESH-EATING. - - “You ask me upon what grounds Pythagoras abstained from feeding - on the flesh of animals. I, for my part, marvel of what sort of - feeling, mind, or reason, that man was possessed who was the first - to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the - flesh of a murdered being: who spread his table with the mangled - forms of dead bodies, and claimed as his daily food what were but - now beings endowed with movement, with perception, and with voice. - - “How could his eyes endure the spectacle of the flayed and - dismembered limbs? How could his sense of smell endure the horrid - _effluvium_? How, I ask, was his taste not sickened by contact with - festering wounds, with the pollution of corrupted blood and juices? - ‘The very hides began to creep, and the flesh, both roast and - raw, groaned on the spits, and the slaughtered oxen were endowed, - as it might seem, with human voice.’[47] This is poetic fiction; - but the actual feast of ordinary life is, of a truth, a veritable - portent--that a human being should hunger after the flesh of oxen - actually bellowing before him, and teach upon what parts one should - feast, and lay down elaborate rules about joints and roastings and - dishes. The first man who set the example of this savagery is the - person to arraign; not, assuredly, that great mind which, in a - later age, determined to have nothing to do with such horrors. - - “For the wretches who first applied to flesh-eating may justly be - alleged in excuse their utter resourcelessness and destitution, - inasmuch as it was not to indulge in lawless desires, or amidst the - superfluities of necessaries, for the pleasure of wanton indulgence - in unnatural luxuries that they [the primeval peoples] betook - themselves to carnivorous habits. - - “If _they_ could now assume consciousness and speech they might - exclaim, ‘O blest and God-loved men who live at this day! What a - happy age in the world’s history has fallen to _your_ lot, you who - plant and reap an inheritance of all good things which grow for - you in ungrudging abundance! What rich harvests do you not gather - in? What wealth from the plains, what innocent pleasures is it not - in your power to reap from the rich vegetation surrounding you on - all sides! _You_ may indulge in luxurious food without staining - your hands with innocent blood. While as for us wretches, _our_ - lot was cast in an age of the world the most savage and frightful - conceivable. _We_ were plunged into the midst of an all-prevailing - and fatal want of the commonest necessaries of life from the period - of the earth’s first genesis, while yet the gross atmosphere of the - globe hid the cheerful heavens from view, while the stars were yet - wrapped in a dense and gloomy mist of fiery vapours, and the sun - [earth] itself had no firm and regular course. Our globe was then - a savage and uncultivated wilderness, perpetually overwhelmed with - the floods of the disorderly rivers, abounding in shapeless and - impenetrable morasses and forests. Not for us the gathering in of - domesticated fruits; no mechanical instrument of any kind wherewith - to fight against nature. Famines gave us no time, nor could there - be any periods of seed-time and harvest. - - “‘What wonder, then, if, contrary to nature, we had recourse to the - flesh of living beings, when all our other means of subsistence - consisted in wild corn [or a sort of grass--ἄγρωστιν], and the - bark of trees, and even slimy mud, and when we deemed ourselves - fortunate to find some chance wild root or herb? When we tasted - an acorn or beech-nut we danced with grateful joy around the - tree, hailing it as our bounteous mother and nurse. Such was the - gala-feast of those primeval days, when the whole earth was one - universal scene of passion and violence, engendered by the struggle - for the very means of existence. - - “‘But what struggle for existence, or what goading madness has - incited _you_ to imbrue your hands in blood--you who have, we - repeat, a superabundance of all the necessaries and comforts of - existence? Why do you belie the Earth [τὶ καταψεύοεσθε τῆς Γῆς] - as though it were unable to feed and nourish you? Why do you - do despite to the bounteous [goddess] Ceres, and blaspheme the - sweet and mellow gifts of Bacchus, as though you received not a - sufficiency from them? - - “‘Does it not shame you to mingle murder and blood with their - beneficent fruits? Other _carnivora_ you call savage and - ferocious--lions and tigers and serpents--while yourselves come - behind them in no species of barbarity. And yet for them murder is - the only means of sustenance; whereas to you it is a superfluous - luxury and crime.’ - - “For, in point of fact, we do not kill and eat lions and wolves, - as we might do in self-defence--on the contrary, we leave them - unmolested; and yet the innocent and the domesticated and helpless - and unprovided with weapons of offence--these we hunt and kill, - whom Nature seems to have brought into existence for their beauty - and gracefulness.... - - “Nothing puts us out of countenance [δυσωπεῖ], not the charming - beauty of their form, not the plaintive sweetness of their voice - or cry, not their mental intelligence [πανουργία ψυχῆς], not - the purity of their diet, not superiority of understanding. For - the sake of a part of their flesh only, we deprive them of the - glorious light of the sun--of the life for which they were born. - The plaintive cries they utter we affect to take to be meaningless; - whereas, in fact, they are entreaties and supplications and prayers - addressed to us by each which say, ‘It is not the satisfaction - of your real necessities we deprecate, but the wanton indulgence - [ὕβριν] of your appetites. Kill to eat, if you must or will, but do - not slay me that you may feed _luxuriously_.’ - - “Alas for our savage inhumanity! It is a terrible thing to see - the table of rich men decked out by those layers out of corpses - [νεκρόκοσμους], the butchers and cooks: a still more terrible sight - is the same table _after_ the feast--for the wasted relics are even - more than the consumption. These victims, then, have given up their - lives uselessly. At other times, from mere niggardliness, the host - will grudge to distribute his dishes, and yet he grudged not to - deprive innocent beings of their existence! - - “Well, I have taken away the excuse of those who allege that they - have the authority and sanction of Nature. For that man is not, - by nature, carnivorous is proved, in the first place, by the - external frame of his body--seeing that to none of the animals - designed for living on flesh has the human body any resemblance. He - has no curved beak, no sharp talons and claws, no pointed teeth, - no intense power of stomach [κοιλίας εὐτονία] or heat of blood - which might help him to masticate and digest the gross and tough - flesh-substance. On the contrary, by the smoothness of his teeth, - the small capacity of his mouth, the softness of his tongue, and - the sluggishness of his digestive apparatus, Nature sternly forbids - him [ἐξομνύται] to feed on flesh. - - “If, in spite of all this, you still affirm that you were intended - by nature for such a diet, then, to begin with, kill _yourself_ - what you wish to eat--but do it yourself with your own _natural_ - weapons, without the use of butcher’s knife, or axe, or club. No; - as the wolves and lions and bears themselves slay all they feed on, - so, in like manner, do you kill the cow or ox with a gripe of your - jaws, or the pig with your teeth, or a hare or a lamb by falling - upon and rending them there and then. Having gone through all these - preliminaries, _then_ sit down to your repast. If, however, you - wait until the living and intelligent existence be deprived of - life, and if it would disgust you to have to rend out the heart and - shed the life-blood of your victim, why, I ask, in the very face - of Nature, and in despite of her, do you feed on beings endowed - with sentient life? But more than this--not even, after your - victims have been killed, will you eat them just as they are from - the slaughter-house. You boil, roast, and altogether metamorphose - them by fire and condiments. You entirely alter and disguise the - murdered animal by the use of ten thousand sweet herbs and spices, - that your natural taste may be deceived and be prepared to take the - unnatural food. A proper and witty rebuke was that of the Spartan - who bought a fish and gave it to his cook to dress. When the latter - asked for butter, and olive oil, and vinegar, he replied, ‘Why, if - I had all these things, I should not have bought the fish!’ - - “To such a degree do we make luxuries of bloodshed, that we call - flesh ‘a delicacy,’ and forthwith require delicate sauces [ὄψων] - for this same flesh-meat, and mix together oil and wine and honey - and pickle and vinegar with all the spices of Syria and Arabia--for - all the world as though we were embalming a human corpse. After all - these heterogeneous matters have been mixed and dissolved and, in - a manner, corrupted, it is for the stomach, forsooth, to masticate - and assimilate them--if it can. And though this may be, for the - time, accomplished, the natural sequence is a variety of diseases, - produced by imperfect digestion and repletion.[48] - - “Diogenes (the Cynic) had the courage, on one occasion, to swallow - a _polypus_ without any cooking preparation, to dispense with the - time and trouble expended in the kitchen. In the presence of a - numerous concourse of priests and others, unwrapping the morsel - from his tattered cloak, and putting it to his lips, ‘For your - sakes,’ cried he, ‘I perform this extravagant action and incur this - danger.’ A self-sacrifice truly meritorious! Not like Pelopidas, - for the freedom of Thebes, or like Harmodius and Aristogeiton, - on behalf of the citizens of Athens, did the philosopher submit - to this hazardous experiments; for _he_ acted thus that he might - _unbarbarise_, if possible, the life of human kind. - - “Flesh-eating is not unnatural to our physical constitution only. - The mind and intellect are made gross by gorging and repletion; - for flesh-meat and wine may possibly tend to give robustness - to the body, but it gives only feebleness to the mind. Not to - incur the resentment of the prize-fighters [the _athletes_], I - will avail myself of examples nearer home. The wits of Athens, - it is well known, bestow on us Bœotians the epithets ‘gross,’ - ‘dull-brained,’ and ‘stupid,’ chiefly on account of our gross - feeding. We are even called ‘hogs.’ Menander nicknames us the - ‘jaw-people’ [οἱ γνάθους ἔχοντες]. Pindar has it that ‘mind is a - very secondary consideration with them.’ ‘A fine understanding of - clouded brilliancy’ is the ironical phrase of Herakleitus.... - - “Besides and beyond all these reasons, does it not seem admirable - to foster habits of philanthropy? Who that is so kindly and gently - disposed towards beings of another species would ever be inclined - to do injury to his own kind? I remember in conversation hearing, - as a saying of Xenokrates, that the Athenians imposed a penalty - upon a man for flaying a sheep alive, and he who tortures a living - being is little worse (it seems to me) than he who needlessly - deprives of life and murders outright. We have, it appears, clearer - perceptions of what is contrary to propriety and custom than of - what is contrary to nature.... - - “Reason proves both by our thoughts and our desires that we are - (comparatively) new to the reeking feasts [ἕωλα] of kreophagy. Yet - it is hard, as says Cato, to argue with stomachs since they have - no ears; and the inebriating potion of Custom[49] has been drunk, - like Circe’s, with all its deceptions and witcheries. Now that men - are saturated and penetrated, as it were, with love of pleasure, - it is not an easy task to attempt to pluck out from their bodies - the flesh-baited hook. Well would it be if, as the people of Egypt - turning their back to the pure light of day disembowelled their - dead and cast away the offal, as the very source and origin of - their sins, we, too, in like manner, were to eradicate bloodshed - and gluttony from ourselves and purify the remainder of our lives. - If the irreproachable diet be impossible to any by reason of - inveterate habit, at least let them devour their flesh as driven - to it by hunger, not in luxurious wantonness, but with feelings of - shame. Slay your victim, but at least do so with feelings of pity - and pain, not with callous heedlessness and with torture. And yet - that is what is done in a variety of ways. - - “In slaughtering swine, for example, they thrust red-hot irons into - their living bodies, so that, by sucking up or diffusing the blood, - they may render the flesh soft and tender. Some butchers jump upon - or kick the udders of pregnant sows, that by mingling the blood and - milk and matter of the _embryos_ that have been murdered together - in the very pangs of parturition, they may enjoy the pleasure of - feeding upon unnaturally and highly inflamed flesh![50] Again, it - is a common practice to stitch up the eyes of cranes and swans, and - shut them up in dark places to fatten. In this and other similar - ways are manufactured their dainty dishes, with all the varieties - of sauces and spices [καρυκείαις--Lydian sauces, composed of blood - and spices]--from all which it is sufficiently evident that men - have indulged their lawless appetites in the pleasures of luxury, - not for necessary food, and from no necessity, but only out of the - merest wantonness, and gluttony, and display....”[51] - - -Among the illustrious earlier contemporaries of Plutarch who practised -no less than preached rigid abstinence, Apollonius of Tyana, the -Pythagorean, one of the most extraordinary men of any age, deserves -particular notice. He came into the world in the same year with the -founder of Christianity, B.C. 4. The facts and fictions of his life we -owe to Philostratus, who wrote his memoirs at the express desire of the -Empress Julia Domna, the wife of Severus. - -Apollonius, according to his biographer, came of noble ancestry. He -early applied himself to severe study at the ever memorable Tarsus, -where he may have known the great persecutor, and afterwards second -founder, of Christianity. Disgusted with the luxury of the people, he -soon exiled himself to a more congenial atmosphere, and applied himself -to the examination of the various schools of philosophy--the Epicurean, -the Stoic, the Peripatetic, &c.--finally giving the preference to the -Pythagorean. He embraced the strictest ascetic life, and travelled -extensively, visiting, in the first instance, Nineveh, Babylon, and, it -is said, India, and afterwards Greece, Italy, Spain, and Roman Africa -and Ethiopia. At the accession of Domitian, he narrowly escaped from -the hands of that tyrant, after having voluntarily given himself up -to his tribunal, by an exertion of his reputed supernatural power. He -passed the last years of his life at Ephesus, where, according to the -well-known story, he is said to have announced the death of Domitian -at the very moment of the event at Rome. His alleged miracles were so -celebrated, and so curiously resemble the Christian miracles, that they -have excited an unusual amount of attention.[52] - -Unfortunately, the life by Philostratus, in accordance with the taste -of a necessarily uncritical age, is so full of the preternatural and -marvellous that the real fact that the pythagorean philosopher had -acquired and possessed extraordinary mental as well as moral faculties, -which might well be deemed supernatural at that period, is too apt to -be discredited. The Life was composed long after the death of the hero, -and thus a considerable amount of inventive license was possible to the -biographer; but that it rested upon an undoubted substratum of actual -occurrences will scarcely be disputed. There is one passage which -deserves to be transcribed as of wider application. The people of a -town in Pamphylia (in the Lesser Asia), where the great Thaumaturgist -chanced to be staying, were starving in the midst of plenty by the -selfish policy of the monopolists of grain, and, driven to desperation, -were on the point of attacking the responsible authorities. Apollonius, -at this crisis, wrote the following address, and gave it to the -magistrates to read aloud:-- - - “Apollonius to the Monopolists of Corn in Aspendos, greeting: The - Earth is the common mother of all, for she is just.[53] You are - unjust, for you have made her the mother of _yourselves only_. - If you will not cease from acting thus, I will not suffer you to - remain upon her.” - -Philostratus assures us that “intimidated by these indignant words they -filled the market with grain, and the city recovered from its distress.” - - - - -VII. - -TERTULLIAN. 160-240 (?) A.D. - - -The earliest of the Latin Fathers extant is, also, one of the most -esteemed by the Church,[54] notwithstanding the well-known heterodoxy -of his later life, as the first Apologist of Christianity in the -Western and Latin world. He was a native of Carthage, the son of an -officer holding an important post under the imperial government. The -facts of his life known to us are very few, nor is it ascertained at -what period he became a convert to the new religion, or when he was -ordained as _presbyter_. The ill-treatment to which he was subjected by -his clerical brethren at Rome induced him, it seems, to throw in his -lot with the Montanist sect, in whose defence he wrote several books. -He lived to an advanced age. - -Of his numerous works the best known (by name at least) is his -_Apologeticus_ (“An Apology for Christianity”). Amongst his other -treatises we may enumerate _De Spectaculis_ (“On Shows”), _On -Idolatry_, _On the Soldier’s Crown_ (in which Tertullian raises -the question of the lawfulness of the “violent and sanguinary -occupation” of the soldier, but rather, however, for the reason of -the circumstances of the pagan ceremonial), _On Monogamy_, _On the -Dress of Women_ (upon the extravagance of which the “Old Fathers” were -eloquently denunciative), _Address to his Wife_. The treatise which -here concerns us is his _De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos_.[55] - -Tertullian sets himself to expose the subterfuge of a large -proportion of the professing Christians in his day who appealed -to the pretended authority of Christ and his Apostles for the -lawfulness of flesh-eating. Especially does he refute the (supposed) -defence of kreophagy in I. _Tim._ iv., 3.[56] As to the celebrated -verse in _Genesis_ which solemnly enjoins the vegetable diet, the -opponents of abstinence allege the permission afterwards given to the -“post-diluvians.” - - “To this we reply,” says Tertullian, “that it was not proper that - man should be burdened with an express command to abstain, who had - not been able in fact, to support even so slight a prohibition as - that of not to eat one single species of fruit; and, therefore, - he was released from that stringency that, by the very enjoyment - of freedom, he might learn to acquire strength of mind; and after - the ‘flood,’ in the reformation of the human species, the simple - command to abstain from blood sufficed, and the use of other things - was freely left to his choice. Inasmuch as God had displayed - his judgment through the ‘flood,’ and had threatened, moreover, - exquisition of blood, whether at the hand of man or of beast, - giving evident proof beforehand of the justice of his sentence, - he left them liberty of choice and responsibility, supplying the - material for discipline by the freedom of will, intending to enjoin - abstinence by the very indulgence granted, in order, as we have - said, that the primordial offence might be the better expiated - by greater abstinence under the opportunity of greater license.” - (_Quo magis, ut diximus, primordiale delictum expiaretur majoris - abstinentiæ operatione in majoris licentiæ occasione._) - -He quotes the various passages in the Jewish Scriptures, in which the -causes of the idolatrous proclivities and the crimes of the earlier -Jews are connected by Jehovah and his prophets with flesh-eating and -gross living:-- - - “Whether or no,” he proceeds, “I have unreasonably explained the - cause of the condemnation of the ordinary food by God, and of the - obligation upon us, through the divine will, to denounce it, let us - consult the common conscience of men. Nature herself will inform - us whether, before gross eating and drinking, we were not of much - more powerful intellect, of much more sensitive feeling, than - when the entire domicile of men’s interior has been stuffed with - meats, inundated with wines, and, fermenting with filth in course - of digestion, turned into a mere preparatory place for the draught - (_Præmeditatorium latrinarum_).[57] - - “I greatly mistake (_mentior_) if God himself, upbraiding the - forgetfulness of himself by Israel, does not attribute it to - fulness of stomach. In fine, in the book of Deuteronomy, bidding - them to be on their guard against the same cause, he says, ‘Lest - when thou hast eaten and art full--when thy flocks and thy herds - multiply,’ &c. He makes the enormity of gluttony an evil superior - to any other corrupting result of riches.... So great is the - privilege (prerogative) of a circumscribed diet that it makes God - a dweller with men (_contubernalem_--literally, ‘a fellow-guest’), - and, indeed, to live (as it were) on equal terms with them. For if - the eternal God--as he testifies through Isaiah--feels no hunger, - man, too, may become equal to the Deity when he subsists without - gross nourishment.” - -He instances Daniel and his countrymen, “who preferred vegetable -food and water to the royal dishes and goblets, and so became more -comely than the rest, in order that no one might fear for his personal -appearance; while, at the same time, they were still more improved in -understanding.” As to the priesthood:-- - - “God said to Aaron, ‘Wine and strong liquor shall ye not drink, - you and your sons after you,’ &c. So, also, he upbraids Israel: - ‘And ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink.’ (Amos ii., 3.) Now this - prohibition of drink is essentially connected with the vegetable - diet. Thus, where abstinence from wine is required by God, or is - vowed by man, there, too, may be understood suppression of gross - feeding, _for as is the eating, so is the drinking_ (_qualis enim - esus, talis et potus_). It is not consistent with truth that a man - should sacrifice _half_ of his stomach (_gulam_) only to God--that - he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating.[58] - - “You reply, finally, that this [abstinence] is to be observed - according to the will of each individual, not by imperious - obligation. But what sort of thing is this, that you should allow - to your arbitrary inclinations what you will not allow to the will - of God? Shall more licence be conceded to the human inclinations - than to the divine power? I, for my part, hold that, free from - obligation to follow the fashions of the world, I am not free from - obligation to God.” - -In regard to St. Paul’s well-known sentences (_Rom._ xiv., 1, &c.), -Tertullian maintains that he refers to certain teachers of abstinence -who acted from pride, not from a sense of right:-- - - “And even if he has handed over to you the keys of the - slaughter-house or butcher’s shop (_Macelli_) in permitting you - to eat all things, excepting sacrifices to idols, at least he - has not made the kingdom of heaven to consist in _butchery_; - ‘for,’ says he, ‘eating and drinking is not the kingdom of God, - and food commends us not to God.’ You are not to suppose it said - of vegetable, but of gross and luxurious, food, since he adds, - ‘Neither if we eat have we anything the more, nor if we eat not - have we anything the less.’[59] How unworthily, too, do you press - the example of Christ as having come ‘eating and drinking’ into the - service of your lusts. I think that He who pronounced not the full - but the hungry and thirsty ‘blessed,’ who professed His work to be - (not as His disciples understood it) the completion of His Father’s - will, I think that He was wont to abstain--instructing them to - labour for that ‘meat’ which lasts to eternal life, and enjoining - in their common prayers petition, not for rich and gross food, but - for bread only. - - “And if there be One who prefers the works of justice, not, - however, without sacrifice--that is to say, a spirit exercised by - abstinence--it is surely that God to whom neither a gluttonous - people nor priest was acceptable--monuments of whose concupiscence - remain to this day, where was buried [a large proportion of] a - people greedy and clamorous for flesh-meats, gorging quails even to - the point of inducing jaundice.[60] - - “Your belly is your god,” [thus he indignantly reproaches the - apologists of kreophagy,] “your liver is your temple, your paunch - is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your - Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, - and your eructations are your prophesyings. I ever,” continues - Tertullian with bitter irony, “recognise Esau the hunter as a man - of taste (_sapere_), and as his were so are your whole skill and - interest given to hunting and trapping--just like him you come in - ‘from the field’ of your licentious chase. Were I to offer you - ‘a mess of pottage,’ you would, doubtless, straightway sell all - your ‘birthright.’ It is in the cooking-pots that your love is - inflamed--it is in the kitchen that your faith grows fervid--it is - in the flesh dishes that all your hope lies hid.... Who is held in - so much esteem with you as the frequent giver of dinners, as the - sumptuous entertainer, as the practised toaster of healths? - - “Consistently do you men of flesh reject the things of the spirit. - But if your prophets are complacent towards such persons, they are - not _my_ prophets. Why preach _you_ not constantly, ‘Let us eat - and drink, _for_ to-morrow we die,’ just as _we_ preach, ‘Let us - abstain, brothers and sisters, _lest_ to-morrow, perchance, we die’? - - “Let us openly and boldly vindicate our teaching. We are sure - that they ‘who are in the flesh cannot please God.’[61] Not, - surely, meaning ‘in the covering or substance of the flesh,’ - but in the care, the affection, the desire for it. As for us, - less grossness (_macies_) of the body is no cause of regret, for - neither does God give _flesh by weight_ any more than he gives - _spirit by measure_.... Let prize-fighters and pugilists fatten - themselves up (_saginentur_)--for them a mere corporeal ambition - suffices. And yet even they become stronger by living on vegetable - food (_xerophagia_--literally, ‘eating of dry foods’). But other - strength and vigour is our aim, as other contests are ours, who - fight not against flesh and blood. Against our antagonists we - must fight--not by means of flesh and blood, but with faith and - a strong mind. For the rest, a grossly-feeding Christian is akin - (_necessarius_) to lions and bears rather than to God, although - even as against wild beasts it should be our interest to practice - abstinence.”[62] - - - - -VIII. - -CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. DIED 220 (?) A.D. - - -The attitude of the first great Christian writers and apologists in -regard to total abstinence was somewhat peculiar. Trained in the -school of Plato, in the later development of neo-platonism, their -strongest convictions and their personal sympathies were, naturally, -anti-kreophagistic. The traditions, too, of the earliest period in the -history of Christianity coincided with their pre-Christian convictions, -since the immediate and accredited representatives of the Founder -of the new religion, who presided over the first Christian society, -were commonly held to have been, equally with their predecessors and -contemporaries the Essenes, strict abstinents from flesh-eating.[63] - -Moreover, the very numerous party in the Church--the most diametrically -opposed in other respects to the Jewish or Ebionite Christians--the -Gnostics or philosophical Christians, “the most polite, the most -learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name,” for the most -part agreed with their rivals for orthodox supremacy in aversion from -flesh, and, as it seems, for nearly the same reason--a belief in the -essential and inherent evil of matter, a persuasion, it may be said, -however unscientific, not unnatural, perhaps, in any age, and certainly -not surprising in an age especially characterised by the grossest -materialism, selfishness, and cruelty. But the creed of the Christian -church, which eventually became the prevailing and ruling dogma, like -that of the English Church at the Revolution of the sixteenth century, -was a compromise--a compromise between the two opposite parties of -those who received and those who rejected the old Jewish revelation. - -On the one hand Christianity, in its later and more developed form, -had insensibly cast off the rigid formalism and exclusiveness of -Mosaism, and, on the other, had stamped with the brand of heresy the -Greek infusion of philosophy and liberalism. Unfortunately, unable -clearly to distinguish between the true and the false--between the -accidental and fanciful and the permanent and real--timidly cautious -of approving anything which seemed connected with heresy--the leaders -of the dominant body were prone to seek refuge in a middle course, in -regard to the question of flesh-eating, scarcely consistent with strict -logic or strict reason. While advocating abstinence as the highest -spiritual exercise or aspiration, they seem to have been unduly anxious -to disclaim any motives other than _ascetic_--to disclaim, in fine, -humanitarian or “secular” reason, such as that of the Pythagoreans. - -Such was the feeling, apparently, of the later orthodox church, at -least in the West. While, however, we thus find, occasionally, a -certain constraint and even contradiction in the _theory_ of the -first great teachers of the Church, the _practice_ was much more -consistent. That, in fact, during the first three or four centuries -the most esteemed of the Christian heroes and saints were not only -non-flesh-eaters but Vegetarians of the extremest kind (far surpassing, -if we give any credit to the accounts we have of them, the _most -frugal_ of modern abstainers) is well known to everyone at all -acquainted with ecclesiastical and, especially, eremitical history--and -it is unnecessary to further insist upon a notorious fact.[64] - -Titus Flavius Clemens, the founder of the famous Alexandrian school of -Christian theology, and at once the most learned and most philosophic -of all the Christian Fathers, is generally supposed to have been a -native of Athens. His Latin name suggests some connexion with the -family of Clemens, cousin of the emperor Domitian, who is said to have -been put to death for the crime of _atheism_, as the new religion was -commonly termed by the orthodox pagans. - -He travelled and studied the various philosophies in the East and West. -On accepting the Christian faith he sought information in the schools -of its most reputed teachers, of whom the name of Pantænus is the only -one known to us. At the death of Pantænus, in 190, Clement succeeded -to the chair of theology in Alexandria, and at the same time, perhaps, -he became a presbyter. He continued to lecture with great reputation -till the year 202, when the persecution under Severus forced him to -retire from the Egyptian capital. He then took refuge in Palestine, and -appears not to have returned to Alexandria. The time and manner of his -death are alike unknown. He is supposed to have died in the year 220. -Amongst his pupils by far the most famous, hardly second to himself -in learning and ability, was Origen, his successor in the Alexandrian -professorship. - -His three great works are: _A Hortatory Discourse Addressed to -the Greeks_ (Λόγος Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἓλληνας), _The Instructor_ -(_Paidagogos_--strictly, _Tutor_, or Conductor to school), and the -_Miscellanies_ (_Stromateis_, or _Stromata_--lit. “Patch-work”).[65] -The three works were intended to form a graduated and complete -initiation and instruction in Christian theology and ethics. The -first is addressed to the pagan Greek world, the second to the recent -convert, and in the last he conducts the initiated to the higher -_gnosis_, or knowledge. The _Miscellanies_ originally consisted -of eight books, the last of which is lost. The whole series is of -unusual value, not only as the record of the opinions of the ablest -and most philosophical of the mediators between Greek philosophy and -the Christian creed, but also as containing an immense amount of -information on Greek life and literature. Eloquence, earnestness, and -erudition equally characterise the writings of Clement. - -He assumes the name and character of a _Gnostic_,[66] or philosophic -Christian, not in the historical but in his own sense of the word, -and professes himself an eclectic--as far as a liberal interpretation -of his religion admitted. “By philosophy,” he says, “I do not mean -the Stoic, the Platonic, the Epicurean, or the Aristotelian, but all -that has been well said in each of those sects teaching righteousness -with religious science--all this selected truth (τοῦτο σύμπαν τὸ -ἐκλεκτικὸν) I call philosophy.” Again, he echoes the sentiments of -Seneca in lamenting that “we incline more to beliefs that are in -repute (τὰ ἔνδοξα), even when they are contradictory, than to the -truth” (_Miscellanies_, i. and vii.). “It would have been well for -Christianity if the principles, which he set forth with such an array -of profound scholarship and ingenious reasoning, had been adopted -more generally by those who came after him.... If anyone, even in a -Protestant community, were to assert the liberal and comprehensive -principles of the great Father of Alexandria, he would be told that he -wished to compromise the distinctive claims of theology, and that he -was little better than a heathen and a publican.”[67] - -It is in his second treatise, the _Instructor_ or _Tutor_, that Clement -displays his opinions on the subject of flesh-eating:-- - - “Some men live that they may eat, as the irrational beings ‘whose - life is their belly and nothing else.’ But the Instructor enjoins - us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business, - nor is pleasure our aim. Therefore discrimination is to be used - in reference to food: it must be plain, truly simple, suiting - precisely simple and artless children--as ministering to life - not to luxury. And the life to which it conduces consists of two - things, health and strength: to which plainness of fare is most - suitable, being conducive both to digestion and lightness of - body, from which come growth, and health, and right strength: not - strength that is violent or dangerous, and wretched, as is that of - the _athletes_ which is produced by artificial feeding.” - -Referring to the injunction of Jesus, “When thou makest an -entertainment, call the poor,” for “whose sake chiefly a supper ought -to be made,” Clement says of the rich:-- - - “They have not yet learned that God has provided for his creature - (man, I mean) food and drink for _sustenance_ not for pleasure: - since the body derives no advantage from extravagance in viands. On - the contrary, those _who use the most frugal fare are the strongest - and the healthiest, and the noblest_: as domestics are healthier - and stronger than their masters, and agricultural labourers than - proprietors, and not only more vigorous but wiser than rich men. - For they have not buried the mind beneath food. Wholly unnatural - and inhuman is it for those who are of the earth, fattening, - themselves like cattle, to _feed themselves up for death_.[68] - Looking downwards on the earth, bending ever over tables, leading - a life of gluttony, burying all the good of existence here in a - life that by and by will end for ever: so that cooks are held in - higher esteem than the tillers of the ground. We do not abolish - social intercourse, but we look with suspicion on the snares of - Custom and regard them as a fatal mischief. Therefore daintiness - must be spurned, and we are to partake of few and necessary - things.... Nor is it suitable to eat and drink simultaneously. For - it is the very extreme of intemperance to confound the times whose - uses are discordant. And ‘whether ye eat or drink, do all to the - glory of God,’ aiming after true frugality, which Christ also seems - to me to have hinted at when he blessed the loaves and the cooked - fishes with which he feasted the disciples, introducing a beautiful - example of simple diet. And the fish which, at the command of the - Lord, Peter caught, points to digestible and God-given and moderate - food.... - - We must guard against those sorts of food which persuade us to - eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is - there not, within a temperate simplicity, a wholesome variety of - eatables--vegetables, roots, olives, herbs, milk, cheese, fruits, - and all kinds of dry food? ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ said - the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection: and they, as - taught by Him to practice frugality, ‘gave him a piece of broiled - fish,’ and besides this, it is not to be overlooked that those who - feed according to the Word are not debarred from dainties--such as - honey combs. For of sorts of food those are the most proper which - are fit for immediate use without fire, since they are readiest: - and second to these _are those which are the simplest_, as we said - before. But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing - their own diseases, are ruled by a most licentious disease which - I shall venture to call the demon of the belly: and the worst and - most vile of demons. It is far better to be happy than to have a - devil dwelling in us: and happiness is found only in the practice - of virtue. Accordingly the Apostle Matthew lived upon seeds and - nuts, (Ακρόδρυα--hard-shelled fruits) and vegetables without the - use of flesh. And John, who carried temperance to the extreme, ‘ate - locusts and wild honey.’” - - -As to the Jewish laws: “The Jews,” says Clement, “had frugality -enjoined on them by the Law in the most systematic manner. For the -Instructor, by Moses, deprived them of the use of innumerable things, -adding reasons--the spiritual ones hidden, the carnal ones apparent--to -which latter, indeed, they have trusted”:-- - - “So that, altogether, but a few [animals] were left proper for - their food. And of those which he permitted them to touch, he - prohibited such as had died, or were offered to idols, or had been - strangled: inasmuch as to touch these was unlawful.... Pleasure - has often produced in men harm and pain, and full feeding begets - in the soul uneasiness, and forgetfulness, and foolishness. It is - said, moreover, that the bodies of children, when shooting up to - their height, are made to grow right by abstinence in diet; for - then the spirit which pervades the body, in order to its growth, - is not checked by abundance of food obstructing the freedom of - its course. Whence that truth-seeking philosopher, Plato, fanning - the spark of the Hebrew philosophy, when condemning a life of - luxury, says: ‘On my coming hither [to Syracuse] the life which - is here called happy pleased me not by any means. For not one man - under heaven, if brought up from his youth in such practices, will - ever turn out a _wise_ man, with however admirable genius he may - be endowed.’ For Plato was not unacquainted with David,[69] who - placed the sacred ark in his city in the midst of the tabernacle, - and bidding all his subjects rejoice ‘before the Lord, divided to - the whole host of Israel, men and women, to each a loaf of bread, - and baked bread, and a cake from the frying-pan.’[70] This was the - _sufficient_ sustenance of the Israelites. But that of the Gentiles - was over-abundant, and no one who uses it will ever study to - become temperate, burying, as he does, his mind in his belly, very - like the fish called _onos_ which, Aristotle says, alone of all - creatures has its heart in its stomach. This fish Epicharmus, the - comic poet, calls ‘monster-paunch.’ Such are the men who believe in - their stomach, ‘whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their - shame, who mind earthly things.’ To them the apostle predicted no - good when he said ‘whose end is destruction.’”[71] - -In treating of the subject of sacrifices, upon which he uses a good -deal of sarcasm (in regard to the _pagan_ sacrifices at least), Clement -incidentally allows us to see, still further, his opinion respecting -gross feeding. He quotes several of the Greek poets who ridicule the -practice and pretence of sacrificial propitiation, _e.g._, Menander:-- - - “the end of the loin, - The gall, the bones uneatable, they give - Alone to Heaven: the rest _themselves_ consume.” - -“If, in fact,” remarks Clement, “the savour is the special desire of -the Gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the _cooks_, and -worship the Chimney itself which is still closer to the much-prized -savour?” - - “If,” he justly adds, “the deity need nothing, what need has he - of food? Now, if nourishing matters taken in by the nostrils - are diviner than those taken in by the mouth, yet they imply - respiration. What then do they say of God? Does He _exhale_, like - the oaks, or does he only _inhale_, like the aquatic animals by the - dilatation of the gills, or does he breathe all around like the - insects?” - -The only innocent altar he asserts to be the one allowed by -Pythagoras:-- - - “The very ancient altar in Delos was celebrated for its purity, to - which alone, as being undefiled by slaughter and death, they say - that Pythagoras would permit approach. And will they not believe - us when we say that the righteous soul is the truly sacred altar? - But I believe that sacrifices were invented by men _to be a pretext - for eating flesh_, and yet, without such idolatry, they might have - partaken of it.” - -He next glances at the _popular_ reason for the Pythagorean abstinence, -and declares:-- - - “If any righteous man does not burden his soul by the eating - of flesh, he has the advantage of a rational motive, not, as - Pythagoras and his followers dream, of the transmigration of the - soul. Now Xenokrates, treating of ‘Food derived from Animals,’[72] - and Polemon in his work ‘On Life according to Nature,’[72] seem - clearly to affirm that animal food is unwholesome. If it be said - that the lower animals were assigned to man--and we partly admit - it--yet it was not entirely for food; nor were all animals, but - _such as do not work_. And so the comic poet, Plato, says not badly - in the drama of _The Feasts_:-- - - ‘For of the quadrupeds we should not slay - In future aught but swine. For they have flesh - Most delicate: and about the swine is nought - For us: excepting bristles, dirt, and noise.’ - - Some eat them as being useless, others as destructive of fruits, - and others do not eat them because they are said to have strong - propensity to coition. It is alleged that the greatest amount of - fatty substance is produced by swine’s flesh: it may, then, be - appropriate for those whose ambition is for the body; it is not so - for those who cultivate the soul, by reason of the dulling of the - faculties resulting from eating of flesh. The Gnostic, perhaps, - too, will abstain for the sake of training, and that the body - may not grow wanton in amorousness. ‘For wine,’ says Andokides, - ‘and gluttonous feeds of flesh make the body strong, but the - soul more sluggish.’ Accordingly such food, in order to a clear - understanding, is to be rejected.”[73] - -In a chapter in his _Miscellanies_, discussing the comparative merits -of the Pagan and of the Jewish code of ethics, he displays much -eloquence in attempting to prove the superiority of the latter. In the -course of his argument he is led to make some acknowledgment of the -claims of the lower animals which, however incomplete, is remarkable -as being almost unique in Christian theology. He quotes certain of the -“Proverbs,” _e.g._, ‘The merciful man is long-suffering, and in every -one who shows solicitude there is wisdom,’ and proceeds (assuming the -indebtedness of the Greeks to the Jews):-- - - “Pythagoras seems to me to have derived his mildness towards - irrational animals from the Law. For instance, he interdicted the - employment of the young of sheep and goats and cows for some time - after their birth; not even on the pretext of sacrifice allowing - it, on account both of the young ones and of the mother; training - men to gentleness by their conduct towards those beneath them. - ‘Resign,’ he says, ‘the young one to the mother for the proper - time.’ For if nothing takes place without a cause, and milk is - produced in large quantity in parturition for the sustenance of the - progeny, he who tears away the young one from the supply of the - milk and the breast of the mother, dishonours Nature.” - -Reverting to the Jewish religion, he asserts:-- - - “The Law, too, expressly prohibits the slaying of such animals as - are pregnant till they have brought forth, remotely restraining the - proneness of men to do wrong to men; and thus also it has extended - its clemency to the irrational animals, that by the exercise of - humanity to beings of different races we may practise amongst those - of the same species a larger abundance of it. Those too that kick - the bellies of certain animals before parturition, in order to - feast on flesh mixed with milk, make the womb created for the birth - of the fœtus its grave, though the Law expressly commands ‘but - neither shalt thou seethe a lamb in his mother’s milk.’[74] For the - nourishment of the living animal, it is meant, may not be converted - into sauce for that which has been deprived of life; and that which - is the cause of life may not co-operate in the consumption of its - flesh.”[75] - - - - -IX. - -PORPHYRY. 233-306 (?) A.D. - - -One of the most erudite, as well as one of the most spiritual, of the -_literati_ of any age or people, and certainly the most estimable of -all the extant Greek philosophers after the days of Plutarch, was -born either at Tyre or at some neighbouring town. His original name, -Malchus, the Greek form of the Syrian Melech (king), and the name by -which he is known to us, Porphyrius (purple-robed), we may well take -deservedly to mark his philosophic superiority. He was exceptionally -fortunate in his preceptors--Longinus, the most eloquent and elegant -of the later Greek critics, under whom he studied at Athens; Origen, -the most independent and learned of the Christian Fathers, from whom, -probably, he derived his vast knowledge of theological literature; -and, finally, Plotinus, the famous founder of New-Platonism, who had -established his school at Rome in the year 244. - -Upon first joining the school of Plotinus, he had ventured to contest -some of the characteristic doctrines of his new teacher, and he even -wrote a book to refute them. Amerius, his fellow-disciple, was -chosen to reply to this attack. After a second trial of strength by -each antagonist, Amerius, by weight of argument induced Porphyry to -confess his errors, and to read his recantation before the assembled -Platonists. Porphyry ever after remained an attached and enthusiastic -follower of the beloved master, with the final revision and edition -of whose voluminous works he was entrusted. He had lived with him -six years when, becoming so far unsettled in his mind as even to -contemplate suicide in order to free himself from the shackles of the -flesh, by the persuasion of his preceptor he made a voyage to Sicily -for the restoration of his health and serenity of mind. This was in -270, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Returning to the capital -upon the death of his master, he continued the amiable but vain work -of attempting the reform of the established religion, which had then -sunk to its lowest degradation, and to this labour of love he may be -said to have devoted his whole life. At an advanced age he married -Marcella, the widow of one of his friends, who was a Christian and the -mother of a rather numerous progeny, with the view, as he tells us, of -superintending the education of her children. - -About sixty separate works of Porphyry are enumerated by Fabricius, -published, unpublished, or lost; the last numbering some forty-three -distinct productions. The most important of his writings are-- - -(1) _On Abstinence from the Flesh of Living Beings_,[76] in four books, -addressed to a certain Firmus Castricius, a Pythagorean, who for some -reason or other had become a renegade to the principles, or at least to -the practice, of his old faith. Next to the inculcation of abstinence -as a spiritual or moral obligation, Porphyry’s “chief object seems to -have been to recommend a more spiritual worship in the place of the -sacrificial system of the pagan world, with all its false notions and -practical abuses. This work,” adds Dr. Donaldson, “is valuable on many -accounts, and full of information.” - -(2) His criticism on Christianity, which he entitled a _Treatise -against the Christians_--his most celebrated production. It was divided -into fifteen books. All our knowledge of it is derived from Eusebius, -Jerome, and other ecclesiastical writers. Several years after its -appearance the courtly Bishop of Cæsarea, the well-known historian of -the first ages of Christianity, replied to it in a work extending to -twenty-five books. More than a century later, Theodosius II. caused -the obnoxious volume to be publicly burned, and Porphyry’s criticism -shared the fate of those “many elaborate treatises which have since -been committed to the flames” by the theological or political zeal of -orthodox emperors and princes.[77] - -(3) _The Life of Pythagoras_--a fragment, but, as far as it goes, the -most interesting of the Pythagorean biographies. - -(4) _On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of his Works._ It is -to this biography we are indebted for our knowledge of the estimable -elaborator of New-Platonism. We learn that he was the pupil of -Ammonius, who disputes with Numenius the fame of having originated -the principles of the new school of thought of which Plotinus, -however, was the St. Paul--the actual founder. Of a naturally feeble -constitution, he had early betaken himself to the consolations of -divine philosophy. After vainly seeking rest for his truth-loving and -aspiring spirit in other systems, he at last found in Ammonius the -teacher and teaching which his intellectual and spiritual sympathies -demanded. His great ambition was to visit the country of Buddha and of -Zerdusht or Zoroaster, and, for that purpose, he joined the expedition -of the Emperor Gordian against the Persians. The defeat and death -of that prince frustrated his plans. He then settled at Rome, where -he established his school, and he remained in Italy until his death -in 270. By the earnest solicitations of his disciples, Porphyry and -Amerius, he was induced with much reluctance to publish his oral -discourses, and eventually they appeared in fifty-four books, edited by -Porphyry, who gave them the name of the _Enneads_, as being arranged in -six groups of _nine_ treatises. Perhaps no teacher ever engaged to so -unbounded an extent the admiration and affection of his followers. - - “During the long period of his residence at Rome, Plotinus enjoyed - an estimation almost approaching to a belief in his superhuman - wisdom and sanctity. His ascetic virtue, and the mysterious - transcendentalism of his conversation, which made him the Coleridge - of the day, seems to have carried away the minds of his associates, - and raised them to a state of imaginative exaltation. He was - regarded as a sort of prophet, divine himself, and capable of - elevating his disciples to a participation in his divinity.... - These coincidences or collusions [his alleged miracles] show how - sacred a character had attached to Plotinus. And we see the same - evidenced in his social influence. Men and women of the highest - rank crowded round him, and his house was filled with young persons - of both sexes whom their parents when dying had committed to his - care. Rogatian, a senator and prætor-elect, gave up his wealth - and dignities, and lived as the humble bedesman of his friends, - devoting himself to ascetic and contemplative philosophy. His - self-denial obtained for him the approbation of Plotinus, who - held him up as a pattern of philosophy; and he gained the more - solid advantage of a perfect cure from the worst kind of rheumatic - gout. The influence of Plotinus extended to the imperial throne - itself. The weak-minded Gallienus, and his Empress Salonina, were - so completely guided by the philosopher, that he had actually - obtained permission to convert a ruined City of Campania into a - _Platonopolis_, in which the laws of Plato’s _Republic_ were to be - tested by a practical experiment; and the philosopher had promised - to retire thither accompanied by his chief friends.” - -The “practical common sense” (which usually may be interpreted to mean -cynical indifferentism), of the statesmen and politicians of the day -interposed to prevent this attempt at a realisation of Plato’s great -ideal; and, considering the prematurity of such ideas in the then -condition of the world--and, it must be added, the extravagance of some -of them--we can, perhaps, hardly regret that his “Republic” was never -instituted. As to the essence and spirit of the teaching of Plotinus, - - “He cannot be termed, strictly or exclusively, a Neo-Platonist: he - is equally a Neo-Aristotelian and a _Neo-Philosopher_ in general. - He has himself one pervading idea, to which he is always recurring, - and to which he accommodates, as far as he can, the reasonings of - all his predecessors. It is his object to proclaim and exalt the - immanent divinity of man, and to raise the soul to a contemplation - of the good and the true, and to vindicate its independence of - all that is sensuous, transitory, and special. With an enthusiasm - bordering on fanaticism, he proclaims his philosophical faith in - an unseen world: and, rejecting with indignation the humiliating - attempt to make out that the spiritual world is no better than an - essence or elixir drained off from the material--that thoughts - are ‘merely the shadows and ghosts of sensations,’ he tells his - disciples that the inward eyes of consciousness and conscience were - to be purged and unsealed at the fountain of heavenly radiance, - before they can discern the true form and colours and value of - spiritual objects.” - -The personal humility of this sublime teacher, we may add, seems to -have equalled the loftiness of his inspiration. - -Of the other writings of Porphyry, space allows us to refer only to -his _Epistle to Anebo_--a critical refutation of some of the popular -prejudices of Pagan theology, such as the grosser dæmonism, necromancy, -and incantation,[78] and, above all, animal sacrifice, to which his -keen spiritual sense was essentially antagonistic. It is known only by -fragments preserved in Eusebius. As to the theological or metaphysical -opinions of Porphyry, “it is clear,” remarks Dr. Donaldson, “that he -had but little faith in the old polytheism of the Greeks. He expressly -tells his wife (Letter to Marcella) that outward worship does neither -good nor harm.” In truth, as regards the better parts of Christianity, -he was nearer to the religion of Jesus than of Jupiter, although he -found himself in opposition to what he considered the evils or errors -of dogmatic Christian theology. In common with most of the principal -expounders of Neo-Platonism,[79] his sympathies were with much that -was contained in the Christian Scriptures, and, in particular, with -the fourth Gospel, the sublime beginning of which, we are assured, -the disciples of Plato regarded as “an exact transcript of their own -opinions,” and which, as St. Augustin informs us (_De Civ. Dei_ x., -29), they declared to be worthy to be written in letters of gold, and -inscribed in the most conspicuous place in every Christian church. - -As for the learning, as well as lofty ideas, of the author of the -treatise _On Abstinence_, there has been a general consensus of opinion -even from his theological opponents. Augustin, himself among the most -learned of the Latin Fathers, styles him _doctissimus philosophorum_ -(“the most learned of the philosophers”), and, again, _philosophus -nobilis_ (“a noble philosopher”), “a man of no common mind” (_De -Civit. Dei_); and elsewhere he calls him “the great philosopher of the -heathen.” Even Eusebius, his immediate antagonist, concedes to him -the titles of “the noble philosopher,” “the wonderful theologian,” -“the great prophet of ineffable doctrines” (ὁ τῶν ἀποῤῥητων μύστης). -Donaldson, endorsing the common admiration of the moderns, describes -his learning and erudition as “stupendous.” - -Amongst modern testimonies to the merits of Porphyry’s treatise, -_On Abstinence_, the sympathising remarks of Voltaire are worth -transcribing:-- - - “It is well known that Pythagoras embraced this humane doctrine - [of abstinence from flesh-eating] and carried it into Italy. His - disciples followed it through a long period of time. The celebrated - philosophers, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Porphyry, recommended - and practised it, although it is sufficiently rare to practice - what one preaches. The work of Porphyry, written in the middle of - our third century, and very well translated into our language by - M. de Burigni, is much esteemed by the learned--but he has made - no more converts amongst us than has the book of the physician - Hecquet.[80] It is in vain that Porphyry alleges the example of - the Buddhists and Persian Magi of the first class, who held in - abhorrence the practice of engulfing the entrails of other beings - in their own--he is followed at present only by the Fathers of La - Trappe.[81] The treatise of Porphyry is addressed to one of his old - disciples, named Firmus, who became a Christian, it is said, to - recover his liberty to eat flesh and drink wine. - - “He remonstrates with Firmus, that in abstaining from flesh and - from strong liquors the health of the soul and of the body is - preserved; that one lives longer and with more innocence. All - his reflections are those of a scrupulous theologian, of a rigid - philosopher, and of a gentle and sensitive spirit. One might - believe, in reading him, that this great enemy of the Church is a - Father of the Church. He does not speak of the _Metempsychosis_, - but he regards other animals as our brothers--_because_ they are - endowed with life as we, _because_ they have the same _principles_ - of life, the same feelings, ideas, memory, industry, as we. Speech - alone is wanting to them. If they had it, should we dare to kill - and eat them? Should we dare to commit those fratricides? What - barbarian is there who would cause a lamb to be slaughtered and - roasted, if that lamb conjured him, by an affecting appeal, not to - be at once assassin and cannibal? - - “This book, at least, proves that there were, among the ‘Gentiles,’ - philosophers of the strictest and purest virtue. Yet they could - not prevail against the butchers and the _gourmands_. It is to - be remarked that Porphyry makes a very beautiful eulogy on the - Essenians. At that time the rivalship was who could be the most - virtuous--Essenians, Pythagoreans, Stoics, Christians. When - churches form but a small flock their manners are pure; they - degenerate as soon as they get powerful.”[82] - -Of this famous treatise there is, it appears, only one English -translation, that of Taylor (1851), long out of print; and there is -a German version by Herr Ed. Baltzer, President of the Vegetarian -Society of Germany; thus we have to lament for Porphyry, no less than -for Plutarch, the indifferentism of the publishers, or rather of the -public, which allows a production, of an inspiration far above that of -the common herd of writers, to continue to be a sealed book for the -community in general. - -It has been already stated that it consists of four Divisions. The -first treats of Abstinence from the point of view of Temperance and -Reason. In the second is considered the lawfulness or otherwise of -animal sacrifice. In the third Porphyry treats the subject from the -side of Justice. In the fourth he reviews the practice of some of -the nations of antiquity and of the East--of the Egyptians, Hindus, -and others. This last Book, by its abrupt termination, is evidently -unfinished. - -Porphyry begins with an expression of surprise and regret at the -apostasy of the Pythagorean renegade:-- - - “For when I reflect with myself upon the cause of your change of - mind [so he addresses his former associate], I cannot believe, - as the vulgar herd will suppose, that it has anything to do - with reasons of health or strength, inasmuch as you yourself - were used to assert that the fleshless diet is more consonant - to healthfulness and to an even and proportionate endurance of - philosophic toils (σύμμετρον ὑπομονὴν τῶν περὶ φιλοσοφίαν πόνων), - and experience fully proved the truth of your conviction. Whether - then it was through some other fallacy or delusion, or through a - later notion that this or that diet makes no difference to the - intellectual powers, or whether it was from the fear of incurring - odium by opposition to orthodox customs, or what the reason may - have been, I am unable to conjecture.” - -He expresses his hope, or rather his belief, that, at least, the lapse -was not due in this case to natural intemperance, or regret for the -gluttonous habits (λαιμαργίας) of flesh-eating. - -He then proceeds to quote and refute the fallacies of the ordinary -systems and sects, and, in particular, the objections of one Clodius, -a Neapolitan, who had published a treatise against Pythagoreanism. He -professes that he does not hope to influence those who are engaged in -sordid and selfish, or in sanguinary, pursuits. Rather he addresses -himself to the man - - “Who considers what he is, whence he came, and whither he ought - to tend; and who, in what pertains to the nourishment of the body - and other necessary concerns, is of really thoughtful and earnest - mind--who resolves that he shall not be led astray and governed - by his passions. And let such a man tell me whether a rich flesh - diet is more easily procured, or incites less to the indulgence of - irregular passions and appetites, than a light vegetable dietary. - But if neither he, nor a physician, nor, indeed, any reasonable man - whosoever, dares to affirm this, why do we persist in oppressing - ourselves with gross feeding? And why do we not, together with that - luxurious indulgence, throw off the encumbrances and snares which - attend it? - - “It is not from those who have lived on innocent foods that - murderers, tyrants, robbers, and sycophants have come, but from - eaters of flesh. The necessaries of life are few and easily - procured, without violation of justice, liberty, or peace of mind; - whereas luxury obliges those ordinary souls who take delight in - it to covet riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to - misspend their time, to ruin their health, and to renounce the - satisfaction of an upright conscience.” - -In condemning animal sacrifice, he declares that “it is by means of -an exalted and purified intellect alone that we can approximate to -the Supreme Being, to whom nothing material should be offered.” He -distinguishes four degrees of virtue, the lowest being that of the man -who attempts to moderate his passions; the highest, the life of pure -reason, by which man becomes one with the Supreme Existence. - -In the third book, maintaining that other animals are endowed with high -degrees of reasoning and of mental faculties, and, in some measure, -even with moral perception, Porphyry proceeds logically to insist that -they are, _therefore_, the proper objects of Justice:-- - - “By these arguments, and others which I shall afterwards adduce in - recording the opinions of the old peoples, it is demonstrated that - [many species of] the lower animals are rational. In very many, - reason is imperfect indeed--of which, nevertheless, they are by no - means destitute. Since then justice is due to rational beings, as - our opponents allow, how is it possible to evade the admission also - that we are bound to act justly towards the races of beings below - us? We do not extend the obligations of justice to plants, because - there appears in them no indication of reason; although, even in - the case of these, while we eat the fruits we do not, with the - fruits, cut away the trunks. We use corn and leguminous vegetables - when they have fallen on the earth and are dead. But no one uses - for food the flesh of dead animals, unless they have been killed by - violence, so that there is in these things a radical injustice. As - Plutarch says, it does not follow, because we are in need of many - things, that we should therefore act unjustly towards _all beings_. - Inanimate things we are allowed to injure to a certain extent, to - procure the necessary means of existence--if to take anything from - plants while they are growing can be said to be an injury--but to - destroy living and conscious beings merely for luxury and pleasure - is truly barbarous and unjust. And to refrain from killing them - neither diminishes our sustenance nor hinders our living happily. - If indeed the destruction of other animals and the eating of flesh - were as requisite as air and water, plants and fruits, then there - could be no injustice, as they would be necessary to our nature.” - -Porphyry, it is scarcely necessary to remark, by these arguments proves -himself to have been, in moral as well as mental perception, as far -ahead of the average thinkers of the present day as he was of his own -times. He justly maintains that - - “Sensation and perception are the principle of the kinship of - all living beings. And [he reminds his opponents] Zeno and - his followers [the Stoics] admit that alliance or _kinship_ - (οἰκειώσις)[83] is the foundation of justice. Now, to the lower - animals pertain perception and the sensations of pain and fear - and injury. Is it not absurd, then, whereas we see that many of - our own species live by brute sense alone, and exhibit neither - reason nor intellect, and that very many of them surpass the most - terrible wild beasts in cruelty, rage, rapine; that they murder - even their own relatives; that they are tyrants and the tools of - tyrants--seeing all this, is it not absurd, I say, to hold that - we are obliged by nature to act leniently towards them, while no - kindness is due from us to the Ox that ploughs, the Dog that is - brought up with us, and those who nourish us with their milk and - cover our bodies with their wool? Is not such a prejudice most - irrational and absurd?” - -To the objection of Chrysippus (the second founder of the school of the -Porch) that the gods made us for themselves and for the sake of each -other, and that they made the non-human species for us--a convenient -subterfuge by no means unknown to writers and talkers of our own -times--Porphyry unanswerably replies:-- - - “Let him to whom this sophism may appear to have weight - or probability, consider how he would meet the dictum of - Karneades[84] that ‘everything in nature is benefited, when it - obtains the ends to which it is adapted and for which it was - generated.’ Now, _benefit_ is to be understood in a more general - way as meaning what the Stoics call _useful_. ‘The hog, however,’ - says Chrysippus, ‘was produced by nature for the purpose of being - slaughtered and used for food, and when it undergoes this, it - obtains the end for which it is adapted, and it is therefore - benefited!’ But if God brought other animals into existence for the - use of men, what use do we make of flies, beetles, lice, vipers, - and scorpions? Some of these are hateful to the sight, defile the - touch, are intolerable to the smell, while others are actually - destructive to human beings who fall in their way.[85] With respect - to the _cetacea_, in particular, which Homer tells us live by - myriads in the seas, does not the Demiurgus[86] teach us that they - have come into being for the good of things in general? And unless - they affirm that all things were indeed made for us and on our - sole account, how can they escape the imputation of wrong-doing in - treating injuriously beings that came into existence according to - the _general arrangement_ of Nature? - - “I omit to insist on the fact that, if we depend on the argument of - necessity or utility, we cannot avoid admitting by implication that - we ourselves were created only for the sake of certain destructive - animals, such as crocodiles and snakes and other monsters, for - we are not in the least _benefited_ by them. On the contrary, - they seize and destroy and devour men whom they meet--in so doing - acting not at all more cruelly than we. Nay, _they_ act thus - savagely through want and hunger; _we_ from insolent wantonness - and luxurious pleasure[87], amusing ourselves as we do also in the - Circus and in the murderous sports of the chase. By thus acting, - a barbarous and brutal nature becomes strengthened in us, which - renders men insensible to the feeling of pity and compassion. - Those who first perpetrated these iniquities fatally blunted the - most important part of the civilised mind. Therefore it is that - Pythagoreans consider kindness and gentleness to the lower animals - to be an exercise of philanthropy and gentleness.” - -Porphyry unanswerably and eloquently concludes this division of his -subject with the _à fortiori_ argument:-- - - “By admitting that [selfish] pleasure is the legitimate end of our - action, justice is evidently destroyed. For to whom must it not be - clear that the feeling of justice is fostered by abstinence? He - who abstains from injuring other species will be so much the more - careful not to injure his own kind. For he who loves all animated - Nature will not hate any one tribe of innocent beings, and by how - much greater his love for the whole, by so much the more will he - cultivate justice towards a part of them, and to that part to which - he is most allied.” - -In fine, according to Porphyry, he who extends his sympathies to _all_ -innocent life is nearest to the Divine nature. Well would it have -been for all the after-ages had this, the only sure foundation of any -code of ethics worthy of the name, found favour with the constituted -instructors and rulers of the western world. The fourth and final -Book reviews the dietetic habits of some of the leading peoples of -antiquity, and of certain of the philosophic societies which practised -abstinence more or less rigidly. As for the Essenes, Porphyry describes -their code of morals and manner of living in terms of high praise. We -can here give only an abstract of his eloquent eulogium:-- - - “They are despisers of mere riches, and the communistic principle - with them is admirably carried out. Nor is it possible to find - amongst them a single person distinguished by the possession of - wealth, for all who enter the society are obliged by their laws - to divide property for the common good. There is neither the - humiliation of poverty nor the arrogance of wealth. Their managers - or guardians are elected by vote, and each of them is chosen with - a view to the welfare and needs of all. They have no city or town, - but dwell together in separate communities.... They do not discard - their dress for a new one, before the first is really worn out by - length of time. There is no buying and selling amongst them. Each - gives to each according to his or her wants, and there is a free - interchange between them.... They come to their dining-hall as to - some pure and undefiled temple, and when they have taken their - seats quietly, the baker sets their loaves before them in order, - and the cook gives them one dish each of one sort, while their - priest first recites a form of thanksgiving for their pure and - refined food (τροφῆς ἁγνῆς οὖσης καὶ καθαρᾶς).” - -The testimony of the national historian of the Jews, it is interesting -to observe, is equally favourable to those pioneers of the modern -communisms. “The Essenes, as we call a sect of ours,” writes -Josephus, “pursue the same kind of life as those whom the Greeks call -Pythagoreans. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them -exist above a hundred years by means of their simplicity of diet and -the regular course of their lives” (_Antiquities of the Jews._). Upon -entering the society and partaking of the common meal (which, with -baptism, was the outward and visible sign of initiation) three solemn -oaths were administered to each aspirant:-- - - “First, that he would reverence the divine ideal (τὸ θεῖον); - second, that he would carefully practise justice towards his - fellow-beings and refrain from injury, whether by his own or - another’s will; that he would always hate the Unjust and fight - earnestly on the side of (συναγωνιζεσθαι) the Just and lovers of - justice; keep faith with all men; if in power, never use authority - insolently or violently; nor surpass his subordinates in dress and - ornaments; above all things always to love Truth.” - -As for their food, while they seem not to have been bound to total -abstinence from every kind of flesh, they may be considered to have -been almost Vegetarian in practice. To kill any innocent individual -of the non-human species that had sought refuge or an asylum amongst -them was a breach of the most sacred laws: to spare the domesticated -races, or fellow-workers with man, even in an enemy’s country, was a -solemn duty. For, says Porphyry, their founder had no groundless fear -that there could be any overabundance of life productive of famine to -ourselves, inasmuch as he knew, first, that those animals who bring -forth many young at a time are short lived, and, secondly, that their -too rapid increase is kept down by other hostile animals. “A proof of -which is,” he continues, “that though we abstain from eating very many, -such as dogs, wild beasts, rats, lizards, and others, there is yet no -fear that we should ever suffer from famine in consequence of their -excessive multiplication; and, again, it is one thing to have to kill, -and another to eat, since we have to kill many ferocious animals whom -we do not also eat.” - -He quotes the historians of Syria who allege that, in the earlier -period, the inhabitants of that part of the world abstained from all -flesh, and, therefore, from sacrifice; and that when, afterwards, -to avert some impending misfortune they were induced to offer up -propitiatory victims, the practice of flesh-eating was by no means -general. And Asklepiades says, in his History of Cyprus and Phœnicia, -that “no living being was sacrificed to heaven, nor was there even -any express law on the subject, _since it was forbidden by the law -of Nature_ (νομῷ φυσικῷ):” that, in course of time, they took to -occasional propitiatory sacrifice: and that, at one of these times, -the sacrificing priest happened to place his blood-smeared finger on -his mouth, was tempted to repeat the action, and thus introduced -the habit of flesh-eating, whence the general practice. As for the -Persian _Magi_ (the successors of Zerdusht), we are informed that the -principal and most esteemed of their order neither eat nor kill any -living being, while those of the second class eat the flesh of some, -but not of domesticated, animals; nor do even the third order eat -indiscriminately. Instances are adduced of certain peoples who, being -compelled by necessity to live upon flesh, have evidently deteriorated -and been rendered savage and ferocious, “from which examples it is -clearly unbecoming men of good disposition to belie their human nature -(τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης καταψεύδεσθαι φύσεως).” - -Amongst individuals he instances the example of the traditionary -Athenian legislator Triptolemus-- - - “Of whom Hermippus, in his second book on the legislators, writes: - Of his laws, according to Xenokrates the philosopher, the three - following remain in force at Eleusis--‘to gratify Heaven with - the offering of fruits,’ ‘to harass or harm no [innocent] living - being.’ ... As to the third, he is in doubt for what particular - reason Triptolemus charged them to abstain--whether from believing - it to be criminal to kill those that have an identical origin with - ourselves (ὁμογενὲς), or from a consciousness that the slaughter - of all the most useful animals would be the inevitable consequence - of addiction to it, and wishing to render human life mild and - innocent, and to preserve those species that are tame and gentle - and domesticated with man.”[88] - - * * * * * - -Somewhat later than Porphyry, the name of Julian (331-363), the -Roman emperor, may here be fitly introduced. During his brief reign -of sixteen months he proved himself, if not always a judicious, yet a -sincere and earnest reformer of abuses of various kinds, and he may -claim to be one of the very few virtuous princes, pagan or christian. -Unfortunately the just blame attaching to his ill-judged attempt to -suppress the religion of Constantine, from whose family his relatives -and himself had suffered the greatest injury and insult, has enabled -the lovers of party rather than of truth successfully to conceal from -view his undoubted merits. - -In his manner of living, with which alone we are now concerned, he -seems to have almost rivalled the most ascetic of the Platonists -or of the Christian anchorets. One of his most intimate friends, -the celebrated orator, Libanius, who had often shared the frugal -simplicity of his table, has remarked that his “light and sparing diet, -which was usually of the vegetable kind, left his mind and body always -free and active for the various and important business of an author, -a pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince.” That his _frugal_ -diet had not impaired his powers, either physical or mental, may -sufficiently appear from the fact that-- - - “In one and the same day he gave audience to several ambassadors, - and wrote or dictated a great number of letters to his generals, - his civil magistrates, his private friends, and the different - cities of his dominions. He listened to the memorials which had - been received, considered the subject of the petitions, and - signified his intentions more rapidly than they could be taken in - shorthand by the diligence of his secretaries. He possessed such - flexibility of thought, and such firmness of attention, that he - could employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to - dictate, and pursue at once three several trains of ideas without - hesitation and without error. While his ministers reposed, the - prince flew with agility from one labour to another, and, after a - hasty dinner, retired into his library till the public business, - which he had appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt - the prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was - still less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never - clouded by the fumes of indigestion.... He was soon awakened by - the entrance of fresh secretaries who had slept the preceding day, - and his servants were obliged to wait alternately, while their - indefatigable master allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment - than the change of occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his - uncle, his brother, and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste - for the games of the circus under the specious pretence of - complying with the inclination of the people, and they frequently - remained the greater part of the day as idle spectators.... On - solemn festivals Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable - dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear - in the Circus, and, after bestowing a careless glance on five - or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of - a philosopher who considered every moment as lost that was not - devoted to the advantage of the public, or the improvement of - his own mind. By this avarice of time he seemed to protract the - short duration of his reign, and, if the dates were less securely - ascertained, we should refuse to believe that only _sixteen months_ - elapsed between the death of Constantius and the departure of his - successor for the Persian war in which he perished.”[89] - -Following the principles of Platonism, “he justly concluded that the -man who presumes to reign should aspire to the perfection of the divine -nature--that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial -part--that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his -understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild beast which, -according to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, seldom fails to ascend -the throne of a despot.” With all these virtues, unfortunately for his -credit as a philosopher and humanitarian, the imperial Stoic allowed -his natural goodness of heart to be corrupted by superstition and -fanaticism. Conceiving himself to be the special and chosen instrument -of the Deity for the restoration of the fallen religion, which he -regarded as the true faith, he made it the foremost object of his -pious but misdirected ambition to re-establish its sumptuous temples, -priesthoods, and sacrificial altars with all their imposing ritual, and -“he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that -if he could render each individual richer than Midas and every city -greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of -mankind, unless at the same time he could reclaim his subjects from -their impious revolt against the immortal gods.”[90] Inspired by this -religious zeal, he forgot the maxims of his master, Plato, so far as to -rival, if not surpass, the ancient Jewish or Pagan ritual in the number -of the sacrificial victims offered up in the name of religion and of -the Deity. Happily for the future of the world, the fanatical piety of -this youthful champion of the religion of Homer proved ineffectual to -turn back the slow onward march of the Western mind, through fearful -mazes of evil and error indeed, towards that “diviner day” which is yet -to dawn for the Earth. - - - - -X. - -CHRYSOSTOM. 347-407 A.D. - - -The most eloquent, and one of the most estimable, of the “Fathers” was -born at Antioch, the Christian city _par excellence_. His family held -a distinguished position, and his father was in high command in the -Syrian division of the imperial army. He studied for the law, and was -instructed in oratory by the famous rhetorician Libanius (the intimate -friend and counsellor of the young Emperor Julian), who pronounced -his pupil worthy to succeed to his chair, if he had not adopted the -Christian faith. He soon gave up the law for theology, and retired to a -monastery, near Antioch, where he passed four years, rigidly abstaining -from flesh-meat and, like the Essenes, abandoning the rights of private -property and living a life of the strictest asceticism. - -Having submitted himself in solitude to the severest austerities during -a considerable length of time, he entered the Church, and soon gained -the highest reputation for his extraordinary eloquence and zeal. On the -death of the Archbishop of Constantinople, he was unanimously elected -to fill the vacant Primacy. The _nolo me episcopari_ seems, in his -case, to have been no unmeaning formula. His beneficence and charity -in the new position attracted general admiration. From the revenues of -his See he founded a hospital for the sick--one of the very first of -those rather modern institutions. The fame of the “Golden-mouthed” drew -to his cathedral immense crowds of people, who before had frequented -the theatre and the circus rather than the churches, and the building -constantly resounded with their enthusiastic plaudits. He was, however, -no mere popular preacher; he fearlessly exposed the corrupt and selfish -life of the large body of the clergy. At one time he deposed, it is -said, no less than thirteen bishops, in Lesser Asia, from their Sees; -and in one of his _Homilies_ he does not hesitate to charge “the whole -ecclesiastical body with avarice and licentiousness, asserting that the -number of bishops who could be saved bore a very small proportion to -those who would be damned.”[91] - -At length, his repeated denunciations of the too notorious scandals -of the Court and the Church excited the bitter enmity of his -brother-prelates, and, by their intrigues at the Imperial Court of -Constantinople, he was deposed from his See and exiled to the wildest -parts of the Euxine coasts, where, exposed to every sort of privation, -he caught a violent fever and died. So far did the hostility of the -Episcopacy extend, that one of his rivals, a bishop, named Theophilus, -in a book expressly written against him, amongst other vituperative -epithets had proceeded to the length of styling him “a filthy demon,” -and of solemnly consigning his soul to Satan. With the poor, however, -Chrysostom enjoyed unbounded popularity and esteem. His greatest fault -was his theological intolerance--a fault, it is just to add, of the age -rather than of the man. - -The writings of Chrysostom are exceedingly voluminous--700 homilies, -orations, doctrinal treatises, and 242 epistles. Their “chief value -consists in the illustrations they furnish of the manners of the -fourth and fifth centuries--of the moral and social state of the -period. The circus, spectacles, theatres, baths, houses, domestic -economy, banquets, dresses, fashions, pictures, processions, tight-rope -dancing, funerals--in fine, everything has a place in the picture of -licentious luxury which it is the object of Chrysostom to denounce.” -Next to his profession of faith in the efficacy and virtues of a -non-flesh diet, amongst the most interesting of his productions is -his _Golden Book_ on the education of the young. He recommends that -children should be inured to habits of temperance, by abstaining, at -least, twice a week from the ordinary grosser food with which they -are supplied. As might be expected from the age, and from his order, -the practice of Chrysostom, and of the numerous other ecclesiastical -abstinents from the gross diet of the richer part of the community, -reposed upon ascetic and traditionary principles, rather than on the -more secular and modern motives of justice, humanity, and general -social improvement. So, in fact, Origen, one of the most learned -of the Fathers, expressly says (_Contra Celsum_, v.): “We [the -Christian leaders] practise abstinence from the flesh of animals -to buffet our bodies and treat them as slaves (ὑπωπιάζομεν καί -δουλαγωγοῦμεν), and we wish to mortify our members upon earth,” &c. - -Accordingly, the _Apostolical Canons_ distinguished, as Bingham -(_Antiquities of the Christian Church_) reports them, between -abstinents, διὰ τὴν ἀσκησιν and διὰ τὴν βδελυπίαν, _i.e._, between -those who abstained to exercise self-control, and those who did so from -disgust and abhorrence of what, in ordinary and orthodox language, -are too complacently and confidently termed “the good creatures of -God.” This distinction, it must be added, holds only of the prevailing -sentiment of the Orthodox Church as finally established. During several -centuries--even so late as the Paulicians in the seventh, or even -as the Albigeois of the thirteenth, century--_Manicheism_, as it is -called, or a belief in the inherent evil of all matter, was widely -spread in large and influential sections of the Christian Church--nor, -indeed, were some of its most famous Fathers without suspicion of this -heretical taint. According to the _Clementine Homilies_, “the unnatural -eating of flesh-meat is of demoniacal origin, and was introduced by -those giants who, from their bastard nature, took no pleasure in -pure nourishment, and only lusted after blood. Therefore the eating -of flesh is as polluting as the heathen worship of demons, with its -sacrifices and its impure feasts; through participation in which, a man -becomes a fellow-dietist (ὁμοδίαιτος) with demons.”[92] That -superstition was often, in the minds of the followers both of Plato -and of St. Paul, mixed up with, and, indeed, usually dominated over, -the reasonable motives of the more philosophic advocates of the higher -life, there can be no sort of doubt; nor can we claim a monopoly of -rational motives for the mass of the adherents of either Christian or -Pythagorean abstinence. Yet an impartial judgment must allow almost -equal credit to the earnestness of mind and purity of motive which, -mingled though they undoubtedly were with (in the pre-scientific -ages) a necessary infusion of superstition, urged the followers of -the better way--Christian and non-Christian--to discard the “social -lies” of the dead world around them. At all events, it is not for the -selfish egoists to sneer at the sublime--if error-infected--efforts of -the earlier pioneers of moral progress for their own and the world’s -redemption from the bonds of the prevailing vile materialism in life -and dietary habits. - -We have already shown that the earliest Jewish-Christian communities, -both in Palestine and elsewhere--the immediate disciples of the -original Twelve--enjoined abstinence as one of the primary obligations -of the New Faith; and that the earliest traditions represent the -foremost of them as the strictest sort of Vegetarians.[93] If then we -impartially review the history of the practice, the teaching, and the -traditions of the first Christian authorities, it cannot but appear -surprising that the Orthodox Church, ignoring the practice and highest -ideal of the most sacred period of its annals, has, even within its own -Order, deemed it consistent with its claim of being representative of -the Apostolic period to substitute partial and periodic for total and -constant abstinence. - -The following passages in the _Homilies_, or Congregational Discourses, -of Chrysostom will serve as specimens of his feeling on the propriety -of dietary reform. The eloquent but diffusive style of the Greek -Bossuet, it must be noted, is necessarily but feebly represented in the -literal English version:-- - - “No streams of blood are among them [the ascetics]; no butchering - and cutting up of flesh; no dainty cookery; no heaviness of head. - Nor are there horrible smells of flesh-meats among them, or - disagreeable fumes from the kitchen. No tumult and disturbance and - wearisome clamours, but bread and water--the latter from a pure - fountain, the former from honest labour. If, at any time, however, - they may wish to feast more sumptuously, the sumptuousness consists - in fruits, and their pleasure in these is greater than at royal - tables. With this repast [of fruits and vegetables], even angels - from Heaven, as they behold it, are delighted and pleased. For if - over one sinner who repents they rejoice, over so many just men - imitating them what will they not do? No master and servant are - there. All are servants--all free men. And think not this a mere - form of speech, for they are servants one of another and masters - one of another. Wherein, therefore, are we different from, or - superior to, Ants, if we compare ourselves with them? For as they - care for the things of the body only, so also do we. And would - it were for these alone! But, alas! it is for things far worse. - For not for necessary things only do we care, but also for things - superfluous. Those animals pursue an innocent life, while we follow - after all covetousness. Nay, we do not so much as imitate the ways - of Ants. _We follow the ways of Wolves, the habits of Tigers; or, - rather, we are worse even than they. To them Nature has assigned - that they should be thus_ [carnivorously] _fed, while God has - honoured us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we - are become worse than the wild beasts._”[94] - -Again he protests:-- - - “Neither am I leading you to the lofty peak of total renunciation - of possessions [ἀκτημοσύνη]; but for the present I require you to - cut off superfluities, and to desire a sufficiency alone. Now, - the boundary of sufficiency is the using those things which it - is impossible to live without. No one debars you from these, nor - forbids you your daily food. I say ‘food,’ not ‘luxury’ [τροφὴν οὐ - τρυφὴν λέγω]--‘raiment,’ not ‘ornament.’ Rather, this frugality--to - speak correctly--is, in the best sense, luxury. For consider who - should we say more truly feasted--he whose diet is herbs, and who - is in sound health and suffered no uneasiness, or he who has the - table of a Sybarite and is full of a thousand disorders? Clearly, - the former. Therefore let us seek nothing more than these, if we - would at once live luxuriously and healthfully. And let him who - can be satisfied with pulse, and can keep in good health, seek for - nothing more. But let him who is weaker, and needs to be [more - richly] dieted with other vegetables and fruits, not be debarred - from them.... We do not advise this for the harm and injury of men, - but to lop off what is superfluous--and that is superfluous which - is more than we need. When we are able to live without a thing, - healthfully and respectably, certainly the addition of that thing - is a superfluity.”--_Hom._ xix. 2 _Cor._ - -Denouncing the grossness of the ordinary mode of living, he eloquently -descants on the evil results, physical as well as mental:-- - - “A man who lives in pleasure [_i.e._, in selfish luxury] is dead - while he lives, for he lives only to his belly. In his other senses - he lives not. He sees not what he ought to see; he hears not what - he ought to hear; he speaks not what he ought to speak.... Look not - at the superficial countenance, but examine the interior, and you - will see it full of deep dejection. If it were possible to bring - the soul into view, and to behold it with our bodily eyes, that of - the luxurious would seem depressed, mournful, miserable, and wasted - with leanness, for the more the body grows sleek and gross, the - more lean and weakly is the soul. The more the one is pampered, - the more is the other hampered [θάλπεται--θάπτεται: the latter - meaning, literally, buried]. As when the pupil of the eye has the - external envelope too thick, it cannot put forth the power of - vision and look out, because the light is excluded by the dense - covering, and darkness ensues; so when the body is constantly full - fed, the soul must be invested with grossness. The dead, say you, - corrupt and rot, and a foul pestilential humour distils from them. - So in her who lives in pleasure may be seen rheums, and phlegm, - and catarrh, hiccough, vomiting, eructations, and the like, which, - as too unseemly, I forbear to name. For such is the despotism of - luxury, it makes us endure things which we do not think proper even - to mention.... - - “‘She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.’ Hear this, - ye women[95] who pass your time in revels and intemperance, and who - neglect the poor, pining and perishing with hunger, whilst you are - destroying yourselves with continual luxury. Thus you are the cause - of two deaths--of those who are dying of want and of your own, both - through ill-measure. If, out of your fulness, you tempered their - want, you would save two lives. Why do you thus gorge your own body - with excess, and waste that of the poor with want? Consider what - comes of food--into what it is changed. Are you not disgusted at - its being named? Why, then, be eager for such accumulations? The - increase of luxury is but the multiplication of filth.[96] For - Nature has her limits, and what is beyond these is not nourishment, - but injury and the increase of ordure. - - “Nourish the body, but do not destroy it. Food is called - nourishment, to show that its purpose is not to hurt, but to - support us. For this reason, perhaps, food passes into excrement - that we may not be lovers of luxury. If it were not so--if it were - not useless and injurious to the body, we should hardly abstain - from devouring one another. If the belly received as much as it - pleased, digested it, and conveyed it to the body, we should see - battles and wars innumerable. Even as it is, when part of our food - passes into ordure, part into blood, part into spurious and useless - phlegm, we are, nevertheless, so addicted to luxury that we spend, - perhaps, whole estates on a meal. The more richly we live, the more - noisome are the odours with which we are filled.”--_Hom._ xiii. - _Tim._ v.[97] - - * * * * * - -From this period--the fifth century A.D. down to the -sixteenth--Christian and Western literature contains little or -nothing which comes within the purpose of this work. The merits of -monastic asceticism were more or less preached during all those ages, -although constant abstinence from flesh was by no means the general -practice even with the inmates of the stricter monastic or conventual -establishments--at all events in the Latin Church. But we look in vain -for traces of anything like the humanitarian feeling of Plutarch or -Porphyry. The mental intelligence as well as capacities for physical -suffering of the non-human races--necessarily resulting from an -organisation in all essential points like to our own--was apparently -wholly ignored; their just rights and claims upon human justice were -disregarded and trampled under foot. Consistently with the universal -estimate, they were treated as beings destitute of all feeling--as -if, in fine, they are the “automatic machines” they are alleged to -be by the Cartesians of the present day. In those terrible ages of -gross ignorance, of superstition, of violence, and of injustice--in -which human rights were seldom regarded--it would have been surprising -indeed if any sort of regard had been displayed for the _non-human_ -slaves. And yet an underlying and latent consciousness of the falseness -of the general estimate sometimes made itself apparent in certain -extraordinary and perverse fancies.[98] To Montaigne, the first to -revive the humanitarianism of Plutarch, belongs the great merit of -reasserting the natural rights of the helpless slaves of human tyranny. - -While Chrysostom seems to have been one of the last of Christian -writers who manifested any sort of consciousness of the inhuman, as -well as unspiritual nature of the ordinary gross foods, Platonism -continued to bear aloft the flickering torch of a truer spiritualism; -and “the golden chain” of the prophets of the dietary reformation -reached down even so late as to the end of the sixth century. -Hierokles, author of the commentary on the _Golden Verses_ of -Pythagoras, to which reference has already been made, and who lectured -upon them with great success at Alexandria; Hypatia, the beautiful and -accomplished daughter of Theon the great mathematician, who publicly -taught the philosophy of Plato at the same great centre of Greek -science and learning, and was barbarously murdered by the jealousy -of her Christian rival Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria; Proklus, -surnamed the Successor, as having been considered the most illustrious -disciple of Plato in the latter times, who left several treatises -upon the Pythagorean system, and “whose sagacious mind explored the -deepest questions of morals and metaphysics”;[99] Olympiodorus, who -wrote a life of Plato and commentaries on several of his dialogues, -still extant, and lived in the reign of Justinian, by whose edict the -illustrious school of Athens was finally closed, and with it the last -vestiges of a sublime, if imperfect, attempt at the purification of -human life--such are some of the most illustrious names which adorned -the days of expiring Greek philosophy. Olympiodorus and six other -Pythagoreans determined, if possible, to maintain their doctrines -elsewhere; and they sought refuge with the Persian Magi, with whose -tenets, or, at least, manner of living, they believed themselves -to be most in accord. The Persian customs were distasteful to the -purer ideal of the Platonists, and, disappointed in other respects, -they reluctantly relinquished their fond hopes of transplanting the -doctrines of Plato into a foreign soil, and returned home. The Persian -prince, Chosroes, we may add, acquired honour by his stipulation with -the bigoted Justinian, that the seven sages should be allowed to -live unmolested during the rest of their days. “Simplicius and his -companions ended their lives in peace and obscurity; and, as they left -no disciples, they terminated the long list of Grecian philosophers who -may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest and -most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are -now extant. His physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle -have passed away with the fashion of the times, but his moral -interpretation of Epiktetus is preserved in the library of nations as -a classical book excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the -heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the -nature both of God and Man.”[100] - - - - -XI. - -CORNARO. 1465-1566. - - -After the extinction of Greek and Latin philosophy in the fifth -century, a mental torpor seized upon and, during some thousand years, -with rare exceptions, dominated the whole Western world. When this -torpor was dispelled by the influence of returning knowledge and -reason evoked by the various simultaneous discoveries in science and -literature--in particular by the achievements of Gutenberg, Vasco da -Gama, Christopher Colon, and, above all, Copernik--the moral sense -then first, too, began to show signs of life. The renascence of the -sixteenth century, however, with all the vigour of thought and action -which accompanied it, proved to be rather a revival of mere verbal -learning than of the higher moral feeling of the best minds of old -Greece and Italy. Men, fettered as they were in the trammels of -theological controversy and metaphysical subtleties, for the most part -expended their energies and their intellect in the vain pursuit of -phantoms. With the very few splendid exceptions of the more enlightened -and earnest thinkers, _Ethics_, in the real and comprehensive meaning -of the word, was an unknown science; and a long period of time was -yet to pass away before a perception of the universal obligations of -Justice and of Right dawned upon the minds of men. In truth, it could -not have been otherwise. Before the moral instincts can be developed, -reason and knowledge must have sufficiently prepared the way. When -attention to the importance of the neglected science of _Dietetics_ had -been in some degree aroused, the interest evoked was little connected -with the higher sentiments of humanity. - -Of all dietary reformers who have treated the subject from an -exclusively sanitarian point of view, the most widely known and most -popular name, perhaps, has been that of Luigi Cornaro; and it is as -a vehement protester against the follies, rather than against the -barbarism, of the prevailing dietetic habits that he claims a place -in this work. He belonged to one of the leading families of Venice, -then at the height of its political power. Even in an age and in a -city noted for luxuriousness and grossness of living of the rich and -dominant classes, he had in his youth distinguished himself by his -licentious habits in eating and drinking, as well as by other excesses. -His constitution had been so impaired, and he had brought upon himself -so many disorders by this course of living, that existence became a -burden to him. He informs us that from his thirty-fifth to his fortieth -year he passed his nights and days in continuous suffering. Every sort -of known remedy was exhausted before his new medical adviser, superior -to the prejudices of his profession and of the public, had the courage -and the good sense to prescribe a total change of diet. At first -Cornaro found his enforced regimen almost intolerable, and, as he tells -us, he occasionally relapsed. - -These relapses brought back his old sufferings, and, to save his life, -he was driven at length to practise entire and uniform abstinence, the -yolk of an egg often furnishing him the whole of his meal. In this way -he assures us that he came to relish dry bread more than formerly he -had enjoyed the most exquisite dishes of the ordinary table. At the -end of the first year he found himself entirely freed from all his -multiform maladies. In his eighty-third year he wrote and published his -first exhortation to a radical change of diet under the title of _A -Treatise on a Sober Life_,[101] in which he eloquently narrates his own -case, and exhorts all who value health and immunity from physical or -mental sufferings to follow his example. And his _exordium_, in which -he takes occasion to denounce the waste and gluttony of the dinners of -the rich, might be applied with little, or without any, modification of -its language to the public and private tables of the present day:-- - - “It is very certain,” he begins, “that Custom, with time, becomes - a second nature, forcing men to use that, whether good or bad, to - which they have been habituated; and we see custom or habit get - the better of reason in many things.... Though all are agreed that - intemperance (_la crapula_) is the offspring of gluttony, and sober - living of abstemiousness, the former nevertheless is considered a - virtue and a mark of distinction, and the latter as dishonourable - and the badge of avarice. Such mistaken notions are entirely owing - to the power of Custom, established by our senses and irregular - appetites. These have blinded and besotted men to such a degree - that, leaving the paths of virtue, they have followed those of - vice, which lead them imperceptibly to an old age burdened with - strange and mortal diseases.... - - “O wretched and unhappy Italy! [thus he apostrophises his own - country] can you not see that gluttony murders every year more of - your inhabitants than you could lose by the most cruel plague or - by fire and sword in many battles? Those truly shameful feasts (_i - tuoi veramente disonesti banchetti_), now so much in fashion and - so intolerably profuse that no tables are large enough to hold - the infinite number of the dishes--those feasts, I say, are so - many battles.