{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55785/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55785","id":"gutenberg_55785","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55785","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Nutrition","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Diet","Vegetarianism"],"text":"######################################################################\n\n Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\nThis e-text is based on \u2018The Ethics of Diet,\u2019 from 1883. Inconsistent\nand uncommon spelling and hyphenation have been retained; punctuation\nand typographical errors have been corrected. Quotations, particularly\nin languages other than English, have not been changed. Some footnote\nanchors are missing in the original text. They have been restored in\nthe position where they make sense on the page in question.\n\nThe succession of chapter titles in the table of contents has been\nrearranged for chapters XLIII.\u2013XLVII. to match the order of chapters\nprinted in the text. Neither the author Louis L\u00e9mery, referred to in\nthe index, nor any of his works could be located in the text; the\nreference has been retained, though.\n\nPassages in italics have been surrounded by _underscores_; small\ncapitals have been converted to UPPERCASE LETTERS.\n\n ######################################################################\n\n\n\n\n THE ETHICS OF DIET.\n\n A Catena\n OF\n AUTHORITIES DEPRECATORY OF THE PRACTICE OF FLESH-EATING.\n\n BY\n HOWARD WILLIAMS, M.A.\n\n \u201cMan by Nature was never made to be a carnivorous animal, nor is\n he armed at all for prey and rapine.\u201d\n --_Ray._\n\n \u201cHommes, soyez _humains_! c\u2019est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse\n y-a-t-il pour vous hors de l\u2019humanit\u00e9?\u201d\n --_Rousseau._\n\n \u201cDer Mensch ist was er isst.\u201d\n --_German Proverb._\n\n LONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW; JOHN HEYWOOL, 11,\n PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, MANCHESTER: JOHN HEYWOOD, DEANSGATE AND\n RIDGEFIELD.\n\n 1883.\n\n [_All Rights Reserved._]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n CHAP. PAGE.\n\n Preface i.-vi.\n\n I. Hesiod 1\n\n II. Pythagoras 4\n\n III. Plato 12\n\n IV. Ovid 23\n\n V. Seneca 27\n\n VI. Plutarch 41\n\n VII. Tertullian 51\n\n VIII. Clement of Alexandria 56\n\n IX. Porphyry 63\n\n X. Chrysostom 76\n\n XI. Cornaro 83\n\n XII. Thomas More 90\n\n XIII. Montaigne 94\n\n XIV. Gassendi 100\n\n XV. Ray 106\n\n XVI. Evelyn 107\n\n XVII. Mandeville 113\n\n XVIII. Gay 115\n\n XIX. Cheyne 120\n\n XX. Pope 128\n\n XXI. Thomson 134\n\n XXII. Hartley 138\n\n XXIII. Chesterfield 139\n\n XXIV. Voltaire 141\n\n XXV. Haller 156\n\n XXVI. Cocchi 157\n\n XXVII. Rousseau 159\n\n XXVIII. Linn\u00e9 164\n\n XXIX. Buffon 166\n\n XXX. Hawkesworth 168\n\n XXXI. Paley 169\n\n XXXII. St. Pierre 173\n\n XXXIII. Oswald 179\n\n XXXIV. Hufeland 184\n\n XXXV. Ritson 185\n\n XXXVI. Nicholson 190\n\n XXXVII. Abernethy 196\n\n XXXVIII. Lambe 198\n\n XXXIX. Newton 205\n\n XL. Gle\u00efz\u00e8s 208\n\n XLI. Shelley 218\n\n XLII. Phillips 235\n\n XLIII. Lamartine 245\n\n XLIV. Michelet 252\n\n XLV. Cowherd 258\n\n XLVI. Metcalfe 260\n\n XLVII. Graham 264\n\n XLVIII. Struve 271\n\n XLIX. Daumer 282\n\n L. Schopenhauer 286\n\n\n APPENDIX.\n\n I. Hesiod 293\n\n II. The Golden Verses 294\n\n III. The Buddhist Canon 295\n\n IV. Ovid 299\n\n V. Musonius 303\n\n VI. Lessio 305\n\n VII. Cowley 308\n\n VIII. Tryon 309\n\n IX. Hecquet 314\n\n X. Pope 318\n\n XI. Chesterfield 320\n\n XII. Jenyns 322\n\n XIII. Pressavin 324\n\n XIV. Schiller 326\n\n XV. Bentham 327\n\n XVI. Sinclair 329\n\n XVII. Byron 331\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nAt the present day, in all parts of the civilised world, the once\northodox practices of cannibalism and human sacrifice universally are\nregarded with astonishment and horror. The history of human development\nin the past, and the slow but sure progressive movements in the present\ntime, make it absolutely certain that, with the same astonishment\nand horror will the now prevailing habits of living by the slaughter\nand suffering of the inferior species--habits different in degree\nrather than in kind from the old-world barbarism--be regarded by an\nage more enlightened and more refined than ours. Of such certainty\nno one, whose _beau id\u00e9al_ of civilisation is not a State crowded\nwith jails, penitentiaries, reformatories, and asylums, and who does\nnot measure Progress by the imposing but delusive standard of an\nostentatious Materialism--by the statistics of commerce, by the amount\nof wealth accumulated in the hands of a small part of the community,\nby the increase of populations which are mainly recruited from the\nimpoverished classes, by the number and popularity of churches and\nchapels, or even by the number of school buildings and lecture halls,\nor the number and variety of charitable institutions throughout the\ncountry--will pretend to have any reasonable doubt.\n\nIn searching the records of this nineteenth century--the minutes\nand proceedings of innumerable learned and scientific societies,\nespecially those of Social and Sanitary Science Congresses--our more\nenlightened descendants (let us suppose, of the 2001st century of the\nChristian era), it is equally impossible to doubt, will observe with\namazement that, amid all the immeasurable talking and writing upon\nsocial and moral science, there is discoverable little or no trace of\nserious inquiry in regard to a subject which the more thoughtful Few,\nin all times, have agreed in placing at the very foundation of all\npublic or private well-being. Nor, probably, will the astonishment\ndiminish when, further, it is found that, amid all the vast mass of\ntheologico-religious publications, periodical or other (supposing,\nindeed, any considerable proportion of them to survive to that age),\nno consciousness appeared to exist of the reality of such virtues as\nHumaneness and Universal Compassion, or of any obligation upon the\nwriters to exhibit them to the serious consideration of the world: and\nthis, notwithstanding the contemporary existence of a long-established\nassociation of humanitarian reformers who, though few in number, and\nnot in the position of dignity and power which compels the attention\nof mankind, none the less by every means at their disposal--upon the\nplatform and in the press, by pamphlets and treatises appealing at once\nto physical science, to reason, to conscience, to the authority of\nthe most earnest thinkers, to the logic of facts--had been protesting\nagainst the cruel barbarisms, the criminal waste, and the demoralising\ninfluences of Butchery; and demonstrating by their own example, and\nby that of vast numbers of persons in the most different parts of the\nglobe, the entire practicability of Humane Living.\n\nWhen, further, it is revealed in the popular literature, as well as in\nthe scientific books and journals of this nineteenth century, that the\ninnocent victims of the luxurious gluttony of the richer classes in\nall communities, subjected as they were to every conceivable kind of\nbrutal atrocity, were yet, by the science of the time, acknowledged,\nwithout controversy, to be beings essentially of the same physical and\nmental organisation with their human devourers; to be as susceptible\nto physical suffering and pain as they; to be endowed--at all events,\na very large proportion of them--with reasoning and mental faculties\nin very high degrees, and far from destitute of moral perceptions, the\namazement may well be conjectured to give way to incredulity, that\nsuch knowledge and such practices could possibly co-exist. That the\noutward signs of all this gross barbarism--the entire or mangled bodies\nof the victims of the Table--were accustomed to be put up for public\nexhibition in every street and thoroughfare, without manifestations of\ndisgust or abhorrence from the passers-by--even from those pretending\nto most culture or fashion--such outward proofs of extraordinary\ninsensibility on the part of all classes to finer feeling may,\nnevertheless, scarcely provoke so much astonishment from an enlightened\nposterity as the fact that every public gathering of the governors or\ncivil dignitaries of the country; every celebration of ecclesiastical\nor religious festivals appeared to be made the special occasion of the\nsacrifice and suffering of a greater number and variety than usual\nof their harmless fellow-beings; and all this often in the near\nneighbourhood of starving thousands, starving from want of the merest\nnecessaries of life.\n\nHappily, however, there will be visible to the philosopher of the\nFuture signs of the dawn of the better day in this last quarter of the\nnineteenth century. He will find, in the midst of the general barbarism\nof life, and in spite of the prevailing indifferentism and infidelity\nto truth, that there was a gradually increasing number of dissenters\nand protesters; that already, at the beginning of that period, there\nwere associations of dietary reformers--offshoots from the English\nparent society, founded in 1847--successively established in America,\nin Germany, in Switzerland, in France, and, finally, in Italy; small\nindeed in numbers, but strenuous in efforts to spread their principles\nand practice; that in some of the larger cities, both in this country\nand in other parts of Europe, there had also been set on foot _Reformed\nRestaurants_, which supplied to considerable numbers of persons at once\nbetter food and better knowledge.\n\nIf the truth or importance of any Principle or Feeling is to be\nmeasured, not by its popularity, indeed--not by the _quod ab\nomnibus_--but by the extent of its recognition by the most refined\nand the most earnest thinkers in all the most enlightened times--by\nthe _quod a sapientibus_--the value of no principle has better been\nestablished than that which insists upon the vital importance of a\nradical reform in Diet. The number of the protesters against the\nbarbarism of human living who, at various periods in the known history\nof our world, have more or less strongly denounced it, is a fact\nwhich cannot fail to arrest the attention of the most superficial\ninquirer. But a still more striking characteristic of this large body\nof protestation is the _variety_ of the witnesses. Gautama Buddha and\nPythagoras, Plato and Epikurus, Seneca and Ovid, Plutarch and Clement\n(of Alexandria), Porphyry and Chrysostom, Gassendi and Mandeville,\nMilton and Evelyn, Newton and Pope, Ray and Linn\u00e9, Tryon and Hecquet,\nCocchi and Cheyne, Thomson and Hartley, Chesterfield and Ritson,\nVoltaire and Swedenborg, Wesley and Rousseau, Franklin and Howard,\nLambe and Pressavin, Shelley and Byron, Hufeland and Graham, Gle\u00efz\u00e8s\nand Phillips, Lamartine and Michelet, Daumer and Struve--such are some\nof the more or less famous, or meritorious, names in the Past to be\nfound among the prophets of Reformed Dietetics, who, in various degrees\nof abhorrence, have shrunk from the _r\u00e9gime_ of blood. Of many of those\nwho have revolted from it, it may almost be said that they revolted _in\nspite of themselves_--in spite, that is to say, of the most cherished\nprejudices, traditions, and sophisms of Education.\n\nIf we seek the historical origin of anti-kreophagist philosophy, it is\nto the Pythagorean School, in the later development of the Platonic\nphilosophy especially, that the western world is indebted for the\nfirst systematic enunciation of the principle, and inculcation of the\npractice, of anti-materialistic living--the first historical protest\nagainst the _practical_ materialism of every-day eating and drinking.\nHow Christianity, which, in its first origin, owes so much to, and was\nso deeply imbued with, on the one hand, Essenian, and, on the other,\nPlatonic principles, to the incalculable loss of all the succeeding\nages, has failed to propagate and develope this true and vital\nspiritualism--in spite, too, of the convictions of some of its earliest\nand best exponents, an Origen or Clemens, seems to be explained, in\nthe first instance, by the hostility of the triumphant and orthodox\nChurch to the \u201cGnostic\u201d element which, in its various shapes, long\npredominated in the Christian Faith, and which at one time seemed\ndestined to be the ruling sentiment in the Church; and, secondly,\nby the natural growth of materialistic principles and practice in\nproportion to the growth of ecclesiastical wealth and power; for,\nalthough the virtues of \u201casceticism,\u201d derived from Essenism and\nPlatonism, obtained a high reputation in the orthodox Church, they were\nrelegated and appropriated to the ecclesiastical order (theoretically\nat least), or rather to certain departments of it.\n\nSuch was what may be termed the sectarian cause of this fatal\nabandonment of the more spiritual elements of the new Faith, operating\nin conjunction with the corrupting influences of wealth and power.\nAs regards the _humanitarian_ reason of anti-materialistic living,\nthe failure and seeming incapacity of Christianity to recognise this,\nthe most significant of all the underlying principles of reformation\nin Diet--the cause is not far to seek. It lay, essentially, in the\n(theoretical) depreciation of, and contempt for, _present_ as compared\nwith _future_ existence. All the fatal consequence of this theoretical\nteaching (which yet has had no extensive influence, even in the way\nit might have been supposed to act beneficially), in regard to the\nstatus and rights of the non-human species, has been well indicated\nby a distinguished authority. \u201cIt should seem,\u201d writes Dr. Arnold,\n\u201cas if the primitive Christians, by laying so much stress upon a\nfuture life, and placing the lower beings out of the pale of hope [of\nextended existence], placed them at the same time out of the pale of\nsympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of\n[other] animals in the light of our fellow-beings. Their definition\nof _Virtue_ was the same as that of Paley--that it was good performed\nfor the sake of ensuring everlasting happiness; which, of course,\nexcluded all the [so-called] brute creatures.\u201d[1] Hence it comes about\nthat Humanitarianism and, in particular, Humane Dietetics, finds no\nplace whatever in the religionism or pseudo-philosophy of the whole\nof the ages distinguished as the _Medi\u00e6val_--that is to say, from\nabout the fifth or sixth to the sixteenth century--and, in fact,\nthere existed not only a negative indifferentism, but even a positive\ntendency towards the still further depreciation and debasement of the\nextra-human races, of which the great doctor of medi\u00e6val theology,\nSt. Thomas Aquinas (in his famous _Summa Totius Theologi\u00e6_--the\nstandard text book of the orthodox church), is especially the exponent.\nAfter the revival of reason and learning in the sixteenth century,\nto Montaigne, who, following Plutarch and Porphyry, reasserted the\nrights of the non-human species in general; and to Gassendi, who\nreasserted the right of innocent beings to life, in particular,\namong philosophers, belongs the supreme merit of being the first\nto dispel the long-dominant prejudices, ignorance, and selfishness\nof the common-place teachers of Morals and Religion. For orthodox\nProtestantism, in spite of its high-sounding name, so far at least as\nits theology is concerned, has done little in _protesting_ against the\ninfringement of the moral rights of the most helpless and the most\nharmless of all the members of the great commonwealth of Living Beings.\n\nThe principles of Dietary Reform are widely and deeply founded upon the\nteaching of (1) Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; (2) Humaneness, in\nthe two-fold meaning of Refinement of Living, and of what is commonly\ncalled \u201cHumanity;\u201d (3) National Economy; (4) Social Reform; (5)\nDomestic and Individual Economy; (6) Hygienic Philosophy, all of which\nare amply displayed in the following pages. Various minds are variously\naffected by the same arguments, and the force of each separate one\nwill appear to be of different weight according to the special bias\nof the inquirer. The _accumulated_ weight of all, for those who are\nable to form a calm and impartial judgment, cannot but cause the\nsubject to appear one which demands and requires the most serious\nattention. To the present writer, the humanitarian argument appears\nto be of double weight; for it is founded upon the irrefragable\nprinciples of Justice and Compassion--universal Justice and universal\nCompassion--the two principles most essential in any system of ethics\nworthy of the name. That this argument seems to have so limited an\ninfluence--even with persons otherwise humanely disposed, and of finer\nfeeling in respect to their own, and, also, in a general way, to other\nspecies--can be attributed only to the deadening power of custom and\nhabit, of traditional prejudice, and educational bias. If they could be\nbrought to reflect upon the simple ethics of the question, divesting\ntheir minds of these distorting media, it must appear in a light very\ndifferent from that in which they accustom themselves to consider it.\nThis subject, however, has been abundantly insisted upon with eloquence\nand ability much greater than the present writer has any pretensions\nto. It is necessary to add here, upon this particular branch of the\nsubject, only one or two observations. The popular objections to the\ndisuse of the flesh-diet may be classified under the two heads of\nfallacies and subterfuges. Not a few candid inquirers, doubtless,\nthere are who sincerely allege certain _specious_ objections to the\nhumanitarian argument, which have a considerable amount of _apparent_\nforce; and these fallacies seem alone to deserve a serious examination.\n\nIn the general constitution of life on our globe, suffering and\nslaughter, it is objected, are the normal and constant condition\nof things--the strong relentlessly and cruelly preying upon the\nweak in endless succession--and, it is asked, why, then, should the\nhuman species form an exception to the general rule, and hopelessly\nfight against Nature? To this it is to be replied, first: _that_,\nalthough, too certainly, an unceasing and cruel internecine warfare\nhas been waged upon this atomic globe of ours from the first origin\nof Life until now, yet, apparently, there has been going on a slow,\nbut not uncertain, progress towards the ultimate elimination of the\ncrueller phenomena of Life; _that_, if the _carnivora_ form a very\nlarge proportion of Living Beings, yet the _non-carnivora_ are in the\nmajority; and, lastly, what is still more to the purpose, _that_ Man,\nmost evidently, by his origin and physical organisation, belongs not\nto the former but to the latter; besides and beyond which, _that_ in\nproportion as he boasts himself--and as he is seen _at his best_ (and\nonly so far) he boasts himself with justness--to be the highest of\nall the gradually ascending and co-ordinated series of Living Beings,\nso is he, in that proportion, bound to prove his right to the supreme\nplace and power, and his asserted claims to moral as well as mental\nsuperiority, by his conduct. In brief, in so far only as he proves\nhimself to be the _beneficent ruler and pacificator_--and not the\nselfish Tyrant--of the world, can he have any just title to the moral\npre-eminence.\n\nIf the philosophical fallacy (the _eidolon spec\u00fbs_) thus vanishes under\na near examination; the next considerable objection, upon a superficial\nview, not wholly unnatural, that, if slaughtering for food were to be\nabolished, there would be a failure of manufacturing material for the\nordinary uses of social life, is, in reality, based upon a contracted\napprehension of facts and phenomena. For it is a reasonable and\nsufficient reply, that the whole history of civilisation, as it has\nbeen a history of the slow but, upon the whole, continuous advance\nof the human race in the arts of Refinement, so, also, has it proved\nthat _demand creates supply_--that it is the absence of the former\nalone which permits the various substances, no less than the various\nforces, yet latent in Nature to remain uninvestigated and unused. Nor\ncan any thoughtful person, who knows anything of the history of Science\nand Discovery, doubt that the resources of Nature and the mechanical\ningenuity of man are all but boundless. Already, notwithstanding\nthe absence of any demand for them, excepting within the ranks of\nanti-kreophagists, various non-animal substances have been proposed, in\nsome cases used, as substitutes for the prepared skins of the victims\nof the Slaughter-house; and that, in the event of a general demand\nfor such substitutes, there would spring up an active competition\namong inventors and manufacturers in this direction there is not the\nleast reason for doubt. Besides, it must be taken into account that\nthe process of conversion of the flesh-eating (that is to say, of the\nricher) sections of communities to the bloodless diet will, only too\ncertainly, be very slow and gradual.\n\nAs for the popular--perhaps the most popular--fallacy (the _eidolon\nfori_), which exhibits little of philosophical accuracy, or, indeed,\nof common reason, involved in the questions: \u201cWhat is to become of\n_the animals_?\u201d and, \u201cWhy were they created, if they are not intended\nfor Slaughter and for human food?\u201d--it is scarcely possible to\nreturn a grave reply. The brief answer, of course, is--that those\nvariously-tortured beings have been brought into existence, and their\nnumbers maintained, by selfish human invention only. Cease to breed\nfor the butcher, and they will cease to exist beyond the numbers\nnecessary for lawful and innocent use; they were \u201ccreated\u201d indeed,\nbut they have been created by man, since he has vastly modified and,\nby no means, for the benefit of his helpless dependants, the natural\nform and organisation of the original types, the parent stocks of the\ndomesticated Ox, Sheep, and Swine, now very remote from the native\ngrandeur and vigour of the Bison, the Mouflon, and the wild Boar.\n\nThere remains one fallacy of quite recent origin. An association has\nbeen formed--somewhat late in the day, it must be allowed--consisting\nof a few sanitary reformers, who put forward, also, humane reasons, for\n\u201cReform of the Slaughter-Houses,\u201d one of the secondary propositions\nof which is, that the savagery and brutality of the Butchers\u2019 trade\ncould be obviated by the partial or general use of less lingering and\nrevolting modes of killing than those of the universal knife and axe.\nNo humanitarian will refuse to welcome any sign, however feeble, of\nthe awakening of the conscience of the Community, or rather of the\nmore thoughtful part of it, to the paramount obligations of common\nHumanity, and of the recognition of the claims of the subject species\nto _some_ consideration and to _some_ compassion, if not of the\nrecognition of the claims of Justice; or will refuse to welcome any\nsort of proposition to lessen the enormous sum total of atrocities to\nwhich the lower animals are constantly subjected by human avarice,\ngluttony, and brutality. But, at the same time, no earnest humanitarian\ncan accept the sophism, that an attempt at a mitigation of cruelty and\nsuffering which, fundamentally, are _unnecessary_, ought to satisfy\nthe educated conscience or reason. Vainly do the more feeling persons,\nwho happen to have some scruples of conscience in respect to the\nsanction of the barbarous practice of Butchering, think to abolish the\ncruelties, while still indulging the appetite for the flesh luxuries,\nof the Table. The vastness of the demands upon the butchers--demands\nconstantly increasing with the pecuniary resources of the nation,\nand stimulated by the pernicious example of the wealthy classes; the\nimmensity of the traffic in \u201clive stock\u201d (as they complacently are\ntermed) by rail and by ship,[2] the frightful horrors of which it has\noften been attempted, though inadequately, to describe; the utter\nimpossibility of efficiently supervising and regulating such traffic\nand such slaughter--even supposing the desire to do so to exist to\nany considerable extent--and the inveterate indifferentism of the\nLegislature and of the influential classes, sufficiently declare the\nfutility of such expectation and of the indulgence of such comfortable\nhope. It is, in brief, as with other attempts at patching and mending,\nor at applying salves to a hopelessly festered and gangrened wound,\nmerely to put the \u201cflattering unction\u201d of compromise to the conscience.\n\u201cDiseases, desperate grown, by desperate appliances are relieved, or\nnot at all;\u201d the foul stream of cruelty must be stopped at its source;\nthe fountain and origin of the evil--the Slaughter-House itself--must\nbe abolished. _Delendum est Macellum._\n\nIt has been well said by one of the most eloquent of the prophets\nof Humane Living, that there are steps on the way to the summit of\nDietetic Reform, and, if only one step be taken, yet that that single\nstep will be not without importance and without influence in the world.\nThe step, which leaves for ever behind it the barbarism of slaughtering\nour fellow-beings, the Mammals and Birds, is, it is superfluous to add,\nthe most important and most influential of all.\n\nAs for the plan of the present work, living writers and\nauthorities--numerous and important as they are--necessarily have been\nexcluded. Its bulk, already extended beyond the original conception\nof its limits, otherwise would have been swollen to a considerably\nlarger size. For its entire execution, as well as for the collection\nand arrangement of the matter, the compiler alone is responsible;\nand, conscious that it must fall short of the completeness at which\nhe aimed, he can pretend only to the merits of careful research and\nan eclectic impartiality. To the fact that the work already has\nappeared in the pages of the _Dietetic Reformer_, to which it has been\ncontributed periodically during a space of time extending over five\nyears, is owing some repetition of matter, which also, necessarily, is\ndue to the nature of the subject. Errors of inadvertence, it is hoped,\nwill be found to be few and inconsiderable. For the rest, he leaves the\n_Ethics of Diet_ to the candour of the critics and of the public.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF DIET.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nHESIOD. EIGHTH CENTURY B.C.\n\n\nHESIOD--the poet _par excellence_ of peace and of agriculture,\nas Homer is of war and of the \u201cheroic\u201d virtues--was born at Ascra, a\nvillage in B\u0153otia, a part of Hellas, which, in spite of its proverbial\nfame for beef-eating and stupidity, gave birth to three other eminent\npersons--Pindar, the lyric poet, Epameinondas, the great military\ngenius and statesman, and Plutarch, the most amiable moralist of\nantiquity.\n\nThe little that is known of the life of Hesiod is derived from his\n_Works and Days_. From this celebrated poem we learn that his father\nwas an emigrant from \u00c6olia, the Greek portion of the north-west corner\nof the Lesser Asia; that his elder brother, Perses, had, by collusion\nwith the judges, deprived him of his just inheritance; that after this\nhe settled at Orchomenos, a neighbouring town--in the pre-historical\nages a powerful and renowned city. This is all that is certainly known\nof the author of the _Works and Days_, and _The Theogony_. Of the\ngenuineness of the former there has been little or no doubt; that of\nthe latter--at least in part--has been called in question. Besides\nthese two chief works, there is extant a piece entitled _The Shield\nof Herakles_, in imitation of the Homeric Shield (_Iliad_ xviii.) The\n_Catalogues of Women_--a poem commemorating the heroines beloved by the\ngods, and who were thus the ancestresses of the long line of heroes,\nthe reputed founders of the ruling families in Hellas--is lost.\n\nThe charm of the _Works and Days_--the first didactic poem extant--is\nits apparent earnestness of purpose and simplicity of style. The\nauthor\u2019s frequent references to, and rebuke of, legal injustices--his\nsense of which had been quickened by the iniquitous decisions of the\njudges already referred to--are as _na\u00efve_ as they are pathetic.\n\nOf the _Theogony_, the subject, as the title implies, is the history of\nthe generation and successive dynasties of the Olympian divinities--the\nobjects of Greek worship. It may, indeed, be styled the Hellenic Bible,\nand, with the Homeric Epics, it formed the principal theology of the\nold Greeks, and of the later Romans or Latins. The \u201cPro\u0153mium,\u201d or\nintroductory verses--in which the Muses are represented as appearing\nto their votary at the foot of the sacred Helicon, and consecrating\nhim to the work of revealing the divine mysteries by the gift of a\nlaurel-branch--and the following verses, describing their return to the\ncelestial mansions, where they hymn the omnipotent Father, are very\ncharming. To the long description of the tremendous struggle of the\nwarring gods and Titans, fighting for the possession of heaven, Milton\nwas indebted for his famous delineation of a similar conflict.\n\nThe _Works and Days_, in striking contrast with the military spirit\nof the Homeric epic, deals in plain and simple verse with questions\nethical, political, and economic. The ethical portion exhibits much\ntrue feeling, and a conviction of the evils brought upon the earth by\nthe triumph of injustice and of violence. The well-known passages in\nwhich the poet figures the gradual declension and degeneracy of men\nfrom the golden to the present iron race, are the remote original of\nall the later pleasing poetic fictions of golden ages and times of\ninnocence.\n\nAccording to Hesiod, there are two everlastingly antagonistic agents\nat work on the Earth; the spirit of war and fighting, and the peaceful\nspirit of agriculture and mechanical industry. And in the apostrophe in\nwhich he bitterly reproaches his unrighteous judges--\n\n \u201cO fools! they know not, in their selfish soul,\n How far the half is better than the whole:\n The good which Asphodel and Mallows yield,\n The feast of herbs, the dainties of the field\u201d--\n\nhe seems to have a profound conviction of the truth taught by\nVegetarianism--that luxurious living is the fruitful parent of\nselfishness in its manifold forms.[3]\n\nThat Hesiod regarded that diet which depends mainly or entirely upon\nagriculture and upon fruits as the highest and best mode of life is\nsufficiently evident in the following verses descriptive of the \u201cGolden\nAge\u201d life:--\n\n \u201cLike gods, they lived with calm, untroubled mind,\n Free from the toil and anguish of our kind,\n Nor did decrepid age mis-shape their frame.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Pleased with earth\u2019s unbought feasts: all ills removed,\n Wealthy in flocks,[4] and of the Blest beloved,\n Death, as a slumber, pressed their eyelids down:\n All Nature\u2019s common blessings were their own.\n The life-bestowing tilth its fruitage bore,\n A full, spontaneous, and ungrudging store.\n They with abundant goods, \u2019midst quiet lands,\n All willing, shared the gatherings of their hands.\n When Earth\u2019s dark breast had closed this race around,\n Great Zeus, as demons,[5] raised them from the ground;\n Earth-hovering spirits, they their charge began--\n The ministers of good, and guards of men.\n Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide,\n And compass Earth, and pass on every side;\n And mark, with earnest vigilance of eyes,\n Where just deeds live, or crooked ways arise,\n And shower the wealth of seasons from above.\u201d[6]\n\nThe second race--the \u201cSilver Age\u201d--inferior to the first and wholly\ninnocent people, were, nevertheless, guiltless of bloodshed in the\npreparation of their food; nor did they offer sacrifices--in the poet\u2019s\njudgment, it appears, a damnable error. For the third--the \u201cBrazen\nAge\u201d--it was reserved to inaugurate the feast of blood:--\n\n \u201cStrong with the ashen spear, and fierce and bold,\n Their thoughts were bent on violence alone,\n The deed of battle, and the dying groan.\n _Bloody their feasts, with wheaten food unblessed._\u201d\n\nAccording to Hesiod, who is followed by the later poets, the \u201cimmortals\ninhabiting the Olympian mansions\u201d feast ever on the pure and bloodless\nfood of _Ambrosia_, and their drink is _Nectar_, which may be taken to\nbe a sort of refined dew. He represents the divine Muses of Helicon,\nwho inspire his song, as reproaching the shepherds, his neighbours,\n\u201cthat tend the flocks,\u201d with the possession of \u201cmere fleshly appetites.\u201d\n\nOvid, amongst the Latins, is the most charming painter of the innocence\nof the \u201cGolden Age.\u201d Amongst our own poets, Pope, Thomson, and\nShelley--the last as a prophet of the future and actual rather than the\npoet of a past and fictitious age of innocence--have contributed to\nembellish the fable of the Past and the hope of the Future.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nPYTHAGORAS. 570-470 B.C.\n\n\n\u201cA greater good never came, nor ever will come, to mankind, than\nthat which was imparted by the gods through Pythagoras.\u201d Such is the\nexpression of enthusiastic admiration of one of his biographers. To\nthose who are unacquainted with the historical development of Greek\nthought and Greek philosophy it may seem to be merely the utterance\nof the partiality of hero-worship. Those, on the other hand, who know\nanything of that most important history, and of the influence, direct\nor indirect, of Pythagoras upon the most intellectual and earnest\nminds of his countrymen--in particular upon Plato and his followers,\nand through them upon the later Jewish and upon very early Christian\nideas--will acknowledge, at least, that the name of the prophet of\nSamos is that of one of the most important and influential factors in\nthe production and progress of higher human thought.\n\nThere is a true and there is a false hero-worship. The latter, whatever\nit may have done to preserve the blind and unreasoning subservience\nof mankind, has not tended to accelerate the progress of the world\ntowards the attainment of truth. The old-world occupants of the popular\nPantheon--\u201cthe patrons of mankind, gods and sons of gods, destroyers\nrightlier called and plagues of men\u201d--are indeed fast losing, if they\nhave not entirely lost, their ancient credit, but their vacant places\nhave yet to be filled by the representatives of the most exalted\nideals of humanity. Whenever, in the place of the representatives of\nmere physical and mental force, the _true_ heroes shall be enthroned,\namongst the moral luminaries and pioneers who have contributed to\nlessen the thick darkness of ignorance, barbarism, and selfishness,\nthe name of the first western apostle of humanitarianism and of\nspiritualism must assume a prominent position.\n\nIt is a natural and legitimate curiosity which leads us to wish to\nknow, with something of certainty and fulness, the outer and inner life\nof the master spirits of our race. Unfortunately, the _personality_\nof many of the most interesting and illustrious of them is of a vague\nand shadowy kind. But when we reflect that little more is known of the\npersonal life of Shakspere than of that of Pythagoras or Plato--not to\nmention other eminent names--our surprise is lessened that, in an age\nlong preceding the discovery of printing, the records of a life even so\nimportant and influential as that of the founder of Pythagoreanism are\nmeagre and scanty.\n\nThe earliest account of his teaching is given by Philolaus (\u201cLover of\nthe People,\u201d an auspicious name) of Tarentum, who, born about forty or\nfifty years after the death of his master--was thus contemporary with\nSokrates and Plato. His _Pythagorean System_, in three books, was so\nhighly esteemed by Plato that he is said to have given \u00a3400 or \u00a3500\nfor a copy, and to have incorporated the principal part of it in his\n_Tim\u00e6us_. Sharing the fate of so many other valuable products of the\nGreek genius, it has long since perished. Our remaining authorities\nfor the Life are Diogenes of Laerte, Porphyry, one of the most erudite\nwriters of any age, and Iamblichus. Of these, the biography of the\nlast is the fullest, if not the most critical; that of Porphyry wants\nthe beginning and the end; whilst of the ten books of Iamblichus _On\nthe Pythagorean Sect_ (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03a0\u03c5\u03b8\u03b1\u03b3\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2), of which only five\nremain, the first was devoted to the life of the founder. Diogenes,\nwho seems to have been of the school of Epikurus, belongs to the\nsecond, while Porphyry and Iamblichus, the well-known exponents of\nNeo-Platonism, wrote in the third and fourth centuries of our era.\n\nPythagoras was born in the Island of Samos, somewhere about the year\n570 B.C. At some period in his youth, Polykrates--celebrated by the\nfine story of Herodotus--had acquired the _tyranny_ of Samos, and his\nrule, like that of most of his compeers, has deserved the stigma of the\nmodern meaning of the Greek equivalent for princely and monarchical\ngovernment. The future philosopher, we are told, unable to descend to\nthe ordinary arts of sycophancy and dissimulation, left his country,\nand entered, like the Sirian philosopher of Voltaire, upon an extensive\ncourse of travels--extensive for the age in which he lived. How far he\nactually travelled is uncertain. He visited Egypt, the great nurse of\nthe old-world science, and Syria, and it is not impossible that he may\nhave penetrated eastwards as far as Babylon, perhaps as the captive\nof the recent conqueror of Egypt--the Persian Kambyses. It was in the\nEast, and particularly in Egypt, that he probably imbibed the dogma of\nthe immortality of the soul, or, as he chose to represent it to the\npublic, that of the _metempsychosis_--a fancy widely spread in the\neastern theologies.\n\nIt has been asserted that he had already abandoned the orthodox diet\nat the age of nineteen or twenty. If this was actually the fact, he\nhas the additional merit of having adopted the higher life by his\nown original force of mind and refinement of feeling. If not, he may\nhave derived the most characteristic as well as the most important\nof his teachings from the Egyptians or Persians, or, through them,\neven from the Hindus--the most religiously strict abstainers from\nthe flesh of animals. It is remarkable that the two great apostles\nof abstinence--Pythagoras and Sakya-Muni, or Buddha--were almost\ncontemporaries; nor is it impossible that the Greek may, in whatever\nway, have become acquainted with the sublime tenets of the Hindu\nprophet, who had lately seceded from Brahminism, the established\nsacerdotal and exclusive religion of the Peninsula, and promulgated his\ngreat revelation--until then new to the world--that religion, at least\nhis religion, was to be \u201ca religion of mercy to all beings,\u201d human and\nnon-human.