[102] And how is it possible _to live_ amongst such a - multitude of jarring foods and disorders? Put an end to this abuse, - in heaven’s name, for there is not--I am certain of it--a vice more - abominable than this in the eyes of the divine Majesty. Drive away - this plague, the worst you were ever afflicted with--this new [?] - kind of death--as you have banished that disease which, though it - formerly used to make such havoc, now does little or no mischief, - owing to the laudable practice of attending more to the goodness - of the provisions brought to our markets. Consider that there are - means still left to banish intemperance, and such means, too, that - every man may have recourse to them without any external assistance. - - “Nothing more is requisite for this purpose than to live up to the - simplicity, dictated by nature, which teaches us to be content with - little, to pursue the practice of holy abstemiousness and divine - reason, and _accustom ourselves to eat no more than is absolutely - necessary to support life_; considering that what exceeds this - is disease and death, and done merely to give the palate a - satisfaction which, though but momentary, brings on the body a long - and lasting train of disagreeable diseases, and at length kills it - along with the soul. How many friends of mine--men of the finest - understanding and most amiable disposition--have I seen carried off - by this plague in the flower of their youth! who, were they now - living, would be an ornament to the public, and whose company I - should enjoy with as much pleasure as I am now deprived of it with - concern.” - -He tells us that he had undertaken his arduous task of proselytising -with the more anxiety and zeal that he had been encouraged to it by -many of his friends, men of “the finest intellect” (_di bellissimo -intelletto_), who lamented the premature deaths of parents and -relatives, and who observed so manifest a proof of the advantages of -abstinence in the robust and vigorous frame of the dietetic missionary -at the age of eighty. Cornaro was a thorough-going hygeist, and he -followed a reformed _diet_ in the widest meaning of the term, attending -to the various requirements of a healthy condition of mind and body:-- - - “I likewise,” he says with much candour, “did all that lay in my - power to avoid those evils which we do not find it so easy to - remove--melancholy, hatred, and other violent passions which appear - to have the greatest influence over our bodies. However, I have not - been able to guard so well against either one or the other kind of - these disorders [passions] as not to suffer myself now and then to - be hurried away by many, not to say all, of them; but I reaped one - great benefit from my weakness--that of knowing by experience that - these passions have, in the main, no great influence over bodies - governed by the two foregoing rules of eating and drinking, and - therefore can do them but very little harm, so that it may, with - great truth, be affirmed that whoever observes these two capital - rules is liable to very little inconvenience from any other excess. - This Galen, who was an eminent physician, observed before me. - He affirms that so long as he followed these two rules relative - to eating and drinking (_perchè si guardava da quelli due della - bocca_) he suffered but little from other disorders--so little that - they never gave him above a day’s uneasiness. That what he says is - true I am a living witness; and so are many others who know me, and - have seen how often I have been exposed to heats and colds and such - other disagreeable changes of weather, and have likewise seen me - (owing to various misfortunes which have more than once befallen - me) greatly disturbed in mind. For not only can they say of me that - such mental disturbance has affected me little, but they can aver - of many others who did not lead a frugal and regular life that such - failure proved very prejudicial to them, among whom was a brother - of my own and others of my family who, trusting to the goodness of - their constitution, did not follow my way of living.” - -At the age of seventy a serious accident befel him, which to the vast -majority of men so far advanced in life would probably have been fatal. -His coach was overturned, and he was dragged a considerable distance -along the road before the horses could be stopped. He was taken up -insensible, covered with severe wounds and bruises and with an arm and -leg dislocated, and altogether he was in so dangerous a state that his -physicians gave him only three days to live. As a matter of course -they prescribed bleeding and purging as the only proper and effectual -remedies:-- - - “But I, on the contrary, who knew that the sober life I had led - for many years past had so well united, harmonised, and dispersed - my humours as not to leave it in their power to ferment to such - a degree [as to induce the expected high fever], refused to be - either bled or purged. I simply caused my leg and arm to be set, - and suffered myself to be rubbed with some oils, which they said - were proper on the occasion. Thus, without using any other kind - of remedy, I recovered, as I thought I should, without feeling - the least alteration in myself or any other bad effects from the - accident, a thing which appeared no less than miraculous in the - eyes of the physicians.” - -It is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that “The Faculty” will endorse -the opinions of Cornaro, that any person by attending strictly to -his regimen “could never be sick again, as it removes every cause of -illness; and so, for the future, would never want either physician or -physic”:-- - - “Nay, by attending duly to what I have said he would become his own - physician, and, indeed, the best he could have, since, in fact, no - man can be a perfect physician to anyone but himself. The reason of - which is that any man may, by repeated trials, acquire a perfect - knowledge of his own constitution and the most hidden qualities of - his body, and what food best agrees with his stomach. Now, it is - so far from being an easy matter to know these things perfectly - of another that we cannot, without much trouble, discover them - in ourselves, since a great deal of time and repeated trials are - required for that purpose.” - -Cornaro’s second publication appeared three years later than his -first, under the title of _A Compendium of a Sober Life_ and the -third, _An Earnest Exhortation to a Sober and Regular Life_,[103] in -the ninety-third year of his age. In these little treatises he repeats -and enforces in the most earnest manner his previous exhortations -and warnings. He also takes the opportunity of exposing some of the -plausible sophisms employed in defence of luxurious living:-- - - “Some allege that many, without leading such a life, have lived - to a hundred, and that in constant health, although they ate a - great deal and used indiscriminately every kind of viands and - wine, and therefore flatter themselves that they shall be equally - fortunate. But in this they are guilty of two mistakes. The first - is, that it is not one in one hundred thousand that ever attains - that happiness; the other mistake is, that such persons, in the - end, most assuredly contract some illness which carries them off, - nor can they ever be sure of ending their days otherwise, so that - the safest way to obtain a long and healthy life is, at least after - forty, to embrace abstinence. This is no difficult matter, since - history informs us of very many who, in former times, lived with - the greatest temperance, and I know that the present Age furnishes - us with many such instances, reckoning myself one of the number. - Now let us remember that we are human beings, and that man, being a - rational animal, is himself master of his actions.” - -Amongst others:-- - - “There are old gluttons (_attempati_) who say that it is necessary - they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural - heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years, - and that it is therefore necessary for them to eat heartily and of - such things as please their palates, and that were they to lead a - frugal life it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind - mother, Nature, in order that old men may live to a still greater - age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to subsist - on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested - by old and feeble stomachs. Nor should such persons be afraid of - shortening their lives by eating too little, _since when they are - indisposed they recover by eating the smallest quantities_. Now, - if by reducing themselves to a very small quantity of food they - recover from the jaws of death, how can they doubt but that, with - an increase of diet, still consistent, however, with sobriety, they - will be able to support nature when in perfect health? - - “Others say that it is better for a man to suffer every year three - or four returns of his usual disorders, such as gout, sciatica, and - the like than to be tormented the whole year by not indulging his - appetite, and eating everything his palate likes best, since by a - good regimen alone he is sure to get the better of such attacks. To - this I answer that, our natural heat growing less and less as we - advance in years, no regimen can retain virtue enough to conquer - the malignity with which disorders of repletion are ever attended, - so that he must die at last of these periodical disorders, because - they abridge life as health prolongs it. Others pretend that it is - much better to live ten years less than not indulge one’s appetite. - My reply is that longevity ought to be highly valued by men of - genius and intellect; as to others it is of no great matter if it - is not duly prized by them, since it is they who brutalise the - world (_perchè questi fanno brutto il mondo_), so that _their_ - death is rather of service to mankind.” - -Cornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the -genius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to -express his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous -change effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered -from the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which -moreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before, -the beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as -develope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:-- - - “O thrice holy Sobriety, so useful to man by the services thou - renderest him! Thou prolongest his days, by which means he may - greatly improve his understanding. Thou moreover freest him from - the dreadful thoughts of death. How greatly is thy faithful - disciple indebted to thee, since by thy assistance he enjoys this - beautiful expanse of the visible world, which is really beautiful - to such as know how to view it with a philosophic eye, as thou - hast enabled me to do!... O truly happy life which, besides these - favours conferred on an old man, hast so improved and perfected - him that he has now a better relish for his dry bread than he had - formerly for the most exquisite dainties. And all this thou hast - effected by acting rationally, knowing that bread is, above all - things, man’s proper food when seasoned by a good appetite.... It - is for this reason that dry bread has so much relish for me; and - I know from experience, and can with truth affirm, that I find - such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against - temperance were it not for my being convinced of the absolute - necessity of eating of it, and that we cannot make use of a more - natural food.” - -The fourth and last of his appearances in print was a “Letter to -Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia,” written at the age of ninety-five. -It describes in a very lively manner the health, vigour, and use -of all his faculties of mind and body, of which he had the perfect -enjoyment. He was far advanced in life when his daughter, his only -child, was born, and he lived to see her an old woman. He informs us, -at the age of ninety-one, with much eloquence and enthusiasm of the -active interest and pleasure he experienced in all that concerned the -prosperity of his native city: of his plans for improving its port; -for draining, recovering, and fertilizing the extensive marshes and -barren sands in its neighbourhood. He died, having passed his one -hundredth year, calmly and easily in his arm-chair at Padua in the -year 1566.[104] His treatises, forming a small volume, have been “very -frequently published in Italy, both in the vernacular Italian and in -Latin. It has been translated into all the civilised languages of -Europe, and was once a most popular book. There are several English -translations of it, the best being one that bears the date 1779. -Cornaro’s system,” says the writer in the _English Cyclopædia_ whom we -are quoting, “has had many followers.” Recounting his many dignities -and honours, and the distinguished part he took in the improvement of -his native city, by which he acquired a great reputation amongst his -fellow-citizens, the Italian editor of his writings justly adds:-- - - “But all these fine prerogatives of Luigi Cornaro would not have - been sufficient to render his name famous in Europe if he had not - left behind him the short treatises upon Temperance, composed at - various times at the advanced ages of 85, 86, 91, and 95. The - candour which breathes through their simplicity, the importance - of the argument, and the fervour with which he urges upon all to - study the means of prolonging our life, have obtained for them so - great good fortune as to be praised to the skies by men of the - best understanding. The many editions which have been published - in Italy, and the translations which, together with an array of - physiological and philological notes, have appeared out of Italy, - at one time in Latin, at another in French, again in German, and - again in English, prove their importance. These discourses, in - fact, enjoyed all the reputation of a classical book, and, although - occasionally somewhat unpolished, as ‘_Poca favilla gran fiamma - seconda_,’ they have sufficed to inspire (_riscaldare_) a Lessio, - a Bartolini, a Ramazzini, a Cheyne, a Hufeland, and so many others - who have written works of greater weight upon the same subject.” - -Addison (_Spectator_ 195) thus refers to him:-- - - “The most remarkable instance of the efficacy of temperance - towards the procuring long life is what we meet with in a little - book published by Lewis Cornaro, the Venetian, which I the rather - mention because it is of undoubted credit, as the late Venetian - Ambassador, who was of the same family, attested more than once in - conversation when he resided in England.... After having passed - his one hundredth year he died without pain or agony, and like one - who falls asleep. The treatise I mention has been taken notice of - by several eminent authors, and is written with such a spirit - of cheerfulness, religion, and good sense as are the natural - concomitants of temperance and sobriety. The mixture of the old man - in it is rather a recommendation than a discredit to it.” - -In fact he has exposed himself, it must be confessed, to the taunts of -the “devotees of the Table” often cast at the _abstinents_, that they -are too much given to parading their health and vigour, and certainly -if any one can be justly obnoxious to them it is Luigi Cornaro. - - - - -XII. - -SIR THOMAS MORE. 1480-1535. - - -During part of the period covered by the long life of Cornaro there -is one distinguished man, all reference to whose opinions--intimately -though indirectly connected as they are with dietary reform--it would -be improper to omit--Sir Thomas More. His eloquent denunciation of the -grasping avarice and the ruinous policy which were rapidly converting -the best part of the country into grazing lands, as well as his -condemnation of the slaughter of innocent life, commonly euphemised by -the name of “sport,” are as instructive and almost as necessary for the -present age as for the beginning of the sixteenth century. - -Son of Sir John More, a judge of the King’s Bench, he was brought up in -the palace of the Cardinal Lord Chancellor Morton, an ecclesiastic who -stands out in favourable contrast with the great majority of his order, -and, indeed, of his contemporaries in general. In his twenty-first year -he was returned to the House of Commons, where he distinguished himself -by opposing a grant of a subsidy to the king (Henry VII.). In 1516 he -published (in Latin) his world-famed _Utopia_--the most meritorious -production in sociological literature since the days of Plutarch. -In 1523 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, and again -he displayed his courage and integrity in resisting an illegal and -oppressive subsidy bill, by which he was not in the way to advance his -interests with Henry VIII. and his principal minister, Wolsey. Seven -years later, however, upon the disgrace of the latter personage, Sir -Thomas More succeeded to the vacant Chancellorship, in which office he -maintained his reputation for integrity and laborious diligence. When -the amorous and despotic king had determined upon the momentous divorce -from Catherine, he resigned the Seals rather than sanction that -equivocal proceeding; and soon afterwards he was sent to the Tower for -refusing the Oath of Supremacy. After the interval of a year he was -brought to trial before the King’s Bench, and sentenced to the block -(1535). In private life and in his domestic relations he exhibits a -pleasing contrast to the ordinary harsh severity of his contemporaries. -In learning and ability he occupies a foremost place in the annals of -the period. - -Unfortunately for his reputation with after ages, as Lord Chancellor -he seems to have forgotten the maxims of toleration (political and -theological) of his earlier career, so well set forth in his _Utopia_; -and he supplies a notable instance, not too rare, of retrogression with -advancing years and dignities, and of “a head grown grey in vain.” In -fact, he belonged, ecclesiastically, to the school of conservative -sceptics, of whom his intimate friend Erasmus was the most conspicuous -representative, rather than to the party of practical reform. Yet, in -spite of so lamentable a failure in practical philosophy, More may -claim a high degree of merit both for his courage and for his sagacity -in propounding views far in advance of his time. - -In the _Utopia_ his ideas in regard to labour and to crime exhibit -him, indeed, as in advance of the received dogmas even of the present -day. As to the former he held that the labourer, as the actual basis -and support of the whole social system, was justly entitled to some -consideration, and to a more rational existence than usually allowed -him by the policy of the ruling classes; and, in limiting the daily -period of labour to nine hours, he anticipated by 350 years the tardy -legislation on that important matter. In exposing the equal absurdity -and iniquity of the criminal code he preached the despised doctrine -of _prevention_ rather than punishment, and denounced the monstrous -inequality of penalties by which thieving was placed in the same -category with murder and crimes of violence:-- - - “For great and horrible punishments be awarded to thieves, whereas - much rather provision should have been made that there were some - means whereby they might get their living, so that no man should - be driven to this extreme necessity--first to steal and then to - die.... By suffering your youth to be wantonly and viciously - brought up and to be infected, even from their tender age, by - little and little with vice--then, in God’s name, to be punished - when they commit the same faults after being come to man’s state, - which from their youth they were ever like to do--in this point, - I pray you, _what other thing do you than make thieves and then - punish them_.”[105] - -What we are immediately concerned with here is his feeling in regard to -slaughter. The Utopians condemn-- - - “Hunters also and hawkers (falconers), for what delight can there - be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling - of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog - follows a hare than when a dog follows a dog? For one thing is done - by both--that is to say, running, if you have pleasure in that. But - if the hope of slaughter and the expectation of tearing the victim - in pieces pleases you, you should rather be moved with pity to see - an innocent hare murdered by a dog--the weak by the strong, the - fearful by the fierce, the innocent by the cruel and pitiless.[106] - Therefore this exercise of hunting, as a thing unworthy to be used - of free men, the Utopians have rejected to their butchers, to the - which craft (as we said before) they appoint their bondsmen. For - they count hunting the lowest, the vilest, and most abject part of - butchery; and the other parts of it more profitable and more honest - as bringing much more commodity, in that they (the butchers) kill - their victims from necessity, whereas the hunter seeks nothing - but pleasure of the seely [simple, innocent] and woful animal’s - slaughter and murder. The which pleasure in beholding death, they - say, doth rise in wild beasts, either of a cruel affection of mind - or else by being changed, in continuance of time, into cruelty by - long use of so cruel a pleasure. These, therefore, and all such - like, which be innumerable, though the common sort of people do - take them for pleasures, yet they, seeing that there is no natural - pleasantness in them, plainly determine them to have no affinity - with true and right feeling.” - -In telling us that his model people “permit not their free citizens to -accustom themselves to the killing of ‘beasts’ through the use whereof -they think clemency, gentlest affection of our nature, by little and -little to decay and perish,”[107] More for ever condemns the immorality -of the Slaughter-House, whether he intended to do so _in toto_ or no. -In relegating the business of slaughter to their bondsmen (criminals -who had been degraded from the rights of citizenship), the Utopians, -we may observe, exhibit less of justice than of refinement. To devolve -the trade of slaughter upon a pariah-class is not the least immoral of -the necessary concomitants of the shambles. That the author of _Utopia_ -should feel an instinctive aversion from the coarseness and cruelty of -the shambles is not surprising; that he should have failed to banish -it entirely from his ideal commonwealth is less to be wondered at -than to be lamented. That he had at least a _latent_ consciousness of -the indefensibility of slaughter for food appears sufficiently clear -from his remark upon the Utopian religion that “they kill no living -animal in sacrifice, nor do they think that God has delight in blood -and slaughter, _Who has given life to animals to the intent they should -live_.” - -Wiser than ourselves, the ideal people do not waste their corn in the -manufacture of alcoholic drinks:-- - - “They sow corn only for bread. For their drink is either wine - made of grapes, or else of apples or pears, or else it is clear - water--and many times mead made of honey or liquorice sodden in - water, for of that they have great store.” - -The selfish policy of converting arable into grazing land is -emphatically denounced by More:-- - - “They (the oxen and sheep) consume, destroy, and devour whole - fields, houses, and cities. For look in what parts of the realm - doth grow the finest and therefore the dearest wool. There noblemen - and gentlemen, yea, and certain abbots, holy men no doubt, not - contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits that - were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their - lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure - nothing profiting, yea, much annoying, the public weal, leave no - land for tillage--they enclose all into pasture, they throw down - houses, they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing, but only - the church to be made a sheep house; and, as though you lost no - small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands, and parks, - those good holy men turn dwelling-places and all glebe land into - wilderness and desolation.... For one shepherd or herdsman is - enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the occupying whereof - about husbandry many hands would be requisite. And this is also the - cause why victuals be now in many places dearer; yea, besides this, - the price of wool is so risen that poor folks, which were wont to - work it and make cloth thereof, be now able to buy none at all, - and by this means very many be forced to forsake work and to give - themselves to idleness. For after that so much land was enclosed - for pasture, an infinite multitude of sheep died of the rot, such - vengeance God took of their inordinate and insatiable covetousness, - sending among the sheep that pestiferous murrain which much more - justly should have fallen on the sheep-masters’ own heads; and - though the number of sheep increase never so fast, yet the price - falleth not one mite, because there be so few sellers,” &c. - -These sagacious and just reflections upon the evil social consequences -of carnivorousness may be fitly commended to the earnest attention -of our public writers and speakers of to-day. The periodical cattle -plagues and foot-and-mouth diseases, which, in theological language, -are vaguely assigned to national sins, might be more ingenuously and -truthfully attributed to the one sufficient cause--to the general -indulgence of selfish instincts, which closes the ear to all the -promptings at once of humanity and of reason, and is, in truth, a -national sin of the most serious character.[108] - -The “wisdom of our ancestors,” which has been so often invoked, both -before and since the days of More, and which Bentham has so mercilessly -exposed, apparently did not subdue the reason of the author of -_Utopia_; yet, with no little amount of applause it has been made to -serve as a very conclusive argument against dietetic reformation, as -against many other changes:-- - - “‘These things,’ say they, ‘pleased our forefathers and - ancestors--would to God we could be so wise as they were!’ And, as - though they had wittily concluded the matter, and with this answer - stopped every man’s mouth, they sit down again as who should say, - ‘It were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be - found wiser than his forefathers were.’ And yet be we content - to suffer the best and wittiest [wisest] of their decrees to be - unexecuted; but if in anything a better order might have been taken - than by them was, there we take fast hold, finding therein many - virtues.”[109] - - - - -XIII. - -MONTAIGNE. 1533-1592. - - -The modern Plutarch and the first of essayists deserves his place -in this work, if not so much for express and explicit denunciation, -_totidem verbis_, of the barbarism of the Slaughter-House, at least -for a sort of argument which logically and necessarily arrives at -the same conclusion. In truth, if he had not “seen and approved the -better way” (even though, with too many others, he may not have had the -courage of his convictions), he would be no true disciple of the great -humanitarian. It is necessary to remember that the “perfect day” was -not yet come; that a few rays only here and there enlightened the thick -darkness of barbarism; that, in fine, not even yet, with the light of -truth shining full upon us, have reason and conscience triumphed, as -regards the mass of the community, either in this country or elsewhere. - -Michel de Montaigne descended from an old and influential house in -Périgord (modern Périgeaux, in the department of the Dordogne). His -youth was carefully trained, and his early inclination to learning -fostered under his father’s diligent superintendence. He became a -member of the provincial parliament, and, by the universal suffrage of -his fellow-citizens, was elected chief magistrate of Bordeaux, from the -official routine of whose duties he soon retired to the more congenial -atmosphere of study and philosophic reflection. In his château, at -Montaigne, his studious tranquillity was violently interrupted by the -savage contests then raging between the opposing factions of Catholics -and Huguenots, from both of whom he received ill-treatment and loss. -To add to his troubles, the plague, which appeared in Guienne in 1586, -broke up his household and compelled him, with his family, to abandon -his home. Together they wandered through the country, exposed to the -various dangers of a civil war; and he afterwards for some time settled -in Paris. He had also travelled in Italy. Montaigne returned to his -home when the disturbances and atrocities had somewhat subsided, and -there he died with the philosophic calmness with which he had lived. - -The _Essais_--that book of “good faith,” “without study and artifice,” -as its author justly calls it--appeared in the year 1580. It is a book -unique in modern literature, and the only other production to which -it may be compared is the _Moralia_ of Plutarch. “It is not a book we -are reading, but a conversation to which we are listening.” “It is,” -as another French critic observes, “less a book than a journal divided -into chapters, which follow one another without connexion, which bear -each a title without much regard to the fulfilment of their promise.” - -Montaigne treats of almost every phase of human thought and action; and -upon every subject he has something original and worth saying. Living -in a savagely sectarian and persecuting age, he kept himself aloof and -independent of either of the two contending theological sections, and -contents himself with the _rôle_ of a sceptical spectator. It must be -admitted that he is not always satisfactory in this character, since -he sometimes seems to give forth an “uncertain sound.” Considering -the age, however, his assertion of the proper authority of Reason -deserves our respectful admiration, and is in pleasing contrast with -the attitude of most of his contemporaries. A few, like his friend De -Thou, or the Italian Giordano Bruno--the latter of whom, indeed, had -more of the martyr-spirit than Montaigne--contributed to keep alight -the torch of Truth and Reason. But we have only to recollect that it -was the age _par excellence_ of Diabolism in Catholic and Protestant -theology alike, and of all the horrible superstitions and frightful -tortures, both bodily and mental, of which the universal belief in the -Devil’s actual reign on earth was the fruitful cause. About the very -time of the appearance of the _Essais_, one of the most learned men of -the period, the lawyer Jean Bodin published a work which he called the -_Démonomanie des Sorciers_ (the “Diabolic Inspiration of Witches”), in -which he protested his unwavering faith in the most monstrous beliefs -of the creed, and vehemently called upon the judges, ecclesiastical and -civil, to punish the reputed criminals (accused of an _impossible_ -crime) with the severest tortures. We have only to recognise this fact -alone (the most astounding of all the astounding facts and phases in -the history of Superstition) to do full justice to the reason and -courage of this small band of protesters. - -As for the influence of Montaigne on the modes of thought of after -times, and especially of his countrymen, it can scarcely be over -estimated. He is the literary progenitor of the most famous French -writers of the humanitarian eighteenth century. The most eminent of -them, Voltaire, perhaps, most resembles him, but naturally the style of -the eighteenth century philosopher is more concise and incisive, and -his opinions are more pronounced. “Both,” says a French critic, “laugh -at the human species; but the laughter of Voltaire is more bitter; his -railleries are more terrible. Both, nevertheless, breathe the love -of humanity. That of Voltaire is more ardent, more courageous, more -unwearied. The hatred of both of them for charlatanism and hypocrisy -is well known. Their morality has for its first principle benevolence -towards others, without distinction of country, of manners, or of -religious beliefs; warning us not to think that we alone hold the -deposit of justice and of truth. It transports our soul, by contempt of -mortal things and by enthusiasm for great truths.” It is to be lamented -that the countrymen of Montaigne and of Voltaire have not profited -to a larger extent by their humanitarian teaching and tendencies. In -reference to the almost incredible atrocities of war, and especially of -civil war, Montaigne protests:-- - - “Scarcely could I persuade myself, before I had seen it with - my own eyes, that there could be souls so ferocious as for the - simple pleasure of murder to be ready to perpetrate it; to hack - and dismember the limbs of others; to ransack their invention to - discover unheard-of tortures and new kinds of deaths--and that - without the incentive of enmity or of profit--with the mere view of - enjoying the pleasant spectacle of pitiable actions and movements, - of groans and lamentations, of a man dying in agony. For this is - the climax to which cruelty can attain--‘for a man without anger, - without fear, to kill another merely to witness his sufferings.’ - - “For my part I have never been able to see, without displeasure, an - innocent and defenceless animal, from whom we receive no offence - or harm, pursued and slaughtered. And when a deer, as commonly - happens, finding herself without breath and strength, without other - resource, throws herself down and surrenders, as it were, to her - pursuers, begging for mercy by her tears, - - ‘Questuque cruentus - Atque imploranti similis.’[110] - - This has always appeared to me a very displeasing spectacle. I - seldom, or never, take an animal alive whom I do not restore to the - fields. Pythagoras was in the habit of buying their victims from - the fowlers and fishermen for the same purpose. - - ‘Primâque a cæde ferarum - Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum.’[111] - - “Dispositions sanguinary in regard to other animals testify a - natural inclination to cruelty towards their own kind. After they - had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacle of the murders - [_meurtres_] of other animals, they proceeded to those of men and - gladiators. Nature has, I fear, herself attached some instinct - of inhumanity to man’s disposition. No one derives any amusement - from seeing other animals enjoy themselves and caressing one - another; and no one fails to take pleasure in seeing them torn in - pieces and dismembered. That I may not [he is cautious enough to - add] be ridiculed for this sympathy which I have for them, even - theology enjoins some respect for them,[112] and considering that - one and the same Master has lodged us in this palatial world for - his service, and that they are, as we, members of His family, it - is right that it should enjoin some respect and affection towards - them.” - -Quoting instances of the extreme respect in which some of the -non-human races were held by people in Antiquity,[113] and Plutarch’s -interpretation of the meaning of the divine honours sometimes paid to -them--that they adored certain qualities in them as types of divine -faculties--Montaigne declares for himself that:-- - - “When I meet, amongst the more moderate opinions, arguments which - go to prove our close resemblance to other animals, and how much - they share in our greatest privileges, and with how much of - probability they are compared to us, of a truth I abate much from - our common presumption, and willingly abdicate that _imaginary_ - royalty which they assign us over other beings.” - -Wiser than the majority in later times, Montaigne well rebukes the -arrogant presumption of the human animal who affects to hold all other -life to be brought into being for his sole use and pleasure:-- - - “Let him shew me, by the most skilful argument, upon what - foundations he has built these excessive prerogatives which he - supposes himself to have over other existences. Who has persuaded - him that that admirable impulse of the celestial vault, the eternal - brightness of those Lights rolling so majestically over our heads, - the tremendous motions of that infinite sea of Globes, were - established and have continued so many ages for his advantage and - for his service. Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous - as that this pitiful [_chétive_], miserable creature, who is not - even master of himself, exposed to injuries of every kind, should - call itself master and lord of the universe, of which, so far from - being lord of it, he knows but the smallest part?... Who has given - him this sealed charter? Let him shew us the ‘letters patent’ of - this grand commission. Have they been issued [_octroyées_] in - favour of the wise only? They affect but the few in that case. The - fools and the wicked--are they worthy of so extraordinary a favour, - and being the worst part of the world [_le pire pièce du monde_], - do they deserve to be preferred to all the rest? Shall we believe - all this? - - “Presumption is our natural and original disease. The most - calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most - arrogant.[114] It is through the vanity of this same imagination - that he equals himself to a god, that he attributes to himself - divine conditions, that he picks himself out and separates himself - from the crowd of other creatures, curtails the just shares of - other animals his brethren [_confrères_] and companions, and - assigns to them such portions of faculties and forces as seems to - him good. How does he know, by the effort of his intelligence, the - interior and secret movements and impulses of other animals? By - what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity - [_la bétise_] which he attributes to them?” - -Montaigne quotes the example of his master, the just and benevolent -Plutarch, who made it a matter of justice and conscience not to sell -or send to the slaughter-house (according to the common selfish -ingratitude) a Cow who had served him faithfully and profitably for so -many years. With Plutarch and Porphyry he never wearies of denouncing -the unreasoning opinions, or rather prejudices, prevalent amongst men -as to the mental qualities of many of the non-human races, and, as we -have already seen, insists that the difference between them and us is -of _degree_ and not of _kind_:-- - - “Plato, in his picture of the ‘Golden Age,’ reckons amongst the - chief advantages of the men of that time the communication they had - with other animals, by investigating and instructing themselves in - whose nature they learned their true qualities and the differences - between them, by which they acquired a very perfect knowledge and - intelligence, and thus made their lives more happy than we can make - ours. Is a better test needed by which to judge of human folly in - regard to other species? - - “I have said all this in order to bring us back and reunite - ourselves to the crowd [_presse_]. We are [in the accidents of - mortality] neither above nor below the rest. ‘All who are under - the sky,’ says the Jewish sage, ‘experience a like law and fate.’ - There is some difference, _there are orders and degrees_, but - they are under the aspect of one and the same nature. Man must be - constrained and ranged within the barriers of this police [_Il - faut contraindre l’homme, et le ranger dans les barrières de cette - police_]. The wretch has no right to encroach [_d’enjamber_] - beyond these; he is fettered, entangled, he is subjected to like - necessities with other creatures of his order, and in a very - mean condition without any true and essential prerogative and - pre-excellence. That which he confers upon himself by his own - opinion and fancy has neither sense nor substance; and if it be - conceded to him that he alone of all animals has that freedom of - imagination and that irregularity of thought representing to him - what he is, what he is not, and what he wants, the false and the - true, it is an advantage which has been very dearly sold to him, - and of which he has very little to boast, for from that springs the - principal source of the evils which oppress him--crime, disease, - irresolution, trouble, despair.” - -Rejecting the still received prejudice which will not allow our humble -fellow-beings the privilege of reason, but invents an imaginary faculty -called “instinct,” he repeats that-- - - “There is no ground for supposing that other beings do by - _natural and necessary inclination_ the same things that we do - by choice, and while we are bound to infer from like effects - like faculties--nay, from greater effects, greater faculties--we - are forced to confess, consequently, that that same reason, that - same method which we employ in action are also employed by the - lower animals, or else that they have some still better reason - or method. Why do we fancy in them that natural necessity or - impulse [_contrainte_]--_we_ who have no experience of that sort - ourselves.[115] - - “As for use in eating, it is with us as with them, natural - and without instruction. Who doubts that a child, arrived at - the necessary strength for feeding itself, could find its own - nourishment? The earth produces and offers to him enough for his - needs without artificial labour, and if not for all seasons, - neither does she for the other races--witness the provisions - which we observe the ants and others collecting for the sterile - seasons of the year. Those nations whom we have lately discovered - [the peoples of Hindustan and of parts of America], so abundantly - furnished with natural meat and drink without care and without - labour, have just instructed us that bread is not our sole food, - and that without toil our mother Nature has furnished us with every - plant we need, to shew us, as it seems, how superior she is to all - our _artificiality_; while the extravagance of our appetite outruns - all the inventions by which we seek to satisfy it.”[116] - - - - -XIV. - -GASSENDI. 1592-1655. - - -Gassendi, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the -purpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in -the seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the -first directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch -and Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and -Montaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate -barbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction -of the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to -enlighten the world upon this fundamental truth. - -He was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest -years he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was -professor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated “Essays against the -Aristotleians” (_Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos_) -was his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years -earlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides -with the _Novum Organon_ of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost -contemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon -the old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of -Aristotle, during some three or four centuries of mediæval darkness -had kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at -once raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the -old orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of -falsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five -of the Books of the _Exercitationes_, by the advice of his friends, -who dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In -the Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not -the courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity -of the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while -the Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal -recommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and -Virtue are synonymous terms. - -In the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted -himself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy, -as well as to literary studies. “As the result of his anatomical -researches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to -live upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human -constitution, is baneful and unwholesome.”[117] He was the first to -observe the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun’s disc (1631), -previously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the -opponent of Descartes in his _Disquisitiones Anticartesianæ_ (1643)--a -work justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent -German critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic -world was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient -to observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in -other respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that -the non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and -perception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation -for common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part -of the world. Yet this “animated machine” theory, incredible as it -may appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist -of the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and -experience--a theory about which it needs only to be said that it -deserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous -conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable -criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the -end _that they might not feel and reason_. It was not thus, as the same -writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118] - -In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the -University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners -of all classes. His _Life and Morals of Epikurus_ (_De Vitâ et Moribus -Epicuri_), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a -triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations -connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous -of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages. -Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted -by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity -of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the -luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:-- - - “He had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home, - and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where - he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part - of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of - Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own - doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several - astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which - those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He - is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism, - the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an - eminent degree. Even in his _Syntagma Philosophicum_ he treats - every subject, at first historically from all points of view.... - Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined - to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the - fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He - long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On - returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen - fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.” - -Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to -vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:-- - - “The reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually - ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi. - Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his - Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes - which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a - result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of - hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences - resulting from them became completely interfused.”[119] - -Although of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often -happens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle, -writing at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as -“the greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar -amongst philosophers;” and Newton conceived the same high esteem for -the great vindicator of Epikurus.[120] - -It is in his celebrated letter to his friend Van Helmont, that Gassendi -deals with the irrational assertions of certain physiologists, -apparently more devoted to the defence of the orthodox diet than to the -discovery of unwelcome truth, as to the character of the human teeth:-- - - “I was contending,” he writes to his medical friend, “that from - the conformation of our teeth we do not appear to be adapted by - Nature to the use of a flesh diet, since all animals (I spoke of - terrestrials) which Nature has formed to feed on flesh have their - teeth long, conical, sharp, uneven, and with intervals between - them--of which kind are lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, cats, and - others. But those who are made to subsist only on herbs and fruits - have their teeth short, broad, blunt, close to one another, and - distributed in even rows. Of this sort are horses, cows, deer, - sheep, goats, and some others. And further--that men have received - from Nature teeth which are unlike those of the first class, and - resemble those of the second. It is therefore probable, since men - are land animals, that Nature intended them to follow, in the - selection of their food, not the carnivorous tribes, but those - races of animals which are contented with the simple productions - of the earth.... Wherefore, I here repeat that from the primæval - institution of our nature, the teeth were destined to the - mastication, not of flesh, but of fruits. - - As for flesh, true, indeed, it is that man is sustained on flesh. - But _how many things_, let me ask, _does man do every day which are - contrary to, or beside, his nature_? So great, and so general, is - the perversion of his mode of life, which has, as it were, eaten - into his flesh by a sort of deadly contagion (_contagione veluti - quâdam jam inusta est_), that he appears to have put on another - disposition. Hence, the whole care and concern of philosophy and - moral instruction ought to consist in leading men back to the paths - of Nature.” - -Helmont, it seems, had rested his principal argument for flesh-eating, -not altogether in accordance with _Genesis_, and certainly not in -accordance with Science, on the presumption that man was formed -expressly for carnivorousness. To this Gassendi replied that, without -ignoring theological argument, he still maintained comparative Anatomy -to be a satisfactory and sufficient guide. He then applies himself to -refute the physiological prejudice of Helmont about the teeth, &c. -(as already quoted), and begins by warning his friend that he is not -to wonder if the self-love of men is constantly viewed by him with -suspicion.[121] - - “For, in fact, we all, with tacit consent, conspire to extol our - own nature, and we do this commonly with so much arrogance that, if - people were to divest themselves of this traditional and inveterate - prejudice, and seriously reflect upon it, their faces must be - immediately suffused with burning shame.” - -He repeats Plutarch’s unanswerable challenge:-- - - “Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this - food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as - furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from - seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and - lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. Well, but - if it were the intention of Nature that man should eat _cooked_ - flesh, she would surely have provided him with ready-made cooks; - or, rather, she would have herself cooked it as she is wont to - do fruits, which are best and sweetest without the intervention - of fire. Nature, surely, does not fail in providing necessary - provision for her children, according to the common boast. But what - is more necessary than to make food pleasurable? And, as she does - in the case of sexual love by which she procures the preservation - of the _species_, so would she procure the preservation of the - _genus_. - - “Nor let anyone say that Nature in this is corrected, since, to - pass over other things, that is tantamount to convicting her of - a blunder. Consider how much more benevolent she would be proved - to be, in that case, towards the savage beasts than towards us. - Again, since our teeth are not sufficient for eating flesh, even - when prepared by fire, the invention of knives seems to me to be - a strong proof. Because, in fact, we have no teeth given us for - rending flesh, and we are therefore forced to have recourse to - those _non-natural_ organs, in order to accomplish our purpose. As - if, forsooth, Nature would have left us destitute in so essential - things! I divine at once your ready reply: ‘think that Nature - has given man reason to supply defects of this kind.’ But this, - I affirm, is always to accuse Nature, _in order to_ defend our - unnatural luxury. So it is about dress--so it is about other things. - - “What is clearer [he sums up] than that man is not furnished for - hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem - to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for - other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other - animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry - ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then, - behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make - weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of - Nature? Can a use so noxious be called _natural_? Faculty is given - by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of - it.” - -He, finally, refutes the popular objection about the strength-giving -properties of flesh-meat, and instances Horses, Bulls, and others.[122] - -In his _Ethics_ (affixed to his Books on _Physics_) he quotes and -endorses the opinions of Epikurus on the slaughter of innocent life:-- - - “There is no pretence,” he asserts, “for saying that any right has - been granted us by law to kill any of those animals which are not - destructive or pernicious to the human race, for there is no reason - why the innocent species should be allowed to increase to so great - a number as to be inconvenient to us. They may be restrained within - that number which would be harmless, and useful to ourselves.”[123] - -With that Great Master he thus rebukes the fashionable “hospitality”:-- - - “I, for my part, to speak modestly of myself, lived contented - with the plants of my little garden, and have pleasure in that - diet, and I wish inscribed on my doors: ‘Guest, here you shall - have good cheer! here the _summum bonum_ is Pleasure. The guardian - of this house, _humanely_ hospitable, is ready to entertain you - with pearl-barley (_polenta_), and will furnish you abundantly - with water. These little gardens do not increase hunger, but - extinguish it; nor do they make thirst greater by the very - potations themselves, but satisfy it by a natural and gratuitous - remedy.’”[124] - - -There is one name which, in reputation, occupies a pre-eminent -position in philosophy, belonging to this period--Francis Bacon. But, -for ourselves, for whom true ethical and humanitarian principles have -a much deeper significance than mere mental force undirected to the -highest aims of truth and of justice, the name of the modern assertor -of the truths of Vegetarianism will challenge greater reverence than -even that of the author of the _New Instrument_. - -That Bacon should exhibit himself in the character of an advocate -of the rights of the lower races is hardly to be expected from the -selfish and unscrupulous promoter of his own private interests at the -expense at once of common gratitude and common feeling. His remarks on -Vivisection (where he questions whether experiments on human beings -are defensible, and suggests the limitation of scientific torture to -the non-human races)[125] are, in fact, sufficient evidence of his -indifferentism to so unselfish an object as the advocacy of the claims -of our defenceless dependants. When we consider his unusual sagacity -in exposing the absurd quasi-scientific methods of his predecessors, -and of the prevailing (so-called) philosophical system and the many -profound remarks to be found in his writings, it must be added that we -are reluctantly compelled to believe that the opinions elsewhere which -he publishes inconsistent with those principles were inspired by that -notorious servility and courtiership by which he flattered the absurd -and pedantic dogmatism of one of the most contemptible of kings. - -One passage there is, however, in his writings which seems to give us -hope that this eminent compromiser was not altogether insensible to -higher and better feeling:-- - - “Nature has endowed man with a noble and excellent principle of - compassion, which extends [? ought to extend] itself also to the - dumb animals--whence this compassion has some resemblance to - that of a prince towards his subjects. And it is certain that the - noblest souls are the most extensively compassionate, for narrow - and degenerate minds think that compassion belongs not to them; but - a great soul, the noblest part of creation, is ever compassionate. - Thus, under the old laws, there were numerous precepts (not merely - ceremonial) enjoining mercy--for example, the not eating of - flesh with the blood, &c. So, also, the sects of the Essenes and - Pythagoreans totally abstained from flesh, as they do also to this - day, with an inviolate religion, in some parts of the empire of the - Mogul [Hindustan]. Nay, the Turks, though a savage nation, both in - their descent and discipline, give alms to the dumb animals, and - suffer them not to be tortured.”[126] - -If Bacon had lived longer (he died in 1626) we may entertain the hope -that the powerful arguments of his illustrious contemporary might have -inspired him with more sound and satisfactory ideas on Dietetics than -the somewhat crude ones which he published in his _De Augmentis_ (iv., -2). As for Medicine, he had, reasonably enough, not conceived a high -opinion of the methods of its ordinary professors. He says:-- - - “Medicine has been more professed than laboured, and more laboured - than advanced; rather circular than progressive; for I find great - repetition, and but little new matter in the writers of Physic.” - - - - -XV. - -RAY. 1627-1705. - - -John Ray, the founder of Botanical and, only in little less degree, of -Zoological Science, was an _alumnus_ of the University of Cambridge. He -was elected Fellow of Trinity College in 1649, and Lecturer in Greek -in the following year. While at Cambridge he formed a collection of -plants growing in the neighbourhood, a catalogue of which he published -in 1660. Three years later, with his friend Francis Willoughby, he -travelled over a large part of Europe, as during his academical life -he had traversed the greater part of these islands, in pursuit of -botanical and zoological science--an account of which tour he published -in 1673. - -He had been one of the first Fellows of the recently founded Royal -Society. In 1682 appeared his _New Method of Plants_, which formed a -new era in botany, or rather, which was the first attempt at making -it a real science. It is the basis of the subsequent classification -of Jussieu, which is still received; and its author was the first to -propose the division of plants into _monocotyledons_ and _dicotyledons_. - -His principal work is the _Historia Plantarum_, 1686-1704. “In it -he collected and arranged all the species of plants which had been -described by botanists. He enumerated 18,625 species. Haller, Sprengel, -Adamson, and others speak of this work as being the produce of immense -labour, and as containing much acute criticism.” - -What, however, is more interesting to us is the fact that “in zoology -Ray ranks almost as high as in botany, and his works on this subject -are even more important, as they still, in great measure, preserve -their utility. Cuvier says that ‘they may be considered as the -foundation of modern zoology, for naturalists are obliged to consult -them every instant for the purpose of clearing up the difficulties -which they meet with in the works of Linnæus and his copyists.’” - -Between 1676-1686 appeared _Ornithologia_ and _Historia Piscium_, -the materials of which had been left him by his friend Willoughby. -To his extraordinary erudition and industry the world was indebted -for _A Methodical Synopsis of Quadrupeds_ as well as a very valuable -history of Insects. Conspicuous amongst his merits are his accuracy -of observation and his philosophical method of classification. With -others, Buffon is largely indebted to the most meritorious of the -pioneers of zoological knowledge. - -Ray has delivered his profession of faith in the superiority and -excellence of the non-flesh diet in the following eloquent passage -which has been quoted with approval by his friend John Evelyn:-- - - “The use of plants is all our life long of that universal - importance and concern that we can neither live nor subsist with - any decency and convenience, or be said, indeed, to live at - all without them. Whatsoever food is necessary to sustain us, - whatsoever contributes to delight and refresh us, is supplied and - brought forth out of that plentiful and abundant store. And ah! [he - exclaims] how much more innocent, sweet, and healthful is a table - covered with those than with all the reeking flesh of butchered and - slaughtered animals. Certainly man by nature was never made to be - a carnivorous animal, nor is he armed at all for prey and rapine, - with jagged and pointed teeth and crooked claws sharpened to rend - and tear, but with gentle hands to gather fruit and vegetables, and - with teeth to chew and eat them.”[127] - - - - -XVI. - -EVELYN. 1620-1706. - - -John Evelyn, the representative of the more estimable part of the -higher middle life of his time, who has so eloquently set forth the -praises of the vegetable diet, also claims with Ray the honour of -having first excited, amongst the opulent classes of his countrymen, -a rational taste for botanical knowledge. Especially meritorious and -truly patriotic was his appeal to the owners of land, by growing trees -to provide the country with useful as well as ornamental timber for the -benefit of posterity. He was one of the first to treat gardening and -planting in a scientific manner; and his own cultivation of exotic and -other valuable plants was a most useful example too tardily followed by -ignorant or selfish landlords of those and succeeding times. It would -have been well indeed for the mass of the people of these islands, -had the owners of landed property cared to develope the teaching -of Evelyn by stocking the country with various fruit trees, and so -supplied at once an easy and wholesome food. _O fortunatos nimium, sua -si bona nôrint, Agricolas!... Fundit humo facilem victum justissima -Tellus._[128] - -The family of Evelyn was settled at Wooton, in Surrey. During the -struggle between the Parliament and the Court he went abroad, and -travelled for some years in France and in Italy, where he seems to have -employed his leisure in a more refined and useful way than is the wont -of most of his travelling countrymen. He returned home in 1651. At the -foundation of the Royal Society, some ten years later, Evelyn became -one of its earliest Fellows. His first work was published in 1664, -_Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber_. -Its immediate cause was the application of the Naval Commissioners to -the Royal Society for advice in view of the growing scarcity of timber, -especially of oak, in England. A large quantity of the more valuable -wood now existing is the practical outcome of his timely publication. - -In 1675, appeared his _Terra: a Discourse of the Earth Relating to the -Culture and the Improvement of it, to Vegetation and the Propagation -of Plants_. The book by which he is most popularly known is his _Diary -and Correspondence_, one of the most interesting productions of the -kind. Besides its value as giving an insight into the manner of life -in the fashionable society of the greater part of the seventeenth -century, it is of importance as an independent chronicle of the public -events of the day. The work which has the most interest and value for -us is his _Acetaria_ (Salads, or Herbs eaten with vinegar), in which -the author professes his faith in the truth and excellence of the -Vegetarian diet. Unfortunately, according to the usual perversity of -literary enterprise, it is one of those few books which, representing -some profounder truth, are nevertheless the most neglected by those who -undertake to supply the mental and moral needs of the reading public. - -Evelyn held many high posts under the varying Governments of the day; -and being, by tradition and connexion, attached to the monarchical -party, he attracted (contrary to the general experience) the grateful -recognition of the restored dynasty. - -Having adduced other arguments for abstinence from flesh, Evelyn -continues:-- - - “And now, after all we have advanced in favour of the herbaceous - diet, there still emerges another inquiry, viz., whether the use of - crude herbs and plants is so wholesome as is alleged? What opinion - the prince of physicians had of them we shall see hereafter; as - also what the sacred records of olden times seem to infer, before - there were any flesh-shambles in the world; together with the - reports of such as are often conversant among many nations and - people, who, to this day, living on herbs and roots, arrive to - an incredible age in constant health and vigour, which, whether - attributable to the air and climate, custom, constitution, &c., - should be inquired into.” - -Cardan--the pseudo-savant of the sixteenth century--had written, it -seems, in favour of flesh-meat. Evelyn informs us that:-- - - “This, [the alleged superiority of flesh] his learned antagonist, - utterly denies. Whole nations--flesh devourers, such as the - farthest northern--become heavy, dull, inactive, and much more - stupid than the southern; and such as feed more on plants are more - acute, subtle, and of deeper penetration. Witness the Chaldeans, - Assyrians, Egyptians, &c. And he further argues from the short - lives of most carnivorous animals, compared with grass feeders, and - the ruminating kind, as the Hart, Camel, and the longævus Elephant, - and other feeders on roots and vegetables. - - “As soon as old Parr came to change his simple homely diet to - that of the Court and Arundel House, he quickly sank and drooped - away; for, as we have shewn, the stomach easily concocts plain and - familiar food, but finds it a hard and difficult task to vanquish - and overcome meats of different substances. Whence we so often see - temperate and abstemious persons of a collegiate diet [of a distant - age, we must suppose] very healthy; husbandmen and laborious - people more robust and longer-lived than others of an uncertain, - extravagant habit.” - -He appeals to the biblical reverence of his readers, and tells them:-- - - “Certain it is, Almighty God ordaining herbs and fruit for the food - of man, speaks not a word concerning flesh for two thousand years; - and when after, by the Mosaic constitution, there were distinctions - and prohibitions about the legal uncleanness of animals, plants - of what kind soever were left free and indifferent for everyone - to choose what best he liked. And what if it was held indecent - and unbecoming the excellency of man’s nature, before sin entered - and grew enormously wicked, that any creature should be put to - death and pain for him who had such infinite store of the most - delicious and nourishing fruit to delight, and the tree of life to - sustain him? Doubtless there was no need of it. Infants sought the - mother’s nipples as soon as born, and when grown and able to feed - themselves, ran naturally to fruit, and still will choose to eat it - rather than flesh, and certainly might so persist to do, did not - Custom prevail even against the very dictates of Nature.[129] - - “And now to recapitulate what other prerogatives the hortulan - provision has been celebrated for besides its antiquity, and the - health and longevity of the antediluvians--viz., that temperance, - frugality, leisure, ease, and innumerable other virtues and - advantages which accompany it, are no less attributable to it. Let - us hear our excellent botanist, Mr. Ray.” - -He then quotes the profession of faith of the father of English -botany and zoology; and goes on eloquently to expatiate on the varied -pleasures of a non-flesh and fruit diet:-- - - “To this might we add that transporting consideration, becoming - both our veneration and admiration, of the infinitely wise and - glorious Author of Nature, who has given to plants such astonishing - properties; such fiery heat in some to warm and cherish; such - coolness in others to temper and refresh; such pinguid juice to - nourish and feed the body; such quickening acids to compel the - appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the obedience of the - palate; such vigour to renew and support our natural strength; such - ravishing flavours and perfumes to recreate and delight us; in - short, such spirituous and active force to animate and revive every - part and faculty to all kinds of human and, I had almost said, - heavenly capacity. - - “What shall we add more? Our gardens present us with them all: and, - while the Shambles are covered with gore and stench, our Salads - escape the insults of the summer-fly, purify and warm the blood - against winter rage. Nor wants there variety in more abundance than - any of the former ages could show.” - -Evelyn produces an imposing array of the “Old Fathers”:-- - - “In short, so very many, especially of the Christian profession, - advocate it [the bloodless food] that some even of the ancient - fathers themselves have thought that the permission of eating flesh - to Noah and his sons was granted them no otherwise than repudiation - of wives was to the Jews--namely--for the hardness of their hearts - and to satisfy a murmuring generation.”[130] - -He is “persuaded that more blood has been shed between Christians” -through addiction to the sanguinary food than by any other cause:-- - - “Not that I impute it _only_ to our eating blood; but I - sometimes wonder how it happened that so strict, so solemn, and - famous a sanction--not upon a ceremonial account, but (as some - affirm) a moral and perpetual one, for which also there seem - to be fairer proofs than for most other controversies agitated - amongst Christians--should be so generally forgotten, and give - place to so many other impertinent disputes and cavils about - superstitious fopperies which frequently end in blood and cutting - of throats.”[131] - - -It is opportune here to refer to the sentiments of Evelyn’s -contemporary and political and ecclesiastical opposite--the great -Puritan poet and patriot--one of the very greatest names in all -literature. Milton’s feeling, so far as he had occasion to express -it, is quite in unison with the principles of dietetic reform, and in -sympathy with aspirations after the more spiritual life. - -In one of his earliest writings, on the eve of the production of one -of the finest poems of its kind in the English language--the _Ode to -Christ’s Nativity_, composed at the age of twenty-one--he thus writes -in Latin verse to his friend Charles Deodati, recommending the purer -diet at all events to those who aspired to the nobler creations of -poetry:-- - - “Simply let those, like him of Samos, live: - Let herbs to them a _bloodless_ banquet give. - In beechen goblets let their beverage shine, - Cool from the crystal spring their sober wine! - Their youth should pass in innocence secure - From stain licentious, and in manners pure. - - * * * * * - - For these are sacred bards and, from above, - Drink large infusions from the mind of Jove.”[132] - -To readers of his master-piece the _Paradise Lost_, it is perhaps a -work of supererogation to point out the charming passages in which he -sympathetically describes the food of the Age of Innocence:-- - - “Savoury fruits, of taste to please - True appetites.” - -In Raphael’s discourse with his terrestrial entertainers, the ethereal -messenger utters a prophecy (as we may take it) of the future general -adoption by our race of “fruit, man’s nourishment,” and we may -interpret his intimation:-- - - “time may come when men - With angels may participate, and find - No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare. - And from those corporal nutriments perhaps - Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, - Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend - Ethereal as we; or may, at choice, - _Here_, or in heavenly paradises, dwell,” - -as a picture of the true earthly paradise to be--“the Paradise of -Peace.” - -With these exquisite pictures of the life of bloodless feasts and -ambrosial food we may compare the fearful picture of the Court of -Death, displayed in prospective vision before the terror-stricken -gaze of the traditional progenitor of our species, where, amongst the -occupants, the largest number are the victims of “intemperance in meats -and drinks, which on the earth shall bring diseases dire.” In this -universal lazar-house might be seen-- - - “all maladies - Of ghastly Spasm, or racking torture, Qualms - Of heart-sick agony, all Feverous kinds, - Convulsions, Epilepsies, fierce Catarrhs, - Intestine Stone and Ulcer, Colic pangs, - Demoniac Phrensy, moping Melancholy, - And moon-struck Madness, pining Atrophy, - Marasmus, and wide-wasting Pestilence, - Dropsies and Asthmas, and joint-racking Rheums.”[133] - -Very different, in other respects, from those of the author of -the _History of the Reformation in England_ the sentiments of his -celebrated contemporary Bossuet, whose eloquence gained for him the -distinguishing title of the “Eagle of Méaux,” as to the degrading -character of the prevalent human nourishment in the Western world, -are sufficiently remarkable to deserve some notice. The _Oraisons -Funêbres_ and, particularly, his _Discours sur L’Histoire Universelle_ -have entitled him to a high rank in French literature. But a single -passage in the last work, we shall readily admit, does more credit to -his heart than his most eloquent efforts in oratory or literature do -to his intellect. That, in common with other theologians, Catholic and -Protestant, he has thought it necessary to assume the intervention of -the Deity to sanction the sustenance of human life by the destruction -of other innocent life, does not affect the weight of intrinsic -evidence derivable from the natural feeling as to the debasing -influence of the Slaughter-House. It is thus that he, impliedly at -least, condemns the barbarous practice:-- - - “Before the time of the Deluge the nourishment which without - violence men derived from the fruits which fell from the trees - of themselves, and from the herbs which also ripened with equal - ease, was, without doubt, some relic of the first innocence and - of the gentleness (_douceur_) for which we were formed. Now to - get food we have to shed blood in spite of the horror which it - naturally inspires in us; and all the refinements of which we avail - ourselves, in covering our tables, hardly suffice to disguise - for us the bloody corpses which we have to devour to support - life. But this is but the least part of our misery. Life, already - shortened, is still further abridged by the savage violences which - are introduced into the life of the human species. Man, whom in - the first ages we have seen spare the life of other animals, - is accustomed henceforward to spare the life not even of his - fellow-men. It is in vain that God forbade, immediately after the - Deluge, the shedding of human blood; in vain, in order to save some - vestiges of the first mildness of our nature, while permitting the - feeding on flesh did he prohibit consumption of the blood. Human - murders multiplied beyond all calculation.” - -Bossuet, a few pages later, arrives at the necessary and natural -consequence of the murder of other animals, when he records that “the -brutalised human race could no longer rise to the true contemplation of -intellectual things.”[134] - - - - -XVII. - -BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE. 1670-1733. - - -The most paradoxical of moralists, born at Dort, in Holland. He was -brought up to the profession of medicine, and took the degree of M.D. -He afterwards settled and practised in London. - -It was in 1714 that he published his short poem called _The Grumbling -Hive: or, Knaves Turned Honest_, to which he afterwards added long -explanatory notes, and then republished the whole under the new and -celebrated title of _The Fable of the Bees_. This work “which, however -erroneous may be its views of morals and of society, is written in a -proper style, and bears all the marks of an honest and sincere inquiry -on an important subject, exposed its author to much obloquy, and met -with answers and attacks.... It would appear that some of the hostility -against this work, and against Mandeville generally, is to be traced to -another publication, recommending the public licensing of ‘stews,’ the -matter and manner of which are certainly exceptionable, though, at the -same time, it must be stated that Mandeville earnestly and with seeming -sincerity commends his plan as a means of diminishing immorality, and -that he endeavoured, so far as lay in his power, by affixing a high -price and in other ways, to prevent the work from having a general -circulation.” In fact, Mandeville is one of those injudicious but -well-meaning reformers who, by their propensity to perverse paradox, -have injured at once their reputation and their usefulness for after -times. - -A second part of _The Fable_ appeared at a later period. Amongst other -numerous writings were two entitled, _Free Thoughts on Religion, the -Church, and National Happiness_, and _An Enquiry into the Origin of -Honour_, and the _Usefulness of Christianity in War_. He appears to -have been enabled to pursue his literary career in great measure by the -liberality of his Dutch friends, and he was a constant guest of the -first Earl of Macclesfield. “_The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices -Public Benefits_ may be received in two ways,” says the writer in the -_Penny Cyclopædia_, whom we have already quoted, “as a satire on men, -and as a theory of society and national prosperity. So far as it is a -satire, it is sufficiently just and pleasant, but received in its more -ambitious character of a theory of society, it is altogether worthless. -It is Mandeville’s object to show that national greatness depends on -the prevalence of fraud and luxury; and for this purpose he supposes -‘a vast hive of bees’ possessing in all respects institutions similar -to those of men; he details the various frauds, similar to those among -men, practised by bees one upon another in various professions.... -His hive of bees having thus become wealthy and great, he afterwards -supposes a mutual jealousy of frauds to arise, and Fraud to be, by -common consent, dismissed; and he again assumes that wealth and luxury -immediately disappear, and that the greatness of the society is gone.” -For our part, in place of “greatness,” we should have rather written -_misery_, as far as concerns the mass of communities. - -Strange, as it may appear, that views of this kind should be seriously -put forth, “it is yet more so that they should come from one whose -object always was, however strange the way in which he set about it, to -promote good morals, for there is nothing in Mandeville’s writings to -warrant the belief that he sought to encourage vice.”[135] - -Mandeville, like Swift, in the piece entitled _An Argument against -Abolishing Christianity_; or like De Foe, in his _Shortest Way with the -Dissenters_, which were taken _au sérieux_ almost universally at the -time of their appearance, may have used the style of grave irony, so -far as the larger portion of his Fable is concerned, for the purpose of -making a stronger impression on the public conscience. If such were his -purpose, the irony is so profound that it has missed its aim. Yet that -his purpose was true and earnest is sufficiently evident in his opinion -of the practice of slaughtering for food:-- - - “I have often thought [writes Mandeville] if it was not for the - tyranny which Custom usurps over us, that men of any tolerable - good nature could never be reconciled to the killing of so many - animals for their daily food, so long as the bountiful Earth so - plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties. I - know that Reason excites our compassion but faintly, and therefore - I do not wonder how men should so little commiserate such imperfect - creatures as cray-fish, oysters, cockles, and, indeed, all fish in - general, as they are mute, and their inward formation, as well as - outward figure, vastly different from ours: they express themselves - unintelligently to us, and therefore ’tis not strange that their - grief should not affect our understanding which it cannot reach; - for nothing stirs us to pity so effectually as when the symptoms of - misery strike immediately upon our senses, and I have seen people - moved at the noise a live lobster makes upon the spit who could - have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure. - - “But in such perfect animals as Sheep and Oxen, in whom the heart, - the brain, and the nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom - the separation of the spirits from the blood, the organs of sense, - and, consequently, feeling itself, are the same as they are in - human creatures, I cannot imagine how a man not hardened in blood - and massacre, is able to see a violent death, and the pangs of it, - without concern. - - “In answer to this [he continues], most people will think it - sufficient to say that things being allowed to be made for the - service of man, there can be no cruelty in putting creatures to the - use they were designed for,[136] but I have heard men make this - reply, while the nature within them has reproached them with the - falsehood of the assertion. - - “There is of all the multitude not one man in ten but will own - (if he has not been brought up in a slaughter-house) that of all - trades he could never have been a _butcher_; and I question whether - ever anybody so much as killed a chicken without reluctancy the - first time. Some people are not to be persuaded to taste of any - creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with while they - were alive; others extend their scruples no further than to their - own poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of - themselves; yet all of them feed heartily and without remorse on - beef, mutton, and fowls when they are bought in the market. In this - behaviour, methinks, there appears something like a _consciousness - of guilt_; it looks as if they endeavoured to save themselves from - the imputation of a crime (which they know sticks somewhere) by - removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves; and I - discover in it some strong marks of primitive pity and innocence, - which all the arbitrary power of Custom, and the violence of - Luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.”[137] - - - - -XVIII. - -GAY. 1688-1732. - - -The intimate friend of Pope and Swift is best known by his charming -and instructive _Fables_. He was born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, -and belonged to the old family of the Le Gays of that county. His -father, reduced in means, apprenticed him to a silk mercer in the -Strand, London, in whose employment he did not long remain. The first -of his poems, _Rural Sports_, appeared in 1711. In the following year -he became secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and he served for a -short time as secretary to the English embassy in Hanover. His next -work was his _Shepherd’s Week, in Six Pastorals_, in which he ridicules -the sentimentality of the “pastorals” of his own and preceding age. It -contains much naturalness as well as humour, and it was the precursor -of Crabbe’s rural sketches. In 1726 he published the most successful of -his works, the _Beggars’ Opera_--the idea of which had been suggested -to him by the Dean of St. Patrick’s. It was received with unbounded -applause, and it originated the (so-called) English opera, which for a -time supplanted the Italian. - -The _Fables_ first appeared in 1726. They were supplemented afterwards -by others, and the volume was dedicated to the young Duke of -Cumberland, famous in after years by his suppression of the Highland -rising of 1745. Gay’s death, which happened suddenly, called forth the -sincere laments of his devoted friends Swift and Pope. The former, in -his letters, frequently refers to his loss with deep feeling; and Pope -has characterised him as-- - - “Of manners gentle, of affections mild-- - In wit a man, simplicity a child.” - -Of his _Fables_--the best in the language--one of the most interesting -is the well-known _Hare and Many Friends_, in which he seems to record -some of his own experiences. _The Court of Death_, suggested probably -by Milton’s fine passage in the _Paradise Lost_, is one of his most -forcible. When the principal Diseases have severally advanced their -claims to pre-eminence, Death calls upon _Intemperance_:-- - - “All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand. - Now expectation hushed the band, - When thus the monarch from the throne: - Merit was ever modest known-- - What! no physician speak his right! - None here? But fees their toils requite. - Let then Intemperance take the wand, - Who fills with gold their jealous hand. - You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest - (Whom wary men as foes detest) - Forego your claim. No more pretend-- - Intemperance is esteemed a friend. - He shares their mirth, their social joys, - And as a courted guest destroys. - The charge on him must justly fall - Who finds employment for you all.” - -It is in the following fable that Gay especially satirises the -sanguinary diet:-- - - “Pythagoras rose at early dawn, - By soaring meditation drawn; - To breathe the fragrance of the day, - Through flow’ry fields he took his way. - In musing contemplation warm, - His steps misled him to a farm: - Where, on the ladder’s topmost round, - A peasant stood. The hammer’s sound - Shook the weak barn. ‘Say, friend, what care - Calls for thy honest labour there?’ - - “The clown, with surly voice, replies: - ‘Vengeance aloud for justice cries. - This kite, by daily rapine fed, - My hens’ annoy, my turkeys’ dread, - At length his forfeit life hath paid. - See on the wall his wings displayed, - Here nailed, a terror to his kind. - My fowls shall future safety find, - My yard the thriving poultry feed, - And my barn’s refuse fat the breed.’ - - “‘Friend,’ says the Sage, ‘the doom is wise-- - For public good the murderer dies. - But if these tyrants of the air - Demand a sentence so severe, - _Think how the glutton, man, devours; - What bloody feasts regale his hours! - O impudence of Power and Might!_ - Thus to condemn a hawk or kite, - When thou, perhaps, carnivorous sinner, - Had’st pullets yesterday for dinner.’ - - “‘Hold!’ cried the clown, with passion heated, - ‘Shall kites and men alike be treated? - When heaven the world with creatures stored, - Man was ordained their sovereign lord.’ - ‘Thus tyrants boast,’ the Sage replied, - ‘Whose murders spring from power and pride. - Own then this man-like kite is slain - _Thy greater luxury to sustain_-- - For petty rogues submit to fate - That great ones may enjoy their state.’”[138] - -This is not the only apologue in which the rhyming moralist exposes -at once the inconsistency and the injustice of the human animal who, -himself choosing to live by slaughter, yet hypocritically stigmatises -with the epithets “cruel” and “bloodthirsty” those animals whom Nature -has evidently _designed_ to be predaceous. In _The Shepherd’s Dog and -the Wolf_ he represents the former upbraiding the ravisher of the -sheepfolds for attacking “a weak, defenceless kind”:-- - - “‘Friend,’ says the Wolf, ‘the matter weigh: - Nature designed _us_ beasts of prey. - As such, when hunger finds a treat, - ’Tis necessary wolves should eat. - If, mindful of the bleating weal, - Thy bosom burn with real zeal, - Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech-- - To _him_ repeat thy moving speech. - A wolf eats sheep but now and then-- - _Ten thousands are devoured by men_! - An open foe may prove a curse, - But a pretended friend is worse.’” - -In _The Philosopher and the Pheasants_ the same truth is conveyed with -equal force:-- - - “Drawn by the music of the groves, - Along the winding gloom he roves. - From tree to tree the warbling throats - Prolong the sweet, alternate notes. - But where he passed he terror threw; - The song broke short--the warblers flew: - The thrushes chattered with affright, - And nightingales abhorred his sight. - All animals before him ran, - To shun the hateful sight of man. - ‘Whence is this dread of every creature? - Fly they our figure or our nature?’ - As thus he walked, in musing thought, - His ear imperfect accents caught. - With cautious step, he nearer drew, - By the thick shade concealed from view. - High on the branch a Pheasant stood, - Around her all her listening brood: - Proud of the blessings of her nest, - She thus a mother’s care expressed:-- - ‘No dangers here shall circumvent; - Within the woods enjoy content. - Sooner the hawk or vulture trust - Than man, of animals the worst. - In him ingratitude you find-- - A vice peculiar to the kind. - The Sheep, whose annual fleece is dyed - To guard his health and serve his pride, - Forced from his fold and native plain, - Is in the cruel shambles slain. - The swarms who, with industrious skill, - His hives with wax and honey fill, - In vain whole summer days employed-- - Their stores are sold, their race destroyed. - What tribute from the Goose is paid? - Does not her wing all science aid? - Does it not lovers’ hearts explain, - And drudge to raise the merchant’s gain? - What now rewards this general use? - He takes the quills and eats the Goose!’” - - * * * * * - - -In another parable Gay, in some sort, gives the victims of the Shambles -their revenge:-- - - “Against an elm a Sheep was tied: - The butcher’s knife in blood was dyed-- - The patient flock, in silent fright, - From far beheld the horrid sight. - A savage Boar, who near them stood, - Thus mocked to scorn the fleecy brood:-- - ‘All cowards should be served like you. - See, see, your murderer is in view: - With purple hands and reeking knife, - He strips the skin yet warm with life. - Your quartered sires, your bleeding dams, - The dying bleat of harmless lambs, - Call for revenge. O stupid race! - The heart that wants revenge is base.’ - ‘I grant,’ an ancient Ram replies, - ‘We bear no terror in our eyes. - Yet think us not of soul so tame, - Which no repeated wrongs inflame-- - Insensible of every ill, - Because we want thy tusks to kill-- - Know, _those who violence pursue - Give to themselves the vengeance due_, - For in these massacres they find - The two chief plagues that waste mankind-- - Our skin supplies the wrangling bar: - It wakes their slumbering sons to war. - And well Revenge may rest contented, - Since drums and parchment were invented.’”[139] - - - - -XIX. - -CHEYNE. 1671-1743. - - -One of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first -medical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of -the reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied -medicine at Edinburgh--then and still a principal school of medicine -and surgery--where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of -thirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, -and took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis. - -The manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of -the last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not -only personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually -led him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of -“good living;” for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the -foundation of his practice. Cheyne’s early habits of temperance thus -gave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he -contracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous -weight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy -combined to enfeeble and depress him. - -His first appearance in literature was the publication of his _New -Theory of Fevers_, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old -master Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of -epidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained, -though in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall -into oblivion. The Mechanical or _Iatro-Mathematical_ Theory, as it was -called, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished -expounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to -vital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical -School. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent -authority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The -natural desire to discover some definite and simple _formulæ_ of -medical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses. -Cheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all -vital processes can be explained on mechanical principles. - -In 1705 he published his _Philosophical Principles of Natural -Religion_, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since -it was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in -literature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the -penalty of his old habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches, -and depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point -in his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of -his kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation -in the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable -manners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which, -improved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his -scientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now, -however--not too soon--determined to abandon his _bon-vivantism_, and -speedily “even those who had shared the best part of my profusions,” -he tells us, “who, in their necessities had been relieved by my false -generosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now -entirely relinquish and abandon me.” He retired into solitude in the -country and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life, -set himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices -of ordinary living. - -At this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to -the smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished -flesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the -most temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to -have regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases -of nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and -which were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year -1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly -re-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen -which he had previously adopted. - -His next publication was _An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters_ (1720), -which passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the -vegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings. -His relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former -maladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or -twelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last -reached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his -condition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for -London, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably -renewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of -living. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the -milk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he -afterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors. - -In the preceding year had appeared his first important and original -work--his well-known _Essay of Health and a Long Life_. In the preface -he declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly -persons who - - “are able and willing to abstain from everything hurtful, and to - deny themselves anything their appetites craved, to conform to - any rules for a tolerable degree of health, ease, and freedom - of spirits. It is for these, and these only,” he proceeds, “the - following treatise is designed. The robust, the luxurious, the - pot-companions, &c., have here no business; their time is not yet - come.” - -It is generally acknowledged to be one of the best books on the -subject. Haller pronounced it to be “the best of all the works bearing -upon the health of sedentary persons and invalids.” It went through -several editions in the space of two years, and in 1726 was enlarged by -the author and translated by his friend and pupil John Robertson M.A. -into Latin, and three or four editions were quickly exhausted in France -and Germany. In this book, while reducing flesh-meat to a _minimum_, -and insisting upon the necessity of abstinence from grosser food and of -the use of vegetables only, at the morning and evening meals, he had -not advanced as yet so far as to preach the truth in its entirety. He -arrived at it only by slow and gradual conviction. Expatiating on the -follies and miseries of _bon-vivantism_, he proceeds to affirm that-- - - “All those who have lived long, and without much pain, have lived - abstemiously, poor, and meagre. Cornaro prolonged his life and - preserved his senses by almost starving in his latter days; and - some others have done the like. They have, indeed, thereby, in some - measure, weakened their natural strength and qualified the fire - and flux of their spirits, but they have preserved their senses, - weakened their pains, prolonged their days, and procured themselves - a gentle and quiet passage into another state.... All the rest - will be insufficient without this [a frugal diet]; and this alone, - without these [medicines, &c.], will suffice to carry on life as - long as by its natural flame it was made to last, and will make the - passage easy and calm, as a taper goes out for want of fuel.” - -While the _Essay of Health_ added greatly to his reputation with all -thinking people, it also exposed him (as was to be expected) to a storm -of small wit, ridicule, and misrepresentation:-- - - “Some good-natured and ingenious retainers to the Profession,” he - tells us, “on the publication of my book on _Long Life and Health_, - proclaimed everywhere that I was turned mere enthusiast, advised - people to turn monks, to run into deserts, and to live on roots, - herbs, and wild fruits! in fine, that I was, at bottom, a mere - leveller, and for destroying order, ranks, and property, everyone’s - but my own. But that sneer had its day, and vanished into smoke. - Others swore that I had eaten my book, recanted my _doctrine_ and - _system_ (as they were pleased to term it), and was returned again - to the devil, the world, and the flesh. This joke I have also - stood. I have been slain again and again, both in prose and verse; - but, I thank God, I am still alive and well.” - -His next publication was his _English Malady: or, a Treatise of Nervous -Diseases of all kinds_, which was also well received, going through -four editions in two years. The incessant ridicule with which the -_gourmands_ had assailed his last work seems to have made him cautious -in his next attempt to revolutionise dietetics; and he is careful to -advertise the public that his milk and vegetable system was for those -in weak health only. Denouncing the use of sauces and provocatives -of unnatural appetite, “contrived not only to rouse a sickly stomach -to receive the unnatural load, but to render a naturally good one -incapable of knowing when it has enough,” he asks, “Is it any wonder -then that the diseases which proceed from idleness and fulness of meat -should increase in proportion?” He is bold enough by this time to -affirm that, for the cure of many diseases, an entire abstinence from -flesh is indisputably necessary:-- - - “There are some cases wherein a vegetable and milk diet seems - absolutely necessary, as in severe and habitual gouts, rheumatisms, - cancerous, leprous, and scrofulous disorders; extreme nervous - colics, epilepsies, violent hysteric fits, melancholy, consumptions - (and the like disorders, mentioned in the preface), and towards the - last stages of all chronic distempers. In such distempers _I have - seldom seen such a diet fail of a good effect at last_.” - -Six years later, in 1740, appeared his _Essay on Regimen: together -with Five Discourses Medical Moral and Philosophical, &c._ Since his -last exhortation to the world Cheyne had evidently convinced himself, -by long experience as well as reflection, of the great superiority of -the vegetable diet for all--sound as well as sick; and, accordingly, -he speaks in strong and clear language of the importance of a general -reform. As a consequence of this plain speaking, his new book met with -a comparatively cold reception. Perhaps, too, its mathematical and -somewhat abstruse tone may have affected its popularity. As regards its -moral tone it was a new revelation, doubtless, for the vast majority of -his readers. He boldly asserts:-- - - “The question I design to treat of here is, whether animal or - vegetable food was, in the original design of the Creator, intended - for the food of animals, and particularly of the human race. And I - am almost convinced it _never was intended, but only permitted as - a curse or punishment_.... At what time animal [flesh] food came - first in use is not certainly known. He was a bold man who made the - first experiment. - - _Illi robur et æs triplex - Circa pectus erat._ - - To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor - fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to - gratify luxury, and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a - rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot - find any great difference, _on the foot of natural reason and - equity only, between feeding on human flesh and feeding on brute - animal flesh, except custom and example_. - - I believe some [more] rational creatures would suffer less in being - fairly butchered than a strong Ox or red Deer; and, in natural - morality and justice, the _degrees of pain_ here make the essential - difference, for as to other differences, _they are relative only_, - and can be of no influence with an infinitely perfect Being. Did - not use and example weaken this lesson, and make the difference, - reason alone could never do it.”--_Essay on Regimen, &c._ 8vo. - 1740. Pages 54 and 70. - -Noble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member -of a profession--which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical, -in opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr. -Cheyne’s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger -than in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of -his health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through -his writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen -years to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation -and success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by -whom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst -his intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like -himself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the -bedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot -and Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence -in favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his -_Author’s Case_, written towards the end of his life:-- - - “My regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee, bread and - butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with - tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short, - _everything that has not life_, dressed or not, as I like it, _in - which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods_, - so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any - fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid, - moist, or juicy.