[7]\n\nAs the natural and necessary result of his pure living, we are told\nby Iamblichus that \u201chis sleep was brief, his soul vigilant and pure,\nand his body confirmed in a state of perfect and invariable health.\u201d\nHe appears to have passed the period of middle life when he returned\nto Samos, where his reputation had preceded him. Either, however,\nfinding his countrymen hopelessly debased by the corrupting influence\nof despotism, or believing that he would find a better field for the\npropagandism of his new revelation, he not long afterwards set out for\nSouthern Italy, then known as \u201cGreat Greece,\u201d by reason of its numerous\nGreek colonies, or, rather, autonomous communities. At Krotona his\nfame and eloquence soon attracted, it seems, a select if not numerous\nauditory; and there he founded his famous society--the first historical\nanti-flesh-eating association in the western world--the prototype, in\nsome respects, of the ascetic establishments of Greek and Catholic\nChristendom. It consisted of about three hundred young men belonging to\nthe most influential families of the city and neighbourhood.\n\nIt was the practice of the Egyptian priestly caste and of other\nexclusive institutions to reserve their better ideas (of a more\nsatisfactory sort, at all events, than the system of theology that was\npromulgated to the mass of the community), into which only privileged\npersons were initiated. This esoteric method, which under the name\nof the _mysteries_ has exercised the learned ingenuity of modern\nwriters--who have, for the most part, vainly laboured to penetrate the\nobscurity enveloping the most remarkable institution of the Hellenic\ntheology--was accompanied with the strictest vows and circumstances of\nsilence and secrecy. As for the priestly order, it was their evident\npolicy to maintain the superstitious ignorance of the people and to\noverawe their minds, while in regard to the philosophic sects, it was\nperhaps to shield themselves from the priestly or popular suspicion\nthat they shrouded their scepticism in this dark and convenient\ndisguise. The parabolic or esoteric method was, perhaps, almost a\nnecessity of the earlier ages. It is to be lamented that it should be\nstill in favour in this safer age, and that the old exclusiveness of\nthe _mysteries_ is in esteem with many modern authorities, who seem to\nhold that to unveil the spotless Truth to the multitude is \u201cto cast\npearls before swine.\u201d\n\nIt was probably from the philosophic motive that the founder of the new\nsociety instituted his grades of catechumens and probationary course,\nas well as vows of the strictest secrecy. The exact nature of all his\ninterior instruction is necessarily very much matter of conjecture,\ninasmuch as, whether he committed his system to writing or not, nothing\nfrom his own hand has come down to us. However this may be, it is\nevident that the general spirit and characteristic of his teaching\nwas self-denial or self-control, founded upon the great principles of\njustice and temperance; and that communism and asceticism were the\nprincipal aim of his sociology. He was the founder of communism in the\nWest--his communistic ideas, however, being of an aristocratic and\nexclusive rather than of a democratic and cosmopolitan kind. \u201cHe first\ntaught,\u201d says Diogenes, \u201cthat the property of friends was to be held in\ncommon--that friendship is equality--and his disciples laid down their\nmoney and goods at his feet, and had all things common.\u201d\n\nThe moral precepts of the great master were much in advance of the\nconventional morality of the day. He enjoined upon his disciples, the\nsame biographer informs us, each time they entered their houses to\ninterrogate themselves--\u201cHow have I transgressed? What have I done?\nWhat have I left undone that I ought to have done?\u201d He exhorted them to\nlive in perfect harmony, to do good to their enemies and by kindness\nto convert them into friends. \u201cHe forbade them either to pray for\nthemselves, seeing that they were ignorant of what was best for them;\nor to offer slain victims (\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1) as sacrifices; and taught them to\nrespect a _bloodless_ altar only.\u201d Cakes and fruits, and other innocent\nofferings were the only sacrifices he would allow. This, and the\nsublime commandment \u201cNot to kill or injure any innocent animal,\u201d are\nthe grand distinguishing doctrines of his moral religion. So far did he\ncarry his respect for the beautiful and beneficent in Nature, that he\nspecially prohibited wanton injury to cultivated and useful trees and\nplants.\n\nBy confining themselves to the innocent, pure, and spiritual dietary\nhe promised his followers the enjoyment of health and equanimity,\nundisturbed and invigorating sleep, as well as a superiority of mental\nand moral perceptions. As for his own diet, \u201che was satisfied,\u201d says\nPorphyry, \u201cwith honey or the honeycomb, or with bread only, and he did\nnot taste wine from morning to night (\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u2019\u1f23\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd); or his principal\ndish was often kitchen herbs, cooked or uncooked. Fish he ate rarely.\u201d\n\nHumanitarianism--the extension of the sublime principles of justice\nand of compassion to all innocent sentient life, irrespective of\nnationality, creed, or species--is a very modern and even now very\ninadequately recognised creed; and, although there have been here and\nthere a few, like Plutarch and Seneca, who were \u201csplendidly false,\u201d\nto the spirit of their age, the recognition of the obligation (the\n_practice_ has always been a very different thing) of benevolence and\nbeneficence, so far from being extended to the non-human races, until\na comparatively recent time has been limited to the narrow bounds of\ncountry and citizenship; and patriotism and internationalism are,\napparently, two very opposite principles.\n\nThe obligation to abstain from the flesh of animals was founded by\nPythagoras on mental and spiritual rather than on humanitarian grounds.\nYet that the latter were not ignored by the prophet of _akreophagy_ is\nevident equally by his prohibition of the infliction of pain, no less\nthan of death, upon the lower animals, and by his injunction to abstain\nfrom the bloody sacrifices of the altar. Such was his abhorrence of\nthe Slaughter-House, Porphyry tells us, that not only did he carefully\nabstain from the flesh of its victims, but that he could never bring\nhimself to endure contact with, or even the sight of, butchers and\ncooks.\n\nWhile thus careful of the lives and feelings of the innocent non-human\nraces, he recognised the necessity of making war upon the ferocious\n_carnivora_. Yet to such a degree had he become familiar with the\nhabits and dispositions of the lower animals that he is said, by the\nexclusive use of vegetable food, not only to have tamed a formidable\nbear, which by its devastations on their crops had become the terror\nof the country people, but even to have accustomed it to eat that\nfood only for the remainder of its life. The story may be true or\nfictitious, but it is not incredible; for there are well-authenticated\ninstances, even in our own times, of true _carnivora_ that have been\nfed, for longer or shorter periods, upon the non-flesh diet.[8]\n\n\u201cAmongst other reasons, Pythagoras,\u201d says Iamblichus, \u201cenjoined\nabstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to\npeace. For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of\nother animals, as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more\nunjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war.\u201d Specially, he\n\u201cexhorted those politicians who are legislators to abstain. For if they\nwere willing to act justly in the highest degree, it was indubitably\nincumbent upon them not to injure any of the lower animals. Since how\ncould they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were\nproved to be indulging an insatiable avidity by devouring these animals\nthat are allied to us. For through the communion of life and the\nsame elements, and the sympathy thus existing, they are, as it were,\nconjoined to us by a fraternal alliance.\u201d[9] Maxims how different from\nthose in favour in the present \u201cyear of grace,\u201d 1877! If the refined\nthinker of the sixth century B.C. were now living, what would be his\nindignation at the enormous slaughter of innocent life for the public\nbanquets at which our statesmen and others are constantly _f\u00eated_,\nand which are recorded in our journals with so much magniloquence and\nminuteness? His hopes for the regeneration of his fellow-men would\nsurely be terribly shattered. We may apply the words of the great Latin\nsatirist, Juvenal, who so frequently denounces in burning language the\nluxurious gluttony of his countrymen under the Empire--\u201cWhat would not\nPythagoras denounce, or whither would he not flee, could he see these\nmonstrous sights--he who abstained from the flesh of all other animals\nas though they were human?\u201d (_Satire_ xv.)\n\nHow long the communistic society of Krotona remained undisturbed is\nuncertain. Inasmuch as its reputation and influence were widely spread,\nit may be supposed that the outbreak of the populace (the origin of\nwhich is obscure), by which the society was broken up and his disciples\nmassacred, did not happen until many years after its establishment.\nAt all events, it is commonly believed that Pythagoras lived to an\nadvanced age, variously computed at eighty, ninety, or one hundred\nyears.\n\nIt is not within our purpose to discuss minutely the scientific or\ntheological theories of Pythagoras. In accordance with the abstruse\nspeculative character of the Ionic school of science, which inclined\nto refer the origin of the universe to some one primordial principle,\nhe was led by his mathematical predilections to discover the cosmic\nelement in numbers, or proportion--a theory which savours of John\nDalton\u2019s philosophy, now accepted in chemistry, and a virtual\nenunciation of what we now call _quantitative_ science. Pythagoras\ntaught the Kopernican theory prematurely. He regarded the sun as more\n_divine_ than the earth, and therefore set it in the _centre_ of the\nearth and planets. The argument was surely a mark of genius, but it\nwas too transcendental for his contemporaries, even for Plato and\nAristotle. His elder contemporary, the celebrated Thales of Miletus,\nwith whom in his early youth he may have been acquainted, may claim,\nindeed, to be the remote originator of the famous nebular hypothesis\nof Laplace and modern astronomy. Another cardinal doctrine of the\nPythagorean school was the musical, from whence the idea, so popular\nwith the poets, of the \u201cmusic of the spheres.\u201d To music was attributed\nthe greatest influence in the control of the passions. In its larger\nsense, by the Greeks generally, the term \u201cMusic\u201d (_Musice_--pertaining\nto the Muses) denoted, it is to be remembered, not alone the \u201cconcord\nof sweet sounds,\u201d but also an artistic and \u00e6sthetic education in\ngeneral--all humanising and refining instruction.\n\nThe famous doctrine of the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of\nSouls also was, doubtless, a prominent feature in the Pythagorean\nsystem; but it is probable that we may presume that by it Pythagoras\nintended merely to convey to the \u201cuninstructed,\u201d by parable, the\nsublime idea that the soul is gradually purified by a severe course\nof discipline until finally it becomes fitted for a fleshless life\nof immortality.[10] We are chiefly concerned with his attitude in\nregard to flesh eating. There can be no question that abstinence was\na fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics--little\nin sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life,\nor, indeed, with self-denial of any kind--have sometimes affected\neither to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence,\nthus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most\nimportant residuum of Pythagoreanism. In support of this scepticism\nthe fact of the celebrated athlete Milo, whose prodigies of strength\nhave become proverbial, has been quoted. Yet if these critics had been\nat the pains of inquiring somewhat further, they would have learned,\non the contrary, that the non-flesh diet is exactly that which is\nmost conducive to physical vigour; that in the East there are at this\nday non-flesh eaters, who in feats of strength might put even our\nstrongest men to the blush. The extraordinary powers of the porters\nand boatmen of Constantinople have been remarked by many travellers;\nand the Chinese coolies and others are almost equally notorious for\ntheir marvellous powers of endurance. Yet their food is not only of\nthe simplest--rice, dhourra (_i.e._, millet), onions, &c.--but of the\nscantiest possible. Moreover, the elder Greek athletes themselves, for\nthe most part, trained on vegetarian diet. Not to multiply details,\nthe fact that, upon a moderate calculation, two-thirds at least of the\npopulation of our globe--including the mass of the inhabitants of these\nislands--live, _nolentes, volentes_, on a dietary from which flesh is\nalmost altogether necessarily excluded, is on the face of it sufficient\nproof in itself of the non-necessity of the diet of the rich.\n\nWhile the general consent of antiquity and of later times has received\nas undoubted the obligation of strict abstinence on the part of the\nimmediate followers of Pythagoras, it seems that as regards the\nuninitiated, or (to use the ecclesiastical term) _catechumens_, the\nobligation was not so strict. Indeed relaxation of the rules of the\nhigher life was simply a _sine qu\u00e2 non_ of securing the attention of\nthe mass of the community at all; and, like one still more eminent than\nhimself in an after age, he found it a matter of necessity to present\na teaching and a mode of living not too exalted and unattainable by\nthe grossness and \u201chardness of heart\u201d of the multitude. Hence, in all\nprobability, the seeming contradictions in his teaching on this point\nfound in the narratives of his followers.\n\nIf his critics had been more intent on discovering the excellence of\nhis rules of abstinence than on discussing, with frivolous diligence,\nthe probable or possible reasons of his alleged prohibition of beans,\nit would have redounded more to their credit for wisdom and love of\ntruth. Assuming the fact of the prohibition, in place of collecting\nall the most absurd gossip of antiquity, they might perhaps have found\na more rational and more solid reason in the hypothesis that the bean\nbeing, as used in the ballot, a symbol and outward and visible sign of\npolitical life, was employed by Pythagoras parabolically to dissuade\nhis followers from participating in the idle strife of party faction,\nand to exhort them to concentrate their efforts upon an attempt to\nachieve the solid and lasting reformation of mankind.[11] But to be\nmuch concerned in a patient inquiry after truth unhappily has been not\nalways the characteristic of professional commentators.\n\nBlind hero-worship or idolatry of genius or intellect, even when\ndirected to high moral aims, is no part of our creed; and it is\nsufficient to be assured that he was human, to be free to confess\nthat the historical founder of _akreophagy_ was not exempt from human\ninfirmity, and that he could not wholly rise above the wonder-loving\nspirit of an uncritical age. Deducting all that has been imputed to\nhim of the fanciful or fantastic, enough still remains to force us to\nrecognise in the philosopher-prophet of Samos one of the master-spirits\nof the world.[12]\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nPLATO. 428-347 B.C.\n\n\nThe most renowned of all the prose writers of antiquity may be said to\nhave been almost the lineal descendant, in philosophy, of the teacher\nof Samos. He belonged to the aristocratic families of Athens--\u201cthe\neye of Greece\u201d--then and for long afterwards the centre of art and\nscience. His original name was Aristokles, which he might well have\nretained. Like another equally famous leader in literature, Fran\u00e7ois\nMarie Arouet, he abandoned his birth-name, and he assumed or acquired\nthe name by which he is immortalised, to characterise, as it is said,\neither the breadth of his brow or the extensiveness of his mental\npowers. In very early youth he seems to have displayed his literary\naptitude and tastes in the various kinds of poetry--epic, tragic, and\nlyric--as well as to have distinguished himself as an athlete in the\ngreat national contests or \u201cgames,\u201d as they were called, the grand\nobject of ambition of every Greek. He was instructed in the chief\nand necessary parts of a liberal Greek education by the most able\nprofessors of the time. He devoted himself with ardour to the pursuit\nof knowledge, and sedulously studied the systems of philosophy which\nthen divided the literary world.\n\nIn his twentieth year he attached himself to Sokrates, who was then\nat the height of his reputation as a moralist and dialectician. After\nthe judicial murder of his master, 399, he withdrew from his native\ncity, which, with a theological intolerance extremely rare in pagan\nantiquity, had already been disgraced by the previous persecution of\nanother eminent teacher--Anaxagoras--the instructor of Euripides and of\nPerikles. Plato then resided for some time at Megara, at a very short\ndistance from Athens, and afterwards set out, according to the custom\nof the eager searchers after knowledge of that age, on a course of\ntravels.\n\nHe traversed the countries which had been visited by Pythagoras, but\nhis alleged visit to the further East is as traditional as that of\nhis predecessor. The most interesting fact or tradition in his first\ntravels is his alleged intimacy with the Greek prince of Syracuse,\nthe elder Dionysius, and his invitation to the western capital of\nthe Hellenic world. The story that he was given up by his perfidious\nhost to the Spartan envoy, and by him sold into slavery, though not\ndisprovable, may be merely an exaggerated account of the ill-treatment\nwhich he actually received.\n\nHis grand purpose in going to Italy was, without doubt, the desire to\nbecome personally known to the eminent Pythagoreans whose headquarters\nwere in the southern part of the Peninsula, and to secure the best\nopportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted with their\nphilosophic tenets. At that time the most eminent representative of\nthe school was the celebrated Archytas, one of the most extraordinary\nmathematical geniuses and mechanicians of any age. Upon his return to\nAthens, at about the age of forty, he established his ever-memorable\nschool in the suburban groves or \u201cgardens\u201d known as \u1f08\u03ba\u03b1\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03af\u03b1--whence\nthe well-known _Academy_ by which the Platonic philosophy is\ndistinguished, and which, in modern days, has been so much vulgarised.\nAll the most eminent Athenians, present and future, attended his\nlectures, and among them was Aristotle, who was destined to rival the\nfame of his master. From about 388 to 347, the date of his death, he\ncontinued to lecture in the Academy and to compose his Dialogues.\n\nIn the intervals of his literary and didactic labours he twice visited\nSicily; the first time at the invitation of his friend Dion, the\nrelative and minister of the two Dionysii, the younger of whom had\nsucceeded to his father\u2019s throne, and whom Dion hoped to win to justice\nand moderation by the eloquent wisdom of the Athenian sage. Such hopes\nwere doomed to bitter disappointment. His second visit to Syracuse\nwas undertaken at the urgent entreaties of his Pythagorean friends,\nof whose tenets and dietetic principles he always remained an ardent\nadmirer. For whatever reason, it proved unsuccessful. Dion was driven\ninto exile, and Plato himself escaped only by the interposition of\nArchytas. Thus the only chance of attempting the realisation of his\nideal of a communistic commonwealth--if he ever actually entertained\nthe hope of realising it--was frustrated. Almost the only source of the\nbiographies of Plato are the _Letters_ ascribed to him, commonly held\nto be fictitious, but maintained to be genuine by Grote. The narrative\nof the first visit to Sicily is found in the seventh Letter.\n\nWe can refer but briefly to the nature of the philosophy and\nwritings of Plato. In the notice of Pythagoras it has been stated\nthat Plato valued very highly that teacher\u2019s methods and principles.\nPythagoreanism, in fact, enters very largely into the principal\nwritings of the great disciple and exponent (and, it may safely\nbe added, improver) of Sokrates, especially in the _Republic_\nand the _Tim\u00e6us_. The four cardinal virtues inculcated in the\n_Republic_--justice or righteousness (\u0394\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7), temperance or\nself-control (\u0395\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 or \u03a3\u03c9\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7), prudence or wisdom (\u03a6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2),\nfortitude (\u1f08\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1)--are eminently pythagorean.\n\nThe characteristic of the purely speculative portion of Platonism\nis the theory of _ideas_ (used by the author in the new sense of\n_unities_, the original meaning being _forms_ and _figures_), of which\nit may be said that its merit depends upon its poetic fancy rather\nthan upon its scientific value. Divesting it of the verbiage of the\ncommentators, who have not succeeded in making it more intelligible,\nall that need be said of this abstruse and fantastic notion is, that by\nit he intended to convey that all sensible objects which, according to\nhim, are but the shadows and phantoms of things unseen, are ultimately\nreferable to certain abstract conceptions or ideas, which he termed\n_unities_, that can only be reached by pure thinking. Hence he asserted\nthat \u201cnot being in a condition to grasp the idea of the Good with\nfull distinctness, we are able to approximate to it only so far as\nwe elevate the power of thinking to its proper purity.\u201d Whatever may\nbe thought of the premiss, the truth and utility of the deduction\nmay be allowed to be as unquestionable as they are unheeded. This\ncharacteristic theory may be traced to the belief of Plato not only\nin the immortality, but also in the past eternity of the soul. In the\n_Ph\u00e6drus_, under the form of allegory, he describes the soul in its\nformer state of existence as traversing the circuit of the universe\nwhere, if reason duly control the appetite, it is initiated, as it\nwere, into the essences of things which are there disclosed to its\ngaze. And it is this ante-natal experience, which supplies the fleshly\nmind or soul with its ideas of the beautiful and the true.\n\nThe subtlety of the Greek intellect and language was, apparently, an\nirresistible temptation to their greatest ornaments to indulge in the\nnicest and most mystic speculation, which, to the possessors of less\nsubtle intellects and of a far less flexible language, seems often\nstrangely unpractical and hyperbolic. Thus while it is impossible\nnot to be lost in admiration of the marvellous powers of the Greek\n_dialectics_, one cannot but at the same time regret that faculties so\nextraordinary should have been expended (we will not say altogether\nwasted) in so many instances on unsubstantial phantoms. If, however,\nthe transcendentalism of the Platonic and other schools of Greek\nthought is matter for regret, how must we not deplore the enormous\nwaste of time and labour apparent in the theological controversies\nof the first three or four centuries of Christendom--at least of\nGreek Christendom--when the omission or insertion of a single letter\ncould profoundly agitate the whole ecclesiastical world and originate\nvolumes upon volumes of refined, indeed, but useless verbiage. Yet\neven the ecclesiastical Greek writers of the early centuries may lay\nclaim to a certain originality and merit of style which cannot be\nconceded to the \u201cschoolmen\u201d of the medi\u00e6val ages, and of still later\ntimes, whose solemn trifling--under the proud titles of Platonists and\nAristotelians, or Nominalists and Realists, and the numerous other\nappellations assumed by them--for centuries was received with patience\nand even applause. Nor, unfortunately, is this war of Phantoms by any\nmeans unknown or extinct in our day. It was the lament of Seneca,\noften echoed by the most earnest minds, that all, or at least the\ngreater part of, our learning is expended upon words rather than upon\nthe acquisition of wisdom.[13]\n\nPlato deserves his high place among the Immortals not so much on\naccount of any very definite results from his philosophy as on\naccount of its general _tendency_ to elevate and direct human\nthought and aspirations to sublime speculations and aims. Of all his\n_Dialogues_, the most valuable and interesting, without doubt, is\nthe _Republic_--the one of his writings upon which he seems to have\nbestowed the most pains, and in which he has recorded the outcome of\nhis most mature reflections. Next may be ranked the _Ph\u00e6do_ and the\n_Ph\u00e6drus_--the former, it is well known, being a disquisition on the\nimmortality of the soul. In spite of certain fantastic conceptions,\nit must always retain its interest, as well by reason of its\nspeculations on a subject which is (or rather which ought to be) the\nmost interesting that can engage the mind, as because it purports to\nbe the last discourse of Sokrates, who was expecting in his prison the\napproaching sentence of death. The _Ph\u00e6drus_ derives its unusual merit\nfrom the beauty of the language and style, and from the fact of its\nbeing one of the few writings of antiquity in which the charms of rural\nnature are described with enthusiasm.\n\nThe _Republic_, with which we are here chiefly concerned, since it\nis in that important work that the author reproduces the dietetic\nprinciples of Pythagoras, may have been first published amongst his\nearlier writings, about the year 395; but that it was published in a\nlarger and revised edition at a later period is sufficiently evident.\nIt consists of ten Books. The question of Dietetics is touched upon\nin the second and third, in which Plato takes care to point out the\nessential importance to the well-being of his ideal state, that both\nthe mass of the community and, in a special degree, the _guardians_ or\nrulers, should be educated and trained in proper dietetic principles,\nwhich, if not so definitely insisted upon as we could wish them to have\nbeen, sufficiently reveal the bias of his mind towards Vegetarianism.\nIn the second Book the discussion turns principally upon the nature\nof Justice; and there is one passage which, still more significant\nfor the age in which it was written, is not without instruction\nfor the present. While Sokrates is discussing the subject with his\ninterlocutors, one of them is represented as objecting:\n\n \u201cWith much respect be it spoken, you who profess to be admirers\n of justice, beginning with the heroes of old, have every one\n of you, without exception, made the praise of Justice and the\n condemnation of Injustice turn solely upon the reputation and\n honour and gifts resulting from them. But what each is in itself,\n by its own peculiar force as it resides in the soul of its\n possessor, unseen either by gods or men, has never, in poetry or\n prose, been adequately discussed, so as to show that Injustice is\n the greatest bane that a soul can receive into itself, and Justice\n the greatest blessing. Had this been the language held by you all\n from the first, and had you tried to persuade us of this from our\n childhood, we should not be on the watch to check one another in\n the commission of injustice, because everyone would be his own\n watchman, fearful lest by committing injustice he might attach to\n himself the greatest of evils.\u201d\n\nVery useful and necessary for those times, and not wholly inapplicable\nto less remote ages, is the incidental remark in the same book, that\n\u201cthere are quacks and soothsayers who flock to the rich man\u2019s doors,\nand try to persuade him that they have a power at command which\nthey procure from heaven, and which enables them, by sacrifices and\nincantations, performed amid feasting and indulgence, to make amends\nfor any crime committed either by the individual himself or by his\nancestors.... And in support of all these assertions they produce the\nevidence of poets--some, to exhibit the facilities of vice, quoting the\nwords:--\n\n \u201cWhoso wickedness seeks, may even in masses obtain it\n Easily. Smooth is the way, and short, for nigh is her dwelling.\n Virtue, heaven has ordained, shall be reached by the sweat of\n the forehead.\u201d\n\n --_Hesiod_, _Works and Days_, 287.[14]\n\nIt is the fifth Book, however, which has always excited the greatest\ninterest and controversy, for therein he introduces his Communistic\nviews. Our interest in it is increased by the fact that it is the\noriginal of the ideal Communisms of modern writers--the prototype of\nthe _Utopia_ of More, of the _New Atlantis_ of Francis Bacon, the\n_Oceanica_ of Harrington, and the _Gaudentio_ of Berkeley, &c.\n\nIn maintaining the perfect natural equality of women to men,[15] and\ninsisting upon an identity of education and training, he advances\npropositions which perhaps only the more advanced of the assertors\nof women\u2019s rights might be prepared to entertain. Whatever may have\nbeen said by the various admirers of Plato, who have been anxious to\npresent his political or social views in a light which might render\nthem less in conflict with modern Conservatism, there can be no doubt\nfor any candid reader of the _Republic_ that the author published to\nthe world his _bon\u00e2 fide_ convictions. One of the _dramatis person\u00e6_\nof the dialogue, while expressing his concurrence in the Communistic\nlegislation of Sokrates, at the same time objects to the difficulty of\nrealising it in actual life, and desires Sokrates to point out whether,\nand how, it could be really practicable. Whereupon Sokrates (who it is\nscarcely necessary to remark, is the convenient mouthpiece of Plato)\nreplies: \u201cDo you think any the worse of an artist who has painted the\n_beau id\u00e9al_ of human beauty, and has left nothing wanting in the\npicture, because he cannot prove that such a one as he has painted\nmight possibly exist? Were not we, likewise, proposing to construct,\nin theory, the pattern of a perfect State? Will our theory suffer at\nall in your good opinion if we cannot prove that it is _possible_ for a\ncity to be organised in the manner proposed?\u201d\n\nAs has been well paraphrased by the interpreters to whom we are\nindebted for the English version: \u201cThe possibilities of realising such\na commonwealth in actual practice is quite a secondary consideration,\nwhich does not in the least affect the soundness of the method or the\ntruth of the results. All that can fairly be demanded of him is to\nshow how the imperfect politics at present existing may be brought\nmost nearly into harmony with the perfect State which has just been\ndescribed. To bring about this great result one fundamental change\nis necessary, and only one: the highest political power must, by\nsome means or other, be vested in philosophers.\u201d The next point\nto be determined is, What is, or ought to be, implied by the term\n_philosopher_, and what are the characteristics of the true philosophic\ndisposition? \u201cThey are--(1) an eager desire for the knowledge of all\nreal existence; (2) hatred of falsehood, and devoted love of truth; (3)\ncontempt for the pleasures of the body; (4) indifference to money; (5)\nhigh-mindedness and liberality; (6) justice and gentleness; (7) a quick\napprehension and a good memory; (8) a musical, regular, and harmonious\ndisposition.\u201d But how is this disposition to be secured? Under the\npresent condition of things, and the corrupting influences of various\nkinds, where temptations abound to compromise truth and substitute\nexpediency and self-interest, it would seem wellnigh impossible and\nUtopian to expect it.\n\n\u201cHow is this evil to be remedied? The State itself must regulate the\nstudy of philosophy, and must take care that the students pursue it on\nright principles, and at a right age. And now, surely, we may expect\nto be believed when we assert that if a State is to prosper it must be\ngoverned by philosophers. If such a contingency should ever take place\n(and why should it not?), our ideal State will undoubtedly be realised.\nSo that, upon the whole, we come to this conclusion: The constitution\njust described is the best, if it can be realised; and to realise it is\ndifficult, but not impossible.\u201d At this moment, when the question of\ncompulsory education, under the immediate superintendence of the State,\nis being fought with so much fierceness--on one side, at least--to\nrecur to Plato might not be without advantage.\n\nIn the most famous dialogue of Plato--the _Republic_, or, as it might\nbe termed _On Justice_--the principal interlocutors, besides Sokrates,\nare Glaukon, Polymachus, and Adeimantus; and the whole piece originates\nin the chance question which rose between them, \u201cWhat is Justice?\u201d\nIn the second Book, from which the following passage is taken, the\ndiscussion turns upon the origin of society, which gives opportunity\nto Sokrates to develop his opinions upon the diet best adapted for the\ncommunity--at all events, for the great majority:--\n\n \u201c\u2018They [the artisans and work-people generally] will live, I\n suppose, on barley and wheat, baking cakes of the meal, and\n kneading loaves of the flour. And spreading these excellent cakes\n and loaves upon mats of straw or on clean leaves, and themselves\n reclining on rude beds of yew or myrtle-boughs, they will make\n merry, themselves and their children, drinking their wine, weaving\n garlands, and singing the praises of the gods, enjoying one\n another\u2019s society, and not begetting children beyond their means,\n through a prudent fear of poverty or war.\u2019\n\n \u201cGlaukon here interrupted me, remarking, \u2018Apparently you describe\n your men feasting, without anything to relish their bread.\u2019[16]\n\n \u201c\u2018True,\u2019 I said, \u2018I had forgotten. Of course they will have\n something to relish their food. Salt, no doubt, and olives, and\n cheese, together with the country fare of boiled onions and\n cabbage. We shall also set before them a dessert, I imagine,\n of figs, pease, and beans: they may roast myrtle-berries and\n beech-nuts at the fire, taking wine with their fruit in moderation.\n And thus, passing their days in tranquillity and sound health,\n they will, in all probability, live to an advanced age, and dying,\n bequeath to their children a life in which their own will be\n reproduced.\u2019\n\n \u201cUpon this Glaukon exclaimed, \u2018Why, Sokrates, if you were founding\n a community of swine, this is just the style in which you would\n feed them up!\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018How, then,\u2019 said I, \u2018would you have them live, Glaukon?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018In a civilised manner,\u2019 he replied. \u2018They ought to recline on\n couches, I should think, if they are not to have a hard life of it,\n and dine off tables, and have the usual dishes and dessert of a\n modern dinner.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Very good: I understand. Apparently we are considering the\n growth, not of a city merely, but of a _luxurious_ city. I dare\n say it is not a bad plan, for by this extension of our inquiry we\n shall perhaps discover how it is that justice and injustice take\n root in cities. Now, it appears to me that the city which we have\n described is the _genuine_ and, so to speak, _healthy_ city. But\n if you wish us also to contemplate a city that is suffering from\n inflammation, there is nothing to hinder us. Some people will not\n be satisfied, it seems, with the fare or the mode of life which we\n have described, but must have, in addition, couches and tables and\n every other article of furniture, as well as viands.... Swineherds\n again are among the additions we shall require--a class of persons\n not to be found, because not wanted, in our former city, but needed\n among the rest in this. We shall also need great quantities of all\n kinds of cattle for those who may wish to eat them, shall we not?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Of course we shall.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Then shall we not experience the need of medical men also to a\n much greater extent under this than under the former _r\u00e9gime_?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Yes, indeed.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018The country, too, I presume, which was formerly adequate to\n the support of its then inhabitants, will be now too small, and\n adequate no longer. Shall we say so?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Certainly.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Then must we not cut ourselves a slice of our neighbours\u2019\n territory, if we are to have land enough both for pasture and\n tillage? While they will do the same to ours if they, like us,\n permit themselves to overstep the limit of necessaries, and plunge\n into the unbounded acquisition of wealth.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018It must inevitably be so, Sokrates.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Will our next step be to go to war, Glaukon, or how will it be?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018As you say.\u2019\n\n \u201cAt this stage of our inquiry let us avoid asserting either that\n war does good or that it does harm, confining ourselves to this\n statement--that we have further traced the origin of war to causes\n which are the most fruitful sources of whatever evils befall a\n State, either in its corporate capacity or in its individual\n members.\u201d (Book II.)[17]\n\nJustly holding that the best laws will be of little avail unless the\nadministrators of them shall be just and virtuous, Sokrates, in the\nThird Book, proceeds to lay down rules for the education and diet of\nthe magistrates or executive, whom he calls--in conformity with the\nCommunistic system--_guardians_:--\n\n \u201c\u2018We have already said,\u2019 proceeds Sokrates, \u2018that the persons in\n question must refrain from drunkenness; for a guardian is the last\n person in the world, I should think, to be allowed to get drunk,\n and not know where he is.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Truly it would be ridiculous for a guardian to require a guard.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018But about eating: our men are combatants in a most important\n arena, are they not?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018They are.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Then will the habit of body which is cultivated by the trained\n fighters of the Pal\u00e6stra be suitable to such persons?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Perhaps it will.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Well, but this is a sleepy kind of regimen, and produces a\n precarious state of health; for do you not observe that men in the\n regular training sleep their life away, and, if they depart only\n slightly from the prescribed diet, are attacked by serious maladies\n in their worst form?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018I do.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201c\u2018In fact, it would not be amiss, I imagine, to compare this whole\n system of feeding and living to that kind of music and singing\n which is adapted to the panharmonicum, and composed in every\n variety of rhythm.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Undoubtedly it would be a just comparison.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Is it not true, then, that as in music variety begat\n dissoluteness in the soul, so here it begets disease in the body,\n while simplicity in gymnastic [diet] is as productive of health as\n in music it was productive of temperance?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Most true.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018But when dissoluteness and diseases abound in a city, are not\n law courts and surgeries opened in abundance, and do not Law\n and Physic begin to hold their heads high, when numbers even\n of well-born persons devote themselves with eagerness to these\n professions?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018What else can we expect?\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201c\u2018And do you not hold it disgraceful to require medical aid, unless\n it be for a wound, or an attack of illness incidental to the time\n of the year--to require it, I mean, owing to our laziness and the\n life we lead, and to get ourselves so stuffed with humours and\n wind, like quagmires, as to compel the clever sons of Asklepios to\n call diseases by such names as _flatulence_ and _catarrh_?\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018To be sure, these are very strange and new-fangled names for\n disorders.\u2019\u201d (Book III.)\n\nElsewhere, in a well-known passage (in _The Laws_), Plato pronounces\nthat the springs of human conduct and moral worth depend principally\non diet. \u201cI observe,\u201d says he, \u201cthat men\u2019s thoughts and actions are\nintimately connected with the threefold need and desire (accordingly as\nthey are properly used or abused, virtue or its opposite is the result)\nof eating, drinking, and sexual love.\u201d He himself was remarkable for\nthe extreme frugality of his living. Like most of his countrymen, he\nwas a great eater of figs; and so much did he affect that frugal repast\nthat he was called, _par excellence_, the \u201clover of figs\u201d (\u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03cc\u03c3\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2).\n\nThe Greeks, in general, were noted among the Europeans for their\nabstemiousness; and Antiphanes, the comic poet (in Athen\u00e6us), terms\nthem \u201cleaf-eaters\u201d (\u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03b3\u03b5\u03c2). Amongst the Greeks, the Athenians and\nSpartans were specially noted for frugal living. That of the latter is\nproverbial. The comic poets frequently refer, in terms of ridicule,\nto what seemed to them so unaccountable an indifferentism to the\n\u201cgood things\u201d of life on the part of the witty and refined people of\nAttica. See the _Deipnosophists_ (dinner-philosophers) of Athen\u00e6us (the\ngreat repertory of the _bon-vivantism_ of the time), and Plutarch\u2019s\n_Symposiacs_.\n\nIt has been pointed out by Professor Mahaffy, in his recent work on\nold Greek life, that slaughter-houses and butchers are seldom, or\nnever, mentioned in Greek literature. \u201cThe eating of [flesh] meat,\u201d he\nobserves, \u201cmust have been almost confined to sacrificial feasts; for,\nin ordinary language, butchers\u2019 meat was called _victim_ (\u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd).\nThe most esteemed, or popular, dishes were _madsa_, a sort of porridge\nof wheat or barley; various kinds of bread (see _Deipn._ iii.); honey,\nbeans, lupines, lettuce and salad, onions and leeks. Olives, dates,\nand figs formed the usual fruit portion of their meals. In regard to\nnon-vegetable food, fish was the most sought after and preferred to\nanything else; and the well-known term _opson_, which so frequently\nrecurs in Greek literature, was specially appropriated to it.\n\nContemporary with the great master of language was the great master of\nmedicine, Hippokrates, (460-357) who is to his science what Homer is\nto poetry and Herodotus to history--the first historical founder of\nthe art of healing. He was a native of K\u014ds, a small island of the S.W.\ncoast of Lesser Asia, the traditional cradle and home of the disciples\nof Asklepios, or \u00c6sculapius (as he was termed by the Latins), the\nsemi-divine author and patron of medicine. And it may be remarked, in\npassing, that the College of Asklepiads of K\u014ds were careful to exercise\na despotism as severe and exclusive as that which obtains, for the most\npart, with the modern orthodox schools.\n\nAmongst a large number of writings of various kinds attributed to\nHippokrates is the treatise _On Regimen in Acute Diseases_ (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76\n\u0394\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f48\u03be\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd), which is generally received as genuine; and _On the\nHealthful Regimen_ (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u0394\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f59\u03b3\u03b9\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2), which belongs to the same\nage, though not to the _canonical_ writings of the founder of the\nschool himself. He was the author, real or reputed, of some of the\nmost valuable apophthegms of Greek antiquity. _Ars longa--Vita brevis_\n(education is slow; life is short) is the best known, and most often\nquoted. What is still more to our purpose is his maxim--\u201cOver-drinking\nis _almost as bad_ as over-eating.\u201d Of all the productions of this most\nvoluminous of writers, his _Aphorisms_ (\u1f08\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03af), in which these\nspecimens of laconic wisdom are collected, and which consists of some\nfour hundred short practical sentences, are the most popular.\n\nAbout a century after the death of Plato appeared a popular exposition\nof the Pythagorean teaching, in hexameters, which is known by the title\ngiven to it by Iamblichus--the _Golden Verses_. \u201cMore than half of\nthem,\u201d says Professor Clifford, \u201cconsist of a sort of versified \u2018Duty\nto God and my Neighbour,\u2019 except that it is not designed by the rich to\nbe obeyed by the poor; that it lays stress on the laws of health; and\nthat it is just such sensible counsel for the good and right conduct of\nlife as an Englishman might now-a-days give to his son.\u201d\n\nHierokles, an eminent Neo-Platonist of the fifth century, A.D., gave\na course of lectures upon them at Alexandria--which since the time of\nthe Ptolemies had been one of the chief centres of Greek learning and\nscience--and his commentary is sufficiently interesting. Su\u00efdas, the\nlexicographer, speaks of his matter and style in the highest terms of\npraise. \u201cHe astonished his hearers everywhere,\u201d he tells us, \u201cby the\ncalm, the magnificence, the width of his superlative intellect, and\nby the sweetness of his speech, full of the most beautiful words and\nthings.\u201d The Alexandrian lecturer quotes the old Pythagorean maxims:\n\n \u201cYou shall honour God best by becoming godlike in your thoughts.\n Whoso giveth God honour as to one that needeth it, that man in his\n folly hath made himself greater than God. The wise man only is a\n priest, is a lover of God, is skilful to pray; ... for that man\n only knows how to worship, who begins by offering himself as the\n victim, fashions his own soul into a divine image, and furnishes\n his mind as a temple for the reception of the divine light.\u201d\n\nThe following extracts will serve as a specimen of the religious or\nmoral character of the _Golden Verses_:--\n\n \u201cLet not sleep come upon thine eyelids till thou hast pondered thy\n deeds of the day.\n\n \u201cWherein have I sinned? What work have I done, what left undone\n that I ought to have done?\n\n \u201cBeginning at the first, go through even unto the last, and then\n let thy heart smite thee for the evil deeds, but rejoice in the\n good work.\n\n \u201cWork at these commandments and think upon them: these commandments\n shalt thou love.\n\n \u201cThey shall surely set thee in the way of divine righteousness:\n yea, by Him who gave into our soul the _Tetrad_,[18] well-spring of\n life everlasting.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cKnow so far as is permitted thee, that Nature in all things is\n like unto herself:\n\n \u201cThat thou mayest not hope that of which there is no hope, nor be\n ignorant of that which may be.\n\n \u201cKnow thou also, that _the woes of men are the work of their own\n hands_.\n\n \u201cMiserable are they, _because they see not and hear not the good\n that is very nigh them_: and the way of escape from evil few there\n be that understand it.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cVerily, Father Zeus, thou wouldst free all men from much evil, if\n thou wouldst teach all men what manner of spirit they are of.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cKeep from the meats aforesaid, using judgment both in cleansing\n and setting free the soul.\n\n \u201cGive heed to every matter, and set reason on high, who best\n holdeth the reins of guidance.[19]\n\n \u201cThen when thou leavest the body, and comest into the free \u00e6ther,\n thou shalt be a god undying, everlasting, neither shall death have\n any more dominion over thee.\u201d\n\nReferring to these verses, which inculcate that the human race is\nitself responsible for the evils which men, for the most part, prefer\nto regret than to remedy, Professor Clifford, to whom we are indebted\nfor the above version of the _Golden Verses_, remarks on the merits of\nthis teaching, that it reminds us that \u201cmen suffer from _preventible_\nevils, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.\u201d[20] Thus we find\nthat the principal obstructions, in all ages, to human progress and\nperfectibility may be ever found in IGNORANCE and SELFISHNESS.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nOVID. 43 B.C.--18 A.D.\n\n\nThe school of Pythagoras and of Plato, although it was not the\nfashionable or popular religion of Rome, counted amongst its disciples\nsome distinguished Italians, and the name of Cicero, who belonged\nto the \u201cNew Academy,\u201d is sufficiently illustrious. The Italians,\nhowever, who borrowed their religion as well as their literature from\nthe Greeks, were never distinguished, like their masters, for that\nrefinement of thought which might have led them to attach themselves\nto the Pythagorean teaching. Under the bloody despotism of the Empire,\nthe philosophy which was most affected by the _literati_ and those who\nwere driven to the consolations of philosophy was the _stoical_, which\ntaught its disciples to consider _apathy_ as the _summum bonum_ of\nexistence. This school of philosophy, whatever its other merits, was\ntoo much centred in self--paradoxical as the assertion may seem--to\nhave much regard for the rest of mankind, much less for the non-human\nspecies. Nor, while they professed supreme contempt for the luxuries\nand even comforts of life, did the disciples of the \u201cPorch,\u201d in\ngeneral, practice abstinence from any exalted motive, humanitarian or\nspiritual. They preached indifference for the \u201cgood things\u201d of this\nlife, not so much to elevate the spiritual and moral side of human\nnature as to show their contempt for human life altogether.\n\nThat the Italian was essentially of a more barbarous nature than the\nGreek is apparent in the national spectacles and amusements. The\nsavage scenes of gladiatorial and non-human combat and internecine\nslaughter of the Latin amphitheatres, of which the famous Colosseum\nin the capital was the model of many others in the provinces, were\nabhorrent to the more refined Greek mind.[21] In view of scenes so\nsanguinary--the \u201cRoman holiday\u201d--it is scarcely necessary to observe\nthat humanitarianism was a creed unknown to the Italians; and it\nwas not likely that a people, addicted throughout their career as\na dominant race to the most bloody wars, not only foreign but also\ninternecine, with whom fighting and slaughter of their own kind was an\nalmost daily occupation, should entertain any feeling of pity (to say\nnothing of justice) towards their non-human dependants. Nevertheless,\neven they were not wholly inaccessible, on occasion, to the prompting\nof pity. Referring to a grand spectacle given by Pompeius at the\ndedication of his theatre (B.C. 55), in which a large number\nof elephants, amongst others, were forced to fight, the elder Pliny\ntells us:--\n\n \u201cWhen they lost the hope of escape, they sought the compassion\n of the crowd with an appearance that is indescribable, bewailing\n themselves with a sort of lamentation so much to the pain of\n the populace that, forgetful of the imperator and the elaborate\n munificence displayed for their honour, they all rose up in tears\n and bestowed imprecations on Pompeius, of which he soon after\n experienced the effect.\u201d[22]\n\nCicero, who was himself present at the spectacle of the Circus, in a\nletter to a friend, Marcus Marius, writes:--\n\n \u201cWhat followed, for five days, was successive combats between a\n man and a wild beast. (_Venationes bin\u00e6._) It was magnificent.\n No one disputes it. But what pleasure can it be to a person of\n refinement, when either a weak man is torn to pieces by a very\n powerful beast, or a noble animal is struck through by a hunting\n spear?... The last day was that of the elephants, in which there\n was great astonishment on the part of the populace and crowd, but\n no enjoyment. Indeed there followed a degree of compassion, and a\n certain idea that there is a sort of fellowship between that huge\n animal and the human race.\u201d (Cicero, _Ep. ad Diversos_ vii., 1.)\n\nTestimonies which might induce one almost to think that, had not they\nbeen systematically and industriously accustomed to these horrible\nand gigantic butcheries by their rulers, even the Roman populace\nmight have been susceptible of better feelings and desires than those\ninspired by their amphitheatres, though these savage exhibitions were\nperhaps hardly worse than the combats and slaughter in the bull-rings\nof Seville or Madrid, or at the courts of the Mohammedan princes of\nIndia recently sanctioned by the presence of English royalty. It is\nworth noting, in passing, that while the _gladiatorial_ slaughters were\ndiscontinued some years after the triumph of Christianity, the other\npart of the entertainment--the indiscriminate combats and slaughter\nof the _non-human_ victims--continued to be exhibited to a much later\nperiod.\n\nIf we reflect that the rise of the humanitarian spirit in Christian\nEurope, or rather in the better section of it, is of very recent\norigin, it might appear unreasonable to look for any distinct\nexhibition of so exalted a feeling in the younger age of the\nworld. Yet, to the shame of more advanced civilisations, we find\nmanifestations of it in the writings of a few of the more refined\nminds of Greece and Italy; and Plutarch and Seneca--the former\nparticularly--occupy a distinguished place amongst the first preachers\nof that sacred truth.[23]\n\nPublius Ovidius Naso, the Latin versifier of the Pythagorean\nphilosophy, was born B.C. 43. He belonged to the equestrian\norder, a position in the social scale which corresponds with the\n\u201chigher middle class\u201d of modern days. Like so many other names eminent\nin literature, he was in the first instance educated for the law,\nfor which, also like many other literary celebrities, he soon showed\nhis genius to be unfitted and uncongenial. He studied at the great\nUniversity of that age--Athens--where he acquired a knowledge of\nthe Greek language, and probably of its rich literature. The most\nmemorable event in his life--which, in accordance with the fashion of\nhis contemporaries of the same rank, was for the most part devoted\nto \u201cgallantry\u201d and the accustomed amatory licence--is his mysterious\nbanishment from Rome to the inhospitable and savage shores of the\nEuxine, where he passed the last seven years of his existence, dying\nthere in the sixtieth year of his age. The cause of his sudden exile\nfrom the Court of Augustus, where he had been in high favour, is one\nof those secrets of history which have exercised the ingenuity of his\nsuccessive biographers. According to the terms of the imperial edict,\nthe freedom of the poet\u2019s _Ars Amatoria_ was the offence. That this was\na mere pretext is plain, as well from the long interval of time which\nhad passed since the publication of the poem as from the character of\nthe fashionable society of the capital. Ovid himself attributes his\nmisfortune to the fact of his having become the involuntary witness of\nsome secret of the palace, the nature of which is not divulged.\n\nHis most important poems are (1) _The Metamorphoses_, in fifteen books,\nso called from its being a collection of the numerous transformations\nof the popular theology. It is, perhaps, the most _charming_ of Latin\npoems that have come down to us. Particular passages have a special\nbeauty. (2) _The Fasti_, in twelve books, of which only six are extant,\nis the Roman Calendar in verse. Its interest, apart from the poetic\ngenius of the author, is great, as being the grand repertory of the\nLatin feasts and their popular origin. Besides these two principal\npoems he was the author of the famous _Loves_, in three books; the\n_Letters of the Heroines_, _The Remedies of Love_, and _The Tristia, or\nSad Thoughts_. He also wrote a tragedy--_Medea_--which, unfortunately\nhas not come down to us. All his poems are characterised by elegance\nand a remarkable smoothness and regularity of versification, and in\nmuch of his productions there is an unusual beauty and picturesqueness\nof poetic ideas.\n\nThe following passage from the fifteenth book of the _Metamorphoses_\nhas been justly said by Dryden, his translator, to be the finest part\nof the whole poem. It is almost impossible to believe but that, in\nspite of his misspent life, he must have felt, in his better moments at\nleast, something of the truth and beauty of the Pythagorean principles\nwhich he so exquisitely versifies. In the touching words which he puts\ninto the mouth of the jealous Medea--the murderess of her children--he\nmight have exclaimed in his own case--\n\n \u201cVideo meliora proboque\n Deteriora sequor.\u201d[24]\n\n \u201cHe [Pythagoras], too, was the first to forbid animals to be served\n up at the table, and he was first to open his lips, indeed full\n of wisdom yet all unheeded, in the following words: \u2018Forbear, O\n mortals! to pollute your bodies with such abominable food. There\n are the _farinacea_ (_fruges_), there are the fruits which bear\n down the branches with their weight, and there are the grapes\n swelling on the vines; there are the sweet herbs; there are those\n that may be softened by the flame and become tender. Nor is the\n milky juice denied you; nor honey, redolent of the flower of thyme.\n The lavish Earth heaps up her riches and her gentle foods, and\n offers you dainties without blood and without slaughter. The lower\n animals satisfy their ravenous hunger with flesh. And yet not\n all of them; for the horse, the sheep, the cows and oxen subsist\n on grass; while those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the\n tigers of Armenia and the raging lions, and the wolves and bears,\n revel in their bloody diet.\n\n \u201c\u2018Alas! what a monstrous crime it is (_scelus_) that entrails\n should be entombed in entrails; that one ravening body should grow\n fat on others which it crams into it; that one living creature\n should live by the death of another living creature! Amid so great\n an abundance which the Earth--that best of mothers--produces does,\n indeed, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sad\n produce of the wounds you inflict and to imitate the habits of\n the Cyclops? Can you not appease the hunger of a voracious and\n ill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another being? Yet\n that age of old, to which we have given the name of _golden_, was\n blest in the produce of the trees and in the herbs which the earth\n brings forth, and the human mouth was not polluted with blood.\n\n \u201c\u2018Then the birds moved their wings secure in the air, and the hare,\n without fear, wandered in the open fields. Then the fish did not\n fall a victim to the hook and its own credulity. Every place was\n void of treachery; there was no dread of injury--all things were\n full of peace. In later ages some one--a mischievous innovator\n (_non utilis auctor_), whoever he was--set at naught and scorned\n this pure and simple food, and engulfed in his greedy paunch\n victuals made from a carcase. It was he that opened the road to\n wickedness. I can believe that the steel, since stained with blood,\n was first dipped in the gore of savage wild beasts; and that was\n lawful enough. We hold that the bodies of animals that seek our\n destruction are put to death without any breach of the sacred laws\n of morality. But although they might be put to death they were\n not to be eaten as well. From this time the abomination advanced\n rapidly. The swine is believed to have been the first victim\n destined to slaughter, because it grubbed up the seeds with its\n broad snout, and so cut short the hopes of the year. For gnawing\n and injuring the vine the goat was led to slaughter at the altars\n of the avenging Bacchus. Its own fault was the ruin of each of\n these victims.\n\n \u201c\u2018But how have you deserved to die, ye sheep, you harmless\n breed that have come into existence for the service of men--who\n carry nectar in your full udders--who give your wool as soft\n coverings for us--who assist us more by your life than by your\n death? Why have the oxen deserved this--beings without guile and\n without deceit--innocent, mild, born for the endurance of labour?\n Ungrateful, indeed, is man, and unworthy of the bounteous gifts of\n the harvest who, after unyoking him from the plough, can slaughter\n the tiller of his fields--who can strike with the axe that neck\n worn bare with labour, through which he had so often turned up the\n hard ground, and which had afforded so many a harvest.\n\n \u201c\u2018And it is not enough that such wickedness is committed by men.\n They have involved the gods themselves in this abomination, and\n they believe that a Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the\n slaughter of the laborious and useful ox. The spotless victim,\n excelling in the beauty of its form (for its very beauty is the\n cause of its destruction), decked out with garlands and with gold\n is placed before their altars, and, ignorant of the purport of\n the proceedings, it hears the prayers of the priest. It sees the\n fruits which it cultivated placed on its head between its horns,\n and, struck down, with its life-blood it dyes the sacrificial knife\n which it had perhaps already seen in the clear water. Immediately\n they inspect the nerves and fibres torn from the yet living being,\n and scrutinise the will of the gods in them.\n\n \u201c\u2018From whence such a hunger in man after unnatural and unlawful\n food? Do you dare, O mortal race, to continue to feed on flesh? Do\n it not, I beseech you, and give heed to my admonitions. And when\n you present to your palates the limbs of slaughtered oxen, know and\n feel that you are feeding on the tillers of the ground.\u2019\u201d--_Metam._\n xv., 73-142.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nSENECA. DIED 65 A.D.\n\n\nLucius Ann\u00e6us Seneca, the greatest name in the stoic school of\nphilosophy, and the first of Latin moralists, was born at Corduba\n(Cordova) almost contemporaneously with the beginning of the Christian\nera. His family, like that of Ovid, was of the equestrian order. He was\nof a weakly constitution; and bodily feebleness, as with many other\ngreat intellects, served to intensify if not originate, the activity\nof the mind. At Rome, with which he early made acquaintance, he soon\ngained great distinction at the bar; and the eloquence and fervour he\ndisplayed in the Senate before the Emperor Caligula excited the jealous\nhatred of that insane tyrant. Later in life he obtained a pr\u00e6torship,\nand he was also appointed to the tutorship of the young Domitius,\nafterwards the Emperor Nero. On the accession of that prince, at the\nage of seventeen, to the imperial throne, Seneca became one of his\nchief advisers.\n\nUnfortunately for his credit as a philosopher, while exerting his\ninfluence to restrain the vicious propensities of his old pupil, he\nseems to have been too anxious to acquire, not only a fair proportion\nof wealth, but even an enormous fortune, and his villas and gardens\nwere of so splendid a kind as to provoke the jealousy and covetousness\nof Nero. This, added to his alleged disparagement of the prince\u2019s\ntalents, especially in singing and driving, for which Nero particularly\ndesired to be famous, was the cause of his subsequent disgrace and\ndeath. The philosopher prudently attempted to anticipate the will of\nNero by a voluntary surrender of all his accumulated possessions, and\nhe sought to disarm the jealous suspicions of the tyrant by a retired\nand unostentatious life. These precautions were of no avail; his death\nwas already decided. He was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of\nPiso, and the only grace allowed him was to be his own executioner. The\ndespair of his wife, Pompeia Paulina, he attempted to mitigate by the\nreflection that his life had been always directed by the standard of a\nhigher morality. Nothing, however, could dissuade her from sharing her\nhusband\u2019s fate, and the two faithful friends laid open their veins by\nthe same blow.\n\nAdvanced age and his extremely meagre diet had left little blood in\nSeneca\u2019s veins, and it flowed with painful slowness. His tortures were\nexcessive and, to avoid the intolerable grief of being witnesses of\neach other\u2019s suffering, they shut themselves up in separate apartments.\nWith that marvellous intrepid tranquillity which characterised some\nof the old sages, Seneca calmly dictated his last thoughts to his\nsurrounding friends. These were afterwards published. His agonies being\nstill prolonged, he took hemlock; and this also failing, he was carried\ninto a vapour-stove, where he was suffocated, and thus at length ceased\nto suffer.\n\nIn estimating the character of Seneca, it is just that we should\nconsider all the circumstances of the exceptional time in which his\nlife was cast. Perhaps there has never been an age or people more\nutterly corrupt and abandoned than that of the period of the earlier\nRoman C\u00e6sars and that of Rome and the large cities of the empire.\nAllowing the utmost that his detractors have brought against him, the\nmoral character of the author of the _Consolations_ and _Letters_\nstands out in bright relief as compared with that of the immense\nmajority of his contemporaries of equal rank and position, who were\nsunk in the depths of licentiousness and of selfish indifference to\nthe miseries of the surrounding world. That his public career was not\nof so exalted a character altogether as are his moral precepts, is\nonly too patent to be denied and, in this shortcoming of a loftier\n_ideal_, he must share reproach with some of the most esteemed of the\nworld\u2019s luminaries. If, for instance, we compare him with Cicero or\nwith Francis Bacon, the comparison would certainly be not unfavourable\nto Seneca. The darkest stigma on the reputation of the great Latin\nmoralist is his connivance at the death of the infamous Agrippina, the\nmother of his pupil Nero. Although not to be excused, we may fairly\nattribute this act to conscientious, if mistaken, motives. His best\napology is to be found in the fact that, so long as he assisted to\ndirect the counsels of Nero, he contrived to restrain that prince\u2019s\ndepraved disposition from those outbreaks which, after the death of the\nphilosopher, have stigmatised the name of Nero with undying infamy.\n\nThe principal writings of Seneca are:--\n\n1. _On Anger._ His earliest, and perhaps his best known, work.\n\n2. _On Consolation._ Addressed to his mother, Helvia. An admirable\nphilosophical exhortation.\n\n3. _On Providence; or, Why evils happen to good men though a divine\nProvidence may exist._\n\n4. _On Tranquillity of Mind._\n\n5. _On Clemency._ Addressed to Nero C\u00e6sar. One of the most meritorious\nwritings of all antiquity. It is not unworthy of being classed with the\nhumanitarian protests of Beccaria and Voltaire. The stoical distinction\nbetween clemency and pity (_misericordia_), in book ii., is, as Seneca\nadmits, merely a dispute about words.\n\n6. _On the Shortness of Life._ In which the proper employment of time\nand the acquisition of wisdom are eloquently enforced as the best\nemployment of a fleeting life.\n\n7. _On a Happy Life._ In which he inculcates that there is no happiness\nwithout virtue. An excellent treatise.\n\n8. _On Kindnesses._\n\n9. _Epistles to Lucilius._ 124 in number. They abound in lessons and\nprecepts in morality and philosophy, and, excepting the _De Ir\u00e2_, have\nbeen the most read, perhaps, of all Seneca\u2019s productions.\n\n10. _Questions on Natural History._ In seven books.\n\nBesides these moral and philosophic works, he composed several\ntragedies. They were not intended for the stage, but rather as moral\nlessons. As in all his works, there is much of earnest thought and\nfeeling, although expressed in rhetorical and declamatory language.\n\nWhat especially characterises Seneca\u2019s writings is their remarkably\n_humanitarian_ spirit. Altogether he is imbued with this, for the\nmost part, very modern feeling in a greater degree than any other\nwriter, Greek or Latin. Plutarch indeed, in his noble _Essay on Flesh\nEating_, is more expressly denunciatory of the barbarism of the\nSlaughter House, and of the horrible cruelties inseparably connected\nwith it, and evidently felt more deeply the importance of exposing\nits evils. The Latin moralist, however, deals with a wider range of\nethical questions, and on such subjects, as, _e.g._, the relations of\nmaster and slave, is far ahead of his contemporaries. His treatment of\n_Dietetics_, in common with that of most of the old-world moralists, is\nrather from the spiritual and ascetic than from the purely humanitarian\npoint of view. \u201cThe judgments on Seneca\u2019s writings,\u201d says the author\nof the article on Seneca in Dr. Smith\u2019s _Dictionary of Greek and Latin\nBiography_, \u201chave been as various as the opinions about his character,\nand both in extremes. It has been said of him that he looks best in\nquotations; but this is an admission that there is something worth\nquoting, which cannot be said of all writers. That Seneca possessed\ngreat mental powers cannot be doubted. He had seen much of human life,\nand he knew well what man is. His philosophy, so far as he adopted a\nsystem, was the stoical; but it was rather an eclecticism of stoicism\nthan pure stoicism. His style is antithetical, and apparently laboured;\nand where there is much labour there is generally affectation. Yet his\nlanguage is clear and forcible--it is not mere words--there is thought\nalways. It would not be easy to name any modern writer, who has treated\non morality and has said so much that is practically good and true, or\nhas treated the matter in so attractive a way.\u201d\n\nJerome, in his _Ecclesiastical Writers_, hesitates to include him in\nthe catalogue of his saints only because he is not certain of the\ngenuineness of the alleged literary correspondence between Seneca and\nSt. Paul. We may observe, in passing, on the remarkable coincidence\nof the presence of the two greatest teachers of the old and the new\nfaiths in the capital of the Roman Empire at the same time; and it is\npossible, or rather highly probable, that St. Paul was acquainted with\nthe writings of Seneca; while, from the total silence of the pagan\nphilosopher, it seems that he knew nothing of the Pauline epistles\nor teaching. Amongst many testimonies to the superiority of Seneca,\nTacitus, the great historian of the empire, speaks of the \u201csplendour\nand celebrity of his philosophic writings,\u201d as well as of his \u201camiable\ngenius\u201d--_ingenium am\u0153num_. (_Annals_, xii., xiii.) The elder Pliny\nwrites of him as \u201cat the very head of all the learned men of that\ntime.\u201d (xiv. 4.) Petrarch quotes the testimony of Plutarch, \u201cthat great\nman who, Greek though he was freely confesses \u2018that there is no Greek\nwriter who could be brought into comparison with him in the department\nof _morals_.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe following passage is to be found in a letter to Lucilius, in which,\nafter expatiating on the sublimity of the teaching of the philosopher\nAttalus in inculcating moderation and self-control in corporeal\npleasures, Seneca thus enunciates his _dietetic_ opinions:--\n\n \u201cSince I have begun to confide to you with what exceeding ardour\n I approached the study of philosophy in my youth, I shall not be\n ashamed to confess the affection with which Sotion [his preceptor]\n inspired me for the teaching of Pythagoras. He was wont to\n instruct me on what grounds he himself, and, after him, Sextius,\n had determined to abstain from the flesh of animals. Each had a\n different reason, but the reason in both instances was a grand\n one (_magnifica_). Sotion held that man can find a sufficiency\n of nourishment without blood shedding, and that cruelty became\n habitual when once the practice of butchering was applied to the\n gratification of the appetite. He was wont to add that \u2018It is our\n bounden duty to limit the materials of luxury. That, moreover,\n variety of foods is injurious to health, and not natural to our\n bodies. If these maxims [of the Pythagorean school] are true, then\n to abstain from the flesh of animals is to encourage and foster\n _innocence_; if ill-founded, at least they teach us frugality\n and simplicity of living. And what loss have you in losing your\n cruelty? (Quod istic crudelitatis tu\u00e6 damnum est?) I merely deprive\n you of the food of lions and vultures.\u2019\n\n \u201cMoved by these and similar arguments, I resolved to abstain from\n flesh meat, and at the end of a year the habit of abstinence was\n not only easy but delightful. I firmly believed that the faculties\n of my mind were more active,[25] and at this day I will not take\n pains to assure you whether they were so or not. You ask, then,\n \u2018Why did you go back and relinquish this mode of life?\u2019 I reply\n that the lot of my early days was cast in the reign of the emperor\n Tiberius. Certain foreign religions became the object of the\n imperial suspicion, and amongst the proofs of adherence to the\n foreign cultus or superstition was that of abstinence from the\n flesh of animals. At the entreaties of my father, therefore, who\n had no real fear of the practice being made a ground of accusation,\n but who had a hatred of philosophy,[26] I was induced to return to\n my former dietetic habits, nor had he much difficulty in persuading\n me to recur to more sumptuous repasts....\n\n \u201cThis I tell,\u201d he proceeds, \u201cto prove to you how powerful are the\n early impetuses of youth to what is truest and best under the\n exhortations and incentives of virtuous teachers. We err partly\n through the fault of our guides, who teach us _how to dispute_, not\n _how to live_; partly by our own fault in expecting our teachers\n to cultivate not so much the _disposition of the mind_ as the\n faculties of the intellect. Hence it is that in place of a love\n of wisdom there is only a love of words (Itaque qu\u00e6 _philosophia_\n fuit, facta _philologia_ est).\u201d--_Epistola_ cviii.[27]\n\nSeneca here cautiously reveals the jealous suspicion with which the\nfirst C\u00e6sars viewed all foreign, and especially quasi-religious,\ninnovations, and his own _public_ compliance, to some extent, with the\northodox dietetic practices. Yet that in private life he continued\nto practise, as well as to preach, a radical dietary reformation\nis sufficiently evident to all who are conversant with his various\nwritings. The refinement and gentleness of his ethics are everywhere\napparent, and exhibit him as a man of extraordinary sensibility and\nfeeling.\n\nAs for _dietetics_, he makes it a matter of the first importance, on\nwhich he is never weary of insisting. \u201c_We must so live, not as if we\nought to live for, but as though we could not do without, the body._\u201d\nHe quotes Epikurus: \u201c_If you live according to nature, you will never\nbe poor; if according to conventionalism, you will never be rich.\nNature demands little; fashion_ (opinio) _superfluity_.\u201d In one of his\nletters he eloquently describes the riotous feasting of the period\nwhich corresponds to our festival of Christmas--another illustration of\nthe proverb, \u201cHistory repeats itself\u201d:--\n\n \u201cDecember is the month,\u201d he begins his letter, \u201cwhen the city\n [Rome] most especially gives itself up to riotous living\n (_desudat_). Free licence is allowed to the public luxury. Every\n place resounds with the gigantic preparations for eating and\n gorging, just as if,\u201d he adds, \u201cthe whole year were not a sort of\n _Saturnalia_.