[141] Only after dinner I drink either coffee - or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a - glass of soft, small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more - cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder, - though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal - diet; but then I am more alive than ever I was. As soon as I wake I - get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.” - -As for the effect of this regimen, he tells us that “since that -time [his last lapse] I thank God I have gone on in one constant -tenor of diet, and enjoy as good health as, at my time of life -(being now sixty), I or any man can reasonably expect.” When we -remember the complicity of maladies of which he had been the victim -during his adhesion to the orthodox mode of living, such experience -is sufficiently significant. Some ten years later he records his -experiences as follows:-- - - “It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered - upon a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, - this light food I took as my appetite directed, without any - measures, and found myself easy under it. After some time, I found - it became necessary to lessen this quantity, and I have latterly - reduced it to one-half, at most, of what I at first seemed to - bear; and if it should please God to spare me a few years longer, - in order to preserve, in that case, that freedom and clearness - which by his presence I now enjoy, I shall probably find myself - obliged to deny myself one-half of my present daily sustenance, - which, precisely, is three Winchester pints of new milk, and six - ounces of biscuit, made without salt or yeast, baked in a quick - oven.”[142]--[_Natural Method of Curing Diseases_, &c., page 298; - see also Preface to _Essay on Regimen_]. - -The last production of Dr. Cheyne was his “_Natural Method of Curing -the Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending -on the Body_. In three parts. Part I.--General Reflections on the -Economy of Nature in Animal Life. Part II.--The Means and Methods for -Preserving Life and Faculties; and also Concerning the Nature and Cure -of Acute, Contagious, and Cephalic Disorders. Part III.--Reflections -on the Nature and Cure of Particular Chronic Distempers. 8vo. Strahan, -London, 1742.” It is dedicated to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who -records his grateful recognition of the benefits he had experienced -from his methods. He writes: “I read with great pleasure your book, -which your bookseller sent me according to your direction. The physical -part is extremely good, and the metaphysical part _may be_ so too, for -what I know, and I believe it is, for as I look upon all metaphysics -to be guess work of imagination, I know no imagination likelier to hit -upon the right than yours, and I will take your guess against any other -metaphysician’s whatsoever. That part which is founded upon knowledge -and experience I look upon as a work of public utility, and for which -the present age and their posterity may be obliged to you, if they will -be pleased to follow it.” Lord Chesterfield, it will be seen below, -was one of those more refined minds whose better conscience revolted -from, even if they had not the courage or self-control to renounce, the -Slaughter House. - -The _Natural Method_ its author considers as a kind of supplement -to his last book, containing “the practical inferences, and the -conclusions drawn from [its principles], in particular cases and -diseases, confirmed by forty years’ experience and observation.” -It is the most practical of all his works, and is full of valuable -observations. Very just and useful is his rebuke of that sort of -John-Bullism which affects to hold “good living” not only as harmless -but even as a sort of merit-- - - “How it may be in other countries and religions I will not say, but - among us good Protestants, abstinence, temperance, and moderation - (at least in eating), are so far from being thought a virtue, and - their contrary a vice, that it would seem that not eating the - fattest and most delicious, and _to the top_, were the only vice - and disease known among us--against which our parents, relatives, - friends, and physicians exclaim with great vehemence and zeal. And - yet, if we consider the matter attentively we shall find there is - no such danger in abstinence as we imagine, but, on the contrary, - the greatest abstinence and moderation nature and its external laws - will suffer us to go into and practise for any time, will neither - endanger our health, nor weaken our just thinking, be it ever so - unlimited or unrestrained.... And it is a wise providence that - Lent time falls out at that season which, if kept according to its - original intention, in seeds and vegetables well dressed and not in - rich high-dressed fish, would go a great way to preserve the health - of the people in general, as well as dispose them to seriousness - and reflection--so true it is that ‘godliness has the promise of - this life, and of that which is to come,’ and it is very observable - that in all civil and established religious worships hitherto - known among polished nations Lents, days of abstinence, seasons of - fasting and bringing down the brutal part of the rational being, - have had a large share, and been reckoned an indispensable part - of their worship and duty, except among a wrong-headed part of - our Reformation, where it has been despised and ridiculed into a - total neglect. And yet it seems not only natural and convenient for - health, but strongly commended both in the Old and New Testament, - and might allow time and proper disposition for more serious and - weighty purposes. And this ‘Lent,’ or times of abstinence, is one - reason of the cheerfulness or serenity of some Roman Catholic - or Southern countries, which would be still more healthy and - long-lived were it not for their excessive use of aromatics and - opiates, which are the worst kind of dry drams, and the cause of - their unnatural and unbridled lechery and shortness of life.” - -Denouncing the general practice of the Profession of encouraging their -patients in indulging vitiated habits and tastes, he reminds them:-- - - “That such physicians do not consider that they are accountable - to the community, to their patients, to their conscience, and to - their Maker, for every hour and moment they shorten and cut off - their patients’ lives _by their immoral and murderous indulgence_: - and the patients do not duly ponder that suicide (which this is - in effect) is the most mortal and irremissible of all sins, and - neither have sufficiently weighed the possibility that the patient, - if not quickly cut off by both these preposterous means, may linger - out miserably, and be twenty or thirty years a-dying, under these - heart and wheel-breaking miseries thus exasperated; whereas, by the - methods I propose, if they obtain not in time a perfect cure, yet - they certainly lessen their pain, lengthen their days, and continue - under the benign influence of ‘the Sun of Righteousness, who has - healing in His wings,’ and, at worst, soften and lighten the - anguish of their dissolution, as far as the nature of things will - admit.” - -Not the least useful and instructive portions of his treatise are his -references to the proper regimen for mental diseases and disordered -brains, which, he reasonably infers, are best treated by the adoption -of a light and pure dietary. He despairs, however, of the general -recognition, or at least adoption, of so rational a method by the -“faculty” or the public at large, - - “Who do not consider that _nine parts in ten_ of the whole mass - of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet (of farinacea, - fruits, &c.), or pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of - their senses, limbs, and faculties, without diseases or with but - few, and those from accidents or epidemical causes; and that there - have been nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who voluntarily - confine themselves to vegetables only, ... and that there are whole - villages in this kingdom whose inhabitants scarce eat animal food - or drink fermented liquors a dozen times a year.” - -In regard to all nervous and brain diseases, he insists that the -reformed diet would - - “Greatly alleviate and render tolerable original distempers derived - from diseased parents, and that it is absolutely necessary for the - deep-thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties - ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of life; - and that it is the true and real antidote and preservative from - wrong-headedness, irregular and disorderly intellect and functions, - from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and senses, as far - as the ends of Providence and the condition of mortality will - allow.”--(_Nat. Method_, page 90.) - -This benevolent and beneficent dietetic reformer, according to the -testimony of an eye-witness, exemplified by his death the value of -his principles--relinquishing his last breath easily and tranquilly, -while his senses remained entire to the end. During his last illness -he was attended by the famous David Hartley, noticed below. He was -buried at Weston, near Bath. His character is sufficiently seen in his -writings which, if they contain some metaphysical or other ideas which -our reason cannot always endorse, in their _practical_ teaching prove -him to have been actuated by a true and earnest desire for the best -interests of his fellow-men. One of the merits of Cheyne’s writings is -his discarding the common orthodox _esoteric_ style of his profession, -who seem jealously to exclude all but the “initiated” from their sacred -mysteries. One of his biographers has remarked upon this point that -“there is another peculiarity about most of Dr. Cheyne’s writings -which is worthy of notice. Although there are many passages that are -quite unintelligible to the reader unless he possesses a considerable -knowledge, not only of medicine but also of mathematics, yet there -is no doubt but that the greater part of his works were intended for -popular perusal, and in this undertaking he is one of the few medical -writers who have been completely successful. His productions, which -were much read and had an extensive influence in their day, procured -him a considerable degree of reputation, not only with the public, but -also with the members of his own profession. If they present to the -reader no great discoveries (?) they possess the merit of putting more -prominently forward some useful but neglected truths; and though now, -probably, but little read, they contain much matter that is well worth -studying, and have obtained for their author a respectable place in the -history of medical literature.”[143] - -Our notice of the author of the _Essay on Regimen_, &c., would -scarcely be complete without some reference to his friendship with -two distinguished characters--John Wesley and Samuel Richardson,[144] -the author of _Pamela_. It was to Dr. Cheyne that Wesley, as he tells -us in his journals, was indebted for his conversion to those dietetic -principles to which he attributes, in great measure, the invigoration -of his naturally feeble constitution, and which enabled him to undergo -an amount of fatigue and toil, both mentally and bodily, seldom or -never surpassed. Of Cheyne’s friendship for Richardson there are -several memorials preserved in his familiar letters to that popular -writer; and his free and naïve criticisms of his novels are not a -little amusing. The novelist, it seems, was one of his patients, -and that he was not always a satisfactory one, under the abstemious -regimen, appears occasionally from the remonstrances of his adviser. - - - - -XX. - -POPE. 1688-1744. - - -The most epigrammatic, and one of the most elegant, of poets. He was -also one of the most precocious. His first production of importance -was his _Essay on Criticism_, written at the age of twenty-one, -although not published until two years later. But he had composed, we -are assured, several verses of an Epic at the age of twelve; and his -_Pastorals_ was given to the world by a youth of sixteen. Its division -into the Four Seasons is said to have suggested to Thomson the title of -his great poem. The MS. passed through the hands of some distinguished -persons, who loudly proclaimed the merits of the boy-poet. - -In the same year with his fine mock-heroic _Rape of the Lock_ (1712) -appeared _The Messiah_, in imitation of Isaiah and of Virgil (in his -well-known _Eclogue_ IV.), both of whom celebrate, in similar strains, -the advent of a “golden age” to be. The “Sybilline” prophecy, which -Pope supposes the Latin poet to have read, existed, it need scarcely -be added, only in the imagination of himself and of the authorities on -whom he relied. _Windsor Forest_ (1713) deserves special notice as one -of the earliest of that class of poems which derive their inspiration -directly from Nature. It was the precursor of _The Seasons_, although -the anti-barbarous feeling is less pronounced in the former. We find, -however, the germs of that higher feeling which appears more developed -in the _Essay on Man_; and the following verses, descriptive of the -usual “sporting” scenes, are significant:-- - - “See! from the brake the whirring Pheasant springs, - And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: - Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, - Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. - Ah, what avail his glossy, varying dyes, - His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes-- - The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, - His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold? - - * * * * * - - To plains with well-breathed beagles they repair, - And trace the mazes of the circling Hare. - Beasts, urged by us, their fellow-beasts pursue, - And learn of man each other to undo. - With slaughtering guns the unwearied fowler roves, - When frosts have whitened all the naked groves, - Where Doves, in flocks, the leafless trees o’ershade, - And lonely Woodcocks haunt the watery glade-- - He lifts the tube, and level with his eye, - Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky. - Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, - The clamorous Lapwings feel the leaden death: - Oft, as the mounting Larks their notes prepare, - They fall and leave their little lives in air.” - -His _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_ (a romantic version of a very -realistic story), _Temple of Fame_, _Imitations of Chaucer_, -translation of the _Iliad_ (1713-1720)--characterised by Gibbon as -having “every merit but that of likeness to its original”--an edition -of Shakspere, _The Dunciad_ (1728), translation of the _Odyssey_, are -some of the works which attest his genius and industry. But it is with -his _Moral Essays_--and in particular the _Essay on Man_ (1732-1735), -the most important of his productions--that we are especially concerned. - -As is pretty well known, these _Essays_ owe their conception, in great -part, to his intimate friend St. John Bolingbroke. Although the author -by birth and, perhaps, still more from a feeling of pride which might -make him reluctant to abandon an unfashionable sect (such it was at -that time), belonged nominally to the Old Church, the theology and -metaphysics of the work display little of ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The -pervading principles of the _Essay on Man_ are natural theology or, -as Warburton styles it, “Naturalism” (_i.e._, the putting aside human -assertion for the study of the attributes of Deity through its visible -manifestations) and Optimism.[145] - -The merits of the _Essay_, it must be added, consist not so much in the -philosophy of the poem as a whole as in the many fine and true thoughts -scattered throughout it, which the author’s epigrammatic terseness -indelibly fixes in the mind. Of the whole poem the most valuable -part, undoubtedly, is its ridicule of the common arrogant (pretended) -belief that all other species on the earth have been brought into -being for the benefit of the human race--an egregious fallacy, by the -way, which, ably exposed as it has been over and over again, still -frequently reappears in our popular theology and morals. To the writers -and talkers of this too numerous class may be commended the rebukes of -Pope:-- - - “Nothing is foreign--parts relate to whole: - One all-extending, all-preserving soul - Connects each being, greatest with the least-- - Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast: - All served, all serving--nothing stands alone. - - * * * * * - - Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good, - Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? - - * * * * * - - Is it for thee the Lark ascends and sings? - Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. - Is it for thee the Linnet pours his throat? - Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. - The bounding Steed you pompously bestride - Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. - - * * * * * - - Know Nature’s children all divide her care, - The fur that warms a monarch warmed a Bear. - While Man exclaims, ‘See all things for my use!’ - ‘See Man for mine!’ replies a pampered Goose. - And just as short of reason he must fall, - Who thinks _all made for one, not one for all_.” - -He then paints the picture of the “Times of Innocence” of the Past, or -rather (as we must take it) of the Future:-- - - “_No murder clothed him, and no murder fed._ - In the same temple--the resounding wood-- - All vocal beings hymned their equal God. - The shrine, with gore unstained, with gold undrest, - Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest. - Heaven’s attribute was universal care, - And man’s prerogative to rule but spare. - Ah, how unlike the man of times to come-- - _Of half that live the butcher and the tomb_! - Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan, - Murders their species, and betrays his own. - But just disease to luxury succeeds, - And every death its own avenger breeds: - The fury-passions from that blood began, - And turned on man a fiercer savage, man.” - -Again, depicting the growth of despotism and superstition, and -speculating as to-- - - “Who first taught souls enslaved and realms undone - The enormous faith of Many made for One?” - -he traces the gradual horrors of sacrifice beginning with other, and -culminating in that of the human, species:-- - - “She [Superstition] from the rending earth and bursting skies - Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise: - Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest, abodes-- - Fear made her devils and weak Hope her gods-- - Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, - Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust-- - Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, - And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe. - - * * * * * - - Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore; - _Then first the Flamen tasted living food, - Next his grim idol smeared with human blood_. - With Heaven’s own thunders shook the earth below, - And played the God an engine on his foe.” - -Whenever occasion arises, Pope fails not to stigmatise the barbarity of -slaughtering for food; and the _sæva indignatio_ urges him to upbraid -his fellows with the slaughter of-- - - “The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed, - - * * * * * - - Who licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.” - -And, again, he expresses his detestation of the selfishness of our -species who-- - - “Destroy all creatures for their sport or gust.” - -That all this was no mere affectation of feeling appears from his -correspondence and contributions to the periodicals of the time:-- - - “I cannot think it extravagant,” he writes, “to imagine that - mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use - of their dominion over the lower ranks of beings, than for the - exercise of tyranny over their own species. The more entirely the - inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable - we must be for our mismanagement of them; and the rather, as the - very condition of Nature renders them incapable of receiving any - recompense in another life for ill-treatment in this.”[146] - -Consistently with the expression of this true philosophy, he declares -elsewhere that-- - - “Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens - sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring - victims, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up - here and there. It gives one the image of a giant’s den in romance, - bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs.”[147] - -The personal character of Pope, we may add, has of late been subjected -to minute and searching criticism. Some meannesses, springing from an -extreme anxiety for fame with after ages, have undoubtedly tarnished -his reputation for candour. His excessive animosity towards his public -or private enemies may be palliated in part, if not excused, by his -well-known feebleness of health and consequent mental irritability. -For the rest, he was capable of the most sincere and disinterested -attachments; and not his least merit, in literature, is that in an age -of servile authorship he cultivated literature not for place or pay, -but for its own sake. - - * * * * * - -Amongst Pope’s intimate friends were Dr. Arbuthnot, Dean Swift, -and Gay. The first of these, best known as the joint author with -Pope and Swift of _Martinus Scriblerus_, a satire on the useless -pedantry prevalent in education and letters, and especially as the -author of the _History of John Bull_ (the original of that immortal -personification of beef, beer, and prejudice), published his _Essay -Concerning Aliments_, in which the vegetable diet is commended as a -preventive or cure of certain diseases, about the year 1730. Not the -least meritorious of his works was an epitaph on the notorious Colonel -Chartres--one of the few epitaphs which are attentive less to custom -than to truth, and, we may add, in marked contrast with that typical -one on his unhistorical contemporary Captain Blifil. - -In the _Travels of Lemuel Gulliver_ the reader will find the _sæva -indignatio_ of Swift--or, at all events, of the Houyhnhnms--amongst -other things, launched against the indiscriminating diet of his -countrymen:-- - - “I told him” [the Master-Horse], says Gulliver, “we fed on a - thousand things which operated contrary to each other--that we - eat when we are not hungry, and drink without the provocation of - thirst ... that it would be endless to give him a catalogue of all - diseases incident to human bodies, for they could not be fewer than - five or six hundred, spread over every limb and joint--in short, - every part, external and intestine, having diseases appropriated to - itself--to remedy which there was a sort of people bred up among us - in the profession or pretence of curing the sick.” - -Among the infinite variety of remedies and prescriptions, in the -human _Materia Medica_, the astounded Houyhnhnm learns, are reckoned -“serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men’s flesh and bones, birds, -beasts, fishes”--no mere travellers’ tales (it is perhaps necessary -to explain), but sober fact, as any one may discover for himself by -an examination of some of the received and popular medical treatises -of the seventeenth century, in which the most absurd “prescriptions,” -involving the most frightful cruelty, are recorded with all -seriousness:-- - - “My master, continuing his discourse, said there was nothing - that rendered the Yahoos more odious than their undistinguishing - appetite to devour everything that came in their way, whether - herbs, roots, berries, the _corrupted flesh of animals, or all - mingled together_; and that it was peculiar in their temper that - they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth at a - greater distance than much better food provided for them at home. - If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to - burst.” - -Although unaccustomed to the better living, and finding it “insipid at -first,” the human slave of the Houyhnhnm (a word which, by the way, in -that language, means “the perfection of nature”) records as the result -of his experience, in the first place, how little will sustain human -life; and, in the second place, the fact of the superior healthfulness -of the vegetable food.[148] - -About this period or a little earlier, Philippe Hecquet, a French -physician, published his _Traité des Dispenses du Carême_ (“Treatise -on Dispensations in Lent”), 1709, in which he gave in his adhesion -to the principles of Vegetarianism--at all events, so far as health -is concerned. He is mentioned by Voltaire, and is supposed to be the -original of the doctor Sangrado of Le Sage.[149] If this conjecture -have any truth, the author of _Gil Blas_ is open to the grave charge -of misrepresentation, of sacrificing truth to effect, or (what is still -worse and still more common) of pandering to popular prejudices.[150] - - - - -XXI. - -THOMSON. 1700-1748. - - -In the long and terrible series of the Ages the distinguishing glory of -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_: - - “Confess that thou hast had some trouble to prevent thyself from - laughing when I answered all thy civilities with my hat upon my - head and with thouing and thee-ing thee (_en te tutoyant_). Yet - thou seemest to me too well informed to be ignorant that, in - the time of Christ, no nation fell into the ridiculousness of - substituting the _plural_ for the singular. They used to say to - Cæsar-Augustus: ‘I love thee,’ ‘I pray thee,’ ‘I thank thee.’ He - would not allow himself to be called ‘Monsieur’ (_dominus_). It was - only a long time after him that men thought of causing themselves - to be addressed as _you_ in place of _thou_, as though they - were double, and of usurping impertinent titles of grandeur, of - eminence, of holiness, of divinity even, which earthworms give to - other earthworms, while assuring them with a profound respect (and - with an infamous falseness), they are their _very humble and very - obedient servants_. It is in order to be upon our guard against - this unworthy commerce of lies and of flatteries that we ‘thee’ and - ‘thou’ equally kings and kitchen-maids: that we give the ordinary - compliments to no one, having for men only charity, and reserving - our respect for the laws. We wear a dress a little different from - other men, in order that it may be for us a continual warning not - to resemble them. Others wear marks of their dignities, we those - of Christian humility. We never use _oaths_, not even in law - courts: we think that the name of the _Most High_ ought not to be - pronounced in the miserable debates of men. When we are forced to - appear before the magistrates on others’ business (for we never - have law suits ourselves), we affirm the truth by a ‘yes’ or a - ‘no,’ and the judges believe us upon our simple word, while so many - other Christians perjure themselves upon the _Gospel_. We never - go to war. It is not that we fear death, but it is because we are - neither tigers, nor wolves, nor dogs, but men, but Christians. Our - God, who has told us to love our enemies and to suffer without a - murmur, doubtless would not have us cross the sea to go and cut - the throats of our brothers, because assassins, clothed in red - and in hats of two feet high, enrol citizens to the accompaniment - of a noise produced by two little sticks upon the dried skin of - an ass. And when, after battles won, all London is brilliant with - illuminations, when the sky is in flames with musket shots, when - the air re-echoes with sounds of thanksgiving, with bells, with - organs, with cannons, we groan in silence over the murders which - cause the public light-heartedness.” (_Lettre II._) - -About this period, frequenting less the fashionable and trifling -society of the capital, and contenting himself with the company of a -few congenial minds, he formed amongst others a sympathetic friendship -with the Marquise de Châtelet, a lady of extraordinary talents. - - “I was tired [thus he begins his unfinished _Mémoires_], I was - tired of the lazy and noisy life led at Paris, of the multitude - of _petit-maîtres_, of bad books printed with the approbation - of censors and the privilege of the king, of the cabals and - parties among the learned, and of the mean arts of plagiarism and - book-making which dishonour Literature.” - -The lady was the equal of Madame Dacier in knowledge of the Greek -and Latin languages, and she was familiar with all the best modern -writers. She wrote a commentary on Leibnitz. She also translated the -_Principia_. Her favourite pursuits, however, were mathematics and -metaphysics. - - “She was none the less fond of the world and those amusements - familiar to her age and sex. She determined to leave them all and - bury herself in an old ruinous château on the borders of Champagne - and Lorraine, situated in a barren and unhealthy soil. This old - château she ornamented with sufficiently pretty gardens. I built - a gallery, and formed a very good collection of natural history, - added to which we had a library not badly furnished. We were - visited by several of the _savans_, who came to philosophise in our - retreat.... I taught English to Madame de Châtelet, who, in about - three months understood it as well as I did, and read Newton, and - Locke, and Pope, with equal ease. We read all the works of Tasso - and Ariosto together, so that when Algerotti came to Cirey, where - he finished his _Newtonianism for Women_, he found her sufficiently - skilful in his own language to give him some very excellent - information by which he profited.” - -Voltaire had already (1741) given to the world his _Elémens de -Newton_--a work which, in conjunction with other parts of his writings, -proves that had he chosen to apply himself wholly to natural philosophy -or to mathematics he might have reached the highest fame in those -departments of science. It is in the _Elémens_ that Voltaire records -his noble protest at the same time against the monstrous hypothesis of -Descartes, to which we have already referred, and against the selfish -cruelty of our species. - - “There is in man a disposition to compassion as generally diffused - as his other instincts. Newton had _cultivated_ this sentiment of - humanity, and he extended it to the lower animals. With Locke he - was strongly convinced that God has given to them a proportion - of ideas, and the same feelings which he has to us. He could not - believe that God, who has made nothing in vain, would have given to - them organs of feeling _in order that they might have no feeling_. - - “He thought it a very frightful inconsistency to believe that - animals feel and _at the same time to cause them to suffer_. On - this point his morality was in accord with his philosophy. _He - yielded but with repugnance to the barbarous custom of supporting - ourselves upon the blood and flesh of beings like ourselves_, whom - we caress, and he never permitted in his own house the putting them - to death by slow and exquisite [_recherchées_] modes of killing for - the sake of making the food more delicious. This compassion, which - he felt for other animals, culminated in true charity for men. In - truth, _without humanity, a virtue which comprehends all virtues_, - the name of philosopher would be little deserved.”[161] - -At Cirey some of his best tragedies were composed--_Alzire_, _Mérope_, -and _Mehemet_; the _Discours sur l’Homme_, a moral poem in the style of -Pope’s Essays, pronounced to be one of the finest monuments of French -poetry; an _Essay on Universal History_, (for his friend’s use, to -correct as well as supplement Bossuet’s splendid but little philosophic -history), the foundation of perhaps his most admirable production the -_Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_, and many lesser pieces, -including a large correspondence. Besides these literary works, he -engaged in mathematical and scientific studies, which resulted in some -_brochures_ of considerable value. - -About this time (1740) news arrived of the death of Friedrich Wilhelm -of Prussia. Most readers know the extraordinary character of this -strange personage, who caned the women and his clergy in the streets -of his capital, and who was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering -his son’s execution. Narrowly escaping with his life the prince had -devoted himself to literary pursuits, and had kept up a correspondence -with the leading men of letters of France, and above all with the -author of _Zaïre_ whom he regarded as little less than divine. The new -king set about inspecting his territories, and proceeded _incognito_ to -Brussels, where the first interview between the two future most eminent -persons in Europe took place. Repairing to his majesty’s quarters-- - - “One soldier was the only guard I found. The Privy-Councillor - and Minister of State was walking in the court-yard blowing his - fingers. He had on a large pair of coarse ruffles, a hat all - in holes, and a judge’s old wig, one side of which hung into - his pocket and the other scarcely touched his shoulder. They - informed me that this man was charged with a state affair of - great importance, and so indeed he was. I was conducted into his - majesty’s apartments, in which I found nothing but four bare walls. - By the light of a taper I perceived a small truckle-bed two feet - and a half wide in a closet, upon which lay a little man wrapped in - a morning dressing-gown of blue cloth. It was his majesty who lay - perspiring and shaking beneath a miserable coverlet in a violent - ague fit. I made my bow, and began my acquaintance by feeling his - pulse, as if I had been his first physician. The fit left him, and - he rose, dressed himself, and sat down to table with Algerotti, - Maupertuis, the ambassador of the States-general, and myself. At - supper he treated most profoundly of the soul, natural liberty, - and the _Androgynes_ of Plato. I soon found myself attached to - him, for he had wit, an agreeable manner, and moreover was a king, - which is a circumstance of seduction hardly to be vanquished by - human weakness. Generally speaking, it is the employment of men of - letters to flatter kings, but in this instance I was praised by - a king from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet at the - same time that I was libelled at least once a week by the Abbé - Desfontaines and other Grub-street poets of Paris.” - -Voltaire received a pressing invitation to Berlin. - - “But I had before given him to understand I could not come to stay - with him; that I deemed it a duty to prefer friendship to ambition; - that I was attached to Mdlle. de Châtelet, and that, between - philosophers, I loved a lady better than a king. He approved of the - liberty I took, though, for his part, he did not love the ladies. - I went to pay him a visit in October, and the Cardinal de Fleury - [the French premier] wrote me a long letter, full of praises of the - _Anti-Machiavel_, and of the author [Friedrich], which I did not - forget to let him see.” - -The French court wished to secure the alliance of Friedrich. No one -seemed a more fitting mediator than his early counsellor, who was -induced to accept the mission, and to set out for Berlin, where an -enthusiastic welcome awaited him, apartments in the palace being -placed at his disposal. Yet, in spite of the success of this and other -public services, his enemies in Paris remained in full possession of -the field. For the second time Voltaire sought admission into the -_Académie_--an empty honour, the granting or refusal of which could -neither add to nor detract from his fame. The prestige of that society, -however, he seemed to consider essential to his safety against the -increasing violence and formidable array of his enemies, who were bent -on crushing him, by whatever means. It was only by submitting to the -mortification of qualifying some of his opinions that he at length -succeeded in his object. Notwithstanding the address with which he -manages his language, it were better, as his biographer--the Marquis de -Condorcet--justly remarks, he had renounced the _Académie_ than have -had the weakness to submit to so evident a farce. - -On succeeding to a vacant chair it was customary, besides a eulogy -upon the deceased member, to speak in set terms of praise of Richelieu -and Louis XIV. This traditional and servile practice the new -Academician was the first to break through. Philosophy and literature -were treated of in unaccustomed strains of freedom, and his good -example has been influential on after generations. - - “I was deemed worthy [writes Voltaire] to be one of the forty - useless members of the _Académie_, was appointed historiographer of - France, and created by the king one of the gentlemen in ordinary - of his chamber. From this I concluded it was better, in order to - make the most trifling fortune, to speak four words to a king’s - mistress, than to write a hundred volumes.” - -A sort of experience he has finely illustrated in his romance of -_Zadig_. - -Stanislaus, the ex-king of Poland, was keeping his Court at Luneville, -not far from Cirey, where he divided his time between his mistress and -his confessor. To this royal retreat the friends of Cirey were invited, -and the whole of the year 1749 was passed there. Meanwhile Madame de -Châtelet died, and Voltaire, much affected by his loss, returned to -Paris. Friedrich redoubled his solicitation with new hope. - - “I was destined to run from king to king, although I loved liberty - to idolatry.... He was well assured that in reality his verse and - prose were superior to my verse and prose; though as to the former, - he thought there was a certain something that I, in quality of - academician, might give to his writings, and there was no kind of - flattery, no seduction, he did not employ to engage me to come.” - -The philosopher at length set out for Berlin, and his reception must -have reached his highest expectations. We have no intention to repeat -the account of this singular episode in his life, which has been -so often narrated. Evenings of the most agreeable kind, abundance -of wit, unrestrained conversation, the society of some of the most -distinguished men of science of the time, the unbounded adoration -of a royal host, eager, above all things, to retain so brilliant a -guest--such were the pleasures of this palace of Alcina, as he calls -it. But the imperious tempers of the two unequal friends soon proved -the impossibility of a lasting _entente_, and rivalries amongst the -literary courtiers hastened, if they did not effect, the final rupture. - -After his escape from Berlin Voltaire passed a few weeks with the -Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, “the best of princesses, full of gentleness, -discretion, and equanimity, and who, God be thanked, did not make -verses” (alluding to his late host’s proclivities), and some days with -the Landgrave of Hesse on his way to Frankfort. Literature had not -suffered during the life at Berlin. Finishing touches were put to many -of the tragedies--the _Âge de Louis XIV._ was completed, part of the -_Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_ written, _La Pucelle_ -(the least worthy of all his productions) corrected, and a poem, _Sur -la Loi Naturelle_, composed (a work of a far better inspiration than -the poem just mentioned, but which was publicly burned at Paris by the -misdirected zeal of the bigots). In a later poem on the destruction of -Lisbon, as well as in the romance of _Candide_, fired with indignation -at the hypocrisies and mischiefs of the easy-going creed of Optimism -(as generally understood), so welcome to self-complacent orthodoxy, -he displayed all his vast powers of sarcasm in exposing its fatal -absurdities. Leibnitz had been one of its most strenuous apologists. -In the person of the wretched Pangloss the theory of “the best of -all possible worlds,” and of the “eternal fitness of things,” is -overwhelmed, indeed, with an excess of ridicule. It is to be lamented -that the satirist allowed his _sæva indignatio_ to overpower a -proper sense of the proprieties of language and expression. - -Voltaire was now become a potentate more dreaded than a -sovereign-prince on his throne, an object of hatred and terror to -political and other oppressors. After some hesitation he had chosen -for his retreat the ever-memorable Ferney--a place within French -territory, on the borders of Switzerland--and also a spot near Geneva, -where he alternately resided, escaping at pleasure either from Catholic -intolerance or from Puritanic rigour, with his niece--Madame Denis, -who had anxiously attended him during a recent illness. From these -retreats he made himself heard over all Europe in defence of reason and -humanity. It was about this time (1756) that he employed his eloquence -to save Admiral Byng, a victim to ministerial necessities, who was -nevertheless condemned, as his advocate expresses it in _Candide_, -“pour encourager les autres.” A like philanthropic effort, equally -vain, was made on behalf of the still more unfortunate Comte de Lally. - -The year 1757 is memorable in literature as that in which he gave -to the world an accurate edition of his already published works, -enriched by one of his most meritorious productions, the _Essai sur -les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations_, which now appeared in its complete -form. History, the author justly complained, had hitherto been but a -uniform chronicle of kings, courts, and court intrigues. The history -of legislation, arts, sciences, commerce, morals, had been always, or -almost always, neglected. - - “We imagine [says Condorcet], while we read such histories, that - the human race was created only to exhibit the political or - military talents of a few individuals, and that the object of - society is not the happiness of the Species but the pleasure of the - Few.” - -If the best historical works of the present day are a considerable -improvement upon those which were in fashion before Voltaire’s -_critiques_, the remarks of Condorcet are not altogether inapplicable -to the popular and school manuals still in vogue. At all events this -style of composing “history,” ridiculed by the wit of Lucian sixteen -centuries before, was the universal method down to the appearance of -the celebrated _Essai_. - -Beginning with Charlemagne, it presents, in a rapid, concise, and -philosophic style, the most important and interesting features, not -only of European but of the world’s history, adorned with all the grace -and ease of which he was always so consummate a master. Many there -always are who conceive of philosophy and erudition only as enveloped -in verbosity and obscurity. Dulness and learning in the common mind -are convertible terms. The very transparency and clearness of his -style were reproached to him as a sign of superficiality and want -of exactness--the last faults which could be justly imputed to him. -However, the influence of Voltaire became apparent in the productions -of the English historical school, till then unknown, which soon -afterwards arose. The Italian Vico, and Beaufort, in France, in the -particular branch of Roman antiquity, and Bayle in general, had already -contributed in some degree towards the founding of a critical school; -but these attempts were partial only. To Voltaire belongs the honour -of having applied the principles of criticism at once universally and -popularly. - -In reviewing the history and manners of the Hindus he repeatedly -expresses his sympathy, more or less directly, with their aversion from -the coarser living of the West:-- - - “The Hindus, in embracing the doctrine of the _Metémpsychosis_, had - one restraint the more. The dread of killing a father or mother, in - killing men and other animals, inspired in them a terror of murder - and every other violence, which became with them a second nature. - Thus all the peoples of India, whose families are not allied either - to the Arabs or to the Tartars, are still at this day the mildest - of all men. Their religion and the temperature of their climate - made these peoples entirely resemble those peaceful animals whom we - bring up in our sheep pens and our dove cotes for the purpose of - cutting their throats at our good will and pleasure.... - - “The Christian religion, which these _primitives_ [the Quakers] - alone follow out to the letter, is as great an enemy to bloodshed - as the Pythagorean. But the Christian peoples have never practised - _their_ religion, and the ancient Hindu castes have always - practised theirs. It is because Pythagoreanism is the only religion - in the world which has been able to educe a religious feeling from - the horror of murder and slaughter.... - - “Some have supposed the cradle of our race to be Hindustan, - alleging that the feeblest of all animals must have been born in - the softest climate, and in a land which produces without culture - the _most nourishing and most healthful fruits_, like dates and - cocoa nuts. The latter especially easily affords men the means - of existence, of clothing and of housing themselves--and of what - besides has the inhabitant of that Peninsula need?... Our Houses of - Carnage, which they call Butcher-Shops [_boucheries_], where they - sell so many carcases to feed our own, would import the plague into - the climate of India. - - “These peoples need and desire pure and refreshing foods. Nature - has lavished upon them forests of citron trees, orange trees, fig - trees, palm trees, cocoa-nut trees, and plains covered with rice. - The strongest man can need to spend but one or two sous a day for - his subsistence.[162] Our workmen spend more in one day than a - Malabar native in a month.... - - “In general, the men of the South-East have received from Nature - gentler manners than the people of our West. Their climate - disposes them to abstain from strong liquors and from the flesh - of animals--foods which excite the blood and often provoke - ferocity--and, although superstition and foreign irruptions have - corrupted the goodness of their disposition, nevertheless all - travellers agree that the character of these peoples has nothing of - that irritability, of that caprice, and of that harshness which it - has cost much trouble to keep within bounds in the countries of the - North.” - -In noticing the comparative progress of the various foreign religions -in India, Voltaire observes that-- - - “The Mohammedan religion alone has made progress in India, - especially amongst the richer classes, because it is the religion - of the Prince, and because it teaches but the divine unity - conformably to the ancient teaching of the first Brahmins. - Christianity [he adds, only too truly] has not had the same - success, notwithstanding the large establishments of the - Portuguese, of the French, of the English, of the Dutch, of the - Danes. It is, in fact, the conflict of these nations which has - injured the progress of our Faith. As they all hate each other, - and as several of them often make war one upon the other in their - climates, what they teach is naturally hateful to the peaceful - inhabitants. Their customs, besides, revolt the Hindus. Those - people are scandalised at seeing us drinking wine and eating flesh, - which they themselves abhor.”[163] - -This--one of the chief obstacles to the spread of Christian -civilisation in the East, and especially in India, viz., the eating of -flesh and the drinking of alcohol, its legitimate attendant--has been -acknowledged by Christian missionaries themselves of late years. - -Employed as he was in various literary undertakings he had been -watching with great interest, not, perhaps, without a secret wish -for vengeance, the important political and military complications of -Europe. After some brilliant successes the Prussian king had been -reduced to the last extremity. At this juncture the former friends -agreed to forget, as far as possible, their old quarrel, and Voltaire -enjoyed the satisfaction of having succeeded in dissuading Friedrich -from suicide. The victories of Rosbach and Breslau not long afterwards -changed the condition of things once again. From this time the prince -and the philosopher resumed the name, if not the cordiality, of -friends. A curious accident put the arbitrament of peace and war -for some weeks into the hands of Voltaire. The Prussian king, while -inactive in his fortified camp, wrote, as his custom was, a quantity -of verse and sent the packet to Ferney. Amongst the mass--good, bad, -and indifferent--was a satire on Louis and his mistress. The packet had -been opened before reaching its destination. - - “Had I been inclined to amuse myself, it depended only on me to - set the King of France and the King of Prussia to war in rhyme, - which would have been a novel farce on earth. But I enjoyed another - pleasure--that of being more prudent than Friedrich. I wrote him - word that his Ode was beautiful, but that he ought not to publish - it.... To make the pleasantry complete I thought it possible to lay - the foundation of the peace of Europe on these poetical pieces. - My correspondence with the Duc de Choiseul [the French Premier] - gave birth to that idea, and it appeared so ridiculous, so worthy - of the transactions of the times, that I indulged it, and had the - satisfaction of proving on what weak and invisible pivots the - destinies of nations turn.” - -Several letters passed between the three before the danger was averted. - -The limited space at our disposal will allow us only rapidly to notice -some of the remaining _chefs-d’œuvre_ of Voltaire. The celebrated -_Encyclopédie_, under the auspices of D’Alembert and Diderot, had been -lately commenced. To this great work, to which he looked with some hope -as promising a severe assault on ignorance and prejudice, Voltaire -contributed a few articles. It is not the place here to narrate the -history of the fierce war of words to which the _Encyclopédie_ gave -birth. It was completed in about fifteen years, in 1775--a memorable -year in literature. - - “Several men of letters [thus Voltaire briefly describes the - project], most estimable by their learning and character, formed - an association to compose an immense Dictionary of whatever could - enlighten the human mind, and it became an object of commerce with - the booksellers. The Chancellor, the Ministry, all encouraged so - noble an enterprise. Seven volumes had already appeared, and were - translated into English, German, Dutch, and Italian. This treasure, - opened by the French to all nations, may be considered as what did - us most honour at the time, so much were the excellent articles in - the _Encyclopédie_ superior to the bad, which also were tolerably - numerous. One had little to complain of in the work, except too - many puerile declamations unfortunately adopted by the editors, who - seized whatever came to hand to swell the work. But all which those - editors wrote themselves was good.” - -The article which was particularly selected by the prosecution was -that on the Soul, “one of the worst in the work, written by a poor -doctor of the Sorbonne, who killed himself with declaiming, rightly -or wrongly, against materialism.” The writers, as “encyclopédistes” -and “philosophers” were long marked by those titles for the public -opprobrium. This general persecution had the effect of uniting that -party for common defence. For Voltaire himself an important advantage -was secured. Most of the principal men of letters and science, up to -this time either avowed enemies or coldly-distant friends, henceforward -enrolled themselves under his undisputed leadership. - -About the same period he published a number of pieces, prose and -verse, directed against his enemies of various kinds, theatrical as -well as theological. Amongst the latter, conspicuous by their attacks, -but still more so by their punishment, were Fréron and Desfontaines, -whose chastisement was such that, according to Macaulay’s hyperbolic -expression, “scourging, branding, pillorying would have been a trifle -to it.” It is more pleasing, however, to turn from this fierce war of -retaliation, in which neither party was free from blame, to proofs -of the real benevolence of his disposition. We can merely note the -strenuous efforts he made, unsolicited, on behalf of Admiral Byng and -the Comte de Lally, and the still more meritorious labours in the -less well-known histories of Calas and Serven. Not by these public -acts alone did the man, who has been accused of malignity, discover -the humanity of his character: to whose ready assistance in money, as -well as in counsel, the unfortunate of the literary tribe and others -acknowledged their obligations. - -His _Philosophie de l’Histoire_, the prototype of its successors -in name at least, was designed to expose that long-established and -prevailing idolatry of Antiquity, which received everything bequeathed -by it with astounding credulity. The _Philosophie_ called forth a -numerous host of small critics, to which men who knew, or ought to -have known better, allied themselves. Their curious way of maintaining -the credit of Antiquity afforded, as may be imagined, the author of -the _Defence of my Uncle_, under which title Voltaire chose to defend -himself, full scope for the exercise of his unrivalled powers of irony. -Warburton, the pedant Bishop of Gloucester, with his odd theories about -the “Divine Legation,” comes in for a share of this Dunciad sort of -immortalisation. - -A work of equal merit with the _Philosophie_ are the _Questions_, -addressed to the lovers of science, upon the _Encyclopædia_, wherein, -in the form of a dictionary, he treats, as the Marquis de Condorcet -eloquently describes, - - “Successively of theology, grammar, natural philosophy, and - literature. At one time he discusses subjects of Antiquity; at - another questions of policy, legislation, and public economy. - His style, always animated and seductive, clothed these various - subjects with a charm hitherto known to himself alone, and which - springs chiefly from the licence with which, yielding to his - successive emotions, adapting his style less to his subject than - to the momentary disposition of his mind, sometimes he spreads - ridicule over objects which seem capable of inspiring only - horror, and almost instantaneously hurried away by the energy and - sensibility of his soul, he vehemently and eloquently exclaims - against abuses which he had just before treated with mockery. His - anger is excited by false taste; he quickly perceives that his - indignation ought to be reserved for interests more important, and - he finishes by laughing in his usual way. Sometimes he abruptly - leaves a moral or political discussion for a literary criticism, - and in the midst of a lesson on taste he pronounces abstract maxims - of the profoundest philosophy, or makes a sudden and terrible - attack on fanaticism and tyranny.” - -It is with his romances that we are here chiefly concerned, since it is -in those lighter productions of his genius that he has most especially -allowed us to see his opinions upon flesh-eating. In the charming tale -of _The Princess of Babylon_, her attendant _Phœnix_ thus accounts to -his mistress for the silence of his brethren of the inferior races:-- - - “It is because men fell into the practice of eating us in place of - holding converse with and being instructed by us. The barbarians! - Ought they not to have convinced themselves that, having the same - organs as they, the same power of feeling, the same wants, the same - desires, we have what they call _soul_ as well as themselves, that - we are their brethren, and that only the wicked and bad deserve to - be cooked and eaten? We are to such a degree your brethren that the - Great Being, the Eternal and Creative Being, having made a covenant - with men[164], expressly comprised us in the treaty. He forbad - _you_ to feed yourselves upon our blood, and _us_ to suck yours. - The fables of your Lokman, translated into so many languages, will - be an everlasting witness of the happy commerce which you formerly - had with us. It is true that there are many women among you who are - always talking to their Dogs; but they have resolved never to make - any answer, from the time that they were forced by blows of the - whip to go hunting and to be the accomplices of the murder of our - old common friends, the Deer and the Hares and the Partridges. You - have still some old poems in which Horses talk and your coachmen - address them every day, but with so much grossness and coarseness, - and with such infamous words, that Horses who once loved you now - detest you.... The shepherds of the Ganges, born all equal, are - the owners of innumerable flocks who feed in meadows that are - perpetually covered with flowers. They are never slaughtered there. - It is a horrible crime in the country of the Ganges to kill and eat - one’s fellows [_semblables_]. Their wool, finer and more brilliant - than the most beautiful silk, is the greatest object of commerce in - the Orient.” - -A certain king had the temerity to attack this innocent people:-- - - “The king was taken prisoner with more than 600,000 men. They - bathed him in the waters of the Ganges; they put him on the - salutary _régime_ of the country, which consists in vegetables, - which are lavished by Nature for the support of all human beings. - Men, fed upon carnage and drinking strong drinks, have all an - empoisoned and acrid blood, which drives them mad in a hundred - different ways. Their principal madness is that of shedding the - blood of their brothers, and of devastating fertile plains to reign - over cemeteries.” - -Her admirable instructor caused the princess to enter - - “A dining-hall, whose walls were covered with orange-wood. The - under-shepherds and shepherdesses, in long white dresses girded - with golden bands, served her in a hundred baskets of simple - porcelain, with a hundred delicious meats, among which was seen - no disguised corpse. The feast was of rice, of sago, of semolina, - of vermicelli, of maccaroni, of omelets, of eggs in milk, of - cream-cheeses, of pastries of every kind, of vegetables, of fruits - of perfume and taste of which one has no idea in other climates, - and a profusion of refreshing drinks superior to the best wines.” - -Having occasion to visit the land _par excellence_ of flesh-eaters, and -being entertained at the house of a certain English lord, the hero, the -amiable lover of the princess, is questioned by his host - - “Whether they ate ‘good roast beef’ in the country of the people - of the Ganges. The Vegetarian traveller replied to him with his - accustomed politeness that they did not eat their brethren in that - part of the world. He explained to him the system and diet which - was that of Pythagoras, of Porphyry, of Iamblichus; whereupon - _milord_ went off into a sound slumber.”[165] - -Amabed, a young Hindu, writes from Europe to his affianced mistress -his impressions of the Christian sacred books and, in particular, of -Christian carnivorousness:-- - - “I pity those unfortunates of Europe who have, at the most, been - created only 6,940 years; while our era reckons 115,652 years [the - Brahminical computation]. I pity them more for wanting pepper, the - sugar-cane, and tea, coffee, silk, cotton, incense, aromatics, and - everything that can render life pleasing. But I pity them still - more for coming from so great a distance, among so many perils, to - ravish from us, arms in hand, our provisions. It is said at Calicut - they have committed frightful cruelties only to procure pepper. - It makes the Hindu nature, which is in every way different from - theirs, shudder; their stomachs are carnivorous, they get drunk on - the fermented juices of the vine, which was planted, they say, by - their Noah. Father Fa-Tutto [one of the missionaries], polished - as he is, has himself cut the throats of two little chickens; he - has caused them to be boiled in a cauldron, and has devoured them - without pity. This barbarous action has drawn upon him the hatred - of all the neighbourhood, whose anger we have appeased only with - much difficulty. May God pardon me! I believe that this stranger - would have eaten our sacred Cows, who give us milk, if he had - been allowed to do so. A promise has been extorted from him that - he will commit no more murders of Hens, and that he will content - himself with fresh eggs, milk, rice, and our excellent fruits - and vegetables--pistachio nuts, dates, cocoa nuts, almond cakes, - biscuits, ananas, oranges, and with everything which our climate - produces, blessed be the Eternal!” - -In another letter to his old Hindu teacher from Rome, whither he had -been induced to go by the missionaries, speaking of the feasts in that -“citadel of the faith,” he writes:-- - - “The dining-hall was grand, convenient, and richly ornamented. Gold - and silver shone upon the sideboards. Gaiety and wit animated the - guests. But, meantime, in the kitchens blood and fat were streaming - in one horrible mass; skins of quadrupeds, feathers of birds and - their entrails, piled up pell-mell, oppressed the heart, and spread - the infection of fevers.”[166] - -That one who hated and denounced injustice of all kinds, and who -sympathised with the suffering of all innocent life, should thus -characterise the cruelty of the Slaughter-House is what we might -naturally look for; as also that he should denounce the kindred and -even worse atrocity of the physiological Laboratory. And it is a -strange and unaccountable fact that, amongst the humanitarians of -his time, he stands apparently alone in condemnation of the secret -tortures of the vivisectionists and pathologists--although, perhaps, -the almost universal silence may be attributable, in part, to the -very secresy of the experiments which only recent vigilance has fully -detected. Exposing the equally absurd and arrogant denial of reason and -intelligence to other animals, and instancing the dog, he proceeds:-- - - “There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously - surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and - dissect him alive to shew you the mezaraic veins. You discover - in him all the same organs of feeling as in yourself. Answer me, - Machinist [_i.e._, supporter of the theory of mere mechanical - action], has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in - this animal _to the end that he might not feel_? Has he nerves - _that he may be incapable_ of suffering? Do not suppose that - impertinent contradiction in Nature.”[167] - -To the final triumph which in Paris awaited this champion of the weak, -at the advanced age of 84, and the unexampled enthusiasm of the people, -and the closing act of his eventful life, we can here merely refer. -In Berlin, Friedrich ordered a solemn mass in the cathedral church in -commemoration of his genius and virtues. A more enduring monument than -any conventional mark of human vanity is the legacy which he left to -posterity, which will last as long as the French language, and, still -more, the humanity embodied in one of his later verses:-- - - “J’ai fait un peu de bien, c’est mon meilleur ouvrage.” - -The faults of his character and writings which, for the most part, lie -on the surface (one of the most regretable of which was his sometimes -servile flattery of men in power, and the only excuse for which was his -eagerness to gain them over to moderation and justice) will be deemed -by impartial criticism to have been more than counterbalanced by his -real and substantial merits. That he allowed his ardent indignation to -overmaster the sense of propriety in too many instances, in dealing -with subjects which ought to be dealt with in a judicial and serious -manner, is that fault in his writings which must always cause the -greatest regret. In his discourse at his reception by the French -Academy he remarks that “the art of instruction, when it is perfect, in -the long run, succeeds better than the art of sarcasm, because Satire -dies with those who are the victims of it; while Reason and Virtue are -eternal.” It would have been well, in many instances, had he practised -this principle. But, however objectionably his convictions were -sometimes expressed, his ardent love of truth and hatred of injustice -have secured for him an imperishable fame; while Göthe’s estimate of -his intellectual pre-eminence--that he has the greatest name in all -Literature--is not likely soon to be disputed by Posterity. - - - - -XXV. - -HALLER. 1708-1777. - - -The founder of Modern Physiology was born at Berne. In 1723 he went -to Tübingen to study medicine, afterwards to Leyden, where the famous -Boerhaave was at the height of his reputation. Twelve years later he -received the appointment of physician to the hospital at Berne; but -soon afterwards he was invited by George II., as Elector of Hanover, to -accept the professorship of anatomy and surgery at the University of -Göttingen. - -His scientific writings are extraordinarily numerous. From 1727 to 1777 -he published nearly 200 treatises. His great work is his _Elements -of the Physiology of the Human Body_ (in Latin), 1757-1766--the most -important treatise on medical science--or at least on anatomy and -surgery--up to that time produced. The _Icones Anatomicæ_ (“Anatomical -Figures”) is “a marvellously accurate, well-engraved representation of -the principal organs of the human body.” His writings are marked by -unusual clearness of meaning, as well as by accurate and deep research. - -We wish that we could here stop; but the force of truth compels us -to affirm that, for us at least, his reputation, great as it is in -science, has been for ever tarnished by his sacrifices--with frightful -torture--of innocent victims on the altars of a selfish and sanguinary -science. - -One plea in extenuation of this callousness in regard to the suffering -of other animals, and only one, can be offered in his defence. At this -very moment, after all the humanitarian doctrine that has been preached -during the century since the death of Haller, tortures of the most -cold-blooded kind are being inflicted on tens of thousands of horses, -deer, dogs, rabbits, and others, in all the “laboratories” of Europe; -while he had neither the prolonged experience of the uselessness of -all such unnatural experimentation, of which the vivisectors and -pathologists of our day are in possession, nor the same indoctrination -of a higher morality, which has been the heritage of these latter days. -The scientific barbarity of Haller does not affect the nature of his -physiological testimony, which, it might be presumed, ought to be of -some weight with his disciples and representatives of the present day. -He asserts:-- - - “This food, then, that I have hitherto described, in which flesh - has no part, is salutary; inasmuch as it fully nourishes a man, - protracts life to an advanced period, and prevents or cures such - disorders as are attributable to the acrimony or the grossness of - the blood.”[168] - - - - -XXVI. - -COCCHI. 1695-1758. - - -It might justly provoke expression of feeling stronger than that of -astonishment, when we have to record that in South Europe (where -climate and soil unite to recommend and render a _humane_ manner of -living[169] still more easy than in our colder regions) the followers, -or, at all events, the prophets of the Reformed Diet have been -conspicuously few. Since, by the _à fortiori_ argument, if abundant -experience and teaching have proved it to be more conducive to health -in higher latitudes, much more is it evident that it must be fitting -for the people of those parts of the globe nearer to the Equator. - -Italy, which has produced Seneca, Cornaro, and Cocchi, is -less obnoxious to the reproach of indifferentism in this most -vitally-important branch of ethics than the western peninsula. But the -“paradise of Europe” has yet to deserve the more glorious title of -“the paradise of Peace,” and to atone (if, indeed, it be possible) for -the cruel shedding of innocent, and in an especial degree superfluous, -blood. - -An eminent professor of medicine and of surgery, Antonio Cocchi -distinguished himself also as a philologist. He was born at Benevento. -Before giving himself up to the practice of medicine he devoted several -years to the study of the old and the modern languages of Europe. His -knowledge of English helped to bring him into contact with many men -of science in England, some of whom he met on his visit to London. -Returning to Italy he was named Professor of Medicine at Pisa. He -soon left that University for Florence, where he held the chair of -Anatomy as well as of Philosophy. To him Florence was indebted for its -Botanical Society, with which, in conjunction with Micheli, he endowed -it. - -He was a voluminous writer.[170] His _Greek Surgical Books_[171] -contain valuable extracts from the Greek writers on medicine -and surgery not before published. Amongst other writings may -be distinguished his _Treatise on the Use of Cold Baths by the -Ancients_.[172] The treatise which gives him a place in this work was -published at Florence under the title of _The Pythagorean Diet: for the -Use of the Medical Faculty_.[173] - -Dr. Cocchi begins his little treatise with a eulogy and defence of the -great reformer of Samos, and of his radical revolution in food. He -cites the Greek and Latin writers, and especially the earlier Roman -Laws, the Fannian and the Licinian. He proceeds:-- - - “True and constant vigour of body is the effect of health, which - is much better preserved with watery, herbaceous, frugal, and - tender food, than with _vinous_, abundant, hard, and gross flesh - (_che col carneo vinoso ed unto abundante e duro_). And in a sound - body, a clear intelligence, and desire to suppress the mischievous - inclinations (_voglie dannose_), and to conquer the irrational - passions, produces true worth.” - -Cocchi cites the examples of the Greeks and of the Romans as proof that -the non-flesh diet does not diminish courage or strength:-- - - “The vulgar opinion, then, which, on health reasons, condemns - vegetable food and so much praises animal food, being so - ill-founded, I have always thought it well to oppose myself to it, - moved both by experience and by that refined knowledge of natural - things which some study and conversation with great men have given - me. And perceiving now that such my constancy has been honoured by - some learned and wise physicians with their authoritative adhesion - (_della autorevole sequela_), I have thought it my duty publicly - to diffuse the reasons of the Pythagorean diet, regarded as useful - in medicine, and, at the same time, as full of innocence, of - temperance, and of health. And it is none the less accompanied with - a certain delicate pleasure, and also with a refined and splendid - luxury (_non è privo nemmeno d’una certa delicate voluttà e d’un - lusso gentile e splendido ancora_), if care and skill be applied in - selection and proper supply of the best vegetable food, to which - the fertility and the natural character of our beautiful country - seem to invite us. For my part I have been so much the more induced - to take up this subject, because I have persuaded myself that I - might be of service to intending diet-reformers, there not being, - to my knowledge, any book of which this is the sole subject, and - which undertakes exactly to explain the origin and the reasons of - it.” - -His special motive to the publication of his treatise, however, was to -vindicate the claims of the reformer of Samos upon the gratitude of -men:-- - - “I wished to show that Pythagoras, the first founder of the - vegetable regimen, was at once a very great physicist and a very - great physician; that there has been no one of a more cultured - and discriminating humanity; that he was a man of wisdom and of - experience; that his motive in commending and introducing the new - mode of living was derived not from any extravagant superstition, - but from the desire to improve the health and the manners of - men.”[174] - - - - -XXVII. - -ROUSSEAU. 1712-1778. - - -Few lives of writers of equal reputation have been exposed to our -examination with the fulness and minuteness of the life of this the -most eloquent name in French literature. With the exception of the -great Latin father, St. Augustine, no other leader of thought, in -fact, has so entirely revealed to us his inner life, his faults and -weaknesses (often sufficiently startling), no less than the estimable -parts of his character, and we remain in doubt whether more to lament -the infirmities or to admire the candour of the autobiographer. - -Jean Jacques Rousseau, son of a Genevan tradesman, had the misfortune -to lose his mother at a very early age. It is to this want of maternal -solicitude and fostering care that some of the errors in his after -career may perhaps be traced. After a short experience of school -discipline he was apprenticed to an engraver, whose coarse violence -must injuriously have affected the nervous temperament of the sensitive -child. Ill-treatment forced him to run away, and he found refuge with -Mde. de Warens, a Swiss lady, a convert to Catholicism, who occupies a -prominent place in the first period of his _Confessions_. Influenced -by her kindness, and by the skilful arguments of his preceptors at the -college at Turin, where she had placed him, the young Rousseau (like -Bayle and Gibbon, before and after him, though from a different motive) -abjured Protestantism, and, for the moment, accepted, or at least -professed, the tenets of the old Orthodoxy. Dismissed from the college -because he refused to take orders, he engaged himself as a domestic -servant or valet. He did not long remain in this position, and he -resought the protection of his friend Mde. de Warens at Chambéry. His -connexion with his too indulgent patroness terminated in the year 1740. -For some years after this his life was of a most erratic, and not -always edifying, kind. We find him employed in teaching at Lyons, and -at another time acting as secretary to the French Embassy at Venice. In -1745 he came to Paris. There he earned a living by copying music. About -this time he met with Therèse Levasseur, the daughter of his hostess, -with whom he formed a lasting but unhappy connexion. - -It was in 1748, at the age of 36, that he made the acquaintance, at -the house of Mde. d’Epinay, of the editors of the _Encyclopédie_, -D’Alembert and Diderot, who engaged him to write articles on music -and upon other subjects in that first of comprehensive dictionaries. -His first independent appearance in literature was in his essay on -the question, “Whether the progress of science and of the arts has -been favourable to the morals of mankind,” in which paradoxically he -maintains the negative. It was the eloquence, we must suppose, rather -than the reasoning, which gained him the prize awarded by the Académie -of Dijon. His next production--a more important one--was his _Discours -sur l’Inegalité parmi les Hommes_ (“Discourse upon Inequality amongst -Men”). In this treatise--the prelude to his more developed _Contrat -Social_--Rousseau affirms the paradox of the _natural_ school, as it -may be termed, which alleged the state of nature--the life of the -uncivilised man--to be the ideal condition of the species. His thesis -that all men are born with equal rights takes a much more defensible -position. In this _Discours_ diet is assigned its due importance in -relation to the welfare of communities. - -The romance of _Julie: ou la Nouvelle Héloise_, which excited -an unusual amount of interest, appeared in 1759. _Emile: ou de -l’Education_, was given to the world three years later. It is the most -important of his writings. In the education of Emile, or Emilius, he -propounds his ideas upon one of the most interesting subjects which -can engage attention--the right training of the young. The earlier -part of the book is almost altogether admirable and useful. The later -portion is more open to criticism, although not upon the grounds upon -which was founded the hostility of the authorities of the day who -unjustly condemned the book as irreligious and immoral. Rousseau begins -with laying down the principles of a new and more rational method of -rearing infants, agreeing, in many particulars, with the system of -his predecessor, Locke. At least some of his protests against the -unnatural treatment of children were not altogether in vain. Mothers -in fashionable ranks of life began to recognise the mischief arising -from the common practice of putting their infants out to nurse in -place of suckling them themselves. They began also to abandon the -absurd custom of confining their limbs in mummy-like bandages. Nor, -though long in bearing adequate fruit, were his denunciations of the -barbarous severity of parents and schoolmasters without some result. He -insists upon the incalculable evils of inoculating the young, according -to the almost universal custom, with superstitious beliefs and fancies -which grow with the growth of the recipient until they become radically -fixed in the mind as by a natural development. Most important of all -his innovations in education, and certainly the most heretical, is his -recommendation of a pure dietary. - -The publication of his treatise on education brought down a storm -of persecution and opprobrium upon the author. The _Contrat Social_ -(in which he seemed to aim at subverting the political and social -traditions, as he had in _Emile_ the educational prejudices of the -venerated Past) appearing soon afterwards added fuel to the flames. -Rousseau found himself forced to flee from Paris, and he sought shelter -in the territory of Geneva. But the authorities, unmindful of the old -reputation of the land of freedom, refusing him an asylum, he proceeded -to Neuchâtel, then under Prussian rule, where he was well received. -From this retreat he replied to the attacks of the Archbishop of Paris, -and addressed a letter to the magistrates of Geneva renouncing his -citizenship. He also published _Letters Written from the Mountain_, -severely criticising the civil and church government of his native -canton. These acts did not tend to conciliate the goodwill of the -rulers of the people with whom he had taken refuge. At this moment an -object of dislike to all the Continental sovereign powers, he gladly -embraced the offer of David Hume to find him an asylum in England. The -social and political revolutionist arrived in London in 1766, and took -up his residence in a village in Derbyshire. He did not remain long in -this country, his irritable temperament inducing him too hastily to -suspect the sincerity of the friendship of his host. - -The next eight years of his life were passed in comparative obscurity, -and in migrating from one place to another in the neighbourhood of -Paris. In his solitude gardening and botanising occupied a large part -of his leisure hours. It was at this period he made the acquaintance of -Bernardin St. Pierre, his enthusiastic disciple, and immortalised as -the author of _Paul et Virginie_. His end came suddenly. He had been -settled only a few months in a cottage given him by one of his numerous -aristocratic friends and admirers, when one morning, feeling unwell, he -requested his wife to open the window that he “might once more look on -the lovely verdure of the fields,” and as he was expressing his delight -at the exquisite beauty of the scene and of the skies he fell forward -and instantly breathed his last. At his special request his place of -burial was chosen on an island in a lake in the Park of Ermondville, a -fitting resting-place for one of the most eloquent of the high priests -of Nature. - -His character (as we have already remarked) is revealed in his -_Confessions_--which was written, in part, during his brief exile -in England. It, as well as his other productions, shews him to us -as a man of extraordinary sensibility, which, in regard to himself, -occasionally degenerated into a sort of disease or, in popular -language, _morbidness_ (a word, by the way, constantly abused by the -many who seem to excuse their own insensibility to surrounding evils -by stigmatising with that vague expression the acuter feeling of the -few), which sometimes assumed the appearance of partial unsoundness of -mind. This it was that caused him to suspect and quarrel with his best -friends, and which, we may suppose, led him, in his minute dissection -of himself, to exaggerate his real moral infirmities. - -In summing up his personal character we shall perhaps impartially judge -him to have been, on the whole, amiable rather than admirable, of good -impulses, and of a naturally humane disposition, cultivated by reading -and reflection, but to have been wanting in firmness of mind and in -that virtue so much esteemed in the school of Pythagoras--self control. -His philosophy is distinguished rather by refinement than by vigour or -depth of thought. - -It is in the education of the young that Rousseau exerts his eloquence -to enforce the importance of a non-flesh diet:-- - - “One of the proofs that the taste of flesh is not natural to man - is the indifference which children exhibit for that sort of meat, - and the preference they all give to vegetable foods, such as - milk-porridge, pastry, fruits, &c. It is of the last importance - not to _denaturalise_ them of this primitive taste (_de ne pas - dénaturer ce goût primitif_), and not to render them carnivorous, - if not for health reasons, at least _for the sake of their - character_. For, however the experience may be explained, it is - certain that great eaters of flesh are, in general, more cruel and - ferocious than other men. This observation is true of all places - and of all times. English coarseness is well known.[175] The - Gaures, on the contrary, are the gentlest of men. All savages are - cruel, and it is not their morals that urge them to be so; this - cruelty proceeds _from their food_. They go to war as to the chase, - and treat men as they do bears. Even in England the butchers are - not received as legal witnesses any more than surgeons.[176] Great - criminals harden themselves to murder by drinking blood.[177] Homer - represents the _Cyclopes_, who were flesh-eaters, as frightful - men, and the Lotophagi [Lotus-eaters] as a people so amiable that - as soon as one had any dealing with them one straightway forgot - everything, even one’s country, to live with them.” - -Rousseau, in a free translation, here quotes a considerable part of -Plutarch’s _Essay_. He insists, especially, that children should be -early accustomed to the pure diet:-- - - “The further we remove from a natural mode of living the more - do we lose our natural tastes; or rather habit makes a _second_ - nature, which we substitute to such a degree for the first that - none among us any longer knows what the latter is. It follows from - this that the most simple tastes must also be the most natural, - for they are those which are most easily changed, while by being - sharpened and by being irritated by our whims they assume a form - which never changes. The man who is yet of no country will conform - himself without trouble to the customs of any country whatever, - but the man of one country never becomes that of another. This - appears to me true in every sense, and still more so applied to - taste properly so-called. Our first food was milk. We accustom - ourselves only by degrees to strong flavours. At first they are - repugnant to us. Fruits, vegetables, kitchen herbs, and, in fine, - often broiled dishes, without seasoning and without salt, composed - the feasts of the first men. The first time a savage drinks wine - he makes a grimace and rejects it; and even amongst ourselves, - whoever has lived to his twentieth year without tasting fermented - drinks, cannot afterwards accustom himself to them. We should all - be abstinents from alcohol if we had not been given wines in our - early years. In fine, the more simple our tastes are the more - universal are they, and the most common repugnance is for made-up - dishes. Does one ever see a person have a disgust for water or - bread? Behold here the impress of nature! Behold here, then, our - rule of life. Let us preserve to the child as long as possible his - primitive taste; let its nourishment be common and simple; let not - its palate be familiarised to any but natural flavours, and let - no exclusive taste be formed.... I have sometimes examined those - people who attached importance to _good living_, who thought, upon - their first awaking, of what they should eat during the day, and - described a dinner with more exactitude than Polybius would use - in describing a battle. I have thought that all these so-called - men were but children of forty years without vigour and without - consistence--_fruges consumere nati_.[178] Gluttony is the vice of - souls that have no solidity (_qui n’ont point d’étoffe_). The soul - of a gourmand is in his palate. He is brought into the world but to - devour. In his stupid incapacity he is at home only at his table. - His powers of judgment are limited to his dishes. Let us leave him - in his employment without regret. Better that for him than any - other, as much for our own sakes as for his.”[179] - -In the _Julie: ou la Nouvelle Heloise_ he describes his heroine as -preferring the innocent feast:-- - - “Although luxurious in her repasts she likes neither flesh-meat nor - ragoûts. Excellent vegetable dishes, eggs, cream, fruits--these - constitute her ordinary food; and, excepting fish, which she likes - as much, she would be a true Pythagorean.”[180] - -Although he was not a thorough or consistent abstainer, Rousseau speaks -with enthusiasm of the pleasures of his frugal repasts, in which, -it seems, when he was not seduced by the sumptuous dinners of his -fashionable admirers, flesh, as a rule, had no part:-- - - “Who shall describe, who shall understand, the charm of these - repasts, composed of a quartern loaf, of cherries, of a little - cheese, and of a half-pint of wine, which we drank together. - Friendship, confidence, intimacy, sweetness of soul, how delicious - are your seasonings!”[181] - - - - -XXVIII. - -LINNÉ. 1707-1778. - - -Karl von Linné, or (according to the antiquated fashion of _Latinising_ -eminent names still retained) Linnæus, the distinguished Swedish -naturalist, and the most eminent name in botanical literature, in a -notable manner arrived at his destined immortality in spite of friends -and fortune. Prophecies do not always fulfil themselves, and the -estimate of his teachers that he was a hopeless “blockhead,” and the -prediction that he would be of no intellectual worth in the world (they -had advised his parents to apprentice him to a handicraft trade), are -a conspicuous instance of the falsification of prophecy. After one -year’s course of study at the University of Lund--where he had access -to a good library and collections of natural history--he proceeded to -the University of Upsala. There, upon an allowance by his father of £8 -a year to meet all his expenses of living, he struggled desperately -against the almost insuperable obstacles of extreme poverty, which -forced him often to reduce his diet to one meal during the day. He was -then at the age of 20. At length, by the hospitable friendship of the -professor of botany, and a small income derived from a few pupils, -Linné found himself free to devote himself to the great labour of his -life. It was in the house of his host (Rudbeck) that he sketched the -subject-matter of the important works he afterwards published. In 1731 -he was commissioned by his university to explore the vegetable life -of Lapland. Within the space of five months he traversed alone, and -with slender provision, some 4,000 miles. The result of this laborious -expedition was his _Flora Laponica_. - -Three years later, with the sum of fifteen pounds, which he had with -great difficulty gathered together, he set out in search of some -university where he might obtain the necessary degree of doctor in -medicine at the least outlay, in order to gain a living by the practice -of physic. He found the object of his search in Holland. In that -country he met with a hospitable reception. During his residence in -Holland he came over to England, and visited the botanical collections -at Oxford and Eltham, with which the Swedish _savant_, it seems, had -not much reason to be satisfied. Returning to Sweden, he began practice -as a physician at the age of 31, and he lectured, by Government -appointment, upon botany and mineralogy at Stockholm. His fame had now -become European. He was in correspondence with some of the most eminent -scientific men throughout the world. Books and collections were sent to -him from every quarter, and his pupils supplied him with the results -of their explorations in the three continents. He was elected to the -Professorship of Medicine at Upsala, and (a vain addition to his real -titles) he was soon afterwards “ennobled.” - -The productions of his genius and industry during the twenty years -from 1740 were astonishingly numerous. Besides his _Systema Naturæ_ -and _Species Plantarum_, his two most considerable works, he wrote a -large number of dissertations, afterwards collected under the title of -_Amœnitates Academicæ_--“Academic Delights.” Everything he wrote was -received with the greatest respect by the scientific world. Upon his -death the whole University of Upsala united in showing respect to his -memory; sixteen doctors of medicine, old pupils, bearing the “pall,” -and a general mourning was ordered throughout the land of his birth. - -The scientific merits of Linné are his exactness and conciseness in -classification. He reduced to something like order the chaotic and -pedantic systems of his predecessors, which were prolix and overladen -with names and classes. If the science still labours under the stigma -of needless pedantry, the fault lies not with himself, but with his -successors. Linné’s evidence to the scientific truth of Vegetarianism -is brief but _pregnant_:-- - - “This species of food [fruits and farinacea] is that which _is most - suited_ to man, as is proved by the series of quadrupeds, analogy, - wild men, apes, the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of - the hands.”[182] - - - - -XXIX. - -BUFFON. 1707-1788. - - -An eminent instance of perversity of logic--of which, by the way, the -history of human thought supplies too many examples--is that of the -well-known author of the _Histoire Naturelle_, a work which (highly -interesting as it is, and always will be, by reason of the detailed -and generally accurate delineation of the characters and habits of the -various forms of animated nature, and by reason of the graces of style -of that French classic) is, from a strictly scientific point of view, -of not always the most reliable authority. Although Buffon has depicted -as forcibly as well can be conceived the low position in Nature of -the carnivorous tribes, and not a few of the evils arising from human -addiction to carnivorousness, yet, by a strange perversion of the facts -of comparative physiology, he has chosen to enlist himself amongst the -apologists of that degenerate mode of living. But facts are stronger -than prejudices, and his very candid _admissions_, which we shall here -quote, speak sufficiently for themselves:-- - - “Man [says he] knows how to use, as a master, his power over - [other] animals. He has selected those whose flesh _flatters his - taste_. He has made domestic slaves of them. He has multiplied them - more than Nature could have done. He has formed innumerable flocks, - and by the cares which he takes in propagating them he _seems_[183] - to have acquired the right of sacrificing them for himself. But he - extends that right _much beyond_ his needs. For, independently of - those species which he has subjected, and of which he disposes at - his will, he makes war also upon wild animals, upon birds, upon - fishes. He does not even limit himself to those of the climate - he inhabits. He seeks at a distance, even in the remotest seas, - new meats, and entire Nature seems scarcely to suffice for his - intemperance and the inconsistent variety of his appetites. - - “_Man alone consumes and engulfs more flesh than all other animals - put together. He is, then, the greatest destroyer, and he is - so more by abuse than by necessity._ Instead of enjoying with - moderation the resources offered him, in place of dispensing them - with equity, in place of repairing in proportion as he destroys, - of renewing in proportion as he annihilates, the rich man makes - all his boast and glory in _consuming_, all his splendour in - destroying, in one day, at his table, more material (_plus de - biens_) than would be necessary for the support of several - families. He abuses equally other animals and his own species, the - rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only - to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable - vanity of this human being who, _destroying others by want, - destroys himself by excess_. - - “And yet Man might, like other animals, live upon vegetables. - _Flesh is not a better nourishment than grains or bread._ What - constitutes true nourishment, what contributes to the nutrition, - to the development, to the growth, and to the support of the body, - is not that brute matter which, to our eyes, composes the texture - of flesh or of vegetables, but it is those organic molecules which - both contain; since the ox, in feeding on grass, acquires as much - flesh as man or as animals who live upon flesh and blood.... The - essential source is the same; it is the same matter, it is the same - organic molecules which nourish the Ox, Man, and all animals.... - It results from what we have just said that Man, whose stomach - and intestines are not of a very great capacity relatively to the - volume of his body, could not live simply upon grass. Nevertheless - _it is proved by facts that he could well live upon bread, - vegetables, and the grains of plants_, since we know entire nations - and classes of men to whom religion forbids to feed upon anything - that has life.” - -To the ordinary apprehension all this might seem _primâ facie_ -conclusive evidence of the non-necessariness of the food of the -richer classes of the community. But, unhappily, Buffon seems to have -considered himself as holding a brief to defend his clients, the -flesh-eaters, in the last resort, and, accordingly, in spite of these -admissions, which to an unbiassed mind might appear conclusive argument -for the relinquishment of flesh as food, he proceeds to contradict -himself by adding:-- - - “But these examples, supported even by the authority of Pythagoras - [and he might have added many later names of equal authority], and - recommended by some physicians too friendly to a reformed diet - (_trop amis de diète!_), appear to me not sufficient to convince us - that it would be for the advantage of human health (_qu’il y eût à - gagner pour la santè des hommes_) and for the multiplication of the - human species to live upon vegetables and bread only, for so much - the stronger reason, that the poor country people, whom the luxury - of the cities and towns and the extravagant waste of tables reduce - to this mode of living, languish and die off sooner than persons - of the middle class, to whom inanition and excess are equally - unknown!”[184] - -In stigmatising, in the following sentence, the cruel rapacity of the -lower carnivorous tribes, Buffon consciously or unconsciously stamps -the same stigma upon the carnivorous human animal:-- - - “_After Man_, the animals who live only upon flesh are the greatest - destroyers. They are at once the enemies of Nature and the rivals - of Man.”[185] - - - - -XXX. - -HAWKESWORTH. 1715-1773. - - -Best known as the editor of _The Adventurer_--a periodical in imitation -of the _Spectator_, _Rambler_, &c.--which appeared twice a week during -the years 1752-54. Johnson, Warton, and others assisted him in this -undertaking, which has the honour of being one of the first periodicals -which have ventured to denounce the cruel barbarism of “Sport,” and the -papers by Hawkesworth upon that subject are in striking contrast with -the usual tone and practice of his contemporaries and, indeed, of our -own times. - -In 1761 he published an edition of Swift’s writings, with a life which -received the praise of Samuel Johnson (in his _Lives of the Poets_), -and it is a passage in that book which entitles him to a place here. -In 1773 he was entrusted by the Government of the day with the task -of compiling a history of the recent voyages of Captain Cook. He also -translated the _Aventures de Télémaque_ of Fénélon. The coarseness -and repulsiveness of the dishes of the common diet seldom have been -stigmatised with greater force than by Dr. Hawkesworth. His expressions -of abhorrence are conceived quite in the spirit of Plutarch:-- - - “Among other dreadful and disgusting images which Custom has - rendered familiar, are those which arise from eating animal food. - He who has ever turned with abhorrence from the skeleton of a - beast which has been picked whole by birds or vermin, must confess - that _habit_ alone could have enabled him to endure the sight of - the mangled bones and flesh of a dead carcase which every day - cover his table. And he who reflects on the _number_ of lives that - have been sacrificed to sustain his own, should enquire by _what_ - the account has been balanced, and whether his life is become - proportionately of more value by the exercise of virtue and by the - superior happiness which he has communicated to [more] reasonable - beings.”[186] - - - - -XXXI. - -PALEY. 1743-1805. - - -With the exception of Joseph Butler, perhaps the ablest and most -interesting of English orthodox theologians. As one of the very few -of this numerous class of writers who seem seriously to be impressed -with the difficulty of reconciling orthodox _dietetics_ with the higher -moral and religious instincts, Paley has for social reformers a title -to remembrance, and it is as a moral philosopher that he has a claim -upon our attention. - -The son of a country curate, Paley began his career as tutor in an -academy in Greenwich. He had entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, -as “sizar.” Being senior wrangler of his year, he was afterwards -elected a Fellow of his college. His lectures on moral philosophy at -the University contained the germs of his most useful writing. After -the usual previous stages, finally he received the preferment of the -Archdeaconry of Carlisle. The failure of the most eminent of the modern -apologists of dogmatic Christianity to attain the highest rewards of -ecclesiastical ambition, and the refusal of George III. to promote -“pigeon” Paley when it was proposed to that reactionary prince to make -so skilful a controversialist a bishop--a refusal founded on the famous -apology for monarchy in the _Moral and Political Philosophy_--is well -known. - -The most important, by far, of his writings, is the _Elements of -Moral and Political Philosophy_ (1785). He founds moral obligation -upon principles of utility. In politics he asserts the grounds of the -duties of rulers and ruled to be based upon the same far-reaching -consideration, and upon this principle he maintains that as soon -as any Government has proved itself corrupt or negligent of the -public good, whatever may have been the alleged legitimacy of its -original authority, the right of the governed to put an end to it is -established. “The final view of all national politics,” he affirms, -“is [ought to be] to produce the greatest quantity of happiness.” -The comparative boldness, indeed, of certain of his disquisitions -on Government alarmed not a little the political and ecclesiastical -dignitaries of the time. His adhesion to the programme of Clarkson and -the anti-slavery “fanatics” (as that numerically insignificant band of -reformers was styled) did not tend, it may be presumed, to counteract -the damaging effects of his political philosophy. - -In his _Natural Theology_ (1802), his best theological production, he -labours to establish the fact of benevolent design from observation -of the various phenomena of nature and life. Whatever estimate may be -formed of the success of this undertaking, there can be no question -of the ability and eloquence of the accomplished pleader; and the -book proves him, at least, to have acquired a surprising amount -of physiological and anatomical knowledge. It is justly described -by Sir J. Mackintosh as “the wonderful work of a man who, after -sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it.” Of the _Evidences_ -(1790-94)--the most popularly known of his writings--the considerable -literary merit is in somewhat striking contrast, in regard to clearness -and simplicity of style, with the ordinary productions of the -evidential school. - -We are concerned now with the _Moral and Political Philosophy_. It -has been already stated that it is based upon the principles of -utilitarianism. As for personal moral conduct, he justly considered it -to be vastly influenced by early custom; or, as he expresses it, the -art of life consists in the right “setting of our habits.” - -On the subjoined examination of the question of the lawfulness or -otherwise of flesh-eating, his ultimate refuge in an alleged biblical -authority (forced upon him, apparently, by the necessity of his -position rather than by personal inclination) confirms rather than -weakens his preceding candid _admissions_, which sufficiently establish -our position:-- - - “A right to the flesh of animals. This is a _very different claim_ - from the former [‘a right to the fruits or vegetable produce of - the earth’]. _Some_ excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss - which we occasion to [other] animals by restraining them of their - liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last, putting an end to - their lives for our pleasure or convenience. - - “The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the - following--that the several species of animals being created to - prey upon one another[187] affords a kind of analogy to prove that - the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let - alone, they would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from the - occupation of it;[188] that they are requited for what they suffer - at our hands by our care and protection. - - “Upon which reasons I would observe that the analogy contended - for _is extremely lame_, since [the carnivorous] animals have no - power to support life by any other means, and _since we have, for - the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, - herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindus[189] actually do_. The - two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go, for, - no doubt, if men had been supported entirely by vegetable food a - great part of those animals who die to furnish our tables would - never have lived[190] but they by no means justify our right over - the lives of other animals to the extent to which we exercise it. - What danger is there, _e.g._, of fish interfering with us in the - occupation of their element, or what do we contribute to their - support or preservation? - - “_It seems to me that it would be difficult to defend this right - by any arguments which the light and order of Nature afford_, and - that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture - (_Gen._ ix., 1, 2, 3). To Adam and his posterity had been granted, - at the creation, ‘every green herb for meat,’ and nothing more. - In the last clause of the passage now produced the old grant is - recited and extended to the flesh of animals--‘even as the green - herb, have I given you all things.’ But this was not until after - the Flood. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world had therefore - no such permission that we know of. Whether they actually refrained - from the flesh of animals is another question. Abel, we read, was - a keeper of sheep, and for what purpose he kept them, except for - food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifice). Might not, - however, some of the stricter sects among the antediluvians be - scrupulous as to this point? And might not Noah and his family - be of this description? For, it is not probable that God should - publish a permission to authorise a practice which had never been - disputed.”[191] - -Thus far as regards the _moral_ aspect of the subject. Dealing with the -social and economical view, Paley, untrammelled by professional views, -is more decided. In his chapter, _Of Population and Provision, &c._, he -writes:-- - - “The natives of Hindustan being confined, by the laws of their - religion, to the use of vegetable food, and requiring little except - rice, which the country produces in plentiful crops; and food, in - warm climates, composing the only want of life, these countries are - populous under all the injuries of a despotic, and the agitations - of an unsettled, Government. If any revolution, or what would be - called perhaps _refinement of manners (!)