\u201d\n\nHe contrasts with all this waste and gluttony the simplicity and\nfrugality of Epikurus, who, in a letter to his friend Poly\u00e6nus,\ndeclares that his own food does not cost him sixpence a day; while his\nfriend Metrodorus, who had not advanced so far in frugality, expended\nthe whole of that small sum:--\n\n \u201cDo you ask if that can supply due nourishment? Yes; and pleasure\n too. Not, indeed, that fleeting and superficial pleasure which\n needs to be perpetually recruited, but a solid and substantial\n one. Bread and pearl-barley (_polenta_) certainly is not luxurious\n feeding, but it is no little advantage to be able to receive\n pleasure from a simple diet of which no change of fortune can\n deprive one.... Nature demands bread and water only: no one is poor\n in regard to those necessaries.\u201d[28]\n\nAgain, Seneca writes:--\n\n \u201cHow long shall we weary heaven with petitions for superfluous\n luxuries, as though we had not at hand wherewithal to feed\n ourselves? How long shall we fill our plains with huge cities? How\n long shall the people slave for us unnecessarily? How long shall\n countless numbers of ships from every sea bring us provisions for\n the consumption of a single month? An Ox is satisfied with the\n pasture of an acre or two: one wood suffices for several Elephants.\n Man alone supports himself by the pillage of the whole earth and\n sea. What! Has Nature indeed given us so insatiable a stomach,\n while she has given us so insignificant bodies? No: it is not the\n hunger of our stomachs, but insatiable covetousness (_ambitio_)\n which costs so much. The slaves of the belly (as says Sallust) are\n to be counted in the number of the lower animals, not of men. Nay,\n not of them, but rather of the dead.... You might inscribe on their\n doors, \u2018These have anticipated death.\u2019\u201d--(_Ep._ lx.)\n\nThe extreme difficulty of abstinence is oftentimes alleged:--\n\n \u201cIt is disagreeable, you say, to abstain from the pleasures of\n the customary diet. Such abstinence is, I grant, difficult at\n first. But in course of time the desire for that diet will begin\n to languish; the incentives to our unnatural wants failing, the\n stomach, at first rebellious, will after a time feel an aversion\n for what formerly it eagerly coveted. The desire dies of itself,\n and it is no severe loss to be without those things that you have\n ceased to long for. Add to this that there is no disease, no\n pain, which is not certainly intermitted or relieved, or cured\n altogether. Moreover it is possible for you to be on your guard\n against a threatened return of the disease, and to oppose remedies\n if it comes upon you.\u201d--(_Ep._ lxxviii.)\n\nOn the occasion of a shipwreck, when his fellow-passengers found\nthemselves forced to live upon the scantiest fare, he takes the\nopportunity to point out how extravagantly superfluous must be the\nordinary living of the richer part of the community:--\n\n \u201cHow easily we can dispense with these superfluities, which, when\n necessity takes them from us, we do not feel the want of....\n Whenever I happen to be in the company of richly-living people I\n cannot prevent a blush of shame, because I see evident proof that\n the principles which I approve and commend have as yet no sure\n and firm faith placed in them.... A warning voice needs to be\n published abroad in opposition to the prevailing opinion of the\n human race: \u2018You are out of your senses (_insanitis_); you are\n wandering from the path of right; you are lost in stupid admiration\n for superfluous luxuries; you value no one thing for its proper\n worth.\u2019\u201d--(_Ep._ lxxxvii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n \u201cI now turn to you, whose insatiable and unfathomable gluttony\n (_profunda et insatiabilis gula_) searches every land and every\n sea. Some animals it persecutes with snares and traps, with\n hunting-nets [the customary method of the _battue_ of that period],\n with hooks, sparing no sort of toil to obtain them. Excepting\n from mere caprice or daintiness, there is no peace allowed to any\n species of beings. Yet how much of all these feasts which you\n obtain by the agency of innumerable hands do you even so much as\n touch with your lips, satiated as they are with luxuries? How much\n of that animal, which has been caught with so much expense or\n peril, does the dyspeptic and bilious owner taste? Unhappy even in\n this! that you perceive not that you hunger more than your belly.\n Study,\u201d he concludes his exhortation to his friend, \u201cnot to know\n _more_, but to know _better_.\u201d\n\nAgain:--\n\n \u201cIf the human race would but listen to the voice of reason, it\n would recognise that [fashionable] cooks are as superfluous as\n soldiers.... Wisdom engages in all useful things, is favourable to\n peace, and summons the whole human species to concord.\u201d--(_Ep._ xc.)\n\n \u201cIn the simpler times there was no need of so large a supernumerary\n force of medical men, nor of so many surgical instruments or of\n so many boxes of drugs. Health was simple for a simple reason.\n Many dishes have induced many diseases. Note how _vast a quantity\n of lives one stomach absorbs_--devastator of land and sea.[29] No\n wonder that with so discordant diet disease is ever varying....\n Count the cooks: you will no longer wonder at the innumerable\n number of human maladies.\u201d--(_Ep._ xcv.)\n\nWe must be content with giving our readers only one more of Seneca\u2019s\nexhortations to a reform in diet:--\n\n \u201cYou think it a great matter that you can bring yourself to live\n without all the apparatus of fashionable dishes; that you do not\n desire wild boars of a thousand pounds weight or the tongues of\n rare birds, and other portents of a luxury which now despises whole\n carcases,[30] and chooses only certain parts of each victim. I\n shall admire you then only when you scorn not plain bread, when\n you have persuaded yourself that herbs exist not for other animals\n only, but for man also--if you shall recognise that vegetables are\n sufficient food for the stomach into which we now stuff valuable\n lives, as though it were to keep them for ever. For what matters\n it what it receives, since it will soon lose all that it has\n devoured? The apparatus of dishes, containing the spoils of sea and\n land, gives you pleasure, you say.... The splendour of all this,\n heightened by art, gives you pleasure. Ah! those very things so\n solicitously sought for and served up so variously--no sooner have\n they entered the belly than one and the same foulness shall take\n possession of them all. Would you contemn the pleasures of the\n table? Consider their final destination\u201d (_exitum specta_).[31]\n\nIf Seneca makes _dietetics_ of the first importance, he at the same\ntime by no means neglects the other departments of _ethics_, which, for\nthe most part, ultimately depend upon that fundamental reformation; and\nhe is equally excellent on them all. Space will not allow us to present\nour readers with all the admirable _dicta_ of this great moralist. We\ncannot resist, however, the temptation to quote some of his unique\nteaching on certain branches of humanitarianism and philosophy little\nregarded either in his own time or in later ages. Slaves, both in pagan\nand Christian Europe, were regarded very much as the domesticated\nnon-human species are at the present day, as born merely for the will\nand pleasure of their masters. Such seems to have been the universal\nestimate of their _status_. While often superior to their lords,\nnationally and individually, by birth, by mind, and by education,\nthey were at the arbitrary disposal of too often cruel and capricious\nowners:--\n\n \u201cAre they slaves?\u201d eloquently demands Seneca. \u201cNay, they\n are men. Are they slaves? Nay, they live under the same roof\n (_contubernales_). Are they slaves? Nay, they are humble friends.\n Are they slaves? Nay, they are fellow-servants (_conservi_), if\n you will consider that both master and servant are equally the\n creatures of chance. I smile, then, at the prevalent opinion\n which thinks it a disgrace for one to sit down to a meal with\n his servant. Why is it thought a disgrace, but because arrogant\n _Custom_ allows a master a crowd of servants to stand round him\n while he is feasting?\u201d\n\nHe expressly denounces their cruel and contemptuous treatment, and\ndemands in noble language (afterwards used by Epictetus, himself a\nslave):--\n\n \u201cWould you suppose that he whom you call a slave has the same\n origin and birth as yourself? has the same free air of heaven with\n yourself? that he breathes, lives, and dies like yourself?\u201d\n\nHe denounces the haughty and insulting attitude of masters towards\ntheir helpless dependants, and lays down the precept: \u201cSo live with\nyour dependant as you would wish your superior to live with you.\u201d He\nlaments the use of the term \u201cslaves,\u201d or \u201cservants\u201d (_servi_), in place\nof the old \u201cdomestics\u201d (_familiares_). He declaims against the common\nprejudice which judges by the _outward_ appearance:--\n\n \u201cThat man,\u201d he asserts, \u201cis of the stupidest sort who values\n another either by his dress or by his condition.\u201d Is he a slave?\n He is, it may be, _free in mind_. He is the _true_ slave who is a\n slave to cruelty, to ambition, to avarice, to pleasure. \u201cLove,\u201d\n he declares, insisting upon humanity, \u201ccannot co-exist with\n fear.\u201d--(_Ep._ xlviii.)\n\nHe is equally clear upon the ferocity and barbarity of the gladiatorial\nand other shows of the _Circus_, which were looked upon by his\ncontemporaries as not only interesting spectacles, but as a useful\nschool for war and endurance--much for the same reason as that on\nwhich the \u201csports\u201d of the present day are defended. Cicero uses this\nargument, and only expresses the general sentiment. Not so Seneca. He\nspeaks of a chance visit to the Circus (the gigantic Colosseum was\nnot yet built), for the sake of mental relaxation, expecting to see,\nat the period of the day he had chosen, only innocent exercises. He\nindignantly narrates the horrid and bloody scenes of suffering, and\ndemands, with only too much reason, whether it is not evident that such\nevil examples receive their righteous retribution in the deterioration\nof character of those who encourage them:--\n\n \u201cAh! what dense mists of darkness do power and prosperity cast\n over the human mind. He [the magistrate] believes himself to be\n raised above the common lot of mortality, and to be at the pinnacle\n of glory, when he has offered so many crowds of wretched human\n beings to the assaults of wild beasts; when he forces animals of\n the most different species to engage in conflict; when in the\n full presence of the Roman populace he causes torrents of blood\n to flow, a fitting school for the future scenes of still greater\n bloodshed.\u201d[32]\n\nIn his treatise _On Clemency_, dedicated to his youthful pupil Nero,\nhe anticipates the very modern theory--_theory_, for the prevalent\n_practice_ is a very different thing--that _prevention_ is better than\n_punishment_, and he denounces the cruel and selfish policy of princes\nand magistrates, who are, for the most part, concerned only to punish\nthe criminals produced by unjust and unequal laws:--\n\n \u201cWill not that man,\u201d he asks, \u201cappear to be a very bad father\n who punishes his children, even for the slightest causes, with\n constant blows? Which preceptor is the worthier to teach--the one\n who scarifies his pupils\u2019 backs if their memory happens to fail\n them, or if their eyes make a slight blunder in reading, or he\n who chooses rather to correct and instruct by admonition and the\n influence of shame?... You will find that those crimes are most\n often committed which are most often punished.... Many capital\n punishments are no less disgraceful to a ruler than are many deaths\n to a physician. Men are more easily governed by mild laws. The\n human mind is naturally stubborn and inclined to be perverse, and\n it more readily follows than is forced. The disposition to cruelty\n which takes delight in blood and wounds is the characteristic of\n wild beasts; it is to throw away the human character and to pass\n into that of a denizen of the woods.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of giving assistance to the needy, he says that the genuine\nphilanthropist will give his money--\n\n \u201cNot in that insulting way in which the great majority of those who\n wish to seem merciful disdain and despise those whom they help, and\n shrink from contact with them, but as one mortal to a fellow-mortal\n he will give as though out of a treasury that should be common to\n all.\u201d[33]\n\nNext to the _De Clementi\u00e2_ and the _De Ir\u00e2_ (\u201cOn Anger\u201d), his treatise\n_On the Happy Life_ is most admirable. In the abundance of what is\nunusually good and useful it is difficult to choose. His warning (so\nunheeded) against implicit confidence in authority and tradition cannot\nbe too often repeated:--\n\n \u201cThere is nothing against which we ought to be more on our guard\n than, like a flock of sheep, following the crowd of those who have\n preceded us--going, as we do, not where we ought to go, but where\n men have walked before. And yet there is nothing which involves\n us in greater evils than following and settling our faith upon\n authority--considering those dogmas or practices best which have\n been received heretofore with the greatest applause, and which have\n a multitude of great names. We live not according to reason, but\n according to mere fashion and tradition, from whence that enormous\n heap of bodies, which fall one over the other. It happens as in a\n great slaughter of men, when the crowd presses upon itself. Not\n one falls without dragging with him another. The first to fall are\n the cause of destruction to the succeeding ranks. It runs through\n the whole of human life. No-one\u2019s error is limited to himself\n alone, but he is the author and cause of another\u2019s error.... We\n shall recover our sound health if only we shall separate ourselves\n from the herd, for the crowd of mankind stands opposed to right\n reason--the defender of its own evils and miseries.[34] ... Human\n history is not so well conducted, that the better way is pleasing\n to the mass. The very fact of the approbation of the multitude is\n a proof of the badness of the opinion or practice. Let us ask what\n is _best_, not what is _most customary_; what may place us firmly\n in the possession of an everlasting felicity, not what has received\n the approbation of the vulgar--the worst interpreter of the\n truth. Now I call \u201cthe vulgar\u201d _the common herd of all ranks and\n conditions_\u201d (_Tam chlamydatos quam coronatos_).--(_De Vit\u00e2 Beat\u00e2_\n i. and ii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n \u201cI will do nothing for the sake of opinion; everything for the sake\n of conscience.\u201d\n\nHe repudiates the doctrines of Egoism for those of Altruism:--\n\n \u201cI will so live, as knowing myself to have come into the world for\n others.... I shall recognise the _world_ as my proper country.\n Whenever nature or reason shall demand my last breath I shall\n depart with the testimony that I have loved a good conscience,\n useful pursuits--that I have encroached upon the liberty of no one,\n least of all my own.\u201d\n\nVery admirable are his rebukes of unjust and insensate anger in regard\nto the non-human species:--\n\n \u201cAs it is the characteristic of a madman to be in a rage with\n lifeless objects, so also is it to be angry with dumb animals,[35]\n inasmuch as there can be no injury unless _intentional_. Hurt\n us they can--as a stone or iron--_injure_ us they cannot.\n Nevertheless, there are persons who consider themselves insulted\n when horses that will readily obey one rider are obstinate in\n the case of another; just as if they are more tractable to some\n individuals than to others of _set purpose_, not from custom or\n _owing to treatment_.\u201d--(_De Ir\u00e2_ ii., xxvi.)\n\nAgain, of anger, as between human beings:--\n\n \u201cThe faults of others we keep constantly before us; our own we hide\n behind us.... A large proportion of mankind are angry, not with the\n _sins_, but with the _sinners_. In regard to reported offences;\n _many speak falsely to deceive, many because they are themselves\n deceived_.\u201d\n\nOf the use of self-examination, he quotes the example of his excellent\npreceptor, Sextius, who strictly followed the Pythagorean precept to\nexamine oneself each night before sleep:--\n\n \u201cOf what bad practice have you cured yourself to-day? What vice\n have you resisted? In what respect are you the better? Rash anger\n will be moderated and finally cease when it finds itself daily\n confronted with its judge. What, then, is more useful than this\n custom of thoroughly weighing the actions of the entire day?\u201d\n\nHe adduces the feebleness and shortness of human life as one of the\nmost forcible arguments against the indulgence of malevolence:--\n\n \u201cNothing will be of more avail than reflections on the nature of\n mortality. Let each one say to himself, as to another, \u2018What good\n is it to declare enmity against such and such persons, as though\n we were born to live for ever, and to thus waste our very brief\n existence? What profit is it to employ time which might be spent\n in honourable pleasures in inflicting pain and torture upon any of\n our fellow-beings?\u2019 ... Why rush we to battle? Why do we provoke\n quarrels? Why, forgetful of our mortal weakness, do we engage in\n huge hatreds? Fragile beings as we are, why will we rise up to\n crush others?... Why do we tumultuously and seditiously set life\n in an uproar? Death stands staring us in the face, and approaches\n ever nearer and nearer. That moment which you destine for another\u2019s\n destruction perchance may be for your own.... Behold! death comes,\n which makes us all equal. Whilst we are in this mortal life, let\n us cultivate humanity; let us not be a cause of fear or of danger\n to any of our fellow-mortals. Let us contemn losses, injuries,\n insults. Let us bear with magnanimity the brief inconveniences of\n life.\u201d\n\nAgain, in dealing with the weak and defenceless:--\n\n \u201cLet each one say to himself, whenever he is provoked, \u2018What right\n have I to punish with whips or fetters a slave who has offended me\n by voice or manner? Who am I, whose ears it is such a monstrous\n crime to offend? Many grant pardon to their enemies; shall I not\n pardon simply idle, negligent, or garrulous slaves?\u2019 Tender years\n should shield childhood--their sex, women--individual liberty, a\n stranger--the common roof, a domestic. Does he offend now for the\n first time? Let us think how often he may have pleased us.\u201d--(_De\n Ir\u00e2_ iii., passim.)\n\nAs to the conduct of life:--\n\n \u201cWe ought so to live, as though in the sight of all men. We ought\n so to employ our thoughts, as though someone were able to inspect\n our inmost soul--and there is one able. For what advantages it that\n a thing is hidden from men; nothing is hidden from God. (_Ep._ 83.)\n ... Would you propitiate heaven? Be good. He worships the gods, who\n imitates [the higher ideal of] them. How do we act? What principles\n do we lay down? That we are to refrain from human bloodshed? Is it\n a great matter to refrain from injuring him to whom you are bound\n to do good? The whole of human and divine teaching is summed up in\n this one principle--we are all members of one mighty body. Nature\n has made us of one kin (_cognatos_), since she has produced us\n from the same elements and will resolve us into the same elements.\n She has implanted in us love one for another, and made us for\n living together in society. She has laid down the laws of right\n and justice, by which ordinance it is more wretched to injure than\n to be injured; and by her ordering, our hands are given us to help\n each the other.... Let us ask what things _are_, not what they _are\n called_. Let us value each thing on its own merits, without thought\n of the world\u2019s opinion. Let us love temperance; let us, before all\n things, cherish justice.... Our actions will not be right unless\n the will is first right, for from that proceeds the act.\u201d\n\nAgain:--\n\n \u201cThe will will not be right unless the _habits_ of mind are right,\n for from these results the will. The habits of thought, however,\n will not be at the best unless they shall have been based upon _the\n laws of the whole of life_; unless they shall have tried all things\n by the test of truth.\u201d--(_Ep._ xcv.)\n\nExcellent is his advice on the choice of books and of reading:--\n\n \u201cBe careful that the reading of many authors, and of every sort of\n books, does not induce a certain vagueness and uncertainty of mind.\n We ought to linger over and nourish our minds with, writers of\n assured genius and worth, if we wish to extract something which may\n usefully remain fixed in the mind. A multitude of books distracts\n the mind. Read always, then, books of approved merit. If ever you\n have a wish to go for a time to other kinds of books, yet always\n return to the former.\u201d[36]--(_Ep._ ii.)\n\nIn his 88th Letter Seneca well exposes the folly of a learning which\nbegins and ends in _mere words_, which has no real bearing on the\nconduct of life and the instruction of the _moral_ faculties:--\n\n \u201cIn testing the value of books and writers, let us see whether\n or no they teach _virtue_.... You inquire minutely about the\n wanderings of Ulysses rather than work for the prevention of error\n in your own case. We have no leisure to hear exactly how and where\n he was tossed about between Italy and Sicily.... The tempests of\n the soul are ever tossing us, and evildoing urges us into all the\n miseries of Ulysses.... Oh marvellously excellent education! By\n it you can measure circles and squares, and all the distances of\n the stars. There is nothing that is not within the reach of your\n geometry. Since you are so able a mechanician, measure the human\n mind. Tell me how great it is, how small it is (_pusillus_). You\n know what a straight line is. What does it profit you, if you\n know not what is straight (_rectum_) in life.\u201d[37] What then? Are\n liberal studies of no avail? For other things much; for virtue\n nothing.... They do not lead the mind to virtue--they only clear\n the way.\n\n \u201cHumanity forbids us to be arrogant towards our fellows; forbids us\n to be grasping; shows itself kind and courteous to all, in word,\n deed, and thought; thinks no evil of another, but rather loves its\n own highest good, chiefly because it will be of good to another.\n Do liberal studies [always] inculcate these maxims? No more than\n they do simplicity of character and moderation; no more than they\n do frugality and economy of living; no more than they do mercy,\n which is as sparing of another\u2019s blood as it is of its own, and\n recognises that man is not to use the services of his fellows\n unnecessarily or prodigally.\n\n \u201cWisdom is a great, a vast subject. It needs all the spare time\n that can be given to it.... Whatever amount of natural and moral\n questions you may have mastered, you will still be wearied with the\n vast abundance of questions to be asked and solved. So many, so\n great, are these questions, all superfluous things must be removed\n from the mind, that it may have free scope for exercise. Shall I\n waste my life in mere words (_syllabis_)? Thus does it come about\n that the learned are more anxious to talk than to live. Mark what\n mischief _excessive_ subtlety of mind produces, and how dangerous\n it may be to truth.\u201d--(_Ep._ lxxxviii.)\n\nElsewhere he indignantly demands:--\n\n \u201cWhat is more vile or disgraceful than a learning which catches at\n popular applause (_clamores_)?\u201d--(_Ep._ lii.)\n\nAnticipating the ultimate triumph of Truth, he well says:--\n\n \u201cNo virtue is really lost--that it has to remain hidden for a time\n is no loss to itself. A day will come which will publish the truth\n at present neglected and oppressed by the malignity (_malignitas_)\n of its age. He who thinks the world to be of his own age only, is\n born for the few. Many thousands of years, many millions of people,\n will supervene. Look forward to that time. Though the envy of\n your own day shall have condemned you to obscurity, there will\n come those who will judge you without fear or favour. If there is\n any reward for virtue from fame, that is imperishable. The talk of\n posterity, indeed, will be nothing to us. Yet it will revere us,\n even though we are insensible to its praise; and it will frequently\n consult us.... What now deceives has not the elements of duration.\n Falsehood is thinly disguised; it is transparent, if only you look\n close enough.\u201d--(_Ep._ lxix.)\n\nIn his _Questions on Nature_, in which he often shows himself to have\nbeen much in advance of his contemporaries, and, indeed, of the whole\nmedi\u00e6val ages, in scientific acumen, he takes occasion to reprobate the\ncommon practice of glorifying the lives and deeds of worthless princes\nand others, and exclaims in the modern spirit:--\n\n \u201cHow much better to try to extinguish the evils of our own age than\n to glorify the bad deeds of others to posterity! How much better\n to celebrate the works of Nature [_deorum_] than the piracies of\n a Philip or Alexander and of the rest who, become illustrious\n by the calamities of nations, have been no less the pests of\n mankind than an inundation which devastates a whole country, or a\n conflagration in which a large proportion of living creatures is\n consumed.\u201d--(_Qu\u00e6st. Nat._ iii.)\n\nIt will be sufficiently apparent, from what we have presented to our\nreaders, that Seneca, though nominally of the Stoic school, belonged in\nreality to no special sect or party. _Nullius addictus jurare in verba\nmagistri._ Bound to the words of no one master, he sought for truth\neverywhere. The authority whom he most frequently quotes with approval\nis Epicurus, the arch-enemy of Stoicism. Wiser and more candid than\nthe great mass of sectaries, he scorns the tactics of partisanship. He\njustly recognises the fact that the \u201cluxurious egoists have not derived\ntheir impulse or sanction from Epicurus; but, abandoned to their vices,\nthey disguise their selfishness in the name of his philosophy.\u201d He\nprofesses his own conviction to be \u201cagainst the common prejudice of\nthe popular writers of my own school, that the teaching of Epicurus\nwas just and holy, and, on a close examination, essentially grave\nand sober.... I affirm this, that he is ill-understood, defamed, and\ndepreciated.\u201d (_De Vit\u00e2 Beat\u00e2_, xii, xiii.)\n\nIt will also be sufficiently clear that the ethics of Seneca consist\nof no mere trials of skill in logomachy; in finely-drawn distinctions\nbetween words and names, as do so large a proportion both of modern\nand ancient dialectics. If so daring a heresy may possibly be forgiven\nus, we would venture to suggest that the authorities of our schools\nand universities might, with no inconsiderable advantage, substitute\njudicious excerpts from the _Morals_ of Seneca for the _Ethics_ of\nAristotle; or, as Latin literature is now in question, even for the\n_De Officiis_ of Cicero. This, however, is perhaps to indulge Utopian\nspeculation too greatly. The medi\u00e6val spirit of scholasticism is not\nyet sufficiently out of favour at the ancient schools of Aquinas and\nScotus.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nPLUTARCH. 40-120 A.D. (?)\n\n\nThe years of the birth and death of the first of biographers and the\nmost amiable of moralists are unknown. We learn from himself that he\nwas studying philosophy at Athens under Ammonius, the Peripatetic, at\nthe time when Nero was making his ridiculous progress through Greece.\nThis was in 66 A.D., and the date of his birth may therefore\nbe approximately placed somewhere about the year 40. He was thus a\nyounger contemporary of Seneca. Ch\u00e6ronea, in B\u0153otia, claims the honour\nof giving him birth.\n\nHe lived several years at Rome and in other parts of Italy, where,\naccording to the fashion of the age and the custom of the philosophic\nrhetoricians (of whom, probably, he was one of the very few whose\n_pr\u00e6lections_ were of any real value), he gave public lectures,\nattended by the most eminent literary as well as social personages\nof the time, among whom were Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Quintilian,\nand perhaps Juvenal. These lectures may have formed the basis, if not\nthe entire matter, of the miscellaneous essays which he afterwards\npublished. When in Italy he neglected altogether the Latin language and\nliterature, and the reason he gives proves the estimation in which he\nwas held: \u201cI had so many public commissions, and so many people came\nto me to receive instruction in philosophy.... it was, therefore, not\ntill a late period in life that I began to read the Latin writers.\u201d In\nfact, the very general indifference, or at least silence, of the Greek\nmasters in regard to Latin literature is not a little remarkable.\n\nIt is asserted, on doubtful authority (Suidas), that he was preceptor\nof Trajan, in the beginning of whose reign he held the high post\nof Procurator of Greece; and he also filled the honourable office\nof _Archon_, or Chief Magistrate of his native city, as well as of\npriest of the Delphic Apollo. He passed the later and larger portion\nof his life in quiet retirement at Ch\u00e6ronea. The reason he assigns\nfor clinging to that dull and decaying provincial town, although\nresidence there was not a little inconvenient for him, is creditable\nto his citizen-feeling, since he believed that by quitting it he,\nas a person of influence, might contribute to its ruin. In all the\nrelations of social life Plutarch appears to have been exemplary,\nand he was evidently held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens. As\nhusband and father he was particularly admirable. The death of a young\ndaughter, one of a numerous progeny, was the occasion of one of his\nmost affecting productions--the _Consolation_--addressed to his wife\nTimoxena. He himself died at an advanced age, in the reign of Hadrian.\n\nPlutarch\u2019s writings are sufficiently numerous. The _Parallel Lives_,\nforty-six in number, in which he brings together a Greek and a Roman\ncelebrity by way of comparison, is perhaps the book of Greek and Latin\nliterature which has been the most widely read in all languages. \u201cThe\nreason of its popularity,\u201d justly observes a writer in Dr. Smith\u2019s\n_Dictionary_, \u201cis that Plutarch has rightly conceived the business of a\nbiographer--his biography is true portraiture. Other biography is often\na dull, tedious enumeration of facts in the order of time, with perhaps\na summing up of character at the end. The reflections of Plutarch are\nneither impertinent nor trifling; his sound good sense is always there;\nhis honest purpose is transparent; his love of humanity warms the\nwhole. His work is and will remain, in spite of all the fault that can\nbe found with it by plodding collectors of facts and small critics, the\nbook of those who can nobly think and dare and do.\u201d\n\nHis miscellaneous writings--indiscriminately classed under the title\n_Moralia_, or _Morals_, but including historical, antiquarian,\nliterary, political, and religious disquisitions--are about eighty in\nnumber. As might be expected of so miscellaneous a collection, these\nessays are of various merit, and some of them are, doubtless, the\nproduct of other minds than Plutarch\u2019s. Next to the _Essay on Flesh\nEating_[38] may be distinguished as amongst the most important or\ninteresting, _That the Lower Animals Reason_,[39] _On the Sagacity\nof the Lower Animals_--highly meritorious treatises, far beyond the\nethical or intellectual standard of the mass of \u201ceducated\u201d people even\nof our day--_Rules for the Preservation of Health_, _A Discourse on\nthe Training of Children_, _Marriage Precepts, or Advice to the Newly\nMarried_, _On Justice_, _On the Soul_, _Symposiacs_--in which he deals\nwith a variety of interesting or curious questions--_Isis and Osiris_,\na theological disquisition; _On the Opinions of the Philosophers_,\n_On the Face that Appears in the Moon_,[40] _Political Precepts_,\n_Platonic Questions_, and last, not least, his _Consolation_, addressed\nto Timoxena. Plutarch also wrote his autobiography. If it had come\ndown to us it would have been one of the most interesting remains\nof Antiquity, dealing, as we may well imagine it did deal, with some\nof the most important phenomena of the age. Possibly we might have\nhad the expression of his feeling and attitude in regard to the new\nreligion (established some 200 years later), which, strangely enough,\nis altogether overlooked or ignored as well by himself as by the other\neminent writers of Greece and Italy.[41]\n\nPlutarch was an especial admirer of Plato and his school, but he\nattached himself exclusively to no sect or system. He was essentially\neclectic: he chose what his reason and conscience informed him to be\nthe most good and useful from the various philosophies. As to the\ninfluence of his literary labours in instructing the world, it has been\ntruly remarked by the author of the article in the _Penny Cyclop\u00e6dia_\nthat, \u201ca kind, humane disposition, and a love of everything that is\nennobling and excellent, pervades his writings, and gives the reader\nthe same kind of pleasure that he has in the company of an esteemed\nfriend, whose singleness of heart appears in everything that he says\nor does.\u201d His personal character is, in fact, exactly reflected in his\npublications. That he was somewhat superstitious and of a conservative\nbias is sufficiently apparent;[42] but it is also equally clear, in his\ncase, that the moral perceptions were not obscured by a selfishness\nwhich is too often the product of optimism, or self-complacent\ncontentment with things as they are. In metaphysics, with all earnest\nminds oppressed by the terrible fact of the dominance of evil and\nerror in the world, he vainly attempted to find a solution of the\nenigma in that prevalent Western Asiatic prejudice of a dualism of\ncontending powers. He found consolation in the persuasion that the two\nantagonistic principles are not of _equal_ power, and that the Good\nmust eventually prevail over the Evil.\n\nThe _Lives_ has gone through numerous editions in all languages. Of the\n_Morals_, the first translation in this country was made by Philemon\nHolland, M.D., London, 1603 and 1657. The next English version was\npublished in 1684-1694, \u201cby several hands.\u201d The fifth edition, \u201crevised\nand corrected from the many errors of the former edition,\u201d appeared\nin 1718. The latest English version is that of Professor Goodwin, of\nHarvard University (1870), with an introduction by R. W. Emerson. It\nis, for the most part, a reprint of the revision of 1718, and consists\nof five octavo volumes. It is a matter equally for surprise and\nregret that, in an age of so much literary, or at least publishing,\nenterprise, a judicious selection from the productions of so estimable\na mind has never yet been attempted in a form accessible to ordinary\nreaders.[43]\n\nIn his _Symposiacs_, discussing (_Quest._ ii.), \u201cwhether the sea\nor land affords the better food,\u201d and summing up the arguments, he\nproceeds:--\n\n \u201cWe can claim no great right over land animals which are nourished\n with the same food, inspire the same air, wash in and drink the\n same water that we do ourselves; and when they are slaughtered\n they make us ashamed of our work by their terrible cries; and\n then, again, by living amongst us they arrive at some degree of\n familiarity and intimacy with us. But sea creatures are altogether\n strangers to us, and are brought up, as it were, in another world.\n Neither does their voice, look, or any service they have done us\n plead for their life. This kind of animals are of no use at all to\n us, nor is there any obligation upon us that we should love them.\n The element we inhabit is a hell to them, and as soon as ever they\n enter upon it they die.\u201d\n\nWe may infer that Plutarch advanced gradually to the perfect knowledge\nof the truth, and it is probable that his essay on _Flesh-eating_\nwas published at a comparatively late period in his life, since in\nsome of his miscellaneous writings, in alluding to the subject,\nhe speaks in less decided and emphatic terms of its barbarism and\ninhumanity: _e.g._, in his _Rules for the Preservation of Health_,\nwhile recommending moderation in eating, and professing abstinence from\nflesh, he does not so expressly denounce the prevalent practice. Yet he\nis sufficiently pronounced even here in favour of the reformed diet on\nthe score of health:--\n\n \u201cIll-digestion,\u201d says he, \u201cis most to be feared after flesh-eating,\n for it very soon clogs us and leaves ill consequences behind it. It\n would be best to accustom oneself _to eat no flesh at all_, for the\n earth affords plenty enough of things fit not only for nourishment\n but for delight and enjoyment; some of which you may eat without\n much preparation, and others you may make pleasant by adding\n various other things.\u201d\n\nThat the non-Christian humanitarian of the first century was far\nahead--we will not say of his contemporaries, but of the common crowd\nof writers and speakers of the present age in his estimate of the\njust rights and position of the innocent non-human races--will be\nsufficiently apparent from the following extract from his remarkable\nessay entitled, _That the Lower Animals Reason_, to which Montaigne\nseems to have been indebted. The essay is in the form of a dialogue\nbetween Odysseus (Ulysses) and Gryllus, who is one of the transformed\ncaptives of the sorceress Circe (see _Odyssey_ ix.) Gryllus maintains\nthe superiority of the non-human races generally in very many\nqualities and in regard to many of their habits--_e.g._, in eating and\ndrinking:--\n\n \u201cBeing thus wicked and incontinent in inordinate desires, it is no\n less easy to be proved that men are more intemperate than other\n animals even in those things which are necessary--_e.g._, in eating\n and drinking--the pleasures of which we [the non-human races]\n always enjoy with some benefit to ourselves. But you, pursuing\n the pleasures of eating and drinking beyond the satisfaction of\n nature, are punished with many and lingering diseases[44] which,\n arising from the single fountain of superfluous gormandising,\n fill your bodies with all manner of wind and vapours not easy for\n purgation to expel. In the first place, all species of the lower\n animals, according to their kind, feed upon one sort of food which\n is proper to their natures--some upon grass, some upon roots,\n and others upon fruits. Neither do they rob the weaker of their\n nourishment. But man, such is his voracity, _falls upon all_ to\n satisfy the pleasures of his appetite, tries all things, tastes all\n things; and, as if he were yet to seek what was the most proper\n diet and most agreeable to his nature, among all animals is the\n only _all-devourer_.[45] He makes use of flesh _not out of want\n and necessity_, seeing that he has the liberty to make his choice\n of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible; but\n out of luxury and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks after\n impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter of living\n beings; by this showing himself more cruel than the most savage of\n wild beasts. For blood, murder, and flesh are proper to nourish\n the kite, the wolf, and the serpent: _to men they are superfluous\n viands_. The lower animals abstain from most of other kinds and are\n at enmity with only a few, and that only compelled by necessities\n of hunger; but neither fish, nor fowl, nor anything that lives upon\n the land escapes your tables, though they bear the name of humane\n and _hospitable_.\u201d\n\nReprobating the harshness and inhumanity of Cato the Censor, who is\nusually regarded as the type of old Roman virtue, Plutarch, with his\naccustomed good feeling, declares:--\n\n \u201cFor my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like\n so many horses and oxen, or turning them off or selling them\n when grown old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit,\n which thinks that the sole tie between man and man is interest or\n necessity. But goodness moves in a larger sphere than [so-called]\n justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind,\n but kindness and beneficence should be extended to beings of every\n species. And these always flow from the breast of a well-natured\n man, as streams that flow from the living fountain.\n\n A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while\n they are young, but when old and past service. Thus the people of\n Athens, when they had finished the temple of _Hecatompedon_, set at\n liberty the lower animals that had been chiefly employed in that\n work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any further\n service.... We certainly ought not to treat living beings like\n shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw\n away; and _were it only to learn benevolence to human kind_, we\n should be compassionate to other beings. For my own part, I would\n not sell even an old ox that had laboured for me; much less would\n I remove, for the sake of a little money, a man, grown old in my\n service, from his accustomed place--for to him, poor man, it would\n be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the\n buyer than he was to the seller. But Cato, as if he took a pride\n in these things, tells us that, when Consul, he left his war-horse\n in Spain, to save the public the charge of his freight. Whether\n such things as these are instances of greatness or of littleness of\n soul, let the reader judge for himself.\u201d[46]\n\nIf we shall compare these sentiments of the pagan humanitarian with the\nevery-day practices of modern christian society in the matter, _e.g._,\nof \u201cknackers\u2019 yards,\u201d and other similar methods of getting rid of dumb\ndependants after a life-time of continuous hard labour--perhaps of bad\nusage, and even semi-starvation--the comparison scarcely will be in\nfavour of christian ethics. From the essay _On Flesh-Eating_ we extract\nthe principal and most significant passages:--\n\n\nPLUTARCH--ESSAY ON FLESH-EATING.\n\n \u201cYou ask me upon what grounds Pythagoras abstained from feeding\n on the flesh of animals. I, for my part, marvel of what sort of\n feeling, mind, or reason, that man was possessed who was the first\n to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the\n flesh of a murdered being: who spread his table with the mangled\n forms of dead bodies, and claimed as his daily food what were but\n now beings endowed with movement, with perception, and with voice.\n\n \u201cHow could his eyes endure the spectacle of the flayed and\n dismembered limbs? How could his sense of smell endure the horrid\n _effluvium_? How, I ask, was his taste not sickened by contact with\n festering wounds, with the pollution of corrupted blood and juices?\n \u2018The very hides began to creep, and the flesh, both roast and\n raw, groaned on the spits, and the slaughtered oxen were endowed,\n as it might seem, with human voice.\u2019[47] This is poetic fiction;\n but the actual feast of ordinary life is, of a truth, a veritable\n portent--that a human being should hunger after the flesh of oxen\n actually bellowing before him, and teach upon what parts one should\n feast, and lay down elaborate rules about joints and roastings and\n dishes. The first man who set the example of this savagery is the\n person to arraign; not, assuredly, that great mind which, in a\n later age, determined to have nothing to do with such horrors.\n\n \u201cFor the wretches who first applied to flesh-eating may justly be\n alleged in excuse their utter resourcelessness and destitution,\n inasmuch as it was not to indulge in lawless desires, or amidst the\n superfluities of necessaries, for the pleasure of wanton indulgence\n in unnatural luxuries that they [the primeval peoples] betook\n themselves to carnivorous habits.\n\n \u201cIf _they_ could now assume consciousness and speech they might\n exclaim, \u2018O blest and God-loved men who live at this day! What a\n happy age in the world\u2019s history has fallen to _your_ lot, you who\n plant and reap an inheritance of all good things which grow for\n you in ungrudging abundance! What rich harvests do you not gather\n in? What wealth from the plains, what innocent pleasures is it not\n in your power to reap from the rich vegetation surrounding you on\n all sides! _You_ may indulge in luxurious food without staining\n your hands with innocent blood. While as for us wretches, _our_\n lot was cast in an age of the world the most savage and frightful\n conceivable. _We_ were plunged into the midst of an all-prevailing\n and fatal want of the commonest necessaries of life from the period\n of the earth\u2019s first genesis, while yet the gross atmosphere of the\n globe hid the cheerful heavens from view, while the stars were yet\n wrapped in a dense and gloomy mist of fiery vapours, and the sun\n [earth] itself had no firm and regular course. Our globe was then\n a savage and uncultivated wilderness, perpetually overwhelmed with\n the floods of the disorderly rivers, abounding in shapeless and\n impenetrable morasses and forests. Not for us the gathering in of\n domesticated fruits; no mechanical instrument of any kind wherewith\n to fight against nature. Famines gave us no time, nor could there\n be any periods of seed-time and harvest.\n\n \u201c\u2018What wonder, then, if, contrary to nature, we had recourse to the\n flesh of living beings, when all our other means of subsistence\n consisted in wild corn [or a sort of grass--\u1f04\u03b3\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd], and the\n bark of trees, and even slimy mud, and when we deemed ourselves\n fortunate to find some chance wild root or herb? When we tasted\n an acorn or beech-nut we danced with grateful joy around the\n tree, hailing it as our bounteous mother and nurse. Such was the\n gala-feast of those primeval days, when the whole earth was one\n universal scene of passion and violence, engendered by the struggle\n for the very means of existence.\n\n \u201c\u2018But what struggle for existence, or what goading madness has\n incited _you_ to imbrue your hands in blood--you who have, we\n repeat, a superabundance of all the necessaries and comforts of\n existence? Why do you belie the Earth [\u03c4\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u0393\u1fc6\u03c2]\n as though it were unable to feed and nourish you? Why do you\n do despite to the bounteous [goddess] Ceres, and blaspheme the\n sweet and mellow gifts of Bacchus, as though you received not a\n sufficiency from them?\n\n \u201c\u2018Does it not shame you to mingle murder and blood with their\n beneficent fruits? Other _carnivora_ you call savage and\n ferocious--lions and tigers and serpents--while yourselves come\n behind them in no species of barbarity. And yet for them murder is\n the only means of sustenance; whereas to you it is a superfluous\n luxury and crime.\u2019\n\n \u201cFor, in point of fact, we do not kill and eat lions and wolves,\n as we might do in self-defence--on the contrary, we leave them\n unmolested; and yet the innocent and the domesticated and helpless\n and unprovided with weapons of offence--these we hunt and kill,\n whom Nature seems to have brought into existence for their beauty\n and gracefulness....\n\n \u201cNothing puts us out of countenance [\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03b5\u1fd6], not the charming\n beauty of their form, not the plaintive sweetness of their voice\n or cry, not their mental intelligence [\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2], not\n the purity of their diet, not superiority of understanding. For\n the sake of a part of their flesh only, we deprive them of the\n glorious light of the sun--of the life for which they were born.\n The plaintive cries they utter we affect to take to be meaningless;\n whereas, in fact, they are entreaties and supplications and prayers\n addressed to us by each which say, \u2018It is not the satisfaction\n of your real necessities we deprecate, but the wanton indulgence\n [\u1f55\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd] of your appetites. Kill to eat, if you must or will, but do\n not slay me that you may feed _luxuriously_.\u2019\n\n \u201cAlas for our savage inhumanity! It is a terrible thing to see\n the table of rich men decked out by those layers out of corpses\n [\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2], the butchers and cooks: a still more terrible sight\n is the same table _after_ the feast--for the wasted relics are even\n more than the consumption. These victims, then, have given up their\n lives uselessly. At other times, from mere niggardliness, the host\n will grudge to distribute his dishes, and yet he grudged not to\n deprive innocent beings of their existence!\n\n \u201cWell, I have taken away the excuse of those who allege that they\n have the authority and sanction of Nature. For that man is not,\n by nature, carnivorous is proved, in the first place, by the\n external frame of his body--seeing that to none of the animals\n designed for living on flesh has the human body any resemblance. He\n has no curved beak, no sharp talons and claws, no pointed teeth,\n no intense power of stomach [\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b1] or heat of blood\n which might help him to masticate and digest the gross and tough\n flesh-substance. On the contrary, by the smoothness of his teeth,\n the small capacity of his mouth, the softness of his tongue, and\n the sluggishness of his digestive apparatus, Nature sternly forbids\n him [\u1f10\u03be\u03bf\u03bc\u03bd\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9] to feed on flesh.\n\n \u201cIf, in spite of all this, you still affirm that you were intended\n by nature for such a diet, then, to begin with, kill _yourself_\n what you wish to eat--but do it yourself with your own _natural_\n weapons, without the use of butcher\u2019s knife, or axe, or club. No;\n as the wolves and lions and bears themselves slay all they feed on,\n so, in like manner, do you kill the cow or ox with a gripe of your\n jaws, or the pig with your teeth, or a hare or a lamb by falling\n upon and rending them there and then. Having gone through all these\n preliminaries, _then_ sit down to your repast. If, however, you\n wait until the living and intelligent existence be deprived of\n life, and if it would disgust you to have to rend out the heart and\n shed the life-blood of your victim, why, I ask, in the very face\n of Nature, and in despite of her, do you feed on beings endowed\n with sentient life? But more than this--not even, after your\n victims have been killed, will you eat them just as they are from\n the slaughter-house. You boil, roast, and altogether metamorphose\n them by fire and condiments. You entirely alter and disguise the\n murdered animal by the use of ten thousand sweet herbs and spices,\n that your natural taste may be deceived and be prepared to take the\n unnatural food. A proper and witty rebuke was that of the Spartan\n who bought a fish and gave it to his cook to dress. When the latter\n asked for butter, and olive oil, and vinegar, he replied, \u2018Why, if\n I had all these things, I should not have bought the fish!\u2019\n\n \u201cTo such a degree do we make luxuries of bloodshed, that we call\n flesh \u2018a delicacy,\u2019 and forthwith require delicate sauces [\u1f44\u03c8\u03c9\u03bd]\n for this same flesh-meat, and mix together oil and wine and honey\n and pickle and vinegar with all the spices of Syria and Arabia--for\n all the world as though we were embalming a human corpse. After all\n these heterogeneous matters have been mixed and dissolved and, in\n a manner, corrupted, it is for the stomach, forsooth, to masticate\n and assimilate them--if it can. And though this may be, for the\n time, accomplished, the natural sequence is a variety of diseases,\n produced by imperfect digestion and repletion.[48]\n\n \u201cDiogenes (the Cynic) had the courage, on one occasion, to swallow\n a _polypus_ without any cooking preparation, to dispense with the\n time and trouble expended in the kitchen. In the presence of a\n numerous concourse of priests and others, unwrapping the morsel\n from his tattered cloak, and putting it to his lips, \u2018For your\n sakes,\u2019 cried he, \u2018I perform this extravagant action and incur this\n danger.\u2019 A self-sacrifice truly meritorious! Not like Pelopidas,\n for the freedom of Thebes, or like Harmodius and Aristogeiton,\n on behalf of the citizens of Athens, did the philosopher submit\n to this hazardous experiments; for _he_ acted thus that he might\n _unbarbarise_, if possible, the life of human kind.\n\n \u201cFlesh-eating is not unnatural to our physical constitution only.\n The mind and intellect are made gross by gorging and repletion;\n for flesh-meat and wine may possibly tend to give robustness\n to the body, but it gives only feebleness to the mind. Not to\n incur the resentment of the prize-fighters [the _athletes_], I\n will avail myself of examples nearer home. The wits of Athens,\n it is well known, bestow on us B\u0153otians the epithets \u2018gross,\u2019\n \u2018dull-brained,\u2019 and \u2018stupid,\u2019 chiefly on account of our gross\n feeding. We are even called \u2018hogs.\u2019 Menander nicknames us the\n \u2018jaw-people\u2019 [\u03bf\u1f31 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2]. Pindar has it that \u2018mind is a\n very secondary consideration with them.\u2019 \u2018A fine understanding of\n clouded brilliancy\u2019 is the ironical phrase of Herakleitus....\n\n \u201cBesides and beyond all these reasons, does it not seem admirable\n to foster habits of philanthropy? Who that is so kindly and gently\n disposed towards beings of another species would ever be inclined\n to do injury to his own kind? I remember in conversation hearing,\n as a saying of Xenokrates, that the Athenians imposed a penalty\n upon a man for flaying a sheep alive, and he who tortures a living\n being is little worse (it seems to me) than he who needlessly\n deprives of life and murders outright. We have, it appears, clearer\n perceptions of what is contrary to propriety and custom than of\n what is contrary to nature....\n\n \u201cReason proves both by our thoughts and our desires that we are\n (comparatively) new to the reeking feasts [\u1f15\u03c9\u03bb\u03b1] of kreophagy. Yet\n it is hard, as says Cato, to argue with stomachs since they have\n no ears; and the inebriating potion of Custom[49] has been drunk,\n like Circe\u2019s, with all its deceptions and witcheries. Now that men\n are saturated and penetrated, as it were, with love of pleasure,\n it is not an easy task to attempt to pluck out from their bodies\n the flesh-baited hook. Well would it be if, as the people of Egypt\n turning their back to the pure light of day disembowelled their\n dead and cast away the offal, as the very source and origin of\n their sins, we, too, in like manner, were to eradicate bloodshed\n and gluttony from ourselves and purify the remainder of our lives.\n If the irreproachable diet be impossible to any by reason of\n inveterate habit, at least let them devour their flesh as driven\n to it by hunger, not in luxurious wantonness, but with feelings of\n shame. Slay your victim, but at least do so with feelings of pity\n and pain, not with callous heedlessness and with torture. And yet\n that is what is done in a variety of ways.\n\n \u201cIn slaughtering swine, for example, they thrust red-hot irons into\n their living bodies, so that, by sucking up or diffusing the blood,\n they may render the flesh soft and tender. Some butchers jump upon\n or kick the udders of pregnant sows, that by mingling the blood and\n milk and matter of the _embryos_ that have been murdered together\n in the very pangs of parturition, they may enjoy the pleasure of\n feeding upon unnaturally and highly inflamed flesh![50] Again, it\n is a common practice to stitch up the eyes of cranes and swans, and\n shut them up in dark places to fatten. In this and other similar\n ways are manufactured their dainty dishes, with all the varieties\n of sauces and spices [\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2--Lydian sauces, composed of blood\n and spices]--from all which it is sufficiently evident that men\n have indulged their lawless appetites in the pleasures of luxury,\n not for necessary food, and from no necessity, but only out of the\n merest wantonness, and gluttony, and display....\u201d[51]\n\n\nAmong the illustrious earlier contemporaries of Plutarch who practised\nno less than preached rigid abstinence, Apollonius of Tyana, the\nPythagorean, one of the most extraordinary men of any age, deserves\nparticular notice. He came into the world in the same year with the\nfounder of Christianity, B.C. 4. The facts and fictions of his life we\nowe to Philostratus, who wrote his memoirs at the express desire of the\nEmpress Julia Domna, the wife of Severus.\n\nApollonius, according to his biographer, came of noble ancestry. He\nearly applied himself to severe study at the ever memorable Tarsus,\nwhere he may have known the great persecutor, and afterwards second\nfounder, of Christianity. Disgusted with the luxury of the people, he\nsoon exiled himself to a more congenial atmosphere, and applied himself\nto the examination of the various schools of philosophy--the Epicurean,\nthe Stoic, the Peripatetic, &c.--finally giving the preference to the\nPythagorean. He embraced the strictest ascetic life, and travelled\nextensively, visiting, in the first instance, Nineveh, Babylon, and, it\nis said, India, and afterwards Greece, Italy, Spain, and Roman Africa\nand Ethiopia. At the accession of Domitian, he narrowly escaped from\nthe hands of that tyrant, after having voluntarily given himself up\nto his tribunal, by an exertion of his reputed supernatural power. He\npassed the last years of his life at Ephesus, where, according to the\nwell-known story, he is said to have announced the death of Domitian\nat the very moment of the event at Rome. His alleged miracles were so\ncelebrated, and so curiously resemble the Christian miracles, that they\nhave excited an unusual amount of attention.[52]\n\nUnfortunately, the life by Philostratus, in accordance with the taste\nof a necessarily uncritical age, is so full of the preternatural and\nmarvellous that the real fact that the pythagorean philosopher had\nacquired and possessed extraordinary mental as well as moral faculties,\nwhich might well be deemed supernatural at that period, is too apt to\nbe discredited. The Life was composed long after the death of the hero,\nand thus a considerable amount of inventive license was possible to the\nbiographer; but that it rested upon an undoubted substratum of actual\noccurrences will scarcely be disputed. There is one passage which\ndeserves to be transcribed as of wider application. The people of a\ntown in Pamphylia (in the Lesser Asia), where the great Thaumaturgist\nchanced to be staying, were starving in the midst of plenty by the\nselfish policy of the monopolists of grain, and, driven to desperation,\nwere on the point of attacking the responsible authorities. Apollonius,\nat this crisis, wrote the following address, and gave it to the\nmagistrates to read aloud:--\n\n \u201cApollonius to the Monopolists of Corn in Aspendos, greeting: The\n Earth is the common mother of all, for she is just.[53] You are\n unjust, for you have made her the mother of _yourselves only_.\n If you will not cease from acting thus, I will not suffer you to\n remain upon her.\u201d\n\nPhilostratus assures us that \u201cintimidated by these indignant words they\nfilled the market with grain, and the city recovered from its distress.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nTERTULLIAN. 160-240 (?) A.D.\n\n\nThe earliest of the Latin Fathers extant is, also, one of the most\nesteemed by the Church,[54] notwithstanding the well-known heterodoxy\nof his later life, as the first Apologist of Christianity in the\nWestern and Latin world. He was a native of Carthage, the son of an\nofficer holding an important post under the imperial government. The\nfacts of his life known to us are very few, nor is it ascertained at\nwhat period he became a convert to the new religion, or when he was\nordained as _presbyter_. The ill-treatment to which he was subjected by\nhis clerical brethren at Rome induced him, it seems, to throw in his\nlot with the Montanist sect, in whose defence he wrote several books.\nHe lived to an advanced age.\n\nOf his numerous works the best known (by name at least) is his\n_Apologeticus_ (\u201cAn Apology for Christianity\u201d). Amongst his other\ntreatises we may enumerate _De Spectaculis_ (\u201cOn Shows\u201d), _On\nIdolatry_, _On the Soldier\u2019s Crown_ (in which Tertullian raises\nthe question of the lawfulness of the \u201cviolent and sanguinary\noccupation\u201d of the soldier, but rather, however, for the reason of\nthe circumstances of the pagan ceremonial), _On Monogamy_, _On the\nDress of Women_ (upon the extravagance of which the \u201cOld Fathers\u201d were\neloquently denunciative), _Address to his Wife_. The treatise which\nhere concerns us is his _De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos_.[55]\n\nTertullian sets himself to expose the subterfuge of a large\nproportion of the professing Christians in his day who appealed\nto the pretended authority of Christ and his Apostles for the\nlawfulness of flesh-eating. Especially does he refute the (supposed)\ndefence of kreophagy in I. _Tim._ iv., 3.[56] As to the celebrated\nverse in _Genesis_ which solemnly enjoins the vegetable diet, the\nopponents of abstinence allege the permission afterwards given to the\n\u201cpost-diluvians.\u201d\n\n \u201cTo this we reply,\u201d says Tertullian, \u201cthat it was not proper that\n man should be burdened with an express command to abstain, who had\n not been able in fact, to support even so slight a prohibition as\n that of not to eat one single species of fruit; and, therefore,\n he was released from that stringency that, by the very enjoyment\n of freedom, he might learn to acquire strength of mind; and after\n the \u2018flood,\u2019 in the reformation of the human species, the simple\n command to abstain from blood sufficed, and the use of other things\n was freely left to his choice. Inasmuch as God had displayed\n his judgment through the \u2018flood,\u2019 and had threatened, moreover,\n exquisition of blood, whether at the hand of man or of beast,\n giving evident proof beforehand of the justice of his sentence,\n he left them liberty of choice and responsibility, supplying the\n material for discipline by the freedom of will, intending to enjoin\n abstinence by the very indulgence granted, in order, as we have\n said, that the primordial offence might be the better expiated\n by greater abstinence under the opportunity of greater license.\u201d\n (_Quo magis, ut diximus, primordiale delictum expiaretur majoris\n abstinenti\u00e6 operatione in majoris licenti\u00e6 occasione._)\n\nHe quotes the various passages in the Jewish Scriptures, in which the\ncauses of the idolatrous proclivities and the crimes of the earlier\nJews are connected by Jehovah and his prophets with flesh-eating and\ngross living:--\n\n \u201cWhether or no,\u201d he proceeds, \u201cI have unreasonably explained the\n cause of the condemnation of the ordinary food by God, and of the\n obligation upon us, through the divine will, to denounce it, let us\n consult the common conscience of men. Nature herself will inform\n us whether, before gross eating and drinking, we were not of much\n more powerful intellect, of much more sensitive feeling, than\n when the entire domicile of men\u2019s interior has been stuffed with\n meats, inundated with wines, and, fermenting with filth in course\n of digestion, turned into a mere preparatory place for the draught\n (_Pr\u00e6meditatorium latrinarum_).[57]\n\n \u201cI greatly mistake (_mentior_) if God himself, upbraiding the\n forgetfulness of himself by Israel, does not attribute it to\n fulness of stomach. In fine, in the book of Deuteronomy, bidding\n them to be on their guard against the same cause, he says, \u2018Lest\n when thou hast eaten and art full--when thy flocks and thy herds\n multiply,\u2019 &c. He makes the enormity of gluttony an evil superior\n to any other corrupting result of riches.... So great is the\n privilege (prerogative) of a circumscribed diet that it makes God\n a dweller with men (_contubernalem_--literally, \u2018a fellow-guest\u2019),\n and, indeed, to live (as it were) on equal terms with them. For if\n the eternal God--as he testifies through Isaiah--feels no hunger,\n man, too, may become equal to the Deity when he subsists without\n gross nourishment.\u201d\n\nHe instances Daniel and his countrymen, \u201cwho preferred vegetable\nfood and water to the royal dishes and goblets, and so became more\ncomely than the rest, in order that no one might fear for his personal\nappearance; while, at the same time, they were still more improved in\nunderstanding.\u201d As to the priesthood:--\n\n \u201cGod said to Aaron, \u2018Wine and strong liquor shall ye not drink,\n you and your sons after you,\u2019 &c. So, also, he upbraids Israel:\n \u2018And ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink.\u2019 (Amos ii., 3.) Now this\n prohibition of drink is essentially connected with the vegetable\n diet. Thus, where abstinence from wine is required by God, or is\n vowed by man, there, too, may be understood suppression of gross\n feeding, _for as is the eating, so is the drinking_ (_qualis enim\n esus, talis et potus_). It is not consistent with truth that a man\n should sacrifice _half_ of his stomach (_gulam_) only to God--that\n he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating.[58]\n\n \u201cYou reply, finally, that this [abstinence] is to be observed\n according to the will of each individual, not by imperious\n obligation. But what sort of thing is this, that you should allow\n to your arbitrary inclinations what you will not allow to the will\n of God? Shall more licence be conceded to the human inclinations\n than to the divine power? I, for my part, hold that, free from\n obligation to follow the fashions of the world, I am not free from\n obligation to God.\u201d\n\nIn regard to St. Paul\u2019s well-known sentences (_Rom._ xiv., 1, &c.),\nTertullian maintains that he refers to certain teachers of abstinence\nwho acted from pride, not from a sense of right:--\n\n \u201cAnd even if he has handed over to you the keys of the\n slaughter-house or butcher\u2019s shop (_Macelli_) in permitting you\n to eat all things, excepting sacrifices to idols, at least he\n has not made the kingdom of heaven to consist in _butchery_;\n \u2018for,\u2019 says he, \u2018eating and drinking is not the kingdom of God,\n and food commends us not to God.\u2019 You are not to suppose it said\n of vegetable, but of gross and luxurious, food, since he adds,\n \u2018Neither if we eat have we anything the more, nor if we eat not\n have we anything the less.\u2019[59] How unworthily, too, do you press\n the example of Christ as having come \u2018eating and drinking\u2019 into the\n service of your lusts. I think that He who pronounced not the full\n but the hungry and thirsty \u2018blessed,\u2019 who professed His work to be\n (not as His disciples understood it) the completion of His Father\u2019s\n will, I think that He was wont to abstain--instructing them to\n labour for that \u2018meat\u2019 which lasts to eternal life, and enjoining\n in their common prayers petition, not for rich and gross food, but\n for bread only.\n\n \u201cAnd if there be One who prefers the works of justice, not,\n however, without sacrifice--that is to say, a spirit exercised by\n abstinence--it is surely that God to whom neither a gluttonous\n people nor priest was acceptable--monuments of whose concupiscence\n remain to this day, where was buried [a large proportion of] a\n people greedy and clamorous for flesh-meats, gorging quails even to\n the point of inducing jaundice.[60]\n\n \u201cYour belly is your god,\u201d [thus he indignantly reproaches the\n apologists of kreophagy,] \u201cyour liver is your temple, your paunch\n is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your\n Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms,\n and your eructations are your prophesyings. I ever,\u201d continues\n Tertullian with bitter irony, \u201crecognise Esau the hunter as a man\n of taste (_sapere_), and as his were so are your whole skill and\n interest given to hunting and trapping--just like him you come in\n \u2018from the field\u2019 of your licentious chase. Were I to offer you\n \u2018a mess of pottage,\u2019 you would, doubtless, straightway sell all\n your \u2018birthright.\u2019 It is in the cooking-pots that your love is\n inflamed--it is in the kitchen that your faith grows fervid--it is\n in the flesh dishes that all your hope lies hid.... Who is held in\n so much esteem with you as the frequent giver of dinners, as the\n sumptuous entertainer, as the practised toaster of healths?\n\n \u201cConsistently do you men of flesh reject the things of the spirit.\n But if your prophets are complacent towards such persons, they are\n not _my_ prophets. Why preach _you_ not constantly, \u2018Let us eat\n and drink, _for_ to-morrow we die,\u2019 just as _we_ preach, \u2018Let us\n abstain, brothers and sisters, _lest_ to-morrow, perchance, we die\u2019?\n\n \u201cLet us openly and boldly vindicate our teaching. We are sure\n that they \u2018who are in the flesh cannot please God.\u2019[61] Not,\n surely, meaning \u2018in the covering or substance of the flesh,\u2019\n but in the care, the affection, the desire for it. As for us,\n less grossness (_macies_) of the body is no cause of regret, for\n neither does God give _flesh by weight_ any more than he gives\n _spirit by measure_.... Let prize-fighters and pugilists fatten\n themselves up (_saginentur_)--for them a mere corporeal ambition\n suffices. And yet even they become stronger by living on vegetable\n food (_xerophagia_--literally, \u2018eating of dry foods\u2019). But other\n strength and vigour is our aim, as other contests are ours, who\n fight not against flesh and blood. Against our antagonists we\n must fight--not by means of flesh and blood, but with faith and\n a strong mind. For the rest, a grossly-feeding Christian is akin\n (_necessarius_) to lions and bears rather than to God, although\n even as against wild beasts it should be our interest to practice\n abstinence.\u201d[62]\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nCLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. DIED 220 (?) A.D.\n\n\nThe attitude of the first great Christian writers and apologists in\nregard to total abstinence was somewhat peculiar. Trained in the\nschool of Plato, in the later development of neo-platonism, their\nstrongest convictions and their personal sympathies were, naturally,\nanti-kreophagistic. The traditions, too, of the earliest period in the\nhistory of Christianity coincided with their pre-Christian convictions,\nsince the immediate and accredited representatives of the Founder\nof the new religion, who presided over the first Christian society,\nwere commonly held to have been, equally with their predecessors and\ncontemporaries the Essenes, strict abstinents from flesh-eating.[63]\n\nMoreover, the very numerous party in the Church--the most diametrically\nopposed in other respects to the Jewish or Ebionite Christians--the\nGnostics or philosophical Christians, \u201cthe most polite, the most\nlearned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name,\u201d for the most\npart agreed with their rivals for orthodox supremacy in aversion from\nflesh, and, as it seems, for nearly the same reason--a belief in the\nessential and inherent evil of matter, a persuasion, it may be said,\nhowever unscientific, not unnatural, perhaps, in any age, and certainly\nnot surprising in an age especially characterised by the grossest\nmaterialism, selfishness, and cruelty. But the creed of the Christian\nchurch, which eventually became the prevailing and ruling dogma, like\nthat of the English Church at the Revolution of the sixteenth century,\nwas a compromise--a compromise between the two opposite parties of\nthose who received and those who rejected the old Jewish revelation.\n\nOn the one hand Christianity, in its later and more developed form,\nhad insensibly cast off the rigid formalism and exclusiveness of\nMosaism, and, on the other, had stamped with the brand of heresy the\nGreek infusion of philosophy and liberalism. Unfortunately, unable\nclearly to distinguish between the true and the false--between the\naccidental and fanciful and the permanent and real--timidly cautious\nof approving anything which seemed connected with heresy--the leaders\nof the dominant body were prone to seek refuge in a middle course, in\nregard to the question of flesh-eating, scarcely consistent with strict\nlogic or strict reason. While advocating abstinence as the highest\nspiritual exercise or aspiration, they seem to have been unduly anxious\nto disclaim any motives other than _ascetic_--to disclaim, in fine,\nhumanitarian or \u201csecular\u201d reason, such as that of the Pythagoreans.\n\nSuch was the feeling, apparently, of the later orthodox church, at\nleast in the West. While, however, we thus find, occasionally, a\ncertain constraint and even contradiction in the _theory_ of the\nfirst great teachers of the Church, the _practice_ was much more\nconsistent. That, in fact, during the first three or four centuries\nthe most esteemed of the Christian heroes and saints were not only\nnon-flesh-eaters but Vegetarians of the extremest kind (far surpassing,\nif we give any credit to the accounts we have of them, the _most\nfrugal_ of modern abstainers) is well known to everyone at all\nacquainted with ecclesiastical and, especially, eremitical history--and\nit is unnecessary to further insist upon a notorious fact.[64]\n\nTitus Flavius Clemens, the founder of the famous Alexandrian school of\nChristian theology, and at once the most learned and most philosophic\nof all the Christian Fathers, is generally supposed to have been a\nnative of Athens. His Latin name suggests some connexion with the\nfamily of Clemens, cousin of the emperor Domitian, who is said to have\nbeen put to death for the crime of _atheism_, as the new religion was\ncommonly termed by the orthodox pagans.\n\nHe travelled and studied the various philosophies in the East and West.\nOn accepting the Christian faith he sought information in the schools\nof its most reputed teachers, of whom the name of Pant\u00e6nus is the only\none known to us. At the death of Pant\u00e6nus, in 190, Clement succeeded\nto the chair of theology in Alexandria, and at the same time, perhaps,\nhe became a presbyter. He continued to lecture with great reputation\ntill the year 202, when the persecution under Severus forced him to\nretire from the Egyptian capital. He then took refuge in Palestine, and\nappears not to have returned to Alexandria. The time and manner of his\ndeath are alike unknown. He is supposed to have died in the year 220.\nAmongst his pupils by far the most famous, hardly second to himself\nin learning and ability, was Origen, his successor in the Alexandrian\nprofessorship.\n\nHis three great works are: _A Hortatory Discourse Addressed to\nthe Greeks_ (\u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03a0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f1b\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2), _The Instructor_\n(_Paidagogos_--strictly, _Tutor_, or Conductor to school), and the\n_Miscellanies_ (_Stromateis_, or _Stromata_--lit. \u201cPatch-work\u201d).[65]\nThe three works were intended to form a graduated and complete\ninitiation and instruction in Christian theology and ethics. The\nfirst is addressed to the pagan Greek world, the second to the recent\nconvert, and in the last he conducts the initiated to the higher\n_gnosis_, or knowledge. The _Miscellanies_ originally consisted\nof eight books, the last of which is lost. The whole series is of\nunusual value, not only as the record of the opinions of the ablest\nand most philosophical of the mediators between Greek philosophy and\nthe Christian creed, but also as containing an immense amount of\ninformation on Greek life and literature. Eloquence, earnestness, and\nerudition equally characterise the writings of Clement.\n\nHe assumes the name and character of a _Gnostic_,[66] or philosophic\nChristian, not in the historical but in his own sense of the word,\nand professes himself an eclectic--as far as a liberal interpretation\nof his religion admitted. \u201cBy philosophy,\u201d he says, \u201cI do not mean\nthe Stoic, the Platonic, the Epicurean, or the Aristotelian, but all\nthat has been well said in each of those sects teaching righteousness\nwith religious science--all this selected truth (\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03cd\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78\n\u1f10\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd) I call philosophy.