_, should generate in - these people a taste for the flesh of animals, similar to what - prevails amongst the Arabian hordes--should introduce flocks and - herds into grounds which are now covered with corn--should teach - them to account a certain portion of this species of food amongst - the necessaries of life--the population from this single change - would suffer in a few years a great diminution, and this diminution - would follow in spite of every effort of the laws, or even of any - improvement that might take place in their civil condition. In - Ireland the simplicity of living alone maintains a considerable - degree of population under great defects of police, industry, - and commerce.... Next to the mode of living, we are to consider - ‘the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which is either - raised in the country or imported into it,’ for this is the order - in which we assigned the causes of population and undertook to - treat of them. Now, if we measure the quantity of provision by the - number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour, - this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil from which it - is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the _kind_. For - instance, a piece of ground capable of supplying animal food - sufficient for the subsistence of ten persons _would sustain, at - least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk_. - - “The first resource of savage life is in the flesh of wild animals. - Hence the numbers amongst savage nations, compared with the tract - of country which they occupy, are universally small, because this - species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the slenderest - proportion. The next step was the invention of pasturage, or the - rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals. This alteration - added to the stock of provision much. But the last and _principal - improvement was to follow, viz., tillage, or the artificial - production of corn, esculent plants, and roots_. This discovery, - whilst it changed the quality of human food, augmented the quantity - in a vast proportion. - - “So far as the state of population is governed and limited by - the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that - affects it so powerfully as the kind and quality of food which - chance or usage hath introduced into a country. In England, - notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been of late - considerably increased by the enclosure of wastes and the adoption, - in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not - observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants, the - reason of which appears to me to be the more general consumption - of animal food amongst us. Many ranks of people whose ordinary - diet was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk, - roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion - of the flesh of animals. _Hence a great part of the richest lands - of the country are converted to pasturage._ Much also of the - bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies, - now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and - oxen. _The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished_, - and what is gained in the amelioration of the soil is lost in the - quality of the produce. - - “This consideration teaches us that tillage, as an object of - national care and encouragement, is universally preferable to - pasturage, because the kind of provision which it yields goes - much farther in the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also - recommended by this additional advantage--that it _affords - employment to a much more numerous peasantry_. Indeed pasturage - seems to be the art of a nation, either imperfectly civilised, as - are many of the tribes which cultivate it in the internal parts - of Asia, or of a nation, like Spain, declining from its summit by - luxury and inactivity.”[192] - -Elsewhere Paley asserts that “luxury in dress or furniture is -universally preferable to luxury _in eating_, because the articles -which constitute the one are more the production of human art and -industry than those which supply the other.” - - - - -XXXII. - -ST. PIERRE. 1737-1814. - - -Principally known as the author of the most charming of all idyllic -romances--_Paul et Virginie_. Beginning his career as civil engineer -he afterwards entered the French army. A quarrel with his official -superiors forced him to seek employment elsewhere, and he found it -in the Russian service, where his scientific ability received due -recognition. - -Encouraged by the esteem in which he was held, he formed the project -of establishing a colony on the Caspian shores, which should be under -just and equal laws. St. Pierre submitted the scheme to the Russian -Minister, who, as we should be apt to presume, did not receive it too -favourably. He then went to Poland in the vain expectation of aiding -the people of that hopelessly distracted country in throwing off the -foreigners’ yoke. Failing in this undertaking, and despairing, for -the time, of the cause of freedom, we next find him in Berlin and -in Vienna. He had also previously visited Holland, in which great -refuge of freedom he had been received with hospitality. In Paris, -upon his return to France, his project of a free colony found better -reception than in St. Petersburg--owing, perhaps, to the not altogether -disinterested sympathy of the Government with the recently revolted -American colonies. To further his plans he accepted an official post in -the Ile de France, intending eventually to proceed to Madagascar, where -was to be realised his long-cherished idea. On the voyage he discovered -that his associates had formed a very different design from his -own--to engage in the slave traffic. Separating from these nefarious -speculators, he landed in the Ile de France, where he remained two -years. It is to the experiences of this part of his life that we owe -his _Paul et Virginie_, the scenes of which are laid in that tropical -island. - -Returning home once again, he made the acquaintance of D’Alembert -and of other leading men of letters in Paris, and, particularly, -of Rousseau, his philosophical master. At the period of the Great -Revolution of 1789, St. Pierre lost his post as superintendent of the -Royal Botanical Gardens under the old Bourbon Government, and he found -himself reduced to poverty; and although his sympathies were with the -party of constitutional, though not of radical, reform, the supremacy -of the extreme revolutionists (1792-1794) exposed him to some hazard by -reason of his known deistic convictions. Upon the establishment of the -reactionary revolution of the Empire, St. Pierre recovered his former -post, and, with the empty honour of the Imperial Cross, he received the -more solid benefit of a pension and other emoluments. - -His writings have been collected and published in two quarto volumes -(Paris, 1836). Of these, after his celebrated romance, perhaps the most -popular is _La Chaumière Indienne_ (“The Indian or Hindu Cottage”). His -principal productions are _Etudes de la Nature_ (“Studies of Nature”), -_Vœux d’un Solitaire_ (“Aspirations of a Recluse”), _Voyage à L’Ile -de France_ (“Voyage to Mauritius”), and _L’Arcadie_ (“Arcadia”). -His merits consist in a certain refinement of feeling, in charming -eloquence in description of natural beauty, and in the humane spirit -which breathes in his writings. Of the _Paul et Virginie_ he tells us-- - - “I have proposed to myself great designs in that little work.... - I have desired to reunite to the beauty of Nature, as seen in the - tropics, the moral beauty of a small society of human beings. I - proposed to myself thereby to demonstrate several great truths; - amongst others this--that our happiness consists in living - according to Nature and Virtue.” - -He assures us that the principal characters and events he describes -are by no means only the imaginings of romance. In truth, it seems -difficult to believe that the genius of the author alone could have -impressed so wonderful an air of reality upon merely fictitious scenes. -The popularity of the story was secured at once in the author’s own -country, and it rapidly spread throughout Europe. _Paul et Virginie_ -was successively translated into English, Italian, German, Dutch, -Polish, Russian, and Spanish. It became the fashion for mothers to give -to their children the names of its hero and heroine, and well would -it have been had they also adopted for them that method of innocent -living which is the real, if too generally unrecognised, secret of the -fascinating power of the book. - -It is thus that he eloquently calls to remembrance the _natural_ feasts -of his young heroine and hero:-- - - “Amiable children! thus in innocence did you pass your first days. - How often in this spot have your mothers, pressing you in their - arms, thanked Heaven for the consolation you were preparing for - them in their old age, and for the happiness of seeing you enter - upon life under so happy auguries! How often, under the shadow - of these rocks, have I shared, with them, your out-door repasts - _which had cost no animals their lives_. Gourds full of milk, of - newly-laid eggs, of rice cakes upon banana leaves, baskets laden - with potatoes, with mangoes, with oranges, with pomegranates, - with bananas, with dates, with ananas, offered at once the most - wholesome meats, the most beautiful colours, and the most agreeable - juices. The conversation was as refined and gentle as their food.” - -The humaneness of their manners had attracted to the charming arbour, -which they had formed for themselves, all kinds of beautiful birds, -who sought there their daily meals and the caresses of their human -protectors. Our readers will not be displeased to be reminded of this -charming scene:-- - - “Virginie loved to repose upon the slope of this fountain, which - was decorated with a pomp at once magnificent and wild. Often - would she come there to wash the household linen beneath the shade - of two cocoa-nut trees. Sometimes she led her goats to feed in this - place; and, while she was preparing cheese from their milk, she - pleased herself in watching them as they browsed the herbage upon - the precipitous sides of the rocks, and supported themselves in - mid-air upon one of the jutting points as upon a pedestal. Paul, - seeing that this spot was loved by Virginie, brought from the - neighbouring forest the nests of all sorts of birds. The fathers - and mothers of these birds followed their little ones, and came - and established themselves in this new colony. Virginie would - distribute to them from time to time grains of rice, maize, and - millet. As soon as she appeared, the blackbirds, the _bengalis_, - whose flight is so gentle, the cardinals, whose plumage is of the - colour of fire, quitted their bushes; parroquets, green as emerald, - descended from the neighbouring lianas, partridges ran along under - the grass--all advanced pell-mell up to her feet like domestic - hens. Paul and she delighted themselves with their transports of - joy, with their eager appetites, and with their loves.” - -In his views upon national education, St. Pierre invites the serious -attention of legislators and educators to the importance of accustoming -the young to the nourishment prescribed by Nature:-- - - “They [the true instructors of the people] will accustom children - to the vegetable _régime_. The peoples living upon vegetable foods, - are, of all men, the handsomest, the most vigorous, the least - exposed to diseases and to passions, and they whose lives last - longest. Such, in Europe, are a large proportion of the Swiss. The - greater part of the peasantry who, in every country, form the most - vigorous portion of the people, eat very little flesh-meat. The - Russians have multiplied periods of fasting and days of abstinence, - from which even the soldiers are not exempt; and yet they resist - all kinds of fatigues. The negroes, who undergo so many hard blows - in our colonies, live upon manioc, potatoes, and maize alone. The - Brahmins of India, who frequently reach the age of one hundred - years, eat only vegetable foods. It was from the Pythagorean sect - that issued Epaminondas, so celebrated by his virtues; Archytas, - by his genius for mathematics and mechanics; Milo of Crotona, by - his strength of body. Pythagoras himself was the finest man of his - time, and, without dispute, the most enlightened, since he was the - father of philosophy amongst the Greeks. Inasmuch as the non-flesh - diet introduces many virtues and excludes none, it will be well to - bring up the young upon it, since it has so happy an influence upon - the beauty of the body and upon the tranquility of the mind. This - regimen prolongs childhood, and, by consequence, human life.[193] - - “I have seen an instance of it in a young Englishman aged fifteen, - and who did not appear to be twelve years of age. He was of a most - interesting figure, of the most robust health, and of the most - sweet disposition. He was accustomed to take very long walks. He - was never put out of temper by any annoyance that might happen. His - father, Mr. Pigott, told me that he had brought him up entirely - upon the Pythagorean regimen, the good effects of which he had - known by his own experience. He had formed the project of employing - a part of his fortune, which was considerable, in establishing - in English America a society of dietary reformers who should be - engaged in educating, under the same regimen, the children of - the colonists in all the arts which bear upon agriculture. Would - that this educational scheme, worthy of the best and happiest - times of Antiquity, might succeed! Physically, it suits a warlike - people no less than an agricultural one. The Persian children, of - the time of Cyrus, and by his orders, were nourished upon bread, - water, and vegetables.... It was with these children, become men, - that Cyrus made the conquest of Asia. I observe that Lycurgus - introduced a great part of the physical and moral regimen of the - Persian children into the education of those of the Lacedemonians.” - (_Etudes._)[194] - - * * * * * - -Of the many practical witnesses of this period, more or less -interesting, for the sufficiency, or rather superiority, of the -reformed regimen, four names stand out in prominent relief--Franklin, -Howard, Swedenborg, Wesley--prominent either for scientific ability or -for philanthropic zeal. To his early resolution to betake himself to -frugal living, Benjamin Franklin, then in a printer’s office in Boston, -attributes mainly his future success in life.[195] - -It was to his pure dietary that the great Prison Reformer assigns -his immunity, during so many years, from the deadly jail-fever, to -the infection of which he fearlessly exposed himself in visiting -those hotbeds of _malaria_--the filthy prisons of this country and of -continental Europe. (See the correspondence of John Howard--_passim_.) -Equally significant is the testimony of the eminent founder of -Methodism whose almost unexampled energy and endurance, both of mind -and body, during some fifty years of continuous persecution, both legal -and popular, were supported (as he informs us in his _Journals_) mainly -by abstinence from gross foods; while, in regard to Emanuel Swedenborg, -if abstinence does not assume so prominent a place in his theological -or other various writings as might have been expected from his special -opinions, the cause of such silence must be referred not to personal -addiction to an _anti-spiritualistic_ nourishment (for he himself was -notably frugal) but to preoccupation of mental faculties which seem to -have been absorbed in the elaboration of his well-known spiritualistic -system. - -The limits of this work do not permit us to quote all the many writers -of the eighteenth century whom philosophy, science, or profounder -feeling urged _incidentally_ to question the necessity or to suspect -the barbarism of the Slaughter-House. But there are two names, amongst -the highest in the whole range of English philosophic literature, whose -expression of opinion may seem to be peculiarly noteworthy--the author -of the _Wealth of Nations_ and the historian of the _Decline and Fall -of the Roman Empire_. - - “It may, indeed, be doubted [writes the founder of the science of - Political Economy] whether butchers’ meat is _anywhere_ a necessary - of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, - and butter, or oil (where butter is not to be had), it is known - from experience, can, _without any butchers’ meat, afford the most - plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most - invigorating diet_.”[196] - -As for the reflections of the first of historians, who seems always -carefully to guard himself from the expression of any sort of -emotion not in keeping with the character of an impartial judge and -unprejudiced spectator, but who, on the subject in question, cannot -wholly repress the _natural_ feeling of disgust, they are sufficiently -significant. Gibbon is describing the manners of the Tartar tribes:-- - - “The thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the - shepherds of the North, and their arms have spread terror and - devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. - On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is - forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision, and is compelled, with - some reluctance, to confess that the pastoral manners, which have - been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, - are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a - military life. - - “To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a - nation of shepherds and of warriors in the three important articles - of (1) their diet, (2) their habitations, and (3) their exercises. - 1. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary - and wholesome food of a civilised people, can be obtained only - by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages - who dwell between the tropics are plentifully nourished by the - liberality of Nature; but in the climates of the North a nation - of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful - practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able - to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be affected - by the use of animal or of vegetable food; and whether the common - association of carnivorous and cruel deserves to be considered - in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, - prejudice of humanity. Yet if it be true that the sentiment of - compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of - domestic cruelty, we may observe that _the horrid objects which - are disguised by the arts of European refinement_ are exhibited in - their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a Tartar - shepherd. The Oxen or the Sheep are slaughtered by the same hand - from which they were accustomed to receive their daily food, and - the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the - table of their unfeeling murderers.”[197] - -To the poets, who claim to be the interpreters and priests of -Nature, we might, with justness, look for celebration of the -anti-materialist living. Unhappily we too generally look in vain. -The prophet-poets--Hesiod, Kalidâsa, Milton, Thomson, Shelley, -Lamartine--form a band more noble than numerous. Of those who, not -having entered the very sanctuary of the temple of humanitarianism, -have been content to officiate in its outer courts, Burns and Cowper -occupy a prominent place. That the latter, who felt so keenly - - “The persecution and the pain - That man inflicts on all inferior kinds - Regardless of their plaints,” - -and who has denounced with so eloquent indignation the pitiless wars -“waged with defenceless innocence,” and the protean shapes of human -selfishness, should yet have stopped short of the _final_ cause of -them all, would be inexplicable but for the blinding influence of -habit and authority. Nevertheless, his picture of the savagery of -the Slaughter-House, and of some of its associated cruelties, is too -forcible to be omitted: - - “To make him sport, - To justify the phrensy of his wrath, - _Or his base gluttony_, are causes good - And just, in his account, why bird and beast - Should suffer torture, and the stream be dyed - With blood of their inhabitants impaled. - Earth groans beneath the burden of a war - Waged with defenceless Innocence: while he, - _Not satisfied to prey on all around, - Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs - Needless, and first torments ere he devours_. - Now happiest they who occupy the scenes - The most remote from his abhorred resort. - - * * * * * - - Witness at his feet - The Spaniel dying for some venial fault, - Under dissection of the knotted scourge: - _Witness the patient Ox, with stripes and yells - Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs - To madness, while the savage at his heels - Laughs at the frantic sufferer’s fury spent - Upon the heedless passenger o’erthrown_. - He, too, is witness--noblest of the train - Who waits on Man--the flight-performing Horse: - With unsuspecting readiness he takes - His murderer on his back, and, pushed all day, - With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life, - To the far-distant goal arrives, and dies! - So little mercy shows, who needs so much! - Does Law--so jealous in the cause of Man[?]-- - Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.”[198] - - - - -XXXIII. - -OSWALD. 1730-1793. - - -Amongst the less known prophets of the new Reformation the author -of the _Cry of Nature_--one of the most eloquent appeals to justice -and right feeling ever addressed to the conscience of men--deserves -an honourable place. Of the facts of his life we have scanty record. -He was a native of Edinburgh. At an early age he entered the English -army as a private soldier, but his friends soon obtained for him -an officer’s commission. He went to the East Indies, where he -distinguished himself by his remarkable courage and ability. He did not -long remain in the military life; and, having sold out, he travelled -through Hindustan to inform himself of the principles of the Brahmin -and Buddhist religions of the peninsula, whose dress as well as milder -manners he assumed upon his return to England. - -During his stay in this country he uniformly abstained from all -flesh meats, and so great, we are told, was his abhorrence of the -Slaughter-House, that, to avoid it or the butcher’s shop, he was -accustomed to make a long _détour_. His children were brought up in -the same way. In 1790, like some others of the more enthusiastic -class of his countrymen, he espoused the cause of the Revolution, and -went to Paris. By introducing some useful military reforms he gained -distinction amongst the Republicans, and he received an important post. -He seems to have fallen, with his sons, fighting in La Vendée for the -National Cause. - -The author, in his preface, tells us that-- - - “Fatigued with answering the inquiries and replying to the - objections of his friends with respect to the singularity of his - mode of life, he conceived that he might consult his ease by - making, once for all, a public apology for his opinions.... The - author is very far from entertaining a presumption that his slender - labours (crude and imperfect as they are now hurried to the press) - will ever operate an effect on the public mind; and yet, when - he considers the natural bias of the human heart to the side of - mercy,[199] and observes, on all hands, the barbarous governments - of Europe giving way to a better system of things, he is inclined - to hope that the day is beginning to approach when the growing - sentiment of peace and goodwill towards men will also embrace, in a - wide circle of benevolence, the lower orders of life. - - “At all events, the pleasing persuasion that his work may have - contributed to _mitigate_ the ferocities of prejudice, and to - _diminish_, in some degree, the great mass of misery which - oppresses the lower animal world, will, in the hour of distress, - convey to the author’s soul a consolation which the tooth of - calumny will not be able to empoison.” - -A noble and true inspiration nobly and eloquently used! The arguments, -by which he attempts to reach the better feeling of his readers, are -drawn from the deepest source of morality. Having given a beautiful -picture of the tempting and alluring character of Fruits, he exclaims -in his poetic-prose:-- - - “But far other is the fate of animals. For, alas! when they are - plucked from the tree of Life, suddenly the withered blossoms of - their beauty shrink to the chilly hand of Death. Quenched in his - cold grasp expires the lamp of their loveliness, and struck by - the livid blast of loathed putrefaction, their comely limbs are - involved in ghastly horror. Shall we leave the living herbs to - seek, in the den of death, an obscene aliment? Insensible to the - blooming beauties of Pomona--unallured by the fragrant odours that - exhale from her groves of golden fruits--unmoved by the nectar of - Nature, by the ambrosia of innocence--shall the voracious vultures - of our impure appetites speed along those lovely scenes and alight - in the loathsome sink of putrefaction to devour the remains of - other creatures, to load with cadaverous rottenness a wretched - stomach?” - -He repeats Porphyry’s appeal to the consideration of human interests -themselves-- - - “And is not the human race itself highly interested to prevent the - habit of spilling blood? For, will the man, habituated to violence, - be nice to distinguish the vital tide of a quadruped from that - which flows from a creature with two legs? Are the dying struggles - of a Lamb less affecting than the agonies of any animal whatever? - Or, will the ruffian who beholds unmoved the supplicatory looks - of innocence itself, and, reckless of the Calf’s infantine cries, - pitilessly plunges in her quivering side the murdering knife, will - he turn, I say, with horror from human assassination? - - ‘What more advance can mortals make in sin, - So near perfection, who with blood begin? - Deaf to the calf who lies beneath the knife, - Looks up, and from the butcher begs her life. - Deaf to the harmless kid who, ere he dies, - All efforts to procure thy pity tries, - And imitates, in vain, thy children’s cries. - Where will he stop?’ - - “From the practice of slaughtering an innocent animal of another - species to the murder of man himself the steps are neither many nor - remote. This our forefathers perfectly understood, who ordained - that, in a cause of blood, no butcher should be permitted to sit in - jury.... - - “But from the nature of the very human heart arises the strongest - argument in behalf of the persecuted beings. Within us there - exists a rooted repugnance to the shedding of blood, a repugnance - which yields only to Custom, and which even the most inveterate - custom can seldom entirely overcome. Hence the ungracious task of - shedding the tide of life (for the gluttony of the table) has, in - every country, been committed to the lowest class of men, and their - profession is, in every country, an object of abhorrence. - - “They feed on the carcass without remorse, because the dying - struggles of the butchered victim are secluded from their - sight--because his cries pierce not their ears--because his - agonising shrieks sink not into their souls. But were they forced, - with their own hands, to assassinate the beings whom they devour, - who is there among us who would not throw down the knife with - detestation, and, rather than embrue his hands in the murder of - the lamb, consent for ever to forego the accustomed repast? What - then shall we say? Vainly planted in our breast is this abhorrence - of cruelty--this sympathetic affection for innocence? Or do - the feelings of the heart point to the command of Nature more - unerringly than all the elaborate subtlety of a set of men who, at - the shrine of science, have sacrificed the dearest sentiments of - humanity?” - -This eloquent vindicator of the rights of the oppressed of the -non-human races here addresses a scathing rebuke to the torturers -of the vivisection-halls, as well as to those who abuse Science by -attempting to enlist it in the defence of slaughter. - - “You, the sons of modern science, who court not Wisdom in her - walks of silent meditation in the grove--who behold her not in - the living loveliness of her works, but expect to meet her in the - midst of obscenity and corruption--you, who dig for knowledge in - the depths of the dunghill, and who expect to discover Wisdom - enthroned amid the fragments of mortality and the abhorrence of - the senses--you, that with cruel violence interrogate trembling - Nature, who plunge into her maternal bosom the butcher-knife, and, - in quest of your nefarious science, delight to scrutinise the - fibres of agonising beings, you dare also to violate the human - form, and holding up the entrails of men, you exclaim, ‘Behold the - bowels of a carnivorous animal!’ Barbarians! to these very bowels - I appeal against your cruel dogmas--to these bowels which Nature - hath sanctified to the sentiments of pity and of gratitude, to the - yearnings of kindred, to the melting tenderness of love. - - ‘Mollissima corda - Humano generi dare se Natura fatetur, - Quæ _lachrymas_ dedit: hæc nostri pars optima sensus.’[200] - - “Had Nature intended man to be an animal of prey, would she have - implanted in his breast an instinct so adverse to her purpose?... - Would she not rather, in order to enable him to brave the piercing - cries of anguish, have wrapped his ruthless heart in ribs of brass, - and with iron entrails have armed him to grind, without shadow of - remorse, the palpitating limbs of agonising life? But has Nature - winged the feet of men with fleetness to overtake the flying prey? - And where are his fangs to tear asunder the beings destined for - his food? Does the lust of carnage glare in his eye-balls? Does he - scent from afar the footsteps of his victim? Does his soul pant for - the feast of blood? Is the bosom of men the rugged abode of bloody - thoughts, and from the den of Death rush forth, at sight of other - animals, his rapacious desires to slay, to mangle, and to devour? - - “But come, men of scientific subtlety, approach and examine with - attention this dead body. It was late a playful Fawn, who skipping - and bounding on the bosom of parent Earth, awoke in the soul of - the feeling observer a thousand tender emotions. But the butcher’s - knife has laid low the delight of a fond mother, and the darling - of Nature is now stretched in gore upon the ground. Approach, I - say, men of scientific subtlety, and tell me, does this ghastly - spectacle whet your appetite? But why turn you with abhorrence? - Do you then yield to the combined evidence of your senses, to - the testimony of conscience and common sense; or with a show of - rhetoric, pitiful as it is perverse, will you still persist in your - endeavour to persuade us that to murder an innocent being is not - cruel nor unjust, and that to feed upon a corpse is neither filthy - nor unfitting?” - -Amid the dark scenes of barbarism and cold-blooded indifferentism -to suffering innocence, there are yet the glimmers of a better -nature, which need but the life-giving impulse of a true religion and -philosophy:-- - - “And yet those channels of sympathy for inferior animals, long--a - very long--custom has not been able altogether to stifle. Even now, - notwithstanding the narrow, joyless, and hard-hearted tendency of - the prevailing superstitions; even now we discover, in every corner - of the globe, some good-natured _prejudice_ in behalf of [certain - of] the persecuted animals; we perceive, in every country, certain - privileged animals, whom even the ruthless jaws of gluttony dare - not to invade. For, to pass over unnoticed the vast empires of - India and of China, where the lower orders of life are considered - as relative parts of society, and are protected by the laws and - religion of the natives,[201] the Tartars abstain from several - kinds of animals; the Turks are charitable to the very dog, whom - they abominate; and even the English peasant pays towards the - _red-breast_ an inviolable respect to the rights of hospitality. - - “Long after the perverse practice of devouring the flesh of animals - had grown into inveterate habit among peoples, there existed still - in almost every country, and of every religion, and of every sect - of philosophy, a wiser, a purer, and more holy class of men who - preserved by their institutions, by their precepts, and by their - example, the memory of primitive innocence [?] and simplicity. The - Pythagoreans abhorred the slaughter of any animal life; Epicurus - and the worthiest part of his disciples bounded their delights with - the produce of their garden; and of the first Christians several - sects abominated the feast of blood, and were satisfied with the - food which Nature, unviolated, brings forth for our support.... - - “Man, in a state of nature, is not, apparently, much superior to - other animals. His organisation is, without doubt, extremely happy; - but then the dexterity of his figure is counterpoised by great - advantages in other beings. Inferior to the Bull in force, and in - fleetness to the Dog, the _os sublime_, or erect front, a feature - he bears in common with the Monkey, could scarcely have inspired - him with those haughty and magnificent ideas which the pride of - human refinement thence endeavours to deduce. Exposed, like his - fellow-creatures, to the injuries of the air, urged to action by - the same physical necessities, susceptible of the same impressions, - actuated by the same passions, and equally subject to the pains of - disease and to the pangs of dissolution, the simple savage never - dreams that his nature was so much more noble, or that he drew his - origin from a purer source or more remote than the other animals in - whom he saw a resemblance so complete. - - “Nor were the simple sounds by which he expressed the singleness - of his heart at all fitted to flatter him into that fond sense - of superiority over the beings whom the unreasoning insolence of - cultivated ages absurdly styles _mute_. I say absurdly styles - _mute_; for with what propriety can that name be applied, for - example, to the little sirens of the groves, to whom Nature has - granted the strains of ravishment--the soul of song? Those charming - warblers who pour forth, with a moving melody which human ingenuity - vies with in vain, their loves, their anxiety, their woes. In - the ardour and delicacy of his amorous expressions, can the most - impassioned, the most respectful, human lover surpass the ‘glossy - kind,’ as described by the most beautiful of all our poets? - - “And, indeed, has not Nature given to almost every being the same - spontaneous signs of the various affections? Admire we not in other - animals whatever is most eloquent in man--the tremor of desire, the - tear of distress, the piercing cry of anguish, the pity-pleading - look--expressions which speak to the soul with a feeling which - words are feeble to convey?” - -The whole of the little book of which the above extracts are properly -representative, breathes the spirit of a true religion. We shall only -add that it exhibits almost as much learning and valuable research as -it exhibits justness of thought and sensibility--enriched, as it is, by -copious illustrative notes.[202] - - - - -XXXIV. - -HUFELAND. 1762-1836. - - -Not entitled to rank among the greater prophets who have had the -penetration to recognise the _essential_ barbarism, no less than the -unnaturalness, of Kreophagy (disguised, as it is, by the arts of -civilisation), this most popular of all German physicians, with the -Cornaros and Abernethys, may yet claim considerable merit as having, in -some degree, sought to stem the tide of unnatural living, which, under -less gross forms indeed than those of the darker ages of dietetics, -and partially concealed in the refinements of Art, is more difficult -to be resisted by reason of its very disguise. If the renaissance of -Pythagorean dietetics had already dawned for the deeper thinkers, -the age of science and of reason, as regards the mass of accredited -teachers, was yet a long way off; and to all pioneers, even though they -failed to clear the way entirely, some measure of our gratitude is due. - -Christian Wilhelm Hufeland is one of the most prolific of medical -writers. Having studied medicine at Jena and at Gottingen he took the -degree of doctor in 1783. At Jena he occupied a professorial chair -(1793), and came to Berlin five years later, where he was entrusted -with the superintendence of the Medical College. Both as practical -physician and as professor, Hufeland attained a European reputation. -The French Academy of Sciences elected him one of its members. His -numerous writings have been often reprinted in Germany. Among the most -useful are: (1) _Popular Dissertations upon Health_ (Leipsig, 1794); -(2) _Makrobiotik: oder die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern_ -(Jena, 1796), a celebrated work which has been translated into all -the languages of Europe[203]; (3) _Good Advice to Mothers upon the -most Important Points of the Physical Education of Children in the -First Years_ (Berlin, 1799); (4) _History of Health, and Physical -Characteristics of our Epoch_ (Berlin, 1812)[204]. Of Hufeland’s -witness to the general superiority of the _Naturgemässe Lebensweise_ -the following sentences are sufficiently representative: - - “The more man follows Nature and obeys her laws the longer will he - live. The further he removes from them (_je weiter er von ihnen - abweicht_) the shorter will be his duration of existence.... - Only inartificial, simple nourishment promotes health and long - life, while mixed and rich foods but shorten our existence.... We - frequently find a very advanced old age amongst men who from youth - upwards have lived, for the most part, upon the vegetable diet, - and, perhaps, have never tasted flesh.”[205] - - - - -XXXV. - -RITSON. 1761-1830. - - -Known to the world generally as an eminent antiquarian and, in -particular, as one of the earliest and most acute investigators of -the sources of English romantic poetry, for future times his best and -enduring fame will rest upon his at present almost forgotten Moral -Essay upon Abstinence--one of the most able and philosophical of the -ethical expositions of anti-kreophagy ever published. - -His birthplace was Stockton in the county of Durham. By profession a -conveyancer, he enjoyed leisure for literary pursuits by his income -from an official appointment. During the twenty years from 1782 to 1802 -his time and talents were incessantly employed in the publication of -his various works, antiquarian and critical. His first notable critique -was his _Observations_ on Warton’s _History of English Poetry_, in the -shape of a letter to the author (1782), in which his critical zeal -seems to have been in excess of his literary amenity. Of other literary -productions may be enumerated his _Remarks on the Commentators of -Shakspere_; _A Select Collection of English Songs, with a Historical -Essay on the Origin and Progress of National Songs_ (1783); _Ancient -Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution_ (1790), -reprinted in 1829--perhaps the most valuable of his archæological -labours; _The English Anthology_ (1793); _Ancient English Metrical -Romances_, and _Bibliographia Poetica_, a catalogue of English poets -from the 12th to the 16th century, inclusive, with short notices of -their works. These are only some of the productions of his industry and -genius. - -We give the origin of his adhesion to the Humanitarian Creed as -recorded by himself in one of the chapters of his Essay, in which, -also, he introduces the name of an ardent and well-known humanitarian -reformer:-- - - “Mr. Richard Phillips,[206] the publisher of this compilation, a - vigorous, healthy, and well-looking man, has desisted from animal - food for upwards of twenty years; and the compiler himself, induced - to serious reflection by the perusal of Mandeville’s _Fable of the - Bees_, in the year 1772, being the 19th year of his age, has ever - since, to the revisal of these sheets [1802], firmly adhered to a - milk and vegetable diet; having, at least, never tasted, during the - whole course of those thirty years, any flesh, fowl, or fish, or - anything, to his knowledge, prepared in or with those substances - or any extract from them, unless, on one occasion, when tempted - by wet, cold, and hunger in the south of Scotland, he ventured - to eat a few potatoes dressed under roasted flesh, nothing less - repugnant to his feelings being obtainable; or, except by ignorance - or imposition, unless, it may be, in eating eggs, which, however, - deprives no animal of life, although it may prevent some from - coming into the world to be murdered and devoured by others.”[207] - -Ritson begins his Essay with a brief review of the opinions of some of -the old Greek and Italian philosophers upon the origin and constitution -of the world, and with a sketch of the position of man in Nature -relatively to other animals. Amongst others he cites Rousseau’s Essay -_Upon Inequality Amongst Men_. He then demonstrates the unnaturalness -of flesh-eating by considerations derived from Physiology and Anatomy, -and from the writings of various authorities; the fallacy of the -prejudice that flesh-meats are necessary or conducive to strength of -body, a fallacy manifest as well from the examples of whole nations -living entirely, or almost entirely, upon non-flesh food, as from -those of numerous individuals whose cases are detailed at length. He -quotes Arbuthnot, Sir Hans Sloane, Cheyne, Adam Smith, Volney, Paley, -and others. Next he insists upon the ferocity or coarseness of mind -directly or indirectly engendered by the diet of blood:-- - - “That the use of animal food disposes man to cruel and ferocious - actions is a fact to which the experience of ages gives ample - testimony. The Scythians, from drinking the blood of their cattle, - proceeded to drink that of their enemies. The fierce and cruel - disposition of the wild Arabs is supposed chiefly, if not solely, - to arise from their feeding upon the flesh of camels: and as - the gentle disposition of the natives of Hindustan is probably - owing, in great degree, to temperance and abstinence from animal - food, so the common use of this diet, with other nations, has, in - the opinion of M. Pagès, intensified the natural tone of their - passions; and he can account, he says, upon no other principle, - for the strong, harsh features of the Mussulmen and the Christians - compared with the mild traits and placid aspect of the Gentoos. - ‘Vulgar and uninformed men,’ it is observed by Smellie, ‘when - pampered with a variety of animal food, are much more choleric, - fierce, and cruel in their tempers, than those who live chiefly - upon vegetables.’ This affection is equally perceptible in other - animals--‘An officer, in the Russian service, had a bear whom - he fed with bread and oats, but never gave him flesh. A young - hog, however, happening to stroll near his cell, the bear got - hold of him and pulled him in; and, after he had once drawn - blood and tasted flesh, he became unmanageable, attacking every - person who came near him, so that the owner was obliged to kill - him.’--[_Memoirs of P. H. Bruce._] It was not, says Porphyry, - from those who lived on vegetables that robbers, or murderers, or - tyrants have proceeded, but from flesh-eaters.[208] Prey being - almost the sole object of quarrel amongst carnivorous animals, - while the frugivorous live together in constant peace and harmony, - it is evident that if men were of this latter kind, they would find - it much more easy to subsist happily.” - - “The barbarous and unfeeling sports (as they are called) of the - English--their horse-racing, hunting, shooting, bull and bear - baiting, cock-fighting,[209] prize-fighting, and the like, all - proceed from their immoderate addiction to animal food. Their - natural temper is thereby corrupted, and they are in the habitual - and hourly commission of crimes against nature, justice, and - humanity, from which a feeling and reflective mind, unaccustomed - to such a diet, would revolt, but in which they profess to take - delight. The kings of England have from a remote period, been - devoted to hunting; in which pursuit one of them, and the son - of another lost his life. James I., according to Scaliger, was - merciful, except at the chase, where he was cruel, and was very - much enraged when he could not catch the Stag. ‘God,’ he used - to say, ‘is enraged against me, so that I shall not have him.’ - Whenever he had caught his victim, he would put his arm all entire - into his belly and entrails. This anecdote may be paralleled with - the following of one of his successors: ‘The hunt on Tuesday last, - (March 1st, 1784), commenced near Salthill, and afforded a chase - of upwards of fifty miles. His Majesty was present at the death of - the stag near Tring, in Herts. It is the first deer that has been - ran to death for many months; and when opened, the heart strings - were found to be quite rent, as is supposed, with the force of - running.’[210] _Siste, vero, tandem carnifex!_ The slave trade, - that abominable violation of the rights of Nature, is most probably - owing to the same cause, as well as a variety of violent acts, - both national and personal, which usually are attributed to other - motives. In the sessions of Parliament, 1802, a majority of the - members voted for the continuance of bull-baiting, and some of them - had the confidence to plead in favour of it.”[211] - -Ritson enforces his observations upon this head by citing Plutarch, -Cowper, and Pope (in the _Guardian, No. 61_--a most forcible -and eloquent protest against the cruelties of “sport” and of -gluttony).[212] In his fifth chapter he traces the origin of human -sacrifices to the practice of flesh eating:-- - - “Superstition is the mother of Ignorance and Barbarity. Priests - began by persuading people of the existence of certain invisible - beings, whom they pretended to be the creators of the world and - the dispensers of good and evil; and of whose wills, in fine, - they were the sole interpreters. Hence arose the necessity of - sacrifices [ostensibly] to appease the wrath or to procure the - favour of imaginary gods, but in reality to gratify the gluttonous - and unnatural appetites of _real_ demons. Domestic animals were - the first victims. These were immediately under the eye of the - priest, and he was pleased with their taste. This satisfied for a - time; but he had eaten of the same things so repeatedly, that his - luxurious appetite called for variety. He had devoured the sheep, - and he was now desirous of devouring the shepherd. The anger of - the gods--testified by an opportune thunderstorm, was not to be - assuaged but by a sacrifice of uncommon magnitude. The people - tremble, and offer him their enemies, their slaves, their parents, - their children, to obtain a clear sky on a summer’s day, or a - bright moon by night. When, or upon what particular occasion, the - first human being was made a sacrifice is unknown, nor is it of - any consequence to enquire. Goats and bullocks had been offered up - already, and the transition was easy from the ‘brute’ to the man. - The practice, however, is of remote antiquity and universal extent, - there being scarcely a country in the world in which it has not, at - some time or other, prevailed.” - -He supports this probable thesis by reference to Porphyry, the most -erudite of the later Greeks, who repeats the accounts of earlier -writers upon this matter, and by a comparison of the religious rites -of various nations, past and present. Equally natural and easy was the -step from the use of non-human to that of human bodies:-- - - “As human sacrifices were a natural effect of that superstitious - cruelty which first produced the slaughter of other animals, so is - it equally natural that those accustomed to eat the ‘brute’ should - not long abstain from the man. More especially as, when roasted or - broiled upon the altar, the appearance, savour, and taste of both, - would be nearly, if not entirely the same. But, from whatever cause - it may be deduced, nothing can be more certain than that the eating - of human flesh has been a practice in many parts of the world from - a very remote period, and is so, in some countries, at this day. - That it is a consequence of the use of other animal food there can - be no doubt, as it would be impossible to find an instance of it - among people who were accustomed solely to a vegetable diet. The - progress of cruelty is rapid. Habit renders it familiar, and hence - it is deemed _natural_. - - “The man who, accustomed to live on roots and vegetables, first - devoured the flesh of the smallest mammal, committed a greater - violence to his own nature than the most beautiful and delicate - woman, accustomed to other animal flesh, would feel in shedding - the blood of her own species for sustenance; possessed as they are - of exquisite feelings, a considerable degree of intelligence, and - even, according to her own religious system, of a _living soul_. - That this is a principle in the social disposition of mankind, - is evident from the deliberate coolness with which seamen, when - their ordinary provisions are exhausted, sit down to devour such - of their comrades as chance or contrivance renders the victim of - the moment; a fact of which there are but too many, and those too - well-authenticated instances. Such a crime, which no necessity - can justify, would never enter the mind of a starving Gentoo, - nor, indeed, of anyone who had not been previously accustomed to - other animal flesh. Even among the Bedouins, or wandering Arabs - of the desert--according to the observation of the enlightened - Volney--though they so often experience the extremity of hunger, - the practice of devouring human flesh was never heard of.” - -In the two following chapters Ritson traces a large proportion of human -diseases and suffering, physical and mental, to indulgence in unnatural -living. He cites Drs. Buchan, Goldsmith, Cheyne, Stubbes (_Anatomy of -Abuses_, 1583), and Sparrman the well-known pupil of Linné (_Voyages_). - -In his ninth chapter, he gives a copious catalogue of “nations and of -individuals, past and contemporary, subsisting entirely upon vegetable -foods”--not the least interesting part of his work. Some of the most -eminent of the old Greek and Latin philosophers and historians are -quoted, as well as various modern travellers, such as Volney and -Sparrman. Especially valuable are the enquiries of Sir F. M. Eden -(_State of the Poor_), who, in a comparison of the dietary of the -poor, in different parts of these islands, proves that flesh has, or -at all events _had_, scarcely any share in it--a fact which is still -true of the agricultural districts, manifest not only by the commonest -observation, but also by scientific and official enquiries of late -years. - -Of individual cases, two of the most interesting are those of John -Williamson of Moffat, the discoverer of the famous chalybeate spring, -who lived almost to the age of one hundred years, having abstained -from all flesh-food during the last fifty years of his life,[213] and -of John Oswald, the author of _The Cry of Nature_. It is in this part -of his work that Ritson narrates the history of his own conversion and -dietetic experiences, and of his well-known publisher, Mr. R. Phillips. - - - - -XXXVI. - -NICHOLSON. 1760-1825. - - -Among the least known, but none the less among the most estimable, -of the advocates of the rights of the oppressed species and the -heralds of the dawn of a better day, the humble Yorkshire printer, who -undertook the unpopular and unremunerative work of publishing to the -world the sorrows and sufferings of the non-human races, claims our -high respect and admiration. He has also another title (second only to -his humanitarian merit) to the gratitude of posterity as having been -the originator of cheap literature of the best class, and of the most -instructive sort, which, alike by the price and form, was adapted for -wide circulation. - -George Nicholson was born at Bradford. He early set up a printing -press, and began the publication of his _Literary Miscellany_, -“which is not, as the name might lead one to suppose, a magazine, -but a series of choice anthologies, varied by some of the gems of -English literature. The size is a small 18mo., scarcely too large for -the waistcoat pocket. The printing was a beautiful specimen of the -typographic art, and for the illustrations he sought the aid of the -best artists. He was one of the patrons of Thomas Bewick, some of whose -choicest work is to be found in the pamphlets issued by Nicholson. -He also issued 125 cards, on which were printed favourite pieces, -afterwards included in the _Literary Miscellany_. This ‘assemblage of -classical beauties for the parlour, the closet, the carriage, or the -shade,’ became very popular, and extended to twenty volumes. The plan -of issuing them in separate numbers enabled individuals to make their -own selection, and they are found bound up in every possible variety. -Complete sets are now rare, and highly prized by collectors.” - -Of his many useful publications may be enumerated--_Stenography: -The Mental Friend and Rational Companion, consisting of Maxims and -Reflections relating to the Conduct of Life_. 12mo. _The Advocate and -Friend of Woman._ 12mo. _Directions for the Improvement of the Mind._ -12mo. _Juvenile Preceptor._ Three vols., 12mo. The books which concern -us now are--_On the Conduct of Man to Inferior Animals_ (Manchester, -1797: this was adorned by a woodcut from the hand of Bewick). And his -_magnum opus_, which appeared in the year 1801, under the title of -_The Primeval Diet of Man: Arguments in Favour of Vegetable Food; with -Remarks on Man’s Conduct to [other] Animals_ (Poughnill, near Ludlow). - -The value of _The Primeval Diet_ was enhanced by the addition, in a -later issue, of a tract _On Food_ (1803), in which are given recipes -for the preparation of “one hundred perfectly palatable and nutritious -substances, which may easily be procured at an expense much below the -price of the limbs of our fellow animals.... Some of the recipes, on -account of their simple form, will not be adopted even by those in -the middle rank of life. Yet they may be valuable to many of scanty -incomes, who desire to avoid the evils of want, or to make a reserve -for the purchasing of books and other mental pleasures.” He also -published a tract _On Clothing_, which contains much sensible and -practical advice on an important subject. - -Nicholson resided successively in Manchester, Poughnill, and Stourport, -and died at the last-named place in the year 1825. “He possessed,” says -a writer in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ (xcv.), “in an eminent degree, -strength of intellect, with universal benevolence and undeviating -uprightness of conduct.” The learned bibliographer, to whom we are -indebted for this brief notice, thus sums up the character of his -labours: “In all his writings the purity and benevolence of his -intentions are strikingly manifest. Each subject he took in hand was -thought out in an independent manner, and without reference to current -views or prejudices.”[214] - -In his brief preface the author thus expresses his sad conviction of -the probable futility of his protests:-- - - “The difficulties of removing deep-rooted prejudices, and the - inefficiency of reason and argument, when opposed to habitual - opinions established on general approbation, are fully apprehended. - Hence the cause of humanity, however zealously pleaded, will - not be materially promoted. Unflattered by the hope of exciting - an impression on the public mind, the following compilation is - dedicated to the sympathising and generous Few, whose opinions - have not been founded on implicit belief and common acceptation: - whose habits are not fixed by the influence of false and pernicious - maxims or corrupt examples: who are neither deaf to the cries of - misery, pitiless to suffering innocence, nor unmoved at recitals of - violence, tyranny, and murder.” - -In the whole literature of humanitarianism, nothing can be more -impressive for the sympathising reader than this putting on record -by these nobler spirits their profound consciousness of the moral -torpor of the world around them, and their sad conviction of the -prematureness of their attempt to regenerate it. In both his principal -works, he judiciously chooses, for the most part, the method of -compilation, and of presenting in a concise and comprehensive form -the opinions of his humane predecessors, of various minds and times, -rather than the presentation of his own individual sentiments. He -justly believed that the large majority of men are influenced more by -the authority of great names than by arguments addressed simply to -their conscience and reason. He intersperses, however, philosophic -reflections of his own, whenever the occasion for them arises. Thus, -under the head of “Remarks on Defences of Flesh-eating,” he well -disposes of the common excuses:-- - - “The reflecting reader will not expect a formal refutation of - common-place objections, which _mean nothing_, as, ‘There would be - more unhappiness and slaughter among animals did we not keep them - under proper regulations and government. Where would they find - pasture did we not manure and enclose the land for them? &c.’ The - following objection, however, may deserve notice:--‘Animals must - die, and is it not better for them to live a short time in plenty - and ease, than be exposed to their enemies, and suffered in old - age to drag on a miserable life?’ The lives of animals in _a state - of nature_ are very rarely miserable, and it argues a barbarous - and savage disposition to cut them _prematurely_ off in the midst - of an agreeable and happy existence; especially when we reflect - on the _motives_ which induce it. Instead of a friendly concern - for promoting their happiness, your aim is the gratification of - your own sensual appetites. How inconsistent is your conduct with - the fundamental principle of pure morality and true goodness - (which some of you ridiculously profess)--_whatsoever you would - that others should do to you, do you even so to them_. No man - would willingly become the food of other animals; he ought not - therefore to prey on _them_. Men who consider themselves members - of universal nature, and links in the great chain of Being, ought - not to usurp power and tyranny over others, beings naturally free - and independent, however such beings may be inferior in intellect - or strength.... It is argued that ‘man has a permission, proved by - the practice of mankind, to eat the flesh of other animals, and - consequently to kill them; and as there are many animals which - subsist wholly on the bodies of other animals, the practice is - sanctioned among mankind.’ By reason of the at present very low - state of morality of the human race, there are many evils which - it is the duty and business of enlightened ages to eradicate. The - various refinements of civil society, the numerous improvements in - the arts and sciences, and the different reformations in the laws, - policy, and government of nations, are proofs of this assertion. - That mankind, in the present stage of _polished_ life, act in - direct violation of the principles of justice, mercy, tenderness, - sympathy, and humanity, in the practice of eating flesh, is - obvious. To take away the life of any happy being, to commit - acts of depredation and outrage, and to abandon every refined - feeling and sensibility, is to degrade the human kind beneath its - professed dignity of character; but to _devour_ or eat any animal - is an additional violation of those principles, because it is the - _extreme_ of brutal ferocity. Such is the conduct of the most - savage of wild beasts, and of the most uncultivated and barbarous - of our own species. Where is the person who, with calmness, can - hear himself compared in disposition to a lion, a hyæna, a tiger or - a wolf? And yet, how exactly similar is his disposition. - - “Mankind affect to revolt at murders, at the shedding of blood, and - yet eagerly, and without remorse, feed on the corpse after it has - undergone the culinary process. What mental blindness pervades the - human race, when they do not perceive that every feast of blood - is a _tacit encouragement_ and licence to the very crime their - pretended delicacy abhors! I say _pretended_ delicacy, for that - it is pretended is most evident. The profession of sensibility, - humanity, &c., in such persons, therefore, is egregious folly. And - yet there are respectable persons among everyone’s acquaintance, - amiable in other dispositions, and advocates of what is commonly - termed the cause of humanity, who are weak or prejudiced enough to - be satisfied with such arguments, on which they ground apologies - for their practice! Education, habit, prejudice, fashion, and - interest, have blinded the eyes of men, and seared their hearts. - - “Opposers of compassion urge: ‘If we should live on vegetable food, - what shall we do with our _cattle_? What would become of them? They - would grow so numerous they would be prejudicial to us--they would - eat us up if we did not kill and eat them.’ But there is abundance - of animals in the world whom men do not kill and eat; and yet we - hear not of their injuring mankind, and sufficient room is found - for their abode. Horses are not usually killed to be eaten, and yet - we have not heard of any country overstocked with them. The raven - and redbreast are seldom killed, and yet they do not become too - numerous. If a decrease of cows, sheep, and others were required, - mankind would readily find means of reducing them. Cattle are at - present an article of trade, and their numbers are _industriously_ - promoted. If cows are kept solely for the sake of milk, and if - their young should become too numerous, let the evil be nipped in - the bud. Scarcely suffer the innocent young to feel the pleasure - of breathing. Let the least pain possible be inflicted; let its - body be deposited entire in the ground, and let a sigh have vent - for the calamitous necessity that induced the painful act.... - Self-preservation justifies a man in putting noxious animals to - death, yet cannot warrant the least act of cruelty to any being. - By suddenly despatching one when in extreme misery, we do a kind - office, an office which reason approves, and which accords with our - best and kindest feelings, but which (such is the force of custom) - we are denied to show, though solicited, to our own species. When - they can no longer enjoy happiness, they may perhaps be deprived - of life. Do not suppose that in this reasoning an intention is - included of _perverting_ nature. No! some animals are savage and - unfeeling; but let not _their_ ferocity and brutality be the - standard and pattern of the conduct of _man_. Because _some_ of - them have no compassion, feeling, or reason, are _we_ to possess no - compassion, feeling, or reason?” - -In another section of his book Nicholson undertakes to expose the -inconsistencies of flesh-eaters, and the strange illogicalness of the -position of many protestors against various forms of cruelty, who -condone the greatest cruelty of all--the (necessary) savagery of the -butchers:-- - - “The inconsistencies of the conduct and opinions of mankind in - general are evident and notorious; but when ingenious writers fall - into the same glaring errors, our regret and surprise are justly - and strongly excited. Annexed to the impressive remarks by Soame - Jenyns, to be inserted hereafter, in examining the conduct of man - to [other] animals, we meet with the following passage:-- - - “‘God has been pleased to create numberless animals intended for - our sustenance, and that they are so intended, the agreeable - flavour of their flesh to our palates, and the wholesome nutriment - which it administers to our stomachs, are sufficient proofs; these, - as they are formed for our use, propagated by our culture, and fed - by our care, we have certainly a right to deprive of life, because - it is given and preserved to them on that _condition_.’ - - “Now, it has already been argued that the bodies of animals are - _not_ intended for the sustenance of man; and the decided opinions - of several eminent medical writers and others sufficiently - disprove assertions in favour of the wholesomeness of the flesh - of animals. The _agreeable taste_ of food is not always a proof - of its _nourishing_ or _wholesome_ properties. This truth is too - frequently experienced in mistakes, ignorantly or accidentally - made, particularly by children, in eating the fruit of the deadly - nightshade, the taste of which resembles black currants, and is - extremely inviting by the beauty of its colour and shape.[215] - - “That we have a right to make attacks on the existence of any being - _because_ we have assisted and fed such being, is an assertion - opposed to every established principle of justice and morality. A - ‘condition’ cannot be made without the mutual consent of parties, - and, therefore, what this writer terms ‘a condition,’ is nothing - less than an unjust, arbitrary, and deceitful imposition. ‘Such is - the deadly and stupifying influence of habit or custom,’ says Mr. - Lawrence, ‘of so poisonous and brutalising a quality is prejudice, - that men, perhaps no way inclined by nature to acts of barbarity, - may yet live insensible of the constant commission of the most - flagrant deeds.’ ... A cook-maid will weep at a tale of woe, while - she is skinning a living eel; and the devotee will mock the Deity - by asking a blessing on food supplied by murderous outrages against - nature and religion! Even women of education, who readily weep - while reading an affecting moral tale, will clear away clotted - blood, still warm with departed life, cut the flesh, disjoint - the bones, and tear out the intestines of an animal, without - sensibility, without sympathy, without fear, without remorse. - What is more common than to hear this _softer_ sex talk of, and - assist in, the cookery of a deer, a hare, a lamb or a calf (those - acknowledged emblems of innocence) with perfect composure? Thus - the female character, by nature soft, delicate, and susceptible of - tender impressions, is debased and sunk. It will be maintained that - in other respects they still possess the characteristics of their - sex, and are humane and sympathising. The inconsistency then is the - more glaring. To be virtuous in some instances does not constitute - the moral character, but to be uniformly so.” - -We can allow ourselves space only for one or two further quotations -from this excellent writer. The remarks upon the common usage of -language, by which it is vainly thought to conceal the true nature of -the dishes served up upon the tables of the rich, are particularly -noteworthy, because the inaccurate expression condemned is almost -universal, and that even, from force of habit, amongst reformed -dietists themselves:-- - - “There is a natural horror at the shedding of blood, and some - have an aversion to the practice of devouring the carcase of an - innocent sufferer, which bad habits improper education, and silly - prejudices have not overcome. This is proved by their affected and - absurd refinement of calling the dead bodies of animals _meat_. If - the meaning of words is to be regarded, this is a gross mistake; - for the word _meat_ is a universal term, applying equally to all - nutritive and palatable substances. If it be intended to express - that all other kinds of food are comparatively not meat, the - intention is ridiculous. The truth is that the proper expression, - _flesh_, conveys ideas of murder and death. Neither can it easily - be forgotten that, in grinding the body of a fellow animal, - substances which constitute _human_ bodies are masticated. This - reflection comes somewhat home, and is recurred to by eaters of - flesh in spite of themselves, but recurred to _unwillingly_. They - attempt, therefore, to pervert language in order to render it - agreeable to the ear, as they disguise animal flesh by cookery in - order to render it pleasing to the taste.” - -His reflections upon the essential injustice (to use no stronger term) -of delegating the work of butchering to a particular class of men (to -which frequent reference has already been made in these pages) are -equally admirable:-- - - “Among butchers, and those who qualify the different parts of an - animal into food, it would be easy to select persons much further - removed from those virtues which should result from reason, - consciousness, sympathy, and animal sensations, than any savages - on the face of the earth! In order to avoid all the generous and - spontaneous sympathies of compassion, the office of shedding - blood is committed to the hands of a set of men who have been - educated in inhumanity, and whose sensibility has been blunted and - destroyed by early habits of barbarity. Thus men _increase_ misery - in order to avoid the sight of it, and because they cannot endure - being obviously cruel themselves, or commit actions which strike - painfully on their senses, they commission those to commit them who - are formed to delight in cruelty, and to whom misery, torture, and - shedding of blood is an amusement! They appear not once to reflect - that _whatever we do by another we do ourselves_.” - - “When a large and gentle Ox, after having resisted a ten times - greater force of blows than would have killed his murderers, falls - stunned at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground with - cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugular veins - are cut asunder, what mortal can, without horror and compassion, - hear the painful bellowings, intercepted by his flow of blood, - the bitter sighs that speak the sharpness of his anguish, and the - deep-sounding groans with loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of - his strong and palpitating heart. Look on the trembling and violent - convulsions of his limbs; see, whilst his reeking gore streams from - him, his eyes become dim and languid, and behold his strugglings, - gasps, and last efforts for life. - - “When a being has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of - terror and of pain and agony, is there a disciple of Descartes - so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the - philosophy of that vain reasoner?”[216] - -In his previous essay, _On the Conduct of Men to Inferior Animals_, -Nicholson has collected from various writers, both humane and -inhumane, a fearful catalogue of atrocities of different kinds -perpetrated upon his helpless dependants by the being who delights to -boast himself (at least in civilised countries) to be made “in the -image and likeness of God.” Among these the hellish tortures of the -vivisectionists and “pathologists” hold, perhaps, the bad pre-eminence, -but the cruel tortures of the Slaughter-House come very near to them in -wanton atrocity. - - - - -XXXVII. - -ABERNETHY. 1763-1831. - - -Distinguished as a practical surgeon and as a physiologist, Abernethy -has earned his lasting reputation as having been one of the first -to attack the old prejudice of the profession as to the origin of -diseases, and as having sought for such origin, not in mere local and -accidental but, in general causes--in the constitution and habits of -the body. - -A pupil of John Hunter, in 1786 he became assistant surgeon at St. -Bartholomew’s Hospital, and shortly afterwards he lectured on anatomy -and surgery at that institution, which to his ability and genius owes -the fame which it acquired as a school of surgery. As a lecturer he -had a reputation and popularity seldom or perhaps never before so well -earned in the medical schools--founded, as they were, upon a rare -penetration and logical method, united with clearness and perspicuity -in communicating his convictions. In honesty, integrity, and in the -domestic virtues his character was unimpeachable, but the gentleness -of deportment for which he was noted in his home he was far from -exhibiting in public and towards his patients. His roughness and even -coarseness of manner in dealing with capricious valetudinarians, -indeed, became notorious. - -_The Constitutional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases_--his -principal work--in comparison with the vast mass of medical literature -up to that time put forth, stands out in favourable relief. In it two -great principles are laid down--that “local diseases are symptoms of -a disordered constitution, not primary and independent maladies, and -that they are to be cured by remedies calculated to make a salutary -impression on the _general frame_, not by local treatment, nor by -any mere manipulations of surgery.” This single principle changed -the aspect of the entire field of surgery, and elevated it from a -manual art into the rank of a science. And to this first principle -he added a second, the range of which is, perhaps, less extensive, -but the practical importance of which is scarcely inferior to that of -the first--namely, that “this disordered state of the constitution -either originates from, or is rigorously allied with, derangement of -the stomach and bowels, and that it can only be reached by remedies -which first exercise a curative influence upon these organs.” It will -not detract from the merit of Abernethy to add to this account that -his predecessor, Dr. Cheyne, and his contemporary, Dr. Lambe, have -most satisfactorily and radically carried out into practice these just -principles; or to remark that great public reputations ought not to -be allowed, as too often is the fact, to overwhelm less known but not -therefore less meritorious labours. - -As to _dietetics_, the theory of Abernethy seems to have been better -than his practice. When reproached with the inconsistency that the -reformed diet which he so forcibly commended to others he himself -failed to follow, he is related to have used the well-known simile of -the sign-post with his usual readiness of repartee. - -It was while Dr. Lambe was at the Aldersgate Street Dispensary that -Abernethy formed the acquaintance of that unostentatious but true -reformer--an acquaintance which was destined to have no unimportant -influence upon the medical theories of the great surgeon. Abernethy -was at that time writing his _Observations on Tumours_, and he had -intrusted to his friend one of his cancer patients to be treated by -the non-flesh and distilled water regimen. He carefully watched the -effects, and he has thus given us the results of his observations:-- - - “There can be no subject which I think more likely to interest - the mind of a surgeon than that of an endeavour to amend and - alter the state of a cancerous constitution. The best timed and - best conducted operation brings with it nothing but disgrace if - the diseased propensities of the constitution are active and - powerful. It is after an operation that, in my opinion, we are - most particularly concerned to regulate the constitution, lest - the disease should be revived or renewed by its disturbance. In - addition to that attention, to tranquillise and invigorate the - nervous system, and keep the digestive organs in as healthy a - state as possible (which I have recommended in my first volume), - I believe general experience sanctions the recommendation of a - more vegetable because less stimulating diet, with the addition of - so much milk, broth, and eggs, as seems necessary to prevent any - declension of the patient’s strength. - - “Very recently Dr. Lambe has proposed a method of treating - cancerous diseases, which is _wholly_ dietetic. He recommends - the adoption of a strict vegetable regimen, to avoid the use of - fermented liquors, and to substitute water purified by distillation - in the place of common water as a beverage, and in all parts of - diet in which common water is used, as tea, soups, &c. The grounds - upon which he founds his opinion of the propriety of this advice, - and the prospects of benefit which it holds out, may be seen in his - _Reports on Cancer_, to which I refer my readers. - - “My own experience on the effects of this regimen is of course - very limited. Nor does it authorise me to speak decidedly on the - subject. But I think it right to observe that, in one case of - cancerous ulceration in which it was used, the symptoms of the - disease were, in my opinion, rendered more mild, the erysipelatous - inflammation surrounding the ulcer was removed, and the life - of the patient was, in my judgment, considerably prolonged. The - more minute details of the facts constitute the sixth case of Dr. - Lambe’s _Reports_. It seems to me very proper and desirable that - the powers of the regimen recommended by Dr. Lambe should be fairly - tried, for the following reasons:-- - - “Because I know some persons who, whilst confined to such diet, - have enjoyed very good health; and further, I have known several - persons, who did try the effects of such a regimen, declare that - it was productive of considerable benefit. They were not, indeed, - afflicted with cancer, but they were induced to adopt a change of - diet to allay a state of nervous irritation and correct disorder of - the digestive organs, upon which medicine had but little influence. - - “Because _it appears certain, in general, that the body can be - perfectly nourished by vegetables_. - - “Because all great changes of the constitution are more likely - to be effected _by alterations of diet and modes of life than by - medicine_. - - “Because it holds out a source of hope and consolation to the - patient in a disease in which medicine is known to be unavailing, - and in which surgery affords no more than a temporary relief.”[217] - -“The above opinion of Mr. Abernethy,” remarks an experienced authority -upon the subject, “is most valuable, for he watched the case for three -and a half years under Dr. Lambe’s regimen, which is directly opposed -to the system of diet which he had advocated, before he met Dr. Lambe, -in the first volume of his work on _Constitutional Diseases_, and from -his rough honesty there is no doubt that had Dr. Abernethy lived to -publish a second edition he would have corrected his mistake.” As it -is, the candour by which so distinguished an authority was impelled to -alter or modify opinions already put forth to the world, claims our -respect as much as the too general want of it deserves censure. - - - - -XXXVIII. - -LAMBE. 1765-1847. - - -One of the most distinguished of the hygeistic and scientific promoters -of the reformed regimen, Dr. Lambe, occupies an eminent position in -the medical literature of vegetarianism, and he divides with his -predecessor, Dr. Cheyne, the honour of being the founder of scientific -_dietetics_ in this country. - -His family had been settled some two hundred years in the county of -Hereford, in which they possessed an estate that descended to Dr. -William Lambe, and is now held by his grandson. He early gave promise -of his future mental eminence. Head boy of the Hereford Grammar School, -he proceeded, in due course, to St. John’s College, Cambridge. In -1786, being then in the twenty-first year of his age, he graduated -as fourth wrangler of his year. As a matter of course, he soon was -elected a Fellow of his college, where he continued to reside until his -marriage in 1794. During this period of learned leisure he devoted his -time to the study of medicine, and the MS. notes in the possession of -his biographer, Mr. Hare, “prove the diligence with which he studied -his profession, and there we see the origin of his enlarged views -of the causes of disease, so much insisted on by these fathers of -medicine, and so much neglected by modern physicians in their search -for chemical remedies.” After his marriage he went to reside and -practise in Warwick, where he was the intimate friend of Parr, the -well-known Greek critic, and of Walter Savage Landor, who writes of him -as “very communicative and good humoured. I had enough talk with Lambe -to assure myself that he is no ordinary man.” It was to the discoveries -of Dr. Lambe, and to his publications reporting the curative value of -its mineral waters, that Leamington owed its fame and popularity; and -Dr. Jefferson, in his address to the British Medical Association a few -years ago, thus eulogises him:-- - - “It was not until the end of the last century that any really - scientific research ever was recorded on this subject [impure - water]. About this period Dr. Lambe was engaged in practice in - Warwick. Somewhat eccentric in some of his practical views, Dr. - Lambe was not the less a scientific man, an intelligent observer - of nature, and an accomplished physician, and was, moreover, - one of the most elegant medical writers of his day. The springs - of the neighbouring village of Leamington did not escape his - observation, and, having carefully studied and analysed the waters, - he published an account of them, in 1797, in the fifth volume of - the _Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Manchester_, - a society embracing the respected names of Priestley, Dalton, - Watt, and others, and not inferior, perhaps, to any contemporary - association in Europe.” - -Like many other seceders from orthodox dietetics both before and after -him, Dr. Lambe found himself impelled to experiment in the non-flesh -diet by ill-health. His bodily disorders, indeed, were so complicated -and of such a nature, as to excite astonishment that not only he -greatly mitigated their violence, but that also he survived to an -advanced age. In an exceedingly minute and conscientious narrative of -his own case in his _Additional Reports_ (writing in the third person), -he informs us, that having during several years--from his eighteenth -year--suffered greatly and with constantly aggravated symptoms:-- - - “He resolved, therefore, finally to execute what he had been - contemplating for some time--to abandon animal food altogether, - and everything analogous to it, and to confine himself wholly to - vegetable food. This determination he put in execution the second - week of February, 1806, and he has adhered to it with perfect - regularity to the present time. His only subject of repentance with - regard to it has been that it had not been adopted much earlier in - life. He never found the smallest real ill-consequence from this - change. He sank neither in strength, flesh, nor in spirits. He - was at all times of a very thin and slender habit, and so he has - continued to be, but upon the whole he has rather gained than lost - flesh. He has experienced neither indigestion nor flatulence even - from the sort of vegetables which are commonly thought to produce - flatulence, nor has the stomach suffered from any vegetable matter, - though unchanged by culinary art or uncorrected by condiments. The - only unpleasant consequence of the change was a sense of emptiness - of stomach, which continued many months. In about a year, however, - he became fully reconciled to the new habit, and felt as well - satisfied with his vegetable meal as he had been formerly with his - dinner of flesh. He can truly say that since he has acted upon - this resolution no year has passed in which he has not enjoyed - better health than in that which preceded it. But he has found - that the changes introduced into the body by a vegetable regimen - take place with extreme slowness; that it is in vain to expect - any _considerable_ amendment in successive weeks or in successive - months. We are to look rather to the intervals of _half-years or - years_.” - -With extreme candour as well as carefulness, this patient and -philosophic experimentalist details every particular circumstance of -his own _diagnosis_. After a minute report of the various symptoms of -his maladies and his gradual subjugation of them, he deduces the only -just inference:-- - - “Granting this representation of facts to be correct, and the - nature of this case to, be truly determined, I must be permitted - to ask, What other method than that which has been adopted would - have produced the same benefit? If such methods exist, I confess - my ignorance of them.... But though these pains [in the head] - still recur in a trifling degree, the relief given to the brain in - general has been decided and most essential. It has appeared in - an increased sensibility of all the organs, particularly of the - senses--the touch, the taste, and the sight, in greater muscular - activity, in greater freedom and strength of respiration, greater - freedom of all the secretions, and in increased intellectual power. - It has been extended to the night as much as to the day. The sleep - is more tranquil, less disturbed by dreams, and more refreshing. - Less sleep, upon the whole, appears to be required; but the loss - of quantity is more than compensated by its being sound and - uninterrupted.... - - “The hypochondriacal symptoms continued to be occasionally very - oppressive during the second year, particularly during the earlier - part of it, but they afterwards very sensibly declined, and at - present he enjoys more uniform and regular spirits than he had - done for many years upon the mixed diet. From the whole of these - facts it follows that all the organs, and indeed every fibre of - the body, are simultaneously affected by the matters habitually - conveyed into the stomach, and that it is the incongruity of these - matters to the system, which gradually forms that morbid diathesis, - which exists alike both in apparent health and in disease. I might - illustrate this fact still more minutely by observations on the - teeth, on the hair, and on the skin. I might show that by a steady - attention to regimen, the skin of the palm of the hand becomes of a - firmer and stronger texture, that even an excrescence which had for - twenty years and upwards been growing more fixed, firm, and deep, - had, first, its habitudes altered, and, finally, was softened and - disappeared. But, perhaps, enough has been said already to give - a pretty clear idea both of the kind of change introduced into - the habit by diet, and of the extent to which it may be carried. - I proceed, therefore, to relate some new phenomena which took - place during the course of this regimen, which are both curious in - themselves and lead to important conclusions.” - -The author then goes on to record further gradual diminution of painful -symptoms. From long and careful observation of himself, amongst other -important deductions, Dr. Lambe infers that:-- - - “We may conclude that it is the property of this regimen, and, in - particular, of the vegetable diet, to transfer diseased action from - the _viscera_ to the exterior parts of the body--from the central - parts of the system to the periphery. Vegetable diet has often been - charged with causing cutaneous diseases; in common language, they - are, in these cases, said to proceed from poorness of blood.[218] - In some degree the charge is probably just, and the observation I - have already made may give us some insight into the causes of it. - But this charge, instead of being a just cause of reproach, is - _a proof of the superior salubrity of vegetable diet_. Cutaneous - eruptions appear, because disease is translated from the internal - organs to the skin.” - -For all brain disease abandonment of the gross and stimulating -flesh-meats is shown to be of the first importance. At the same time, -that it involves any loss of actual bodily strength is a fallacy:-- - - “We see, then, how ill-founded is the notion that inaction and - loss of power are induced by a vegetable diet. In fact, all the - observations that have been made have shewn the very reverse to be - the truth. Symptoms of plenitude and oppression have continued in - considerable force for at least five years; and the consequence of - this peculiar regimen has been an increase of strength and power, - and not a diminution. In the subject of this case the pulse, which - may be deemed, perhaps, the best idea of the condition of all the - other functions, is at present much more strong and full than under - the use of animal food. It is also perfectly calm and regular.” - -His personal experience of satisfaction derivable from vegetables -and fruits as affording, for the most part, sufficient liquids in -themselves, without use of extraneous drinks, is of importance:-- - - “He had, when living on the common diet, been habitually thirsty, - and, like most persons inclined to studious and sedentary habits, - was much attached to tea-drinking. But for the last two or three - years he has almost wholly relinquished the use of liquids, and by - the substitution of fruit and recent vegetables he has found that - the sensation of thirst has been in a manner abolished. Even tea - has lost its charms, and he very rarely uses it. He is therefore - certain, from his own experience, that the habit of employing - liquids is an artificial habit, and not necessary to any of the - functions of the animal economy.” - -Whatever may be thought of the theory of the possibility of entire -abstinence from all _extraneous_ liquids, there is not the least doubt -that a judicious use of vegetable foods reduces to a _minimum_ the -feeling of thirst and craving for artificial drinks, an experience, we -imagine, almost universal with abstinents from flesh-dishes. - -Dr. Lambe concludes the first part of his valuable _diagnosis_ with -the assurance, “that if those for whose service these labours are -principally designed, I mean persons suffering under habitual and -chronic illness, are able to go along with me in my argument to form a -general correct notion of what they are to expect from [a reformed] -regimen, and, above all, to arm their minds with firmness, patience, -and perseverance, I shall not readily be induced to think that I have -written one superfluous line.”[219] - -In 1805, at the age of forty, we find him established in practice in -London. Five years later he was physician to the General Dispensary, -Aldersgate Street. He was also elected Fellow and Censor of the College -of Physicians, whose meetings he regularly attended. His peculiar -opinions did not tend to secure popularity for him, and the adhesion -of such men as Dr. Abernethy, Dr. Pitcairn, Lord Erskine, and of -Mr. Brotherton, M.P. (one of the earliest members of the Vegetarian -Society), served only to make the indifference of the mass of the -community more conspicuous. - -Not the least interesting fact in his life is his share in the -conversion of Shelley, and his friendship with J. F. Newton and his -interesting family, at whose house these earlier pioneers of the New -Reformation were accustomed to meet, and celebrate their charming -_réunions_ with vegetarian feasts. A cardinal part of the dietetic -system of Dr. Lambe was his insistance upon the use of _distilled_ -water. In his _Reports on Regimen_ he writes of the Newton family: “I -am well acquainted with a family of young children who have scarcely -ever touched animal food, and who now for three years have drunk only -distilled water. For clearness and beauty of complexion, muscular -strength, fulness of habit free from grossness, hardiness, healthiness, -and ripeness of intellect these children are unparalleled.”[220] - -We have already mentioned Lord Erskine as one of the many eminent -friends of Dr. Lambe. That more humane and distinguished lawyer, in -a letter to his friend acknowledging the receipt of the _Reports_, -writes as follows: “I am of opinion that both this work and the other -referred to in it are deserving of the highest consideration. I read -them both with more interest and attention from the abuse of the -_British Critic_ [one of the periodicals of the day] mentioned in the -preface, as no periodical criticism ever published in this country is -so uniformly unjust, ignorant, and impudent.” Dr. Abernethy’s testimony -to the efficacy of abstinence in cases of cancer will be found in -the notice of that eminent practitioner. Amongst the most interesting -correspondence of his later years is his interchange of ideas with -Sylvester Graham--the first of the American prophets of the reformed -regimen. The letter to the celebrated American vegetarian is, as Dr. -Lambe’s latest biographer justly observes, “a most valuable relic, -because it continues the result of Dr. Lambe’s diet up to September, -1837--twenty-three years after the last notice of his health in the -account of his own case, which he published in November, 1814. It is, -besides, an admirable proof of his truthful and philosophic mind, which -was slow to arrive at conclusions, and willing rather to exaggerate -than otherwise the traces of disease which he still felt.” He proves, -also, in this letter, how slow and yet sure are the effects of diet, -and it supplies an answer to those objectors who complain that they -have tried the diet (perhaps for a few weeks only) without any good -result. After complimenting his transatlantic fellow-worker in the -cause of truth upon his zeal and industry, Dr. Lambe proceeds:-- - - “My book, entitled _Additional Reports on Regimen_, has now been - before the world three and twenty years. That it has attracted - little notice, and still less popular favour--though it may have - excited in the writer some mortification--has not occasioned - much surprise. The doctrine it seeks to establish is in direct - opposition to popular and deep-rooted prejudice. It is thought - (most erroneously) to attack the best enjoyments and most solid - comforts of life; and, moreover, it has excited the bitter - hostility of a numerous and influential body in society--I mean - that body of medical practitioners who exercise their profession - for the sake of its profits merely, and who appear to think that - disease was made for the profession and not the profession for - disease. - - “To drop, however, all idle complaints of public neglect, let - us go to the more useful inquiry whether or not the principles - propounded in these _Reports_ have been confirmed by subsequent and - more extensive experience. To this inquiry I answer directly and - fearlessly, that in the interval between the present time and the - year 1815 (the date of that publication) the practice recommended - has succeeded in cases very numerous and of extreme variety, and - I can promise the practitioner who will try it fairly and judge - with candour that he will experience no disappointment. I say, - _let him try it fairly_. I do not assert that it will succeed - in cases where the powers of life are sunk, in confirmed hectic - fever, in ulcerated cancer, in established chronic disease, or in - the decrepitude of old age. I may have attempted the relief of - such cases in an early stage of my experiments, but experience - speedily demonstrated the hopelessness of such attempts. But let - subjects be taken not far advanced in life, let them be _tabid_ - children (for example) with tumid abdomen, swelled joints, and - depraved appetites, or with obstinate cutaneous diseases, erythema, - _scabus_, rickets, epileptic convulsions (not grown habitual by - long continuance). But a practitioner in moderate practice will - find no difficulty in selecting proper subjects, if he is himself - actuated by a regard to humanity united to principles of honour. - - “Moreover, let not the patient, particularly if arrived at - mature age, expect to receive a perfect cure. In many cases the - consequences are rather preventive than curative. This I hold to - be no objection. It is enough, surely, if a disease which, from - its nature, might be expected to be continually on the increase, - is obviously checked in its progress, if the symptoms become more - and more mild, and if a human being is preserved in comfortable - existence who would otherwise have been consigned to the grave.” - -He devoted his great medical knowledge and experience particularly to -the cure or mitigation of cancer. In the letter, from which we have -already quoted, he informs his correspondent of this interesting fact:-- - - “My most ardent wish was to attempt the relief of cases of cancer. - This object I have steadily pursued (from the year 1803) to the - present day. The case--the particulars of which I briefly mentioned - to you in my former communication--has hitherto succeeded so - perfectly that I should myself suspect an error in the _diagnosis_, - if it were not for the strongly-marked constitutional symptoms, - which are such as, in my mind, put it out of doubt. There does not - now remain what I expected, and what I have called a _nucleus_, - for the resolution is _complete_. Now, this is contrary to most - of my former observations, and would furnish, as I have said, - some ground of suspicion. But still it is not wholly unsupported - by corroborative facts. I have observed, particularly in one - case, that the whole extreme edge of a schirrous tumour has - been restored, whilst the portion has remained unchanged; not, - indeed, speedily as in the former case, but after having used the - diet for a very considerable time. Now, if a portion of a true - schirrous tumour can be resolved, there can be no reason why a - resolution of the whole--taken very early and under favourable - circumstances--shall be deemed impossible. The truth is, that at - present we are not advanced enough to form general conclusions, but - ought to content ourselves with _accumulating_ facts for the use of - our successors.” - -If the experience of the benefits of a reasonable living in the cases -of his patients was thus satisfactory, he himself afforded, in his own -person, perhaps the best testimony to its revivifying and invigorating -qualities. One of his visitors gives his impressions of the now famous -_doctor_ (a title, in the present instance, of real meaning) as follow: -“Agreeably to your request, I submit to your perusal a short account of -the friendly interview I had with Dr. Lambe in London. I first called -on him in February. I found him to be very gentlemanly in manners and -venerable in appearance. He is rather taller than the middle height. -His hair is perfectly white, for he is now seventy-two years of age. -He told me he had been on the vegetable diet thirty-one years, and -that his health was better now than at forty, when he commenced his -present system of living. He considers himself as likely to live -thirty years longer as to have lived to his present age.... Although -he is seventy-two years of age he walks into town, a distance of three -miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night. Dr. Lambe, -I am told, has spent large sums of money in making experiments and -publishing their results to the world.” In his earlier life he had -been conspicuously thin and attenuated. In later years he seems to -have acquired even a certain amount of robustness, and he is described -as being active and strong at an advanced age. Some instances of -extraordinary energy and endurance have been put on record by his -family; and his feats of pedestrianism, when he was verging on his -eightieth year, are, we imagine, rarely to be paralleled. - -His hope of attaining the age of one hundred years, unhappily, was -not to be fulfilled. “Our bodies,” his biographer justly remarks, -“are but machines adapted to perform a definite amount of work, and -Dr. Lambe’s originally weak constitution had been severely tried by -sickness and wrong diet during the first forty years of his life. At -the age of eighty his strength began to fail, but his grandson writes, -‘up to a very short time before his death there were no outward signs -of ill-health, only the marks of old age.’”[221] Existence had its -enjoyment for him up to almost the last days, and his intellectual -powers remained to the end. He calmly expired in his eighty-third year. - -Of contemporary and posthumous eulogies of his personal, as well as -scientific, worth, the following may suffice: “A man of learning, a -man of science, a man of genius, a man of distinguished integrity -and honour.” Such is the testimony of his friend Dr. Parr, as quoted -by Samuel Johnson. In the Anniversary Harveian Oration before the -College of Physicians, by Dr. Francis Hawkins, in the year 1848, the -representative of the Faculty thus recalls his memory: “Nor can I pass -over in silence the loss we have sustained in Dr. William Lambe--an -excellent chemist, a learned man, and a skilful physician. His manners -were simple, unreserved, and most modest. His life was pure. Farewell, -therefore, gentle spirit, than whom no one more pure and innocent has -passed away!” - - - - -XXXIX. - -NEWTON. 1770-1825. - - -John Frank Newton, the friend and associate of Dr. Lambe, Shelley, -and the little band who met at the house of the former to share his -vegetarian repasts, appears to have been one of the earliest converts -of Dr. Lambe, to whom he dedicated his _Return to Nature_, in gratitude -for the recovery of his health through the adoption of the reformed -regimen. - -He published his little work, as he informs us in his preface, to -impart to others the benefits which he himself had experienced; and -especially to make known to the heads of households the fact that his -whole family of himself, wife, and four children under nine years of -age, with their nurse, had been living, at the date of his publication, -for two years upon a non-flesh diet, during which time the apothecary’s -bill, he tells us, had amounted to the sum of sixpence; and that charge -had been incurred by himself. - -The ever-memorable meetings of the reformers at the house of Newton, -where Shelley was a constant guest, have been thus recorded by one of -the biographers of the great poet:--“Shelley was intimate with the -Newton family, and was converted by them in 1813, and he began then a -strict vegetable diet. His intimate association with the amiable and -accomplished votaries of a _Return to Nature_ was perhaps the most -pleasing portion of his poetical, philosophical, and lovely life.... -For some years I was in the thick of it; for I lived much with a -select and most estimable society of persons (the Newtons), who had -‘returned to Nature,’ and I heard much discussion on the topic of -vegetable diet. Certainly their vegetable dinners were delightful, -elegant, and excellent repasts; flesh, fowl, fish, and ‘game’ never -appeared--nor eggs nor butter _bodily_, but the two latter were -admitted into cookery, but as sparingly as possible, and under protest, -as not approved of and soon to be dispensed with. We had soups in great -variety, that seemed the more delicate from the absence of flesh-meat. - -“There were vegetables of every kind, plainly stewed or scientifically -disguised. Puddings, tarts, confections and sweets abounded. Cheese -was excluded. Milk and cream might not be taken unreservedly, but they -were allowed in puddings, and sparingly in tea. Fruits of every kind -were welcomed. We luxuriated in tea and coffee, and sought variety -occasionally in cocoa and chocolate. Bread and butter, and buttered -toast were eschewed; but bread, cakes, and plain seed-cakes were -liberally divided among the faithful.”[222] - -The cause of the publication of his book Newton thus states:-- - - “Having for many years been an habitual invalid, and having at - length found that relief from regimen which I had long and vainly - hoped for from drugs, I am anxious, from sympathy with those - afflicted, to impart to others the knowledge of the benefit I have - experienced, and to dispel, as far as in me lies, the prejudices - under which I conceive mankind to labour on points so nearly - connected with their health and happiness. - - “The particulars of my case I have already related at the - concluding pages of Dr. Lambe’s _Reports on Cancer_. To the account - there given I have little to add, but that, by continuing to - confine myself to the regimen advised in that work, I continue to - experience the same benefit; that the winter which has just elapsed - has been passed much more comfortably than that which preceded it, - and that, if my habitual disorder is not completely eradicated, it - is so much subdued as to give but little inconvenience; that I have - suffered but a single day’s confinement for several months; and, - upon the whole, that I enjoy an existence which many might envy who - consider themselves to be in full possession of the blessings of - health. - - “All that I have to regret in my present undertaking is the - imperfect way in which it is executed. The adepts in medicine - have gained their knowledge originally from the experience of the - sick. I have taken my own sensations for my guide, and am myself - alone responsible for the conclusions which I have drawn from - them, the manuscript of this volume having been neither corrected - nor looked over by any individual. While I make no pretensions to - medical science, I cannot consent to be reasoned or ridiculed out - of my feelings; nor to believe that to be an illusion, the truth - of which has been confirmed to me by long-continued and repeated - observation.” - -The use of distilled water was a cardinal article in the dietary creed -of his friend Dr. Lambe, and upon this point Newton particularly -insists. He appeals with much fervour, as we have just stated, to -parents to have recourse to the natural means of prevention and -cure, in place of vainly trying every available _artificial_ method -by medicine and drugs. He instances, with minute particularity, the -regimen of his children, whom he asserts to have been, up to the moment -of his writing, perfectly free from any sort of malady or disorder, and -to be-- - - “So remarkably healthy that several medical men who have seen - and examined them with a scrutinizing eye, all agreed in the - observation that they knew nowhere a whole family which equals - them in robustness. Should the success of this experiment, now of - three years’ standing, proceed as it has begun, there is little - doubt, [he ventures to flatter himself] that it must at length - have some influence with the public, and that every parent who - finds the illness of his family both afflicting and expensive, will - say to himself ‘Why should I any longer be imprudent or foolish - enough to have my children sick?’ All hail to the resolution which - that sentiment implies! But until it becomes general, I feel it - necessary to exhort, in the warmest language I can think of, those - who have the young in their charge to institute an experiment - which I have made before them with the completest success. To - those parents especially do I address myself who, aware that - temperance in enjoyment is the best warrant of its duration, feel - how dangerous and how empty are all the feverous amusements of - our assemblies, our dinners, and our theatres, compared with the - genuine and tranquil pleasures of a happy circle at home.” - -He presents an alluring picture of the health-producing results for the -young of the natural regimen. He promises that - - “They will become not only more robust but more beautiful; - that their carriage will be erect, their step firm; that their - development at a critical period of youth, the prematurity of which - has been considered an evil, will be retarded; that, above all, - the danger of being deprived of them will in every way diminish; - while by these light repasts their hilarity will be augmented, and - their intellects cleared in a degree which shall astonishingly - illustrate the delightful effects of this regimen.... I will - beg here to attempt an answer in this place to that trite and - specious objection to Dr. Lambe’s opinions that ‘what is suitable - to one constitution may be not so to another.’ If there be a - single person existing, whose health would not be improved by the - vegetable diet and distilled water, then the whole system falls - at once to the ground. The question is simply, whether fruits and - other vegetables be not the natural sustenance of man, who would - have occasion for no other drink than these afford, and whose - thirst is at present excited by an unnatural flesh diet, which - causes his disorders bodily and mentally.... Another objection - sometimes urged is this: ‘If children, brought up on a vegetable - regimen, should at a future period of their lives adopt a flesh - diet, they will certainly suffer more from the change than they - otherwise would have done.’ The very contrary of this, I conceive, - would happen. The stomach is so fortified by the general increase - of health, that a person thus nourished is enabled to bear what - one whose humours are less impaired would sink under. The children - of our family can each of them eat a dozen or eighteen walnuts for - supper without the most trifling indigestion, an experiment which - those who feed their children in the usual manner would consider - it adventurous to attempt. So also the Irish porters in London - bear these alterations of diet successfully, and owe much of their - actual vigour to the vegetable food of their forefathers, and - to their own, before they emigrated from Ireland, where, in all - probability, they did not taste flesh half-a dozen times in the - year.” - -As to another well-known pretext, that the propensity to flesh-eating, -and the relish with which it is evidently enjoyed by the majority -of flesh eaters, is proof of its fitness, Newton justly objects the -various unnatural and disgusting foods of many savage peoples which are -eaten with equal relish, so that “the argument of the agreeable flavour -proves nothing, I apprehend, by proving too much.” He exhorts the -medical faculty generally, and those members of it who are in charge of -hospitals, infirmaries, or workhouses, to try the effect of the pure -regimen on the sufferers and patients--in particular, in the cases of -the victims of cancer. Amongst others of his personal acquaintance who -had derived the greatest benefit from the regimen, he instances Dr. -Adam Ferguson, the historian of the Roman Republic, who lived strictly -on a vegetable diet. He was in the habit of accompanying Mr. Newton, -in the year 1794, in rides through the environs of Rome. He was still -living in 1811, and he died, in fact, at the age of ninety, holding a -professorship in the University of Edinburgh. - - - - -XL. - -GLEÏZÈS. 1773-1843. - - -Of all the enlightened and humane spirits to which the philosophic -eighteenth century gave birth, and who were quickened into activity -by the great movement which originated in France in its last quarter, -not one, assuredly, was actuated by a purer and more exalted feeling -than Jean Antoine Gleïzès--the most _enthusiastic_, perhaps, of all -the apostles of humanity and of refinement. He was born at Dourgne, -in the (present) department of the Tarn. His father was advocate to -the old provincial parliament. His mother’s name was Anna Francos. -After attending preliminary schools, he applied himself to the study -of medicine--urged, says his biographer, more by love of his species -than by predilection for the profession. His intense horror of the -vivisectional experiments in the physiological torture-dens soon -compelled him to abandon his intended career: the experience, however, -gained during his brief medical course he was able to utilize more than -once in his after life for the benefit of his neighbours. - -The earlier period of the Revolution had been hailed by him, still -very young as he then was, as the hopeful beginning of a new era; when -its direction, unhappily, fell into the hands of fanatical leaders, -who, following too much the examples of the old _régimes_, thought, -by wholesale executions, to clear the way for the establishment of a -universal republic and of lasting peace. The youthful enthusiast, whose -whole soul revolted from the very idea of bloodshed and of suffering, -withdrew despairing into solitude, and devoted himself to scientific -and literary studies, and to calm contemplation of Nature. - -In 1794, at the age of 21, Gleïzès married Aglae de Baumelle, daughter -of a writer of some repute. At this time he seems to have entertained -the hope of instructing his countrymen, by engaging in public teaching; -but, disappointed in a scheme for the inauguration of a course of -historical lectures in the central school of his department, he retired -altogether from the active business of the world, and settled down in -a happy and peaceful home, in a small château belonging to his wife, -at the foot of the Pyrenees near Mezières. It was here, amidst the -magnificent solitudes of Nature, that in 1798, in his twenty fifth -year, he determined upon abandoning for ever the diet of blood and -slaughter. Until the moment of his death, forty-five years later, his -diet consisted solely of milk, fruits, and vegetables. - -So great was his scrupulousness, that there might be no possibility or -mistake Gleïzès prepared his own food; and he always ate alone (his -wife being unable or unwilling to follow his loftier aims), since he -could not endure either the smell or the sight of the ordinary dishes. -And this intense aversion it was, indeed, that compelled him to forego -in great measure his intercourse with the world, or, at all events, to -shun the ordinary celebrations of social “festivity.” - -Full of enthusiastic belief that the transparent truth and sublimity of -his creed could not fail to commend themselves to the better spirits -of the age amongst his countrymen, Gleïzès addressed himself to some -of the more thoughtful of his contemporaries; amongst others to -Lamartine, Lamennais, and Chateâubriand. Lamartine--the author of the -_Fall of an Angel_, in which he gives expression to his akreophagistic -sympathies--responded, if not with the enthusiasm that might justly -have been expected from the author of that poem, at least in a friendly -spirit. The others kept silence. This indifferentism of those who -should have been the first to lend the support of their names naturally -affected him; and made much more sensible the intellectual and moral -isolation of his existence. He was not left quite alone, however. -There were found three or four minds of a loftier reach who had the -courage of their convictions, and followed them out to their logical -conclusion. These were Anquetil (the author of _Recherches sur les -Indes_), Charles Nodier, Girod de Chantrans, and Cabantous, dean of the -Faculty of Letters at Toulouse. His brother, Colonel Gleïzès, a member -of the Academy of Sciences of the same university, also declared for -the reformation. It is superflous to say that these converts were all -men of superior moral calibre to their contemporaries, however high -they might be exalted by popular estimates of worth. - -Deeply sensible as he was of the profound selfishness and -indifferentism of the world surrounding him upon the subject which -to him had all the interest and importance of a new religion, he yet -constantly displayed the benevolence of his disposition, and the -beneficence of his morality, in his efforts for the good of all with -whom he came in contact, and particularly in respect to his domestics -and his tenants, amongst whom his memory was long held in reverence. -“His exalted nature,” states his brother, “glowed with enthusiasm for -everything true and good.” His “life-sorrow” seems to have been the -want of sympathy on the part of his wife, to whom, nevertheless, he -proved an indulgent husband. - -His first book, _Les Mélancolies d’un Solitaire_, appeared in the -year 1794, in 1800 his _Nuits Elysiennes_, and four years later -his _Agrestes_; all more or less advocating the truth. A long -interval elapsed before he again essayed an appeal to the world. -His _Christianisme Expliqué: ou l’Unité de Croyance pour tous les -Chrétiens_ (Christianity Explained: or, Unity of Belief for all -Christians) was published in 1830. Seven years later it appeared -under the title of “Christianity Explained: or, the True Spirit of -that Religion Misinterpreted up to the Present Day.” In this work, -says his estimable editor and translator Herr Springer, “he sought -to prove, from the standing-point of a protestant christian, that -Christ’s mission had for its end the abolition of the murder of animals -(_Thiermord_), and that the whole significance of his teaching lay -in the words spoken at the institution of the ‘Supper,’ that is to -say, the substitution of bread instead of flesh, and wine instead of -blood.” This undertaking, it is needless to remark, admirable as was -its motive, could hardly, from the nature of the case, be successful. - -His last work was his _Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence_, the first -part of which was published at Paris in 1840, the second in 1842. -He survived this his final appeal to the world on behalf of the new -reformation but a few months. He had reached the proverbial limit of -human existence; but that his life was shortened by disappointment -and the bitter weariness of hope deferred, “by that sorrow which -perpetually gnaws at the heart of the unrecognised reformer” (as his -biographer well expresses it), we have too much reason to believe. The -_Thalysie_--his _magnum opus_--excited, it appears, little interest, -or even notice, upon its first appearance. It found one sympathising -critic in M. Cabantous, to whom reference has been already made, who -delivered a course of lectures upon it from his professorial chair. A -few years later a Parisian advocate, M. Blot-Lequène, wrote a treatise -in terms of strong recommendation of its principles; and Eugène -Stourm, editor of _The Phalanx_, also eloquently advocated its claims -upon the public notice. At length it was criticised in the _Révue des -Deux Mondes_ by Alphonse Esquiros, known to English readers by his -contributions to that Review on English life and manners. We are hardly -surprised that the criticism was conceived in the usual supercilious -and prejudiced spirit. - -No attempt appears to have been made to re-publish the _New Existence_ -until Herr Springer undertook the task for his countrymen. His German -version, with an interesting notice of the life and labours of Gleïzès, -was published at Berlin in 1872. Criticising a flippant article in -_The Food Journal_ in the same year, Herr Springer eloquently rebukes -the easy and arrogant tone--so successful in appealing to popular -prejudices--and observes: “Gleïzès at last published his eminent work, -which, as Weilhaüser says, he has written with the blood of his own -heart. If it be eccentric, as Mr. Jerrold asserts, it has only _the -eccentricity of a gospel of humanity_. Gleïzès was so eccentric as to -write the following lines, which were found amongst his posthumous -papers: ‘God, pure Source of Light, in order to obey thy commands I -wrote this book. Be gracious to protect and to support my efforts; -for the humble creature which raises its voice from its grain of -sand may, perhaps, be speechless to-morrow, and deep silence reign -in the desert.’ Yes; Mr. Jerrold is right: that theory was to its -author a religion. In the _Thalysie_ we are instructed in the highest -questions concerning the health and happiness of mankind. Surpassing -all naturalists and philosophers, he explained to us the great mystery -of Nature--that robbery and murder [in its full meaning] arose only -by corruption, and by alienation from the original laws of creation, -and that man, instead of favouring the corruption, as he has done till -now, would be able to abolish it. In this way, and in contradiction -to the hollow phrases of optimism and the depressing contemplation of -pessimism, Gleïzès restores the peace of our mind, and bestows upon us -the hope for a future reign of Wisdom and Love.”[223] - -In the preface to the _Thalysie_ Gleïzès thus expresses his -convictions, his hopes, and the general purpose of his labours:-- - - “The system which I now publish to the world is not, as the usual - acceptation of that word might seem to indicate, a collection of - principles more or less probable, and of which it depends upon - each one to admit or reject the consequences. It is a chain of - principles, rigorously true and just, from which man cannot depart - without incurring penalties proportionate to his deviation. But, in - spite of these penalties which he has suffered, and which he still - suffers, he is not aware of his lost condition [_égarement_]. His - fate is that of the slave, born in servitude, who plays with his - chains, sometimes insults the freemen, and carries his madness to - the point of refusing freedom when it is offered to him, and of - choosing slavery. - - “It is not that _all_ men have allowed themselves to be carried - willingly down the fatal descent: a large number have struggled - against the press, but their diverse and scattered efforts have - resembled the eddies of the flood, which ends with forcing together - all the diverging waters and hurrying away with them into the gulf - of the ocean. Or, if some few have raised and kept themselves above - the rapid current, no permanent advantage has resulted from it to - the human race, which has been none the less abandoned to itself.” - -We know that the greatest intellects amongst the Greeks[224] had taught -the better way; but they failed, says Gleïzès, inasmuch as their -doctrine was too exclusive and esoteric. - - “The condition of the human race is a plain witness of its error. - This condition, in fact, is so alarming that it might seem - desperate, if it were certain that men had acquired _all_ their - knowledge. But, happily, there is one branch of it--the most - essential of all, and without which the rest is scarcely of any - account--which is yet entirely ignored. This knowledge is precisely - that of which these great men had glimpses, and of which they - reserved to themselves the sole enjoyment;[225] and it is this - knowledge, or, rather, this wisdom (and we know that with the - Greeks these two things were comprised under the same denomination) - which I publish. I shall give it an extension which it was not - possible for _them_ to perceive or to give; because Nature refuses - its life-giving spirit [_esprit de vie_] to solitary and isolated - seeds, and makes those only to fructify which enter into the common - heritage of mankind. - - “With such support, the most feeble must have an advantage over - the strongest without it. I have, besides, another advantage. Men - feeling to-day, more than ever, the privation of what is wanting - to them, invoke on all sides new principles, and demand a higher - civilisation. It is not the first time, doubtless, that such a - state of things has been manifested. It has been seen to supervene - after all the moral revolutions that have left man greater than - they have found him. But that of which we have been the witnesses - [the revolution in France of 1789--the reforms of 1830] seems to - have something more remarkable, more complete--one would almost be - tempted to believe that it must be the last, and terminate that - long sequence of vain disputes across which the human kind has - painfully advanced, seeing it rise in the midst of the _débris_ - of all the old-world ideas which have expired or are expiring at - one’s feet. What a moment for rebuilding! No more favourable one - could exist; and it is urged on, so to speak, by the breeze of - these happy circumstances that I offer to the meditation of men the - following propositions.... - - “I shall add but a few words. The principles which I have laid down - are absolute--they cannot bend [_fléchir_]. But there are _steps_ - on the route which conduct to the heights which they occupy; and - were there but a single step made in that direction, that single - step could not be regarded as indifferent and unimportant. Thus - this work--guide of those whom it shall convince--will be useful - also to the rest of the world as, at least, a moderator and a - check; and, I shall avow it, my hopes do not extend beyond this - latter object. I should feel myself even perfectly satisfied, if - this book should inspire in my contemporaries enough of esteem - and favour to prevent them from arresting and impeding it at its - start, and to allow it to follow its course towards a generation, I - will not say more worthy, but better prepared than the present to - receive it.” - -Gleïzès divides his great work into twelve Discourses, in two volumes, -supplemented by a third volume which he entitles _Moral Proofs_. It is -an almost exhaustive, as well as eloquent, _résumé_ of the history and -ethics of the subject. The only fault of this, perhaps, most heartfelt -appeal to the reason and conscience of mankind ever published is its -too great discursiveness. The manifest anxiety of the author to meet, -or to anticipate, every possible objection or subterfuge on the part of -the hostile or the indifferent, may well excuse this apparent blemish; -and the slightest acquaintance with his _New Existence_ can hardly -fail to extort, even from the most prejudiced reader, a tribute of -admiration to a spirit so noble and so pure, devoting all its energies -to the furtherance of an exalted and refined morality. - -In the earlier portion of his book he reviews the dietetic habits and -practices of the various peoples of the younger world, and notices the -various philosophic and other writers who have left any record of their -opinions upon flesh-eating. He next treats of modern authorities, and, -after quoting a large number of anti-kreophagistic testimonies, in his -fifth Discourse he applies himself to answer the sophisms of the chief -opponents, and particularly of its arch-enemy--his countryman, Buffon, -in his well-known _Histoire Naturelle_--and he may be said effectually -to have disposed of his astonishing fallacies.[226] - - “What most strikes the observer when he throws an attentive glance - over the earth, is the _relative_ inferiority of man, considered as - what he is, in regard to what he ought to be: it is the feebleness - of the work compared with the aptitude of the workman. All his - inspirations are good, and all his actions bad; and it is to this - singular fact that must be attributed, without doubt, the universal - contempt that man exhibits towards his fellows.... We must remount - to the source, and see if there is not in man’s existence some - essential act which, reflecting itself on all the rest, would - communicate to them its fatal influence. Let us consider, above - everything, the _distinctive_ quality of man--that which raises him - above all other beings. It is clear that it is Pity,[227] source - of that intelligence which has placed him at the head of that - fine moral order, invincible in the midst of the catastrophes of - Nature. His utter failure to exhibit this feeling of pity towards - his humble fellow-beings, as well as to his own kind, engages us - to inquire what is the _permanent_ cause of such failure; and - we find it, at first, in that unhappy facility with which man - receives his _impressions_ of the beings by whom he is surrounded. - These impressions, transmitted with life and cemented by habit, - have formed a creation apart and separate from himself, which is - consequently beyond the domain of his conscience, or, if you prefer - it, of the ordinary jurisprudence of men. Thus men continue to - accuse themselves of being unjust, violent, cruel, and treacherous - to one another, but they do not accuse themselves of cutting the - throats of other animals and of feeding upon their mangled limbs, - which, nevertheless, is the single cause of that injustice, of that - violence, of that cruelty, and of that treachery. - - “Although all have not these vices to the same degree, and it is - exactly this fact which aids the self-deception, I shall clearly - prove that all have the _germs_ of them; and that, if they are not - equally developed, we must thank the circumstances only which have - failed them. - - “It is thus that many Europeans, whom their destiny conducts to the - cannibal countries, after some months of sojourn with the natives, - make no difficulty of seating themselves at their banquet, and of - sharing their horrible repast, which at first had excited their - horror and disgust. They begin with devouring a dog: from the dog - to the man the space is soon cleared. - - “Men believe themselves to be just, provided that they fulfil, in - regard to their fellows, the duties which have been prescribed to - them. But it is goodness which is the justice of man; and it is - impossible, I repeat it, to be good towards one’s fellow without - being so towards other existences. Let us not be the dupes of - _appearances_. Seneca, who lived only on the herbs of his garden, - to which he owed those last gleams of philosophy which enlightened, - so to speak, the fall of the Roman Empire, also thinks that crime - cannot be circumscribed: _Nullum intrà se manet vitium_. And if, - as Ovid affirms, the sword struck men only after having been first - dyed in the blood of the lower animals, what interest have we not - in respecting such a barrier? Like Æolus, who held in his hands the - bag in which the winds were confined, we may at our will, according - as we live upon plants or upon animals, tranquillize the earth or - excite terrible tempests upon it. - - “I am too well aware that a subterfuge will be found in excusing - the crime by necessity, and calumniating Providence. According to - the pretended belief of the greatest number of people, if other - animals were not put to death, they would deprive men of the empire - of the earth. But it is easy to reply to this objection by the - examples of people who, holding in horror the effusion of blood, - and robbing no being of life--even the vilest or most hateful--are - by no means disturbed in the exercise of their sovereignty.[228] - And it would result from the examples of these people, if one had - not other proofs besides, that man is absolutely master of the - means of increasing or limiting the multiplication of the species - which are more or less in dependence upon him. And it is not less - evident that the earth, in this latter hypothesis, would support - an infinitely greater number of the human species. Thus will the - vegetable regimen be _necessarily_ adopted one day over the whole - earth, when the multiplication of our species shall have reached - a certain number fixed and pre-established by that imperious and - irrevocable law which is intimately connected, for the most part, - with humanity, justice, and virtue--the number at which it is - slowly arriving, arrested by the very causes which I am striving - to destroy, and which, for that single reason, ought to arm - against them all generous beings who appreciate the benefit of - existence.”[229] - -Amongst other pretexts by which men seek to excuse selfishness, is -the assertion that its victims have little or no consciousness of -suffering, and that their death is so unexpected that it cannot excite -their terror. This monstrous fiction is eloquently exposed by Gleïzès, -as it is, indeed, by the commonest everyday experience:-- - - “The instinct of life among animals generally gives them a - presentiment and fear of death--that is to say _violent_ death; for - as for natural death it inspires in them no alarm, for the simple - reason that it is in the course of nature. And it is the same with - man. He is not afflicted with the thought of dying when he knows - his hour is come; he resigns himself to that fate as to any other - imposed upon him by necessity. The sensations of other beings - differ in no respect from those of men; and when the horse, for - example, is condemned to death by the lion, that is to say, when he - hears the confused roar of that terrible beast which fills space, - while the precise spot from which it emanates cannot be determined, - which takes from the victim all hope of escape by flight, the - perspiration rolls down all his limbs, he falls to the earth as if - he had just been struck by a thunderbolt, and would die of terror - alone if the lion did not run up to terminate the tragedy.”[230] - - “There exists so great an analogy, so strong a resemblance, between - the life of man and that of other animals who surround him, that a - simple return to himself--simple reflection--ought to suffice to - make him respect the latter; and if he were condemned by Nature to - rend it from them, he might justly curse the order of things which, - on the one hand, should have implanted in his heart the source of - feeling so gentle, and, on the other, should have imposed on him a - necessity so cruel.... And if this man have children, if he bear in - his heart objects which are so dear to him, how can he unceasingly - surround himself with images of death--of that death which must - deprive him one day of those whom he loves, or snatch himself away - from their love? And if he be just, if he be good, how will he not - have repugnance for acts which will continually recall to him ideas - of ingratitude, of cruelty, and of violence? There exists in the - East a tree which, by a mechanical movement, inclines its branches - towards the traveller, whom it seems to invite to repose under - its shade. This simple image of hospitality, which is revered in - that part of the world, makes them regard it as sacred, and they - would punish with death him who should dare to apply a hatchet to - its trunk. Our humble fellow-beings, should _they_ be less sacred - because they represent, not by mechanical movements, but by actions - resembling our own, feelings the dearest to our hearts? Ah! let us - respect them, not alone because they aid us to bear the burdens - of the world, which would overwhelm us without them but _because - they have the same right with ourselves to life_.... A reason which - is without reply, at least for generous souls, is the trust and - confidence reposed in man by other animals. Nature has not taught - them to distrust him. He is the only enemy whom she has not pointed - out to them. Is it not evident proof that he was not intended to be - so? For can one believe that Nature, who holds so just a balance, - could have been willing to deceive all other beings in favour of - man alone? It has been observed that birds of the gentle species - express certain cries when they perceive the fox, the weasel, - &c., although they have nothing to fear from them, without doubt, - by reason of the analogy which they offer. They are the cries of - hatred rather than of fear, whilst they utter these latter at sight - of the eagle, of the hawk, &c. Now, it is certain that in all the - islands on which man has landed, the native animals have not fled - before them. They have been able to take even birds with the hand.” - -Gleïzès rejects the common fallacy that, because men have _acquired_ a -lust for flesh, _therefore_ it is natural or proper for them. - - “It is a specious but very false reason to allege that, since man - has acquired this taste, he ought to be permitted to indulge it--in - the first place because Nature has not given him _cooked_ flesh, - and because several ages must have rolled away before fire was - used. It is very well known that there are many countries in which - it was not known at the period of their discovery. Nature, then, - could have given man only _raw_ or _living_ flesh, and we know that - it is repugnant to him over the whole extent of the earth. Now it - is exactly this character which essentially distinguishes animals - of prey from others. The former, those at least of the larger - species, have generally an extreme repugnance, not only for cooked - flesh, but even for that which has lost its freshness. Man, then, - is not carnivorous but under certain abnormal conditions; and his - senses, to which he appeals in support of his carnivorousness, are - perverted to such a degree, that he would devour his fellow-man - without perceiving it, if they served him up in place of veal, the - flesh of which is said to have the same taste. Thus Harpagus ate, - without knowing it, the corpse of his son.” - -Gleïzès instances the case of Cows and of Reindeer who, in Norway, have -been denaturalised so far as to feed on fish, and readily to take to -that unnatural food. - - “It would be too long to enumerate here all the causes which may - have produced so great an aberration. This will be the matter of - another Discourse. I shall content myself for the moment with - saying some words upon that which perpetuates it. It is essentially - that lightness of mind, or, rather, that sort of stupidity, which - makes all reflection upon anything which is opposed to their habits - painful to the generality of mankind. They would turn their head - aside with horror if they saw what a single one of their repasts - costs Nature. They eat animals as some amongst them launch a - bomb into the midst of a besieged town, without thinking of the - evils which it must bring to a crowd of individuals, strangers to - war--women, children, and old men--evils the near spectacle of - which they could not support, in spite of the hardness of their - hearts.... To-day, when everything is calculated with so much - precision [he remarks with bitterness], there will not be wanting - persons with sufficient assurance to attempt to prove that there - is more of advantage for the domesticated animals to be born and - live on condition of having their throats cut, than if they had - remained in ‘nothingness,’ or in the natural state. As for the - word ‘nothingness,’ I confess that I do not understand it, but I - understand the other very well; and I have never conceived how man - could have had the barbarity to accumulate all the calamities of - the earth upon a single individual; that is to say, to slaughter - it in return for having caused its degeneracy. But if he thinks - himself to escape from the influence of an action so dastardly and - so infamous, he would be in a very great error.... - - “I shall finish these prolegomena with an important remark. I have - known a large number of good souls who offered up the most sincere - wishes for the establishment of this doctrine of humaneness, - who thought it just and true in all its aspects, who believed - in all that it announces; but who, in spite of so praiseworthy - a disposition, dared not be the first to give the example. They - awaited this movement from minds stronger than their own. Doubtless - they are the minds which give the impulse to the world; but is it - necessary to await this movement when one is convinced of one’s - self? Is it permissible to temporise in a question of life or - death for innocent beings whose sole crime is _to have been born_, - and is it in a case like this that strength of mind should fail - justice? No! Well-doing is, happily, not so difficult. Ah! what - is your excuse, besides, pusillanimous souls? I blush for you at - the miserable pretexts which keep you back. It would be necessary, - say you, to separate one’s self from the world; to renounce one’s - friends and neighbours. I see no such necessity, and I think, - on the contrary, that if you truly loved the world and your - neighbours, you would hasten to give them an example which must - have so powerful an influence upon their present happiness and upon - their future destiny.”[231] - -We have reason once again to lament the perversity of literary or -publishing enterprise which will produce and reproduce, _ad infinitum_, -books of no real and permanent value to the world, and altogether -neglect its true luminaries. This is, in an especial manner, the case -with Gleïzès. The _Nouvelle Existence_ has never been republished, -we believe, in the author’s own country; while it has never found a -translator, perhaps scarcely a reader, in this country outside the -Vegetarian ranks. Germany, as we have already noticed, alone has the -honour of attempting to preserve from oblivion one of the few who have -deserved immortality. - - - - -XLI. - -SHELLEY. 1792-1822. - - -That a principle of profound significance for the welfare of our own -species in particular, and for the peaceful harmony of the world -in general--that a true spiritualism, of which some of the most -admirable of the poets of the pre-Christian ages proved themselves not -unconscious, has been, for the most part, altogether overlooked or -ignored by modern aspirants to poetic fame is matter for our gravest -lament. Thomson, Pope, Shelley, Lamartine--to whom Milton, perhaps, may -be added--these form the small band who almost alone represent, and -have developed the earlier inspiration of a Hesiod, Ovid, or Virgil, -the prophet-poets who, faithful to their proper calling,[232] have -sought to _unbarbarise_ and elevate human life by arousing, in various -degree, feelings of horror and aversion from the prevailing materialism -of living. - -Of this illustrious band, and, indeed, of all the great intellectual -and moral luminaries who have shed a humanising influence upon our -planet--who have left behind them “thoughts that breathe and words -that burn”--none can claim more reverence from humanitarians than the -poet of poets--the influence of whose life and writings, considerable -even now, and gradually increasing, doubtless in a not remote future -is destined to be equal to that of the very foremost of the world’s -teachers, and of whom our sketch, necessarily limited though it is, -will be extended beyond the usual allotted space. - -Percy Bysshe Shelley descended from an old and wealthy family long -settled in Sussex. At the age of 13 he was sent to Eton, where (such -was the spirit of the public and other schools at that time, and, -indeed, of long afterwards) he was subjected to severe trials of -endurance by the rough and rude manners of the ordinary schoolboy, and -the harsh and unequal violence of the schoolmaster. Of an exceptionally -refined and sensitive temperament, he was none the less determined -in resistance to injustice and oppression, and his refusal to submit -tamely to their petty tyrannies seems to have brought upon him more -than the common amount of harsh treatment. It penetrated into his -inmost soul, and inspired the opening stanzas of “The Revolt of -Islam,” in intensity of feeling seldom equalled. Some alleviation of -these sufferings of childhood he found in his own mental resources. -For his amusement he translated, we are assured, several books of -the _Natural History_ of Pliny. Of Greek writers he even then (in an -English version) read Plato, who afterwards, in his own language, -always remained one of his chief literary companions, and he applied -himself also to the study of French and of German. In natural science, -Chemistry seems to have been his especial pursuit. - -In 1810, at the age of seventeen, he entered University College, -Oxford. There he studied and wrote unceasingly. With a strong -predilection for metaphysics, he devoted himself in particular to -the great masters of dialectics, Locke and Hume, and to their chief -representatives in French philosophy. Ardent and enthusiastic in -the pursuit of truth, he sought to enlarge his knowledge and ideas -from every possible quarter, and he engaged in correspondence with -distinguished persons, suggested to him by choice or chance, with -whom he discussed the most interesting philosophical questions. Like -all truly fruitful minds, the youthful inquirer was not satisfied -with the _dicta_ of mere authority, or with the _consensus_, however -general, of past ages, and he hesitated not, in matters of opinion in -which every well-instructed intelligence is capable of judging for -itself, to bring to the test of right reason the most widely-received -dogmas of Antiquity. Actuated by this spirit, rather than by any -matured convictions, and wishing to elicit sincere as well as -exhaustive argument on the deepest of all metaphysical inquiries, -in an unfortunate moment for himself, he caused to be printed an -abstract of anti-theistic speculations, drawn from David Hume and -other authorities, presented in a series of mathematically-expressed -propositions. Copies of this modest thesis of two pages were sent -either by the author, or by some other hand, to the heads of his -College. The clerical dignitaries, listening to the dictates of -outraged authority, rather than influenced by calm reflection, which -would have, perhaps, shewn them the useless injustice of so extreme a -measure, proceeded at once to expel him from the University.[233] - -That in spite of this impetuous attack upon the stereotyped -presentations of Theism, Shelley had an eminently religious temperament -has been well insisted upon by a recent biographer:-- - - “Brimming over with love for men, he was deficient in sympathy with - the conditions under which they actually think and feel. Could he - but dethrone the anarch, Custom, the ‘Millennium,’ he argued, would - immediately arrive; nor did he stop to think how different was - the fibre of his own soul from that of the unnumbered multitudes - around him. In his adoration of what he recognised as _living_, - he retained no reverence for the ossified experience of past - ages.... For he had a vital faith, and this faith made the ideals - he conceived seem possible--faith in the duty and desirability of - overthrowing idols; faith in the gospel of liberty, fraternity, - equality; faith in the divine beauty of Nature; faith in the - perfectibility of man; faith in the omnipresent soul, whereof our - souls are atoms; faith in love, as the ruling and co-ordinating - substance of morality. The man who lived by this faith was in no - vulgar sense of the word ‘atheist.’ When he proclaimed himself to - be one he pronounced his hatred of a gloomy religion which had been - the instrument of kings and priests for the enslavement of their - fellow beings. As he told his friend Trelawney, he used the word - _Atheism_ ‘to express his abhorrence of superstition: he took it - up, as a knight took up a gauntlet, in defiance of injustice.’”[234] - -So thorough was his contempt for mere received and routine thought, -that even Aristotle, the great idol of the mediæval schoolmen, and -still an object of extraordinary veneration in the elder University, -became for him a kind of synonym for despotic authority-- - - “Tomes - Of reasoned Wrong glozed on by Ignorance”-- - -and was, accordingly, treated with undue neglect. As for politics, -as represented in the parliament and public Press of his day, he was -indignantly impatient of the too usual trifling and unreality of public -life. He seldom read the newspapers; nor could he ever bring himself to -mix with the “rabble of the House.” - -Thus, forced into antipathy to the ordinary and orthodox business of -life around him, the poet withdrew himself more and more from it into -his own thoughts, and hopes, and aspirations, which he communicated to -his familiar friends. Some of those, however, into whose society he -chanced to be thrown, were not of a sort of mind most congenial to his -own. Yet they all bear witness to his surpassing moral no less than -mental, constitution. “In no individual, perhaps, was the moral sense -ever more completely developed than in Shelley,” says one of his most -intimate acquaintances; “in no being was the perception of right and -wrong more acute.” - -“As his love of intellectual pursuits was vehement, and the vigour -of his genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of -his life most conspicuous.... I have had the happiness to associate -with some of the best specimens of gentleness; but (may my candour -and preference be pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the -only example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in the most -minute particular, of the infinite and various observances of pure, -entire, and perfect gentility.” This is the voluntary testimony of a -friend who was not inclined to excess of praise.[235] - -The sudden end of his career at Oxford had estranged him from his -father, who was of a temperament the very opposite to that of -the enthusiastic reformer--harsh, intolerant, and bigoted in his -prejudices; and the young Shelley’s marriage, shortly afterwards, -to Harriet Westbrook, a young girl of much beauty, but of little -cultivation of mind, and in a position of life different from his -own, incensed him still further. The marriage, happy enough in the -beginning, proved to be an ill-assorted one, and various causes -contributed to the inevitable _dénouement_. After a union of some -three years, the marriage, by mutual consent, was dissolved. Two years -later--not, it seems, in consequence of the divorce, as sometimes has -been suggested--the young wife put an end to her existence--a terrible -and tragic termination of an ill-considered attachment, which must have -caused him the deepest pangs of grief, and which seems always, and -justly, to have cast a gloomy shadow upon his future life. - -Brief as his career was, we can refer only to the most interesting -events in it. Of these, his enthusiastic effort to arouse a bloodless -revolution in Ireland, such as, if effected, might have prevented the -continued miseries of that especially neglected portion of the three -kingdoms, is not the least noteworthy. With his lately-married wife and -her sister he was living at Keswick, when, by a sudden inspiration, he -resolved to cross the Channel, and engage in the work of propagating -his principles of political and social reform. This was in the early -part of 1812. In Dublin, where they established their head-quarters, -he printed an _Address to the Irish People_, which, by his own hands, -as well as by other agency, was distributed far and wide. In this -wonderfully well-considered and reasonable manifesto, the principles -laid down as necessary to success in attempting deliverance from ages -of bad laws and misgovernment, are as sound as the ardour and sincerity -of his hopeless undertaking are unmistakeable. The cosmopolitan scope -of the _Address_ appears in such passages as these:-- - - “Do not inquire if a man be a heretic, if he be a Quaker, a Jew, - or a Heathen, but if he be a virtuous man, if he love liberty and - truth, if he wish the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man - be ever so much ‘a believer,’ and love not these things, he is a - heartless hypocrite and a knave.... It is not a merit to tolerate, - but it is a crime to be intolerant.... Be calm, mild, deliberate, - patient.... Think, and talk, and discuss.... Be free and be happy, - but _first be wise and good_.... Habits of sobriety, regularity, - and thought must be entered into and firmly resolved upon.” - -Truer in his perception of the radical causes and cure of national -evils than most party politicians, he urged the essential need of -ethical and social change, without which mere political change of -parties, or increase in material wealth of some sections in the -community, must be valueless in any true estimate of a nation’s -prosperity. Shelley also issued, in pamphlet form, _Proposals for an -Association_--a plan for the formation of a vast society of Irish -Catholics, to enforce their “emancipation”--a measure which was -not brought about until twenty years later after long and vehement -opposition. - -Two months were devoted to this generous but futile work; the people of -Ireland did not move, and the young reformer returned to England, but -without abandoning his _propaganda_ of the principles of liberty and -justice. While residing in Somersetshire he published a paper entitled -a _Declaration of Rights_, to circulate which recourse was had to -ingenious methods. Four years later, in 1817, he published _A Proposal -for putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Kingdom_. “He saw that -the House of Commons did not represent the country; and acting upon his -principle that Government is the servant of the Governed, he sought -means for ascertaining the real will of the nation with regard to its -Parliament, and for bringing the collective opinions of the population -to bear upon its rulers. The plan proposed was that a large network of -committees should be formed, and that by their means every individual -man should be canvassed. We find here the same method of advancing -reform by peaceable associations as in Ireland.” At the same time, in -presence of the incalculable amount of ignorance, destitution, and -consequent venality of the great mass of the community--the necessary -outcome of long ages of bad and selfish legislation--Universal -Suffrage for the present appeared to him to be not a safe experiment. -Evidence of controversial power, is his “grave and lofty” Letter to -Lord Ellenborough, who had recently sentenced to imprisonment the -printers of the _Age of Reason_, “an eloquent argument in favour of -toleration and the freedom of the intellect, carrying the matter beyond -the instance of legal tyranny, which occasioned its composition, and -treating it with philosophical if impassioned, seriousness.”[236] -Before his visit to Ireland, he had been engaged (as he tells his -correspondent, William Godwin) in writing _An Inquiry into the Causes -of the Failure of the French Revolution to Benefit Mankind_. We have -to lament that this Essay seems never to have been completed, since it -is hardly doubtful that it would have been of unusual interest. Such -was the force and activity of Shelley’s intellect, as displayed in the -regions of practical philosophy, at the age of twenty, and before he -had given to the world his first productions in poetry. - -_Queen Mab_, written in part two years before, was finished and printed -in 1813. Although it may have some of the defects of immaturity of -genius, it has the charm of a genuine poetic inspiration. Intense -hatred of selfish injustice and untruth in all their shapes, equally -intense sympathy with all suffering, sublime faith in the ultimate -triumph of Good, clothed in the language of entrancing eloquence and -sublimity, are the characteristics of this unique poem. The author’s -depreciation of his earliest poetic attempt in after years, in a letter -addressed to the _Examiner_, only a month before his death, strikes us -as scarcely sincere, and as having been a sort of necessary sacrifice -on the altar of Expediency. - -In this exquisitely beautiful prophecy of a “Golden Age” to be, the -fairy Queen Mab, the unembodied being who acts as his instructress and -guide through the Universe, displays to his affrighted vision, in one -vast panorama, the horrors of the Past and the Present. She afterwards, -in a glorious apocalypse, relieves his despair by revealing to him the -“new heavens and the new earth,” which eventually will displace the -present evil constitution of things on our planet. On the redeemed and -regenerated Globe:-- - - “Ambiguous Man! he that can know - More misery, and can dream more joy than all: - Whose keen sensations thrill within his heart, - To mingle with a loftier instinct there, - Lending their power to pleasure and to pain, - Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each: - Who stands amid the ever-varying world - The burden or the glory of the Earth-- - He chief perceives the change: his being notes - The gradual renovation, and defines - Each movement of its progress on his mind. - - * * * * * - - Here now the human being stands, adorning - This loveliest Earth with taintless body and mind. - Blest from his birth with all bland impulses, - Which gently in his truthful bosom wake - All kindly passions and all pure desires. - Him (still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing, - Which from the exhaustless store of human weal - Draws on the virtuous mind), the thoughts that rise - In time-destroying infiniteness, gift - With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks - The unprevailing hoariness of age: - And Man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene, - Swift as an unremembered vision, stands - Immortal upon Earth. _No longer now - He slays the Lamb who looks him in the face_, - And horribly devours his mangled flesh, - Which, still avenging Nature’s broken law, - Kindled all putrid humours in his frame-- - All evil passions and all vain belief-- - Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind, - The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime. - No longer now the wingèd habitants, - That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, - Flee from the form of Man. - - * * * * * - - All things are void of terror. Man has lost - His terrible prerogative, and stands - An equal amidst equals. Happiness - And Science dawn, though late, upon the Earth. - Peace cheers the mind, Health renovates the frame. - Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here, - Reason and passion cease to combat there; - Whilst each, unfettered, o’er the Earth extends - Its all-subduing energies, and wields - The sceptre of a vast dominion there; - Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends - Its force to the omnipotence of Mind, - Which from its dark mine drags the gem of Truth - To decorate its paradise of Peace.” - -In rapt vision the prophet-poet apostrophises the “New Earth”: - - “O happy Earth! reality of Heaven, - To which those restless souls, that ceaselessly - Throng through the human universe, aspire. - - * * * * * - - Of purest spirits, thou pure dwelling-place, - Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, - Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come. - O happy Earth! reality of Heaven. - Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams; - And dim forebodings of thy loveliness, - Haunting the human heart, have there entwined - Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss. - - * * * * * - - and the souls - That, by the paths of an aspiring change, - Have reached thy haven of perpetual Peace, - There rest from the eternity of toil, - That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.” - -From the Essay, in the form of a note, which he subjoined to the -passage we have quoted, we extract the principal arguments:-- - - “Man, and the other animals whom he has afflicted with his malady - or depraved by his dominion, are _alone diseased_. The Bison, - the wild Hog, the Wolf, are perfectly exempt from malady, and - invariably die either from external violence or from mature old - age. But the domestic Hog, the Sheep, the Cow, the Dog, are subject - to an incredible variety of distempers, and, like the corruptors - of their nature, have physicians who thrive upon their miseries. - The super-eminence of man is, like Satan’s, the super-eminence of - pain; and the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, - and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event that, by - enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the - level of his fellow-animals. But the steps that have been taken - are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one - question: How can the advantages of intellect and civilisation be - reconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life? - How can we take the benefits and reject the evils of the system - which is now interwoven with the fibre of our being? I believe - that abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors would, in - a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this important - question. - - “It is true that mental and bodily derangements are attributable, - in part, to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those - which concern diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting - the connexion of the sexes, whence the misery and diseases of - unsatisfied celibacy, unenjoyed prostitution, and the premature - arrival of puberty, necessarily spring. The putrid atmosphere of - crowded cities, the exhalations of chemical processes, the muffling - of our bodies in superfluous apparel, the absurd treatment of - infants--all these, and innumerable other causes, contribute their - mite to the mass of human evil. - - “Comparative Anatomy teaches us that man resembles the frugivorous - animals in everything, the carnivorous in nothing. He has neither - claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth - to tear the living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with - nails two inches long, would probably find them alone inefficient - to hold even a hare. After every subterfuge of gluttony, the bull - must be degraded into the “ox,” and the ram into the “wether,” by - an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the flaccid fibre may - offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature. It is only by - softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it - is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the - sight of its bloody juice and raw horror does not excite loathing - and disgust. - - “Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a decisive - experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a - living lamb with his teeth and, plunging his head into its vitals, - slake his thirst with the streaming blood. When fresh from this - deed of horror, let him revert to the irresistible instinct of - nature that would rise in judgment against it and say, ‘Nature - formed me for such work as this.’ Then, and then only would he be - consistent. - - “Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless - man be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated - colons. - - “The orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order - and in the number of his teeth. The orang-outang is the most - anthropomorphous of the ape tribe, all of whom are strictly - frugivorous. There is no other species of animals, which live - on different food, in which this analogy exists.[237] In many - frugivorous animals the canine teeth are more pointed and distinct - than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to - that of the orang-outang is greater than to that of any other - animal. - - “The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to - a pure vegetable diet in every essential particular. It is true - that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have - been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons - of weak minds as to be scarcely overcome. But this is far from - bringing any argument in its favour. A Lamb, who was fed for some - time on flesh by a ship’s crew, refused her natural diet at the end - of the voyage. There are numerous instances of Horses, Sheep, Oxen, - and even Wood-Pigeons having been taught to live upon flesh until - they have loathed their natural aliment. Young children evidently - prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other fruit, to the flesh of - animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the digestive organs, - the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced serious - inconveniences--_for a time_, I say, since there never was an - instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food - to vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate - the body by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to - restore to the mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not - one in fifty possesses on the present system. A love of strong - liquors also is with difficulty taught infants. Almost every one - remembers the wry faces which the first glass of port produced. - Unsophisticated instinct is invariably unerring, but to decide on - the fitness of animal food from the _perverted_ appetites which its - continued adoption produces, is to make the criminal a judge of his - own cause. It is even worse, for it is appealing to the infatuated - drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy. - - “Except in children, there remain no traces of that instinct which - determines, in all other animals, what aliment is _natural_ or - otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning - adults of our species, that it has become necessary to urge - considerations drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are - _naturally_ frugivorous. - - “Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of - disease shall be discovered, the root from which all vice and - misery have so long overshadowed the Globe will be bare to the - axe. All the exertions of man, from that moment, may be considered - as tending to the clear profit of his species. No sane mind in - a sane body resolves upon real crime.... The system of a simple - diet promises no Utopian advantages. It is no mere reform of - legislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of - the human heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged. - It _strikes at the root of all evil_, and is an experiment which - may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small - societies, families, and even individuals. In no cases has a return - to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has - been attended with changes undeniably beneficial. Should ever a - physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded that he - might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural - habits as clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to - sensation.... - - “By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure - those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the - vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject - whose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at - rest. But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so - great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even - though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is - found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease to _palliate_ - their torments by medicine than to _prevent_ them by regimen. - The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile, yet - I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of - vegetable diet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear that - those who live naturally are exempt from premature death as that - one is not nine, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference - towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful, - life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three years. - Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be - given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on - vegetables and pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than - two years have now elapsed--_not one of them has died_. No such - example will be found in any sixty persons taken at random. - - “Seventeen persons of all ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. - Newton) have lived for seven years on this diet without a death, - _and almost without the slightest illness_.... In proportion to the - number of proselytes, so will be the weight of evidence, and when a - thousand persons can be produced living on vegetables and distilled - water,[238] who have to dread no disease but old age, the world - will be compelled to regard flesh and fermented liquors as slow but - certain poisons.” - -Shelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet -economically, socially, and politically:-- - - “The monopolising eater of flesh would no longer destroy his - constitution by devouring an acre at a meal; and many loaves of - bread would cease to contribute to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in - the shape of a pint of porter or a dram of gin, when appeasing the - long-protracted famine of the hard-working peasant’s hungry babes. - The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening - the carcase of an ox would afford ten times the sustenance, - undepraved, indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if - gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile - districts of the habitable globe are now actually cultivated by men - for [other] animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely - incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to any - great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead - flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by - subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the - nation, that should take the lead in this great reform, would - insensibly become _agricultural_. - - “The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that - of any other. It strikes at the _root_ of the evil. To remedy the - abuses of legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by - which they are produced, is to suppose that by taking away the - _effect_ the _cause_ will cease to operate.... - - “Let not too much, however, be expected from this system. The - healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most - symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly - inferior to what he would have been, had not the unnatural habits - of his ancestors accumulated for him a certain portion of malady - and deformity. In the most perfect specimen of civilised man, - something is still found wanting by the physiological critic. Can a - return to Nature, then, instantaneously eradicate predispositions - that have been slowly taking root in the silence of innumerable - Ages? Undoubtedly not. All that I contend for is, that from the - moment of relinquishing all _unnatural_ habits no new disease is - generated; and that the predisposition to hereditary maladies - gradually perishes for want of its accustomed supply. In cases - of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, such is the - invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water....” - -He concludes this philosophic discourse with an earnest appeal to the -various classes of society:-- - - “I address myself not to the young enthusiast only, to the ardent - devotee of truth and virtue--the pure and passionate moralist, - yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a - pure system from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, - and its promise of wide-extended benefit. Unless custom has - turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the - chase by instinct. It will be a contemplation full of horror and - disappointment to his mind that beings, capable of the gentlest and - most admirable sympathies, should take delight in the deathpangs - and last convulsions of dying animals. - - “The elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, - or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted - with a variety of painful maladies, would find his account in - a beneficial change, produced without the risk of poisonous - medicines. The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of - disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to her children, are the - causes of incurable unhappiness, would, on this diet, experience - the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual health and natural - playfulness.[239] The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by - diseases that it is dangerous to palliate, and impossible to cure, - by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the - gluttony of Death--his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?” - -Some time after the melancholy death of his first wife, Shelley married -Mary Wolstoncroft, the daughter of William Godwin, author of _Political -Justice_--perhaps the most revolutionary of all pleas for a change in -the constitution of society that has ever proceeded from a prosaic -tradesman, such as, in the ordinary intercourse of life and interchange -of ideas, his biography and correspondence (lately published) prove -him to have been. Her mother was the celebrated and earliest advocate -of the rights of women. Previously, the lovers had travelled through -France and part of Germany, and an account of their six weeks’ tour was -afterwards printed by Mrs. Shelley. - -In 1815 appeared his _Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude_. In 1817 -he again left England for Geneva. While in Switzerland he made the -acquaintance of Byron, which was renewed during his stay in Italy. -In the same year he returned to this country and, after a short -sojourn with Leigh Hunt, he settled at Great Marlow, one of the most -picturesque parts of the Thames. There, in spite of his own ill-health, -he showed the active benevolence of his character, not only in the -easier form of alms-giving but also in frequent visits to the sick -and destitute, at the risk of aggravating symptoms of consumption now -alarmingly apparent. There, too, he composed the _Revolt of Islam_, -or, as it was originally more fitly entitled, _Laon and Cythna_. In -this poem, by the mouth of Laone, he again expresses his humanitarian -convictions and sympathies. She calls upon the enfranchised nations:-- - - “‘My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing - Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing - O’er the ripe corn; the Birds and Beasts are dreaming-- - Never again may blood of bird or beast - Stain with his venomous stream a human feast, - To the pure skies in accusation steaming. - Avenging poisons shall have ceased - To feed disease, and fear, and madness. - The dwellers of the earth and air - Shall throng around our steps in gladness, - Seeking their food or refuge there. - Our toil from Thought all glorious forms shall cul. - To make this earth, our home, more beautiful, - And Science, and her sister Poesy, - Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the Free. - - * * * * * - - “Their feast was such as Earth, the general Mother, - Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles - In the embrace of Autumn--to each other - As when some parent fondly reconciles - Her warring children, _she_ their wrath beguiles - With her own sustenance; _they_, relenting, weep-- - Such was this Festival, which, from their isles, - And continents, and winds, and oceans deep, - All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep: - - “Might share in peace and innocence, for _gore_, - _Or poison none this festal did pollute_. - But, piled on high, an overflowing store - Of pomegranates, and citrons--fairest fruit, - Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root - Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes, ere yet - Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute - Into a mortal bane; and brown corn set - In baskets: with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.”[240] - -While he was yet residing in Marlow, the Princess Charlotte, daughter -of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.,) died; and, since her -character had been in strong contrast with her father’s and with -royal persons’ in general, her early death seems to have caused, not -only ceremonial mourning, but also genuine regret amongst all in the -community having any knowledge of her exceptional amiability. The poet -seized the opportunity of so public an event, and published _An Address -to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. By the Hermit of -Marlow_, in which he inscribed the motto--“We pity the plumage, but -forget the dying bird.” In this pamphlet, while paying due tribute of -regret for the death of an amiable girl, and fully appreciating the -sorrow caused by death as well among the destitute and obscure (with -whom, indeed, the too usual absence of the care and sympathy of friends -intensifies the sorrow) as among the rich and powerful, he invited, in -studiously moderate language, attention to the many just reasons for -national mourning in the interests of the poor no less than of princes; -and, in particular, invited the nation to express its indignant grief -for the fate of the Lancashire mechanics who, missing the happier -fate of their brethren slaughtered at Peterloo, were subjected to an -ignominious death by a government which had, by its neglect, encouraged -the growth of a just discontent. - -In 1818 Shelley left England never to return. At this time was composed -the principal part of his masterpiece--_Prometheus Unbound_, the most -finished and carefully executed of all his poems. While in Rome (1819) -he published _The Cenci_, which had been suggested to him by the famous -picture of Guido, until lately supposed to be that of Beatrice Cenci, -and by the traditions, current even in the poet’s time, of the cruel -fate of his heroine. Shakspere’s four great dramas excepted, _The -Cenci_ must take rank as the finest tragic drama since the days of -the Greek masters. It is worked up to a degree of pathos unsurpassed -by anything of the kind in literature. “The Fifth Act,” remarks Mrs. -Shelley, his editor and commentator, “is a masterpiece. Every character -has a voice that echoes truth in its tones.” _The Cenci_ was followed -in quick succession by the _Witch of Atlas_, _Adonais_ (an elegy on -the death of Keats), the most exquisite “In Memoriam”--not excepting -Milton’s or Tennyson’s--ever written; and _Hellas_, which was inspired -by his strong sympathy with the Greeks, who were then engaged in the -war of independence. - -Of his lesser productions, the _Ode to the Skylark_ is of an -inspiration seldom equalled in its kind. With the “blythe spirit,” whom -he apostrophises, the poet rises in rapt ecstasy “higher still and -higher.” For the rest of his productions (the _Letters from Italy_ and -criticisms or rather eulogies on Greek art have an especial interest) -and for the other events in his brief remaining existence we must -refer our readers to the complete edition of his works.[241] The last -work upon which he was engaged was his _Triumph of Life_, a poem in -the _terza rima_ of the _Divine Comedy_. It breaks off abruptly--it is -peculiarly interesting to note--with the significant words, “Then what -is Life, I cried?” - -The manner of his death is well known. While engaged in his usual -recreation of boating he was drowned in the bay of Spezia. His body -was washed on to the shore and, according to regulations then in force -by the Italian governments of the day, in guarding against possible -infection from the plague, it was burned where it lay, in presence of -his friends Byron and Trelawney, and the ashes were entombed in the -Protestant cemetery in Rome--a not unfitting disposal of the remains of -one the most spiritualised of human beings. - -The following just estimate of the character of his genius and -writings, by a thoughtful critic, is worth reproduction here:--“No man -was more essentially a poet--‘glancing from earth to heaven.’ He was, -indeed, ‘of imagination all compact.’ ... In all his poems he uniformly -denounces vice and immorality in every form; and his descriptions of -love, which are numerous, are always refined and delicate, with even -less of sensuousness than in many of our most admired writers. It -is true that he decried marriage, but not in favour of libertinism; -and the evils he depicts, or laments, are those arising from the -indissolubility of the bond, or from the opinions of society as to its -necessity--opinions to which he himself submitted by marrying the woman -to whom he was attached.... His reputation as a poet has gradually -widened since his death, and has not yet reached its culminating point. -He was the poet of the future--of an ideal futurity--and hence it was -that his own age could not entirely sympathise with him. He has been -called the ‘poet of poets,’ a proud title, and, in some respects, -deserved.”[242] - -Of his creed, the article which he most firmly held, and which, -perhaps, most distinguishes him from ordinary thinkers, was the -_Perfectibility_ of his species, and his firm faith in the ultimate -triumph of Good. “He believed,” says the one authority who had the -best means of knowing his thought and feeling, “that mankind had only -to _will_ that there should be no evil, and there would be none. It is -not my part in these notes to criticise the arguments that have been -urged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he entertained -it, and was, indeed, attached to it with fervent enthusiasm. That man -could be so perfectionised as to be able to expel Evil from his own -nature, and from the greater part of the world, was the cardinal point -of his system. And the subject he liked best to dwell upon was the -image of One warring with an evil principle, oppressed not only by it -but by all, even the good, who were deluded into considering evil a -_necessary_ portion of humanity--a victim full of gratitude and of hope -and of the spirit of triumph emanating from a reliance in the ultimate -omnipotence of Good.” Such was the conviction which inspired his -greatest poem _The Prometheus Unbound_. - -A principal charm of his poetry is that which repels the common class -of readers: “He loved to _idealise_ reality, and this is a task shared -by few. We are willing to have our passing whims exalted into passions, -for this gratifies our vanity. But few of us understand or sympathise -with the endeavour to ally the love of abstract beauty and adoration -of abstract Good with sympathies with our own kind.”[243] Of so rare a -spirit it is peculiarly interesting to know something of the outward -form:-- - - “His features [describes one of his biographers] were not - symmetrical--the mouth, perhaps, excepted. Yet the effect of the - whole was extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire, - an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence, that I never - met with in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression - less beautiful than the intellectual: for there was a softness, a - delicacy, a gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise - many) that air of profound religious veneration that characterises - the best works, and chiefly the frescoes, of the great Masters of - Florence and of Rome. - - “His eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair was - brown: but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled - face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted - on all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him. - Mulready is reported to have said that he was too beautiful to - paint. And yet, although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his - charm to regularity of feature, or to grace of movement, than to an - indescribable personal fascination.” - -As to his voice, impressions varied:-- - - “Like all finely-tempered natures, he vibrated in harmony with - the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his utterance shrill - and sharp. Deep feeling, or the sense of beauty, lowered its - tone to richness; but the _timbre_ was always acute, in sympathy - with his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley’s - nature. This peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and - affecting different sensibilities in diverse ways, corresponds to - the high-strung passion of his life, his finedrawn and ethereal - fancies, and the clear vibrations of his palpitating verse. Such a - voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and unearthly, befitted one who - lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights of human thought.”[244] - -If the physical characteristics of a great Teacher or of a sublime -Genius excite a natural curiosity, it is the principal _moral_ -characteristics which most reasonably and profoundly interest us. To -the supremely amiable disposition of the creator of _The Cenci_ and -_Prometheus Unbound_ brief reference has been made; and we shall fitly -supplement this imperfect sketch of his humanitarian career with the -vivid impressions left on the mind of the friend who best knew him. -Love of truth and hatred of falsehood and injustice were not, in his -case, limited to the pages of a book, and forgotten in the too often -deadening influence of intercourse with the world--they permeated his -whole life and conversation. - - “The qualities that struck any one newly introduced to Shelley - were, first, a gentle and cordial goodness that animated his - discourse with warm affection and helpful sympathy; the other, the - eagerness and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of - human happiness and improvement, and the fervent eloquence with - which he discussed such subjects. His conversation was marked - by its happy abundance, and the beautiful language in which he - clothed his poetic ideas and philosophical notions. To defecate - life of its misery and its evil was the ruling passion of his - soul; he dedicated to it every power of his mind, every pulsation - of his heart. He looked on political freedom as the direct agent - to effect the happiness of mankind; and thus any new-sprung hope - of liberty inspired a joy and even exultation more intense and - wild than he could have felt for any personal advantage. Those - who have never experienced the workings of passion on general and - unselfish subjects cannot understand this; and it must be difficult - of comprehension to the younger generation rising around, since - they cannot remember the scorn and hatred with which the partisans - of reform were regarded some few years ago, nor the persecution to - which they were exposed. - - “Many advantages attended his birth; he spurned them all when - balanced with what he considered his duties. He was generous to - imprudence--devoted to heroism. These characteristics breathe - throughout his poetry. The struggle for human weal; the resolution - firm to martyrdom; the impetuous pursuit; the glad triumph in - good; the determination not to despair.... Perfectly gentle - and forbearing in manner, he suffered a great deal of internal - irritability, or rather excitement, and his fortitude to bear was - almost always on the stretch; and thus, during a short life, he had - gone through more experience of sensation than many whose existence - is protracted. ‘If I die to-morrow,’ he said, on the eve of - unanticipated death, ‘I have lived to be older than my father.’ The - weight of thought and feeling burdened him heavily. You read his - sufferings in his attenuated frame, while you perceived the mastery - he held over them in his animated countenance and brilliant eyes. - - “He died, and the world showed no outward sigh; but his influence - over mankind, though slow in growth, is fast augmenting; and in - the ameliorations that have taken place in the political state of - his country we may trace, in part, the operation of his arduous - struggles.... He died, and his place among those who knew him - intimately has never been filled up. He walked beside them like a - spirit of good to comfort and benefit--to enlighten the darkness of - life with irradiations of genius, to cheer with his sympathy and - love.”[245] - - * * * * * - -With the name of Shelley is usually connected that of his more popular -contemporary, Byron (1788-1824). The brother poets, it already has been -noted, met in Switzerland; and, afterwards, they had some intercourse -in Italy during Shelley’s last years. Excepting surpassing genius, -and equal impatience of conventional laws and usages they had little -in common. The one was first and above all a reformer, the other a -satirist. To assert, however, the author of _Childe Harold_ to have -been inspired solely by cynical contempt for his species is unjust. -A large part of his poems is pervaded apparently with an intense -conviction of the evils of life as produced by human selfishness and -folly. But what distinguishes the author of _Prometheus Unbound_ from -his great rival (if he may be so called) is the sure and certain -hope of a future of happiness for the world. Thus, that belief in -the all-importance of humane dietetics, as a principal factor in the -production of weal or woe on earth, is far less apparent in Byron is -matter of course. - -Yet, that in moments of better feeling, Byron revolted from the gross -materialism of the banquets, of which, as he expresses it, England - - “Was wont to boast--as if a Glutton’s tray - Were something very glorious to behold.”[246] - -and that, had he not been seduced by the dinner-giving propensity -of English society, he would have retained his early preference for -the refined diet, we are glad to believe. In a letter to his mother, -written in his early youth, he announces that he had determined upon -relinquishment of flesh-eating, and his clearer mental perceptions in -consequence of his reformed living;[247] and he seems even to have -advanced to the extreme frugality of living, at times, upon biscuits -and water only. - -It would have been well for him had he, like Shelley, abstained from -gross eating and drinking upon _principle_; and had he uniformly -adhered to the resolution formed in his earlier years, we should, in -that case, not have to lament his too notorious sexual intemperance. - - - - -XLII. - -PHILLIPS. 1767-1840. - - -It is an obvious truth--in vain demonstrated seventeen centuries -since by the best moral teachers of non-Christian antiquity--that -abolition of the slaughter-house, with all the cruel barbarism -directly or indirectly associated with it, by a necessary and logical -corollary, involves abolition of every form of injustice and cruelty. -Of this truth the subject of the present article is a conspicuous -witness. During his long and active career, in social and political -as well as in literary life, Sir Richard Phillips was a consistent -_philanthropist_; and few, in his position of influence, have -surpassed him in real beneficence. In the face of rancorous obloquy -and opposition from that too numerous proportion of communities which -systematically resist all “innovation” and deviation from the “ancient -paths,” he fearlessly maintained the cause of the oppressed; and, as a -prison reformer, he claims a place second only to that of Howard. - -Of his life we have fuller record than we have of some others of the -prophets of dietetic reformation. Yet there is uncertainty as to his -birthplace. One account represents him to have been born in London, -and to have been the son of a brewer. Another statement, which appears -to be more authentic, reports his place of birth to have been in the -neighbourhood of Leicester, and his father to have been a farmer. What -is of more permanent interest is the account preserved of the reason -of his first revolt from the practice of kreophagy. Disliking the -business of farming, it seems, while yet quite young, not without the -acquiescence of his parents, he had adventurously sought his living, on -his own account, in the metropolis. What, if any, plans had been formed -by him is not known; but it is certain that he soon found himself -in imminent danger of starvation, and, after brief trial, he gladly -re-sought his home. Upon his return to the farm, he found awaiting him -the welcome of the “Prodigal Son”--although, happily, he had no just -claim to the title of that well-known character. A “fatted calf” was -killed, and the boy shared in the dish with the rest of the family. -It was not until after the feast that he learned that the slaughtered -calf had been his especial favourite and playmate. So revolting to -his keener sensibility was the consciousness of this fact, that he -registered a vow never again to live upon the products of slaughter. -To this determination he adhered during the remainder of his long -life.[248] - -His next venture, and first choice of a profession, while he was still -quite young, led him to engage in teaching. As an advertisement he -placed a flag at the door of a house in which he rented a room, where -he gave elementary instruction to such children as were entrusted to -his tuition by the townspeople of Leicester. The experiment proved not -very successful, and at the end of a twelvemonth he tried his fortune -elsewhere. He next turned to commerce--at first in a humble fashion. -His business prospered, and his next important undertaking was the -establishment of a newspaper--the _Leicester Herald_. This journal -was what is now called a “Liberal” paper. Yet by those who affected -to identify the welfare of England with the continued existence of -rotten boroughs and other corruptions, it was held up to opprobrium as -revolutionary and “incendiary.” Phillips himself had the reputation -of an able political writer; but the chief support of the journal was -the celebrated Dr. Priestley, whose name and contributions gave it a -reputation it otherwise might not have gained. The responsible editor -did not escape the perils that then environed the denouncers of legal -or social iniquity, and Phillips, convicted of a “misdemeanour,” was -sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Leicester jail. During -his imprisonment he displayed the beneficence of his disposition in -relieving the miseries of some of his more wretched companions. Upon -his release, he sold his interest in the _Leicester Herald_, and for -some time confined himself altogether to his business. - -Leaving Leicester he migrated to London and set up a hosiery -establishment, which, however, he soon converted into the more -congenial bookshop. It was the success of the _Leicester Herald_ -that, probably, led him to think of starting a new periodical. Upon -consultation with Priestley and other friends he was encouraged to -proceed, and the _Monthly Magazine_ was the result. It commenced in -July 1795 and proved to be a most decided success. At first conducted -by Priestley, it was afterwards partly under the editorship of Dr. -Aikin, author of the _Country Around Manchester_. The proprietors -shared in the management of the magazine, but to what extent it is -difficult to ascertain. Amongst the contributors was “Peter Pindar,” -so well known as the author, amongst other satirical rhymes, of the -verses upon George III., perplexed by the celebrated “apple dumpling.” -The monthly receipts from the sale amounted to £1,500. A quarrel -with Aikin was followed by the resignation of the editor. Increase -of business soon led to a removal of the publishing-house from St. -Paul’s Churchyard to a much larger establishment in Blackfriars. His -home was at Hampstead where, in a beautiful neighbourhood and in an -elegant villa, the opulent publisher enjoyed the refined pleasures -which his humaneness of living, as well as beneficent industry, had -justly deserved. At this time he began a correspondence with C. J. -Fox, on the subject of the History of James II., upon which the famous -Whig statesman was then engaged. Four letters addressed to him by -Fox have been printed, but they have no special importance. He was -already married, and the story of his courtship has more than the mere -gossiping interest of ordinary biography. Upon his first arrival in -London, he had taken lodgings in the house of a milliner. One of her -assistants was a Miss Griffiths, a beautiful young Welsh girl, who, -learning the unconquerable aversion of their guest from the common -culinary barbarism, had amiably volunteered to prepare his dishes on -strictly anti-kreophagist principles. This incident induced a sympathy -and friendship which speedily resulted in a proposal of marriage. They -were a handsome pair; and a somewhat precipitate matrimonial alliance -was followed by many years of unmixed happiness for both. - -In 1807 the “Livery” of London elected him to the office of High -Sheriff of the City and County of Middlesex for the ensuing year. This -responsible post put to the proof the sincerity of his professions as -a reformer. Nor did he fail in the trial. During his term of power he -effected many improvements in the treatment of the real or pretended -criminals who, as occupants of the jails, came under his jurisdiction. -No one who has read Howard’s _State of the Prisons_, published thirty -years before Phillips’ entrance upon his office, or even general -accounts of them, needs to be told that they were the very nurseries -of disease, vice, misery, and crime of all kinds--one of the many -everlasting disgraces of the governments and civilisation of the day. -Nor had they been appreciably improved during the interval of thirty -years. - -The new Sheriff daily visited Newgate and the Fleet prisons and, by -personal inquiry, made himself acquainted with the actual state of the -occupants, and in many ways was able to ameliorate their condition. By -his direction several collecting boxes were conspicuously displayed, -and the alms collected were applied to the relief of the families of -destitute debtors. He further insisted that persons, whose indictments -had been ignored by the grand jury, should not be detained in the -foul and pestilential atmosphere, as was then the case, but should be -immediately released. - -In his admirable _Letter to the Livery of London_, he begins with an -appeal to the common sentiments of humanity which ought to have some -influence with those in authority. He reminds his readers that:-- - - “It is too much the fashion to exclude _feeling_ from the - business of public life, and a total absence of it is considered - as a necessary qualification in a public man. Among statesmen - and politicians he is considered as weak and incompetent who - suffers natural affection to have any influence on his political - calculations.” - -In a note to this passage he adds:-- - - “It appears to me that political errors of all kinds arise, in - a great degree, from the studied banishment of feeling from the - consideration of statesmen. Reasoning frequently fails us from - a false estimate of the premises on which our deductions are - founded. But _feeling_, which, in most respects, is synonymous - with conscience, is almost always right. Statesmen are apt to view - society as a machine, the several parts of which must be made by - them to perform their respective functions for the success of - the whole. The comparison is often made, but the analogy is not - perfect. The parts of the social machine are made up of sensitive - beings, each of whom (though in the obscurest situation) is - equal, in all the affections of our nature, to those in the most - conspicuous places. The harmony and happiness of the whole will - depend on the _degree_ of feeling exercised by the directors and - prime movers.” - -After this preliminary exhortation, he presents to their contemplation -an appalling revelation of the stupid cruelties of the criminal law -and its administration. He gives a graphic account of the jail of -Newgate--both of the felons’ and the debtors’ division. The dimensions -of the entire building were 105 yards by 40 yards, of which only -one-fourth part was used by the prisoners. Into this space were crowded -sometimes seven or eight hundred, never less than four or five hundred, -human beings of both sexes and of all ages. “Felons” and debtors seem -to have fared pretty much the same, and filth, fever, and starvation -prevailed in all parts of the jail alike. The women prisoners he -describes as pressed together so closely as, upon lying down, to -leave no atom of space between their bodies. As for the results of -this neglect on the part of the State, he finds it impossible to draw -an adequate picture of them, and is at a loss to imagine how the whole -city is not carried off by a plague. By persevering energy he obtained -some reformation, although he failed in his proposal for a new building. - -As to the individual occupants of these pest-houses, he found a large -number whose offences were comparatively of an innocent kind, but who -were herded with the most savage criminals. He espoused the cause -of several of these prisoners--especially of the women--who, after -some years of incarceration, were frequently drifted off to Botany -Bay, which, besides its other terrors, was for almost all of them a -perpetual separation from their homes, their husbands, and families. -Twice he vainly addressed a memorial to the Secretary of State (Lord -Hawkesbury) on their behalf. The traditions and routine of office were -too powerful even for his persistent energy. - -Romilly had lately introduced his measure for amendment of the -barbarous and bloody penal code of this country. Sir Richard Phillips -addressed to him also a thoughtful letter, in which were pointed out -some of the more glaring abuses in the administration of the laws, with -which his official experience as High Sheriff had made him familiar. -When Mansfield was Lord Chief Justice, and Thurlow Lord Chancellor, -the hangings were so numerous that, as he informs us, on one “hanging -holiday” he saw nineteen persons on the gallows, the eldest of whom -was not twenty-two years of age. The larger number, probably, had -been sentenced to this barbarous death for theft of various kinds. -Three hundred years had passed away since the animadversions of -More (_before_ his accession to office) in the _Utopia_, and some -half-century since Beccaria and Voltaire had protested against this -monstrous iniquity of criminal legislation, without effect, in England, -at least. As far as their contemporaries and their successors for long -afterwards were concerned these philanthropists had written wholly in -vain. - -In the letter to Romilly Phillips insists particularly upon the -following reforms: (1) No prisoner to be placed in irons before trial. -(2) None to be denied free access of friends or legal advisers. (3) -None to be deprived of adequate means of subsistence--14 ounces of -bread then being the _maximum_ of allowance of food. (4) Every prisoner -to be discharged as soon as the grand jury shall have thrown out the -bill of indictment. (5) Abolition of payment to jailors by exactions -forced from the most destitute prisoners, and of various other -exorbitant or illegal fines and extortions. (6) Separation of lunatic -from other occupants of the jails. (7) That counsel be provided for -those too poor to pay for themselves. - -In 1811 Phillips published his _Treatise on the Powers and Duties of -Juries, and on the Criminal Laws of England_. Three years later _Golden -Rules for Jurymen_, which he afterwards expanded into a book entitled -_Golden Rules of Social Philosophy_ (1826), in which he lays down rules -of conduct for the ordinary business of life--lawyers, clergymen, -schoolmasters, and others being the objects of his admonitions. It is -in this work that the civic dignitary--so “splendidly false” to the -habits of his class--sets forth at length the principles upon which his -unalterable faith in the truth of humanitarian dietetics was founded. -The reasons of this “true confession” are fully and perspicuously -specified, and the first forms the key-note of the rest:--[249] - - “1. _Because_, being mortal himself, and holding his life on the - same uncertain and precarious tenure as all other sensitive beings, - he does not find himself justified by any supposed superiority or - inequality of condition in destroying the enjoyment of existence of - any other mortal, except in the necessary defence of his own life. - - “2. _Because_ the desire of life is so paramount, and so - affectingly cherished in all sensitive beings, that he cannot - reconcile it to his feelings to destroy or become a voluntary party - in the destruction of any innocent living being, however much in - his power, or apparently insignificant. - - “3. _Because_ he feels the same abhorrence from devouring flesh in - general that he hears carnivorous men express against eating human - flesh, or the flesh of Horses, Dogs, Cats, or other animals which, - in some countries, it is not customary for carnivorous men to - devour. - - “4. _Because_ Nature seems to have made a superabundant provision - for the nourishment of [frugivorous] animals in the saccharine - matter of Roots and Fruits, in the farinaceous matter of Grain, - Seed, and Pulse, and in the oleaginous matter of the Stalks, - Leaves, and Pericarps of numerous vegetables. - - “5. _Because_ he feels an utter and unconquerable repugnance - against receiving into his stomach the flesh or juices of deceased - animal organisation. - - “6. _Because_ the destruction of the mechanical organisation of - vegetables inflicts no sensible suffering, nor violates any moral - feeling, while vegetables serve to sustain his health, strength, - and spirits above those of most carnivorous men. - - “7. _Because_ during thirty years of rigid abstinence from the - flesh and juices of deceased sensitive beings, he finds that he has - not suffered a day’s serious illness, that his animal strength and - vigour have been equal or superior to that of other men, and that - his mind has been fully equal to numerous shocks which he has had - to encounter from malice, envy, and various acts of turpitude in - his fellow-men. - - “8. _Because_ observing that carnivorous propensities among animals - are accompanied by a total want of sympathetic feelings and gentle - sentiments--as in the Hyæna, the Tiger, the Vulture, the Eagle, the - Crocodile, and the Shark--he conceives that the practice of these - carnivorous tyrants affords no worthy example for the imitation or - justification of rational, reflecting, and _conscientious_ beings. - - “9. _Because_ he observes that carnivorous men, unrestrained by - reflection or sentiment, even refine on the most cruel practices - of the most savage animals [of other species], and apply their - resources of mind and art to prolong the miseries of the victims - of their appetites--bleeding, skinning, roasting, and boiling - animals alive, and torturing them without reservation or remorse, - if they thereby add to the variety or the delicacy of their - carnivorous gluttony. - - “10. _Because_ the natural sentiments and sympathies of human - beings, in regard to the killing of other animals, are generally - so averse from the practice that few men or women could devour the - animals whom _they might be obliged themselves to kill_; and yet - they forget, or affect to forget, the living endearments or dying - sufferings of the being, while they are wantoning over his remains. - - “11. _Because_ the human stomach appears to be naturally so averse - from receiving the remains of animals, that few could partake - of them if they were not disguised and flavoured by culinary - preparation; yet rational beings ought to feel that the prepared - substances are not the less what they truly are, and _that no - disguise of food, in itself loathsome_, ought to delude the - unsophisticated perceptions of a considerate mind. - - “12. _Because_ the forty-seven millions of acres in England and - Wales _would maintain in abundance as many human inhabitants_, - if they lived wholly on grain, fruits, and vegetables; but they - sustain only twelve millions [in 1811] _scantily_, while animal - food is made the basis of human subsistence. - - “13. _Because_ animals do not present or contain the substance of - food in mass, like vegetables; every part of their economy being - subservient to their mere existence, and their entire frames being - solely composed of blood necessary for life, of bones for strength, - of muscles for motion, and of nerves for sensation. - - “14. _Because_ the practice of killing and devouring animals can - be justified by no moral plea, by no physical benefit, nor _by any - just allegation of necessity in countries where there is abundance - of vegetable food_, and where the arts of gardening and husbandry - are favoured by social protection, and by the genial character of - the soil and climate. - - “15. _Because_ wherever the number and hostility of predatory land - animals might so tend to prevent the cultivation of vegetable food - as to render it necessary to destroy and, perhaps, to eat them, - there could in that case exist no necessity for destroying the - animated existences of the distinct elements of air and water; and, - as in most civilised countries, there exist no land animals besides - those which are properly bred for slaughter or luxury, of course - the destruction of mammals and birds in such countries must be - ascribed either to unthinking wantonness or to carnivorous gluttony. - - “16. _Because_ the stomachs of locomotive beings appear to have - been provided for the purpose of conveying about with the moving - animal nutritive substances, analogous in effect to the soil in - which are fixed the roots of plants and, therefore, nothing ought - to be introduced into the stomach for digestion and for absorption - by the _lacteals_, or roots of the animal system, but the natural - bases of simple nutrition--as the saccharine, the oleaginous, and - the farinaceous matter of the vegetable kingdom.”[250] - -Perhaps his most entertaining book is his _Morning Walk from London -to Kew_ (1817). In it he avails himself of the various objects on his -road for instructive moralising--as, for example, when he meets with -a mutilated soldier, on the frightful waste and cruelty of war; or -with a horse struggling up a precipitous hill in agony of suffering -from the torture of the bearing-rein, on the common forms of selfish -cruelty; or again, when he deplores the incalculable waste of food -resources, by the careless indifferentism of owners of land and of the -State in allowing the country to remain encumbered with useless, or -comparatively useless, timber, in place of planting it with valuable -fruit trees of various sorts according to the nature of the soil. - -His next publication of importance was his _Million of Facts and -Correct Data and Elementary Constants in the entire Circle of the -Sciences, and on all Subjects of Speculation and Practice_ (1832) 8vo. -It is this work by which, perhaps, Phillips is now most known--an -immense collection and, although many of the “Constants” may be open -to criticism or have already become obsolete, it may still be examined -with interest. The plan of the work is that of a classified collection -of scraps of information on all the arts and sciences. It was so -popular that five large editions were published in seven years. His -preface to the stereotyped edition is dated 1839. He remarks that -“his pretensions for such a task are a prolonged and uninterrupted -intercourse with books and men of letters. He has, for forty-nine -years, been occupied as the literary conductor of various public -journals of reputation; he has superintended the press in the printing -of many hundred books in every branch of human pursuit, and he has been -intimately associated with men celebrated for their attainments in each -of them.” In the facts concerning anatomy and physiology will be found -references to scientific and other authorities upon the subject of -flesh-eating. - -Occasionally we meet with biographical facts of special interest. -Thus, he says that, early in 1825, he suggested the first idea of the -Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to Dr. Birkbeck and then, -by his advice, to Lord Brougham. His idea was the establishment of a -fund for selling or giving away books and tracts, after the manner of -the Religious Tract Society. As regards his astronomic paradoxes, his -theory, in opposition to the Newtonian, that the phenomena attributed -to gravitation are, in reality, the “proximate effects of the orbicular -and rotatory motions of the earth” (for which he was severely -criticised by Professor De Morgan), exhibits at least the various -activity, if not the invariable infallibility, of his mental powers. - -A work of equal interest with a _Million of Facts_ is his next -compilation--_A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation_ -(1833). Under the article _Diet_ he well remarks:-- - - “Some regard it as a purely _egotistical_ question whether men live - on flesh or on vegetables. But others mix with it moral feelings - towards animals. If theory prescribed _human_ flesh, the former - party would lie in wait to devour their brethren; but the latter, - regarding the value of life to all that breathe, consider that, - even in a balance of argument, feelings of sympathy ought to turn - the scale.... We see all the best animal and social qualities in - mere vegetable-feeders.... Beasts of prey are necessarily solitary - and fearful, even of one another. Physiologists, themselves - carnivorous, differ on the subject, but they never take into - account _moral_ considerations. - - “Though it is known that the Hindus and other Eastern peoples live - wholly on rice--that the Irish and Scotch peasantry subsist on - potatoes and oatmeal--and that the labouring poor of all countries - live on the food, of which an acre yields one hundred times more - than of flesh, while they enjoy unabated health and long life--yet - an endless play of sophistry is maintained about the alleged - necessity of killing and devouring animals. - - “At twelve years of age the author of this volume was struck with - such horror in accidentally seeing the barbarities of a London - slaughter-house, that since that hour he has never eaten anything - but vegetables. He persevered, in spite of vulgar forebodings, - with unabated vigorous health; and at sixty-six finds himself more - able to undergo any fatigue of mind and body than any other person - of his age. He quotes himself because the case, in so carnivorous - a country, is uncommon--especially in the grades of society in - which he has been accustomed to live.... On principle he does not - abstain from any _vegetable_ luxuries or from fermented liquors; - but any indulgence in the latter requires (he hastens to add) the - correction of carbonate of soda. He is always in better health when - water is his sole beverage; and such is the case with all who have - imitated his practice.”