\u201d Again, he echoes the sentiments of\nSeneca in lamenting that \u201cwe incline more to beliefs that are in\nrepute (\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f14\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03b1), even when they are contradictory, than to the\ntruth\u201d (_Miscellanies_, i. and vii.). \u201cIt would have been well for\nChristianity if the principles, which he set forth with such an array\nof profound scholarship and ingenious reasoning, had been adopted\nmore generally by those who came after him.... If anyone, even in a\nProtestant community, were to assert the liberal and comprehensive\nprinciples of the great Father of Alexandria, he would be told that he\nwished to compromise the distinctive claims of theology, and that he\nwas little better than a heathen and a publican.\u201d[67]\n\nIt is in his second treatise, the _Instructor_ or _Tutor_, that Clement\ndisplays his opinions on the subject of flesh-eating:--\n\n \u201cSome men live that they may eat, as the irrational beings \u2018whose\n life is their belly and nothing else.\u2019 But the Instructor enjoins\n us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business,\n nor is pleasure our aim. Therefore discrimination is to be used\n in reference to food: it must be plain, truly simple, suiting\n precisely simple and artless children--as ministering to life\n not to luxury. And the life to which it conduces consists of two\n things, health and strength: to which plainness of fare is most\n suitable, being conducive both to digestion and lightness of\n body, from which come growth, and health, and right strength: not\n strength that is violent or dangerous, and wretched, as is that of\n the _athletes_ which is produced by artificial feeding.\u201d\n\nReferring to the injunction of Jesus, \u201cWhen thou makest an\nentertainment, call the poor,\u201d for \u201cwhose sake chiefly a supper ought\nto be made,\u201d Clement says of the rich:--\n\n \u201cThey have not yet learned that God has provided for his creature\n (man, I mean) food and drink for _sustenance_ not for pleasure:\n since the body derives no advantage from extravagance in viands. On\n the contrary, those _who use the most frugal fare are the strongest\n and the healthiest, and the noblest_: as domestics are healthier\n and stronger than their masters, and agricultural labourers than\n proprietors, and not only more vigorous but wiser than rich men.\n For they have not buried the mind beneath food. Wholly unnatural\n and inhuman is it for those who are of the earth, fattening,\n themselves like cattle, to _feed themselves up for death_.[68]\n Looking downwards on the earth, bending ever over tables, leading\n a life of gluttony, burying all the good of existence here in a\n life that by and by will end for ever: so that cooks are held in\n higher esteem than the tillers of the ground. We do not abolish\n social intercourse, but we look with suspicion on the snares of\n Custom and regard them as a fatal mischief. Therefore daintiness\n must be spurned, and we are to partake of few and necessary\n things.... Nor is it suitable to eat and drink simultaneously. For\n it is the very extreme of intemperance to confound the times whose\n uses are discordant. And \u2018whether ye eat or drink, do all to the\n glory of God,\u2019 aiming after true frugality, which Christ also seems\n to me to have hinted at when he blessed the loaves and the cooked\n fishes with which he feasted the disciples, introducing a beautiful\n example of simple diet. And the fish which, at the command of the\n Lord, Peter caught, points to digestible and God-given and moderate\n food....\n\n We must guard against those sorts of food which persuade us to\n eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is\n there not, within a temperate simplicity, a wholesome variety of\n eatables--vegetables, roots, olives, herbs, milk, cheese, fruits,\n and all kinds of dry food? \u2018Have you anything here to eat?\u2019 said\n the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection: and they, as\n taught by Him to practice frugality, \u2018gave him a piece of broiled\n fish,\u2019 and besides this, it is not to be overlooked that those who\n feed according to the Word are not debarred from dainties--such as\n honey combs. For of sorts of food those are the most proper which\n are fit for immediate use without fire, since they are readiest:\n and second to these _are those which are the simplest_, as we said\n before. But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing\n their own diseases, are ruled by a most licentious disease which\n I shall venture to call the demon of the belly: and the worst and\n most vile of demons. It is far better to be happy than to have a\n devil dwelling in us: and happiness is found only in the practice\n of virtue. Accordingly the Apostle Matthew lived upon seeds and\n nuts, (\u0391\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03b4\u03c1\u03c5\u03b1--hard-shelled fruits) and vegetables without the\n use of flesh. And John, who carried temperance to the extreme, \u2018ate\n locusts and wild honey.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nAs to the Jewish laws: \u201cThe Jews,\u201d says Clement, \u201chad frugality\nenjoined on them by the Law in the most systematic manner. For the\nInstructor, by Moses, deprived them of the use of innumerable things,\nadding reasons--the spiritual ones hidden, the carnal ones apparent--to\nwhich latter, indeed, they have trusted\u201d:--\n\n \u201cSo that, altogether, but a few [animals] were left proper for\n their food. And of those which he permitted them to touch, he\n prohibited such as had died, or were offered to idols, or had been\n strangled: inasmuch as to touch these was unlawful.... Pleasure\n has often produced in men harm and pain, and full feeding begets\n in the soul uneasiness, and forgetfulness, and foolishness. It is\n said, moreover, that the bodies of children, when shooting up to\n their height, are made to grow right by abstinence in diet; for\n then the spirit which pervades the body, in order to its growth,\n is not checked by abundance of food obstructing the freedom of\n its course. Whence that truth-seeking philosopher, Plato, fanning\n the spark of the Hebrew philosophy, when condemning a life of\n luxury, says: \u2018On my coming hither [to Syracuse] the life which\n is here called happy pleased me not by any means. For not one man\n under heaven, if brought up from his youth in such practices, will\n ever turn out a _wise_ man, with however admirable genius he may\n be endowed.\u2019 For Plato was not unacquainted with David,[69] who\n placed the sacred ark in his city in the midst of the tabernacle,\n and bidding all his subjects rejoice \u2018before the Lord, divided to\n the whole host of Israel, men and women, to each a loaf of bread,\n and baked bread, and a cake from the frying-pan.\u2019[70] This was the\n _sufficient_ sustenance of the Israelites. But that of the Gentiles\n was over-abundant, and no one who uses it will ever study to\n become temperate, burying, as he does, his mind in his belly, very\n like the fish called _onos_ which, Aristotle says, alone of all\n creatures has its heart in its stomach. This fish Epicharmus, the\n comic poet, calls \u2018monster-paunch.\u2019 Such are the men who believe in\n their stomach, \u2018whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their\n shame, who mind earthly things.\u2019 To them the apostle predicted no\n good when he said \u2018whose end is destruction.\u2019\u201d[71]\n\nIn treating of the subject of sacrifices, upon which he uses a good\ndeal of sarcasm (in regard to the _pagan_ sacrifices at least), Clement\nincidentally allows us to see, still further, his opinion respecting\ngross feeding. He quotes several of the Greek poets who ridicule the\npractice and pretence of sacrificial propitiation, _e.g._, Menander:--\n\n \u201cthe end of the loin,\n The gall, the bones uneatable, they give\n Alone to Heaven: the rest _themselves_ consume.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf, in fact,\u201d remarks Clement, \u201cthe savour is the special desire of\nthe Gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the _cooks_, and\nworship the Chimney itself which is still closer to the much-prized\nsavour?\u201d\n\n \u201cIf,\u201d he justly adds, \u201cthe deity need nothing, what need has he\n of food? Now, if nourishing matters taken in by the nostrils\n are diviner than those taken in by the mouth, yet they imply\n respiration. What then do they say of God? Does He _exhale_, like\n the oaks, or does he only _inhale_, like the aquatic animals by the\n dilatation of the gills, or does he breathe all around like the\n insects?\u201d\n\nThe only innocent altar he asserts to be the one allowed by\nPythagoras:--\n\n \u201cThe very ancient altar in Delos was celebrated for its purity, to\n which alone, as being undefiled by slaughter and death, they say\n that Pythagoras would permit approach. And will they not believe\n us when we say that the righteous soul is the truly sacred altar?\n But I believe that sacrifices were invented by men _to be a pretext\n for eating flesh_, and yet, without such idolatry, they might have\n partaken of it.\u201d\n\nHe next glances at the _popular_ reason for the Pythagorean abstinence,\nand declares:--\n\n \u201cIf any righteous man does not burden his soul by the eating\n of flesh, he has the advantage of a rational motive, not, as\n Pythagoras and his followers dream, of the transmigration of the\n soul. Now Xenokrates, treating of \u2018Food derived from Animals,\u2019[72]\n and Polemon in his work \u2018On Life according to Nature,\u2019[72] seem\n clearly to affirm that animal food is unwholesome. If it be said\n that the lower animals were assigned to man--and we partly admit\n it--yet it was not entirely for food; nor were all animals, but\n _such as do not work_. And so the comic poet, Plato, says not badly\n in the drama of _The Feasts_:--\n\n \u2018For of the quadrupeds we should not slay\n In future aught but swine. For they have flesh\n Most delicate: and about the swine is nought\n For us: excepting bristles, dirt, and noise.\u2019\n\n Some eat them as being useless, others as destructive of fruits,\n and others do not eat them because they are said to have strong\n propensity to coition. It is alleged that the greatest amount of\n fatty substance is produced by swine\u2019s flesh: it may, then, be\n appropriate for those whose ambition is for the body; it is not so\n for those who cultivate the soul, by reason of the dulling of the\n faculties resulting from eating of flesh. The Gnostic, perhaps,\n too, will abstain for the sake of training, and that the body\n may not grow wanton in amorousness. \u2018For wine,\u2019 says Andokides,\n \u2018and gluttonous feeds of flesh make the body strong, but the\n soul more sluggish.\u2019 Accordingly such food, in order to a clear\n understanding, is to be rejected.\u201d[73]\n\nIn a chapter in his _Miscellanies_, discussing the comparative merits\nof the Pagan and of the Jewish code of ethics, he displays much\neloquence in attempting to prove the superiority of the latter. In the\ncourse of his argument he is led to make some acknowledgment of the\nclaims of the lower animals which, however incomplete, is remarkable\nas being almost unique in Christian theology. He quotes certain of the\n\u201cProverbs,\u201d _e.g._, \u2018The merciful man is long-suffering, and in every\none who shows solicitude there is wisdom,\u2019 and proceeds (assuming the\nindebtedness of the Greeks to the Jews):--\n\n \u201cPythagoras seems to me to have derived his mildness towards\n irrational animals from the Law. For instance, he interdicted the\n employment of the young of sheep and goats and cows for some time\n after their birth; not even on the pretext of sacrifice allowing\n it, on account both of the young ones and of the mother; training\n men to gentleness by their conduct towards those beneath them.\n \u2018Resign,\u2019 he says, \u2018the young one to the mother for the proper\n time.\u2019 For if nothing takes place without a cause, and milk is\n produced in large quantity in parturition for the sustenance of the\n progeny, he who tears away the young one from the supply of the\n milk and the breast of the mother, dishonours Nature.\u201d\n\nReverting to the Jewish religion, he asserts:--\n\n \u201cThe Law, too, expressly prohibits the slaying of such animals as\n are pregnant till they have brought forth, remotely restraining the\n proneness of men to do wrong to men; and thus also it has extended\n its clemency to the irrational animals, that by the exercise of\n humanity to beings of different races we may practise amongst those\n of the same species a larger abundance of it. Those too that kick\n the bellies of certain animals before parturition, in order to\n feast on flesh mixed with milk, make the womb created for the birth\n of the f\u0153tus its grave, though the Law expressly commands \u2018but\n neither shalt thou seethe a lamb in his mother\u2019s milk.\u2019[74] For the\n nourishment of the living animal, it is meant, may not be converted\n into sauce for that which has been deprived of life; and that which\n is the cause of life may not co-operate in the consumption of its\n flesh.\u201d[75]\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nPORPHYRY. 233-306 (?) A.D.\n\n\nOne of the most erudite, as well as one of the most spiritual, of the\n_literati_ of any age or people, and certainly the most estimable of\nall the extant Greek philosophers after the days of Plutarch, was\nborn either at Tyre or at some neighbouring town. His original name,\nMalchus, the Greek form of the Syrian Melech (king), and the name by\nwhich he is known to us, Porphyrius (purple-robed), we may well take\ndeservedly to mark his philosophic superiority. He was exceptionally\nfortunate in his preceptors--Longinus, the most eloquent and elegant\nof the later Greek critics, under whom he studied at Athens; Origen,\nthe most independent and learned of the Christian Fathers, from whom,\nprobably, he derived his vast knowledge of theological literature;\nand, finally, Plotinus, the famous founder of New-Platonism, who had\nestablished his school at Rome in the year 244.\n\nUpon first joining the school of Plotinus, he had ventured to contest\nsome of the characteristic doctrines of his new teacher, and he even\nwrote a book to refute them. Amerius, his fellow-disciple, was\nchosen to reply to this attack. After a second trial of strength by\neach antagonist, Amerius, by weight of argument induced Porphyry to\nconfess his errors, and to read his recantation before the assembled\nPlatonists. Porphyry ever after remained an attached and enthusiastic\nfollower of the beloved master, with the final revision and edition\nof whose voluminous works he was entrusted. He had lived with him\nsix years when, becoming so far unsettled in his mind as even to\ncontemplate suicide in order to free himself from the shackles of the\nflesh, by the persuasion of his preceptor he made a voyage to Sicily\nfor the restoration of his health and serenity of mind. This was in\n270, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Returning to the capital\nupon the death of his master, he continued the amiable but vain work\nof attempting the reform of the established religion, which had then\nsunk to its lowest degradation, and to this labour of love he may be\nsaid to have devoted his whole life. At an advanced age he married\nMarcella, the widow of one of his friends, who was a Christian and the\nmother of a rather numerous progeny, with the view, as he tells us, of\nsuperintending the education of her children.\n\nAbout sixty separate works of Porphyry are enumerated by Fabricius,\npublished, unpublished, or lost; the last numbering some forty-three\ndistinct productions. The most important of his writings are--\n\n(1) _On Abstinence from the Flesh of Living Beings_,[76] in four books,\naddressed to a certain Firmus Castricius, a Pythagorean, who for some\nreason or other had become a renegade to the principles, or at least to\nthe practice, of his old faith. Next to the inculcation of abstinence\nas a spiritual or moral obligation, Porphyry\u2019s \u201cchief object seems to\nhave been to recommend a more spiritual worship in the place of the\nsacrificial system of the pagan world, with all its false notions and\npractical abuses. This work,\u201d adds Dr. Donaldson, \u201cis valuable on many\naccounts, and full of information.\u201d\n\n(2) His criticism on Christianity, which he entitled a _Treatise\nagainst the Christians_--his most celebrated production. It was divided\ninto fifteen books. All our knowledge of it is derived from Eusebius,\nJerome, and other ecclesiastical writers. Several years after its\nappearance the courtly Bishop of C\u00e6sarea, the well-known historian of\nthe first ages of Christianity, replied to it in a work extending to\ntwenty-five books. More than a century later, Theodosius II. caused\nthe obnoxious volume to be publicly burned, and Porphyry\u2019s criticism\nshared the fate of those \u201cmany elaborate treatises which have since\nbeen committed to the flames\u201d by the theological or political zeal of\northodox emperors and princes.[77]\n\n(3) _The Life of Pythagoras_--a fragment, but, as far as it goes, the\nmost interesting of the Pythagorean biographies.\n\n(4) _On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of his Works._ It is\nto this biography we are indebted for our knowledge of the estimable\nelaborator of New-Platonism. We learn that he was the pupil of\nAmmonius, who disputes with Numenius the fame of having originated\nthe principles of the new school of thought of which Plotinus,\nhowever, was the St. Paul--the actual founder. Of a naturally feeble\nconstitution, he had early betaken himself to the consolations of\ndivine philosophy. After vainly seeking rest for his truth-loving and\naspiring spirit in other systems, he at last found in Ammonius the\nteacher and teaching which his intellectual and spiritual sympathies\ndemanded. His great ambition was to visit the country of Buddha and of\nZerdusht or Zoroaster, and, for that purpose, he joined the expedition\nof the Emperor Gordian against the Persians. The defeat and death\nof that prince frustrated his plans. He then settled at Rome, where\nhe established his school, and he remained in Italy until his death\nin 270. By the earnest solicitations of his disciples, Porphyry and\nAmerius, he was induced with much reluctance to publish his oral\ndiscourses, and eventually they appeared in fifty-four books, edited by\nPorphyry, who gave them the name of the _Enneads_, as being arranged in\nsix groups of _nine_ treatises. Perhaps no teacher ever engaged to so\nunbounded an extent the admiration and affection of his followers.\n\n \u201cDuring the long period of his residence at Rome, Plotinus enjoyed\n an estimation almost approaching to a belief in his superhuman\n wisdom and sanctity. His ascetic virtue, and the mysterious\n transcendentalism of his conversation, which made him the Coleridge\n of the day, seems to have carried away the minds of his associates,\n and raised them to a state of imaginative exaltation. He was\n regarded as a sort of prophet, divine himself, and capable of\n elevating his disciples to a participation in his divinity....\n These coincidences or collusions [his alleged miracles] show how\n sacred a character had attached to Plotinus. And we see the same\n evidenced in his social influence. Men and women of the highest\n rank crowded round him, and his house was filled with young persons\n of both sexes whom their parents when dying had committed to his\n care. Rogatian, a senator and pr\u00e6tor-elect, gave up his wealth\n and dignities, and lived as the humble bedesman of his friends,\n devoting himself to ascetic and contemplative philosophy. His\n self-denial obtained for him the approbation of Plotinus, who\n held him up as a pattern of philosophy; and he gained the more\n solid advantage of a perfect cure from the worst kind of rheumatic\n gout. The influence of Plotinus extended to the imperial throne\n itself. The weak-minded Gallienus, and his Empress Salonina, were\n so completely guided by the philosopher, that he had actually\n obtained permission to convert a ruined City of Campania into a\n _Platonopolis_, in which the laws of Plato\u2019s _Republic_ were to be\n tested by a practical experiment; and the philosopher had promised\n to retire thither accompanied by his chief friends.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cpractical common sense\u201d (which usually may be interpreted to mean\ncynical indifferentism), of the statesmen and politicians of the day\ninterposed to prevent this attempt at a realisation of Plato\u2019s great\nideal; and, considering the prematurity of such ideas in the then\ncondition of the world--and, it must be added, the extravagance of some\nof them--we can, perhaps, hardly regret that his \u201cRepublic\u201d was never\ninstituted. As to the essence and spirit of the teaching of Plotinus,\n\n \u201cHe cannot be termed, strictly or exclusively, a Neo-Platonist: he\n is equally a Neo-Aristotelian and a _Neo-Philosopher_ in general.\n He has himself one pervading idea, to which he is always recurring,\n and to which he accommodates, as far as he can, the reasonings of\n all his predecessors. It is his object to proclaim and exalt the\n immanent divinity of man, and to raise the soul to a contemplation\n of the good and the true, and to vindicate its independence of\n all that is sensuous, transitory, and special. With an enthusiasm\n bordering on fanaticism, he proclaims his philosophical faith in\n an unseen world: and, rejecting with indignation the humiliating\n attempt to make out that the spiritual world is no better than an\n essence or elixir drained off from the material--that thoughts\n are \u2018merely the shadows and ghosts of sensations,\u2019 he tells his\n disciples that the inward eyes of consciousness and conscience were\n to be purged and unsealed at the fountain of heavenly radiance,\n before they can discern the true form and colours and value of\n spiritual objects.\u201d\n\nThe personal humility of this sublime teacher, we may add, seems to\nhave equalled the loftiness of his inspiration.\n\nOf the other writings of Porphyry, space allows us to refer only to\nhis _Epistle to Anebo_--a critical refutation of some of the popular\nprejudices of Pagan theology, such as the grosser d\u00e6monism, necromancy,\nand incantation,[78] and, above all, animal sacrifice, to which his\nkeen spiritual sense was essentially antagonistic. It is known only by\nfragments preserved in Eusebius. As to the theological or metaphysical\nopinions of Porphyry, \u201cit is clear,\u201d remarks Dr. Donaldson, \u201cthat he\nhad but little faith in the old polytheism of the Greeks. He expressly\ntells his wife (Letter to Marcella) that outward worship does neither\ngood nor harm.\u201d In truth, as regards the better parts of Christianity,\nhe was nearer to the religion of Jesus than of Jupiter, although he\nfound himself in opposition to what he considered the evils or errors\nof dogmatic Christian theology. In common with most of the principal\nexpounders of Neo-Platonism,[79] his sympathies were with much that\nwas contained in the Christian Scriptures, and, in particular, with\nthe fourth Gospel, the sublime beginning of which, we are assured,\nthe disciples of Plato regarded as \u201can exact transcript of their own\nopinions,\u201d and which, as St. Augustin informs us (_De Civ. Dei_ x.,\n29), they declared to be worthy to be written in letters of gold, and\ninscribed in the most conspicuous place in every Christian church.\n\nAs for the learning, as well as lofty ideas, of the author of the\ntreatise _On Abstinence_, there has been a general consensus of opinion\neven from his theological opponents. Augustin, himself among the most\nlearned of the Latin Fathers, styles him _doctissimus philosophorum_\n(\u201cthe most learned of the philosophers\u201d), and, again, _philosophus\nnobilis_ (\u201ca noble philosopher\u201d), \u201ca man of no common mind\u201d (_De\nCivit. Dei_); and elsewhere he calls him \u201cthe great philosopher of the\nheathen.\u201d Even Eusebius, his immediate antagonist, concedes to him\nthe titles of \u201cthe noble philosopher,\u201d \u201cthe wonderful theologian,\u201d\n\u201cthe great prophet of ineffable doctrines\u201d (\u1f41 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03b7\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2).\nDonaldson, endorsing the common admiration of the moderns, describes\nhis learning and erudition as \u201cstupendous.\u201d\n\nAmongst modern testimonies to the merits of Porphyry\u2019s treatise,\n_On Abstinence_, the sympathising remarks of Voltaire are worth\ntranscribing:--\n\n \u201cIt is well known that Pythagoras embraced this humane doctrine\n [of abstinence from flesh-eating] and carried it into Italy. His\n disciples followed it through a long period of time. The celebrated\n philosophers, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Porphyry, recommended\n and practised it, although it is sufficiently rare to practice\n what one preaches. The work of Porphyry, written in the middle of\n our third century, and very well translated into our language by\n M. de Burigni, is much esteemed by the learned--but he has made\n no more converts amongst us than has the book of the physician\n Hecquet.[80] It is in vain that Porphyry alleges the example of\n the Buddhists and Persian Magi of the first class, who held in\n abhorrence the practice of engulfing the entrails of other beings\n in their own--he is followed at present only by the Fathers of La\n Trappe.[81] The treatise of Porphyry is addressed to one of his old\n disciples, named Firmus, who became a Christian, it is said, to\n recover his liberty to eat flesh and drink wine.\n\n \u201cHe remonstrates with Firmus, that in abstaining from flesh and\n from strong liquors the health of the soul and of the body is\n preserved; that one lives longer and with more innocence. All\n his reflections are those of a scrupulous theologian, of a rigid\n philosopher, and of a gentle and sensitive spirit. One might\n believe, in reading him, that this great enemy of the Church is a\n Father of the Church. He does not speak of the _Metempsychosis_,\n but he regards other animals as our brothers--_because_ they are\n endowed with life as we, _because_ they have the same _principles_\n of life, the same feelings, ideas, memory, industry, as we. Speech\n alone is wanting to them. If they had it, should we dare to kill\n and eat them? Should we dare to commit those fratricides? What\n barbarian is there who would cause a lamb to be slaughtered and\n roasted, if that lamb conjured him, by an affecting appeal, not to\n be at once assassin and cannibal?\n\n \u201cThis book, at least, proves that there were, among the \u2018Gentiles,\u2019\n philosophers of the strictest and purest virtue. Yet they could\n not prevail against the butchers and the _gourmands_. It is to\n be remarked that Porphyry makes a very beautiful eulogy on the\n Essenians. At that time the rivalship was who could be the most\n virtuous--Essenians, Pythagoreans, Stoics, Christians. When\n churches form but a small flock their manners are pure; they\n degenerate as soon as they get powerful.\u201d[82]\n\nOf this famous treatise there is, it appears, only one English\ntranslation, that of Taylor (1851), long out of print; and there is\na German version by Herr Ed. Baltzer, President of the Vegetarian\nSociety of Germany; thus we have to lament for Porphyry, no less than\nfor Plutarch, the indifferentism of the publishers, or rather of the\npublic, which allows a production, of an inspiration far above that of\nthe common herd of writers, to continue to be a sealed book for the\ncommunity in general.\n\nIt has been already stated that it consists of four Divisions. The\nfirst treats of Abstinence from the point of view of Temperance and\nReason. In the second is considered the lawfulness or otherwise of\nanimal sacrifice. In the third Porphyry treats the subject from the\nside of Justice. In the fourth he reviews the practice of some of\nthe nations of antiquity and of the East--of the Egyptians, Hindus,\nand others. This last Book, by its abrupt termination, is evidently\nunfinished.\n\nPorphyry begins with an expression of surprise and regret at the\napostasy of the Pythagorean renegade:--\n\n \u201cFor when I reflect with myself upon the cause of your change of\n mind [so he addresses his former associate], I cannot believe,\n as the vulgar herd will suppose, that it has anything to do\n with reasons of health or strength, inasmuch as you yourself\n were used to assert that the fleshless diet is more consonant\n to healthfulness and to an even and proportionate endurance of\n philosophic toils (\u03c3\u03cd\u03bc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u1f74\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd),\n and experience fully proved the truth of your conviction. Whether\n then it was through some other fallacy or delusion, or through a\n later notion that this or that diet makes no difference to the\n intellectual powers, or whether it was from the fear of incurring\n odium by opposition to orthodox customs, or what the reason may\n have been, I am unable to conjecture.\u201d\n\nHe expresses his hope, or rather his belief, that, at least, the lapse\nwas not due in this case to natural intemperance, or regret for the\ngluttonous habits (\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) of flesh-eating.\n\nHe then proceeds to quote and refute the fallacies of the ordinary\nsystems and sects, and, in particular, the objections of one Clodius,\na Neapolitan, who had published a treatise against Pythagoreanism. He\nprofesses that he does not hope to influence those who are engaged in\nsordid and selfish, or in sanguinary, pursuits. Rather he addresses\nhimself to the man\n\n \u201cWho considers what he is, whence he came, and whither he ought\n to tend; and who, in what pertains to the nourishment of the body\n and other necessary concerns, is of really thoughtful and earnest\n mind--who resolves that he shall not be led astray and governed\n by his passions. And let such a man tell me whether a rich flesh\n diet is more easily procured, or incites less to the indulgence of\n irregular passions and appetites, than a light vegetable dietary.\n But if neither he, nor a physician, nor, indeed, any reasonable man\n whosoever, dares to affirm this, why do we persist in oppressing\n ourselves with gross feeding? And why do we not, together with that\n luxurious indulgence, throw off the encumbrances and snares which\n attend it?\n\n \u201cIt is not from those who have lived on innocent foods that\n murderers, tyrants, robbers, and sycophants have come, but from\n eaters of flesh. The necessaries of life are few and easily\n procured, without violation of justice, liberty, or peace of mind;\n whereas luxury obliges those ordinary souls who take delight in\n it to covet riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to\n misspend their time, to ruin their health, and to renounce the\n satisfaction of an upright conscience.\u201d\n\nIn condemning animal sacrifice, he declares that \u201cit is by means of\nan exalted and purified intellect alone that we can approximate to\nthe Supreme Being, to whom nothing material should be offered.\u201d He\ndistinguishes four degrees of virtue, the lowest being that of the man\nwho attempts to moderate his passions; the highest, the life of pure\nreason, by which man becomes one with the Supreme Existence.\n\nIn the third book, maintaining that other animals are endowed with high\ndegrees of reasoning and of mental faculties, and, in some measure,\neven with moral perception, Porphyry proceeds logically to insist that\nthey are, _therefore_, the proper objects of Justice:--\n\n \u201cBy these arguments, and others which I shall afterwards adduce in\n recording the opinions of the old peoples, it is demonstrated that\n [many species of] the lower animals are rational. In very many,\n reason is imperfect indeed--of which, nevertheless, they are by no\n means destitute. Since then justice is due to rational beings, as\n our opponents allow, how is it possible to evade the admission also\n that we are bound to act justly towards the races of beings below\n us? We do not extend the obligations of justice to plants, because\n there appears in them no indication of reason; although, even in\n the case of these, while we eat the fruits we do not, with the\n fruits, cut away the trunks. We use corn and leguminous vegetables\n when they have fallen on the earth and are dead. But no one uses\n for food the flesh of dead animals, unless they have been killed by\n violence, so that there is in these things a radical injustice. As\n Plutarch says, it does not follow, because we are in need of many\n things, that we should therefore act unjustly towards _all beings_.\n Inanimate things we are allowed to injure to a certain extent, to\n procure the necessary means of existence--if to take anything from\n plants while they are growing can be said to be an injury--but to\n destroy living and conscious beings merely for luxury and pleasure\n is truly barbarous and unjust. And to refrain from killing them\n neither diminishes our sustenance nor hinders our living happily.\n If indeed the destruction of other animals and the eating of flesh\n were as requisite as air and water, plants and fruits, then there\n could be no injustice, as they would be necessary to our nature.\u201d\n\nPorphyry, it is scarcely necessary to remark, by these arguments proves\nhimself to have been, in moral as well as mental perception, as far\nahead of the average thinkers of the present day as he was of his own\ntimes. He justly maintains that\n\n \u201cSensation and perception are the principle of the kinship of\n all living beings. And [he reminds his opponents] Zeno and\n his followers [the Stoics] admit that alliance or _kinship_\n (\u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2)[83] is the foundation of justice. Now, to the lower\n animals pertain perception and the sensations of pain and fear\n and injury. Is it not absurd, then, whereas we see that many of\n our own species live by brute sense alone, and exhibit neither\n reason nor intellect, and that very many of them surpass the most\n terrible wild beasts in cruelty, rage, rapine; that they murder\n even their own relatives; that they are tyrants and the tools of\n tyrants--seeing all this, is it not absurd, I say, to hold that\n we are obliged by nature to act leniently towards them, while no\n kindness is due from us to the Ox that ploughs, the Dog that is\n brought up with us, and those who nourish us with their milk and\n cover our bodies with their wool? Is not such a prejudice most\n irrational and absurd?\u201d\n\nTo the objection of Chrysippus (the second founder of the school of the\nPorch) that the gods made us for themselves and for the sake of each\nother, and that they made the non-human species for us--a convenient\nsubterfuge by no means unknown to writers and talkers of our own\ntimes--Porphyry unanswerably replies:--\n\n \u201cLet him to whom this sophism may appear to have weight\n or probability, consider how he would meet the dictum of\n Karneades[84] that \u2018everything in nature is benefited, when it\n obtains the ends to which it is adapted and for which it was\n generated.\u2019 Now, _benefit_ is to be understood in a more general\n way as meaning what the Stoics call _useful_. \u2018The hog, however,\u2019\n says Chrysippus, \u2018was produced by nature for the purpose of being\n slaughtered and used for food, and when it undergoes this, it\n obtains the end for which it is adapted, and it is therefore\n benefited!\u2019 But if God brought other animals into existence for the\n use of men, what use do we make of flies, beetles, lice, vipers,\n and scorpions? Some of these are hateful to the sight, defile the\n touch, are intolerable to the smell, while others are actually\n destructive to human beings who fall in their way.[85] With respect\n to the _cetacea_, in particular, which Homer tells us live by\n myriads in the seas, does not the Demiurgus[86] teach us that they\n have come into being for the good of things in general? And unless\n they affirm that all things were indeed made for us and on our\n sole account, how can they escape the imputation of wrong-doing in\n treating injuriously beings that came into existence according to\n the _general arrangement_ of Nature?\n\n \u201cI omit to insist on the fact that, if we depend on the argument of\n necessity or utility, we cannot avoid admitting by implication that\n we ourselves were created only for the sake of certain destructive\n animals, such as crocodiles and snakes and other monsters, for\n we are not in the least _benefited_ by them. On the contrary,\n they seize and destroy and devour men whom they meet--in so doing\n acting not at all more cruelly than we. Nay, _they_ act thus\n savagely through want and hunger; _we_ from insolent wantonness\n and luxurious pleasure[87], amusing ourselves as we do also in the\n Circus and in the murderous sports of the chase. By thus acting,\n a barbarous and brutal nature becomes strengthened in us, which\n renders men insensible to the feeling of pity and compassion.\n Those who first perpetrated these iniquities fatally blunted the\n most important part of the civilised mind. Therefore it is that\n Pythagoreans consider kindness and gentleness to the lower animals\n to be an exercise of philanthropy and gentleness.\u201d\n\nPorphyry unanswerably and eloquently concludes this division of his\nsubject with the _\u00e0 fortiori_ argument:--\n\n \u201cBy admitting that [selfish] pleasure is the legitimate end of our\n action, justice is evidently destroyed. For to whom must it not be\n clear that the feeling of justice is fostered by abstinence? He\n who abstains from injuring other species will be so much the more\n careful not to injure his own kind. For he who loves all animated\n Nature will not hate any one tribe of innocent beings, and by how\n much greater his love for the whole, by so much the more will he\n cultivate justice towards a part of them, and to that part to which\n he is most allied.