[251] - -Under the article “Farming,” he observes that “a man who eats 1lb. -of flesh eats the exact equivalent of 6lbs. of wheat, and 128lbs. of -potatoes.” That is, that he, in such proportion, wastes the national -resources of a country. - -The High Sheriff, on the occasion of some petition to the King, had -been knighted, (to the affected scandal of his political enemies, who, -apparently, wished to reserve all titular or other recognition for -their own party), and the conspicuous beneficence of his career, while -in office, had gained for him an honourable popularity. But fortune, -so long favourable, now for a time showed itself adverse. In 1809 -his affairs became embarrassed, and recourse to the bankruptcy court -inevitable. Happily his friends aided him in saving from the general -wreck the copyright of the _Monthly Magazine_. Its management was a -chief occupation of his remaining years; and his own contributions, -under the signature of “Common Sense,” attracted marked attention. -In his publishing career, the most curious incident was the refusal -of the MSS. of _Waverley_. The author’s demands seem to have been in -excess of the value placed upon the novel by the publisher. It had been -advertised in the first instance (he tells us) as the production of Mr. -W. Scott. The name was then withdrawn, and the famous novel came before -the world anonymously. - -Besides the writings already noticed, Phillips compiled or edited a -large number of school books. He tells us that all the elementary -books, published under the names of Goldsmith, Blair and others, were -his own productions--between the years 1798 and 1815. Nor was his -mental activity confined to literary work; mechanical and scientific -inventions largely occupied his attention. To prevent the enormous -expenses of railway viaducts, embankments, and removals of streets, he -proposed suspension roads, ten feet above the housetops, with inclined -planes of 20° or 30°, and stationary engines to assist the rise and -fall at each end. Cities, he maintained, might be traversed in this way -on right lines, with intermediate points for ascent and descent. This -bold and ingenious idea seems to be very like an anticipation of the -elevated railways of New York, although even these have not yet reached -the height Phillips thought to be desirable. - -He interested himself, also, in steam navigation. When Fulton was in -England he was in frequent communication with his English friend, to -whom he despatched a triumphant letter on the evening of his first -voyage on the Hudson. This letter, having been shown to Earl Stanhope -and some eminent engineers, was treated by them with derision as -describing an impossibility. Sir R. Phillips then advertised for a -company, to repeat on the Thames what had become an accomplished fact -on the American rivers. After expenditure of a large sum of money in -advertising he obtained only two ten-pound conditional subscribers. -He then printed, with commendation, Fulton’s letters in the _Monthly -Magazine_, and his credulity was almost universally reprobated. It is -worth recording that, in the first steam voyage from the Clyde to the -Thames, Phillips, three of his family, and five or six others, were the -only passengers who had the courage to test the experiment. To allay -the public alarms he published a letter in the newspapers, and before -the end of that summer he saw the same packet set out on its voyage -with 350 passengers.[252] - -In 1840, the year following the final edition of his most popular book, -he died at Brighton in the seventy-third year of his age. During his -busy life if, by his reforming energy, he had raised up some bitter -enemies and detractors, he had made, on the other hand, some valuable -friendships. Amongst these--not the least noteworthy--is his intimate -friendship with that most humane-minded lawyer, Lord Erskine, one of -those who have best adorned the legal profession in this country. - - - - -XLIII. - -LAMARTINE. 1790-1869. - - -Of aristocratic descent, and educated at the college of the “Fathers -of the Faith” (Pères de la Foi), Du Prat--such was the name of his -family--imbibed in his youth principles very different from those of -his great literary contemporary Michelet. Happily, Nature seems to have -endowed his mother with a rare refinement and humaneness of feeling; -and from her example and instruction he derived, apparently, the germs -of those loftier ideas which, in maturer age, characterise a great part -of his writings. While the first Napoléon was still emperor, he entered -the army, from which he soon retired to employ his leisure in the more -congenial amusement of travel. - -In 1820 he first came before the world as the author of _Méditations -Poétiques_, of which, within four years, 45,000 copies were sold, and -the new poet was eagerly welcomed by the party of Reaction, who thought -to find in him a future successor to the brilliant author of the _Génie -du Christianisme_, the literary hope of their party, and the champion -of the Church and royalty--the political counterbalance to Béranger, -the poet of the Revolution--for Hugo had not yet raised the standard of -revolt. Yet this remarkable volume with the greatest difficulty found -its way into print. “A young man, [writes one of his biographers] his -health scarcely re-established from a cruel malady, his face pale with -suffering and covered with a veil of sadness, through which could be -read the recent loss of an adored being, went about from publisher -to publisher, carrying a small packet of verses dyed with tears. -Everywhere the poetry and the poet were politely bowed out. At length, -a bookseller, better advised, or seduced by the infinite grace of the -young poet, decided to accept the manuscript so often rejected.” It was -published without a name and without recommendation. The melancholy -beauty of the style, and the melody of the rhythm, could not fail to -attract sympathy from readers of taste and feeling, even from those -opposed to his political prejudices--“A rhythm of a celestial melody, -verse supple, cadenced, and sonorous, which softly vibrates as an -Æolian harp sighing in the evening breeze.” - -Its political, rather than its poetical, recommendations, we -may presume, gained for the writer from the Government of Louis -XVIII. a diplomatic post at Florence, which he held until the -dynastic revolution of 1830. For some short time he acted as secretary -to the French Embassy in London, and during his stay in England he -made the acquaintance of a rich Englishwoman, whom he afterwards -married at Florence. A legacy of valuable property from an uncle, upon -the condition of his assuming the name of Lamartine, still further -enriched him. - -In 1829 appeared the collection of _Harmonies Poétiques et -Réligieuses_, in which, as in all his poetry up to this time, one of -the most characteristic features is his devotion to Legitimacy and the -Church. The _renversement_ of 1830 considerably modified his political -and ecclesiastical ideas. “I wish,” he declared at this turning-point -in his career, “to enter the ranks of the people; to think, speak, -act, and struggle with them.” One of the first proofs of his advanced -opinions was his pamphlet advocating abolition of “capital” punishment. -He failed to obtain a seat in the Chambre des Députés of Louis -Philippe, whether in consequence of this advocacy or by reason of his -antecedent politics. His enforced leisure he employed in travelling, -and in 1832, with his English wife and their young daughter Juliette -(whose death at Beyrout caused him inconsolable grief), he set sail for -the East in a vessel equipped and armed at his own expense. A narrative -of these travels he published in his _Voyage en Orient_ (1835). In the -following year appeared his _Jocelyn_, a poem of charming tenderness -and eloquence, and, in 1838, _La Chute d’un Ange_ (“The Fall of an -Angel”), in which he, for the first time, gives expression to his -feeling of revolt from the barbarisms of the Slaughter-House. In this -strikingly original poem, one of the most remarkable of its kind in -any language, Lamartine discovers to us that he no longer views human -institutions, the customs of society, and the consecrated usages of -nations through the rose-coloured medium of traditional prejudice. It -is penetrated with a deep consciousness of the injustice and falseness -of a large proportion of those things which are tolerated, and even -approved, under the sanction of religious or social law, and with -ardent indignation against cruelty and selfishness. In the frightful -representation of the practices of the early tyrants of the world saved -from the “universal deluge,” he allows us to see his own feeling. One -of more humane race thus addresses his charming heroine Daïdha:-- - - “Ces hommes, pour apaiser leur faim, - N’ont pas assez des fruits que Dieu mit sous leur main. - Par un crime envers Dieu dont frémit la Nature, - Ils demandent au sang une autre nourriture. - Dans leur cité fangeuse il coule par ruisseaux! - Les cadavres y sont étalés en monceaux. - _Ils traînent par les pieds des fleurs de la prairie, - L’innocente brebis que leur main a nourrie, - Et sous l’œil de l’agneau l’égorgeant sans remords, - Ils savourent ses chairs et vivent de la mort!_ - - * * * * * - - De cruels aliments incessamment repus, - Toute pitié s’efface en leurs cœurs corrompus. - Et leur œil, qu’au forfait le forfait habitue, - Aime le sang qui coule et l’innocent qu’on tue. - _Ils aiguisent le fer en flèches, en poignard; - Du métier de tuer ils ont fait le grand art: - Le meurtre par milliers s’appelle une victoire, - C’est en lettres de sang que l’on écrit la Gloire._” - -From the pages of the “Primitive Book,” which he imagines to have been -originally delivered to men, their hermit-host reads to Daïdha and her -celestial, but incarnate, lover the true divine revelation, which is -thus sublimely prefaced:-- - - “Hommes! ne dites pas, en adorant ces pages, - Un Dieu les écrivit par la main de ses sages. - - * * * * * - - La langue qu’il écrit chante éternellement-- - Ses lettres sont ces feux, mondes du firmament - Et, par delà ces cieux, des lettres plus profondes-- - Mondes étincelants voilés par d’autres mondes. - Le seul livre divin dans lequel il écrit - Son nom toujours croissant, homme, c’est Ton Esprit! - C’est ta Raison, miroir de la Raison suprême, - Où se peint dans ta nuit quelque ombre de lui-même. - Il vous parle, ô Mortel, mais c’est par ce seul sens. - Toute bouche de chair altère ses accents.” - -In pronouncing the following code of morality, the voice of conscience -and of reason coincides with the divine voice in our hearts:-- - - “Tu ne leveras point la main contre ton frère: - Et tu ne verseras aucun sang sur la terre, - Ni celui des humains, ni celui des troupeaux - Ni celui des animaux, ni celui des oiseaux: - _Un cri sourd dans ton cœur défend de le répandre_, - Car le sang est la vie, et tu ne peux la rendre. - Tu ne te nourriras qu’avec les épis blonds - Ondoyant comme l’onde aux flancs de tes vallons, - Avec le riz croissant en roseaux sur tes rives-- - Table que chaque été renouvelle aux convives, - Les racines, les fruits sur la branche mûris, - L’excédant des rayons par l’abeille pétris, - Et tous ces dons du sol où la séve de vie - Vient s’offrir de soi-même à ta faim assouvie. - _La chair des Animaux crierait comme un remord, - Et la Mort dans ton sein engendrerait la Mort!_” - -Not only is the human animal sternly forbidden to imbrue his hands in -the blood of his innocent earth-mates: it is also enjoined upon him to -respect and cultivate their undeveloped intelligence and reason:-- - - “Vous ferez alliance avec les ‘brutes’ même: - Car Dieu, qui les créa, veut que l’homme les aime. - D’intelligence et d’âme, à différents degrés, - Elles ont eu leur part, vous la reconnaîtrez: - Vous livez dans leurs yeux, douteuse comme un rêve, - L’aube de la raison qui commence et se lève. - Vous n’étoufferez pas cette vague clarté, - Présage de lumière et d’immortalité: - Vous la respecterez. - La chaîne à mille anneaux va de l’homme à l’insecte: - Que ce soit le premier, le dernier, le milieu, - N’en insultez aucun, car tous tiennent à Dieu!” - -From such more rational estimate should follow, necessarily, just -treatment:-- - - “Ne les outragez pas par des noms de colère: - Que la verge et le fouet ne soient pas leur salaire. - Pour assouvir par eux vos brutaux appétits, - Ne leur dérobez pas le lait de leurs petits: - Ne les enchaînez pas serviles et farouches: - Avec des mors de fer ne brisez pas leurs bouches - Ne les écrasez pas sous de trop lourds fardeaux: - Comprenez leur nature, adoucissez leur sort: - _Le pacte entre eux et vous, hommes, n’est pas la Mort_. - À sa meilleure fin façonnez chaque engeance, - Prêtez-leur un rayon de votre intelligence: - Adoucissez leurs mœurs en leur étant plus doux, - Soyez médiateurs et juges entre eux tous. - - * * * * * - - _Le plus beau don de l’homme, c’est la Miséricorde._” - -Consistently with, and consequently from, such just human relations -with the lower species are the admonitions to break down the walls -of partition between the various human races, and to the proper -cultivation of the Earth, the common mother of all:-- - - “Vous n’établirez pas ces séparations - En races, en tribus, peuples ou nations. - - * * * * * - - Vous n’arracherez pas la branche avec le fruit: - _Gloire à la main qui sème, honte à la main qui nuit_! - Vous ne laisserez pas le terre aride et nue, - Car vos pères par Dieu la trouvèrent vêtue. - Que ceux qui passeront sur votre trace un jour - Passent en bénissant leurs pères à leur tour. - Vous l’aimerez d’amour comme on aime sa mère, - Vous y posséderez votre place éphémère, - Comme an soleil assis les hommes, tour à tour, - Possedènt le rayon tant que dure le jour. - - * * * * * - - Par un inconcevable et maternel mystère, - L’homme en la fatiguant fertilise la Terre. - Nulle bouche ne sent sa tendresse tarir: - Tout ce qu’elle a porté, son flanc peut le nourrir. - - * * * * * - - Vous vous assisterez dans toutes vos misères, - Vous serez l’un à l’autre enfants, pères, et mères: - _Le fardeau de chacun sera celui de tous, - La Charité sera la justice entre vous_. - Votre ombre ombragera le passant, votre pain - Restera sur le seuil pour quiconque aura faim: - Vous laisserez toujours quelques fruits sur la branche - Pour que le voyageur vers ses lèvres la penche. - Et vous n’amasserez jamais que pour un temps, - _Car la Terre pour vous germe chaque printemps_, - Et Dieu, qui verse l’onde et fait fleurir ses rives, - Sait au festin des champs le nombre des convives.[253] - -It is hardly necessary to record that _The Fall of an Angel_ was far -from receiving, from the world of fashion, the applause of his earlier -and more conventional productions. - -Lamartine was still in the East (we refer to an earlier period), -when news of his election to the Chambre des Deputés by a Legitimist -constituency brought him back to Paris. Among the prominent political -leaders of the day he figured “as a progressive Conservative, strongly -blending reverence for the antique with a kind of philosophical -democracy. He spoke frequently on social and philanthropic questions.” -In 1838 he became deputy for Macon, his native town. During the -Orleanist régime he refused to hold office, professing aversion for the -“vulgar utility” of the government of Guizot and the Bourgeois King, -and in 1845 he openly joined the Liberal opposition. His _Histoire -des Girondins_ (1847) probably contributed to the expulsion of the -Orleanist dynasty in the next year. - -In the scenes of the Revolution of February, 1848, he occupied a -prominent position as mediator between the two opposite parties; -and the retention of the tricolour, in place of the Red flag, is -attributed to his intervention. Elected a member of the Provisional -Government, Lamartine served as Foreign Minister of the Republic. In -this capacity he published his well-known _Manifesto à l’Europe_. -But, in spite of the fact that ten departments had elected him as -representative in the Assemblée Constituante, and that he was also made -one of the five members of the Executive Commission, his popularity -was short-lived. With all his, apparently, sincere sympathy with the -cause of the Oppressed, traditionary associations and strong family -attachments (sufficiently manifest in his _Mémoirs_) impeded him in -his political course; and his compromising attitude provoked the -distrust of more advanced political reformers. In competition with -Louis Napoléon and Cavaignac, he was nominated for the presidency; but -he received the support of few votes. From this period he withdrew -into private life and devoted himself entirely to literature. His -_Histoire de la Révolution_ (1849), _Histoire de la Restauration_, -_Histoire de la Russie_, _Histoire de la Turquie_, _Raphael_ (a -narrative of his childhood and youth) _Confidences_ (1849-1851), a -further autobiography--one of the most interesting of all his prose -productions--and various other writings, most of them appearing, -in the first instance, in the periodicals of the day, attested the -activity and versatility of his genius. He also for some time conducted -a journal--_Conseiller du Peuple_. In 1860 he collected his entire -writings into forty-one volumes. Of them his _Histoire des Girondins_ -is, probably, the most widely known. But, next to _The Fall of an -Angel_, it is his own Memoirs which will always have most interest -and instruction for those who know how to appreciate true refinement -of soul, and, making due deductions from political or traditionary -prejudice, can discern essential worth of mind. In _Les Confidences_ -he allows us to see the natural sensibility and superiority of his -disposition in his deep repugnance to the orthodox table--none the less -real because he seems, unhappily, to have deemed himself forced to -comply with the universal or, rather, fashionable barbarism. Writing of -his early education, he tells us:-- - - “Physically it was derived (_découlait_) in a large measure from - Pythagoras and from the _Emile_. Thus it was based upon the - greatest simplicity of dress and the most rigorous frugality with - regard to food. My mother was convinced, as I myself am, that - killing animals for the sake of nourishment from their flesh and - blood, is one of the infirmities of our human condition; that it is - one of those curses imposed upon man either by his fall, or by the - obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, as I do still, that - the habit of hardening the heart towards the most gentle animals, - our companions, our helpmates, our brothers in toil, and even in - affection, on this earth; that the slaughtering, the appetite - for blood, the sight of quivering flesh are the very things to - _have the effect_ (_sont faits pour_) to brutalise and harden - the instincts of the heart. She believed, as I do still, that - such nourishment, although, apparently, much more succulent and - active (_énergique_) contains within itself irritating and putrid - principles which embitter the food and shorten the days of man. - - “To support these ideas she would instance the numberless refined - and pious people of India who abstain from everything that has had - life, and the hardy, robust pastoral race, and even the labouring - population of our fields, who work the hardest, live the longest - and most simply, and who do not eat meat ten times in their - lives. She never allowed me to eat it until I was thrown into the - rough-and-tumble (_pêle-mêle_) life of the public schools. To - wean me from the liking for it she used no arguments, but availed - herself of that instinct in us which reasons better than logic. - I had a lamb, which a peasant of Milly had given me, and which I - had trained to follow me everywhere, like the most attached and - faithful dog. We loved each other with that first love (_première - passion_) which children and young animals naturally have for - each other. One day the cook said to my mother in my presence - “Madame, the lamb is fat, and the butcher has come for it; must - I give it him?” I screamed and threw myself on the lamb, asking - what the butcher would do with it, and what was a ‘butcher.’ The - cook replied that he was a man who gained his living by killing - lambs, sheep, calves and cows. I could not believe it. I besought - my mother and readily obtained mercy for my favourite. A few days - afterwards my mother took me with her to the town and led me, as - by chance, through the shambles. There I saw men with bared and - blood-stained arms felling a bullock. Others were killing calves - and sheep, and cutting off their still palpitating limbs. Streams - Of blood smoked here and there upon the pavement. I was seized with - a profound pity, mingled with horror, and asked to be taken away. - The idea of these horrible and repulsive scenes, the necessary - preliminaries of the dishes I saw served at table, made me hold - animal food in disgust, and butchers in horror. - - “Although the necessity of conforming to the customs of society - has since made me eat what others eat, I shall preserve a rational - (_raisonnée_) dislike to flesh dishes, and I have always found it - difficult not to consider the trade of a butcher almost on a par - with that of the executioner. I lived, then, till I was twelve on - bread, milk-products, vegetables and fruit. My health was not the - less robust, nor my growth the less rapid; and perhaps it is to - that _regimen_ that I owed the beauty of feature, the exquisite - sensibility, the serene sweetness of character and temper that I - preserved till that date.”[254] - -Some years before the publication of his _Fall of an Angel_, Lamartine, -from the height of the National Tribune, had given significant -expression to the feeling of all the more thoughtful minds, vague -though it was, of the urgent need of some new and better principle to -inspire and govern human actions than any hitherto tried:-- - - “I see [he exclaimed] men who, alarmed by the repeated shocks - of our political commotions, await from providence a social - revolution, and look around them for some man, a philosopher, to - arise--_a doctrine_ which shall come to take violent possession - of the government of minds (_une doctrine qui vienne s’emparer - violemment du gouvernement des esprits_), and reinvigorate the - staggered (_ébranlé_) world. They hope, they invoke, they look for - this power, which shall impose itself by inherent right (_de son - plein droit_) as the Arbitrator and Supreme Ruler of the Future.” - -But a few years earlier, in the same place, a still more positive -protest--not the less noteworthy because futile--was heard upon -the occasion of a discussion as to the introduction into France of -foreign “Cattle,” when one of the Deputies, Alexandre de Laborde, -maintained that flesh-meat is but an _object of luxury_; and was -supported, at least, by one or two other thoughtful deputies who had -the courage of their better convictions. It deserves to be noted that -while the Left seemed not unfavourable to the humaner feeling, the -Centre apathetic, and the Right derisively antagonistic, the minister -of the King (Charles X.) threw all the weight of his position into -the materialistic side of the scales. Thus this feeble and last -public attempt in France to stop the torrent of Materialism proved -abortive.[255] - - - - -XLIV. - -MICHELET. 1797-1874. - - -The early life of this most original and eloquent of French historians -passed amidst much hardship and difficulty. His father, who was a -printer, had been employed by the government of the Revolution period -(1790-1794), and at the political reaction, a few years later, he found -himself reduced to poverty. From the experiences of his earlier life -Jules Michelet doubtless derived his contempt for the common rich and -luxuriant manner of living. Until his sixteenth year, flesh-meat formed -no part of his food; and his diet was of the scantiest as well as -simplest kind. - -Naturally sensitive and contemplative, and averse from the rough -manners and petty tyranny of his schoolfellows, the young student found -companionship in a few choice books, of which A’Kempis’ _Imitation -of Christ_ seems to have been at that time one of the most read. At -the Sorbonne Michelet carried away some of the most valued prizes, -which were conferred with all the _éclat_ of the public awards of the -_Académie_. At the age of 24, having graduated as doctor in philosophy, -he obtained the chair of History in the Rollin College. His manner, -original and full of enthusiasm, though wanting often in method and -accuracy, possessed an irresistible fascination for his readers; and -all, who had the privilege of listening to him, were charmed by his -earnest eloquence. - -His first principal work was his _Synopsis of Modern History_ (1827). -His version of the celebrated _Scienza Nuova_ of Vico, of whom he -regarded himself as the especial disciple, appeared soon after. Upon -the revolution of July, Michelet received the important post of Keeper -of the Archives, by which appointment he was enabled to prosecute his -researches in preparation for his _magnum opus_ in history, _L’Histoire -de la France_, the successive volumes of which appeared at long -intervals. It contains some of the finest passages in French prose, the -episode of _La Pucelle d’Orleans_ being, perhaps, the finest of all. -Having previously held a professorship in the Sorbonne (of which he was -deprived by Guizot, then minister), he was afterwards invited to fill -the chair of History in the Collège de France. - -In 1847 his advanced political views deprived him once more of his -professorial post and income, in which the Revolution of the next year, -however, reinstated him. The _coup d’état_ of 1851 finally banished -him from public life--at least as far as teaching was concerned--for -being too conscientious to subscribe the oath of allegiance to the -new Empire. Michelet, like an eminent writer of the present day, -upon principle, elected to be his own publisher; a fact which, in -conjunction with the unpopularity of his opinions, considerably -lessened the sale and circulation of his books; and, by this -independency of action, the historian was a pecuniary loser to a great -extent. - -Deprived of the means of subsistence by his conscientiousness, he -left Paris almost penniless, and sought an asylum successively in -the Pyrenees and on the Normandy coast. In 1856 appeared the book -with which the name of Michelet will hereafter be most worthily -associated--the one which may be said to have been written with his -heart’s blood. That the taste of the reading world was not entirely -corrupt, was proved by the rapid sale of this the most popular of -all his productions. A new edition of _L’Oiseau_ came from the press -each year for a long period of time, and it has been translated into -various European languages. How far the attractiveness of the book, -through the illustrative genius of Giacomelli, influenced the buying -public; how far the surpassing merits of the style and matter of the -work--we will not stay to determine; but it is certain that _The Bird_ -at once established his popularity as a writer, and relieved his -pecuniary needs. _L’Oiseau_ was followed by several other eloquent -interpretations of Nature. But the first--there can be no question with -persons of taste--remains the masterpiece. It is, indeed, unique in its -kind in literature--by the intense sympathy and love for the subject -which inspired the writer. It is the only book which treats the Bird -as something more than an object of interest to the mere classifier, -to the natural-history collector, or to the “sportsman.” It considers -the winged tribes--those of the non-raptorial kinds--as possessed of -a high intelligence, of a certain moral faculty, of devoted maternal -affection--of a soul, in fine. - -Of his remaining writings, _La Bible de l’Humanité_ (1863) is one of -the most notable, characteristic as it is of the author’s method of -treatment of historical and ethnographical subjects. - -The calamities of his native land he so greatly loved, through the -corrupt government which had brought upon it the devastations of a -terrible war, ending, by a natural sequence, in the fearful struggle -of the suffering proletariat, deeply affected the aged champion of -the rights of humanity. Almost broken-hearted, he withdrew from his -accustomed haunts and went to Switzerland, and afterwards to Italy. He -died at Hyères, in 1874, in the 77th year of his age. A public funeral, -attended by great numbers of the working classes, awaited him in the -capital. - -In the following passage Michelet _virtually_ subscribes to the creed -of Vegetarianism. The saving clause, in which he seems to suppose the -diet of blood to be imposed upon our species by the “cruel fatalities” -of life, it is pretty certain he would have been the first to wish to -cancel, had he enjoyed the opportunity of investigating the scientific -basis of dietetic reform:-- - - “There is no selfish and exclusive salvation. Man merits his - salvation only _through the salvation of all_. The animals below us - have also their rights before God. ‘Animal life, sombre mystery! - Immense world of thoughts and of dumb sufferings! But signs too - visible, in default of language, express those sufferings. All - Nature protests against the barbarity of man, who misapprehends, - who humiliates, who tortures his inferior brethren.’ This sentence, - which I wrote in 1846, has recurred to me very often. This year - (1863), in October, near a solitary sea, in the last hours of the - night, when the wind, the wave were hushed in silence, I heard the - voices of our humble domestics. From the basement of the house, - and from the obscure depths, these voices of captivity, feeble - and plaintive, reached me and penetrated me with melancholy--an - impression of no vague sensibility, but a serious and positive one. - - “The further we advance in knowledge, the more we apprehend the - true meaning of realities, the more do we understand simple but - very serious matters which the hurry (_entraînement_) of life - makes us neglect. Life! Death! The daily murder, which feeding - upon other animals implies--those hard and bitter problems sternly - placed themselves before my mind. Miserable contradiction! Let us - hope that there may be another globe in which the base, the cruel - fatalities of this may be spared to us.”[256] - -Extolling the greater respect of the Hindus for other life, as -exhibited in their sacred scriptures, Michelet vindicates the -pre-eminently beneficent character of the Cow, in Europe so -ungratefully treated by the recipients of her bounty:-- - - “Let us name first, with honour, his beneficent nurse--so honoured - and beloved by him--the sacred Cow, who furnished the happy - nourishment--favourable intermediate between insufficient herbs and - flesh, which excites horror. The Cow, whose milk and butter has - been so long the sacred offering. She alone supported the primitive - people in the long journey from Bactria to India. By her, in face - of so many ruins and desolations--by this fruitful nurse, who - unceasingly renovates the earth for him, he has lived and always - lives.”[257] - -In his _Bird_ he constantly preaches the faith that can remove -mountains--the faith that regards the regeneration and pacification of -earth as the proper destiny of our species:-- - - “The devout faith which we cherish at heart, and which we teach - in these pages, is that man will peaceably subdue the whole - earth, when he shall gradually perceive that every adopted being, - accustomed to a domesticated life, or at least to that degree of - friendship and companionship of which his nature is susceptible, - will be a hundred times more useful to him than he can be with - his throat cut (_qu’il ne pourrait l’être égorgé_). Man will not - be truly man until he shall labour seriously for that which the - Earth expects from him--the pacification and harmonious union - (_ralliement_) of all living Nature. Hunt and make war upon the - lion and the eagle if you will, but not upon the Weak and Innocent.” - -This Michelet never wearies of repeating, and he returns again and -again to a truth which is scorned by the modern self-seeking and -money-getting, as it was by the fighting, wholly barbarous, world:-- - - “Conquerors have never failed to turn into derision this - gentleness, this tenderness for animated Nature. The Persians, the - Romans in Egypt, our Europeans in India, the French in Algeria, - have often outraged and stricken these innocent brothers of - man--the objects of his ancient reverence. Cambyses slew the sacred - Cow; a Roman the Ibis who destroyed unclean reptiles. But what - means the Cow? The fecundity of the country. And the Ibis? Its - salubrity. Destroy these animals, and the country is no longer - habitable. That which has saved India and Egypt through so many - misfortunes and preserved their fertility, is neither the Nile nor - the Ganges. It is respect for other life, the mildness and the - [comparatively] gentle heart of man. - - “Profound in meaning was the speech of the Priest of Saïs to the - Greek Herodotus--‘You shall be children always.’ - - “We shall always be so--we men of the West--subtle and graceful - reasoners, so long as we shall not have comprehended, with a - simple and more exhaustive view, the _motive_ of things. To be a - child, is to seize life only by partial glimpses. To be a man is - to be fully conscious of _all its harmonious unity_. The child - disports himself, shatters and destroys; he finds his happiness - in _undoing_. And science, in its childhood, does the same. It - cannot study unless it kills. The sole use which it makes of a - living mind, is, in the first place, to dissect it. None carry into - scientific pursuits that tender reverence for life which Nature - rewards by unveiling to us her mysteries.”[258] - -Like Shelley, he firmly believed in the indefinite amelioration of our -world by the ultimate triumph of principles of _humaneness_, so that -the “sting of death” and of pain might almost, if not entirely, be -removed:-- - - To prevent death is, undoubtedly, impossible; but we may _prolong_ - life. We may eventually render pain rarer, less cruel, and _almost - suppress_ it. That the hardened old world laughs at our expression - is so much the better. We saw quite such a spectacle in the days - when our Europe, barbarised by war, centered all medical art in - surgery, and made the knife its only means of cure, while young - America discovered the miracle of that profound dream in which all - pain is annihilated. - -He upbraids the sportsman no less than he does the scientist, and finds -sufficient cause for the too general sterility of the intellect in the -habituation to slaughter, and in disregard for the subject species:-- - - “Woe to the ungrateful! By this phrase I mean the sporting crowd, - who, unmindful of the numerous benefits we owe to other animals, - exterminate innocent life. A terrible sentence weighs upon the - tribes of ‘sportsmen’--_they can create nothing_. They originate - no art, no industry. They have added nothing to the hereditary - patrimony of the human species.... - - “Do not believe the axiom, that huntsmen gradually develope into - agriculturalists. It is not so--they kill or die. Such is their - whole destiny. We see it clearly through experience. He who has - killed will kill--he who has created will create. - - “In the want of emotion, which every man suffers from his birth, - the child who satisfies it habitually by murder, by a miniature - ferocious drama of surprise and treason, of the torture of the - weak, will find no great enjoyment in the gentle and tranquil - emotions arising from the progressive success of toil and study, - from the limited industry which does everything itself. To create, - to destroy--these are the two raptures of infancy. To create is a - long, slow process; to destroy is quick and easy. - - “It is a shocking and hideous thing to see a child partial to - ‘sport;’ to see woman enjoying and admiring murder, and encouraging - her child. That delicate and ‘sensitive’ woman would not give him - a knife, but she gives him a gun. Kill at a distance if it pleases - you, for we do not see the suffering. And this Mother will think it - admirable that her son, kept confined to his room, will drive off - _ennui_ by plucking the wings from flies, by torturing a bird or a - little dog. - - “Far-seeing mother! She will know, when too late, the evil of - having formed a bad heart. Aged and weak, rejected of the world, - she will experience, in her turn, her son’s brutality. - - “Among too many children we are saddened by their almost incredible - sterility. A few recover from it in the long circle of life, when - they have become experienced and enlightened men. But the first - freshness of the heart? It shall return no more.”[259] - -Although, as has already been indicated, Michelet evidently had not -examined the _scientific_ basis of akreophagy, yet all his aspirations -and all his sympathies, it is also equally evident, were for the -bloodless diet. With Locke and Rousseau, and many others before -him, he presses upon mothers the vital import of not perverting -the early preferences of their children for the foods prescribed -by unsophisticated nature and their own truer instincts. In one of -his books, the most often republished, in laying down rules for the -education of young girls, he thus writes:-- - - “Purity, above everything, _in regimen and nourishment_. What are - we to understand by this? - - “I understand by it that the young girl should have the proper - nourishment of a child--that she should continue the mild, - tranquilising, unexciting regimen of milk; that, if she eats at - your table, she will be accustomed not to touch the dishes upon it, - which for her, at least, are poisons. - - “A revolution has taken place. We have quitted the more sober - French regimen, and have adopted more and more the coarse and - bloody diet of our neighbours, appropriate to their climate much - more than to ours. The worst of it all is that we inflict this - manner of living upon our children. Strange spectacle! To see a - mother giving her daughter, whom but yesterday she was suckling - at her breast, this gross aliment of bloody meats, and the - dangerous excitant wine! She is astonished to see her violent, - capricious, passionate; but it is herself whom she ought to accuse - as the cause. What she fails to perceive, and yet what is very - grave, is that with the French race, so precocious, the arousing - of the passions is so directly provoked by this food. Far from - strengthening, it agitates, it weakens, it unnerves. The mother - thinks it fine (_plaisant_) to have a child so preternaturally - mature. All this comes from herself. Unduly excitable, she wishes - her child to be such another as she, and she is, without knowing - it, the corruptress of her own daughter. - - “All this [unnatural stimulation] is of no good to her, and is - little better for you, Madame. You have not the heart, you say, to - eat anything in which she has no share. Ah, well! abstain yourself, - or, at all events, moderate your indulgence in this food, good, - possibly, for the hard-worked man, but fatal in its consequences - to the woman of ease and leisure--regimen which _vulgarises_ - her, perturbs her, renders her irritable, or oppresses her with - indigestion. - - “For the woman and the child it is a grace--an amiable grace (_grâce - d’amour_)--to be, above all things, _frugivorous_--to avoid the - coarseness and foulness (_fétidité_) of flesh-meats, and to live - rather upon innocent foods, which bring death to no one (_qui - ne coûtent la mort à personne_)--sweet nourishment which charms - the sense of smell as much as it does the taste. The real reason - why the beloved ones in nothing inspire in us repugnance but, in - comparison with men, seem ethereal, is, in a special manner, their - [presumed] preference for herbs and for fruits--for that purity of - regimen which contributes not a little to that of the soul, and - assimilates them to the innocency of the flowers of the field.”[260] - - - - -XLV. - -COWHERD. 1763-1816. - - -In any history of Vegetarianism it is impossible to omit record of the -lives and labours of the institutors of a religious community who, in -establishing humane dietetics as an essential condition of membership, -may well claim the honourable title of religious reformers, and to whom -belongs the singular merit of being the first and only founders of a -Christian church who have inculcated a true religion of life as the -_basis_ of their teaching. - -William Cowherd, the first founder of this new conception of the -Christian religion, which assumed the name of the “Bible Christian -Church,” was born at Carnforth, near Lonsdale, in 1763. His first -appearance in public was as teacher of philology in a theological -college at Beverley. Afterwards, coming to Manchester, he acted as -curate to the Rev. J. Clowes, who, while remaining a member of the -Established Church, had adopted the theological system of Swedenborg. -Cowherd attached himself to the same mystic creed, and he is said -to be one of the few students of him who have ever read through all -the Latin writings of the Swedish theologian. He soon resigned his -curacy, and for a short time he preached in the Swedenborgian temple -in Peter Street. There he seems not to have found the freedom of -opinion and breadth in teaching he had expected, and he determined to -propagate his own convictions, independently of other authority. In -the year 1800 he built, at his own expense, Christ Church, in King -Street, Salford--the first meeting-place of the reformed church.[261] -His extraordinary eloquence and ability, as well as earnestness -of purpose, quickly attracted a large audience, and may well have -brought to recollection the style and matter of the great orator -of Constantinople of the fourth century. One characteristic of his -Church--perhaps unique at that time--was the non-appropriation of -sittings. Another unfashionable opinion held by him was the Pauline -one of the obligation upon Christian preachers to maintain themselves -by some “secular” labour, and he therefore kept a boarding school, -which attained extensive proportions. In this college some zealous -and able men, who afterwards were ordained by him to carry on a truly -beneficent ministry, assisted in the work of teaching, of whom the -names of Metcalfe, Clark, and Schofield are particularly noteworthy. -Following out the principles of their Master, two of them took degrees -in medicine, and gained their living by that profession. The Principal -himself built an institute, connected with his church in Hulme, where, -more recently, the late Mr. James Gaskill presided, who, at his death, -left an endowment for its perpetuation as an educational establishment. - -It was in the year 1809 that Cowherd formally promulgated, as cardinal -doctrines of his system, the principle of abstinence from flesh-eating, -which, in the first instance, he seems to have derived from “the -medical arguments of Dr. Cheyne and the humanitarian sentiments of -St. Pierre.” He died not many years after this formal declaration of -faith and practice, not without the satisfaction of knowing that able -and earnest disciples would carry on the great work of renovating the -religious sentiment for the humanisation of the world. - -Of those followers not the least eminent was Joseph Brotherton, the -first M.P. for Salford, than which borough none has been more truly -honoured by the choice of its legislative representative. A printing -press had been set up at the Institution, and, after the death of -the Master, his _Facts Authentic in Science and Religion towards a -New Foundation of the Bible_, under which title he had collected the -most various matter illustrative of passages in the Bible, and in -defence of his own interpretation of them, was there printed. It is, -as his biographer has well described it, “a lasting memorial of his -wide reading and research--travellers, lawyers, poets, physicians, -all are pressed into his service--the whole work forming a large -quarto common-place book filled with reading as delightful as it is -discursive. Some of his minor writings have also been printed. He was, -besides his theological erudition, a practical chemist and astronomer, -and he caused the dome of the church in King Street to be fitted up for -the joint purposes of an observatory and a laboratory. His microscope -is still preserved in the Peel Park Museum. His valuable library, -which at one time was accessible to the public on easy terms, is now -deposited in the new Bible Christian Church in Cross Lane. The books -collected exhibit the strong mind which brought them together for its -own uses. This library is the workshop in which he wrought out a new -mode of life and a new theory of doctrine--with these instruments he -moulded minds like that of Brotherton, and so his influence has worked -in many unseen channels.” He died in 1816, and is buried in front of -his chapel, in King Street, Salford.[262] - - - - -XLVI. - -METCALFE. 1788-1862. - - -Amongst the immediate disciples of the founder of the new community, -the most active apostle of the principles of Vegetarianism, William -Metcalfe, to whom reference has been already made, claims particular -notice. Born at Orton in Westmoreland, after instruction in a classical -school kept by a philologist of some repute, he began life as an -accountant at Keighley, in Yorkshire. His leisure hours were devoted to -mental culture, both in reading and in poetic composition. Converted by -Cowherd in 1809, in the twenty-first year of his age, he abandoned the -flesh diet, and remained to the end a firm believer in the truths of -“The Perfect Way.” In the year following he married the daughter of the -Rev. J. Wright who was at the head of the “New Church” at Keighley, and -whom he assisted as curate. His wife, of highly-cultured mind, equally -with himself was a persistent follower of the reformed mode of living. -Sharing the experiences of many other dietary reformers, the young -converts encountered much opposition from their family and friends, who -attempted at one moment ridicule, at another dissuasion, by appealing -to medical authority. Unmoved from their purpose, they continued -unshaken in their convictions. - - “They assured me,” he writes at a later period, “that I was rapidly - sinking into a consumption, and tried various other methods to - induce me to return to the customary dietetic habits of society; - but their efforts proved ineffectual. Some predicted my death in - three or four months; and others, on hearing me attempt to defend - my course, hesitated not to tell me I was certainly suffering from - mental derangement, and, if I continued to live without flesh-food - much longer, would unquestionably have to be shut up in some insane - asylum. All was unavailing. Instead of sinking into consumption, - I gained several pounds in weight during the first few weeks of - my experiment. Instead of three or four months bringing me to the - silent grave, they brought me to the matrimonial altar. - - “She [his wife] fully coincided with me in my views on vegetable - diet, and, indeed, on all other important points was always ready - to defend them to the best of her ability--studied to show our - acquaintances, whenever they paid us a visit, that we could live, - in every rational enjoyment, without the use of flesh for food. - As she was an excellent cook, we were never at a loss as to what - we should eat. We commenced housekeeping in January, 1810, and, - from that date to the present time, we have never had a pound - of flesh-meat in our dwelling, have never patronised either - slaughter-houses or spirit shops. - - “When, again, in the course of time we were about to be blessed - with an addition to our family, a renewed effort was made. We - were assured it was impossible for my wife to get through her - confinement without some _more strengthening food_. Friends - and physicians were alike decided upon that point. We were, - notwithstanding, unmoved and faithful to our principles. Next we - were told by our kind advisers that the little stranger could not - be sufficiently nourished unless the mother could eat a little - ‘meat’ once a day; or, if not that, drink a pint or half a pint of - ale daily. To both proposals my wife turned a deaf ear; and both - she and the child did exceedingly well.[263] It may be proper to - add here [remarks the biographer], that the ‘little stranger’ above - referred to is the author of this _Memoir_,--that he is in the - fifty-sixth year of his age, that he has never so much as _tasted_ - animal food, nor used intoxicating drinks of any kind, and that he - is hale and hearty.” - -These experiences, it is scarcely necessary to remark, in the lives of -followers of reformed dietetics, have been not seldom repeated. - -In the Academy of Sciences, instituted by Dr. Cowherd, Metcalfe was -invited to assume the direction of the “classical” department (1811). -In the same year he took “Orders,” and, at the solicitation of the -secessionists from the Swedenborgian Communion (which, with some -inconsistency, seems to have looked with indifference, or even dislike, -upon the principles of akreophagy), he officiated at Adingham, in -Yorkshire. By the voluntary aid of one of his admirers a church was -built, to which was added a commodious school-room. He then resigned -his position under Dr. Cowherd, and opened a grammar school in -Adingham, where he was well supported by his friends. - -The United States of America, however, was the field to which he -had long been looking as the most promising for the mission work to -which he had devoted himself; and in this hope he had been sustained -by his Master. In the spring of 1817 a company of forty-one persons, -members of the Bible Christian community, embarked at Liverpool -for Philadelphia, They comprised two clerics--W. Metcalfe and Jas. -Clark--twenty other adults, and nineteen children. Of this band only a -part were able to resist the numerous temptations to conformity with -the prevalent social practices; and the vast distances which separated -the leaders from their followers were almost an insuperable bar to -sympathy and union. Settling in Philadelphia--for them at least a name -of real significance--Metcalfe supported his family by teaching, while -performing the duties of his position as head of the faithful few who -formed his church. His day-school, which was attended by the sons -of some of the leading people of the city, proved to be pecuniarily -successful until the appearance of yellow fever in Philadelphia, which -broke up his establishment and involved him in great difficulties; -for upon his school he depended entirely for his living. He had many -influential friends, who tempted him, at this crisis of his fortunes, -with magnificent promises of support, if only he would desert the cause -he had at heart--the propagandism of a religion based upon principles -of true temperance and active goodness. Both moral and physical -superiority pointed him out as one who could not fail to bring honour -to any undertaking, and, had he sacrificed conviction to interest, he -might have greatly advanced his material prospects. All such seductions -he firmly resisted. - -Meanwhile, through the pulpit, the schoolroom, and, more widely, -through the newspapers, he scattered the seeds of the gospel -of Humanity. But the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of -self-seeking religionism, and of rancorous prejudice, was by no means -extinct even in the great republic, and the (so-called) “religious” -press united to denounce his humane teaching as well as his more -liberal theology. Nor did some of his more unscrupulous opponents -hesitate, in the last resort, to raise the war-cry of “infidel” and -“sceptic.” These assailants he treated with contemptuous silence; but -the principle of moral dietetics he defended in the newspapers with -ability and vigour. In 1821 he published an essay on _Abstinence from -the Flesh of Animals_, which was freely and extensively circulated. For -several years his missionary labours appear to have been unproductive. -In the year 1830 he made two notable converts--Dr. Sylvester Graham, -who was at that time engaged as a “temperance” lecturer, and was -deep in the study of human physiology; and Dr. W. Alcott. Five years -later, the _Moral Reformer_ was started as a monthly periodical, -which afterwards appeared under the title of the _Library of Health_. -In 1838-9 the _Graham Journal_ was also published in Boston, and -scientific societies were organised in many of the New England towns. -The Bible was largely appealed to in the controversy, and a sermon of -Metcalfe’s had an extensive circulation through the United States. With -all this controversy upon his hands, he was far from neglecting his -private duties, and, in fact, his health was over-taxed in the close -and constant work in the schoolrooms, overcrowded and ill-ventilated -as they were. In the day and night school he was constantly employed, -during one half of the year, from eight in the morning until ten at -night; and Sunday brought him no remission of labour. - -In the propagandism of his principles through the press he was not -idle. The _Independent Democrat_, and, in 1838, the _Morning Star_, -was printed and published at his own office--by which latter journal, -in spite of the promise of support from political friends, he was a -pecuniary loser to a large amount. _The Temperance Advocate_, also -issued from his office, had no better success. Several years earlier, -about 1820, it is interesting to note, he had published a tract on _The -Duty of Abstinence from all Intoxicating Drinks_; and the founder of -the Bible Christian Church in America can claim the merit of having -been the first systematically to inculcate this social reform. - -In the year 1847 the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain had been -founded, of which Mr. James Simpson had been elected the first -president. Metcalfe immediately proposed the formation of a like -society in the United States. He corresponded with Drs. Graham, -Alcott, and others; and finally an American Vegetarian Convention -assembled in New York, May 15, 1850. Several promoters of the cause, -previously unknown to each other (except through correspondence), -here met. Metcalfe was elected president of the Convention; addresses -were delivered, and the constitution of the society determined upon. -The Society was organised by the election of Dr. William Alcott as -president, Rev. W. Metcalfe as corresponding secretary, and Dr. -Trall as recording secretary. An organ of the society was started in -November, 1850, under the title of _The American Vegetarian and Health -Journal_, and under the editorship of Metcalfe. Its regular monthly -publication, however, did not begin until 1851. In that year he was -selected as delegate to the English Vegetarian Society, as well as -delegate from the Pennsylvania Peace Society to the “World’s Peace -Convention,” which was fondly supposed to be about to be inaugurated -by the _Universal Exhibition_ of that year. The proceedings at the -annual meeting of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, and the -eloquent address, amongst others, of the American representative, are -fully recorded in the _Vegetarian Messenger_ for 1852. On this occasion -Joseph Brotherton, M.P. presided. - -Two years later he suffered the irreparable loss of the sympathising -sharer in his hopes for the regeneration of the world. Mrs. Metcalfe -died in the seventy-fourth year of her age, having been, during -forty-four years, a strict abstinent. Her loss was mourned by the -entire Vegetarian community. By far the larger part of the matter, as -well as the expenses of publication, of the _American Vegetarian_, -was supplied by the editor, and, being inadequately supported by the -rest of the community, the managers were forced to abandon its further -publication. The last volume appeared in 1854. It has been succeeded -in later times, under happier circumstances, by the _Health Reformer_ -which is still in existence. - -In 1855 Metcalfe received an invitation to undertake the duties -attached to the mother church at Salford. Leaving his brother-in-law -in charge of the church in Philadelphia, he embarked for England once -more, and the most memorable event, during his stay in this country, -was the deeply and sincerely lamented death of Joseph Brotherton, who -for twenty years had represented Salford in the Legislature, and whose -true benevolence had endeared him to the whole community. Metcalfe -was chosen to preach the funeral eulogy, which was listened to by a -large number of Members of Parliament and municipal officers, and by -an immense concourse of private citizens. Returning to America soon -afterwards, at the urgent request of his friends in Philadelphia, -he was, in 1859, elected to fill the place of President vacated by -Dr. Alcott, whose virtues and labours in the cause he commemorated -in a just eulogy. His own death took place in the year 1862, in the -seventy-fifth year of his age, caused by hemorrhage of the lungs, -doubtless the effect of excessive work. His end, like his whole -interior if not exterior life, was, in the best meaning of a too -conventional expression, full of peace and of hope. His best panegyric -is to be found in his life-work; and, as the first who systematically -taught the truths of reformed dietetics in the “New World,” he has -deserved the unceasing gratitude of all sincere reformers in the -United States, and, indeed, throughout the globe. By all who knew him -personally he was as much loved as he was esteemed, and the newspapers -of the day bore witness to the general lamentation for his loss.[264] - - - - -XLVII. - -GRAHAM. 1794-1851. - - -As an exponent of the physiological basis of the Vegetarian theory of -diet, in the most elaborate minuteness, the author of _Lectures on -the Science of Human Life_ has always had great repute amongst food -reformers both in the United States and in this country. Collaterally -connected with the ducal house of Montrose, his father, a graduate of -Oxford, emigrated to Boston, U.S., in the year 1718. He must have -attained an advanced age when his seventeenth child, Sylvester, -was born at Suffield, in Connecticut. Yet he seems to have been of -a naturally dyspeptic and somewhat feeble constitution, which was -inherited by his son, whose life, in fact, was preserved only by the -method recommended by Locke--free exposure in the open air. During -several years he lived with an uncle, on whose farm he was made to work -with the labourers. In his twelfth year he was sent to a school in New -York, and at fourteen he was set for a short time to learn the trade of -paper-making. “He is described as handsome, clever, and imaginative. -‘I had heard,’ he says, ‘of noble deeds, and longed to follow in the -field of fame.’ Ill health soon obliged his return to the country, and -at sixteen symptoms of consumption appeared. Various occupations were -tried until the time, when about twenty years of age, he commenced as -a teacher of youth, proving highly successful with his pupils. Again -ill-health obliged the abandonment of this pursuit.”[265] - -At the age of thirty-two he married, and soon after became a preacher -in the Presbyterian Church. Deeply interested in the question of -“Temperance,” he was invited to lecture for that cause by the -Pennsylvania Society (1830). He now began the study of physiology and -comparative anatomy, in which his interest was unremitting. These -important sciences were used to good effect in his future dietetic -crusade. At this time he came in contact with Metcalfe, by whom he -was confirmed in, if not in the first instance converted to, the -principles of radical dietary reform. “He was soon led to believe that -no permanent cure for intemperance could be found, except in such -change of personal and social customs as would relieve the human being -from all desire for stimulants. This idea he soon applied to medicine, -so that the prevention and cure of disease, as well as the remedy for -intemperance, were seen to consist mainly in the adoption of correct -habits of living, and the judicious adaptation of hygienic agencies. -These ideas were elaborated in an _Essay on the Cholera_ (1832), and -a course of lectures which were delivered in various parts of the -country, and subsequently published under the title of _Lectures on -the Science of Human Life_ (2 vols., Boston, 1839). This has been -the leading text-book of all the dietetic and nearly all the health -reformers since.”[266] - -_The Science of Human Life_ is one of the most comprehensive as well as -minute text books on scientific dietetics ever put forth. If it errs -at all, it errs on the side of redundancy--a feature which it owes to -the fact that it was published to the world as it was orally given. It -therefore well bears condensation, and this has been judiciously done -by Mr. Baker, whose useful edition is probably in the hands of most of -our readers. Graham was also the author of a treatise on _Bread and -Bread-Making_, and “Graham bread” is now universally known as one of -the most wholesome kinds of the “staff of life.” Besides these more -practical writings, for some time before his death he occupied his -leisure in the production of a _Philosophy of Sacred History_, the -characteristic idea of which seems to have been to harmonise the dogmas -of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures with his published views on -physiology and dietetics. He lived to complete one volume only (12mo.), -which appeared after his death. - -Tracing the history of Medicine from the earlier times, and its more or -less of empiricism in all its stages, Graham discovers the cause of a -vast proportion of all the egregious failure of its professors in the -blind prejudice which induces them to apply to the _temporary cure_, -rather than to the _prevention_, of disease. As it was in its first -barbarous beginning, so it has continued, with little really essential -change, to the present moment:-- - - “Everything is done with a view to _cure_ the disease, without - any regard to its cause, and the disease is considered as - the infliction of some supernatural being. Therefore, in the - progress of the healing art thus far, not a step is taken towards - investigating the laws of health and the philosophy of disease. - - “Nor, after Medicine had received a more systematic form, did - it apply to those researches which were most essential to its - success, but, like religion, it became blended with superstitions - and absurdities. Hence, the history of Medicine, with very limited - exceptions, is a tissue of ignorance and error, and only serves - to demonstrate the absence of that knowledge upon which alone an - enlightened system of Medicine can be founded, and to show to - what extent a noble art can be perverted from its capabilities of - good to almost unmixed evil by the ignorance, superstition, and - cupidity of men. In modern times, anatomy and surgery have been - carried nearly to perfection, and great advance has been made - in physiology. The science of human life has been studied with - interest and success, but this has been confined to the few, while - even in our day, and in the medical profession itself, the general - tendency is adverse to the diffusion of scientific knowledge. - - * * * * * - - “The result is, that men prodigally waste the resources as if the - energies of life were inexhaustible; and when they have brought on - disease which destroys their comforts, they fly to the physician, - _not to learn by what violation of the laws of life_ they have - drawn the evil upon themselves, and by what means they can avoid - the same; but, considering themselves visited with afflictions - which they have in no manner been concerned in causing, they - require the physician’s remedies, by which their sufferings may be - alleviated. In doing this, the more the practice of the physician - conforms to the _appetites_ of the patient, the greater is his - popularity and the more generously is he rewarded. - - “Everything, therefore, in society tends to confine the practising - physician to the department of therapeutics, and make him a - mere curer of disease; and the consequence is, that the medical - fraternity have little inducement to apply themselves to the - study of the _science of life_, while almost everything, by which - men can be corrupted, is presented to induce them to become the - mere panderers of human ignorance and folly; and, if they do not - sink into the merest empiricism, it is owing to their own moral - sensibility rather than to the encouragement they receive to pursue - an elevated scientific professional career. - - “Thus the natural and acquired habits of man concur to divert - his attention from the study of human life, and hence he is left - to _feel_ his way to, or gather from what he calls experience, - all the conclusions which he embraces. It has been observed - that men, in their (so-called) inductive reasonings deceive - themselves continually, and think that they are reasoning from - facts and experience, when they are only reasoning _from a mixture - of truth and falsehood_. The only end answered by facts so - incorrectly apprehended is that of making error more incorrigible. - Nothing, indeed, is so hostile to the interests of Truth as - facts incorrectly observed. On no subjects are men so liable to - misapprehend facts, and _mistake the relation between cause and - effect_, as on that of human life, health, and disease.” - -By the opponents of dietetic reform it has been pretended that climate, -or individual constitution, must determine the food proper for nations -or individuals:-- - - “We have been told that some enjoy health in warm, and others - in cold climates some on one kind of diet, and under one set of - circumstances, and some under another; that, therefore, what is - best for one is not for another; that what agrees _well_ with one - disagrees with another; that what is one man’s meat is another - man’s poison; that different constitutions require different - treatment; and that, consequently, no rules can be laid down - adapted to all circumstances which can be made a basis of regimen - to all. - - “Without taking pains to examine circumstances, people consider the - bare fact that some intemperate individuals reach old age evidence - that such habits are not unfavourable to life. With the same loose - reasoning, people arrive at conclusions equally erroneous in regard - to nations. If a tribe, subsisting on vegetable food, is weak, - sluggish, and destitute of courage and enterprise, it is concluded - that vegetable food is the cause. Yet examination might have shown - that causes fully adequate to these effects existed, which not only - exonerated the diet, _but made it appear that the vegetable diet - had a redeeming effect, and was the means by which the nation was - saved from a worse condition_. - - “The fact that individuals have attained a great age in certain - habits of living is no evidence that those habits are favourable to - longevity. The only use which we can make of cases of extraordinary - old age, is to show how the human constitution is capable of - sustaining the vital economy, _and resisting the causes which - induce death_. - - “If we ask _how_ we must live to secure the best health and longest - life, the answer must be drawn from physiological knowledge; but - if we ask _how long_ the best mode of living will preserve life, - the reply is, Physiology cannot teach you that. Probably each - aged individual has a mixture of good and bad habits, and has - lived in a mixture of favourable and unfavourable circumstances. - Notwithstanding apparent diversity, there is a pretty equal amount - of what is salutary in the habits and circumstances of each. Some - have been ‘correct’ in one thing, some in another. All that is - proved by instances of longevity in connexion with bad habits is, - that such individuals are able to resist causes that have, in the - same time, sent thousands of their fellow-beings to an untimely - grave; and, under a proper regimen, they would have sustained life, - perhaps, a hundred and fifty years. - - “Some have more constitutional [or inherited] powers to resist the - causes of disease than others, and, therefore, what will destroy - the life of one may be borne by another a long time without any - manifestations of immediate injury. There are, also, constitutional - peculiarities, but these are far more rare than is generally - supposed. Indeed, such may, in almost every case, be overcome by - a correct regimen. So far as the general laws of life and the - application of general principles of regimen are considered, - the human constitution is _one_: there are no constitutional - differences which will not yield to a correct regimen, and thus - improve the individual. Consequently, what is best for one is best - for all.... Some are born without any tendency to disease while - others have the predisposition to particular diseases of some kind. - But _differences result from causes which man has the power to - control_, and it is certain that all can be removed by conformity - to the laws of life for generations, and that the human species can - be brought to as great uniformity, as to health and life, as the - lower animals.” - -With Hufeland, Flourens, and other scientific authorities, he maintains -that:-- - - “Physiological science affords no evidence that the human - constitution is not capable of gradually returning to the - primitive longevity of the species. The highest interests of our - nature require that _youthfulness_ should be prolonged. And it - is as capable of being preserved as life itself, both depending - on the same conditions. If there ever was a state of the human - constitution which enabled it to sustain life [much beyond the - present period], that state involved a harmony of relative - conditions. The vital processes were less rapid and more complete - than at present, development was slower, organisation more perfect, - childhood protracted, and the change from youth to manhood took - place at a greater remove from birth. Hence, if we now aim at long - life, we can secure our object only by conformity to those laws by - which youthfulness is prolonged.” - -As for the _omnivorousness_ of the human animal:-- - - The ourang-outang, on being domesticated, readily learns to eat - animal food. But if this proves that animal to be _omnivorous_, - then the Horse, Cow, Sheep, and others are all omnivorous, for - everyone of them is easily trained to eat animal food. Horses - have frequently been trained to eat animal food,[267] and Sheep - have been so accustomed to it as to refuse grass. All carnivorous - animals can be trained to a vegetable diet, and brought to subsist - upon it, with less inconvenience and deterioration than herbivorous - or frugivorous animals can be brought to live on animal food. - Comparative anatomy, therefore, proves that Man is naturally a - frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and - farinaceous vegetables.[268] - -The _stimulating_, or alcoholic, property of flesh produces the -delusion that it is, therefore, the most _nourishing_:-- - - “Yet by so much as the stimulation exceeds that which is necessary - for the performance of the functions of the organs, the more does - the expenditure of vital powers exceed the renovating economy; and - the exhaustion which succeeds is commensurate with the excess. - Hence, though food which contains the greatest proportion of - stimulating power causes a _feeling_ of the greatest strength, it - also produces the greatest exhaustion, which is commensurately - importunate for relief; and, as the same food affords such by - supplying the requisite stimulation, their _feelings_ lead the - consumers to believe that it is most strengthening.... Those - substances, the stimulating power of which is barely sufficient to - excite the digestive organs in the appropriation of nourishment, - are most conducive to vital welfare, causing all the processes to - be most perfectly performed, without any unnecessary expenditure, - thus contributing to health and longevity. - - “Flesh-meats average about _thirty-five per cent_ of nutritious - matter, while rice, wheat, and several kinds of pulse (such as - lentils, peas, and beans), afford from _eighty to ninety-five per - cent_; potatoes afford twenty-five per cent of nutritious matter. - So that one pound of rice contains more nutritious matter than two - pounds and a half of flesh meat; three pounds of whole meal bread - contain more than six pounds of flesh, and three pounds of potatoes - more than two pounds of flesh.” - -That the human species, _taken in its entirety_, is no more carnivorous -_de facto_ than it could be _de jure_, is apparent on the plain -evidence of facts. In all countries of our Globe, with the exception of -the most barbarous tribes, it is, in reality, only the ruling and rich -classes who are kreophagist. The Poor have, almost everywhere, but the -barest sufficiency even of vegetable foods:-- - - “The peasantry of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece, - Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, a - considerable portion of Prussia, and other parts of Europe subsist - mainly on non-flesh foods. The peasantry of modern Greece [like - those of the days of Perikles] subsist on coarse brown bread and - fruits. The peasantry in many parts of Russia live on very coarse - bread, with garlic and other vegetables, and, like the same class - in Greece, Italy, &c., they are obliged to be extremely frugal even - in this kind of food. Yet they are [for the most part] healthy, - vigorous, and active. Many of the inhabitants of Germany live - mainly on rye and barley, in the form of coarse bread. The potato - is the principal food of the Irish peasantry, and few portions - of the human family are more healthy, athletic, and active, when - uncorrupted by intoxicating substances [and, it may be added, when - under favourable political and social conditions]. But alcohol, - opium, &c. [equally with bad laws] have extended their blighting - influence over the greater portion of the world, and nowhere do - these scourges so cruelly afflict the self-devoted race as in the - cottages of the poor, and when, by these evils and neglect of - sanitation, &c., diseases are generated, sometimes epidemics, we - are told that these things arise from their poor, meagre, low, - _vegetable_ diet. Wherever the various sorts of intoxicating - substances are absent, and a decent degree of cleanliness is - observed, the vegetable diet is not thus calumniated. - - “That portion of the peasantry of England and Scotland who subsist - on their barley and oatmeal bread, porridge, potatoes, and other - vegetables, with temperate, cleanly habits [and surroundings], - are able to endure more fatigue and exposure than any other class - of people in the same countries. _Three-fourths of the whole - human family_, in all periods of time [excepting, perhaps, in the - primitive wholly predatory ages] have subsisted on non-flesh foods, - and when their supplies have been abundant, and their habits in - other respects correct, they have been well nourished.” - -That the sanguinary diet and savagery go hand in hand, and that in -proportion to the degree of carnivorousness is the barbarous or -militant character of the people, all History, past and present, too -clearly testifies. Nor are the carnivorous tribes conspicuous by their -cruel habits only:-- - - “Taking all flesh-eating nations together, though some, whose - other habits are favourable, are, comparatively, well-formed, as - a general average they are small, ill-formed races; and taking - all vegetable-eating nations, though many, from excessive use - of narcotics, and from other unfavourable circumstances, are - comparatively small and ill-formed, as a general average they are - much better formed races than the flesh-eaters.[269] It is only - among those tribes whose habits are temperate, and who subsist on - the non-flesh diet, that the more perfect specimens of symmetry are - found. - - “Not one human being in many thousands dies a _natural_ death. - If a man be shot or poisoned we say he dies a violent death, but - if he is ill, attended by physicians, and dies, we say he dies a - ‘natural’ death. This is an abuse of language--the death in the - latter case being as truly violent as if he had been shot. Whether - a man takes arsenic and kills himself, or by small doses or other - means, however common, gradually destroys life, he equally dies a - violent death. He only dies a natural death who so obeys the laws - of his nature as by neither irritation nor intensity to waste his - energies, but slowly passes through the changes of his system to - old age, and falls asleep in the exhaustion of vitality.”[269] - -With Flourens he adduces a number of instances both of individuals and -of communities who have attained to protracted ages by reason of a pure -diet. He afterwards proceeds to prove from comparative physiology and -anatomy, and, in particular, from the conformation of the human teeth -and stomach (which, by an astounding perversion of fact, are sometimes -alleged to be formed carnivorously, in spite of often-repeated -scientific authority, as well as of common observation), the natural -frugivorous character of the human species, and he quotes Linné, -Cuvier, Lawrence, Bell, and many others in support of this truth.[270] - - - - -XLVIII. - -STRUVE. 1805-1870. - - -Germany, at the present day able to boast so many earnest apostles of -humanitarianism, until the nineteenth century was some way advanced, -had contributed little, definitely, to the literature of _Humane -Dietetics_. A Haller or a Hufeland, indeed, had, with more or less -boldness, raised the banner of partial revolt from orthodox medicine -and orthodox living, but their heterodoxy was rather hygienic than -humane. In the history of humanitarianism in Germany the honour of the -first place, in order of time, belongs to the author of _Pflanzenkost, -die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung_, and of _Mandaras’ -Wanderungen_, whose life, political as well as literary, was one -continuous combat on behalf of justice, freedom, and true progress. - -Gustav von Struve was born at München (Munich), October 11, 1805, from -whence his father, who was residing there as Russian Minister, shortly -afterwards removed to Stuttgart. The foundation of his education was -laid in the gymnasium of that capital, where he remained until his -twelfth year. From 1817 to 1822 he was a scholar in the Lyceum in -Karlsruhe. Having finished his preparatory studies in those schools, -he proceeded to the University of Göttingen, which, after a course of -nearly two years, he exchanged for Heidelberg. Four years of arduous -study enabled him to pass his first examination, and, as the result of -his brilliant attainments and success, he received the appointment of -_Attaché_ to the Bundestag Embassy at Oldenberg. - -With such an opening, a splendid career in the service of courts and -kings seemed to be reserved for him. His family connexions, his great -abilities, and his unusual acquirements at so early an age guaranteed -to him quick promotion, with reward and worldly honour. But to figure -in the service of the oppressors of the people--to waste in luxurious -trifling the resources of a peasantry, supplied by them only at the -cost of a life-time of painful destitution, to support the selfish -greed and vain ostentation of the Jew--such was not the career which -could stimulate the ambition of Struve. The conviction that this was -not his proper destiny grew stronger in him, and he soon abandoned his -diplomatic position and Oldenberg at the same time. Without wealth -or friends, at variance with his relatives, who could not appreciate -his higher aims, he settled himself in Göttingen (1831), and in the -following year in Jena. His attempts to obtain fixed employment -as professor or teacher, or as editor of a newspaper, long proved -unsuccessful, for independent and honest thought, never anywhere -greatly in esteem, at that time in Germany was in especial disfavour -with all who, directly or indirectly, were under court influences. Yet -the three years which he lived in Göttingen and Jena supplied him with -varied and useful experiences. - -In 1833 he went to Karlsruhe. After years of long patience and effort, -he at length effected his object (to gain a position which should -make it possible for him to carry out his schemes of usefulness for -his fellow-beings), and, at the end of 1836, he obtained the office -of Obergerichts-Advocat in Mannheim. This position gave leisure -and opportunity for the prosecution of his various scientific and -philosophic pursuits, and to engage in literary undertakings. He -founded periodicals and delivered lectures, the constant aim of which -was the improvement of the world around him. At this period he wrote -his philosophic romance, _Mandaras’ Wanderungen_ (“The Wanderings of -Mandaras”), through which he conveys distasteful truths in accordance -with the principles of Tasso.[271] - -Struve’s active political life began in 1845. In that year were -published _Briefwechsel zwischen einen ehemaligen and einen jetzigen -Diplomaten_,(“Correspondence between an Old and a Modern Diplomatist”), -which was soon followed by his _Oeffentliches Recht des Deutschen -Bundes_ (“Public Rights of the German Federation”) and his _Kritische -Geschichte des Allgemeinen Staats-Rechts_ (“Critical History of the -Common Law of Nations”). In the same year he undertook the editorship -of the _Mannheimer Journal_, in which he boldly fought the battles -of political and social reform. He was several times condemned to -imprisonment, as well as to payment of fines; but, undeterred by such -persecution, the champion of the oppressed succeeded in worsting most -of his powerful enemies. - -In the beginning of 1847 he founded a weekly periodical, the _Deutscher -Zuschauer_ (“The German Spectator”), in which, without actually -adopting the invidious names, he maintained in their fullest extent -the principles of Freedom and Fraternity; and it was chiefly by the -efforts of Struve that the great popular demonstration at Oldenberg of -September 12, 1847, took place, which formulated what was afterwards -known as the “Demands of the People.” The public meeting, assembled -at the same town March 9, 1848, which was attended by 25,000 persons, -and which, without committing itself to the adoption of the term -“republican,” yet proclaimed the inherent Rights of the People, was -also mainly the work of the indefatigable Struve. He took part, too, in -the opening of the Parliament at Frankfurt. His principal production -at this time was _Grundzüge der Staats-Wischenschaft_ (“Outlines of -Political Science”). This book, inspired by the movement for freedom -which was then agitating, but, as it proved, for the most part -ineffectually, a large part of Europe, is not without significance -in the education of the community for higher political conceptions. -Struve and F. Hecker took a leading part in the democratic movements -in Baden. These attempts failing, after a short residence in Paris, -he settled near Basel (Basle). There he published his _Grundrechte -des Deutschen Volkes_ (“Fundamental Rights of the German People”), -and, in association with Heinzen, a _Plan für Revolutionierung und -Republikanisierung Deutschlands_. The earnest and noble convictions -apparent in all the writings of the author, and the unmistakable purity -of his aims, forced from the more candid of the opponents of his -political creed recognition and high respect. Nevertheless, he narrowly -escaped legal assassination and the _fusillades_ of the Kriegsgericht -or Military Tribunal. - -Later the unsuccessful lover of his country sought refuge in England, -and from thence proceeded to the United States (1850). Upon the -breaking out of the desperate struggle between the North and South, he -threw in his lot with the former, and took part in several battles. In -America he wrote his historical work _Weltgeschichte_ (12 vols.) and, -amongst others, _Abeilard und Heloise_. In 1861 he returned to Europe, -and, at different periods, wrote two of his most important books, -_Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung_ (“Vegetable -Diet, the Foundation of a New World-View”), and _Das Seelenleben, -oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen_ (“The Spiritual Life, or the -Natural History of Man”), in both of which he earnestly insists, not -only upon the vast and incalculable suffering inflicted, in the most -barbarous manner, upon the victims of the _Table_, but, further, upon -the demoralising influence of living by pain and slaughter:-- - - “The thoughts and feelings which the food we partake of provokes - are not remarked in common life, but they, nevertheless, have their - significance. A man who daily sees Cows and Calves slaughtered, - or who kills them himself, Hogs ‘stuck,’ Hens plucked, or Geese - roasted alive, &c., cannot possibly retain any true feeling for - the sufferings of his own species. He becomes hardened to them by - witnessing the struggles of other animals as they are being driven - by the butcher, the groans of the dying Ox, or the screams of the - bleeding Hog, with indifference.... Nay, he may come even to find - a devilish pleasure in seeing beings tortured and killed, or in - actually slaughtering them himself.... - - “But even those who take no part in killing, nay, do not even see - it, are conscious that the flesh-dishes upon their tables come from - the Shambles, and that _their feasting and the suffering of others - are in intimate connexion_. Doubtless, the majority of flesh-eaters - do not reflect upon the manner in which this food comes to them, - but this thoughtlessness, far from being a virtue, is the parent of - many vices.... How very different are the thoughts and sentiments - produced by the non-flesh diet!”[272] - -The last period of his life was passed in Wien (Vienna), and in that -city his beneficently-active career closed in August, 1870. His last -broken words to his wife, some hours before his end, were, “I must -leave the world ... this war ... this conflict!” With the life of -Gustav Struve was extinguished that of one of the noblest soldiers of -the Cross of Humanity. His memory will always be held in high honour -wherever justice, philanthropy, and humane feeling are in esteem. - -In _Mandaras’ Wanderungen_, of a different inspiration from that of -ordinary fiction, and which is full of refinement of thought and -feeling, are vividly represented the repugnance of a cultivated Hindu -when brought, for the first time, into contact with the barbarisms of -European civilisation. To few of our English readers, it is presumable, -is this charming story known; and an outline of its principal incidents -will not be supererogatory here. - -The hero, a young Hindu, whose home is in one of the secluded -valleys of the Himalaya, urged by the solicitude of the father of -his betrothed, who wishes to prove him by contact with so different -a world, sets out on a course of travel in Europe. The story opens -with the arrival of his ship at Leftheim (Livorno) on the Italian -coast. Mandaras has no sooner landed than he is accosted by two -clerics (_ordensgeistliche_), who wish to acquire the honour and -glory of making a convert. But, unhappily for their success, like his -predecessor Amabed, he had already on his voyage discovered that the -religion of the people, among whom he was destined to reside, did not -exclude certain horrible barbarisms hitherto unknown to him in his own -unchristian land:-- - - “While still on board ship I had been startled when I saw the rest - of the passengers feeding on the flesh of animals. ‘By what right,’ - I asked them, ‘do you kill other animals to feed upon their flesh?’ - They could not answer, but they continued to eat their salted - flesh as much as ever. For my part, I would have rather died than - have eaten a piece of it. But now it is far worse. I can pass - through no street in which there are not poor slaughtered animals, - hung up either entire or cut into pieces. Every moment I hear the - cries of agony and of alarm of the victims whom they are driving - to the slaughter-house,--see their struggles against the murderous - knife of the butcher. Ever and again I ask of one or other of the - men who surround me, _by what right_ they kill them and devour - their flesh; but if I receive an answer, it is returned in phrases - which mean nothing or in repulsive laughter.” - -In fact the Hindu traveller had been but a brief space of time in -Christian lands when he finds himself, almost unconsciously, in the -position of a _catechist_ rather than of a _catechumen_. One day, -for example, he finds himself in the midst of a vast crowd, of all -classes, hurrying to some spectacle. Inquiring the cause of so vast an -assemblage, he learns that some persons are to be put to death with -all the frightful circumstances of public executions. After travelling -through a great part of Germany, he fixes his residence, for the -purpose of study, in the University of Lindenberg. In the society of -that place he meets with a young girl, Leonora, the daughter of a -Secretary of Legation, who engages his admiration by her exceptional -culture and refinement of mind. On the occasion of an excursion of -a party of her father’s visitors, of some days, to an island on the -neighbouring coast, the first discussion on humane dietetics takes -place, when, being asked the reason of his _eccentricity_, he appeals -to the ladies of the party, believing that he shall have at least -_their_ sympathy with the principles he lays down:-- - - “From you, ladies, doubtless I shall meet with approval. Tell - me, could you, _with your own hands_, kill to-day a gentle Lamb, - a soft Dove, with whom perhaps you yesterday were playing? You - answer--No? You dare not say you could. If you were to say yes, - you would, indeed, betray a hard heart. But why could you not? Why - did it cause you anguish, when you saw a defenceless animal driven - to slaughter? Because you felt, _in your inmost soul_, that it is - wrong, that it is unjust to kill a defenceless and innocent being! - With quite other feelings would you look on the death of a Tiger - that attacks men, than on that of a Lamb who has done harm to no - one. To the one action attaches, naturally, justice; to the other, - injustice. Follow the inner promptings of your heart,--no longer - sanction the slaughter of innocent beings by feeding on their - bodies (_beförden Sie nicht deren Tödtung dadurch dass Sie ihr - Fleisch essen_).” - -This exhortation, to his surprise, was received by all “the softer sex” -with coldness, and even with signs of impatience, excepting Leonora, -who acknowledged the force of his appeal and promised to the best -of her power to follow his example. Pleased and encouraged by her -approval, he proceeds:-- - - “Assuredly it will not repent you to have formed this resolution. - The man who, with firmly-grounded habits, denies himself something - which lies in his power, to spare pain and death to living and - sentient beings, must become milder and more loving. The man who - steels himself against the feeling of compassion for the lower - animals, will be more or less hard towards his own species; while - he who shrinks from giving pain to other beings, will so much the - more shrink from inflicting it upon his fellow men.” - -Leonora, however, was a rare exception in his experience; and the more -he saw of Christian customs, the less did he feel disposed to change -his religion, which, by the way, was of an unexceptionable kind. Some -time before his leaving Lindenberg, the secretary’s wife gave a dinner -in his honour, which, in compliment to her guest, was without any -flesh-dish. As a matter of course, the conversation soon turned upon -Dietetics; and one of the guests, a cleric, challenged the Hindu to -defend his principles. Mandaras had scarcely laid down the cardinal -article of his creed as a fundamental principle in Ethics--that it is -unjust to inflict suffering upon a living and sensitive being, which -(as he insists) cannot be called in question _without shaking the very -foundations of Morality_ (_welcher nicht die Sittenlehre in ihren -Fundamenten erschüttern will_)--when opponents arise on all sides of -him. A doctor of medicine led the opposition, confidently affirming -that the human frame itself proved men to be intended for flesh-eating. -Mandaras replied that:-- - - “It seemed to him, on the contrary, that it is the bodily frame of - man that especially declares _against_ flesh-eating. The Tiger, - the Lion, in short, all flesh-eating animals seized their prey, - running, swimming, or flying, and tore it in pieces with their - teeth or talons, devouring it there and then upon the spot. Man - cannot catch other animals in this way, or tear them in pieces, and - devour them as they are.... Besides he has higher, and not merely - animal, impulses. The latter lead him to gluttony, intemperance, - and many other vices. Providence has given him reason to prove what - is right and what wrong, and power of will to avoid what he has - discovered to be wrong. The doctor, however, in place of admitting - this argument, grew all the warmer. ‘In all Nature,’ said he, ‘one - sees how the lower existence is serviceable to the higher. As man - does, so do other animals seize upon the weaker, and the weakest - upon plants, &c.’” - -To this the Hindu philosopher in vain replies, _that_ the sphere of -man, is _wider_, and ought therefore to be _higher_ than that of other -animals, for the larger the circle in which a being can freely move, -the greater is the possible degree of his perfection; _that_, if we -are to place ourselves on the plane of the carnivora in one point, -why not in all, and recognise also treachery, fierceness, and murder -in general, as proper to man _that_ the different character of the -Tiger, the Hyæna, the Wolf on the one side, and of the Elephant, the -Camel, the Horse on the other, instruct us as to the mighty influence -of food upon the disposition, and certainly not to the advantage of -the flesh-eaters; _that_ man is to strive not after the lower but the -higher character, &c., &c. To this the hostess replies: “This may -be all very beautiful and good, but how is the housekeeper to be so -skilful as to provide for all her guests, if she is to withhold from -them flesh dishes?” “Exactly as our housekeepers do in the Himalayan -valley--exactly as our hostess does to-day,” rejoins Mandaras. He -alleges many other arguments, and in particular the high degree -of reasoning faculty, and even of moral feeling, exhibited by the -miserable slaves of human tyranny. Various are the objections raised, -which, it is needless to say, are successfully overthrown by the -champion of Innocence, and the company disperse after a prolonged -discussion. - -The second division of the story takes us to the Valley of Suty, the -Himalayan home of Mandaras, and introduces us to his amiable family. -A young German, travelling in that region, chances to meet with the -father of Urwasi (Mandaras’s betrothed), whom he finds bowed down -with grief for the double loss of his daughter, who had pined away in -the protracted absence of her lover and succumbed to the sickness of -hope deferred, and of his destined son-in-law, who, upon his return -to claim his mistress, had fallen (as it appeared) into a death-swoon -at the shock of the terrible news awaiting him. The old man conducts -the stranger to the scene of mourning, where Damajanti, the sister -of Mandaras, with her friend Sunanda, is engaged in weaving garlands -of flowers to deck the bier of her beloved brother. An interesting -conversation follows between the European stranger and the Hindu -ladies, who are worthy representatives of their countrywoman, -Sakuntalà.[273] Accidentally they discover that he is a flesh-eater. - - _Sunanda_: Is it possible that you really belong to those men who - think it lawful to kill other beings to feed upon their bleeding - limbs? - - _Theobald_: In my country it is the ordinary custom. Do you not, in - your country, use such food? - - _Damajanti_: Can you ask? Have not other animals feeling? Do they - not enjoy their existence? - - _Theobald_: Certainly; but they are so much below us, that there - can be no _reciprocity_ of duties between us. - - _Damajanti_: The higher we stand in relation to other animals, - the more are we bound to disregard none of the eternal laws of - Morality, and, in particular, that of Love. Hateful is it, at all - events, to inflict pain upon an innocent being capable of feeling - pain. Or do you consider it permissible to strike a dog, to witness - the trembling of his limbs, and to hear his cries? - - _Theobald_: By no means. I hold, also, that it is wrong to torture - them, because we ought to feel no pleasure in the sufferings of - other animals. - - _Damajanti_: We ought to feel no _pleasure_! That is very cold - reasoning. Detestation--disgust, rather, is the sensation we ought - to have. Where this sentiment is real, there can be no desire - to profit by the sufferings of others. Yet, where the feelings - of disgust for what is bad are weaker than inclination to the - self-indulgence which it promises, there is no possibility of their - triumphing. For _gain_ the butcher slaughters the victim; for - _horrible luxury_ other men participate in this murder, while they - devour the pieces of flesh, in which, a few moments before, the - blood was still flowing, the nerves yet quivering, the life still - breathing! - - _Theobald_: I admit it: but all this is new to me. From childhood - upwards I have been accustomed to see animals driven to the - slaughter-house. It gave me no pleasure rather it was a positively - displeasing spectacle; but I did not think about it--whether we - have the right to slaughter for food, because I had never heard - doubt expressed on the matter. - - _Sunanda_: Ah! Now I can well believe that the men in your country - _must_ be hard and cold. Every softer feeling _must_ be hardened, - every tenderer one be dulled in the daily scenes of murder which - they have before their eyes, by the blood which they shed daily, - which they taste daily. Happy am I that I live far from your world. - A thousand times would I rather endure death than live in so - horrible a land. - - _Damajanti_: To me, too, residence in such a land would be torture. - 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! - - Do they recognise, then, no mind, no soul in them--have they not - feeling, pleasure in existence, do they not suffer pain? Do their - voices of joy and sorrow indeed fail to speak to the human heart - and conscience--so that they can murder the jubilant lark, in the - first joy of his spring-time, who ought to warm their hearts with - sympathy, from delight in bloodshed or for their ‘sport,’ or with - a horrible insensibility and recklessness only to practise their - aim in shooting! Is there no _soul_ manifest in the eyes of the - living or dying animal--no expression of suffering in the eye of - a deer or stag hunted to death--nothing which accuses them of - murder before the avenging Eternal Justice?... Are the souls of - all other animals but man mortal, or are they essential in their - organisation? Does the world-idea (_Welt-Idee_) pertain to them - also--the soul of nature--a particle of the Divine Spirit? I know - not; but I feel, and every reasonable man feels like me, it is in - miserable, intolerable contradiction with our human nature, with - our conscience, with our reason, with all our talk of humanity, - destiny, nobility; it is in frightful (_himmelschreinder_) - contradiction with our poetry and philosophy, with our nature and - with our (pretended) love of nature, with our religion, with our - teachings about _benevolent design_--that we bring into existence - merely to kill, to maintain our own life by the destruction of - other life.... It is a frightful wrong that other species are - tortured, worried, flayed, and devoured by us, in spite of the fact - that we are not obliged to this by necessity; while in sinning - against the defenceless and helpless, just claimants as they are - upon our reasonable conscience and upon our compassion, we succeed - only in brutalising ourselves. This, besides, is quite certain, - that man has no real pity and compassion for his own species, so - long as he is pitiless towards other races of beings.”[279] - - - - -L. - -SCHOPENHAUER. 1788-1860. - - -The chief interpreter of Buddhistic ideas in Europe, and whose bias -in this direction is exercising so remarkable an influence upon -contemporaneous thought, in Germany in particular, was born at -Dantzig, the son of a wealthy merchant of that city. His mother, -herself distinguished in literature, was often the centre of the most -eminent persons of the day at Weimar. At a very early age devoted to -the philosophies of Plato and of Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer studied -at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. His course of studies, -both scientific and literary, was, even for a German, unusually severe -and searching; and his acquirements were encyclopædic in their range. -Unlike most German students, it is worth noting, he was addicted -neither to beer-drinking nor to duelling. - -His most important writings are: _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ -(“The World as Will and Representation”), 2 vols; _Die Grundprobleme -der Ethik_ (“The Ground-Problems of Ethics”); _Parerga und -Paralipomena_ (“Incidental and Neglected Subjects”), 2 vols; _Das -Fundament der Moral_ (“The Foundation of Morality”), 1840. - -The peculiar characteristics of his philosophy are uncompromising -opposition to the hollow doctrines of easy-going Optimism--an -antagonism which, indeed, assumes the form of an exaggerated -Pessimism--and (what especially distinguishes him from most -systematisers and formularisers of morals) his making _Compassion_ the -principal, and, indeed, the exclusive source of moral action; and it -is his vindication of the _rights_ of the subject species, in marked -contrast with the silence, or even positive depreciation and contempt -for them, on the part of ordinary moralists, which will always entitle -him to take exceptionally high rank among reformers of Ethical systems, -in spite of his exaggerations and short-comings in other respects. -Dr. David Strauss (_Der Alte und der Neue Glaube_) thus writes of his -claims on these grounds:-- - - “Criminal history shows us how many torturers of men, and - murderers, have first been torturers of the lower animals. _The - manner in which a nation, in the aggregate, treats the other - species, is one chief measure of its real civilisation._ The - Latin races, as we know, come forth badly from this examination; - we Germans not half well enough. Buddhism has done more, in this - direction, than Christianity; and Schopenhauer more than all - ancient and modern philosophers together. The warm sympathy with - sentient nature, which pervades all the writings of Schopenhauer, - is one of the most pleasing aspects of his thoroughly intellectual, - though often unhealthy and unprofitable, philosophy.” - -This, it is necessary to add, plainly is written in ignorance of the -numerous writings of earlier and contemporaneous humanitarian dietists, -to whom, of course, is due a higher, because more consistent and more -logical, position than even Schopenhauer can claim, who, from ignorance -of the physical and moral arguments of anti-kreophagy (it reasonably -may be presumed), at the same time that he established the rights of -the subject species on the firmest basis, and included them as an -essential part of any moral code, yet, with a strange, but too common, -inconsistency, did not perceive that to hand over the Cow, the Ox, or -the Sheep, &c., to the butcher, is in most flagrant violation of his -own ethical standard. While, then, the author of the _Foundation of -Morality_ cannot claim the highest place, absolutely; outside the ranks -of anti-kreophagistic writers, a high rank may properly be conceded -to him as one of the most eminent moralists who, short of entire -emancipation, have done most to vindicate the position of the innocent -non-human races.[280] Especially has he denounced the horrible outrage -upon the commonest principles of justice by the pseudo-scientific -torturers of the physiological laboratory.[281] It is thus that he lays -the foundations of morality:-- - - “A Pity, without limits, which unites us with all living - beings--_in that_ we have the most solid, the surest guarantee - of morality. _With that_ there is no need of casuistry. Whoso - possesses it will be quite incapable of causing harm or loss to - any one, of doing violence to any one, of doing ill in any way. - But rather he will have for all long-suffering, he will aid the - helpless with all his powers, and each one of his actions will - be marked with the stamp of justice and of love. Try to affirm: - ‘this man is virtuous, only he knows no pity,’ or rather: ‘he is - an unjust and wicked man: nevertheless, he is compassionate.’ The - contradiction is patent to everyone. Each one to his taste: but for - myself, I know no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus, - of old used in closing their public spectacles (just as the English - of to-day end with a prayer for their king). They said: ‘May All - that have life be delivered from suffering!’” - -Enforcing his teaching that the principles and mainspring of all moral -action must be justice and love, Schopenhauer maintains that the real -influence of these first of virtues is tested, especially, by the -conduct of men to other animals:-- - - “Another proof that the moral motive, here proposed, is, in fact, - the true one, is, that in accordance with it the lower animals - themselves are protected. The unpardonable forgetfulness in which - they have been iniquitously left hitherto by all the [popular] - moralists of Europe is well known. It is pretended that the - [so-called] beasts have no rights. They persuade themselves that - our conduct in regard to them has nothing to do with morals, or (to - speak in the language of their morality) that we have no duties - towards ‘animals:’ a doctrine revolting, gross, and barbarous, - peculiar to the west, and which has its root in Judaism. In - Philosophy, however, it is made to rest upon a hypothesis, admitted - in the face of evidence itself, of an absolute difference between - man and ‘beast.’ It is Descartes who has proclaimed it in the - clearest and most decisive manner: and, in fact, it was a necessary - consequence of his errors. The Cartesian-Leibnitzian-Wolfian - philosophy, with the assistance of entirely abstract notions, had - built up the ‘rational psychology,’ and constructed an immortal - _anima rationalis_: but, visibly, the world of ‘beasts,’ with its - very natural claims, stood up against this exclusive monopoly--this - _brevet_ of immortality decreed to man alone--and, silently, - Nature did what she always does in such cases--she protested. Our - philosophers, feeling their scientific conscience quite disturbed, - were forced to attempt to consolidate their ‘rational psychology’ - by the aid of empiricism. They, therefore, set themselves to work - to hollow out between man and ‘beast’ an enormous abyss, of an - immeasurable width; by this they would wish to prove to us, in - contempt of evidence, an impassable difference. It was at all these - efforts that Boileau already laughed:-- - - ‘Les animaux ont-ils des Universités? - Voit-on fleurir chez eux les Quatre Facultés?’ - - In accordance with this theory, ‘beasts’ would have finished with - no longer knowing how to distinguish themselves from the external - world, with having no more consciousness of their own existence - than of mine. Against these intolerable assertions one remedy only - was needed. Cast a single glance at an animal, even the smallest, - the lowest in intelligence. See the unbounded _egoism_ of which - it is possessed. It is enough to convince you that ‘beasts’ have - thorough consciousness of their _ego_, and oppose it to the - world--to the _non-ego_. If a Cartesian found himself in the - claws of a Tiger, he would learn, and in the most evident way - possible, whether the Tiger can distinguish between the _ego_ and - the _non-ego_. To these sophisms of the philosophers respond the - sophisms of the people. Such are certain _idiotisms_, notably those - of the German, who, for eating, drinking, conception, birth, death, - corpse (when ‘beasts’ are in question), has special terms; so much - would he fear to employ the same words as for men. He thus succeeds - in dissimulating, under this diversity of terms, the perfect - identity of things. - - “The ancient languages knew nothing of this sort of synonymy, - and they simply called things which are the same by one and the - same name. These artificial ideas, then, must needs have been - an invention of the priesthood [_prétraille_] of Europe, a lot - of sacrilegious people who knew not by what means to debase, to - vilipend the eternal essence which lives in the substance of every - animated being. In this way they have succeeded in establishing - in Europe those wicked habits of hardness and cruelty towards - ‘beasts,’ which a native of High Asia could not behold without a - just horror. In English we do not find this infamous invention; - that is owing, doubtless, to the fact that the Saxons, at the - moment of the conquest of England, were not yet Christians. - Nevertheless, the pendent of it is found in this particularity of - the English language: all the names of animals there are of the - _neuter gender_: and, as a consequence, when the name is to be - represented by the pronoun, they use the neuter _it_, absolutely as - for inanimate objects. Nothing is more shocking than this idiom, - especially when the _primates_ are spoken of--the Dog, for example, - the Ape, and others. One cannot fail to recognise here a dishonest - device (_fourberie_) of the priests to debase [other] animals - to the rank of things. The ancient Egyptians, for whom Religion - was the unique business of life, deposed in the same tombs human - mummies and those of the Ibis, &c.; but in Europe it would be an - abomination, a crime, to inter the faithful Dog near the place - where his master lies; and yet it is upon this tomb sometimes that, - more faithful and more devoted than man ever was, he has awaited - death. - - “If you wish to know how far the identity between ‘beast’ and - man extends, nothing will conduct to such knowledge better than - a little Zoology and Anatomy. Yet what are we to say when an - anatomical bigot is seen at this day (1839) to be labouring to - establish an absolute, radical, distinction between man and other - animals; proceeding so far in enmity against true Zoologists--those - who, without conspiracy with the priesthoods, without platitude, - without _tartuferie_, permit themselves to be conducted by Nature - and Truth--as to attack them, to calumniate them! - - “Yet this superiority [of man over other mammals of the higher - species] depends but upon a more ample development of the - brain--upon a difference in one part of the body only; this - difference, besides, being but one of _quantity_. Yes, man and - other animals are, both as regards the moral and the physical, - identical _in kind_, without speaking of other points of - comparison. Thus one might well recall to them--these Judaising - westerns, these menagerie-keepers, these adorers of ‘reason’--that - if _their_ mother has given suck to them, Dogs also have _theirs_ - to suckle _them_. Kant fell into this error, which is that of - his time and of his country: I have already brought the reproach - against him. The morality of Christianity has no regard for - ‘beasts;’ it is therein a vice, and it is better to avow it than - to eternise it. We ought to be all the more astonished at it, - because this morality is in striking accord with the moral codes of - Brahmanism and of Buddhism. - - “Between pity towards ‘beasts’ and goodness of soul there is a - very close connexion. One might say without hesitation, when - an individual is wicked in regard to them, that he cannot be a - _good_ man. One might, also, demonstrate that this pity and the - social virtues have the same source.... That [better section of - the] English nation, with its greater delicacy of feeling, we - see it taking the initiative, and distinguishing itself by its - unusual compassion towards other species, giving from time to time - new proofs of it--this compassion, triumphing over that ‘cold - superstition’ which, in other respects, degrades the nation, has - had the strength to force it to fill up the chasm which Religion - had left in morality. This Chasm is, in fact, the reason why - in Europe and in N. America, we have need of societies for the - protection of the lower animals. In Asia the Religions suffice to - assure to ‘beasts’ aid and protection (?), and there no one thinks - of Societies of that kind. Nevertheless in Europe, also, from day - to day [rather by intervals of _decades_] is being awakened the - feeling of the Rights of the lower animals, in proportion as, - little by little, disappear, vanish, the strange ideas of man’s - domination over [other] animals, as if they had been placed in the - world but for our service and enjoyment, for it is thanks to those - ideas that they have been treated as _Things_. - - “Such are, certainly, the causes of that gross conduct, of that - absolute want of regard, of which Europeans are guilty towards the - lower animals; and I have shown the source of those ideas, which is - in the _Old Testament_, in section 177 of the second volume of my - _Parerga_.”[282] - - * * * * * - -Of the many eminent scientists who, in recent times, indirectly have -affirmed the _wantonness_ of slaughtering for human food, the most -famous of European Chemists, Justus von Liebig, may seem to demand -especial notice. THE founder of the science of Organic Chemistry -and the method of Organic Analysis (1803-1873), educated at the -Universities of Bonn and Erlangen, received his diploma of Doctor -in Philosophy (physical and mathematical sciences) at the age of -nineteen. Two years later, chiefly by the influence of Humboldt, he -was named Professor Extraordinary of Chemistry at Giessen, whither a -crowd of disciples flocked from all parts of Germany and from England. -In 1832 he accepted a Chair at Munich. All the Scientific Societies of -Europe were eager in offering him honorary distinctions. - -It is his application of his Special Science to the advancement of -Agriculture, and his more philosophic, though (it must be added) -occasionally contradictory views upon the comparative values of Foods, -which give him his best title to remembrance with posterity. We can -enumerate only a few of his numerous works: _Ueber Theorie und Praxis -der Landwirthschaft_ (“Upon the Theory and Practice of Agricultural -Economy),” Brunswick, 1824, translated into English; _Anleitung zur -Analyse Organische Körper_ (“Introduction to the Organic Analysis -of Bodies”), 1837; _Die Organische Chemie in ihren Anwendung auf -Physiologie und Pathologie_ (“Organic Chemistry in its Relationship -to Physiology and Pathology”), 1839; “Researches upon Alimentary -Chemistry,” 1849; _Chemische Briefe_ (“Letters upon Chemistry -considered in Relation with Industry, Agriculture, and Physiology”), -1852. - -Whatever opinions this eminent German Chemist may have published -elsewhere inconsistent with the statements below, such inconsistency, -no more than in the case of Buffon, can weaken the force of his more -reasonable utterance. Upon the essential ultimate identity of the -nutritive properties of animal and vegetable substance he thus clearly -pronounces:-- - - “Vegetable fibrine and animal fibrine, vegetable albumen and - animal albumen, differ at the most (_höchstens_) in form. If these - principles in nourishment fail, the nourishment of the animal will - be cut off; if they obtain them, then the grass-feeding animal gets - the same principles in his food as those upon which the flesh-eater - entirely depends. Vegetables produce in their organism the blood - of all beings. So that when the flesh-eaters consume the blood and - flesh of the vegetable-eaters, they take to themselves exactly and - simply the vegetable principles. - - “Vegetable Foods, in particular Corn of all kinds, and through - these Bread, contain as much iron as the flesh of Oxen or as other - kinds of flesh. - - “Certain it is, that of three men, of whom the one has fed upon - ox-flesh and bread, the other upon bread and cheese, the third - upon potatoes, each considers it a peculiar hardship from quite - different points of view; yet in fact the only difference between - them is the action of the peculiar elements of each food upon the - brain and nervous system. A Bear, who was kept in a zoological - garden, displayed, so long as he had bread exclusively for - nourishment, quite a mild disposition. Two days of feeding with - flesh made him vicious, aggressive, and even dangerous to his - attendant. It is well known that the _vis irritabilis_ of the Hog - becomes so excessive through flesh-eating that he will then attack - a man. - - “The flesh-eating man needs for his support an enormous extent of - land, wider and more extensive even than the Lion and the Tiger. - A nation of Hunters in a circumscribed territory is incapable - of multiplying itself for that reason. The carbon necessary for - maintaining life must be taken from animals, of whom in the limited - area there can be only a limited number. These animals collect - from the plants the elements of their blood and their organs, and - supply them to the Indians living by the chase, who devour them - unaccompanied by the substance (_stoffen_) which during the life - of the animal maintained the life processes. While the Indian, by - feeding upon a single animal, might contrive to _sustain_ his life - and health a certain number of days, he must, in order to gain - for that time the requisite heat, devour _five_ animals. His food - contains a superfluity of nitrogenous substance. What is wanting to - it during the greater portion of the year is the necessary quantity - of carbon, and hence the inveterate inclination of flesh consumers - for brandy. - - “The practical illustration of agricultural superiority cannot be - more clearly and profoundly given than in the speech of the North - American Chief, which the Frenchman Crevecous has reported to us. - The Chief, recommending to his tribe the practice of Agriculture, - thus addressed it: ‘Do you not observe that, while we live upon - Flesh, the white men live [_in part_] upon Grain? That Flesh takes - more than thirty months to grow to maturity, and besides is often - scarce? That each of these miraculous grains of corn, which they - bury in the earth, gives back to them more than a hundredfold? That - Flesh has four legs upon which to run away, and we have only two - to overtake them? That the Corn remains and grows where the white - men sow it; that the winter, which for us is a time of toilsome - hunting, is for them the time of rest? Therefore have they so many - children, and live so much longer than we. I say, then, to each - one who hears me: Before the trees over our wigwams have died from - old age, and the maples have ceased to supply us with sugar, the - race of the corn-planter will have exterminated the race of the - flesh-eater, because the hunters determine not to sow.’”[283] - -Liebig’s views as to the mischievous effects of the propensity of -farmers, and of so-called agriculturists, to convert arable into -pasture land are sufficiently well known.[284] - - - - -APPENDIX. - - - - -I. - -HESIOD. - - -The original of the English version, given in the beginning of this -work, is as follows:-- - - Νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴσασιν, ὀσῳπλέον ἣμισυ Παντός, - Οὐδ’ ὃσον ἐν Μαλάχῃ τε καὶ Ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ’ ὄνειαρ. - - * * * * * - - Χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων - Ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες. - Ὣστε θεοί δ’ ἐζωον ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες, - Νόσφιν ἄτερ τε πόνων καὶ ὀϊζύος· οὐδέ τι δειλὸν - Γῆρας ἐπῆν, αἰεὶ δε πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ὁμοῖοι - Τέρποντ’ ἐν θαλίῃσι κακῶν ἔκτοσθεν ἀπάντων· - Θνῆσκον δ’ ὡς ὑπνῳ δεδμημένοι· ἐσθλὰ δὲ πάντα - Τοῖσιν ἔην· καρπὸν δ’ ἔφερε ζείδωρος Ἄρουρα - Αὐτομάτη, πολλόν τε καὶ ἄφθονον· οἱ δ’ ἐθελημοὶ - Ἣσυχοι εργ’ ἐνέμοντο σὺν ἐσθλοῖσιν πολέεσσιν, - [Ἀφνειοὶ μήλοισι, φίλοι μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι][285] - Αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψεν, - Τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλὰς - Ἐσθλοί, ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων,[286] - Οἳ ῥα φυλάσσουσιν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα, - Ἡρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντῃ φοιτῶντες ἐπ’ αῖαν, - Πλαυτοδόται· καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήϊον ἔσχον. - - * * * * * - - Ζεὺς δὲ Πατὴρ τρίτον ἄλλο γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων - Χάλκειον ποίησε - - * * * * * - - Οὐδέ τι σῖτον - Ἣσθιον, ἀλλ’ ἀδάμαντος ἔχον κρατερόφρονα θυμόν, - Ἄπλητοι· μεγάλη δὲ βίν καὶ χεῖρες ἄαπτοι - Ἐξ ὤμων ἐπέφυκον ἐπὶ στιβαροῖσι μέλεσσιν. - Ἔργα καὶ Ἣμεραι (_Works and Days_), _passim_. - - - - -II. - - _Extracts from “The Golden Verses”_ (Χρυσᾶ Ἔπη). _An Exposition of - Pythagorean Doctrine, of the Third Century, B.C., in Hexameters._ - (See pages 21, 22.) - - - κρατεῖν δ’ εἰθίζεο τῶνδε-- - Γαστρὸς μὲν πρώτιστα, καὶ ὑπνοῦ, λαγνείης τε, - Καὶ θυμοῦ· πρήξεις δ’ αἰσχρόν ποτε μήτε μετ’αλλοῦ - Μήτ’ ἰδίῃ· πάντων δε μαλίστ’ αἰσχύνεο σαυτόν. - Εἶτα Δικαιοσύνην ἀσκεῖν ἐργῳ τε λόγῳ τε. - Μηδ’ ἀλογίστως σαυτὸν ἐχειν περὶ μηδὲν ἔθιζε· - Αλλα γνῶθε μὲν ὡς θανέειν πέπρωται ἃπασι. - - * * * * * - - Μηδεὶς μήτε λόγῳ σε παρείπῃ, μήτε τι ἔργῳ, - Πρήξαι μήτ’ εἰπείν ὃ τι τοι μὴ βέλτερον ἔστι· - Εἰθίζου δε διαίταν ἔχειν καθάρειον, ἄθρυπτον. - - * * * * * - - Μηδ’ ὓπνον μαλακοῖσιν ἐπ’ ὄμμασι προσδέξασθαι - Πρὶν τῶν ἡμερινῶν ἔργων τρὶς ἓκαστον ἐπελθεῖν-- - Πῆ παρέβην· Τί δ’ ἔρεξα· Τί μοι δέον ουκ ἐτελέσθη·-- - Ἀρξάμενος δ’ ἀπὸ πρώτου ἐπέξιθι καὶ μετεπείτα - Δειλὰ μὲν ἐκπρήξας, ἐπεπλήσσεο· Χρηστὰ δε τέρπνου. - Ταῦτα πόνει, ταῦτ’ ἐκμελέτα· τούτων χρὴ ἐρᾷν. - Ταῦτα σε τῆς θείης Ἀρετῆς εἰς ἴχνια θήσει· - Ναὶ μὰ Τὸν ἁμετέρᾳ ψυχᾷ Παραδόντα Τετρακτύν, - Παγὰν ἀενάον Ψύσεως - - * * * * * - - Τούτων δε κρατήσας - Γνώσῃ ἀθανάτων τε Θεῶν, θνητῶν τ’ ἀνθρώπων - Σύστασιν, ῇτε ἓκαστα διέρχεται, ῇτε κπατεῖται. - Γνώσῃ δ’ ᾖ θέμις ἐστὶ, Φύσω περὶ παντὸς ὁμοίην - Ὦστε σε μήτε ἄελπτ’ ἐλπιζειν, μήτε τι λήθειν. - Γνώσῃ δ’ ἀνθρώπους αὐθαίρετα πήματ’ ἔχοντας - Τλήμονες, οἳ τ’ ἀγαθῶν πέλας ὄντων οὐκ ἐσοπῶσιν - Οὔτε κλύουσι· λύσιν δὲ Κακῶν παῦποι συνίσασι. - Ζεῦ Πάτερ, ἦ πολλῶν κε κακῶν λύσειας ἃπαντας, - Εἰ πᾶσιν δείξαις οἳω τῷ δαίμονι χρῶνται. - Ἄλλα σὺ θάρσει, ἐπεὶ θεῖον γένος ἐστὶ βροτοῖσιν, - Οἷς ἱερα προφέπουσα Φύσις δείκνυσιν ἒκαστα - Ὧν εἰ σοί μέτεστι, κρατήσεις ὧν σε κελεύω - Ἐξακέσας, ψυχὴν δὲ πόνην ἀπὸ τῶνδε σαώσεις. - Ἀλλ’ εἴργου βρωτῶν ὧν εἴπομεν, ἔν τε καθάρμοις, - Ἐν τε λύσει ψυχῆς κρίνην, καὶ φράζευ ἓκαστα, - Ἡνίοχον γνώμην στήσας καθύπερθεν ἀρίστην· - Ἠν δ’ ἀπολείψας σῶμα ἐς αἰθερ’ ἐλεύθερον ἔλθης, - Ἔσσεαι ἀθάνατος, θεὸς, ἀμβρότος, οὐκ ἔτι θνητός.[287] - - - - -III. - - -In _Texts from the Buddhist Canon_, Love or Compassion for all living -beings is thus inculcated by Buddha, in a sermon addressed to a number -of women (belonging to a class of hunters) whose husbands were then -engaged on one of their predatory excursions:-- - - “He who is humane does not kill; he is ever able to preserve [his - own?] life. This principle is imperishable. Whosoever observes it, - no calamity shall betide that man. Politeness, indifference to - worldly things, hurting no one, without place for annoyance--this - is the character of the Brahma Heaven. Ever exercising love towards - the infirm; pure, according to the teaching of Buddha; knowing when - sufficient has been had; knowing when to stop. - - “There are eleven advantages which attend the man who practises - compassion, and is tender to all that lives: his body is always - in health (happy); he is blessed with peaceful sleep, and when - engaged in study he is also composed; he has no evil dreams, he is - protected by Heaven (Devas) and loved by men; he is unmolested by - poisonous things, and escapes the violence of war; he is unharmed - by fire or water; he is successful wherever he lives, and, when - dead, goes to the Heaven of Brahma.” - -When he had uttered these words, both men and women were admitted into -the company of his disciples, and obtained rest. - -There was, in times gone by, a certain mighty King, called Ho-meh -(_love-darkness_), who ruled in a certain district where no tidings of -Buddha or his merciful doctrine had yet been heard; but the religious -practices were the usual ones of sacrifice and prayer to the gods for -protection. Now it happened that the King’s mother, being sick, the -physicians having vainly tried their medicine, all the wise men were -called to consult as to the best means of restoring her health.... On -the King asking them [the Brahman priests] what should be done, they -replied ... sacrifices of a hundred beasts of different kinds should -be offered on the four hills (or to the four quarters), with a young -child, as a crowning oblation to Heaven. [Here follows a description -of the King ordering a hundred head of Elephants, Horses, Oxen, and -Sheep to be driven along the road from the Eastern Gate towards the -place of sacrifice, and how their piteous cries rang through heaven -and earth.--_Editor’s Note._] On this Buddha, moved with compassion, -came to the spot, and preached a sermon on “Love to all that Live,” and -added these words:-- - - “If a man live a hundred years, and engage the whole of his time - and attention in religious offerings to the gods, sacrificing - Elephants and Horses, and other life, all this is not equal to _one - act of pure love in saving life_.” - -See _Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada--with -accompanying Narratives--Translated from the Chinese_, by Samuel Beal, -Professor of Chinese, University College, London--Trübner, 1878: and -the similar scene in _The Light of Asia_, where Buddha interposes at -the moment of a religious sacrifice:-- - - “But Buddha softly said, - ‘Let him not strike, great King!’ and therewith loosed - The victim’s bonds, none staying him, so great - His presence was. Then, craving leave, he spake - Of life which all can take but none can give, - Life, which all creatures love and strive to keep, - Wonderful, dear and pleasant unto each, - Even to the meanest; yea, a boon to all - Where Pity is, for Pity makes the world - Soft to the Weak, and noble for the Strong. - Unto the dumb lips of his flock he lent - Sad pleading words, shewing how man, who prays - For mercy to the Gods, is merciless, - Being as God to those: albeit all Life - Is linked and kin, and what we slay have given - Meek tribute of the milk and wool, and set - Fast trust upon the hands that murder them. - - * * * * * - - “Nor, spake he, shall one wash his spirit clean - _By blood_; nor gladden gods, being good, with blood;[288] - Nor bribe them, being evil: nay, nor lay - Upon the brow of innocent bound beasts - One hair’s weight of that answer all must give - For all things done amiss or wrongfully, - Alone--each for himself--reckoning with that - The fixed arithmic of the Universe, - Which meteth good for good and ill for ill, - Measure for measure, unto deeds, words, thoughts. - - * * * * * - - “While still our Lord went on, teaching how fair - This earth were, if all living things be linked - In friendliness, and common use of foods, - Bloodless and pure; the golden grain, bright fruits, - Sweet herbs which grow for all, the waters wan, - Sufficient drinks and meats--which when these heard, - The might of gentleness so conquered them, - The priests themselves scattered their altar-flames - And flung away the steel of sacrifice: - And through the land next day passed a decree - Proclaimed by criers, and in this wise graved - On rock and column: ‘Thus the King’s will is:-- - There hath been slaughter for the Sacrifice, - And slaying for the Meat, but henceforth none - Shall spill the blood of life, nor taste of flesh, - Seeing that Knowledge grows, and Life is one, - And mercy cometh to the merciful.’”[289] - -See also the annexed extracts from the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, -written probably about the third century B.C.:-- - - - _“The Short Paragraphs on Conduct.”--The Kûla Sîlam._ - - 1. “Now wherein, Vâsettha, is his [the true disciple’s] Conduct - good? Herein, O Vâsettha, that putting away the Murder of that - which lives, he abstains from Destroying Life. The cudgel and - the sword he lays aside; and, full of Modesty and Pity, he is - compassionate and kind to all beings that have life. - - “This is the kind of Goodness that he has. - - [After strict prohibitions of Robbery and Unchastity, Gautama - Buddha proceeds.] - - 4. “Putting away Lying, he abstains from speaking Falsehood. - He speaks Truth. From the Truth he never swerves. Faithful and - trustworthy, he injures not his fellow-men by deceit. - - “This is the kind of Goodness that he has. - - 5. “Putting away Slander, he abstains from Calumny. What he learns - here he repeats not elsewhere, to raise a quarrel against the - people here. What he learns elsewhere, &c. Thus he lives as a - binder together of those who are divided, an encourager of those - who are friends, impassioned for Peace, a speaker of words that - make for Peace. - - “This, too, &c. - - 6. “Putting away Bitterness of Speech, he abstains from harsh - language. Whatever word is humane, pleasant to the ear, lovely, - reaching to the heart, urbane--such are the words he speaks. - - 7. “Putting away Foolish Talk, he abstains from Vain Conversation, - &c. - - 8. “He abstains from Injuring any Herb [uselessly] or any Animal. - He takes but one meal a day, abstaining from food at night-time, or - at the wrong time, &c. - - 10. “He abstains from Bribery, Cheating, Fraud, and Crooked Ways. - - “This, too, &c. - - 11. “He refrains from Maiming, Killing, Imprisoning, - Highway-Robbery, Plundering Villages, or obtaining money by threats - of Violence. - - * * * * * - - 1. “And he lets his mind pervade one quarter of the World with - thoughts of Love, and so the second, and so the third, and so - the fourth. And thus the whole Wide World above, below, around, - and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of - Love--far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure. - - 2. “Just, Vâsettha, as a mighty Trumpeter makes himself heard, and - that without difficulty, in all the four directions, even so, of - all Things that have Shape or Life, there is not one that he passes - by or leaves aside; but he regards them all with mind set free, and - deep-felt love. - - “Verily this, Vâsettha, is the way to a state of union with Brahmâ. - - 3. “And he lets his mind pervade all parts of the World with - thoughts of Pity, Sympathy, and Equanimity. - - * * * * * - - 9. “When he had thus spoken, the young Brâhmans, Vâsettha and - Bhâradvâga, addressed the Blessed One, and said:-- - - ‘Most excellent, Lord, are the words of thy mouth, most excellent! - Just as if a man were to set up that which is thrown down, or - were to reveal that which is hidden away, or were to point out - the right road to him who has gone astray, or were to bring a - Lamp into the Darkness, so that those who have eyes can see - eternal forms--just even so, Lord, has the Truth been made known - to us, in many a figure, by the Blessed One. And we, even we, - betake ourselves, Lord, to the Blessed One, as our Refuge, to the - Truth and to the Brotherhood. May the Blessed One accept us as - disciples, as true believers from this time forth, so long as life - endures!’”--_Buddhist Suttas_, Translated from Pâli, by T. W. Rhys - Davids. _Sacred Books of the East._ Ed. by Max Müller, Clarendon - Press, Oxford. 1881. - -As for the older (sacerdotal) religionism of the Peninsula--that of -Brahma--the force of Truth obliges us here to remark that, while the -great mass of the Hindus continue to shrink with disgust and abhorrence -from the Slaughter-house and from the sanguinary diet of their -conquerors and rulers, Mohammedan and Christian, the richer classes, -and even many of the Brahmins and priests have long conformed, in great -measure at least, to Western dietetic practices; and (the flesh of the -Cow or Ox excepted), no more than other religionists do they scruple to -violate the laws of their Sacred Books--the _Vedas_--which, however, -are not so _humane_ as the teaching of the great Founder of Buddhism, -as preserved in the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, the _Tripataka_, being -more essentially ritual and ceremonial than its popular off-shoot. -Yet there are traces in the sacred writings of Hinduism of a strong -consciousness of the irreligionism of feeding upon slaughtered animals, -as in the Laws of Manu, their Sacred Legislator, where it is laid down -that:-- - - “The man who forsakes not the Laws, and eats not flesh-meat like - a blood-thirsty demon, shall attain good-will in this world, and - shall not be afflicted with Maladies.”--(Quoted in the Works of Sir - Wm. Jones, _vol. iii., 206_.) - - “The man who perceives in his own soul the Supreme Good present - in all beings acquires equanimity towards them all, and shall be - absorbed, at last, in the highest Essence--even in that of the - Almighty himself.”--_Conclusion of the Laws of Manu._ - -It is superfluous to insist upon the fact that inhabitants of the -hotter and, in particular, of the tropical regions of the globe -have, as a matter of course, even less valid pretexts for resorting -to _butchering_ than have the natives of colder climates; and that -proportionally, therefore, is the reprobation to which they are -obnoxious. (See, among other recent testimony, that of Shib Chunder -Bose in his interesting book--_The Hindus as they Are_. London: Ed. -Stanford, 1881). The writer has usefully exposed the yearly-increasing -evils to India from the example of English dietetic habits. - - - - -IV. - -OVID. - - -The original (the peculiar beauties of which cannot easily be -represented in a modern idiom) of the English version already given in -this work, with the concluding verses omitted in that translation, is -here subjoined:-- - - Primusque animalia mensis - Arcuit imponi: primus quoque talibus ora - Docta quidem solvit, sed non et credita, verbis:-- - “Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis - Corpora. _Sunt Fruges; sunt deducentia ramos - Pondere Poma suo, tumidæque in vitibus Uvæ. - Sunt Herbæ Dulces; sunt, quæ mitescere flammâ, - Mollirique queant. Nec vobis lacteus Humor - Eripitur, nec Mella thymi redolentia florem. - Prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia Tellus - Suggerit: atque epulas sine Cæde et Sanguine præbet._ - Carne Feræ sedant jejunia; _nec tamen Omnes_. - Quippe Equus, et Pecudes, Armentaque gramine vivunt. - At quibus ingenium est immansuetumque ferumque-- - Armeniæ Tigres, iracundique Leones, - Cumque Lupis Ursi--dapibus cum sanguine gaudent. - Heu quantum Scelus est--in viscera viscera condi, - Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus, - Alteriusque animantem animantis vivere leto! - Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas optima Matrum - Terra parit, _nil to nisi tristia mandere sævo - Vulnera dente juvat, ritusque referre Cyclopum? - Nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis - Et male morati poteris jejunia ventris?_ - At vetus illa Ætas, cui fecimus Aurea nomen, - Fœtibus arboreis et, quas humus educat, Herbis - Fortunata fuit: nee polluit ora Cruore. - Tunc et Aves tutas movere per aëra pennas, - Et Lepus impavidus mediis erravit in agris: - Nec sua credulitas piscem suspenderat hamo. - Cuncta sine insidiis, nullamque timentia Fraudem, - Plenaque Pacis erant. Postquam non utilis auctor - Victibus invidit (quisquis fuit ille virorum), - Corporeasque dapes avidam demersit in alvum. - Fecit iter sceleri; primâque e cæde Ferarum - Incaluisse putem maculatum sanguine ferrum. - Idque satis fuerat; nostrumque petentia letum - Corpora missa neci, salvâ pietate, fatemur: - Sed quàm danda neci, tàm non epulanda, fuerunt. - - * * * * * - - Quid meruistis, Oves, placidum pecus, inque tuendos - Natum homines, pleno quæ fertis in ubere nectar? - Mollia quæ nobis vestras velamina Lanas - Præbetis, Vitâque magis quàm morte juvatis. - Quid meruêre Boves--animal sine fraude dolisque - Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores? - _Immemor est demùm, nee Frugum, munere dignus, - Qui potuit, curvi dempto modo pondere aratri, - Ruricolam mactare suum: qui trita labore - Illa, quibus toties durum renovaverat Arvum, - Tot dederat messes, percussit colla securi._” - “Nec satis est quòd tale nefas committitur: _ipsos - Inscripsêre Deos sceleri_, numenque Supernum - Cæde Laboriferi credunt gaudere Juvenci! - Victima labe carens, et præstantissima formâ, - (Nam placuisse nocet), vittis præsignis et auro, - Sistitur ante aras, auditque ignara precantem: - Imponique suæ videt, inter cornua, fronti - Quas coluit fruges, percussaque sanguine cultros - Inficit in liquidâ prævisos forsitan undâ. - Protinus ereptas viventi pectore fibras - Inspiciunt: mentesque Deûm scrutantur in illis![290] - “Unde fames Homini vetitorum tanta ciborum? - Audetis vesci, _genus O Mortale_! Quod, oro, - Ne facite: et monitis animos advertite nostris. - Cumque Boûm dabitis cæsorum membra palato - _Mandere vos vestros scite et sentite Colonos_. - - * * * * * - - “Neve Thyestêis cumulemur viscera mensis. - _Quàm male consuescit, quàm se parat ille cruori. - Impius humano, Vituli qui guttura cultro - Rumpit, et immotas præbet mugitibus aures! - Aut qui vagitus similes puerilibus Hœdum - Edentem jugulare potest; aut Alite vesci - Cui dedit ipse cibos--Quantum est, quod desit in istis - Ad plenum facinus! Quò transitus inde paratur!_ - “Bos aret, aut mortem senioribus imputet annis: - Horriferum contra Borean Ovis arma ministret; - Ubera dent saturæ manibus præstanda Capellæ. - Retia cum pedicis, laqueosque, artesque dolosas - Tollite: nec Volucrem viscatâ fallite virgâ, - Nec formidatis Cervos eludite pinnis, - Nec celate cibis uncos fallacibus hamos. - Perdite, si qua nocent: verùm hæc quòque perdite tantùm: - Ora vacent epulis, alimentaque congrua carpant.” - - _Metamorphoseon_, _Lib._ xv. 72-142, 462-478. - -Nor is this the only passage in his writings in which the Pagan poet -proves himself to have been not without that humaneness and feeling so -rare alike in non-Christian and in Christian poetry. In the charming -story of the visit of the disguised and incarnate Celestials to the -cottage of the pious peasants, Philemon and Baucis, Ovid takes the -opportunity to present an alluring picture of the innocent fruits which -were placed before the divine guests--a picture which, probably, was -present to Milton in recording the similar hospitality of Eve. - -Among the fragrant dishes--“savoury fruits, of taste to please true -appetite”--appear Figs, Nuts, Dates, Plums, Grapes, Apples, Olives, -Radishes, Onions, and Endive, with Honey, Eggs, and Milk:-- - - “Ponitur hìc bicolor sinceræ bacca Minervæ, - Conditaque in liquidâ Corna autumnalia fæce: - Intubaque et Radix, et Lactis massa Coacti: - Ovaque, non acri leviter versata Favillâ. - - * * * * * - - Hìc Nux, hìc mista est rugosis Carica Palmis, - Prunaque, et in patulis redolentia Mala canistris, - Et de purpureis collectæ vitibus Uvæ. - Candidus in medio Favus est: super omnia vultus - Accessêre boni.” ... - -We are not surprised, however, that, notwithstanding all this variety -of sufficient foods, ignorant peasants, imitating the vicious examples -of their rich neighbours, thought it due to “hospitality” to sacrifice -life; and they were on the point of slaughtering the only _non-human_ -being belonging to them--a Goose, the “guardian of the cottage”--when -the heavenly visitants intervene, and forbid the unnecessary -barbarism:-- - - “Unicus anser erat, minimæ custodia villæ, - Quem Dîs hospitibus domini mactare parabant. - Ille celer pennâ tardos ætate fatigat, - Eluditque diu. Tandemque est visus ad ipsos - Confugisse Deos. Superi vetuêre necari: - ‘Dîque sumus,’” &c. - -When the rest of the inhabitants of Phrygia, were, for their -wickedness, destroyed by indignant Heaven, the two old peasants, we -may add, found safety from the general _Deluge_. (_Metam._ viii. -664-688).[291] - -It may be noted in this place that the great “Epicurean” poet, Horace -(Ovid’s contemporary), _bon-vivant_ though he was, and apparently -uninspired by humanitarian feeling, yet now and again expresses his -conviction of the superiority of the Fruit to the Flesh banquet, and of -the greater compatibility of the former with the poetic genius. E.g. -_Carmina_ I., 31. _Ad Apollinem_:-- - - _Me pascunt Olivæ - Me Cichorea levesque Malvæ._ - - (“Olives, Endives, and easily-digested Mallows are my fare.”) - -_Satire II._ 2. “Frugality.:”-- - - “Quæ virtus et quanta, boni, sit vivere Parvo, - - * * * * * - - Discite non inter lances mensasque nitentes, - Cum stupet insanis acies fulgoribus, et cum - Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat, - Verum hic impransi mecum disquirite-- - _Male Vervum examinat omnis - Corruptus judex_. - - * * * * * - - Cum labor extuderit fastidia, siccus, inanis - Sperne cibum vilem: nisi Hymettia mella Falerno - Ne biberis diluta.... - _Cum sale Panis - Latrantem stomachum bene leniet._... - _Non in caro nidore voluptas - Summa sed in te ipso. Tu pulmentaria qucere - Sudando_: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea, - Nec scarus aut poterit peregrina juvare lagois. - - * * * * * - - _Num vesceris istâ - Quam laudas, plumâ? Cocto num adest honor idem?_ - - * * * * * - - At vos - Præsentes Austri, coquite horum obsonia. - - * * * * * - - Ergo - Si quis nunc mergos suaves edixerit assos, - Parebit pravi docilis Romana juventus. - - * * * * * - - Accipe nunc, victus tenuis quæ quantaque secum - Afferat. Imprimis valeas bene....” - -His arraignment of the rich glutton, who obliges and allows the poor -man to starve in the midst of plenty, is worthy of the morality of -Seneca:-- - - “Ergo, - Quod superat, non est melius quo insumere possis? - _Cur eget indignus quisquam te divite?_” - - - - -V. - -MUSONIUS (1ST CENTURY, A.D.), - - -a stoic writer of great repute with his contemporaries, son of a -Roman Eques, was born at Volsinii (Bolsena), in Etruria, at the end -of the reign of Augustus. He was banished by Nero, who especially -hated the professors of the _Porch_; but by Vespasian he was held in -extraordinary honour when the rest of the philosophers were expelled -from Rome. The time of his death is uncertain. He was the author of -various philosophical works which are characterised by Suïdas as -“distinguished writings of a highly philosophic nature,” who also -attributes to him (but on uncertain evidence) letters to Apollonius -of Tyana. We are indebted for knowledge of his opinions to a work (of -unknown authorship) entitled _Memoirs of Musonius the Philosopher_. It -is from this work that Stobæus (_Anthologion_), Aulus Gellius, Arrian, -and others seem to have borrowed, in quoting the _dicta_ of the great -Stoic teacher. All the extant fragments of his writings are carefully -collected by Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1822). (See also Herr Ed. Baltzer’s -valuable monograph, _Musonius: Charakterbild aus Der Römischen -Kaiserzeit_. Nordhausen, 1871):-- - - “On diet he used to speak often and very earnestly, as of a matter - important in itself and in its effects. For he thought that - continence in meats and drinks is the beginning and groundwork of - temperance. Once, forsaking his usual line of argument, he spoke as - follows:-- - - “‘As we should prefer cheap fare to costly, and that which is easy - to that which is hard to procure, so also, that which is akin - to man to that which is not so. Akin to us is that from plants, - grains, and such other vegetable products as nourish him well; - also what is derived from (other) animals--not slaughtered, but - otherwise serviceable. Of these foods the most suitable are such - as we may use at once without fire, for such are readiest to hand. - Such are fruits in season, and some herbs, milk, cheese, and - honeycombs. Moreover such as need fire, and belong to the classes - of grains or herbs, are also not unsuitable, but are all, without - exception, akin to man.’ - - “Eating of flesh-meat he declared to be _brutal_, and adapted to - savage animals. It is heavier, he said, and hindering thought and - intelligence; the vapour arising from it is turbid and darkens the - soul, so that they who partake of it abundantly are seen to be - slower of apprehension. As man is [at his best] most nearly related - to the Gods of all beings on earth, so, also, his _food_ should be - most like to that of the Gods. They, he said, are content with the - steams that rise from earth and waters, and we shall take the food - most like to theirs, if we take that which is _lightest and purest_. - - “So our soul also will be pure and clear, and, being so, will be - best and wisest, as Heracleitus judges when he says the clear - soul is wisest and best. As it is, said Musonius, we are fed far - worse than the irrational beings; for they, though they are driven - fiercely by appetite as by a scourge, and pounce upon their food, - still are devoid of cunning and contrivance in regard to their - fare--being satisfied with what comes in their way, seeking only - to be filled and nothing further. But we invent manifold arts and - devices the more to sweeten the pleasure of food and to deceive the - gullet. Nay, to such a pitch of daintiness and greediness have we - come, that some have composed treatises, as of music and medicine, - so also of cookery, which greatly increase the pleasure in the - gullet, but ruin the health. At any rate, you may see that those - who are fastidious in the choice of foods are far more sickly in - body--some even, like craving women, loathing customary foods, and - having their stomachs ruined. Hence, as good-for-nothing steel - continually needs sharpening, so their stomachs at table need the - continual whet of some strong tasting food.... Hence, too, it is - our duty to eat for life, not for pleasure (only), at least if we - are to follow the excellent saying of Socrates, that, while most - men lived to eat, he ate to live. For, surely, no one, who aspires - to the character of a virtuous man, will deign to resemble the - many, and live for eating’s sake as they do, hunting from every - quarter the pleasure which comes from food. - - “Moreover, that God, who made mankind, provided them with meats - and drinks for preservation, not for pleasure, will appear from - this. When food is most especially performing its proper function - in digestion and assimilation, then it gives no pleasure to the man - at all--yet we are then fed by it and strengthened. _Then_ we have - no sensation of pleasure, and yet this time is longer than that in - which we are eating. But if it were for pleasure that God contrived - our food, we ought to derive pleasure from it throughout this - longer time, and not merely at the passing moment of consumption. - _Yet, nevertheless, for that brief moment of enjoyment we make - provision of ten thousand dainties_; we sail the sea to its - furthest bounds; _cooks are more sought after than husbandmen_. - Some lavish on dinners the price of estates, and that though their - bodies derive no benefit from the costliness of the viands. - - “Quite the contrary; _it is those who use the cheapest food who are - the strongest_. For example, you may, for the most part, see slaves - more sturdy than masters, country-folk than towns-folk, poor than - rich--more able to labour, sinking less at their work, seldomer - ailing, more easily enduring frost, heat, sleeplessness, and the - like. Even if cheap food and dear strengthens the body alike, - still we ought to choose the cheap; for this is more sober and - more suited to a virtuous man; inasmuch as what is easy to procure - is, for good men, more proper for food than what is hard--what is - free from trouble than what gives trouble--what is ready than what - is not ready. To sum up in a word the whole use of diet, I say - that we ought to make its aim health and strength, for these are - the only ends for which we should eat, and they require no large - outlay.”[292] - - - - -VI. - -LESSIO. 1554-1623, - - -Born at Brechten, a town in Brabant, of influential family, this noted -Hygeist, at a very early age, exhibited so exceptional a disposition as -to be known among his school-fellows as the “prophet.” His ardour for -learning was so intense as to cause him to forget the hours of meals, -and to reduce his time for sleep to the shortest period possible. -Having obtained a scholarship at the Arras College in Louvain, Lessio -pursued the course of studies there with the greatest success, and by -his fellow-students was proclaimed “prince of philologers.” At the age -of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. Two years later he was -elected to the Chair of Philosophy at Douai. In 1585 he accepted the -Professorship of Theology at Louvain. - -So extraordinary were the respect and veneration which he had attracted -in his Order and from all who had access to him, that not only did his -death cause the greatest regret, but (as we are assured) his friends -contended among themselves for possession of every possible relic and -memento “of one who had composed so admirable works.” He was interred -before the high altar of the church of his college in Louvain. Held -in high honour during life, after his death so rare an ornament of -his Church was signally eulogised by the Pope, Urbano VIII.; and he -was even believed to have worked miracles. His praises are especially -recorded in a book entitled _De Vitâ et Moribus R. P. Leonardi -Lessii_--reprinted at Paris, 1644. - -Principal Writings: _De Justitiâ et de Jure Actionum, Humanarum, &c._ -(reprinted seven times). Many of the propositions, it seems, eventually -came under the censure of the Theological Faculty, the Bishops, and the -Pontiffs. - -_Quæ Fides et Religio sit Capessenda, Consultatio._ Anvers, 1610. -In the estimation of S. François de Sales, a work “not so much that of -Lessio as of an Angel of the Judgment (Ange du Grand Conseil).” - -_Hygiasticon_ (Anvers, 1613-14, 8vo); it is superfluous to remark, his -really valuable work. It was translated from the Latin into French by -Sebastian Hardy, with the title of _Le Vrai Régime de Vivre pour la -Conservation du Corps et de l’Ame_. Paris, 1646. Another editor, _La -Bonnodière_, added notes, republishing it under the title of _De la -Sobriété et de Ses Avantages_. Paris, 1701. - -“Lessio,” writes the author of the article in the _Biographie -Universelle_, “having been condemned by the physicians to have no -more than two years longer to live, himself studied the principles of -_Hygiene_, was struck by the example of Cornaro, resolved to imitate -him, and found himself so well from such imitation that he translated -his book (_Della Vita Sobria_), joining to it the results of his own -experience, to which he owed the prolongation of his life by forty -years.” For the rest, he was a man of extensive erudition; and Justus -Lipsius celebrates, in some fine verse, the variety of his talents. -(See _Biog. Universelle Ancienne et Moderne_. À Paris, chez Michaud, -1819.) - -The _Hygiasticon_ is prefaced by testimonials from three eminent -physicians, setting forth their concurrence in the principles of the -author. The English translation (1634) has prefixed to it addresses, in -verse, to him; one of which is by Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, and -a _Dialogue between Glutton and Echo_, also in verse. Affixed to this -edition are an English version of Cornaro, by George Herbert, and a -translation of an anonymous treatise by another Italian writer--_That a -Spare Diet is better than a Splendid and Sumptuous One: A Paradox_. - -In his chap. v. “Of the Advantages which a Sober Diet brings to the -Body, and first, That it freeth almost from all Diseases”--Lessio -promises the adherents of it, that in the first place:-- - - “It cloth free a man and preserve him from almost all manner - of diseases. For it rids him of catarrhs, coughs, wheezings, - dizziness, and pain in the head and stomach. It drives away - apoplexies, lethargies, falling-sickness, and other ill-affections - of the brain. It cures the gout in the feet and in the hands; the - sciatica and diseases in the joints. It also prevents crudity - (indigestion), the parent of all diseases. In a word, it so tempers - the humours, and maintains them in an equal proportion, that they - hurt not any way, either in quantity or quality. And this both - reason and experience do confirm. For we see that those who keep - themselves to a sober course of diet are very seldom, or rather - never, molested with diseases; and if at any time they happen to - be oppressed with sickness, _they do bear it much better, and - sooner recover than those others whose bodies are full fraught with - ill-humours_. - - “I know very many who, though they be weak by natural constitution, - and well grown in years, and continually busied in employments of - the mind, nevertheless by the help of this temperance, live in - health, and have passed the greater part of their lives, which have - been many years long, without any notable sickness.... - - “The self-same comes to pass in wounds, bruises, puttings out of - joint, and breaking of bones; in regard that there is either no - flux at all of ill-humours, or, at least, very little of that part - affected.... Furthermore an abstinent diet doth arm and fortify - against the plague; for the venom thereof is much better resisted - if the body be clear and free--wherefore Sokrates brought to pass - that he himself was never sick of the plague, which ofttimes - greatly wasted the city of Athens, where he lived, as Laertius - writeth. The third commodity of the diet is that, although it doth - not cure such diseases as are incurable in their own nature, yet - it doth _so much mitigate and allay them as that they are easily - borne_, and do not much hinder the functions of the mind. This is - seen by daily experience.” - -Lessio proceeds to descant upon the other benefits of the reformed -regimen--such as that it prolongs life (other things being equal) to -extreme old age, produces cheerfulness, activity, memory, and the -like.[293] - - * * * * * - -Moffet, another hygienic writer of the sixteenth century, demands -indignantly:-- - - “Till God (_i.e._, Superstition or Fraud) would have it so [the - slaying of other animals for food], who dared to touch with his - lips the remnant of a dead carcase? or to set the prey of a wolf, - or the meat of a falcon, upon his table? Who, I say, durst feed - upon those members which, lately, did see, go, bleat, low, feel, - and move?[294] - - “Nay, tell me, can civil and human eyes yet abide the slaughter of - an innocent ‘beast,’ the cutting of his throat, the smashing him on - the head, the flaying of his skin, the quartering and dismembering - of his limbs, the sprinkling of his blood, the ripping up of his - veins, the enduring of ill-savours, the heaving of heavy sighs, - sobs, and groans, the passionate struggling and panting for life, - which only hard-hearted butchers can endure to see? - - “Is not the earth sufficient to give us meat, but that we must also - rend up the bowels of ‘beasts,’ birds, and fishes? Yes, truly, - there is enough in the earth to give us meat; yea, verily, and - choice of meats, needing either none or no great preparation, which - we may take without fear, and cut down without trembling; which, - also, we may mingle a hundred ways to delight our taste, and feed - on safely to fill our bellies.”--_Health’s Improvement_, by Dr. W. - Moffet (ed. 1746), as quoted by Ritson. The author died in 1604. - - * * * * * - -The author of the _Anatomy of Abuses_, a writer of the same period, -denouncing the unnatural and luxurious living of his time, compares the -two diets with equal force and truth:-- - - “I cannot persuade myself otherwise, but that our _niceness_ - and _cautiousness_ in diet hath altered our nature, distempered - our bodies, and made us subject to hundreds of diseases and - _discrasies_ (indigestions) more than ever our forefathers were - subject unto, and consequently of shorter life than they.... Who - are sicklier than they who fare deliciously every day? Who is - corrupter? Who belcheth more? Who looketh worse? Who is weaker and - feebler than they? Who hath more filthy phlegm and putrefaction - (replete with gross humours) than they? And, to be brief, who dieth - sooner than they? - - “Do we not see the poor man who eateth brown bread (whereof some - is made of rye, barley, _peason_, beans, oats, and such other - gross grains), and drinketh small drink, yea, sometimes water, and - feedeth upon milk, butter and cheese--I say do we not see such a - one healthfuller, stronger, fairer complexioned, and longer-living - than the other that fares daintily every day; and how should it be - otherwise?”--_Stubbes’s Anatomy of Abuses_, 1583. Quoted by Ritson - (_Abstinence from Flesh: A Moral Duty._). - - - - -VII. - -COWLEY. 1620-1667. - - -Among the poets of the age second only to Milton and to Dryden. _The -Garden_, from which we extract the following just sentiments, is -prefixed by way of dedication to the _Kalendarium Hortense_ of John -Evelyn, his personal and political friend. _The Gardener’s Almanac_, it -is worthy of note, is one of the earliest prototypes of the numerous -more modern treatises of the kind. It had reached a tenth edition in -1706. - - “When Epicurus to the world had taught - That pleasure is the chiefest good, - (And was, perhaps, i’th’ right, if rightly understood), - His life he to his doctrine brought, - And in a garden’s shade that Sovereign pleasure sought: - Whoever a true _Epicure_ would be. - May there find cheap and virtuous luxury. - Vitellius his table which did hold - As many creatures as the ark of old-- - That fiscal table to which every day - All countries did a constant tribute pay-- - Could nothing more delectable afford - Than Nature’s Liberality-- - Helped with a little Art and Industry-- - Allows the meanest gardener’s board. - _The wanton Taste no Flesh nor Fowl can choose, - For which the Grape or Melon it would lose, - Though all th’ inhabitants of Earth and Air - Be listed in the Glutton’s bill of fare._ - - * * * * * - - Scarce any Plant is growing here. - Which against Death some weapon does not bear. - Let Cities boast that they provide - For life the ornaments of Pride; - But ’tis the Country and the Field - That furnish it with Staff and Shield. - - _The Garden._ Chertsey, 1666. - - - - -VIII. - -TRYON. 1634-1703. - - -One of the best known of the seventeenth century humane Hygeists, was -born at Bibury, a village in Gloucestershire. His father was a tiler -and plasterer, who by stress of poverty was forced to remove his son, -when no more than six years of age, from the village school, and to set -him at the work of spinning and carding, (the woollen manufacture being -then extensively carried on in Gloucestershire). At eight years of age -he became so expert, he tells us, as to be able to spin four pounds a -day, earning two shillings a week. At the age of twelve he was made -to work at his father’s employment. At this period he first learned -to read. He next took to keeping sheep. With the sum of three pounds, -realised by the sale of his four sheep, he went to London to seek his -fortune, when seventeen years old, and bound himself apprentice to a -“castor-maker,” in Fleet Street. His master was an Anabaptist--“an -honest and sober man;” and, after two years’ apprenticeship, Tryon -adopted the same religious creed. All his spare time was now devoted -entirely to study; and, with the usual ardour of scholars who depend -upon their own talents and exertions, he scarcely gave any time to food -or sleep. The holiday period, too, spent by his fellow-apprentices in -eating and drinking, and gross amusements, was utilised in the same -way. Science, and Physiology in particular, attracted his attention. - -At the age of twenty-three he first adopted the reformed diet, “my -drink being only water, and food only bread and some fruit, and that -but once a day for some time; but afterwards I had more liberty given -me by my guide, Wisdom, to eat butter and cheese; my clothing being -mean and thin; for, in all things, self-denial was now become my real -business.” This strict life he maintained for more than a year, when he -relapsed, at intervals, during the next two years. At the end of this -period he had become confirmed in his reform, and he remained to the -end strictly akreophagist, and, indeed, strictly frugal, “contenting -myself with herbs, fruits, grains, eggs, butter and cheese for food, -and pure water for drink.” About two years after his marriage he made -voyages to Barbadoes and to Holland in the way of trade--“making -beavers.” He finally settled himself in England, and at the age of -forty-eight he published his first book on _Dietetics_. - -His brief autobiography, from which the above facts are drawn, ends at -this period. His editor adds, as to his appearance and character: “his -aspect easily discovered something extraordinary; his air was cheerful, -lively, and brisk; but grave with something of authority, though he was -of the easiest access. Notwithstanding he was of no strong make, yet, -through his great temperance, regularity, and by the strength of his -spirits and vigour of his mind, he was capable of any fatigue, even to -his last illness, equally with any of the best constitutions of men -half his years. Through all his lifetime he had been a man of unwearied -application, and so indefatigable that it may be as truly said of him -as it can be of any man that he was never idle; but of such despatch -that, though fortune had allotted him as great multiplicity of business -as, perhaps, to any one of his contemporaries, yet, without any -neglect thereof, he found leisure to make such a search into Nature, -that perhaps few of this age equalled him therein: and not only into -Nature, but also into almost all arts and sciences, of some whereof he -was an improver, and of all innocent and useful ones an encourager and -promoter.”[295] - -In spite of that penetration of mind and justness of thought which -influenced him to abandon the cruelty and coarseness of the orthodox -diet, the author of _The Way to Health_ could not free himself from -certain of the credulous fancies of his age; and, it must be admitted, -his writings are by no means exempt from such prejudices. It is as a -moral reformer that he has deserved our respect, and of his numerous -books the following are noteworthy:-- - - _A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks._ London, 1682. - - _The Way to Health, Long Life, &c._ 1683, 1694, 1697. 3 vols., 8vo. - - _Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West - Indies._ London, 1684. - - _The Way to Make All People Rich: or, Wisdom’s Call to Temperance - and Frugality._ 1685. - - _Wisdom’s Doctrine: or, Aphorisms and Rules for Preserving the - Health of the Body and the Peace of the Mind._ 1696. - - _England’s Grandeur and the Way to Get Wealth: or, Promotion of - Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced._ 1699. 4_to._ - -Nothing can be more just or forcible than these expostulations:-- - - “Most men will, in words, confess that there is no blessing this - world affords comparable to health. Yet rarely do any of them - value it as they ought to do till they feel the want of it. To - him that hath obtained this goodly gift the meanest food--even - bread and water--is most pleasant, and all sorts of exercise and - labour delightful. But the contrary makes all things nauseous and - distasteful. What are full-spread Tables, Riches, or Honours, to - him that is tormented with distempers? In such a condition men do - desire nothing so much as _Health_. But no sooner is that obtained, - but their thoughts are changed, forgetting those solemn promises - and resolutions they made to God and their own souls, going on in - the old road of _Gluttony_, taking little or no care to continue - that which they so much desired when they were deprived of it. - - “Happy it were if men did but use the tenth part of that care and - diligence to preserve their minds and bodies in Health, as they - do to procure those dainties and superfluities which do generate - Diseases, and are the cause of committing many other evils, there - being but few men that do know how to use riches as they ought. - For there are not many of our wealthy men that ever consider that - as little and mean food and drink will suffice to maintain a - _lord_ in perfect health as it will a _peasant_, and render him - more capable of enjoying the benefits of the Mind and pleasures - of the Body, far beyond all ‘dainties and superfluities.’ But, - alas! the momentary pleasures of the _Throat-Custom_, vanity, - &c., do ensnare and entice most people to exceed the bounds of - necessity or convenience; and many fail through a false opinion or - misunderstanding of Nature--childishly imagining that the richer - the food is, and the more they can cram into their bellies, the - more they shall be strengthened thereby. But experience shews to - the contrary; for are not such people as accustom themselves to the - richest foods, and most _cordial_ drinks, generally the most infirm - and diseased? - - “Now the sorts of foods and drinks that breed the best blood and - finest spirits, are Herbs, Fruits, and various kinds of Grains; - also Bread, and sundry sorts of excellent food made by different - preparations of Milk, and all dry food out of which the sun hath - exhaled the gross humidity, by which all sorts of Pulses and Grains - become of a firmer substance. So, likewise, Oil is an excellent - thing, in nature more sublime and pure than Butter.” ... - -As to the unsuspected cause of the various diseases so abundant:-- - - “Many of the richest sort of people in this nation might know by - woful experience, especially in London, who do yearly spend many - hundreds, I think I may say thousands, of pounds on their _ungodly - paunches_. Many of whom may save themselves that charge and trouble - they are usually at in learning of _Monsieur Nimble-heels_, the - Dancing-Master, how to go upright; for their bellies are swollen up - to their chins, which forces them ‘to behold the sky,’[296] but not - for contemplation sake you may be sure, but out of pure necessity, - and without any more impressions of reverence towards the Almighty - Creator than their fellow-brutes; for their brains are sunk into - their bellies; _injection and ejection_ is the business of their - life, and all their precious hours are spent between the platter - and the glass and the close-stool. Are not these fine fellows to - call themselves _Christians_ and _Right-Worshipfuls_.”[297] - -In his xiv chapter, “Of Flesh and its Operation on the Body and Mind,” -Tryon employs all his eloquence in proving that the practice of -slaughtering for food is not only cruel and barbarous in itself, but -originates, or, at all events, intensifies the worst passions of men. - -Eulogising the milder manners of the followers of Pythagoras, and of -the Hindus generally, he tells his countrymen that:-- - - “The very same, and far greater, advantages would come to - pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from contention, - oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto) the - killing of other animals, and eating their flesh and blood; and, - in a short time, human murders and devilish feuds and cruelties - amongst each other would abate, and, perhaps, scarce have a - being amongst them. For _separation_ has greater power than most - imagine, whether it be from evil or from good; for whatever any - man separates himself from, that property in him presently is - weakened. Likewise, _separation_ from cruelty does wonderfully - dispel the dark clouds of ignorance, and makes the understanding - able to distinguish between the good and evil principles--first in - himself, and then in all other things proportionably. But so long - as men live under the power of all kinds of uncleanness, violence, - and oppression, they cannot see any evil therein. For this cause, - those who do not separate themselves from these evils, but are - contented to follow the multitude in the left-hand-way, and resolve - to continue the religion of their fore-fathers--though thereby they - do but continue mere _Custom_, the greatest of tyrants--’tis, I - say, impossible for such people ever to understand or know anything - _truly_, either of divine or of human things.... - - “It is a grand mistake of people in this age to say or suppose: - That Flesh affords not only a stronger nourishment, but also more - and better than Herbs, Grains, &c.; for the truth is, it does yield - more stimulation, _but not of so firm, a substance, nor so good - as that which proceeds from the other food_; for flesh has more - matter for corruption, and nothing so soon turns to putrefaction. - Now, ’tis certain, such sorts of food as are subject to putrify - _before_ they are eaten, are also liable to the same afterwards. - Besides, Flesh is of soft, moist, gross, phlegmy quality, and - generates a nourishment of a like nature; thirdly, Flesh heats the - body, and causeth a drought; fourthly, Flesh does breed great store - of noxious humours; fifthly, it must be considered that ‘beasts’ - and other living creatures are subject to diseases[298] and many - other inconveniences, and uncleannesses, surfeits, over-driving, - abuses of cruel butchers, &c., which renders their flesh still more - unwholesome. But on the contrary, all sorts of dry foods, as Bread, - Cheese, Herbs, and many preparations of Milk, Pulses, Grains, and - Fruits; as their original is more clean, so, being of a sound firm - nature, they afford a more excellent nourishment, and more easy - of concoction; so that if a man should exceed in quantity, the - Health will not, thereby, be brought into such danger as by the - superfluous eating of flesh.... - - “What an ill and ungrateful sight is it to behold dead carcasses, - and pieces of bloody, raw, flesh! It would undoubtedly appear - dreadful, and no man but would abhor to think of putting it in - his mouth, had not Use and Custom from generation to generation - familiarised it to us, which is so prevalent, that we read in some - countries the mode is to eat the bodies of their dead parents - and friends, thinking they can no way afford them a more noble - sepulchre than their own bowells. And because it is _usual_, they - do it with as little regret or nauseousness as others have when - they devour the leg of a Rabbit or the wing of a Lark. Suppose a - person were bred up in a place where it were not a _custom_ to kill - and eat flesh, and should come into our Leadenhall Market, or view - our Slaughter Houses, and see the communication we have with dead - bodies, and how blythe and merry we are at their funerals, and - what honourable sepulchres we bury the dead carcasses of beasts - in--nay, their very guts and entrails--would he not be filled with - astonishment and horror? Would he not count us cruel monsters, and - say we were _brutified_, and performed the part of beasts of prey, - to live thus on the spoils of our fellow-creatures? - - “Thus, Custom has awakened the inhuman, fierce nature, which makes - killing, handling, and feeding upon flesh and blood, without - distinction, so easy and familiar unto mankind. And the same is - to be understood of men killing and oppressing those of their own - kind; for do we not see that a soldier, who is trained up in the - wars of bloody-minded princes, shall kill a hundred men without any - trouble or regret of spirit, and such as have given him no more - offence than a sheep has given the butcher that cuts her throat. - If men have but Power and Custom on their side, they think all is - well.” - -Whatever may be thought of the zealous attempt of the pious author to -meet the assertions of the (practical) materialists, who draw their -arguments from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures, or elsewhere, his replies -to the common subterfuges or prejudices of the orthodox dietists are -able and conclusive. His _humane_ arguments, indeed, are worthy of the -most advanced thinkers of the present day; and those who are versed -in the anti-kreophagist literature of the last thirty years--in the -controversy in the press, and on the platform--will, perhaps, be -surprised to find that the ordinary prejudices or subterfuges of this -year “of Grace” are identical with those current in the year 1683. We -wish that we could transcribe some of these replies. We cannot forbear, -however, to quote his representation of the changed condition of things -under the imagined humanitarian _régime_:-- - - “Here all contention ceaseth, no hideous cries nor mournful groans - are heard, neither of man nor of ‘beast.’ No channels running with - the blood of slaughtered animals, no stinking shambles, nor bloody - butchers. No roaring of cannons, nor firing of towns. No loathsome - stinking prisons, nor iron grates to keep men from enjoying their - wife, children, and the pleasant air; nor no crying for want of - food and clothes. No rioting, nor wanton inventions to destroy as - much in one day as a thousand can get by their hard labour and - travel. No dreadful execrations and coarse language. No galloping - horses up hills, without any consideration or fellow-feeling - of the victim’s pains and burdens. No deflowering of virgins, - _and then exposing them and their own young to all the miseries - imaginable_. No letting lands and farms so dear that the farmer - must be forced to oppress himself, servants, and cattle almost - to death, and all too little to pay his rent. No oppressions of - inferiors by superiors; neither is there any want, because there - is no superfluity nor gluttony. No noise nor cries of wounded men. - No need of chirurgeons to cut bullets out of their flesh; nor no - cutting off hands, broken legs, and arms. No roaring nor crying out - with the torturing pains of the gout, nor other painful diseases - (as leprous and consumptive distempers), except through age, and - the relics of some strain they got whilst they lived intemperately. - Neither are their children afflicted with such a great number of - diseases; but are as free from distempers as lambs, calves, or the - young ones of any of the ‘beasts’ who are preserved sound and - healthful, because they have not outraged God’s law in Nature, the - breaking of which is the foundation of most, or all, cruel diseases - that afflict mankind; there being nothing that makes the difference - between Man and ‘Beasts’ in health, but only superfluity and - intemperance, both in quality and in quantity.” - -His chapter, in which he deals with the relations between the sexes and -the married state, shews him to have been as much in advance of his -time, in a sound knowledge and apprehension of Physiology, and of the -laws of Health, in that important part of hygienic science, as he was -in the special branch of Diet.[299] - -Affixed to this work is a very remarkable Essay, in the shape of _A -Dialogue between an East-Indian Brachman and a French Gentleman, -concerning the Present Affairs of Europe_. In this admirable piece, the -author ably exposes the folly no less than the horrors of war--and, -in particular, _religious_ war--all which he ultimately traces to -the first source--the iniquities and barbarism of the Shambles. The -Dialogue is worthy of the most trenchant of the humanitarian writers -of the next century. It was by meeting with _The Way to Health_ that -Benjamin Franklin, in his youth, was induced to abandon the flesh-diet, -to which revolutionary measure he ascribes his success, as well as -health in after life. - - - - -IX. - -HECQUET. 1661-1737. - - -This meritorious medical reformer, at first intended for the Church, -happily (in the event) adopted the profession which he has so truly -adorned, by his virtues, as well as by his enlightened labours. After -a long and severe course of Anatomy and Physiology, in 1684 he was -admitted as “Doctor” at Reims, and as Fellow (_Agrégé_) in the College -of Physicians in his native town. He then returned to Paris to perfect -himself in physiological science. Disgusted with the _tricasseries_ -which were excited against him by the members of his profession, -he withdrew (in 1688) to Port-Royal-des-Champs, where he succeeded -Hamon, who had just died, as physician. Here he practised the reforms -he taught, while he devoted himself to the most laborious works of -charity, giving all his time and attention to the poor for several -leagues round, and travelling the distances, great as they were, on -foot. - -His health enfeebled by excessive labour in this way, he was induced -to retire from his post at Port-Royal, and he went back to the capital -where, having gone through the necessary formalities, he was regularly -enrolled as Doctor of the Paris University, receiving the official hat -after an examination of “rare success” (1697). - -Soon afterwards the Faculty named him _Docteur-Régent_, and appointed -him to the post of Professor of _Materia Medica_. “Hecquet had soon -numerous and illustrious patients, and his services were eagerly -sought for, particularly in religious communities and in hospitals. He -attached himself to that of Charity.” In 1712 he was named Dean of the -Faculty. In the midst of so much work, he found time to publish several -medical books. - -“He exercised his art with a noble disinterestedness. The poor were -his favourite patients. He presented himself at the houses of the rich -only when absolutely obliged, or when courtesy required it. He had -much studied his art, and contributed with all his power, to advance -it, as well by his writings as by his guidance and encouragement of -young physicians.... He was in correspondence with the most famous -savants and physicians of his age. His style in Latin is correct, and -does not want eloquence; in French he is more negligent, and a little -unpolished. He was animated (_vif_) in debate, and strongly attached to -his opinions; but he sought Truth in good faith.” - -Amongst his numerous works are:-- - -_De l’Indécence aux Hommes d’Accoucher les Femmes, et de l’Obligation, -de Celles-ci de nourrir leurs enfants._ (On the Indecency of Male -Physicians Attending Women in Child-Birth) 1708. _Traité des Dispenses -du Carême_, 1709--his most celebrated book. _De la Digestion et des -Maladies de l’Estomac_, 1712. _Novus Medicinæ Conspectus cum Appendice -De Peste_, 1722. “He there combats the various systems upon the origin -of diseases, which he attributes to the disorders which supervene, in -accordance with the laws which direct the movement of the blood:” the -Plague, upon which he writes, was desolating the south of France at -that time. Also, at this period, various _brochures_ upon the Small-Pox. - -_La Médecine, la Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie des Pauvres_ (1740-2), -his most popular book--_La Brigandage de la Médecine_ (1755), -which he supplemented with _Brigandage de la Chirurgie, et de la -Pharmacie_--will sufficiently mark his attitude towards the orthodox -Schools of Medicine of his day. _Le Naturalisme des Convulsions dans -les Maladies_ (1755), with several other books upon the same subject. -The history of the _Convulsionnaires_ occupies a curious episode in -the religious history of the period, as it has occupied, and, in some -measure still, in fact, occupies the attention of physiologists and -psychologists of our own age. Hecquet, with the physiologists of the -present time, attributes the phenomena to physical and natural causes. -_La Médecine Naturelle_: “in this work the author alleges that it is -not in the blood only that is to be sought the causes of maladies, but -also in the nervous fluid.”[300] - -The books in which he treats of reform in Dietetics are the _Traité des -Dispenses and La Médecine des Pauvres_. - -However _dietetically_ heterodox and heretical, the author of _The -Treatise on Dispensations_ was of unsuspected ecclesiastical as well -as theological orthodoxy; yet he takes occasion, at the outset of -his book, to reproach his Church with its indifferentism towards so -essentially important a matter as Dietetics--scientific or moral:-- - - “It will, perhaps, be found that much theology enters into this - undertaking. We acknowledge it. One might even expect that some - zealous ecclesiastic or other would have done himself the credit of - sustaining so beautiful a cause (que quelque ecclesiastique zelé - se seroit fait gloire de soutenir une si belle cause). It might be - hoped, especially in an age like ours, when physical science is - in honour and for the benefit of everyone, and in which Medicine - has become the property of every condition.... It ought then to - have been the duty of so many Abbés, Monks and Religious Orders, - who invest themselves with the titles of physicians--who receive - their pay, who fill their employments--to advocate this part of - ecclesiastical discipline [abstinence]. But, instead of doing so, - though they undertake the care of the body, they, in fact, apply - themselves solely to the _healing_ of maladies.... One can see - enough of it, nevertheless, to be convinced that the public has - gained less from their _secrets_ than they themselves, while their - patients die more than ever under their hands....” - -In Chap. VI., _Que les Fruits, les Grains, les Legumes sont les Alimens -les plus Naturels à l’Homme_, after appealing to _Gen._ i. and “the -Garden of Eden,” Hecquet proceeds to insist that our foods should be -analogous and consistent with the juices which maintain our life; and -these are Fruits, Grains, Seeds, and Roots. But prejudice, of long -standing, opposes itself to this truth. The false ideas attached to -certain traditional terms have warped the minds of the majority of the -world, and they have succeeded in persuading themselves that it is upon -stimulating foods that depend the strength and health of men. From -thence has come the love of wine, of spirituous liquors, and of gross -meats. The ambiguity (équivoque) comes from confounding the idea of -Remedy with that of Food. - - “Here the greater part of the world take alarm. ‘How,’ say they, - ‘can we be supported on Grains, which furnish but dry meal, fitter - to cloy than to nourish; on Fruits, which are but condensed water; - with vegetables, which are fit but for manure (fumier)?’ But this - meal, well prepared, forms Bread, the strongest of all aliments, - this condensed water is the same that has caused the Trees to - attain so great bulk, this _fumier_ becomes such only because - they prepare vegetables badly, and eat of them to excess. Besides, - how can men affect to fear failure in strength, in eating what - nourishes even the most robust animals, who would become even - formidable to us, if only they knew their own strength.” - -In Chap. VII., _Que l’Usage de la Viande n’est pas le plus naturel à -l’Homme, ni absolument Nécessaire_, he remarks:-- - -“It is incredible how much Prejudice has been allowed to operate -in favour of [flesh] meat, while so many facts are opposed to the -pretended necessity of its use.” - -Having entered into the physiological argument, now so well-worn, among -other reasons he adduces the fact that “the soundest part of the world, -or the most enlightened, have believed in the obligation to abstain -from flesh,” and “the very nature of flesh, which is digested with -difficulty, and which furnishes the worst juices.” - -Nature being uniform in her method of procedure, is anything else -necessary to determine whether Man is intended to live upon flesh-meats -than to compare the organs which have to prepare them for his -nourishment, with those of animals whom Nature manifestly has destined -for carnage? And herein it may be clearly recognised, since men have -neither fangs nor talons to tear flesh, that it is very far from being -the food most natural to them. - -He quotes numerous examples of eminent persons, as well as of nations -in all times, and adds, as an argument not easy to be answered, that:-- -“It is proved it would not be difficult to nourish animals who live -on flesh with non-flesh substances, while it is almost impossible to -nourish with flesh those who live ordinarily upon vegetable substances.” - -Hecquet devotes several chapters to a description of various Fruits and -Herbs, and also of various kinds of Fish, which he holds to be much -less objectionable and more innocent food than flesh. Comparing the two -diets, we must acknowledge:-- - - “It causes our nature to revolt, and excites horror to eat raw - flesh, and as it is presented to us naturally; and it becomes - supportable for us to the taste and to the sight only after long - preparation of cooking, which deprives it of what is inhuman and - disgusting in its original state; and, often, it is only after - _many_ various preparations and strange seasonings that it can - become agreeable or sanitarily good. It is not so with other meats: - the majority, as they come from the hand of Nature, without cookery - and without art, are found proper to nourish, and are pleasant to - the taste--plain proof that they are intended by Nature to maintain - our health. Fruits are of such property that, when well-chosen and - quite ripe, they excite the appetite by _their own virtue_, and - might become, without preparation, sufficing.... If Vegetables or - Fish have need of fire to accommodate them to our nature, the fire - appears to be used less to _correct_ these sorts of foods than to - penetrate them, to make them soft and tender, and to develope what - in them is most proper and suitable for health.... In fine, it is - clear that vegetables and fish have need of less, and less strange - and récherché, condiments--all sensible marks that these aliments - are the most natural and suited to man.”[301] - -Hecquet’s _Traité des Dispenses_ received the formal approval and -commendation of several “doctors regent” of the Faculty of Medicine -of the Paris University, which testimonies are prefixed to the second -edition of 1710. With his English contemporary, Dr. Cheyne, and other -medical reformers, however, he experienced much insult and ridicule -from anonymous professional critics. - - - - -X. - -POPE. 1688-1744. - - _Primâque e cæde ferarum - Incaluisse putem maculatum sanguine ferrum._ - - (Ovid _Metam._ XV. 106). - - - “I cannot think it extravagant to imagine that mankind are no - less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion - over the lower ranks of Beings, than for the exercise of tyranny - over their own species. The more entirely the inferior creation - is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for - the mismanagement of it; and the rather, as the very condition of - Nature renders these beings incapable of receiving any recompense - in another life, for their ill-treatment in this. - - “It is observable of those noxious animals, who have qualities - most powerful to injure us, that they naturally avoid mankind, and - never hurt us unless provoked, or necessitated by hunger. Man, on - the other hand, _seeks_ out and pursues even the most inoffensive - animals on purpose to persecute and destroy them. Montaigne thinks - it some reflection on human nature itself, that few people take - delight in seeing ‘beasts’ caress or play together, but almost - every one is pleased to see them lacerate and worry one another. - - “I am sorry this temper is become almost a distinguishing character - of our own nation, from the observation which is made by foreigners - of our beloved _Pastimes_--Bear-baiting, Cock-fighting, and the - like. We should find it hard to vindicate the destroying of - anything that has Life, merely out of wantonness. Yet in this - principle our children are bred, and one of the first pleasures we - allow them is the licence of inflicting Pain upon poor animals. - Almost as soon as we are sensible what Life is ourselves, we make - it our Sport to take it from other beings. I cannot but believe a - very good use might be made of the fancy which children have for - Birds and Insects. Mr. Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted - them to her children; but rewarded or punished them as they treated - well or ill. This was no other than entering them betimes into a - daily exercise of Humanity, and improving their very diversion to a - Virtue. - - “I fancy, too, some advantage might be taken of the common notion, - that ’tis ominous or unlucky to destroy some sorts of Birds, as - Swallows or Martins. This opinion might possibly arise from the - confidence these Birds seem to put in us, by building under our - roofs, so that it is a kind of violation of the laws of Hospitality - to murder them. As for Robin-red-breasts, in particular, ’tis - not improbable they owe their security to the old ballad of the - _Children in the Wood_. However it be, I don’t know, I say, why - this prejudice, well-improved and carried as far as it would go, - might not be made to conduce to the preservation of many innocent - beings, who are now exposed to all the wantonness of an ignorant - barbarity.... - - “When we grow up to be men we have another succession of sanguinary - Sports--in particular, _Hunting_. I dare not attack a diversion - which has such Authority and Custom to support it; but must have - leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with - the example and number of the chasers, not a little contribute to - resist those checks which Compassion would naturally suggest in - behalf of the Animal pursued. Nor shall I say, with M. Fleury, - that this sport is a remain of the Gothic Barbarity; but I must - animadvert upon a certain custom yet in use with us, barbarous - enough to be derived from the Goths or even the Scythians--I mean - that savage compliment our Huntsmen pass upon ladies of quality who - are present at the death of a Stag, when they put the knife into - their hands to cut the throat of a helpless, trembling, and weeping - creature. - - “_Questuque cruentus, - Atque imploranti similis._”[302] - - “But if our ‘Sports’ are destructive, our _Gluttony_ is more so, - and in a more inhuman manner. Lobsters roasted alive, Pigs whipt - to death, Fowls sewed up,[303] are testimonies of our outrageous - Luxury. Those who (as Seneca expresses it) divide their lives - betwixt an anxious Conscience and a Nauseated Stomach, have a - just reward of their gluttony in the diseases it brings with it. - For human savages, like other wild beasts, find snares and poison - in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetite to - their destruction. I know nothing more shocking or horrid than the - prospect of one of their kitchens covered with blood, and filled - with the cries of Beings expiring in tortures. It gives one an - image of a giant’s den in a romance, bestrewed with the scattered - heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty. - - “The excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of good nature in - his writings than I remember in any author) cites a saying of Cato - to this effect:--_That ’tis no easy task to preach to the Belly - which has no ears._ Yet if (says he) we are ashamed to be so out - of fashion as not to offend, let us at least offend with _some_ - discretion and measure. If we kill an animal for our provision, let - us do it with the meltings of compassion, and without tormenting - it. Let us consider that it is, in its own nature, cruelty to put a - living being to death--we, at least destroy a soul that has sense - and perception.[304] - - “History tells us of a wise and polite nation that rejected a - person of the first quality, who stood for a justiciary office, - only because he had been observed, in his youth, to take pleasure - in teasing and murdering of Birds. And of another that expelled a - man out of the Senate for dashing a bird against the ground who - had taken refuge in his bosom. Every one knows how remarkable the - Turks are for their Humanity in this kind. I remember an Arabian - author, who has written a Treatise to show how far a man, supposed - to have subsisted in a desert island, without any instruction, or - so much as the sight of any other man, may, by the pure light of - Nature, attain the knowledge of Philosophy and Virtue. One of the - first things he makes him observe is the benevolence of Nature, in - the protection and preservation of her creatures.[305] In imitation - of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his self-taught - philosopher would, of course, fall into, is to relieve and assist - all the animals about them in their wants and distresses.... - - “Perhaps that voice or cry, so nearly resembling the human, with - which Nature has endowed so many different animals, might purposely - be given them to move our Pity, and prevent those cruelties we are - to apt to inflict upon our Fellow Creatures.” - -Pope quotes, in part, the admirable verses of Ovid, Metam. XV., with -Dryden’s translation--and an apposite _fable_ of the Persian Pilpai, -which illustrates the base ingratitude of men who torture and slaughter -their fellow labourers.--“I know it” (this common ingratitude) said -the Cow, “by woful experience; for I have served a man this long time -with milk, butter, and cheese, and brought him, besides, a Calf every -year--but now I am old, he turns me into this pasture with design to -sell me to a butcher, who, shortly, will make an end of me.”--_The -Guardian_, LXI, May 21, 1713. - -With Pilpai or Bidpai’s fable, compare that of La Fontaine on the same -subject--_L’Homme et la Couleuvre_. - - - - -XI. - -CHESTERFIELD. 1694-1773. - - -To the expression of the opinion or feeling of Lord Chesterfield on -butchering, given, in its place, in the body of this work (page 140), -is here subjoined the remainder of his paper in _The World_. The value -of such testimony may be deemed proportionate to the extreme rarity -of any protests of this sort from those who, by their influential -position, are the most _bound_ to make them:-- - - “Although this reflection [the fact of the preying of the - stronger upon the weaker throughout Nature] had force enough to - _dispythagorise_ me _before my companions_ [in his college at - the University of Oxford] _had time to make observations upon my - behaviour, which could by no means have turned to my advantage in - the world_, I for a great while retained so tender a regard for - all my fellow-creatures, that I have several times brought myself - into imminent peril by putting butcher-boys in mind, that their - Sheep were going to die, and that they walked full as fast as - could reasonably be expected, without the cruel blows they were so - liberal in bestowing upon them. As I commonly came off the worst - in these disputes, and as I could not but observe that I often - aggravated, never diminished, the ill-treatment of these innocent - sufferers, I soon found it necessary to consult my own ease, as - well as security, by turning down another street, whenever I met - with an adventure of this kind, rather than be compelled to be a - spectator of what would shock me, or be provoked to run myself into - danger, without the least advantage to those whom I would assist. - - “I have kept strictly, ever since, to this method of fleeing from - the sight of cruelty, wherever I could find ground-room for it; - and I make no manner of doubt, that I have more than once escaped - the horns of a Mad Ox, as all of that species are called, that do - not choose to be tortured as well as killed. But, on the other - hand, these escapes of mine have very frequently run me into great - inconveniences. I have sometimes been led into such a series of - blind alleys, that it has been matter of great difficulty to me to - find my way out of them. I have been betrayed by my hurry into the - middle of a market--_the proper residence of Inhumanity_. I have - paid many a six-and-eightpence for non-appearance at the hour my - lawyer had appointed for business; and, what would hurt some people - worse than all the rest, I have frequently arrived too late for the - dinners I have been invited to at the houses of my friends. - - “All these difficulties and distresses, I began to flatter myself, - were going to be removed, and that I should be left at liberty - to pursue my walks through the straightest and broadest streets, - when Mr. Hogarth first published his Prints upon the subject of - Cruelty.[306] But whatever success so much ingenuity, founded upon - so much humanity, might deserve, all the hopes I had built of - seeing a Reformation, proved vain and fruitless. I am sorry to say - it, but there still remain in the _streets_ of this metropolis, - more scenes of Barbarity than, perhaps, are to be met with in all - Europe besides. Asia (at least in the larger population of it--the - Hindus) is well known for compassion to ‘brutes’; and nobody who - has read Busbequius, will wonder at me for most heartily wishing - that our common people were no crueller than Turks. - - “I should have apprehensions of being laughed at, were I to - complain of want of compassion in our Laws [!]; the very word - seeming contradictory to any idea of it. But I will venture to own - that to me it appears strange, that the men against whom I should - be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door, - may, with _impunity_, drive by it half-a-dozen Calves, _with their - tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered - with blood_.... - - “To conclude this subject--as I cannot but join in opinion with Mr. - Hogarth, that the frequency of murders among us is greatly owing - to those scenes of Cruelty, which the lower ranks of people are so - much accustomed to; _instead of multiplying such scenes_, I should - rather hope that some proper method might be fixed upon either - _for preventing them_, or removing them out of sight; so that our - infants might not grow up into the world in a familiarity with - blood. - - “If we may believe the Naturalists, that a Lion is a gentle animal - until his tongue has been dipped in blood, _what precaution ought - we to use to prevent MAN from being inured to it, who has such - superiority of power to do mischief_.”--_The World_, No. LXI., Aug. - 19, 1756. - - - - -XII. - -JENYNS. 1704-1787. - - -A supporter of the Walpole Administration, he represented the county -of Cambridge, and during twenty-five years held the office of -Commissioner of the Board of Trade. He wrote papers in _The World_ and -other periodicals, and published two volumes of Poems. His principal -book is the _Free Enquiry into the Origin of Evil_, in which he -seeks to reconcile the obvious evils in the constitution of things -with his optimistic creed. Johnson, who, with all his orthodoxy, was -pessimistic, severely criticised this apology for Theism. In striking -contrast with the indifferentism of the vast majority of his class, -his just and humane feeling is sufficiently remarkable. The line of -reasoning, in his comprehensive arraignment of the various atrocities -perpetrated, sanctioned, or condoned by English Society or English Law -in the last century, and which, for the most part, still continue (it -is scarcely necessary to add), _logically_ leads to the abolition of -the Slaughter-House--the fountain and origin of the evil:-- - - “How will Man, that sanguinary Tyrant, be able to excuse himself - from the charge of those innumerable cruelties inflicted on his - unoffending subjects, committed to his care, and placed under - his authority, by their common father? To what horrid deviations - from these benevolent intentions are we daily witnesses! No small - part of Mankind derive their chief amusement from the deaths and - sufferings of inferior Animals. A much greater part still, consider - them only as engines of wood or iron, useful in their several - occupations. The Carman drives his Horse as the Carpenter his nail - by repeated blows; and so long as these produce the desired effect, - and they both go, they neither reflect nor care whether either of - them have any sense of feeling. - - “The Butcher knocks down the stately Ox with no more compassion - than the Blacksmith hammers a horse-shoe, and plunges his knife - into the throat of the innocent Lamb with as little reluctance as - the Tailor sticks his needle into the collar of a coat.[307] If - there are some few who, formed in a softer mould, view with pity - the sufferings of these defenceless beings, _there is scarce one - who entertains the least idea that Justice or Gratitude can be due - to their Merits or their Services_. - - “The social and friendly Dog, if by barking, in defence of his - master’s person and property, he happens unknowingly to disturb - his rest--the generous Horse, who has carried his ungrateful - master for many years, with ease and safety, worn out with age - and infirmities contracted in his service, is by him condemned to - end his miserable days in a dust-cart, where the more he exerts - his little remains of spirit, the more he is whipped to save his - stupid driver the trouble of whipping some other less obedient - to the lash. Sometimes, having been taught the practice of many - unnatural and useless feats in a Riding-House, he is, at last, - turned out and consigned to the dominion of a hackney-coachman, by - whom he is every day corrected for performing those tricks which he - has learned under so long and severe a discipline. [Add the final - horrors of the _Knackers’ Yard_, to which sort of hell the worn-out - Horse is usually consigned.] - - “The Sluggish Bear, in contradiction to his nature, is taught to - dance, for the diversion of an ignorant mob, by placing red-hot - irons under his feet. The majestic Bull is tortured by every mode - that malice can invent, for no offence but that he is unwilling - to assail his diabolical tormentors.[308] These and innumerable - other acts of Cruelty, Injustice, and Ingratitude are every day - committed--not only with impunity, but _without censure, and even - without observation_.... - - “The law of self-defence, undoubtedly, justifies us in destroying - those animals that would destroy us, that injure our properties, - or annoy our persons; but not even these, whenever their situation - incapacitates them from hurting us.... - - “If there are any [there are vast numbers even now], whose tastes - are so vitiated, and whose hearts are so hardened, as to delight in - such inhuman sacrifices [the tortures of the Slaughter-House and of - the Kitchen], and to partake of them without remorse, they should - be looked upon as demons in human shape, and expect a retaliation - of those tortures _which they have inflicted on the Innocent for - the gratification of their own depraved and unnatural appetites_. - - “So violent are the passions of anger and revenge in the human - breast, that it is not wonderful that men should persecute their - real or imaginary enemies with cruelty and malevolence. But that - there should exist in Nature a being who can receive pleasure from - giving pain would be totally incredible, if we were not convinced - by melancholy experience that there are not only many--but that - this unaccountable disposition is in some manner inherent in the - nature of men.[309] For as he cannot be taught by example, nor led - to it by temptation, nor prompted to it by interest, it must be - derived from his native constitution.[310] - - “We see children laughing at the miseries which they inflict on - every unfortunate animal who comes within their power. All Savages - are ingenious in contriving and executing the most exquisite - tortures, and [not alone] the common people of all countries - are delighted with nothing so much as with Bull-Baitings, - Prize-Fightings, ‘Executions,’ and all spectacles of cruelty and - horror.... They arm Cocks with artificial weapons which Nature had - kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and - triumph see them plunge them into each other’s hearts. They view - with delight the trembling Deer and defenceless Hare flying for - hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and, at last, - sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers. They - see with joy the beautiful Pheasant and harmless Partridge drop - from their flight, weltering in their blood, or, perhaps, perishing - with wounds and hunger under the cover of some friendly thicket, - to which they have in vain retreated for safety.... And to add to - all this, they spare neither labour nor expense to preserve and - propagate these innocent animals for no other end than to multiply - the objects of their persecution. - - “What name should we bestow upon a Supreme Being whose whole - endeavours were employed, and whose whole pleasure consisted, in - terrifying, ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying mankind; whose - superior faculties were exerted in fomenting animosities amongst - them, in contriving engines of destruction, inciting them to use - them in maiming and murdering each other; whose power over them - was employed in assisting the rapacious, deceiving the simple, and - oppressing the innocent? Who, without provocation or advantage, - should continue, from day to day, void of all pity and remorse, - thus to torment mankind for diversion; and, at the same time, - endeavouring, with the utmost care, to preserve their lives and - propagate their species, in order to increase the number of victims - devoted to his malevolence? I say, what name detestable enough - could we find for such a being. Yet if we impartially consider the - case, and our intermediate situation, with respect to inferior - animals, just such a being is a ‘Sportsman,’ [and let us add, - by way of corollary, _à fortiori_ one who consciously sanctions - the daily and hourly cruelties of the Slaughter-House and the - Butcher.”]--_Disquisition II._ “On Cruelty to Animals,” by Soame - Jenyns. - - - - -XIII. - -PRESSAVIN. 1750. - - -An eminent Surgeon of Lyon, in the Medical and Surgical College of -which city he held a professorship, and where he collected an extensive -Anatomical Museum. At the Revolution of 1789 he embraced its principles -with ardour, and filled the posts of Municipal Officer and of Procureur -de la Commune. On the day of the Lyon executions, under the direction -of the revolutionary tribunals, Sept. 9, 1792, Pressavin intervened, -and attempted to save several of the condemned. In the Convention -Nationale, to which he had been elected deputy, he voted for the -execution of the King; in other respects he was opposed to the extreme -measures of the violent revolutionists, and in Sept., 1793, he was -expelled from the Society of the Jacobins. In 1798 he was named Member -of the Council of Five Hundred, for two years, by the department of the -Rhone. The date of his death seems to be uncertain. - -His chief writings are:-- - -_Traité des Maladies des Nerfs_, 1769. _Traité des Maladies -Vénériennes, où l’on indique un Nouveau Remède_, 8vo., 1773. Last, and -most important, _L’Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la Santé_, -8vo. Paris, 1786. It was translated into Spanish, Madrid, 8vo., 1799. - -Pressavin thus expresses his convictions as to the fatal effects of -Kreophagy:-- - - “We cannot doubt that, if Man had always limited himself to the use - of the nourishment destined for his organs, he would not be seen, - to-day, to have become the victim of this multitude of maladies - which, by a premature death, mows down (moissonne) the greatest - number of individuals, before Age or Nature has put bounds to the - career of his life. Other Animals, on the contrary, almost all - arrive at that term without having experienced any infirmity. I - speak of those who live free in the fields; for those whom we - have subjected to our needs (real or pretended), and whom we call - _domestic_, share in the penalty of our abuses, experience nearly - the same alteration in their temperament, and become subject to an - infinity of maladies from which Wild Animals are exempt. - - “Men, then, coming from the hands of Nature, lived a long - time without thinking of immolating living beings to gratify - (s’assouvir) their appetite. They are, without doubt, those happy - times which our ancient poets have represented to us under the - agreeable allegory of the _Golden Age_. In fact Man, _by natural - organisation_ mild, nourishing himself only on vegetable-foods, - must have been originally of pacific disposition, quite fitted - (bien propre) to maintain among his fellows that happy Peace which - makes the delights of Society. Ferocity, I repeat it, is peculiar - to carnivorous animals; the blood which they imbibe maintains that - character in them.... - - “But if this faculty (reflection), which is called Reason, has - furnished Man with so great resources for extending his enjoyments - and increasing his well-being, how many evils have not the - multiplied abuses, which he has made of them, drawn upon him? That - which regards his Food is not the one of them which has _least_ - contributed to his degradation, as well physical as moral.... - - “Among other evidences of this, country-people, who subsist upon - the non-flesh diet, are exempt from the multitude of maladies which - engender corruption of the juices of the blood, such as _humoral_, - putrid, and malign fevers, from Apoplexy, from _Cachexy_, from - Gout, and from an infinity of miserable disorders--their offspring; - they arrive at a very advanced Age, free from the infirmities which - early affect our old _Sybarites_. On the contrary, the inhabitants - of towns, who make flesh their principal food, pass their lives - miserably, a prey to all these maladies which one may regard, for - that reason, endemic among them. - - “Another very evident proof that Flesh is not a food natural to man - is that, whoever has abstained, during a certain time, when he goes - back to it--it is rare that this new regimen does not soon become - in him the germ of a disease, the graver in proportion to the - abstinence from that food. We have opportunities of observing this - after the Fasts of the Catholics--in the majority of those who have - faithfully practised abstinence from flesh.” - -He admits that there may be some constitutions, whose organs of -digestion have been so corrupted by the long use of flesh, that a -_sudden_ change may be unadvisable; but a gradual reform cannot but be -always beneficial:-- - - “I do not doubt that Apoplexy, that fatal Malady so common among - the rich people of the towns, might be escaped by those who are - threatened with it, by entire abstinence from flesh. A Sanguine - or humoral _plethora_ is always the predisposing cause of this - disease. A sudden rarefaction of the blood or of the humours in the - vessels is the proximate cause of it; this rarefaction takes place - only by the predisposition of the juices of the body to corruption.” - -Pressavin devotes a considerable proportion of his Treatise to the -arguments from Comparative Physiology.--While firmly persuaded both -of the unnaturalness, and of the fatal mischiefs, of the diet of -blood,[311] he expresses his despair of an early triumph of Reason and -Humanity by means of a general dietetic reformation.[312] - - - - -XIV. - -SCHILLER. 1759-1805. - - -After Goethe the greatest of German Poets, began life as a surgeon -in the army. In his twenty-second year he produced his first drama, -_Die Räuber_ (“The Robbers”). Some passages in it betrayed the “cloven -hoof” of revolutionary, or at least democratic, bias, and he brought -upon himself the displeasure of the sovereign Duke of Würtemberg, in -consequence of which he was forced to leave Stuttgart. His principal -dramas are _Wallenstein_, _Wilhelm Tell_, _Die Jungfrau von Orleans_, -_Maria Stuart_, and _Don Carlos_, of which _Wallenstein_ is, usually, -placed first in merit. Even greater than the dramatic power of Schiller -is the genius of his ballad poetry, and in lyrical inspiration he is -the equal of Goethe. _Das Lied von der Glocke_ (“The Lay of the Bell”), -one of his most widely-known ballads, is also one of the most beautiful -in its kind. - -In prose literature, his _Briefe Philosophische_ (“Philosophical -Letters”), and his correspondence with his great poetical rival, are -the most interesting of his writings. - -In _Das Eleusische Fest_ (“The Eleusinian Feast”) and _Der Alpenjäger_ -(“The Hunter of the Alps”) are to be found the humanitarian sentiments -as follow:-- - - Schwelgend bei dem Siegesmahle - Findet sie die rohe Schaar, - Und die blutgefüllte Schaale - Bringt man ihr zum Opfer dar - Aber schauernd, mit Entsetzen, - Wendet sie sich weg and spricht: - ’_Blut’ge Tigermahle_ netzen - Eines Gottes Lippen nicht. - Reine Opfer will er haben - Früchte, die der Herbst bescheert-- - Mit des Feldes frommen gaben - Wird der Heilige verehrt. - - Und sie nimmt die Wucht des Speeres - Aus des Jäger’s rauher hand; - Mit dem Schaft des Mordgewehres - Furchet sie den leichten Sand, - Nimmt von ihres Kranzes Spitze - Einen Kern mit Kraft gefüllt, - Senkt ihn in die zarte Ritze, - Und der Trieb des Keimes schwillt.[313] - - * * * * * - - Mit des Jammers Stummen Blicken - Fleht sie zu dem harten Mann, - Fleht umsonst, denn, loszudrücken, - Legt er schon den Bogen an; - Plötzlich aus der Felsenspalte - Tritt der Geist, der Bergesalte - - Und mit seinen Götterhänden - Schützt er das gequälte Thier: - “_Musst du Tod und Jammer Senden_” - Ruft er “bis herauf zu mir? - _Raum fur alle hat die Erde_ - Was verfolgst du meine Heerde?”[314] - - - - -XV. - -BENTHAM. 1749-1832. - - -This great legal reformer was educated at Westminster, and at the -age of thirteen proceeded to Queen’s College, Oxford. At the age of -sixteen he took his first degree in Arts. The mental uneasiness with -which he signed the obligatory test of the “Thirty-nine Articles” he -vividly recorded in after years. At the Bar, which he soon afterwards -entered, his prospects were unusually promising; but unable to -reconcile his standard of ethics with the recognised morality of the -Profession, he soon withdrew from it. His first publication,--_A -Fragment on Government_, 1776--which appeared without his name, was -assigned to some of the most distinguished men of the day. His next, -and principal work, was his _Introduction to the Principles of Morals -and Legislation_ (1780), not published until 1789. At this period -he travelled extensively in the East of Europe. _Panopticon: or the -Inspection-House_ (on prison discipline), appeared in 1791. The _Book -of Fallacies_ (reviewed by Sidney Smith, in the _Edinburgh_), in -which the “wisdom of our ancestors” delusion was, mercilessly exposed -(1824), is the best known, and is the most lively of all his writings. -_Rationale of Judicial Procedure_, and the _Constitutional Code_, -are those which have had most influence in effecting legislative and -judicial reform. - -Bentham stands in the front rank of legal reformers; and as a fearless -and consistent opponent of the iniquities of the English Criminal -Law, in particular, he has deserved the gratitude and respect of all -thoughtful minds. Yet, during some sixty years, he was constantly held -up to obloquy and ridicule by the enemies of Reform, in the Press and -on the Platform; and his name was a sort of synonym for _utopianism_, -and revolutionary doctrine. In his own country his writings were long -in little esteem; but elsewhere, and in France especially, by the -interpretation of Dumont, his opinions had a wider dissemination. -In _Morals_, the foundation of his teaching is the principle of the -greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number; that other things are good -or evil in proportion as they advance or oppose the general Happiness, -which ought to be the end of all morals and legislation. - -Not the least of his merits as a moralist is his assertion of the -rights of other animals than man to the protection of Law, and his -protest against the culpable selfishness of the lawmakers in wholly -abandoning them to the capricious cruelty of their human tyrants. The -most eminent of the disciples of Bentham, John Stuart Mill (who found -himself forced to defend the teaching of his master, in this respect, -against the sneers of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, and others), -repeats this protest, and declares that-- - - “The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not - less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims - of the most brutal part of mankind, the lower animals. It is by - the grossest misunderstanding of the principles of Liberty, that - the infliction of exemplary punishment on ruffianism practised - towards these defenceless beings has been treated as a meddling by - Government with things beyond its province--an interference with - domestic life. The domestic life of domestic tyrants is one of the - things which it _is the most imperative on the Law to interfere - with_. And it is to be regretted that metaphysical scruples, - respecting the nature and source of the authority of governments, - should induce many warm supporters of laws against cruelty to - the lower animals to seek for justification of such laws in the - incidental consequences of the indulgence of ferocious habits - to the interest of human beings, _rather than in the intrinsic - merits of the thing itself_. What it would be the duty of a human - being, possessed of the requisite physical strength, to prevent by - force, if attempted in his presence, it cannot be less incumbent - on society generally to repress. The existing laws of England are - chiefly defective in the trifling--often almost nominal--maximum - to which the penalty, even in the worst cases, is limited.” - (_Principles of Political Economy_, ed. 1873.) - -The observations both of Bentham and of Mill upon this subject, -slighted though they are, are pregnant with consequences. It is thus -that the former authority expresses his opinion:-- - - “What other agents are those who, at the same time that they - are under the influence of man’s direction, are susceptible of - Happiness? They are of two sorts: (1) Other Human beings, who - are styled _Persons_. (2) Other Animals who, on account of their - interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient - Jurists, stand degraded into the class of _Things_. Under the - Gentoo and Mahometan religions, the interests of the rest of the - animal kingdom seem to have met with _some_ attention. Why have - they not, universally, with as much as those of human beings, - allowance made for the differences in point of sensibility? - _Because the Laws that are have been the work of mutual fear_--a - sentiment which the less rational animals have not had the same - means, as men have, of turning to account. Why _ought_ they not [to - have the same allowance made]? No reason can be given.... - - “The day has been (and it is not yet past) in which the greater - part of the Species, under the denomination of _Slaves_, have been - treated by the Laws exactly upon the same footing--as in England, - for example, the inferior races of beings are still. The day _may_ - come, when other Animals may obtain those rights _which never could - have been withholden from them but by the hand of Tyranny_. The - French have already (1790) recognised that the blackness of the - skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned, without - redress, to the caprice of a tormentor. - - “It may come one day to be recognised that the number of the legs, - the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the _os sacrum_, - are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being - to the same fate. What else is it should fix the insuperable - line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of - discourse? But a full-grown Horse or Dog is, beyond comparison, a - more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant - of a day, or a week, or even of a month old. But suppose the case - were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, can they - reason? Nor is it, can they talk? But, _can they suffer_?”[315] - - - - -XVI. - -SINCLAIR. 1754-1835. - - -This celebrated Agricultural Reformer and active promoter of various -beneficent enterprises was a most voluminous writer. During sixty years -he was almost constantly employed in producing more or less useful -books. He was born at Thurso Castle, in Caithness, and received his -education at the Edinburgh High School, and at the Universities of -Glasgow and Oxford. In 1775 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of -Advocates, and afterwards was called to the English Bar. Five years -later he was elected to represent his county in the Legislature; and -for more than half a century Sir John Sinclair occupied a prominent -position in the world of politics, as well as of science and -literature. His reputation as an Agriculturist extended far and wide -throughout Europe and America; and statesmen and political economists, -if they did not aid them as they ought to have done, professed for his -labours the highest esteem. - -His principal writings are: (1) _A History of the Revenue of Great -Britain_, 3 vols.; (2) _A Statistical Account of Scotland_, a most -laborious work; (3) _Considerations on Militias and Standing Armies_; -(4) _Essays on Agriculture_; (5) Not the least important, _The Code of -Health and Longevity_, in which the sagacious and indefatigable author -has collected a large number of interesting particulars in regard to -the diet of various peoples. Comparing the two diets, he asserts:-- - - “The Tartars, who live wholly on animal food, possess a degree of - ferocity of mind and fierceness of character which form the leading - feature of all carnivorous animals. On the other hand, an entire - diet of vegetable matter, as appears in the Brahmin and Gentoo, - gives to the disposition a softness, gentleness, and mildness of - feeling directly the reverse of the former character. It also has - a particular influence on _the powers of the mind_, producing - liveliness of imagination and acuteness of judgment in an eminent - degree.” - -Sir John Sinclair elsewhere quotes the following sufficiently -condemnatory remarks from the _Encyclopédie Methodique_, vol. vii., -part 1:-- - - “The man who sheds the blood of an Ox or a Sheep will be habituated - more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his - fellow-creatures. Inhumanity takes possession of his soul, and the - trades, whose occupation is to sacrifice animals for the purpose - of supplying the [pretended] necessities of men, impart to those - who exercise them a ferocity which their relative connections with - Society but imperfectly serve to mitigate.”--_Code of Health and - Longevity_, vol. i., 423, 429, and vol. iii., 283.[316] - - - - -XVII. - -BYRON. 1788-1824. - - - “As we had none of us been apprised of his peculiarities with - respect to food, the embarrassment of our host [Samuel Rogers] was - not little, on discovering that there was nothing upon the table - which his noble guest could eat or drink. Neither [flesh] meat, - fish, nor wine would Lord Byron touch; and of biscuits and soda - water, which he asked for, there had been, unluckily, no provision. - He professed, however, to be equally well pleased with potatoes and - vinegar; and of these meagre materials contrived to make rather a - hearty meal.... - - “We frequently, during the first months of our acquaintance dined - together alone.... Though at times he would drink freely enough - of claret, he still adhered to his system of abstinence in food. - _He appeared, indeed, to have conceived a notion that animal food - has some peculiar influence on the character_;[317] and I remember - one day, as I sat opposite to him, employed, I suppose, rather - earnestly over a ‘beef-steak,’ after watching me for a few seconds, - he said in a grave tone of inquiry,--‘Moore, don’t you find eating - _beef-steak_ makes you ferocious?’”--_Life, Letters, and Journals - of Lord Byron_, by Thomas Moore. New Edition. Murray, 1860. - -In these Memorials of Byron, reference to his aversion from all -“butcher’s meat” is frequent; and for the greater part of his life, -he seems to have observed, in fact, an extreme abstinence as regards -eating; although he had by no means the same repugnance for fish as -for flesh-eating. That this abstinence from flesh-meats was founded -upon physical or mental, rather than upon moral, reasons, has already -been pointed out. Nor, unhappily, was he as abstinent in drinking as in -eating; to which fact, in great measure, must be attributed the failure -of his purer eating to effect all the good which, otherwise, it would -have produced. - - * * * * * - -The observations of the author of a book entitled _Philozoa_, published -in 1839, and noticed with approval by Schopenhauer, are sufficiently -worthy of note, and may fitly conclude this work:-- - - “Many very intelligent men have, at different times of their lives, - abstained wholly from flesh; and this, too, with very considerable - advantage to their health. Mr. Lawrence, whose eminence as a - surgeon is well known, lived for many years on a vegetable diet. - Byron, the poet, did the same, as did P. B. Shelley, and many other - distinguished _literati_ whom I could name. Dr. Lambe and Mr. F. - Newton have published very able works in defence of a diet of - herbs, and have condemned the use of flesh as tending to undermine - the constitution by a sort of slow poisoning. Sir R. Phillips - has published _Sixteen Reasons for Abstaining from the Flesh of - Animals_, and a large society exists in England of persons who eat - nothing which has had life. - - “The most attentive researches, which I have been able to make - into the health of all these persons, induce me to believe that - vegetable food is the natural diet of man. I tried it once with - very considerable advantage. My strength became greater, my - intellect clearer, my power of continued exertion protracted, and - my spirits much higher than they were when I lived on a mixed diet. - I am inclined to think that the ‘inconvenience’ which some persons - profess to experience from vegetable food is only _temporary_. - A few repeated trials would soon render it not only safe but - agreeable, and a disgust for the taste of flesh, _under any - disguise_, would be the result of the experiment. The Carmelites, - and other religious orders, who subsist only on the productions - of the vegetable world, live to a greater age than those who feed - on flesh; and, in general, frugivorous persons are milder in - their disposition than other people. The same quantity of ground - has been proved to be capable of sustaining a _larger[318] and - stronger population_ on a vegetable than on a flesh-meat diet; and - experience has shown _that the juices of the body are more pure, - and the viscera much more free from disease, in those who live in - this simple way_. - - “All these facts, taken collectively, point to a period in - the history of civilisation when men will cease to slay their - fellow-mortals for food, and will tend to realise the fictions - of Antiquity, and of the Sybilline oracles respecting a ‘Golden - Age.’”[319] - - - - -INDEX. - - - Abernethy John, M.D., _Surgical Observations on Tumours_, - quoted, 196 - - Aderholdt A., M.D., referred to, 271-284 - - Æsop, _Fable of the Wolf_, referred to, 117 - - Alcott Wm., M.D., referred to, 262-264 - - Anquetil Du Perron, _Récherches sur les Indes_, - referred to, 177-210 - - Apollonius of Tyana (_Life_ by Philostratus), - quoted and referred to, 50-51, 303 - - Arbuthnot John, M.D., _Essay Concerning Aliments_, - referred to, 132 - - Arnold Edwin, _The Light of Asia_, quoted, 296 - - Attalus, noticed by Seneca, 30 - - Axon W. E. A.,(Biog. Sketches of George Nicholson, - Sir R. Phillips, and William Cowherd), referred to, 191, 244, 260 - - - Baker Thomas, Abstract of Graham’s _Science of Human Life_, - referred to, 265, 266 - - Baltzer Eduard, _Porphyry_ and _Musonius_, 68, 284, 304 - - Bartolini Biagio, M.D. (Notice of Cornaro), referred to, 89 - - Bentham Jeremy, quoted, 327, 328 - - Blot-Lequène, Critique of _Thalysie_, quoted by R. Springer, 211 - - Bonnodière La, _De la Sobriété et de ses Avantages_, - referred to, 306 - - Bossuet Jacques Bénigne, _Discours sur l’Histoire Universelle_, - quoted, 112 - - Brewster Sir David, _More Worlds than One_, quoted, 255 - - Brotherton Joseph, M.P., President of the English - Vegetarian Society, referred to, 202, 259, 264 - - Buddha Gautama, referred to and noticed, 6, 295-296 - - Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, Texts from the Buddhist Canon, - commonly known as _Dhammapada_, also the _Kûla Sîlam_, - translated from the Pâli, 295-299 - - Buffon George Louis Le Clerc de, _Histoire Naturelle_, - quoted and referred to, 166, 214 - - Burigni de (Translator of Porphyry, and author of a Treatise - against Flesh-Eating, noticed by Voltaire), 67 - - Busbecq Augier de, on the Turks, referred to by Lord - Chesterfield, 321 - - Byron George Gordon, Lord, _Life, Letters, and Journals_, - by Moore, and _Poems_, 234, 331 - - - Cabantous J., Doyen de in Faculté de Lettres, Toulouse, - noticed by R. Springer, 210 - - Chantrans Girod de, noticed by R. Springer, 210 - - Charron Pierre, _De la Sagesse_, referred to, 99 - - Chesterfield Philip Dormer, Lord, _The World_, CXC., - quoted, 139, 320-321 - - Cheyne George, M.D., _Essay on the Gout_; _Of Health - and a Long Life_; _English Malady: or, a Treatise of - Nervous Diseases of all Kinds_; _Essay on Regimen_; - _Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Body, - and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body_, - referred to and quoted, 97, 120-128 - - Christian Sacred Scriptures, 52, 54, 55, 79 - - Chrysostom Ioannes, _Homilies_, _Golden Book_, quoted, 76-81 - - Cicero Marcus Tullius, _Epistles_ vii. 1, quoted, 24 - - Clarke James, referred to, 259 - - Clemens Titus Flavius (of Alexandria), _Pædagogus_ or - _Instructor_, _Stromata_ or _Miscellanies_, quoted, 56-63 - - _Clementine Homilies_, quoted and referred to, 56 - - Cocchi Antonio, M.D., _Del Vitto Pithagorico Per Uso - Della Medicina_, quoted, 157-159 - - Collyns C. H., _The Times_, referred to, 202 - - Cornaro Luigi di, _Trattato della Vita Sobria, - Amorevole Esortazione, &c._; _Lettera a Barbaro_, - quoted and referred to, 83-90, 306 - - Cowherd William, noticed, 258-260 - - Cowley Abraham, _The Garden_, quoted, 308-309 - - Cowper William, _The Task_, quoted, 178 - - Cuvier George, &c., Baron de, _Leçons d’Anatomie - Comparative, III._, 169, 373, 443, 465, 480 - _Régne Animal_, noticed by Shelley, 226 - - - Daumer Georg, _Anthropologismus und Kriticismus_; - _Enthüllungen über Kaspar Hauser_, - referred to and quoted, 281-283 - - _Dietetic Reformer_, referred to, 212, 251 - - - Eden Sir F. M., _State of the Poor_, referred to, 177, 189 - - Epikurus, _De Sobrietate Contra Gulam_, - quoted by Gassendi, 101, 104 - - Erasmus Desiderius, _Encomium Moriæ_, quoted, 92 - - Erskine Thomas, Lord, referred to, 202 - - Essenians and Essenism, noticed, 56, 72 - - Euripides, quoted by Athenæus, 32 - - Evelyn John, _Acetaria: On Sallets_, quoted, 107-110 - - - Ferdusi, quoted by Sir William Jones, 141 - - Ferguson Adam, referred to, 208 - - Flaubert G., _Légende de St. Julien_, quoted in - _Fortnightly Review_, 187 - - Flourens, I. M. P., _Longévité de la Race Humaine_, - referred to, 175, 268, 270 - - Fontaine La, Jean de, _Fables_ x. 2, quoted, 117 - - Forster T., M.D., _Philozoa_, &c., quoted, 332 - - Franklin Benjamin, _Autobiography_, referred to, 176 - - - Galen, Greek Physician, referred to, 35 - - Gaskill James, referred to, 259 - - Gay John, _Fables_--_Pythagoras and the Countryman_; - _The Court of Death_; _The Shepherd’s Dog and the Boy_; - _The Wild Boar and the Ram_; _The Philosopher and the - Pheasants_, quoted, 115-119 - - Gassendi Pierre, _Letter_ to Van Helmont, _Ethics_, quoted, 100-104 - - Gibbon Edward, _History of the Decline and Fall of the - Roman Empire_, xxvi, quoted and referred to, 177, 220 - - Gleïzès Jean Antoine, _Thalysie: ou la Nouvelle - Existence_; _Les Nuits Elysiennes_, &c., quoted, 208-218, 252 - - Gleïzès Colonel, referred to, 210 - - Grævius Johann Georg, referred to, 293 - - Graham Sylvester, M.D., _The Science of Human Life_, - referred to and quoted, 262, 263, 264, 271 - - _Golden Verses The_, referred to and quoted, 21, 294 - - Göthe Johann Wolfgang von, _Italienische Reise_; - _Werther’s Leiden_, &c., referred to, 327 - - Goltz Bogumil, _Das Menschendasein in Seinen Weltewigen - Zügen und Zeichen_, 285 - - Gompertz Lewis, referred to by Forster, 332 - - Greg W. R., _Social Problems_, referred to and quoted, 215, 332 - - Gützlaff V., M.D., _Schopenhauer über die Thiere und - den Thierschutz_; _Ein Beitrag zur ethischen Seite - der Vivisectionsfrage_, referred to, 288 - - - Hahn Theodor, _Die Naturgemässe Diät: die Diät der Zukunft_, - quoted, 284, 292 - - Haller Albrecht von, M.D., quoted, 156, 157 - - Hardy Sebastian, _Le Vrai Régîme de Vivre_, &c., referred to, 306 - - Hare Edward, _Life of William Lambe, M.D._, quoted, 205 - - Hartley David, M.D., _Observations on Man_, quoted, 138, 139 - - Hartlib Samuel, _A Design for Plenty, by a Universal - Planting of Fruit-Trees_, referred to, 108 - - Hawkesworth John, _Edition of Swift’s Works_; _Adventurer_, - quoted and referred to, 168 - - Hecquet Philippe, M.D., _De L’Indécence aux Hommes - d’Accoucher les Femmes, &c._; _Traité des Dispenses - du Carême_; _La Médicine, La Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie - des Pauvres_; _La Brigandage de la Médicine_, &c., - referred to and quoted, 68, 133, 314-318 - - Helps Sir Arthur, _Animals and Their Masters_, referred to, 329 - - Hesiodos, Ἔργα καὶ Ἣμεραι (_Works and Days_), quoted, 1, 3, 293 - - Hierokles, Χρυσᾶ Επη (_Golden Verses_), referred to - and quoted, 21, 294 - - Hindu Sacred Books, _Laws of Manu_, referred to - and quoted, 182, 298 - - Hippokrates, Περὶ Ὑγιαίνης Διαίτης (_On the Healthful - Regimen_), referred to, 12 - - Hogarth William, _Four Stages of Cruelty_, referred to, 179, 321 - - Hogg Jefferson, _Life of Shelley_, quoted, 206 - - Horatius Flaccus, _Odes_, _Ars Poet._, _Sat. II. 2._, - quoted, 74, 299-303 - - Howard John, _Life of_, referred to, 189 - - Hufeland Christian Wilhelm, M.D., _Makrobiotik, oder - die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern_, &c., - quoted and referred to, 184, 268 - - Hypatia, referred to, 67, 82 - - - Iamblichus, _Life of Pythagoras_, referred to, 5, 8 - - - Jenyns Soame, quoted, 322-324 - - Jewish Sacred Scriptures, quoted and referred to, 54, 61, 79 - - Jones Sir William, _Asiatic Researches_, iv. 12, quoted, 141 - - Josephus Flavius, _Antiquities of the Jews_, quoted, 73 - - Julianus, Emperor, _Misopogon (Beard Hater)_, noticed, 74-76 - - Juvenalis Decimus Junius, _Sat._ I., xv., &c., - quoted, 9, 48, 85, 182 - - - Kalidâsa, _Sakúntala_, referred to, 182, 277 - - Kingsford Anna, M.D., _The Perfect Way in Diet_, referred to, 271 - - - Laborde Alexandre de, referred to, 252 - - Lamartine Alphonse de, _Mémoires_; _La Chute d’un Ange_, - quoted, 247-252 - - Lambe William, M.D., _Additional Reports on Regimen_, - referred to and quoted, 197, 198-205, 206, 207, 331 - - Lawrence William, Professor, F.R.C.S., _Lectures - on Physiology_, quoted, 270 - - Lémery Louis, M.D., _Traité des Alimens_, referred to, - - Lesage Alain Réné, _Gil Blas_ ii. 2, quoted, 134 - - Lessio Leonard, _Hygiasticon_, quoted, 305-307 - - Liebig Justus von, _Chemische Briefe_, referred to - and quoted, 215, 290-292 - - Linné Karl von, _Amœnitates Accademicæ_, quoted, 164-165 - - Lipsius Justus von, edition of Seneca, quoted, 31-32 - - Locke John, _Thoughts on Education_, referred to, 109, 251 - - Lucretius Titus Carus, _De Rerum Naturâ II._, referred - to and quoted, 25, 300 - - Lyford H. G., M.D., referred to, 205 - - - _Mahâbhârata_, Story of the Princess Savîtri, quoted, 297 - - Mandeville Bernard de, M.D., _Fable of the Bees_, quoted, 113-115 - - Martin John, referred to, 179, 187 - - Mayor J. E. B., Professor, _Musonius_ and _Juvenal_, - quoted and referred to, 305 - - Metcalfe William, M.D., _Essay on Abstinence from the - Flesh of Animals_; _Moral Reformer_; _American - Vegetarian and Health Journal_, &c., noticed, 260-264 - - Michelet Jules, _La Bible de l’Humanité_; _La Femme_; - _L’Oiseau_, quoted, 252-258 - - Mill John Stuart, _Principles of Political Economy_; - _Dissertations_, referred to and quoted, 328 - - Milton John, _Paradise Lost_, v., xi.; _Latin Poem_ - addressed to Diodati, quoted, 110-112 - - Moffet Thomas, M.D., _Health’s Improvement_, quoted, 307 - - Montaigne Michel de, _Essais_, quoted, 94-99 - - More Sir Thomas, _Utopia_, quoted, 90-94 - - Musonius Rufus, in _Anthologion_ of Stobæus, quoted - by Professor Mayor, 303-305 - - - Neo-Platonism, referred to, 56, 67, 82 - - Newman F. W., Professor, President of the English - Vegetarian Society, _Lectures on Vegetarianism_, - referred to, 93, 172, 215, 292 - - Newton Sir Isaac, referred to by Voltaire (_Elémens - de la Philosophie de Newton_), and by Haller, 101, 145 - - Newton J. F., _The Return to Nature_, quoted and - referred to, 205-208, 331 - - Nichols T. L., M.D. (Hygienic Literature), referred to, 314 - - Nicholson George, _On the Conduct of Man to Inferior - Animals_; _The Primeval Diet of Man_, quoted, 190-196 - - Nicholson E. B., _The Rights of an Animal_, referred to, 329 - - Nodier Charles, referred to, 210 - - - Oswald John, _The Cry of Nature_, quoted, 179-183 - - Ovidius Naso, _Metamorphoses_, xv.; _Fasti_, iv., - quoted, 23-27, 49, 299-303 - - - Paley William, _Principles of Moral and Political - Philosophy_, quoted, 169-172 - - Phillips Sir Richard, _Golden Rules of Social Philosophy_; - _Medical Journal_ (July 27, 1811); _Dictionary of the - Arts of Life and Civilisation_, quoted and - referred to, 235-244, 331 - - Philolaus, _Pythagorean System_, referred to, 5 - - Philostratus, _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, quoted, 50-51 - - Pilpai, _Fable of the Cow_, quoted by Pope, 320 - - Pitcairn Archibald, M.D., referred to, 200 - - Plato, _Republic_ ii; _Laws_, quoted, 12-22 - - Plinius the Elder, _Hist. Naturalis_, quoted, 24 - - Plotinus, noticed by Donaldson, 65-66 - - Plutarch, _Essay on Flesh-Eating_; _Symposiacs_; - _Parallel Lives_, quoted, 41-49 - - Pope Alexander, _Pastorals_; _Essay on Man_; _The - Guardian_, quoted, 71, 128-132, 318-320 - - Porphyry, Περὶ Τῆς Ἀπόχης (_On Abstinence_); _Life - of Pythagoras_, quoted, 63-74 - - Pressavin Jean Baptiste, Membre du Collége Royale - de Chirurgie, Lyon, Demonstrateur en Matière - Médicale-Chirurgicale à Lyon, _L’Art de Prolonger - la Vie et de Conserver la Santé_, quoted, 324-326 - - Proklus, referred to, 82 - - Pythagoras (in Hierokles, Diogenes, Iamblichus, - Porphyry, and Cocchi) noticed and quoted, 4-11, 21, 158, 294 - - - Ramazzini Bernardo, M.D., referred to, 89 - - Ray John, _Historia Plantarum_, quoted, 106, 107 - - Richardson B. W., M.D., _Salutisland_; _Hygieia_, referred to, 326 - - Richter Jean Paul, _Levana_, quoted, 287, 288 - - Ritson Joseph, _Abstinence from Animal Food: a Moral Duty_, - quoted, 185-190, 323 - - Rorarius, _Quòd Animalia Bruta Sæpe Utantur Ratione - Melius Homine_, referred to, 99 - - Rousseau Jean Jacques, _De l’Inégalité Parmi les Hommes_; - _Emile_; _Julie: ou la Nouvelle Héloise_; _Confessions_, - referred to and quoted, 159-164, 195 - - - Sadi, Persian Poet, referred to, 141 - - Sakya Muni, referred to, 182 - - Schiller Johann Friedrich, _Das Eleusische Fest_; - _Alpenjäger_, quoted, 326-327 - - Schopenhauer Arthur, _Fundament der Moral_ (_Le Fondement - de la Morale_); _Parerga und Paralipomena_, quoted and - referred to, 286-290 - - Seefeld A. von, referred to, 284 - - Seneca Marcus Annæus, _Epistolæ ad Lucilium_; _De - Clententiâ_; _De Vitâ Beatâ_; _De Irâ_; _Questiones - Naturales_, quoted, 27-40 - - Sextius Quintus, referred to, 31 - - Shelley Percy Bysshe, _Queen Mab_ and _Note_; _The Revolt - of Islam_, quoted, 218-234 - - Shakespeare William, _As You Like It_, ii. 1; _Cymbeline_, - i. 6, referred to and quoted, 105 - - Simpson James, President of English Vegetarian Society, - referred to, 263 - - Sinclair Sir John, _The Code of Health and Longevity_, - quoted, 330 - - Sloane Sir Hans, _Nat. Hist. of Jamaica_, referred to, 177 - - Smith Adam, _The Wealth of Nations_, quoted, 177 - - Smith John, _Fruits and Farinacea: the Proper Food of Man_, - edited by Professor Newman, quoted, 71 - - Smith Sydney, quoted, 168 - - Sotion, referred to by Seneca, 31 - - Sparrman André, referred to, 177 - - Sperone Speroni, referred to, 89 - - Springer Robert, German translator of _Thalysie, ou - la Nouvelle Existence_, quoted, 211 - - Strauss David Friedrich Dr., _Der Alte und der Neue Glaube_, - quoted, 287 - - Struve Gustav, _Mandaras’ Wanderungen_; _Das Seelenleben_; - _Die Pflanzenkost_, quoted;, 271-281 - - St. Pierre Bernardin, _Paul et Virginie_; _Etudes de - la Nature_, quoted, 173-176 - - Stubbs Philip, _Anatomy of Abuses_, quoted by Ritson, 307 - - Swedenborg Emanuel, referred to, 176 - - Swift Jonathan, Dean, _Gulliver’s Travels_, 133 - - - Tertullianus Quintus Septimius, _De Jejuniis Adversus - Psychicos_, quoted, 51-55 - - Thomson James, _The Seasons_, quoted, 134-137 - - Trelawney F., _Life of Shelley_, referred to, 220 - - Tryon Thomas, _The Way to Health and Long Life_; - _A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks_; - _The Way to make all People Rich_; _England’s Grandeur_; - _Dialogue between an East-India Brachman and a French - Gentleman_, &c., 309-314 - - - Villeneuve C. de, M.D., referred to, 202 - - Virgilius Maro, _Georgica_; _Æneis_, quoted, 50, 51, 96 - - Volney Constantine Comte de, _Voyages en Syrie et en - Egypte_, referred to and quoted, 109, 330 - - Voltaire François Marie Arouet de, _Essai sur les Mœurs - et L’Esprit des Nations_; _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ - (Art. _Viande_); _Princesse de Babylone_; _Lettres - d’Amabed à Shastasid_; _Dialogue du Chapon et de la - Poularde_, quoted and referred to, 39, 68, 101, 141-156 - - - Weilshäuser Emil, quoted by R. Springer, 211 - - Wesley John, _Journals_, referred to, 176 - - Williamson John (noticed by Ritson, and by writer in - _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Aug. 1787), 189 - - _Woman and the Age_, an Essay, referred to, 256 - - - Young Thomas, _On Cruelty_, referred to by Forster (_Philozoa_), 333 - - - Zimmerman W., M.D. _Der Weg zum Paradiese_ (_The Way - to Paradise_), quoted, 285 - - -JOHN HEYWOOD, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works, -Hulme Hall Road, Manchester. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Quoted by Sir Arthur Helps in his _Animals and their Masters_. -(Strahan, 1873.) The further just remark of Arnold upon this subject -may here be quoted:--“Kind, loving, submissive, conscientious, -much-enduring we know them to be; but _because_ we deprive them of -all stake in the future--_because_ they have no selfish, calculated -aims--these are not virtues. Yet, if we say a ‘vicious’ Horse, why not -say a ‘virtuous’ Horse?” - -[2] That the indescribable atrocities inflicted in the final scene of -the slaughter-house, are far from being the only sufferings to which -the victims of the Table are liable, is a fact upon which, at this -day, it ought to be superfluous to insist. The frightful sufferings -during “the middle passage,” in rough weather, and especially in severe -storms, have over and over again been recounted even by spectators -the least likely to be easily affected by the spectacles of lower -animal suffering. Thousands of Oxen and Sheep, year by year, are -thrown _living_ into the sea during the passage from the United States -alone. In the year 1879, according to the official report, 14,000 thus -perished, while 1,240 were landed dead, and 450 were slaughtered on -the quay upon landing to prevent death from wounds.--See, among other -recent works on humane Dietetics, the _Perfect Way in Diet_ of Dr. -Anna Kingsford for some most instructive details upon this subject. -The reader is also referred to the Lecture recently addressed to the -Students of Girton College, Cambridge, by the same able and eloquent -writer, for other aspects of the humanitarian argument. - -[3] Cf. Horace (whom, however, we do not quote as an authority)-- - - “Let olives, endives, mallows light - Be all my fare;” - -and Virgil thus indicates the charm of a rural existence for him who -realises it:-- - - “Whatever fruit the branches and the mead - Spontaneous bring, he gathers for his need.” - -[4] The same apparent contradiction--the co-existence of “flocks and -herds” with the prevalence of the non-flesh diet--appears in the Jewish -theology, in _Genesis_. It is obvious, however, that in both cases -the “flocks and herds” might be existing for other purposes than for -slaughter. - -[5] _Daimones._ The _dæmon_ in Greek theology was simply a lesser -divinity--an _angel_. - -[6] Compare Spenser’s charming verses (“Faery Queen,” Book ii., canto -8): “And is there care in heaven,” &c. - -[7] His moral principles are reduced to these:--“1. Mercy established -on an immovable basis. 2. Aversion to all cruelty. 3. A boundless -compassion for all creatures.” Quoted from Klaproth by Huc, _Chinese -Empire_, xv. Buddhism was to Brahminism, sacerdotally, what early -Christianity was to Mosaism. - -[8] All the varieties of the bear tribe, it is perhaps scarcely -necessary to observe, are by organisation, and therefore by preference, -frugivorous. It is from necessity only, for the most part, that they -seek for flesh. - -[9] Compare Montaigne (_Essais_, Book II., chap. 12), who, to the shame -of the popular opinion of the present day, ably maintains the same -thesis. - -[10] The allegory of the trials and final purification of the soul was -a favourite one with the Greeks, in the charming story of the loves and -sorrows of Psyche and Eros. Apuleius inserted it in his fiction of _The -Golden Ass_, and it constantly occurs in Greek and modern art. - -[11] Beans, like lean flesh, are very nitrogenous, and it is possible -that Pythagoras may have deemed them too invigorating a diet for the -more aspiring ascetics. This may seem at least a more solid reason than -the absurd conjectures to which we have referred. - -[12] “As regards the fruits of this system of training or belief -(the Pythagorean), it is interesting to remark,” says the author -of the article Pythagoras in Dr. Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and -Roman Biography_, “that, wherever we have notices of distinguished -Pythagoreans, we usually hear of them as men of great uprightness, -conscientiousness, and self-restraint, and as capable of devoted and -enduring friendship.” Amongst them the names of Archytas, and Damon, -and Phintias are particularly eminent. Archytas was one of the very -greatest geniuses of antiquity: he was distinguished alike as a -philosopher, mathematician, statesman, and general. In mechanics he was -the inventor of the wooden flying dove--one of the wonders of the older -world. Empedokles (the Apollonius of the 5th century B.C.), who devoted -his marvellous attainments to the service of humanity, may be claimed -as, at least in part, a follower of Pythagoras. - -[13] “Quæ Philosophia fuit, facta Philologia est.” (Ep. cviii.) -Compare Montaigne, _Essais_, i., 24, on Pedantry, where he admirably -distinguishes between _wisdom_ and _learning_. - -[14] _The Republic of Plato._ By Davies and Vaughan. - -[15] In support of this thesis Plato adduces arguments derived from -analogy. Amongst the non-human species the sexes, he points out, are -nearly equal in strength and intelligence. In human savage life the -difference is far less marked than in artificial conditions of life. - -[16] Ὄψον--the name given by the Greeks generally to everything which -they considered rather as a “relish” than a necessary. Bread was held -to be--not only in name but in fact--the veritable “staff of life.” -Olives, figs, cheese, and, at Athens especially, fish were the ordinary -Ὄψον. - -[17] Translated by Davies and Vaughan. 1874. - -[18] The _four_ sacred Pythagorean virtues--justice, temperance, -wisdom, fortitude. See notice of Plato above. - -[19] Upon which excellent maxim Hierokles justly remarks: “The judge -here appointed is the most just of all, and the one which is [ought to -be] most at home with us, viz.: conscience and right reason.” - -[20] _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1877. The Greek original of -the _Golden Verses_ is found in the text of Mullach, in _Fragmenta -Philosophorum Græcorum_. Paris, 1860. - -[21] The Romans, we may remark, imported the gladiatorial fights from -Spain. - -[22] _Hist. Naturalis VIII._ 7. His nephew says of these huge -slaughter-houses that “there is no novelty, no variety, or anything -that could not be seen once for all.” On one occasion, in the year -A.D. 284, we are credibly informed that 1,000 ostriches, 1,000 stags, -1,000 fallow-deer, besides numerous wild sheep and goats, were mingled -together for indiscriminate slaughter by the wild beasts of the forest -or the equally wild beasts of the city. (See _Decline and Fall._) - -[23] Some traces of it may be found, _e.g._, in Lucretius (_De Rerum -Nat. II._, where see his touching picture of the bereaved mother-cow, -whose young is ravished from her for the horrid sacrificial altar); -Virgil (_Æneis VII._), in his story of Silvia’s deer--the most touching -passage in the poem; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ In earlier Greek literature, -Euripides seems most in sympathy with suffering--at least as regards -his own species. - -[24] I see and approve the better way; I pursue the worse.--_Metam._ -vii., 20. - -[25] In a note on this passage Lipsius, the famous Dutch commentator, -remarks: “I am quite in accord with this feeling. The constant use of -flesh meat (_assidua_ κρεοφαγία) by Europeans makes them stupid and -irrational (_brutos_).” - -[26] Lipsius suggests, with much reason, that Seneca actually wrote -the opposite respecting his father, “who had no dislike for this -philosophy, but who feared calumny,” &c. - -[27] On this melancholy truth compare Montaigne’s _Essais_. - -[28] Ep. xxv. Lipsius here quotes Lucan “still more a philosopher than -a poet”:-- - - “_Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam, - Et quantum natura petat. - . . Satis est populis fluviusque Ceresque._” - -“Learn by how little life may he sustained, and how much nature -requires. The gifts of Ceres and water are sufficient nourishment for -all peoples.”--(_Pharsalia._) - -Also Euripides:-- - - “Ἐπεὶ τί δεῖ βροτοῖσι . . . . - . . . πλὴν δύοιν μόνον, - Δημητρὸς ἀκτῆς, πώματος θ’ ὑδρηχόου, - Ἃπερ πάρεστι καὶ πέφυχ’ ἡμᾶς τρέφειν· - Ὧν οὐκ ἀπαρκεῖ πλησμονή· τρυφῇ γέ τοι - Ἄλλων ἐδεστῶν μηχανὰς θηρεύομεν.” - -Which may be translated:-- - - “_Since what need mortals, save twain things alone, - Crush’d grain (heaven’s gift), and streaming water-draught? - Food nigh at hand, and nature’s aliment-- - Of which no glut contents us. Pampered taste - Hunts out device of other eatables._” - - (Fragment of lost drama of Euripides, preserved in _Athenæus_ iv. - and in _Gellius_ vii.) - -See, too, the elder Pliny, who professes his conviction that -“the plainest food is also the most beneficial” (_cibus simplex -utilissimus_), and asserts that it is from his eating that man derives -most of his diseases, and from thence that all the drugs and all the -arts of physicians abound. (_Hist. Nat._ xxvi., 28.) - -[29] Cf. Pope’s accusation of the gluttony of his species:-- - - “Of half that live, the butcher and the tomb.” - - --_Essay on Man._ - -[30] Compare Juvenal _passim_, Martial, Athenæus, Plutarch, and Clement -of Alexandria. - -[31] _Ep._ cx. Cf. St. Chrysostom (_Hom._ i. on _Coloss._ i.) who seems -to have borrowed his equally forcible admonition on the same subject -from Seneca. - -[32] _Epistola_ vii. and _De Brevitate Vitæ_ xiv. As to the effect -of the gross diet of the later _athletes_, Ariston (as quoted by -Lipsius) compared them to columns in the _gymnasium_, at once “sleek -and stony”--λιπαροὺς καὶ λιθίνους. Diogenes of Sinope, being asked why -the athletes seemed always so void of sense and intelligence, replied, -“Because they are made up of ox and swine flesh.” Galen, the great -Greek medical writer of the second century of our æra, makes the same -remark upon the proverbial stupidity of this class, and adds: “And -this is the universal experience of mankind--that a gross stomach does -not make a refined mind.” The Greek proverb, “παχεῖα γαστὴρ λεπτὸν οὐ -τίκτει νόον,” exactly expresses the same experience. - -[33] _De Clementiâ_ i. and ii. The author has been accused of -flattering a notorious tyrant. The charge is, however, unjust, since -Nero, at the period of the dedication of the treatise to him, had not -yet discovered his latent viciousness and cruelty. Like Voltaire, in -recent times, Seneca bestowed perhaps unmerited praise, in the hope of -flattering the powerful into the practice of justice and virtue. - -[34] Cf. the sad experiences of the great Jewish prophet. “The prophets -prophesy falsely,” &c. - -[35] In the original, “dumb animals” (_mutis animalibus_)--a term -which, it deserves special note, Seneca usually employs, rather -than the traditional expressions “beasts” and “brutes.” The term -“dumb animals” is not strictly accurate, seeing that almost all -_terrestrials_ have the use of voice though it may not be intelligible -to human ears. Yet it is, at all events, preferable to the old -traditional terms still in general use. - -[36] Compare the advice of the younger Pliny--“Read much rather -than many books.” (_Letters_ vii., 9 in the excellent revision of -Mr. Bosanquet, Bell and Daldy, 1877) and Gibbon’s just remarks -(_Miscellaneous Works_). - -[37] See this finely and wittily illustrated in _Micromégas_ (one -of the most exquisite satires ever written), where the philosopher -of the star Sirius proposes the same questions to the contending -metaphysicians and _savans_ of our planet. - -[38] This essay ranks among the most valuable productions that have -come down to us from antiquity. Its sagacious anticipation of the -modern argument from comparative physiology and anatomy, as well as -the earnestness and true feeling of its eloquent appeal to the higher -instincts of human nature, gives it a special interest and importance. -We have therefore placed it separately at the end of this article. - -[39] Περὶ τοῦ Τὰ Ἄλογα Λογῶ Χρῆσθαι--“An Essay to prove that the Lower -Animals reason.” - -[40] This essay is remarkable as being, perhaps, the first speculation -as to the existence of other _worlds_ than ours. - -[41] As regards this complete silence of Plutarch, it may be attributed -to his eminently _conservative_ temperament, which shrank from an -exclusive system that so completely broke with the sacred traditions -of “the venerable Past.” Besides, Christianity had not assumed the -imposing proportions of the age of Lucian, whose indifference is -therefore more surprising than that of Plutarch. - -[42] See, for example, the _Isis and Osiris_, 49. And yet, with -Francis Bacon, and Bayle, and Addison, he prefers Atheism to fanatical -Superstition. - -[43] Of the many eminent persons who have been indebted to, or who have -professed the greatest admiration for, the writings of Plutarch are -Eusebius, who places him at the head of all Greek philosophers, Origen, -Theodoret, Aulus Gellius, Photius, Suidas, Lipsius. Theodore of Gaza, -when asked what writer he would first save from a general conflagration -of libraries, answered, “Plutarch; for he considered his philosophical -writings the most beneficial to society, and the best substitute for -all other books.” Amongst moderns, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, -and especially Rousseau, recognise him as one of the first of moralists. - -[44] See Milton (_Paradise Lost_, xi.), and Shelley (_Queen Mab_). - -[45] Cf. Pope:--“Of half that live, the butcher and the tomb.”--_Moral -Essays._ - -[46] _Parallel Lives: Cato the Censor._ Translated by John and William -Langhorne, 1826. - -[47] See _Odyssey_, xii., 395, of the oxen of the sun impiously -slaughtered by the companions of Ulysses. - -[48] “Hinc subitæ mortes, atque intestata Senectus.”--“Hence sudden -deaths, and age without a will.” Juvenal, _Sat._ I. - -[49] - - “The anarch Custom’s reign.” - - Shelley: _Revolt of Islam_. - -[50] Such it seems, were some of the popular methods of torture in -the Slaughter Houses in the first century of our æra. Whether the -“calf-bleeding,” and the preliminary operations which produce the -_pâté de foie gras_, &c., or the older methods, bear away the palm for -ingenuity in culinary torture, may be a question. - -[51] See Περὶ Σαρκοφαγίας Λόγος--in the Latin title, _De Esu -Carnium_--“On Flesh-Eating,” Parts 1 and 2. We shall here add the -authority of Pliny, who professes his conviction that “the plainest -food is the most beneficial.” (_Hist. Nat._ xi., 117); and asserts -that it is from his eating that man derives most of his diseases. -(xxv., 28.) Compare the feeling of Ovid, whom we have already -quoted--_Metamorphoses_ xv. We may here refer our readers also to the -celebration, by the same poet, of the innocent and peaceful gifts of -_Ceres_, and of the superiority of her pure table and altar--_Fasti_ -iv., 395-416. - - _Pace, Ceres, læta est._ At vos optate, Coloni, - _Perpetuam pacem_, perpetuumque ducem. - Farra Deæ, micæque licet salientis honorem - Detis: et in veteres turea grana focos. - Et, si thura aberant, unctas accendite tædas. - Parva bonæ Cereri, _sint modo casta_, placent. - _A Bove succincti cultros removete ministri: - Bos aret.... - Apta jugo cervix non est ferienda securi: - Vivat, et in durâ sæpe laboret humo._ - -And the fine picture of Virgil of the agricultural life in the ideal -“Golden Age,” in which slaughter for food and war was unknown:-- - - _Ante - Impia quam cæsis gens est epulata juvencis._ - - “Before - An impious world the labouring oxen slew.”--_Georgics II._ - -[52] “The proclamation of the birth of Apollonius to his mother -by Proteus, and the incarnation of Proteus himself--the chorus of -swans which sang for joy on the occasion--the casting out of devils, -raising the dead, and healing the sick--the sudden disappearances and -reappearances of Apollonius--his adventures in the Cave of Trophonius, -and the sacred Voice which called him at his death, to which may be -added his claim as a teacher to reform the world--cannot fail to -suggest the parallel passages in the Gospel history.... Still, it must -be allowed that the resemblances are very general, and on the whole -it seems probable that the life of Apollonius was not written with a -_controversial_ aim, as the resemblances, though real, only indicate -that a few things were borrowed, and exhibit no trace of a systematic -parallel.”--_Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography._ Edited by Wm. -Smith, LL.D. So great was the estimation in which he was held, that -the emperor Alexander Severus (one of the very few good Roman princes) -placed his statue or bust in the imperial _Larium_ or private Chapel, -together with those of Orpheus and of Christ. - -[53] Cf. Virgil, _Georgics_ II.: “Fundit humo _facilem_ victum -_justissima_ Tellus.” - -[54] So greatly was he esteemed by the later and leading Fathers of the -Church that Cyprian, the celebrated Bishop of Carthage, and “the doctor -and guide of all the Western Churches,” was accustomed to say, whenever -he applied himself to the study of his writings, “_Da mihi magistrum_” -(“Give me my master”).--Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_ I., 284. - -[55] _On Fasting or Abstinence Against the Carnal-Minded._ The style of -Tertullian, we may remark, is, for the most part, obscure and abrupt. - -[56] It is worth noting that neither the original (βρωμάτων) of -the “Authorised Version,” nor the _meats_ of the “A. V.” itself, -says anything about _flesh-eating_ in this favourite resort of its -apologists. Both expressions merely signify foods of _any kind_; -so that the passage in question of this Pastoral Letter--which is -apparently post-Pauline--can be made to condemn _absolute_ fasting -only: nor does the context warrant any other interpretation. As to -St. Paul, the great opponent of the earlier Christian belief and -practice, it must be conceded that he seems not to have shared the -abhorrence of the immediately accredited disciples of Jesus for the -sanguinary diet, especially of St. Matthew, of St. James, and of St. -Peter, who, as we are expressly assured by Clement of Alexandria, -St. Augustine, and others, lived entirely on _non-flesh_ meats. The -apparent indifferentism of St. Paul upon the question of abstinence is -best and most briefly explained by his avowed principle of action--from -the missionary point of view useful, doubtless, but from the point of -view of abstract ethics not always satisfactory--the being “all things -to all men.” - -[57] Compare Seneca, _Epistles_, cx., and Chrysostom, _Homilies_. - -[58] _Aquis sobrius, et cibis ebrius._ This important truth we venture -to commend to the earnest attention of those philanthropists, or -hygeists, who are adherents of what may be termed the _semi_-temperance -Clause--who abstain from alcoholic drinks but not from flesh. - -[59] A more accurate version of the original than that of the _A. -V._ (1 _Cor._ viii., 8-13). We may here quote the conclusion of the -argument of the Greek-Jew Apostle--“Wherefore, if [the kind of] meat -is a cause of offence to my brother, I will eat no flesh while the -world stands, that I may not be a cause of offence to my brother”--and -press it, more particularly, upon the attention of English residents, -and especially of Christian _missionaries_, amongst the sensitive and -refined Hindus who form so overwhelming a proportion of the population -of the British Empire. According to the evidence of the missionaries of -the various Christian churches themselves, their habits of flesh-eating -have not infrequently been found to prejudice all but the lowest caste -of Hindus against the reception of other ideas of Christian and Western -“civilisation.” - -[60] _Usque ad choleram ortygometras cruditando._ In the present case -it seems that the wanderers in the Arabian deserts were not so much -clamorous for flesh as for _some_ kind of sustenance, or rather for -something more than the _manna_ with which they were supplied; since -the late Egyptian slaves are reported to have said, “We remember the -fish that we did eat in Egypt freely--the cucumbers, the melons, and -the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dried -away: _there is nothing at all_ besides this manna before our eyes.” - -We may here take occasion to observe that the fact of the existence of -_sacrifice_ throughout their history necessarily involves the practice -of flesh-eating--indeed, the two practices are, historically, clearly -connected. What, however, we may fairly deduce from their simple and -frugal living in the Egyptian slavery, lasting, as it did, through -several centuries, during which period they must have been weaned -from the gross living of their previous barbarous _pastoral_ life, is -this--that but for the sacrificial rites (and, perhaps, the necessities -of the desert) the Jews would have, like other Eastern peoples, -probably adopted this _frugal_ living--of cucumbers, melons, onions, -&c.--in their new homes. Such, at least, seems to be a legitimate -inference from the highly-significant fact that, throughout their -sacred scriptures, not flesh-meats but corn, and oil, and honey, and -pomegranates, and figs, and other vegetable products (in which their -land originally abounded), are their highest dietary _ideal_--_e.g._, -“O that my people would have hearkened to me; for if Israel had walked -in my ways.... He should have fed them with the finest wheat flour: and -with honey out of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee.” (Ps. -lxxxi., 17; cf. also Ps. civ., 14, 15.) It is equally significant of -the latent and secret consciousness of the _unspiritual_ nature of the -products of the Slaughter-House, even in the Western world, that in the -_liturgies_ or “public services” of the Christian churches, wherever -food is prayed for or whenever thanks are returned for it, there is (as -it seems) a natural shrinking from mention of that which is obtained -only by cruelty and bloodshed, and it is “the kindly fruits of the -earth” which represent the legitimate dietary wants of the petitioners. - -[61] “For they that are after the Flesh do mind the things of the -Flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For -to be _carnally minded is death_; but to be _spiritually minded is life -and peace_.... So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.... -Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the -flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through -the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (_Rom._ -viii., 5, &c.) A more spiritual apprehension of ‘divine verities,’ if -we may so say, than the apparently more equivocal utterance of the same -great reformer elsewhere. Here it is well to observe, once for all that -the whole significance of the utterances of St. Paul upon flesh-eating -depends upon the bitter controversies between the older Jew and the -newer Greek or Roman sections of the rising Church. It is, in fact, -a question of the lawfulness of eating the flesh of the victims of -the Pagan and Jewish sacrificial altars--not of the question of -flesh-eating in the _abstract_ at all. In fine, it is a question not of -_ethics_, but of theological ritual. It is greatly to be lamented that -the confused and obscure translation of the _A. V._ has for so many -centuries hopelessly mystified the whole subject--as far, at least, as -the mass of the community is concerned. - -[62] See _De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos_. (Quinti. Sept. Flor. -Tertulliani Opera. Edited by Gersdorf, Tauchnitz.) - -[63] In the _Clementine Homilies_, which had a great authority -and reputation in the earlier times of Christianity, St. Peter is -represented, in describing his way of living to Clement of Rome, as -professing the _strictest_ Vegetarianism. “I live,” he declares, “upon -bread and olives only, with the addition, rarely, of kitchen herbs” -(ἄρτῳ μόνῳ καὶ ἐλαίαις χρῶμαι καὶ σπανίως λαχάνοις xii. 6.) Clement of -Alexandria (_Pædagogus_ ii. 1) assures us that “Matthew the apostle -lived upon seeds, and hard-shelled fruits, and other vegetables, -without touching flesh;” while Hegesippus, the historian of the Church -(as quoted by Eusebius, _Ecclesiastical Hist._ ii. 2, 3) asserts of -St. James that “he never ate any animal food”--οὔδε εμψυχον ἔφαγε: an -assertion repeated by St. Augustine (_Ad. Faust_, xxii. 3) who states -that James, the brother of the Lord, “lived upon seeds and vegetables, -never tasting flesh or wine” (_Jacobus, frater Domini, seminibus -et oleribus usus est, non carne nec vino_). The connexion of the -beginnings of Christianity with the sublime and simple tenets of the -Essenes, whose communistic and abstinent principles were strikingly -coincident with those of the earliest Christians, is at once one of -the most interesting and one of the most obscure phenomena in its -nascent history. The Essenes, “the sober thinkers,” as their assumed -name implies, seem to have been to the more noisy and ostentatious -Jewish sects, what the Pythagoreans were to the other Greek schools -of philosophy--_practical moralists_ rather than mere talkers and -theorisers. They first appear in Jewish history in the first century -B.C. Their communities were settled in the recesses of the Jordan -valley, yet their members were sometimes found in the towns and -villages. Like the Pythagoreans, they extorted respect even from the -worldly and self-seeking religionists and politicians of the capital. -See Josephus (_Antiquities_ xiii. and xviii.), and Philo, who speak in -the highest terms of admiration of the simplicity of their life and -the purity of their morality. Dean Stanley (_Lectures on the Jewish -Church_, vol. iii.) regards St. John the Baptist as Essenian in his -substitution of “reformation of life” for “the sanguinary, costly gifts -of the sacrificial slaughter-house.” - -[64] It is a curious and remarkable inconsistency, we may here observe, -that the modern ardent admirers of the Fathers and Saints of the -Church, while professing unbounded respect for their _doctrines_, -for the most part ignore the one of their _practices_ at once the -most ancient, the most highly reputed, and the most universal. _Quod -semper, quod ubique_, &c., the favourite maxim of St. Augustine and the -orthodox church, is, in this case, “more honoured in the breach than -in the observance.” Partial and periodical Abstinence, it is scarcely -necessary to add, however consecrated by later ecclesiasticism, is -sufficiently remote from the daily _frugal_ living of a St. James, a -St. Anthony, or a St. Chrysostom. - -[65] The full title of the treatise is--_The Miscellaneous Collection -of T. F. Clemens of Gnostic (or Speculative) Memoirs upon the true -Philosophy_. - -[66] This celebrated term distinguished the superiority of _knowledge_ -(_gnosis_) of “the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy -of the Christian name.” During the first three or four centuries the -Gnostics formed an extremely numerous as well as influential section of -the Church. They sub-divided themselves into more than fifty particular -sects, of whom the followers of Marcion and the Manicheans are the most -celebrated. Holding opinions regarding the Jewish sacred scriptures -and their authority the opposite to those of the Ebionites or Jewish -Christians, they agreed, at least a large proportion of them, with the -latter on the question of kreophagy. - -[67] _History of the Literature of Ancient Greece_, by K. O. Müller, -continued by J. W. Donaldson, D.D., vol. iii., 58. - -[68] The argument here suggested, although rarely, if ever, adduced, -may well be deemed worthy of the most serious consideration. It is, -to our mind, one of the most forcible of all the many reasons for -abstinence. That the life even of a really useful member of the human -community should be supported by the slaughter of hundreds of innocent -and intelligent beings is surely enough to “give us pause.” What, -then, shall be said of the appalling fact, that every day thousands of -worthless, and too often worse than useless, human lives go down to -the grave (to be thenceforth altogether forgotten) after having been -the cause of the slaughter and suffering of countless beings, surely -far superior to themselves in all real worth? To object the privilege -of an “immortal soul” is, in this case, merely a miserable subterfuge. -Sidney Smith calculated that _forty-four_ wagon-loads of flesh had been -consumed by himself during a life of seventy years! (See his letter to -Lord Murray.) - -[69] It was the fond belief of the _mediating_ Christian writers that -the best parts of Greek philosophy were derived, in whole or in part, -from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures. For this belief, which has prevailed -so widely, which, perhaps, still lingers amongst us, and which has -engaged the useless speculation of so many minds, an Alexandrian Jew -of the age of the later Ptolemies is responsible. It is now well known -that he deliberately forged passages in the (so-called) Orphic poems -and “Sybilline” predictions, in order to gain the respect of the Greek -rulers of his country for the Jewish Scriptures. This patriotic but -unscrupulous Jew is known by his Greek name of Aristobulus. He was -preceptor or counsellor of Ptolemy VI. - -[70] 2 _Sam._ vi., 19. Clement, in common with all the first Christian -writers, quotes from the _Septuagint_ version, which differs -considerably from the Hebrew. The English translators of the latter, -presuming that “flesh” must have formed part of the royal bounty, -gratuitously insert that word in the context. - -[71] _Pædagogus_ ii. 1, “On Eating.” - -[72] These works, which would have been highly interesting, have, with -so many other valuable productions of Greek genius, long since perished. - -[73] _Miscellanies_ vii. “On Sacrifices.” - -[74] See Plutarch’s denunciation of the very same practice of the -butchers of his day, _Essay on Flesh Eating_. Unfortunately for -the credit of Jewish humanity, it must be added that the method of -butchering (enjoined, it is alleged, by their religious laws) entails -a greater amount of suffering and torture to the victim than even the -Christian. This fact has been abundantly proved by the evidence of many -competent witnesses. The cruelty of the Jewish method of slaughter was -especially exposed at one of the recent International Congresses of -representatives of European Societies for Prevention of Cruelty. - -[75] _Miscellanies_ ii., 18. We have used for the most part the -translation of the writings of Clement, published in the Ante-Nicene -Library, by Messrs. Clarke, Edinburgh, 1869. The Greek text is corrupt. - -[76] Περὶ Ἀποχῆς Τῶν Εμψύχων - -[77] “The first book discussed alleged contradictions and other marks -of human fallibility in the Scriptures; the third treated of Scriptural -interpretation, and, strangely enough, repudiated the allegories of -Origen; the fourth examined the ancient history of the Jews; and, the -twelfth and thirteenth maintained the point now generally admitted by -scholars--that _Daniel_ is not a prophecy, but a retrospective history -of the age of Antiochus Epiphanes.”--_Donaldson_ (_Hist. of Gr. Lit._) - -[78] In justice to the old Greek Theology which, as it really was, -has enough to answer for, it must be remarked that its Demonology, or -belief in the powers of subordinate divinities--in the first instance -merely the internunciaries, or mediators, or _angels_ between Heaven -and Earth--was a very different thing from the _Diabolism_ of Christian -theology, a fact which, perhaps, can be adequately recognised by -those only who happen to be acquainted with the history of that most -widely-spread and most fearful of all superstitions. Necessarily, from -the vague and, for the most part, merely secular character of the -earlier theologies, the _infernal_ horrors, with the frightful creed, -tortures, burnings, &c., which characterised the faith of Christendom, -were wholly unknown to the religion of Apollo and of Jupiter. - -[79] Neo or New-Platonism may be briefly defined as a _spiritual_ -development of the Socratic or Platonic teaching. In the hands of some -of its less judicious and rational advocates it tended to degenerate -into puerile, though harmless, superstition. With the superior -intellects of a Plotinus, Porphyry, Longinus, Hypatia, or Proclus, on -the other hand, it was, in the main at least, a sublime attempt at the -purification and spiritualisation of the established orthodox creed. -It occupied a position midway between the old and the new religion, -which was so soon to celebrate its triumph over its effete rival. -That Christianity, on its spiritual side (whatever the ingratitude of -its later authorities), owes far more than is generally acknowledged -to both the old and newer Platonism, is sufficiently apparent to the -attentive student of theological history. - -[80] Author of a _Treatise on the Abandonment of the Flesh Diet_, 1709. -He died in the year 1737. - -[81] Voltaire might have added the examples of the Greek _Coenobites_. -There is at least one celebrated and long-established religious -community, in the Sinaitic peninsula, which has always rigidly excluded -all flesh from their diet. Like the community of La Trappe, these -religious Vegetarians are notoriously the most free from disease and -most long-lived of their countrymen. - -[82] Article _Viande_ (_Dict. Phil._) In other passages in his writings -the philosopher of Ferney, we may here remark, expresses his sympathy -with the humane diet. See especially his _Essai sur les Mœurs et -l’Esprit des Nations_ (introduction), and his Romance of _La Princesse -de Babylone_. - -[83] Οἰκειώσις strictly means adoption, admission to intimacy and -family life, or “domestication.” - -[84] The founder of the new Academy at Athens, and the vigorous -opponent of the Stoics. - -[85] That unreasoning arrogance of human selfishness, which pretends -that all other living beings have come into existence for the sole -pleasure and benefit of man, has often been exposed by the wiser, and -therefore more humble, thinkers of our race. Pope has well rebuked this -sort of monstrous arrogance:-- - - “Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good, - Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? - - * * * * * - - Know, Nature’s children all divide her care, - The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear. - While man exclaims: ‘See, all things for my use!’ - ‘See, man for mine,’ replies a pampered goose. - And just as short of reason he must fall, - Who thinks _all made for one, not one for all_.” - - _Essay on Man, III._ - -And, as a commentary upon these truly philosophic verses, we may -quote the words of a recent able writer, answering the objection, -“Why were sheep and oxen created, if not for the use of man? replies -to the same effect as Porphyry 1600 years ago:” It is only pride and -imbecility in man to imagine all things made for his sole use. There -exist millions of suns and their revolving orbs which the eye of man -has never perceived. Myriads of animals enjoy their pastime unheeded -and unseen by him--many are injurious and destructive to him. All exist -for purposes but partially known. Yet we must believe, in general, that -all were created for their own enjoyment, for mutual advantage, and for -the preservation of universal harmony in Nature. If, merely because we -can eat sheep pleasantly, we are to believe that they exist only to -supply us with food, we may as well say that man was created solely -for various parasitical animals to feed on, “_because_ they do feed on -him.”--(_Fruits and Farinacea: the Proper Food of Man._ By J. Smith. -Edited by Professor Newman. Heywood, Manchester; Pitman, London.) See, -also, amongst other philosophic writers, the remarks of Joseph Ritson -in his “Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty”--(Phillips, -London, 1802). As to Oxen and Sheep, it must be further remarked that -they have been made what they are by the intervention of man alone. The -original and wild stocks (especially that of sheep) are very different -from the metamorphosed and almost helpless domesticated varieties. -Naturam violant, pacem appellant. - -[86] The Artificer or _Creator, par excellence_. In the Platonic -language, the usual distinguishing name of the subordinate creator of -our imperfect world. - -[87] Cf. Ovid’s _Metam._, xv.; Plutarch’s _Essay on Flesh-Eating_; -Thomson’s _Seasons_. - -[88] Περὶ Ἐποχῆς κ. τ. λ. In the number of the traditionary reformers -and civilisers of the earlier nations, the name of Orpheus has always -held a foremost place. In early Christian times Orpheus and the -literature with which his name is connected occupy a very prominent -and important position, and some celebrated forged prophecies passed -current as the utterances of that half-legendary hero. Horace adopts -the popular belief as to his radical dietetic reform in the following -verses:-- - - Silvestres homines sacer, interpresque Deorum, - _Cædibus et fœdo victu_ deterruit Orpheus. - - --_Ars Poetica._ - -Virgil assigns him a place in the first rank of the Just in the Elysian -paradise.--_Æn._ vi. - -[89] In his witty satire, the _Misopogon_ or _Beard-Hater_--“a sort -of inoffensive retaliation, which it would be in the power of few -princes to employ”--directed against the luxurious people of Antioch, -who had ridiculed his frugal meals and simple mode of living, “he -himself mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual -appetite” of that orthodox but corrupt Christian city. When they -complained of the high prices of flesh-meats, “Julian publicly declared -that a _frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of -wine, oil, and bread_.”--_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxiv. - -[90] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxii. The -philosophical fable of Julian--_The Cæsars_--has been pronounced by -the same historian to be “one of the most agreeable and instructive -productions of ancient wit.” Its purpose is to estimate the merits or -demerits of the various Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. As for -the _Enemy of the Beard_, it may be ranked, for sarcastic wit, almost -with the _Jupiter in Tragedy_ of Lucian. - -[91] Article, “Chrysostom,” in the _Penny Cyclopædia_. - -[92] Baur’s _Life and Work of St. Paul_. Part ii., chap. 3. - -[93] We here take occasion to observe that, while final appeals to -our sacred Scriptures to determine any sociological question--whether -of slavery, polygamy, war, or of dietetics--cannot be too strongly -deprecated, a candid and impartial inquirer, nevertheless, will gladly -recognise traces of a consciousness of the unspiritual nature of the -sacrificial altar and shambles. He will gladly recognise that if--as -might be expected in so various a collection of sacred writings -produced by different minds in different ages--frequent sanction of the -materialist mode of living may be urged on the one side; on the other -hand, the inspiration of the more exalted minds is in accord with the -practice of the true spiritual life. Cf. _Gen._ i., 29, 30; _Isaiah_ -i., 11-17, and xi., 9 _Ps._ l., 9-14; _Ps._ lxxxi., 14-17; _Ps._ -civ., 14, 15; _Prov._ xxiii., 2, 3, 20, 21; _Prov._ xxvii., 25-27: -_Prov._ xxx., 8, 22; _Prov._ xxxi., 4; _Eccl._ vi., 7; _Matt._ vi. 31; -1 _Cor._ viii., 13, and ix., 25; _Rom._ viii., 5-8, 12, 13; _Phil._ -iii., 19, and iv., 8; _James_ ii., 13, 4, and iv., 1-3; 1 _Pet._ ii., -11. Perhaps, next to the alleged authority of _Gen._ ix. (noticed -and refuted by Tertullian, as already quoted), the trance-vision of -St. Peter is most often urged by the _bibliolaters_ (or those who -revere the _letter_ rather than the _true inspiration_ of the Sacred -Books) as a triumphant proof of biblical sanction of materialism. Yet, -unless, indeed, _literalism_ is to over-ride the most ordinary rules -of common sense, as well as of criticism, all that can be extracted -from the “Vision” (in which were presented to the sleeper “all manner -of four-footed beasts of the earth, and _wild beasts_ and _creeping -things_,” which it will hardly be contented he was expected to eat) -is the fact of a mental illumination, by which the Jewish Apostle -recognises the folly of his countrymen in arrogating to themselves the -exclusive privileges of the “Chosen People.” Besides, as has already -been pointed out, the earliest traditions concur in representing St. -Peter as always a strict abstinent, insomuch that he is stated to have -celebrated the “Eucharist” with nothing but bread and salt.--_Clement -Hom._, xiv., 1. - -[94] _Homily_, lxix. on _Mat._ xxii., 1-14. - -[95] The _male_ sex, according to our ideas, might have been more -properly apostrophised; and St. Chrysostom may seem, in this passage -and elsewhere, to be somewhat partial in his invective. Candour, -indeed, forces us to remark that the “Golden-mouthed,” in common -with many others of the Fathers, and with the Greek and Eastern -world in general, depreciated the qualities, both moral and mental, -of the feminine sex. That the weaker are what the stronger choose -to make them, is an obvious truth generally ignored in all ages and -countries--by modern satirists and other writers, as well as by a -Simonides or Solomon. The _partial_ severity of the Archbishop of -Constantinople, it is proper to add, may be justified, in some measure, -by the contemporary history of the Court of Byzantium, where the -beautiful and licentious empress Eudoxia ruled supreme. - -[96] St. Chrysostom seems to have derived this forcible appeal from -Seneca. Compare the remarks of the latter, Ep. cx.: “At, mehercule, -ista solicite scrutata varieque condita, cum subierint ventrem, una -atque cadem fæditas occupabit. Vis ciborum voluptatem contemnere? -_Exitum specta._” - -[97] The _Homilies_ of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of -Constantinople, Translated by Members of the English Church. Parker, -Oxford. See _Hom._ vii. on _Phil._ ii. for a forcible representation of -the inferiority, in many points, of our own to other species. - -[98] For example, we may refer to the fact of trials of “criminal” -dogs, and other non-human beings, with all the formalities of ordinary -courts of justice, and in the gravest manner recorded by credible -witnesses. The convicted “felons” were actually hanged with all the -circumstances of human executions. Instances of such trials are -recorded even so late as the sixteenth century. - -[99] His biographer, Marinus, writes in terms of the highest admiration -of his virtues as well as of his genius, and of the perfection to which -he had attained by his unmaterialistic diet and manner of living. He -seems to have had a remarkably cosmopolitan mind, since he regarded -with equal respect the best parts of all the then existing religious -systems; and he is said even to have paid solemn honours to all the -most illustrious, or rather most meritorious, of his philosophic -predecessors. That his intellect, sublime and exalted as it was, had -contracted the taint of superstition must excite our regret, though -scarcely our wonder, in the absence of the light of modern science; -nor can there be any difficulty in perceiving how the miracles and -celestial apparitions--which form a sort of halo around the great -teachers--originated, viz., in the natural enthusiasm of his zealous -but uncritical disciples. One of his principal works is _On the -Theology of Plato_, in six books. Another of his productions was a -Commentary on the _Works and Days of Hesiod_. Both are extant. He -died at an advanced age in 485, having hastened his end by excessive -asceticism. - -[100] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xl. This testimony of -the great historian to the merits of the last of the New-Platonists is -all the more weighty as coming from an authority notoriously the most -unimpassioned and unenthusiastic, perhaps, of all writers. Compare -his remarkable expression of personal feeling--guardedly stated as it -is--upon the question of kreophagy in his chapter on the history and -manners of the Tartar nations (chap. xxvi). - -[101] _Trattato della Vita Sobria_, 1548. - -[102] _Sævior armis Luxuria._ We may be tempted to ask ourselves -whether we are reading denunciations of the gluttony and profusion of -the sixteenth century or contemporary reports of public dinners in our -own country, _e.g._, of the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner. The vast amount -of slaughter of all kinds of victims to supply the various dishes of -_one_ of these exhibitions of national gluttony can be adequately -described only by the use of the Homeric word _hecatomb_--slaughter of -hundreds. - -[103] _Amorevole Esortazione a Seguire La Vita Ordinata e Sobria._ - -[104] Cornaro’s heterodoxy in dietetics was not allowed, as may well -be supposed, to pass unchallenged by his contemporaries. One of his -countrymen, a person of some note, Sperone Speroni, published a reply -under the title of “Contra la Sobrietà;” but soon afterwards recanting -his errors (_rimettendosi spontaneamente nel buon sentiero_) he -wrote a Discourse in favour of Temperance. About the same time there -appeared in Paris an “Anti-Cornaro,” written “against all the rules -of good taste,” and which the editors of the _Biographie Universelle_ -characterise as full of remarks “_tout à fait oiseuses_.” - -[105] More points out very forcibly that to hang for theft is -tantamount to offering a premium for _murder_. Two hundred and fifty -years later Beccaria and other humanitarians vainly advanced similar -objections to the criminal code of christian Europe. It is hardly -necessary to remark that this Draconian bloodthirstiness of English -criminal law remained to belie the name of “civilisation” so recently -as fifty years ago. - -[106] Erasmus (who, to lash satirically and more effectively the -various follies and crimes of men places the genius of Folly itself in -the pulpit) seems to have shared the feeling of his friend in regard to -the character of “sport.” “When they (the ‘sportsmen’) have run down -their victims, what strange pleasure they have in cutting them up! Cows -and sheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, but those animals that -are killed in hunting must be mangled by none under a gentleman, who -will fall down on his knees, and drawing out a slashing dagger (for a -common knife is not good enough) after several ceremonies shall dissect -all the joints as artistically as the best skilled anatomist, while -all who stand round shall look very intently and seem to be mightily -surprised with the novelty, though they have seen the same thing a -hundred times before; and he that can but dip his finger and taste of -the blood shall think his own bettered by it. And yet the constant -feeding on such diet does but assimilate them to the nature (?) of -those animals they eat,” &c.--_Encomium Moriæ_, or _Praise of Folly_. -If we recall to mind that three centuries and a half have passed away -since More and Erasmus raised their voices against the sanguinary -pursuits of hunting, and that it is still necessary to reiterate the -denunciation, we shall justly deplore the slow progress of the human -mind in all that constitutes true morality and refinement of feeling. - -[107] _Utopia_ II. - -[108] For a full and eloquent exposition of the social evils which -threaten the country from the natural but mischievous greed of -landowners and farmers, our readers are referred, in particular, -to Professor Newman’s admirable Lectures upon this aspect of the -Vegetarian creed, delivered before the Society at various times. -(Heywood: Manchester.) - -[109] _Utopia._ Translated into English by Ralph Robinson, Fellow of -Corpus Christi College. London: 1556; reprinted by Edward Arber, 1869. -We have used this English edition as more nearly representing the style -of Sir Thomas More than a modern version. It is a curious fact that no -edition of the _Utopia_ was published in England during the author’s -lifetime--or, indeed, before that of Robinson, in 1551. It was first -printed at Louvain; and, after revision by the author, it was reprinted -at Basle, under the auspices of Erasmus, still in the original Latin. - -[110] “With plaintive cries, all covered with blood, and in the -attitude of a suppliant.” See the story of the death of Silvia’s deer -(_Æneis_, viii.)--the most touching episode in the whole epic of -Virgil. The affection of the Tuscan girl for her favourite, her anxious -care of her, and the deep indignation excited amongst her people by the -murder of the deer by the son of Æneas and his intruding followers--the -cause of the war that ensued--are depicted with rare grace and feeling. - -[111] “It was in the slaughter, in the primæval times, of wild beasts -(I suppose) the knife first was stained with the warm life-blood.”--See -_Ovid Metam._ xv. - -[112] _Christian_ theology, to which doubtless Montaigne here refers, -the force of truth compels us to note, has always uttered a very -“uncertain sound” in regard to the rights and even to the frightful -sufferings of the non-human species. Excepting, indeed, two or three -isolated passages in the Jewish and Christian sacred Scriptures which, -according to the theologians, bear a somewhat _equivocal_ meaning, it -is not easy to discover what _particular_ theological or ecclesiastical -maxims Montaigne could adduce. - -[113] We use the term in deference to universal custom, although -Francis Bacon protested 250 years ago that “Antiquity, as we call -it, is the young state of the world; for those times are ancient -when the world is ancient, and not those we vulgarly account ancient -by computing backwards--so that the present time is the real -Antiquity.”--_Advancement of Learning, I._ See also _Novum Organum_. - -[114] Compare Shakspere’s eloquent indignation:-- - - “Man, proud Man, - Dressed in a little brief authority, - Most ignorant of what he’s most assured-- - His glassy essence--like an angry ape, - Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,” &c. - - _Measure for Measure._ - -[115] With these just and common-sense arguments of Montaigne compare -the very remarkable treatise (remarkable both by the profession and -by the age of the author) of Hieronymus or Jerome Rorarius, published -under the title--“That the [so-called] irrational animals often make -use of reason better than men.” (_Quod Animalia Bruta Sæpe Utantur -Ratione Melius Homine._) It was given to the world by the celebrated -physician, Gabriel Naudé, in 1648, one hundred years after it was -written, and, as pointed out by Lange, it is therefore earlier than -the Essais of Montaigne. “It is distinguished,” according to Lange, -“by its severe and serious tone, and by the assiduous emphasising of -just such traits of the lower animals as are most generally denied to -them, as being products of the higher faculties of the soul. With their -virtues the vices of men are set in sharp contrast. We can therefore -understand that the MS., although written by a priest, who was a friend -both of Pope and Emperor, had to wait so long for publication.” (_Hist. -of Materialism._ Vol. i., 225. Eng. Trans.) It is noteworthy that the -title, as well as the arguments, of the book of Rorarius reveals its -original inspiration--the Essay of Plutarch. Equally heterodox upon -this subject is the _De La Sagesse_ of Montaigne’s friend, Pierre -Charron. - -[116] _Essais_ de Michel de Montaigne, II., 12. - -[117] See Article in _English Cyclopædia_. - -[118] See _Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton_. The whole passage -breathes the true spirit of humanity and philosophy, and deserves -to be quoted in full in this place: “Il y a surtout dans l’homme -une disposition à la compassion aussi généralement répandue que nos -autres instincts. Newton avait cultivé ce sentiment d’humanité, et -il l’etendait jusqu’aux animaux. Il était fortement convaincu avec -Locke, que Dieu a donné aux animaux une mésure d’idées, et les mêmes -sentiments qu’à nous. Il ne pouvait penser que Dieu, qui ne fait rien -en vain, eût donné aux animaux des organes de sentiment, _afin qu’elles -n’eussent point de sentiment_. Il trouvait une contradiction bien -affreuse à croire que les animaux sentent, et à les faire souffrir. -Sa morale s’accordait en ce point avec sa philosophie. _Il ne cédait -qu’avec répugnance à l’usage barbare de nous nourrir du sang et de -la chair des êtres semblables à nous_, que nous caressons tous les -jours. Il ne permit jamais dans sa maison qu’on les fit mourir par -des morts lentes et recherchées, pour en rendre la nourriture plus -délicieuse. Cette compassion qu’il avait pour les animaux se tournait -en vraie charité pour les hommes. En effet, _sans l’humanité--vertu -qui comprend toutes les vertus--on ne mériterait guère le nom de -philosophe_.”--_Elémens_ v. An expression of feeling in sufficiently -striking contrast to the ordinary ideas. Compare _Essay on the Human -Understanding_, ii., 2. - -[119] _History of Materialism._--We may here observe that Descartes -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. - -[194] He well exposes the fatal mischief of _emulation_ (in place of -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. - -[259] _The Bird_, by Jules Michelet. English Translation. Nelson, -London, 1870. See, too, his eloquent exposure of the scientific or -popular error which, denying conscious reason and intelligence, in -order to explain the mental constitution of the non-human races (as -well that of the higher mammals as of the inferior species), has -invented the vague and mystifying term “instinct.” - -[260] _La Femme_, vi. Onzième Edition. Paris, 1879. - -[261] This memorable building has been succeeded by the present -well-known one in Cross Lane, where the Rev. James Clark, one of the -most esteemed, as well as one of the oldest, members of the Vegetarian -Society is the able and eloquent officiating minister. - -[262] These biographical facts we have transferred to our pages from an -interesting notice by Mr W. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L. - -[263] _Memoir of the Rev. William. Metcalfe, M.D._ By his son, Rev. -Joseph Metcalfe, Philadelphia, 1865. - -[264] See _Memoir of the Rev. William Metcalfe_. By his son, the Rev J. -Metcalfe. Philadelphia; J. Capen. 1866. - -[265] See Memoir in _Sylvester Graham’s Lectures on the Science -of Human Life_. Condensed by T. Baker, Esq., of the Inner Temple, -Barrister-at-Law. Manchester: Heywood; London: Pitman. - -[266] _The New American Cyclopædia._ Appleton, New York, 1861. It -deserves remark in this place that, in no English cyclopædia or -biographical dictionary, as far as our knowledge extends, is any -sort of notice given of this great sanitary reformer. The same -disappointment is experienced in regard to not a few other great names, -whether in hygienic or humanitarian literature. The absence of the -names of such true benefactors of the world in these books of reference -is all the more surprising in view of the presence of an infinite -number of persons--of all kinds--who have contributed little to the -stock of true knowledge or to the welfare of the world. - -[267] The Greek story of the savage horses of the Thracian king who -were fed upon human flesh, therefore, may very well be true. - -[268] Graham here quotes various authorities--Linné, Cuvier, Lawrence -Bell, and others. - -[269] Professor Lawrence instances particularly “the Laplanders, -Samoides, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Bamtschatdales, in -Northern Europe and Asia, as well as the Esquimaux in the northern, -and the natives of Tierra del Fuego in the southern, extremity of -America, who, although they live almost entirely on flesh, and -that often raw, are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people -of the globe.”--_Lectures on Physiology._ Of all races the North -American native tribes, who subsist almost entirely by the chase, are -notoriously one of the most ferocious and cruel. That the _omnivorous_ -classes in “civilised” Europe--in this country particularly--have -attained their present position, political or intellectual, _in spite -of their kreophagistic habits_ is attributable to a complex set of -conditions and circumstances (an extensive inquiry, upon which it is -impossible to enter here) which have, _in some measure_, mitigated -the evil results of a barbarous diet, will be sufficiently clear to -every unprejudiced inquirer. If flesh-eating be the cause, or one of -the principal causes, of the present dominance of the European, and -especially English-speaking peoples, it may justly be asked--how is -to be explained, _e.g._, the dominance of the Saracenic power (in S. -Europe) during seven centuries--a dominance in arms as well as in arts -and sciences--when the semi-barbarous Christian nations (at least as -regards the ruling classes) were _wholly_ kreophagistic. - -[270] For one of the ablest and most exhaustive scientific arguments -on the same side ever published we refer our readers to _The Perfect -Way in Diet_, by Mrs. Algernon Kingsford, M.D. (Kegan Paul, London, -1881). Originally written and delivered as a Thesis for _le Doctorat en -Médicine_ at the Paris University, under the title of _L’Alimentation -Végétale Chez L’Homme_ (1880), it was almost immediately translated -into German by Dr. A. Aderholdt under the same title of _Die -Pfanzennahrung bei dem Menschen_. It is, we believe, about to be -translated into Russian. The humane and moral argument of this eloquent -work is equally admirable and equally persuasive with the scientific -proofs. - -[271] - - “Sai, che là corre il mondo ove più versi - Di sue dolcesse il lusinghier Parnaso, - E che’l Vero condito in molli versi - I più schivi allettando ha persuaso. - Cosi all’ egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi - Di soave licor gli orli del vaso: - Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve, - E dall’ inganno sua vita riceve.” - - Gerusalemme Liberata, I. - -[272] See _Pflanzenkost; oder die Grundlage einer Neuen -Weltanschauung_, Von Gustav Struve, Stuttgart, 1869. For the substance -of the brief sketch of the life of Struve we are indebted to the -courtesy of Herr Emil Weilshaeuser, the recently-elected President of -the Vegetarian Society of Germany (Jan., 1882), himself the author of -some valuable words on Reformed Dietetics. - -[273] See _Sakuntalà, or the Fatal Ring_, of the Hindu Shakspere -Kalidâsa, the most interesting production of the Hindu Poetry. It has -been translated into almost every European language. - -[274] _Mandaras’ Wanderungen._ Zweite Ausgabe. Mannheim. Friedrich -Götz. 1845. For a copy of this now scarce book we are indebted to the -courtesy of Herr A. von Seefeld, of Hanover. - -[275] _Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer neuen Weltanschauung._ -Stuttgart, 1869. Cf. Liebig’s _Chemische Briefe_ (“Letters on -Chemistry.”) - -[276] _Das Seelenleben; oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen._ Von -Gustav Struve. Berlin: Theobald Grieben. 1869. - -[277] - - “Weh’ denen, die dem _Ewigblinden_ - Des Lichtes Himmelsfackel leihen!” - - SCHILLER. _Das Lied von der Glocke._ - -[278] Quoted in _Die Naturgemässe Diät: die Diät der Zukunft_, von -Theodor Hahn, Cöthen, 1859. For the substance of biographical notice -prefixed to this article we are again indebted to the kindness of Herr -Emil Weilshäuser, of Oppeln. - -[279] _Das Menschendasein in seinen Weltewigen Zügen und Zeichen._ Von -Bogumil Goltz. Frankfurt. - -[280] Compare the remarks of Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825), in his -treatise on Education, _Levana_, in which he, too, in scarcely less -emphatic language, protests against the general neglect of this -department of morals. Among other references to the subject, the -celebrated novelist thus writes: “Love is the second hemisphere of the -moral heaven. Yet is the sacred being of love little established. Love -is an inborn but differently distributed force and blood-heat of the -heart (_blutwärme des herzens_). There are cold and warm-blooded souls, -as there are animals. As for the child, so for the lower animal, love -is, in fact, an essential impulse; and this central fire often, in the -form of compassion, pierces its earth-crust, but not in every case.... -The child (under proper education) learns to regard all animal life as -sacred--in brief, they impart to him the feeling of a Hindu in place -of the heart of a Cartesian philosopher. There is here a question of -something more even than compassion for other animals; but this also -is in question. Why is it that it has so long been observed that the -cruelty of the child to the lower animals presages cruelty to men, -just as the Old-Testament sacrifice of animals preshadowed that of the -sacrifice of a man? It is for _himself only_ the undeveloped man can -experience pains and sufferings, which speak to him with the native -tones of his own experience. Consequently, the inarticulate cry of the -tortured animal comes to him just as some strange, amusing sound of -the air; and yet he sees there life, conscious movement, both which -distinguish them from the inanimate substances. Thus he sins against -his own life, whilst he sunders it from the rest, as though it were a -piece of machinery. Let life be to him [the child] sacred (_heilig_), -even that which may be destitute of reason; and, in fact, does the -child know any other? Or, because the heart beats under bristles, -feathers, or wings, is it, _therefore_, to be of no account?” - -[281] See a pamphlet upon this subject by Dr. V. -Gützlaff--_Schopenhauer ueber die Thiere und den Thierschutz: Ein -Beitrag zur ethischen Seite der Vivisectionsfrage_. Berlin, 1879. - -[282] _Le Fondement de La Morale_, par Arthur Schopenhauer, traduit de -l’Allemand par A. Burdeau. Paris, Baillière et Cie, 1879. - -[283] Quoted in _Die Naturgemässe Diät, die Diät der Zukunft_, von -Theodor Hahn, 1859. We may note here that Moleschott, the eminent Dutch -physiologist, and a younger contemporary of Liebig, alike with the -distinguished German Chemist and with the French zoologist, Buffon, is -chargeable with a strange inconsistency in choosing his place among -the apologists of kreophagy, in spite of his conviction that “the -legumes are superior to flesh-meat in abundance of solid constituents -which they contain; and, while the amount of albuminous substances may -surpass that in flesh-meat by one-half, the constituents of fat and the -salts are also present in a greater abundance.” (See _Die Naturgemässe -Diät_, von Theodor Hahn, 1859). But, in fact, it is only too obvious -_why_ at present the large majority of Scientists, while often fully -admitting the virtues, or even the superiority of the purer diet, -yet after all enrol themselves on the orthodox side. Either they are -altogether indifferent to humane teaching, or they want the courage of -their convictions to proclaim the Truth. - -[284] Among English philosophic writers, the arguments and warnings -(published in the _Dietetic Reformer_ during the past fifteen years) of -the present head of the Society for the promotion of Dietary Reform in -this country, Professor Newman, in regard to National Economy and to -the enormous evils, present and prospective, arising from the prevalent -insensibility to this aspect of National Reform are at once the most -forcible and the most earnest. It would be well if our public men, and -all who are in place and power, would give the most earnest heed to -them. But this, unhappily, under the _present_ prevailing political and -social conditions, experience teaches to be almost a vain expectation. - -[285] Μήλοισι Grævius, the famous German Scholar of the 17th century, -maintains to mean here _Fruits_, not “Flocks,” according to the vulgar -interpretation, and the translation of Grævius, it will be allowed, is -at least more consistent with the context than is the latter. It must -be added that the whole verse bracketed is of doubtful genuineness. - -[286] This remarkable passage, it is highly interesting to note, is the -earliest indication of the idea of “guardian angels,” which afterwards -was developed in the Platonic philosophy; and which, considerably -modified by Jewish belief, derived from the Persian theology, finally -took form in the Christian creed. Compare the beautiful idea of -guardian angels, or spirits in the Prologue of the _Shipwreck_ of -Plautus. - -[287] See _Poetæ Minores Græci ... Aliisque Accessionibus Aucta._ -Edited by Thomas Gaisford. Vol. III. Lipsiæ, 1823. - -[288] - - “Quum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te? - Stultitia est, _morte alterius_ sperare Salutem.” - -[289] _The Light of Asia: or, The Great Renunciation_ -(_Mahâbhinishkramana_). Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince -of India, and Founder of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian -Buddhist). By Edwin Arnold. London: Trübner.--In the Hindu Epic, the -_Mahâbhârata_, the same great principle is apparent, though less -conspicuously:-- - - “The constant virtue of the Good is tenderness and love - To all that live in earth, air, sea--great, small--below, above: - Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle will to each: - _Who pities not, hath not the Faith_. Full many a one so lives.” - - III.--Story of Savîtri - -[290] Compare the beautiful verses of Lucretius--who, almost alone -amongst the poets, has indignantly denounced the vile and horrible -practice of sacrifice--picturing the inconsolable grief the Mother Cow -bereft of her young, who has been ravished from her for the sacrificial -altar:-- - - “Sæpe ante Deûm vitulus delubra decora - Thuricremas propter mactatus concidit aras - Sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen, - At mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans - Noacit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis, - Omnia convisens oculis loca, si queat usquam - Conspicere amissum fœtum, completque querellis - Frondiferum nemus absistens, et crebra revisit - Ad stabulum desiderio perfixa Juvenci; - Nec teneræ salices atque herbæ rore vigentes, - Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis - Oblectare animum, subitamque avertere curam, - Nee vitulorum aliæ species per pabula læta - Derivare queunt animum curâque levare.” - - (_De Rerum Naturâ II._) - -See also the memorable verses in which the rationalist poet stigmatises -the vicarious sacrifice of Iphigeneia.--_Tantum Religio potuit suadere -Malorum_ (L). - -[291] See, also, _Fasti_, already quoted above. - - “Pace Ceres læta est...... - A Bove succincti cultros removete Ministri, &c.” IV. 407-416. - -[292] _Florilegium_ of Stobæus--(17-43 and 18-38), quoted by Professor -Mayor in _Dietetic Reformer_, July, 1881. In the erudite and exhaustive -edition of Juvenal, by Professor Mayor (Macmillan, Cambridge), will be -found a large number of quotations from Greek and Latin writers, and a -great deal of interesting matter upon frugal living. - -[293] “_Hygiasticon: On the Right Course of Preserving Life and Health -unto Extreme Old Age; together with Soundness and Integrity of the -Senses, Judgment, and Memory._ Written in Latin by Leonard Lessius, and -now done into English. The second edition. Printed by the printers to -the Universitie of Cambridge, 1634.” Lessio, like his master Cornaro, -Haller, and many other advocates of a reformed diet, was influenced not -at all by humanitarian, but by health reasons only. - -[294] Cf. Plutarch--_Essay on Flesh-Eating_. - -[295] _Some Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Tryon, late of London, -Merchant. Written by Himself._ London, 1705. - -[296] Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri.--Ovid, _Met._ I. - -[297] Compare Seneca and Chrysostom, above. - -[298] If Tryon could point to diseases among the victims of the -shambles in the 17th century, what use might he not make of the -epidemics or endemics of the present day? - -[299] _The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness: or a Discourse -of Temperance, and the Particular Nature of all things Requisite for -the Life of Man.... The Like never before Published. Communicated to -the World, for the General Good, by Philotheos Physiologus_ [Tryon’s -_nom de plume_.] _London, 1683_. It is (in its best parts) the worthy -precursor of _The Herald of Health_, and of the valuable hygienic -philosophy of its able editor--Dr. T. L. Nichols. - -[300] See _Biog. Universelle_, Art. _Philippe Hecquet_ - -[301] _Traité des Dispenses, &c._ Par Philippe Hecquet, M.D., Paris. -Ed. 1709. - -[302] - - “That lies beneath the knife, - Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life.” - - Æn. VII. (Pope’s translation.) Quoted first by Montaigne. _Essais._ - -[303] And, Pope might have added, a more diabolical torture -still--calves bled to death by a slow and lingering process--hung -up (as they often are) head downwards. Although not universal as -it was some ten years ago, this, among other Christian practices, -yet flourishes in many parts of the country, unchecked by legal -intervention. - -[304] See Article, Plutarch, above. - -[305] So far, at least, as the _natural and necessary wants_ of each -species are concerned.--That “Nature” is regardless of suffering, is -but too apparent in all parts of our globe. It is the opprobrium and -shame of the human species that, placed at the head of the various -races of beings, it has hitherto been the _Tyrant_, and not the -_Pacificator_. - -[306] _The Four Stages of Cruelty_, in which, beginning with the -torture of other animals, the legitimate sequence is fulfilled in the -murder of the torturer’s mistress or wife. - -[307] Which is the accomplice _really guilty_? The ignorant, untaught, -wretch who has to gain his living some way or other, or those who -have been entrusted with, or who have assumed, the control of the -public conscience--the statesman, the clergy, and the schoolmaster? -Undoubtedly it is upon these that almost all the guilt lies, and always -will lie. - -[308] Bull-baiting, in this country, has been for some years illegal; -but that moralists, and other writers of the present day, while -boasting the abolition of that popular _pastime_, are silent, upon the -equally barbarous, if more fashionable _sports_ of Deer-hunting, &c., -is one of those inconsistencies in logic which are as unaccountable as -they are common. - -[309] “That is,” remarks Ritson, “in a state of Society influenced by -Superstition, Pride, and a variety of prejudices equally unnatural and -absurd.” - -[310] “The converse of all this is true. He is certainly taught by -example, and by temptation, and prompted by (what he thinks is) -interest.”--Note by Ritson in _Abstinence from Flesh a Moral Duty_. - -[311] Among living enlightened medical authorities of the present -day, Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., perhaps the most eminent hygeist -and sanitary reformer in the country now living, has delivered his -testimony in no doubtful terms to the superiority of the purer -diet. In his recent publication _Salutisland_ he has banished the -slaughter-house, with all its abominations, from that model State. See -also his _Hygieia_. - -[312] _L’Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la Santé: ou, Traité -d’Hygiène._ Par M. Pressavin, Gradué de l’Université de Paris; Membre -du Collège Royal de Chirurgie de Lyon, et Ancien Demonstrateur en -Matière Medicale-Chirurgicale. A Lyon, 1786. - -[313] _Die Eleusische Fest._ - -[314] _Der Alpenjäger._ See also Göthe--_Italienische Reise_, XXIII. -42; _Aus Meinem Leben_, XXIV. 23; _Werther’s Leiden_; Brief 12. - -[315] _Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation_ -(page 311). By Jeremy Bentham, M.A., Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, &c.; -Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876. It must be added that the assumption -(on the same page on which this cogent reasoning is found), that -man has the right to _kill_ his fellow-beings, for the purpose of -feeding upon their flesh, is one more illustration of the strange -inconsistencies into which even so generally just and independent a -thinker as the author of the _Book of Fallacies_ may be forced by -the “logic of circumstances.” Among recent notable Essays upon the -Rights of the Lower Animals (the _right to live_ excepted) may here be -mentioned--_Animals and their Masters_, by Sir Arthur Helps (1873), and -_The Rights of an Animal_, by Mr. E. B. Nicholson, librarian of the -Bodleian, Oxford (1877). - -[316] Compare the _Voyages_ of Volney, one of the most philosophical -of the thinkers of the eighteenth century, who himself for some time -seems to have lived on the non-flesh diet. Attributing the ferocious -character of the American savage, “hunter and butcher, who, in every -animal sees but an object of prey, and who is become an animal of the -species of wolves and of tigers,” to such custom, this celebrated -traveller adds the reflection that “the habit of shedding blood, or -simply of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiments of humanity.” (See -_Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte_.) See, too, Thevenot (the younger), an -earlier French traveller, who describes a Banian hospital, in which -he saw a number of sick Camels, Horses, and Oxen, and many invalids -of the feathered race. Many of the lower Animals, he informs us, were -maintained there for life, those who recovered being sold to Hindus -exclusively. - -[317] This feeling occasionally appears in his poems, as, for instance, -when describing a “banquet” and its flesh-eating guests, he wonders how -“Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.” - -[318] Note on this point the words of the late W. R. Greg, to the -effect that “the amount of human life sustained on a given area may -be almost indefinitely increased by the substitution of vegetable for -animal food;” and his further statement--“A given acreage of wheat -will feed at least ten times as many men as the same acreage employed -in growing ‘mutton.’ It is usually calculated that the consumption of -wheat by an adult is about one quarter per annum, and we know that good -land produces four quarters. But let us assume that a man living on -grain would require two quarters a year; still one acre would support -two men. But, a man living on [flesh] meat would need 3lbs. a day, and -it is considered a liberal calculation if an acre spent in grazing -sheep and cattle will yield in ‘beef’ and ‘mutton’ more than 50lb. on -an average--the best farmer in Norfolk having averaged 90lb., but a -great majority of farms in Great Britain only reach 20lb. On these data -it would require 22 acres of pasture land to sustain one adult person -living on [flesh] meat. It is obvious that in view of the adoption of a -vegetable diet lies the indication of a vast increase in the population -sustainable on a given area.”--_Social and Political Problems_ -(_Trübner_). - -[319] “Of the Cruelty connected with he Culinary Arts” in _Philozoa; -or, Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, -and on the Means of Improving the Same_; with numerous Anecdotes and -Illustrative Notes, addressed to Lewis Gompertz, Esq., President of -the Animals’ Friend Society: By T. Forster, M.B., F.R.A.S., F.L.S., -&c. Brussels, 1839. The writer well insists that, however remote may -be a _universal_ Reformation, every individual person, pretending -to any culture or refinement of mind, is morally bound to abstain -from sanctioning, by his dietetic habits, the revolting atrocities -“connected with the culinary arts, of which Mr. Young, in his Book on -Cruelty, has given a long catalogue.” - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ethics of Diet, by Howard Williams - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ETHICS OF DIET *** - -***** This file should be named 55785-0.txt or 55785-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/8/55785/ - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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