\u201d\n\nIn fine, according to Porphyry, he who extends his sympathies to _all_\ninnocent life is nearest to the Divine nature. Well would it have\nbeen for all the after-ages had this, the only sure foundation of any\ncode of ethics worthy of the name, found favour with the constituted\ninstructors and rulers of the western world. The fourth and final\nBook reviews the dietetic habits of some of the leading peoples of\nantiquity, and of certain of the philosophic societies which practised\nabstinence more or less rigidly. As for the Essenes, Porphyry describes\ntheir code of morals and manner of living in terms of high praise. We\ncan here give only an abstract of his eloquent eulogium:--\n\n \u201cThey are despisers of mere riches, and the communistic principle\n with them is admirably carried out. Nor is it possible to find\n amongst them a single person distinguished by the possession of\n wealth, for all who enter the society are obliged by their laws\n to divide property for the common good. There is neither the\n humiliation of poverty nor the arrogance of wealth. Their managers\n or guardians are elected by vote, and each of them is chosen with\n a view to the welfare and needs of all. They have no city or town,\n but dwell together in separate communities.... They do not discard\n their dress for a new one, before the first is really worn out by\n length of time. There is no buying and selling amongst them. Each\n gives to each according to his or her wants, and there is a free\n interchange between them.... They come to their dining-hall as to\n some pure and undefiled temple, and when they have taken their\n seats quietly, the baker sets their loaves before them in order,\n and the cook gives them one dish each of one sort, while their\n priest first recites a form of thanksgiving for their pure and\n refined food (\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f01\u03b3\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f56\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2).\u201d\n\nThe testimony of the national historian of the Jews, it is interesting\nto observe, is equally favourable to those pioneers of the modern\ncommunisms. \u201cThe Essenes, as we call a sect of ours,\u201d writes\nJosephus, \u201cpursue the same kind of life as those whom the Greeks call\nPythagoreans. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them\nexist above a hundred years by means of their simplicity of diet and\nthe regular course of their lives\u201d (_Antiquities of the Jews._). Upon\nentering the society and partaking of the common meal (which, with\nbaptism, was the outward and visible sign of initiation) three solemn\noaths were administered to each aspirant:--\n\n \u201cFirst, that he would reverence the divine ideal (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd);\n second, that he would carefully practise justice towards his\n fellow-beings and refrain from injury, whether by his own or\n another\u2019s will; that he would always hate the Unjust and fight\n earnestly on the side of (\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9) the Just and lovers of\n justice; keep faith with all men; if in power, never use authority\n insolently or violently; nor surpass his subordinates in dress and\n ornaments; above all things always to love Truth.\u201d\n\nAs for their food, while they seem not to have been bound to total\nabstinence from every kind of flesh, they may be considered to have\nbeen almost Vegetarian in practice. To kill any innocent individual\nof the non-human species that had sought refuge or an asylum amongst\nthem was a breach of the most sacred laws: to spare the domesticated\nraces, or fellow-workers with man, even in an enemy\u2019s country, was a\nsolemn duty. For, says Porphyry, their founder had no groundless fear\nthat there could be any overabundance of life productive of famine to\nourselves, inasmuch as he knew, first, that those animals who bring\nforth many young at a time are short lived, and, secondly, that their\ntoo rapid increase is kept down by other hostile animals. \u201cA proof of\nwhich is,\u201d he continues, \u201cthat though we abstain from eating very many,\nsuch as dogs, wild beasts, rats, lizards, and others, there is yet no\nfear that we should ever suffer from famine in consequence of their\nexcessive multiplication; and, again, it is one thing to have to kill,\nand another to eat, since we have to kill many ferocious animals whom\nwe do not also eat.\u201d\n\nHe quotes the historians of Syria who allege that, in the earlier\nperiod, the inhabitants of that part of the world abstained from all\nflesh, and, therefore, from sacrifice; and that when, afterwards,\nto avert some impending misfortune they were induced to offer up\npropitiatory victims, the practice of flesh-eating was by no means\ngeneral. And Asklepiades says, in his History of Cyprus and Ph\u0153nicia,\nthat \u201cno living being was sacrificed to heaven, nor was there even\nany express law on the subject, _since it was forbidden by the law\nof Nature_ (\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u1ff7 \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff7):\u201d that, in course of time, they took to\noccasional propitiatory sacrifice: and that, at one of these times,\nthe sacrificing priest happened to place his blood-smeared finger on\nhis mouth, was tempted to repeat the action, and thus introduced\nthe habit of flesh-eating, whence the general practice. As for the\nPersian _Magi_ (the successors of Zerdusht), we are informed that the\nprincipal and most esteemed of their order neither eat nor kill any\nliving being, while those of the second class eat the flesh of some,\nbut not of domesticated, animals; nor do even the third order eat\nindiscriminately. Instances are adduced of certain peoples who, being\ncompelled by necessity to live upon flesh, have evidently deteriorated\nand been rendered savage and ferocious, \u201cfrom which examples it is\nclearly unbecoming men of good disposition to belie their human nature\n(\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5\u03cd\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2).\u201d\n\nAmongst individuals he instances the example of the traditionary\nAthenian legislator Triptolemus--\n\n \u201cOf whom Hermippus, in his second book on the legislators, writes:\n Of his laws, according to Xenokrates the philosopher, the three\n following remain in force at Eleusis--\u2018to gratify Heaven with\n the offering of fruits,\u2019 \u2018to harass or harm no [innocent] living\n being.\u2019 ... As to the third, he is in doubt for what particular\n reason Triptolemus charged them to abstain--whether from believing\n it to be criminal to kill those that have an identical origin with\n ourselves (\u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u1f72\u03c2), or from a consciousness that the slaughter\n of all the most useful animals would be the inevitable consequence\n of addiction to it, and wishing to render human life mild and\n innocent, and to preserve those species that are tame and gentle\n and domesticated with man.\u201d[88]\n\n * * * * *\n\nSomewhat later than Porphyry, the name of Julian (331-363), the\nRoman emperor, may here be fitly introduced. During his brief reign\nof sixteen months he proved himself, if not always a judicious, yet a\nsincere and earnest reformer of abuses of various kinds, and he may\nclaim to be one of the very few virtuous princes, pagan or christian.\nUnfortunately the just blame attaching to his ill-judged attempt to\nsuppress the religion of Constantine, from whose family his relatives\nand himself had suffered the greatest injury and insult, has enabled\nthe lovers of party rather than of truth successfully to conceal from\nview his undoubted merits.\n\nIn his manner of living, with which alone we are now concerned, he\nseems to have almost rivalled the most ascetic of the Platonists\nor of the Christian anchorets. One of his most intimate friends,\nthe celebrated orator, Libanius, who had often shared the frugal\nsimplicity of his table, has remarked that his \u201clight and sparing diet,\nwhich was usually of the vegetable kind, left his mind and body always\nfree and active for the various and important business of an author,\na pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince.\u201d That his _frugal_\ndiet had not impaired his powers, either physical or mental, may\nsufficiently appear from the fact that--\n\n \u201cIn one and the same day he gave audience to several ambassadors,\n and wrote or dictated a great number of letters to his generals,\n his civil magistrates, his private friends, and the different\n cities of his dominions. He listened to the memorials which had\n been received, considered the subject of the petitions, and\n signified his intentions more rapidly than they could be taken in\n shorthand by the diligence of his secretaries. He possessed such\n flexibility of thought, and such firmness of attention, that he\n could employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to\n dictate, and pursue at once three several trains of ideas without\n hesitation and without error. While his ministers reposed, the\n prince flew with agility from one labour to another, and, after a\n hasty dinner, retired into his library till the public business,\n which he had appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt\n the prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was\n still less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never\n clouded by the fumes of indigestion.... He was soon awakened by\n the entrance of fresh secretaries who had slept the preceding day,\n and his servants were obliged to wait alternately, while their\n indefatigable master allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment\n than the change of occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his\n uncle, his brother, and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste\n for the games of the circus under the specious pretence of\n complying with the inclination of the people, and they frequently\n remained the greater part of the day as idle spectators.... On\n solemn festivals Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable\n dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear\n in the Circus, and, after bestowing a careless glance on five\n or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of\n a philosopher who considered every moment as lost that was not\n devoted to the advantage of the public, or the improvement of\n his own mind. By this avarice of time he seemed to protract the\n short duration of his reign, and, if the dates were less securely\n ascertained, we should refuse to believe that only _sixteen months_\n elapsed between the death of Constantius and the departure of his\n successor for the Persian war in which he perished.\u201d[89]\n\nFollowing the principles of Platonism, \u201che justly concluded that the\nman who presumes to reign should aspire to the perfection of the divine\nnature--that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial\npart--that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his\nunderstanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild beast which,\naccording to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, seldom fails to ascend\nthe throne of a despot.\u201d With all these virtues, unfortunately for his\ncredit as a philosopher and humanitarian, the imperial Stoic allowed\nhis natural goodness of heart to be corrupted by superstition and\nfanaticism. Conceiving himself to be the special and chosen instrument\nof the Deity for the restoration of the fallen religion, which he\nregarded as the true faith, he made it the foremost object of his\npious but misdirected ambition to re-establish its sumptuous temples,\npriesthoods, and sacrificial altars with all their imposing ritual, and\n\u201che was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that\nif he could render each individual richer than Midas and every city\ngreater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of\nmankind, unless at the same time he could reclaim his subjects from\ntheir impious revolt against the immortal gods.\u201d[90] Inspired by this\nreligious zeal, he forgot the maxims of his master, Plato, so far as to\nrival, if not surpass, the ancient Jewish or Pagan ritual in the number\nof the sacrificial victims offered up in the name of religion and of\nthe Deity. Happily for the future of the world, the fanatical piety of\nthis youthful champion of the religion of Homer proved ineffectual to\nturn back the slow onward march of the Western mind, through fearful\nmazes of evil and error indeed, towards that \u201cdiviner day\u201d which is yet\nto dawn for the Earth.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nCHRYSOSTOM. 347-407 A.D.\n\n\nThe most eloquent, and one of the most estimable, of the \u201cFathers\u201d was\nborn at Antioch, the Christian city _par excellence_. His family held\na distinguished position, and his father was in high command in the\nSyrian division of the imperial army. He studied for the law, and was\ninstructed in oratory by the famous rhetorician Libanius (the intimate\nfriend and counsellor of the young Emperor Julian), who pronounced\nhis pupil worthy to succeed to his chair, if he had not adopted the\nChristian faith. He soon gave up the law for theology, and retired to a\nmonastery, near Antioch, where he passed four years, rigidly abstaining\nfrom flesh-meat and, like the Essenes, abandoning the rights of private\nproperty and living a life of the strictest asceticism.\n\nHaving submitted himself in solitude to the severest austerities during\na considerable length of time, he entered the Church, and soon gained\nthe highest reputation for his extraordinary eloquence and zeal. On the\ndeath of the Archbishop of Constantinople, he was unanimously elected\nto fill the vacant Primacy. The _nolo me episcopari_ seems, in his\ncase, to have been no unmeaning formula. His beneficence and charity\nin the new position attracted general admiration. From the revenues of\nhis See he founded a hospital for the sick--one of the very first of\nthose rather modern institutions. The fame of the \u201cGolden-mouthed\u201d drew\nto his cathedral immense crowds of people, who before had frequented\nthe theatre and the circus rather than the churches, and the building\nconstantly resounded with their enthusiastic plaudits. He was, however,\nno mere popular preacher; he fearlessly exposed the corrupt and selfish\nlife of the large body of the clergy. At one time he deposed, it is\nsaid, no less than thirteen bishops, in Lesser Asia, from their Sees;\nand in one of his _Homilies_ he does not hesitate to charge \u201cthe whole\necclesiastical body with avarice and licentiousness, asserting that the\nnumber of bishops who could be saved bore a very small proportion to\nthose who would be damned.\u201d[91]\n\nAt length, his repeated denunciations of the too notorious scandals\nof the Court and the Church excited the bitter enmity of his\nbrother-prelates, and, by their intrigues at the Imperial Court of\nConstantinople, he was deposed from his See and exiled to the wildest\nparts of the Euxine coasts, where, exposed to every sort of privation,\nhe caught a violent fever and died. So far did the hostility of the\nEpiscopacy extend, that one of his rivals, a bishop, named Theophilus,\nin a book expressly written against him, amongst other vituperative\nepithets had proceeded to the length of styling him \u201ca filthy demon,\u201d\nand of solemnly consigning his soul to Satan. With the poor, however,\nChrysostom enjoyed unbounded popularity and esteem. His greatest fault\nwas his theological intolerance--a fault, it is just to add, of the age\nrather than of the man.\n\nThe writings of Chrysostom are exceedingly voluminous--700 homilies,\norations, doctrinal treatises, and 242 epistles. Their \u201cchief value\nconsists in the illustrations they furnish of the manners of the\nfourth and fifth centuries--of the moral and social state of the\nperiod. The circus, spectacles, theatres, baths, houses, domestic\neconomy, banquets, dresses, fashions, pictures, processions, tight-rope\ndancing, funerals--in fine, everything has a place in the picture of\nlicentious luxury which it is the object of Chrysostom to denounce.\u201d\nNext to his profession of faith in the efficacy and virtues of a\nnon-flesh diet, amongst the most interesting of his productions is\nhis _Golden Book_ on the education of the young. He recommends that\nchildren should be inured to habits of temperance, by abstaining, at\nleast, twice a week from the ordinary grosser food with which they\nare supplied. As might be expected from the age, and from his order,\nthe practice of Chrysostom, and of the numerous other ecclesiastical\nabstinents from the gross diet of the richer part of the community,\nreposed upon ascetic and traditionary principles, rather than on the\nmore secular and modern motives of justice, humanity, and general\nsocial improvement. So, in fact, Origen, one of the most learned\nof the Fathers, expressly says (_Contra Celsum_, v.): \u201cWe [the\nChristian leaders] practise abstinence from the flesh of animals\nto buffet our bodies and treat them as slaves (\u1f51\u03c0\u03c9\u03c0\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03af\n\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd), and we wish to mortify our members upon earth,\u201d &c.\n\nAccordingly, the _Apostolical Canons_ distinguished, as Bingham\n(_Antiquities of the Christian Church_) reports them, between\nabstinents, \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f00\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd and \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b2\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c5\u03c0\u03af\u03b1\u03bd, _i.e._, between\nthose who abstained to exercise self-control, and those who did so from\ndisgust and abhorrence of what, in ordinary and orthodox language,\nare too complacently and confidently termed \u201cthe good creatures of\nGod.\u201d This distinction, it must be added, holds only of the prevailing\nsentiment of the Orthodox Church as finally established. During several\ncenturies--even so late as the Paulicians in the seventh, or even\nas the Albigeois of the thirteenth, century--_Manicheism_, as it is\ncalled, or a belief in the inherent evil of all matter, was widely\nspread in large and influential sections of the Christian Church--nor,\nindeed, were some of its most famous Fathers without suspicion of this\nheretical taint. According to the _Clementine Homilies_, \u201cthe unnatural\neating of flesh-meat is of demoniacal origin, and was introduced by\nthose giants who, from their bastard nature, took no pleasure in\npure nourishment, and only lusted after blood. Therefore the eating\nof flesh is as polluting as the heathen worship of demons, with its\nsacrifices and its impure feasts; through participation in which, a man\nbecomes a fellow-dietist (\u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2) with demons.\u201d[92] That\nsuperstition was often, in the minds of the followers both of Plato\nand of St. Paul, mixed up with, and, indeed, usually dominated over,\nthe reasonable motives of the more philosophic advocates of the higher\nlife, there can be no sort of doubt; nor can we claim a monopoly of\nrational motives for the mass of the adherents of either Christian or\nPythagorean abstinence. Yet an impartial judgment must allow almost\nequal credit to the earnestness of mind and purity of motive which,\nmingled though they undoubtedly were with (in the pre-scientific\nages) a necessary infusion of superstition, urged the followers of\nthe better way--Christian and non-Christian--to discard the \u201csocial\nlies\u201d of the dead world around them. At all events, it is not for the\nselfish egoists to sneer at the sublime--if error-infected--efforts of\nthe earlier pioneers of moral progress for their own and the world\u2019s\nredemption from the bonds of the prevailing vile materialism in life\nand dietary habits.\n\nWe have already shown that the earliest Jewish-Christian communities,\nboth in Palestine and elsewhere--the immediate disciples of the\noriginal Twelve--enjoined abstinence as one of the primary obligations\nof the New Faith; and that the earliest traditions represent the\nforemost of them as the strictest sort of Vegetarians.[93] If then we\nimpartially review the history of the practice, the teaching, and the\ntraditions of the first Christian authorities, it cannot but appear\nsurprising that the Orthodox Church, ignoring the practice and highest\nideal of the most sacred period of its annals, has, even within its own\nOrder, deemed it consistent with its claim of being representative of\nthe Apostolic period to substitute partial and periodic for total and\nconstant abstinence.\n\nThe following passages in the _Homilies_, or Congregational Discourses,\nof Chrysostom will serve as specimens of his feeling on the propriety\nof dietary reform. The eloquent but diffusive style of the Greek\nBossuet, it must be noted, is necessarily but feebly represented in the\nliteral English version:--\n\n \u201cNo streams of blood are among them [the ascetics]; no butchering\n and cutting up of flesh; no dainty cookery; no heaviness of head.\n Nor are there horrible smells of flesh-meats among them, or\n disagreeable fumes from the kitchen. No tumult and disturbance and\n wearisome clamours, but bread and water--the latter from a pure\n fountain, the former from honest labour. If, at any time, however,\n they may wish to feast more sumptuously, the sumptuousness consists\n in fruits, and their pleasure in these is greater than at royal\n tables. With this repast [of fruits and vegetables], even angels\n from Heaven, as they behold it, are delighted and pleased. For if\n over one sinner who repents they rejoice, over so many just men\n imitating them what will they not do? No master and servant are\n there. All are servants--all free men. And think not this a mere\n form of speech, for they are servants one of another and masters\n one of another. Wherein, therefore, are we different from, or\n superior to, Ants, if we compare ourselves with them? For as they\n care for the things of the body only, so also do we. And would\n it were for these alone! But, alas! it is for things far worse.\n For not for necessary things only do we care, but also for things\n superfluous. Those animals pursue an innocent life, while we follow\n after all covetousness. Nay, we do not so much as imitate the ways\n of Ants. _We follow the ways of Wolves, the habits of Tigers; or,\n rather, we are worse even than they. To them Nature has assigned\n that they should be thus_ [carnivorously] _fed, while God has\n honoured us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we\n are become worse than the wild beasts._\u201d[94]\n\nAgain he protests:--\n\n \u201cNeither am I leading you to the lofty peak of total renunciation\n of possessions [\u1f00\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7]; but for the present I require you to\n cut off superfluities, and to desire a sufficiency alone. Now,\n the boundary of sufficiency is the using those things which it\n is impossible to live without. No one debars you from these, nor\n forbids you your daily food. I say \u2018food,\u2019 not \u2018luxury\u2019 [\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u1f74\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\n \u03c4\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u1f74\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03c9]--\u2018raiment,\u2019 not \u2018ornament.\u2019 Rather, this frugality--to\n speak correctly--is, in the best sense, luxury. For consider who\n should we say more truly feasted--he whose diet is herbs, and who\n is in sound health and suffered no uneasiness, or he who has the\n table of a Sybarite and is full of a thousand disorders? Clearly,\n the former. Therefore let us seek nothing more than these, if we\n would at once live luxuriously and healthfully. And let him who\n can be satisfied with pulse, and can keep in good health, seek for\n nothing more. But let him who is weaker, and needs to be [more\n richly] dieted with other vegetables and fruits, not be debarred\n from them.... We do not advise this for the harm and injury of men,\n but to lop off what is superfluous--and that is superfluous which\n is more than we need. When we are able to live without a thing,\n healthfully and respectably, certainly the addition of that thing\n is a superfluity.\u201d--_Hom._ xix. 2 _Cor._\n\nDenouncing the grossness of the ordinary mode of living, he eloquently\ndescants on the evil results, physical as well as mental:--\n\n \u201cA man who lives in pleasure [_i.e._, in selfish luxury] is dead\n while he lives, for he lives only to his belly. In his other senses\n he lives not. He sees not what he ought to see; he hears not what\n he ought to hear; he speaks not what he ought to speak.... Look not\n at the superficial countenance, but examine the interior, and you\n will see it full of deep dejection. If it were possible to bring\n the soul into view, and to behold it with our bodily eyes, that of\n the luxurious would seem depressed, mournful, miserable, and wasted\n with leanness, for the more the body grows sleek and gross, the\n more lean and weakly is the soul. The more the one is pampered,\n the more is the other hampered [\u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9--\u03b8\u03ac\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9: the latter\n meaning, literally, buried]. As when the pupil of the eye has the\n external envelope too thick, it cannot put forth the power of\n vision and look out, because the light is excluded by the dense\n covering, and darkness ensues; so when the body is constantly full\n fed, the soul must be invested with grossness. The dead, say you,\n corrupt and rot, and a foul pestilential humour distils from them.\n So in her who lives in pleasure may be seen rheums, and phlegm,\n and catarrh, hiccough, vomiting, eructations, and the like, which,\n as too unseemly, I forbear to name. For such is the despotism of\n luxury, it makes us endure things which we do not think proper even\n to mention....\n\n \u201c\u2018She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.\u2019 Hear this,\n ye women[95] who pass your time in revels and intemperance, and who\n neglect the poor, pining and perishing with hunger, whilst you are\n destroying yourselves with continual luxury. Thus you are the cause\n of two deaths--of those who are dying of want and of your own, both\n through ill-measure. If, out of your fulness, you tempered their\n want, you would save two lives. Why do you thus gorge your own body\n with excess, and waste that of the poor with want? Consider what\n comes of food--into what it is changed. Are you not disgusted at\n its being named? Why, then, be eager for such accumulations? The\n increase of luxury is but the multiplication of filth.[96] For\n Nature has her limits, and what is beyond these is not nourishment,\n but injury and the increase of ordure.\n\n \u201cNourish the body, but do not destroy it. Food is called\n nourishment, to show that its purpose is not to hurt, but to\n support us. For this reason, perhaps, food passes into excrement\n that we may not be lovers of luxury. If it were not so--if it were\n not useless and injurious to the body, we should hardly abstain\n from devouring one another. If the belly received as much as it\n pleased, digested it, and conveyed it to the body, we should see\n battles and wars innumerable. Even as it is, when part of our food\n passes into ordure, part into blood, part into spurious and useless\n phlegm, we are, nevertheless, so addicted to luxury that we spend,\n perhaps, whole estates on a meal. The more richly we live, the more\n noisome are the odours with which we are filled.\u201d--_Hom._ xiii.\n _Tim._ v.[97]\n\n * * * * *\n\nFrom this period--the fifth century A.D. down to the\nsixteenth--Christian and Western literature contains little or\nnothing which comes within the purpose of this work. The merits of\nmonastic asceticism were more or less preached during all those ages,\nalthough constant abstinence from flesh was by no means the general\npractice even with the inmates of the stricter monastic or conventual\nestablishments--at all events in the Latin Church. But we look in vain\nfor traces of anything like the humanitarian feeling of Plutarch or\nPorphyry. The mental intelligence as well as capacities for physical\nsuffering of the non-human races--necessarily resulting from an\norganisation in all essential points like to our own--was apparently\nwholly ignored; their just rights and claims upon human justice were\ndisregarded and trampled under foot. Consistently with the universal\nestimate, they were treated as beings destitute of all feeling--as\nif, in fine, they are the \u201cautomatic machines\u201d they are alleged to\nbe by the Cartesians of the present day. In those terrible ages of\ngross ignorance, of superstition, of violence, and of injustice--in\nwhich human rights were seldom regarded--it would have been surprising\nindeed if any sort of regard had been displayed for the _non-human_\nslaves. And yet an underlying and latent consciousness of the falseness\nof the general estimate sometimes made itself apparent in certain\nextraordinary and perverse fancies.[98] To Montaigne, the first to\nrevive the humanitarianism of Plutarch, belongs the great merit of\nreasserting the natural rights of the helpless slaves of human tyranny.\n\nWhile Chrysostom seems to have been one of the last of Christian\nwriters who manifested any sort of consciousness of the inhuman, as\nwell as unspiritual nature of the ordinary gross foods, Platonism\ncontinued to bear aloft the flickering torch of a truer spiritualism;\nand \u201cthe golden chain\u201d of the prophets of the dietary reformation\nreached down even so late as to the end of the sixth century.\nHierokles, author of the commentary on the _Golden Verses_ of\nPythagoras, to which reference has already been made, and who lectured\nupon them with great success at Alexandria; Hypatia, the beautiful and\naccomplished daughter of Theon the great mathematician, who publicly\ntaught the philosophy of Plato at the same great centre of Greek\nscience and learning, and was barbarously murdered by the jealousy\nof her Christian rival Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria; Proklus,\nsurnamed the Successor, as having been considered the most illustrious\ndisciple of Plato in the latter times, who left several treatises\nupon the Pythagorean system, and \u201cwhose sagacious mind explored the\ndeepest questions of morals and metaphysics\u201d;[99] Olympiodorus, who\nwrote a life of Plato and commentaries on several of his dialogues,\nstill extant, and lived in the reign of Justinian, by whose edict the\nillustrious school of Athens was finally closed, and with it the last\nvestiges of a sublime, if imperfect, attempt at the purification of\nhuman life--such are some of the most illustrious names which adorned\nthe days of expiring Greek philosophy. Olympiodorus and six other\nPythagoreans determined, if possible, to maintain their doctrines\nelsewhere; and they sought refuge with the Persian Magi, with whose\ntenets, or, at least, manner of living, they believed themselves\nto be most in accord. The Persian customs were distasteful to the\npurer ideal of the Platonists, and, disappointed in other respects,\nthey reluctantly relinquished their fond hopes of transplanting the\ndoctrines of Plato into a foreign soil, and returned home. The Persian\nprince, Chosroes, we may add, acquired honour by his stipulation with\nthe bigoted Justinian, that the seven sages should be allowed to\nlive unmolested during the rest of their days. \u201cSimplicius and his\ncompanions ended their lives in peace and obscurity; and, as they left\nno disciples, they terminated the long list of Grecian philosophers who\nmay be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest and\nmost virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are\nnow extant. His physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle\nhave passed away with the fashion of the times, but his moral\ninterpretation of Epiktetus is preserved in the library of nations as\na classical book excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the\nheart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the\nnature both of God and Man.\u201d[100]\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nCORNARO. 1465-1566.\n\n\nAfter the extinction of Greek and Latin philosophy in the fifth\ncentury, a mental torpor seized upon and, during some thousand years,\nwith rare exceptions, dominated the whole Western world. When this\ntorpor was dispelled by the influence of returning knowledge and\nreason evoked by the various simultaneous discoveries in science and\nliterature--in particular by the achievements of Gutenberg, Vasco da\nGama, Christopher Colon, and, above all, Copernik--the moral sense\nthen first, too, began to show signs of life. The renascence of the\nsixteenth century, however, with all the vigour of thought and action\nwhich accompanied it, proved to be rather a revival of mere verbal\nlearning than of the higher moral feeling of the best minds of old\nGreece and Italy. Men, fettered as they were in the trammels of\ntheological controversy and metaphysical subtleties, for the most part\nexpended their energies and their intellect in the vain pursuit of\nphantoms. With the very few splendid exceptions of the more enlightened\nand earnest thinkers, _Ethics_, in the real and comprehensive meaning\nof the word, was an unknown science; and a long period of time was\nyet to pass away before a perception of the universal obligations of\nJustice and of Right dawned upon the minds of men. In truth, it could\nnot have been otherwise. Before the moral instincts can be developed,\nreason and knowledge must have sufficiently prepared the way. When\nattention to the importance of the neglected science of _Dietetics_ had\nbeen in some degree aroused, the interest evoked was little connected\nwith the higher sentiments of humanity.\n\nOf all dietary reformers who have treated the subject from an\nexclusively sanitarian point of view, the most widely known and most\npopular name, perhaps, has been that of Luigi Cornaro; and it is as\na vehement protester against the follies, rather than against the\nbarbarism, of the prevailing dietetic habits that he claims a place\nin this work. He belonged to one of the leading families of Venice,\nthen at the height of its political power. Even in an age and in a\ncity noted for luxuriousness and grossness of living of the rich and\ndominant classes, he had in his youth distinguished himself by his\nlicentious habits in eating and drinking, as well as by other excesses.\nHis constitution had been so impaired, and he had brought upon himself\nso many disorders by this course of living, that existence became a\nburden to him. He informs us that from his thirty-fifth to his fortieth\nyear he passed his nights and days in continuous suffering. Every sort\nof known remedy was exhausted before his new medical adviser, superior\nto the prejudices of his profession and of the public, had the courage\nand the good sense to prescribe a total change of diet. At first\nCornaro found his enforced regimen almost intolerable, and, as he tells\nus, he occasionally relapsed.\n\nThese relapses brought back his old sufferings, and, to save his life,\nhe was driven at length to practise entire and uniform abstinence, the\nyolk of an egg often furnishing him the whole of his meal. In this way\nhe assures us that he came to relish dry bread more than formerly he\nhad enjoyed the most exquisite dishes of the ordinary table. At the\nend of the first year he found himself entirely freed from all his\nmultiform maladies. In his eighty-third year he wrote and published his\nfirst exhortation to a radical change of diet under the title of _A\nTreatise on a Sober Life_,[101] in which he eloquently narrates his own\ncase, and exhorts all who value health and immunity from physical or\nmental sufferings to follow his example. And his _exordium_, in which\nhe takes occasion to denounce the waste and gluttony of the dinners of\nthe rich, might be applied with little, or without any, modification of\nits language to the public and private tables of the present day:--\n\n \u201cIt is very certain,\u201d he begins, \u201cthat Custom, with time, becomes\n a second nature, forcing men to use that, whether good or bad, to\n which they have been habituated; and we see custom or habit get\n the better of reason in many things.... Though all are agreed that\n intemperance (_la crapula_) is the offspring of gluttony, and sober\n living of abstemiousness, the former nevertheless is considered a\n virtue and a mark of distinction, and the latter as dishonourable\n and the badge of avarice. Such mistaken notions are entirely owing\n to the power of Custom, established by our senses and irregular\n appetites. These have blinded and besotted men to such a degree\n that, leaving the paths of virtue, they have followed those of\n vice, which lead them imperceptibly to an old age burdened with\n strange and mortal diseases....\n\n \u201cO wretched and unhappy Italy! [thus he apostrophises his own\n country] can you not see that gluttony murders every year more of\n your inhabitants than you could lose by the most cruel plague or\n by fire and sword in many battles? Those truly shameful feasts (_i\n tuoi veramente disonesti banchetti_), now so much in fashion and\n so intolerably profuse that no tables are large enough to hold\n the infinite number of the dishes--those feasts, I say, are so\n many battles.[102] And how is it possible _to live_ amongst such a\n multitude of jarring foods and disorders? Put an end to this abuse,\n in heaven\u2019s name, for there is not--I am certain of it--a vice more\n abominable than this in the eyes of the divine Majesty. Drive away\n this plague, the worst you were ever afflicted with--this new [?]\n kind of death--as you have banished that disease which, though it\n formerly used to make such havoc, now does little or no mischief,\n owing to the laudable practice of attending more to the goodness\n of the provisions brought to our markets. Consider that there are\n means still left to banish intemperance, and such means, too, that\n every man may have recourse to them without any external assistance.\n\n \u201cNothing more is requisite for this purpose than to live up to the\n simplicity, dictated by nature, which teaches us to be content with\n little, to pursue the practice of holy abstemiousness and divine\n reason, and _accustom ourselves to eat no more than is absolutely\n necessary to support life_; considering that what exceeds this\n is disease and death, and done merely to give the palate a\n satisfaction which, though but momentary, brings on the body a long\n and lasting train of disagreeable diseases, and at length kills it\n along with the soul. How many friends of mine--men of the finest\n understanding and most amiable disposition--have I seen carried off\n by this plague in the flower of their youth! who, were they now\n living, would be an ornament to the public, and whose company I\n should enjoy with as much pleasure as I am now deprived of it with\n concern.\u201d\n\nHe tells us that he had undertaken his arduous task of proselytising\nwith the more anxiety and zeal that he had been encouraged to it by\nmany of his friends, men of \u201cthe finest intellect\u201d (_di bellissimo\nintelletto_), who lamented the premature deaths of parents and\nrelatives, and who observed so manifest a proof of the advantages of\nabstinence in the robust and vigorous frame of the dietetic missionary\nat the age of eighty. Cornaro was a thorough-going hygeist, and he\nfollowed a reformed _diet_ in the widest meaning of the term, attending\nto the various requirements of a healthy condition of mind and body:--\n\n \u201cI likewise,\u201d he says with much candour, \u201cdid all that lay in my\n power to avoid those evils which we do not find it so easy to\n remove--melancholy, hatred, and other violent passions which appear\n to have the greatest influence over our bodies. However, I have not\n been able to guard so well against either one or the other kind of\n these disorders [passions] as not to suffer myself now and then to\n be hurried away by many, not to say all, of them; but I reaped one\n great benefit from my weakness--that of knowing by experience that\n these passions have, in the main, no great influence over bodies\n governed by the two foregoing rules of eating and drinking, and\n therefore can do them but very little harm, so that it may, with\n great truth, be affirmed that whoever observes these two capital\n rules is liable to very little inconvenience from any other excess.\n This Galen, who was an eminent physician, observed before me.\n He affirms that so long as he followed these two rules relative\n to eating and drinking (_perch\u00e8 si guardava da quelli due della\n bocca_) he suffered but little from other disorders--so little that\n they never gave him above a day\u2019s uneasiness. That what he says is\n true I am a living witness; and so are many others who know me, and\n have seen how often I have been exposed to heats and colds and such\n other disagreeable changes of weather, and have likewise seen me\n (owing to various misfortunes which have more than once befallen\n me) greatly disturbed in mind. For not only can they say of me that\n such mental disturbance has affected me little, but they can aver\n of many others who did not lead a frugal and regular life that such\n failure proved very prejudicial to them, among whom was a brother\n of my own and others of my family who, trusting to the goodness of\n their constitution, did not follow my way of living.\u201d\n\nAt the age of seventy a serious accident befel him, which to the vast\nmajority of men so far advanced in life would probably have been fatal.\nHis coach was overturned, and he was dragged a considerable distance\nalong the road before the horses could be stopped. He was taken up\ninsensible, covered with severe wounds and bruises and with an arm and\nleg dislocated, and altogether he was in so dangerous a state that his\nphysicians gave him only three days to live. As a matter of course\nthey prescribed bleeding and purging as the only proper and effectual\nremedies:--\n\n \u201cBut I, on the contrary, who knew that the sober life I had led\n for many years past had so well united, harmonised, and dispersed\n my humours as not to leave it in their power to ferment to such\n a degree [as to induce the expected high fever], refused to be\n either bled or purged. I simply caused my leg and arm to be set,\n and suffered myself to be rubbed with some oils, which they said\n were proper on the occasion. Thus, without using any other kind\n of remedy, I recovered, as I thought I should, without feeling\n the least alteration in myself or any other bad effects from the\n accident, a thing which appeared no less than miraculous in the\n eyes of the physicians.\u201d\n\nIt is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that \u201cThe Faculty\u201d will endorse\nthe opinions of Cornaro, that any person by attending strictly to\nhis regimen \u201ccould never be sick again, as it removes every cause of\nillness; and so, for the future, would never want either physician or\nphysic\u201d:--\n\n \u201cNay, by attending duly to what I have said he would become his own\n physician, and, indeed, the best he could have, since, in fact, no\n man can be a perfect physician to anyone but himself. The reason of\n which is that any man may, by repeated trials, acquire a perfect\n knowledge of his own constitution and the most hidden qualities of\n his body, and what food best agrees with his stomach. Now, it is\n so far from being an easy matter to know these things perfectly\n of another that we cannot, without much trouble, discover them\n in ourselves, since a great deal of time and repeated trials are\n required for that purpose.\u201d\n\nCornaro\u2019s second publication appeared three years later than his\nfirst, under the title of _A Compendium of a Sober Life_ and the\nthird, _An Earnest Exhortation to a Sober and Regular Life_,[103] in\nthe ninety-third year of his age. In these little treatises he repeats\nand enforces in the most earnest manner his previous exhortations\nand warnings. He also takes the opportunity of exposing some of the\nplausible sophisms employed in defence of luxurious living:--\n\n \u201cSome allege that many, without leading such a life, have lived\n to a hundred, and that in constant health, although they ate a\n great deal and used indiscriminately every kind of viands and\n wine, and therefore flatter themselves that they shall be equally\n fortunate. But in this they are guilty of two mistakes. The first\n is, that it is not one in one hundred thousand that ever attains\n that happiness; the other mistake is, that such persons, in the\n end, most assuredly contract some illness which carries them off,\n nor can they ever be sure of ending their days otherwise, so that\n the safest way to obtain a long and healthy life is, at least after\n forty, to embrace abstinence. This is no difficult matter, since\n history informs us of very many who, in former times, lived with\n the greatest temperance, and I know that the present Age furnishes\n us with many such instances, reckoning myself one of the number.\n Now let us remember that we are human beings, and that man, being a\n rational animal, is himself master of his actions.\u201d\n\nAmongst others:--\n\n \u201cThere are old gluttons (_attempati_) who say that it is necessary\n they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural\n heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years,\n and that it is therefore necessary for them to eat heartily and of\n such things as please their palates, and that were they to lead a\n frugal life it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind\n mother, Nature, in order that old men may live to a still greater\n age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to subsist\n on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested\n by old and feeble stomachs. Nor should such persons be afraid of\n shortening their lives by eating too little, _since when they are\n indisposed they recover by eating the smallest quantities_. Now,\n if by reducing themselves to a very small quantity of food they\n recover from the jaws of death, how can they doubt but that, with\n an increase of diet, still consistent, however, with sobriety, they\n will be able to support nature when in perfect health?\n\n \u201cOthers say that it is better for a man to suffer every year three\n or four returns of his usual disorders, such as gout, sciatica, and\n the like than to be tormented the whole year by not indulging his\n appetite, and eating everything his palate likes best, since by a\n good regimen alone he is sure to get the better of such attacks. To\n this I answer that, our natural heat growing less and less as we\n advance in years, no regimen can retain virtue enough to conquer\n the malignity with which disorders of repletion are ever attended,\n so that he must die at last of these periodical disorders, because\n they abridge life as health prolongs it. Others pretend that it is\n much better to live ten years less than not indulge one\u2019s appetite.\n My reply is that longevity ought to be highly valued by men of\n genius and intellect; as to others it is of no great matter if it\n is not duly prized by them, since it is they who brutalise the\n world (_perch\u00e8 questi fanno brutto il mondo_), so that _their_\n death is rather of service to mankind.\u201d\n\nCornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the\ngenius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to\nexpress his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous\nchange effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered\nfrom the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which\nmoreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before,\nthe beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as\ndevelope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:--\n\n \u201cO thrice holy Sobriety, so useful to man by the services thou\n renderest him! Thou prolongest his days, by which means he may\n greatly improve his understanding. Thou moreover freest him from\n the dreadful thoughts of death. How greatly is thy faithful\n disciple indebted to thee, since by thy assistance he enjoys this\n beautiful expanse of the visible world, which is really beautiful\n to such as know how to view it with a philosophic eye, as thou\n hast enabled me to do!... O truly happy life which, besides these\n favours conferred on an old man, hast so improved and perfected\n him that he has now a better relish for his dry bread than he had\n formerly for the most exquisite dainties. And all this thou hast\n effected by acting rationally, knowing that bread is, above all\n things, man\u2019s proper food when seasoned by a good appetite.... It\n is for this reason that dry bread has so much relish for me; and\n I know from experience, and can with truth affirm, that I find\n such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against\n temperance were it not for my being convinced of the absolute\n necessity of eating of it, and that we cannot make use of a more\n natural food.\u201d\n\nThe fourth and last of his appearances in print was a \u201cLetter to\nBarbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia,\u201d written at the age of ninety-five.\nIt describes in a very lively manner the health, vigour, and use\nof all his faculties of mind and body, of which he had the perfect\nenjoyment. He was far advanced in life when his daughter, his only\nchild, was born, and he lived to see her an old woman. He informs us,\nat the age of ninety-one, with much eloquence and enthusiasm of the\nactive interest and pleasure he experienced in all that concerned the\nprosperity of his native city: of his plans for improving its port;\nfor draining, recovering, and fertilizing the extensive marshes and\nbarren sands in its neighbourhood. He died, having passed his one\nhundredth year, calmly and easily in his arm-chair at Padua in the\nyear 1566.[104] His treatises, forming a small volume, have been \u201cvery\nfrequently published in Italy, both in the vernacular Italian and in\nLatin. It has been translated into all the civilised languages of\nEurope, and was once a most popular book. There are several English\ntranslations of it, the best being one that bears the date 1779.\nCornaro\u2019s system,\u201d says the writer in the _English Cyclop\u00e6dia_ whom we\nare quoting, \u201chas had many followers.\u201d Recounting his many dignities\nand honours, and the distinguished part he took in the improvement of\nhis native city, by which he acquired a great reputation amongst his\nfellow-citizens, the Italian editor of his writings justly adds:--\n\n \u201cBut all these fine prerogatives of Luigi Cornaro would not have\n been sufficient to render his name famous in Europe if he had not\n left behind him the short treatises upon Temperance, composed at\n various times at the advanced ages of 85, 86, 91, and 95. The\n candour which breathes through their simplicity, the importance\n of the argument, and the fervour with which he urges upon all to\n study the means of prolonging our life, have obtained for them so\n great good fortune as to be praised to the skies by men of the\n best understanding. The many editions which have been published\n in Italy, and the translations which, together with an array of\n physiological and philological notes, have appeared out of Italy,\n at one time in Latin, at another in French, again in German, and\n again in English, prove their importance. These discourses, in\n fact, enjoyed all the reputation of a classical book, and, although\n occasionally somewhat unpolished, as \u2018_Poca favilla gran fiamma\n seconda_,\u2019 they have sufficed to inspire (_riscaldare_) a Lessio,\n a Bartolini, a Ramazzini, a Cheyne, a Hufeland, and so many others\n who have written works of greater weight upon the same subject.\u201d\n\nAddison (_Spectator_ 195) thus refers to him:--\n\n \u201cThe most remarkable instance of the efficacy of temperance\n towards the procuring long life is what we meet with in a little\n book published by Lewis Cornaro, the Venetian, which I the rather\n mention because it is of undoubted credit, as the late Venetian\n Ambassador, who was of the same family, attested more than once in\n conversation when he resided in England.... After having passed\n his one hundredth year he died without pain or agony, and like one\n who falls asleep. The treatise I mention has been taken notice of\n by several eminent authors, and is written with such a spirit\n of cheerfulness, religion, and good sense as are the natural\n concomitants of temperance and sobriety. The mixture of the old man\n in it is rather a recommendation than a discredit to it.\u201d\n\nIn fact he has exposed himself, it must be confessed, to the taunts of\nthe \u201cdevotees of the Table\u201d often cast at the _abstinents_, that they\nare too much given to parading their health and vigour, and certainly\nif any one can be justly obnoxious to them it is Luigi Cornaro.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nSIR THOMAS MORE. 1480-1535.\n\n\nDuring part of the period covered by the long life of Cornaro there\nis one distinguished man, all reference to whose opinions--intimately\nthough indirectly connected as they are with dietary reform--it would\nbe improper to omit--Sir Thomas More. His eloquent denunciation of the\ngrasping avarice and the ruinous policy which were rapidly converting\nthe best part of the country into grazing lands, as well as his\ncondemnation of the slaughter of innocent life, commonly euphemised by\nthe name of \u201csport,\u201d are as instructive and almost as necessary for the\npresent age as for the beginning of the sixteenth century.\n\nSon of Sir John More, a judge of the King\u2019s Bench, he was brought up in\nthe palace of the Cardinal Lord Chancellor Morton, an ecclesiastic who\nstands out in favourable contrast with the great majority of his order,\nand, indeed, of his contemporaries in general. In his twenty-first year\nhe was returned to the House of Commons, where he distinguished himself\nby opposing a grant of a subsidy to the king (Henry VII.). In 1516 he\npublished (in Latin) his world-famed _Utopia_--the most meritorious\nproduction in sociological literature since the days of Plutarch.\nIn 1523 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, and again\nhe displayed his courage and integrity in resisting an illegal and\noppressive subsidy bill, by which he was not in the way to advance his\ninterests with Henry VIII. and his principal minister, Wolsey. Seven\nyears later, however, upon the disgrace of the latter personage, Sir\nThomas More succeeded to the vacant Chancellorship, in which office he\nmaintained his reputation for integrity and laborious diligence. When\nthe amorous and despotic king had determined upon the momentous divorce\nfrom Catherine, he resigned the Seals rather than sanction that\nequivocal proceeding; and soon afterwards he was sent to the Tower for\nrefusing the Oath of Supremacy. After the interval of a year he was\nbrought to trial before the King\u2019s Bench, and sentenced to the block\n(1535). In private life and in his domestic relations he exhibits a\npleasing contrast to the ordinary harsh severity of his contemporaries.\nIn learning and ability he occupies a foremost place in the annals of\nthe period.\n\nUnfortunately for his reputation with after ages, as Lord Chancellor\nhe seems to have forgotten the maxims of toleration (political and\ntheological) of his earlier career, so well set forth in his _Utopia_;\nand he supplies a notable instance, not too rare, of retrogression with\nadvancing years and dignities, and of \u201ca head grown grey in vain.\u201d In\nfact, he belonged, ecclesiastically, to the school of conservative\nsceptics, of whom his intimate friend Erasmus was the most conspicuous\nrepresentative, rather than to the party of practical reform. Yet, in\nspite of so lamentable a failure in practical philosophy, More may\nclaim a high degree of merit both for his courage and for his sagacity\nin propounding views far in advance of his time.\n\nIn the _Utopia_ his ideas in regard to labour and to crime exhibit\nhim, indeed, as in advance of the received dogmas even of the present\nday. As to the former he held that the labourer, as the actual basis\nand support of the whole social system, was justly entitled to some\nconsideration, and to a more rational existence than usually allowed\nhim by the policy of the ruling classes; and, in limiting the daily\nperiod of labour to nine hours, he anticipated by 350 years the tardy\nlegislation on that important matter. In exposing the equal absurdity\nand iniquity of the criminal code he preached the despised doctrine\nof _prevention_ rather than punishment, and denounced the monstrous\ninequality of penalties by which thieving was placed in the same\ncategory with murder and crimes of violence:--\n\n \u201cFor great and horrible punishments be awarded to thieves, whereas\n much rather provision should have been made that there were some\n means whereby they might get their living, so that no man should\n be driven to this extreme necessity--first to steal and then to\n die.... By suffering your youth to be wantonly and viciously\n brought up and to be infected, even from their tender age, by\n little and little with vice--then, in God\u2019s name, to be punished\n when they commit the same faults after being come to man\u2019s state,\n which from their youth they were ever like to do--in this point,\n I pray you, _what other thing do you than make thieves and then\n punish them_.\u201d[105]\n\nWhat we are immediately concerned with here is his feeling in regard to\nslaughter. The Utopians condemn--\n\n \u201cHunters also and hawkers (falconers), for what delight can there\n be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling\n of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog\n follows a hare than when a dog follows a dog? For one thing is done\n by both--that is to say, running, if you have pleasure in that. But\n if the hope of slaughter and the expectation of tearing the victim\n in pieces pleases you, you should rather be moved with pity to see\n an innocent hare murdered by a dog--the weak by the strong, the\n fearful by the fierce, the innocent by the cruel and pitiless.[106]\n Therefore this exercise of hunting, as a thing unworthy to be used\n of free men, the Utopians have rejected to their butchers, to the\n which craft (as we said before) they appoint their bondsmen. For\n they count hunting the lowest, the vilest, and most abject part of\n butchery; and the other parts of it more profitable and more honest\n as bringing much more commodity, in that they (the butchers) kill\n their victims from necessity, whereas the hunter seeks nothing\n but pleasure of the seely [simple, innocent] and woful animal\u2019s\n slaughter and murder. The which pleasure in beholding death, they\n say, doth rise in wild beasts, either of a cruel affection of mind\n or else by being changed, in continuance of time, into cruelty by\n long use of so cruel a pleasure. These, therefore, and all such\n like, which be innumerable, though the common sort of people do\n take them for pleasures, yet they, seeing that there is no natural\n pleasantness in them, plainly determine them to have no affinity\n with true and right feeling.\u201d\n\nIn telling us that his model people \u201cpermit not their free citizens to\naccustom themselves to the killing of \u2018beasts\u2019 through the use whereof\nthey think clemency, gentlest affection of our nature, by little and\nlittle to decay and perish,\u201d[107] More for ever condemns the immorality\nof the Slaughter-House, whether he intended to do so _in toto_ or no.\nIn relegating the business of slaughter to their bondsmen (criminals\nwho had been degraded from the rights of citizenship), the Utopians,\nwe may observe, exhibit less of justice than of refinement. To devolve\nthe trade of slaughter upon a pariah-class is not the least immoral of\nthe necessary concomitants of the shambles. That the author of _Utopia_\nshould feel an instinctive aversion from the coarseness and cruelty of\nthe shambles is not surprising; that he should have failed to banish\nit entirely from his ideal commonwealth is less to be wondered at\nthan to be lamented. That he had at least a _latent_ consciousness of\nthe indefensibility of slaughter for food appears sufficiently clear\nfrom his remark upon the Utopian religion that \u201cthey kill no living\nanimal in sacrifice, nor do they think that God has delight in blood\nand slaughter, _Who has given life to animals to the intent they should\nlive_.\u201d\n\nWiser than ourselves, the ideal people do not waste their corn in the\nmanufacture of alcoholic drinks:--\n\n \u201cThey sow corn only for bread. For their drink is either wine\n made of grapes, or else of apples or pears, or else it is clear\n water--and many times mead made of honey or liquorice sodden in\n water, for of that they have great store.\u201d\n\nThe selfish policy of converting arable into grazing land is\nemphatically denounced by More:--\n\n \u201cThey (the oxen and sheep) consume, destroy, and devour whole\n fields, houses, and cities. For look in what parts of the realm\n doth grow the finest and therefore the dearest wool. There noblemen\n and gentlemen, yea, and certain abbots, holy men no doubt, not\n contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits that\n were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their\n lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure\n nothing profiting, yea, much annoying, the public weal, leave no\n land for tillage--they enclose all into pasture, they throw down\n houses, they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing, but only\n the church to be made a sheep house; and, as though you lost no\n small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands, and parks,\n those good holy men turn dwelling-places and all glebe land into\n wilderness and desolation.... For one shepherd or herdsman is\n enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the occupying whereof\n about husbandry many hands would be requisite. And this is also the\n cause why victuals be now in many places dearer; yea, besides this,\n the price of wool is so risen that poor folks, which were wont to\n work it and make cloth thereof, be now able to buy none at all,\n and by this means very many be forced to forsake work and to give\n themselves to idleness. For after that so much land was enclosed\n for pasture, an infinite multitude of sheep died of the rot, such\n vengeance God took of their inordinate and insatiable covetousness,\n sending among the sheep that pestiferous murrain which much more\n justly should have fallen on the sheep-masters\u2019 own heads; and\n though the number of sheep increase never so fast, yet the price\n falleth not one mite, because there be so few sellers,\u201d &c.\n\nThese sagacious and just reflections upon the evil social consequences\nof carnivorousness may be fitly commended to the earnest attention\nof our public writers and speakers of to-day. The periodical cattle\nplagues and foot-and-mouth diseases, which, in theological language,\nare vaguely assigned to national sins, might be more ingenuously and\ntruthfully attributed to the one sufficient cause--to the general\nindulgence of selfish instincts, which closes the ear to all the\npromptings at once of humanity and of reason, and is, in truth, a\nnational sin of the most serious character.[108]\n\nThe \u201cwisdom of our ancestors,\u201d which has been so often invoked, both\nbefore and since the days of More, and which Bentham has so mercilessly\nexposed, apparently did not subdue the reason of the author of\n_Utopia_; yet, with no little amount of applause it has been made to\nserve as a very conclusive argument against dietetic reformation, as\nagainst many other changes:--\n\n \u201c\u2018These things,\u2019 say they, \u2018pleased our forefathers and\n ancestors--would to God we could be so wise as they were!\u2019 And, as\n though they had wittily concluded the matter, and with this answer\n stopped every man\u2019s mouth, they sit down again as who should say,\n \u2018It were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be\n found wiser than his forefathers were.\u2019 And yet be we content\n to suffer the best and wittiest [wisest] of their decrees to be\n unexecuted; but if in anything a better order might have been taken\n than by them was, there we take fast hold, finding therein many\n virtues.\u201d[109]\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\nMONTAIGNE. 1533-1592.\n\n\nThe modern Plutarch and the first of essayists deserves his place\nin this work, if not so much for express and explicit denunciation,\n_totidem verbis_, of the barbarism of the Slaughter-House, at least\nfor a sort of argument which logically and necessarily arrives at\nthe same conclusion. In truth, if he had not \u201cseen and approved the\nbetter way\u201d (even though, with too many others, he may not have had the\ncourage of his convictions), he would be no true disciple of the great\nhumanitarian. It is necessary to remember that the \u201cperfect day\u201d was\nnot yet come; that a few rays only here and there enlightened the thick\ndarkness of barbarism; that, in fine, not even yet, with the light of\ntruth shining full upon us, have reason and conscience triumphed, as\nregards the mass of the community, either in this country or elsewhere.\n\nMichel de Montaigne descended from an old and influential house in\nP\u00e9rigord (modern P\u00e9rigeaux, in the department of the Dordogne). His\nyouth was carefully trained, and his early inclination to learning\nfostered under his father\u2019s diligent superintendence. He became a\nmember of the provincial parliament, and, by the universal suffrage of\nhis fellow-citizens, was elected chief magistrate of Bordeaux, from the\nofficial routine of whose duties he soon retired to the more congenial\natmosphere of study and philosophic reflection. In his ch\u00e2teau, at\nMontaigne, his studious tranquillity was violently interrupted by the\nsavage contests then raging between the opposing factions of Catholics\nand Huguenots, from both of whom he received ill-treatment and loss.\nTo add to his troubles, the plague, which appeared in Guienne in 1586,\nbroke up his household and compelled him, with his family, to abandon\nhis home. Together they wandered through the country, exposed to the\nvarious dangers of a civil war; and he afterwards for some time settled\nin Paris. He had also travelled in Italy. Montaigne returned to his\nhome when the disturbances and atrocities had somewhat subsided, and\nthere he died with the philosophic calmness with which he had lived.\n\nThe _Essais_--that book of \u201cgood faith,\u201d \u201cwithout study and artifice,\u201d\nas its author justly calls it--appeared in the year 1580. It is a book\nunique in modern literature, and the only other production to which\nit may be compared is the _Moralia_ of Plutarch. \u201cIt is not a book we\nare reading, but a conversation to which we are listening.\u201d \u201cIt is,\u201d\nas another French critic observes, \u201cless a book than a journal divided\ninto chapters, which follow one another without connexion, which bear\neach a title without much regard to the fulfilment of their promise.\u201d\n\nMontaigne treats of almost every phase of human thought and action; and\nupon every subject he has something original and worth saying. Living\nin a savagely sectarian and persecuting age, he kept himself aloof and\nindependent of either of the two contending theological sections, and\ncontents himself with the _r\u00f4le_ of a sceptical spectator. It must be\nadmitted that he is not always satisfactory in this character, since\nhe sometimes seems to give forth an \u201cuncertain sound.\u201d Considering\nthe age, however, his assertion of the proper authority of Reason\ndeserves our respectful admiration, and is in pleasing contrast with\nthe attitude of most of his contemporaries. A few, like his friend De\nThou, or the Italian Giordano Bruno--the latter of whom, indeed, had\nmore of the martyr-spirit than Montaigne--contributed to keep alight\nthe torch of Truth and Reason. But we have only to recollect that it\nwas the age _par excellence_ of Diabolism in Catholic and Protestant\ntheology alike, and of all the horrible superstitions and frightful\ntortures, both bodily and mental, of which the universal belief in the\nDevil\u2019s actual reign on earth was the fruitful cause. About the very\ntime of the appearance of the _Essais_, one of the most learned men of\nthe period, the lawyer Jean Bodin published a work which he called the\n_D\u00e9monomanie des Sorciers_ (the \u201cDiabolic Inspiration of Witches\u201d), in\nwhich he protested his unwavering faith in the most monstrous beliefs\nof the creed, and vehemently called upon the judges, ecclesiastical and\ncivil, to punish the reputed criminals (accused of an _impossible_\ncrime) with the severest tortures. We have only to recognise this fact\nalone (the most astounding of all the astounding facts and phases in\nthe history of Superstition) to do full justice to the reason and\ncourage of this small band of protesters.\n\nAs for the influence of Montaigne on the modes of thought of after\ntimes, and especially of his countrymen, it can scarcely be over\nestimated. He is the literary progenitor of the most famous French\nwriters of the humanitarian eighteenth century. The most eminent of\nthem, Voltaire, perhaps, most resembles him, but naturally the style of\nthe eighteenth century philosopher is more concise and incisive, and\nhis opinions are more pronounced. \u201cBoth,\u201d says a French critic, \u201claugh\nat the human species; but the laughter of Voltaire is more bitter; his\nrailleries are more terrible. Both, nevertheless, breathe the love\nof humanity. That of Voltaire is more ardent, more courageous, more\nunwearied. The hatred of both of them for charlatanism and hypocrisy\nis well known. Their morality has for its first principle benevolence\ntowards others, without distinction of country, of manners, or of\nreligious beliefs; warning us not to think that we alone hold the\ndeposit of justice and of truth. It transports our soul, by contempt of\nmortal things and by enthusiasm for great truths.\u201d It is to be lamented\nthat the countrymen of Montaigne and of Voltaire have not profited\nto a larger extent by their humanitarian teaching and tendencies. In\nreference to the almost incredible atrocities of war, and especially of\ncivil war, Montaigne protests:--\n\n \u201cScarcely could I persuade myself, before I had seen it with\n my own eyes, that there could be souls so ferocious as for the\n simple pleasure of murder to be ready to perpetrate it; to hack\n and dismember the limbs of others; to ransack their invention to\n discover unheard-of tortures and new kinds of deaths--and that\n without the incentive of enmity or of profit--with the mere view of\n enjoying the pleasant spectacle of pitiable actions and movements,\n of groans and lamentations, of a man dying in agony. For this is\n the climax to which cruelty can attain--\u2018for a man without anger,\n without fear, to kill another merely to witness his sufferings.\u2019\n\n \u201cFor my part I have never been able to see, without displeasure, an\n innocent and defenceless animal, from whom we receive no offence\n or harm, pursued and slaughtered. And when a deer, as commonly\n happens, finding herself without breath and strength, without other\n resource, throws herself down and surrenders, as it were, to her\n pursuers, begging for mercy by her tears,\n\n \u2018Questuque cruentus\n Atque imploranti similis.\u2019[110]\n\n This has always appeared to me a very displeasing spectacle. I\n seldom, or never, take an animal alive whom I do not restore to the\n fields. Pythagoras was in the habit of buying their victims from\n the fowlers and fishermen for the same purpose.\n\n \u2018Prim\u00e2que a c\u00e6de ferarum\n Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum.\u2019[111]\n\n \u201cDispositions sanguinary in regard to other animals testify a\n natural inclination to cruelty towards their own kind. After they\n had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacle of the murders\n [_meurtres_] of other animals, they proceeded to those of men and\n gladiators. Nature has, I fear, herself attached some instinct\n of inhumanity to man\u2019s disposition. No one derives any amusement\n from seeing other animals enjoy themselves and caressing one\n another; and no one fails to take pleasure in seeing them torn in\n pieces and dismembered. That I may not [he is cautious enough to\n add] be ridiculed for this sympathy which I have for them, even\n theology enjoins some respect for them,[112] and considering that\n one and the same Master has lodged us in this palatial world for\n his service, and that they are, as we, members of His family, it\n is right that it should enjoin some respect and affection towards\n them.\u201d\n\nQuoting instances of the extreme respect in which some of the\nnon-human races were held by people in Antiquity,[113] and Plutarch\u2019s\ninterpretation of the meaning of the divine honours sometimes paid to\nthem--that they adored certain qualities in them as types of divine\nfaculties--Montaigne declares for himself that:--\n\n \u201cWhen I meet, amongst the more moderate opinions, arguments which\n go to prove our close resemblance to other animals, and how much\n they share in our greatest privileges, and with how much of\n probability they are compared to us, of a truth I abate much from\n our common presumption, and willingly abdicate that _imaginary_\n royalty which they assign us over other beings.\u201d\n\nWiser than the majority in later times, Montaigne well rebukes the\narrogant presumption of the human animal who affects to hold all other\nlife to be brought into being for his sole use and pleasure:--\n\n \u201cLet him shew me, by the most skilful argument, upon what\n foundations he has built these excessive prerogatives which he\n supposes himself to have over other existences. Who has persuaded\n him that that admirable impulse of the celestial vault, the eternal\n brightness of those Lights rolling so majestically over our heads,\n the tremendous motions of that infinite sea of Globes, were\n established and have continued so many ages for his advantage and\n for his service. Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous\n as that this pitiful [_ch\u00e9tive_], miserable creature, who is not\n even master of himself, exposed to injuries of every kind, should\n call itself master and lord of the universe, of which, so far from\n being lord of it, he knows but the smallest part?... Who has given\n him this sealed charter? Let him shew us the \u2018letters patent\u2019 of\n this grand commission. Have they been issued [_octroy\u00e9es_] in\n favour of the wise only? They affect but the few in that case. The\n fools and the wicked--are they worthy of so extraordinary a favour,\n and being the worst part of the world [_le pire pi\u00e8ce du monde_],\n do they deserve to be preferred to all the rest? Shall we believe\n all this?\n\n \u201cPresumption is our natural and original disease. The most\n calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most\n arrogant.[114] It is through the vanity of this same imagination\n that he equals himself to a god, that he attributes to himself\n divine conditions, that he picks himself out and separates himself\n from the crowd of other creatures, curtails the just shares of\n other animals his brethren [_confr\u00e8res_] and companions, and\n assigns to them such portions of faculties and forces as seems to\n him good. How does he know, by the effort of his intelligence, the\n interior and secret movements and impulses of other animals? By\n what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity\n [_la b\u00e9tise_] which he attributes to them?\u201d\n\nMontaigne quotes the example of his master, the just and benevolent\nPlutarch, who made it a matter of justice and conscience not to sell\nor send to the slaughter-house (according to the common selfish\ningratitude) a Cow who had served him faithfully and profitably for so\nmany years. With Plutarch and Porphyry he never wearies of denouncing\nthe unreasoning opinions, or rather prejudices, prevalent amongst men\nas to the mental qualities of many of the non-human races, and, as we\nhave already seen, insists that the difference between them and us is\nof _degree_ and not of _kind_:--\n\n \u201cPlato, in his picture of the \u2018Golden Age,\u2019 reckons amongst the\n chief advantages of the men of that time the communication they had\n with other animals, by investigating and instructing themselves in\n whose nature they learned their true qualities and the differences\n between them, by which they acquired a very perfect knowledge and\n intelligence, and thus made their lives more happy than we can make\n ours. Is a better test needed by which to judge of human folly in\n regard to other species?\n\n \u201cI have said all this in order to bring us back and reunite\n ourselves to the crowd [_presse_]. We are [in the accidents of\n mortality] neither above nor below the rest. \u2018All who are under\n the sky,\u2019 says the Jewish sage, \u2018experience a like law and fate.\u2019\n There is some difference, _there are orders and degrees_, but\n they are under the aspect of one and the same nature. Man must be\n constrained and ranged within the barriers of this police [_Il\n faut contraindre l\u2019homme, et le ranger dans les barri\u00e8res de cette\n police_]. The wretch has no right to encroach [_d\u2019enjamber_]\n beyond these; he is fettered, entangled, he is subjected to like\n necessities with other creatures of his order, and in a very\n mean condition without any true and essential prerogative and\n pre-excellence. That which he confers upon himself by his own\n opinion and fancy has neither sense nor substance; and if it be\n conceded to him that he alone of all animals has that freedom of\n imagination and that irregularity of thought representing to him\n what he is, what he is not, and what he wants, the false and the\n true, it is an advantage which has been very dearly sold to him,\n and of which he has very little to boast, for from that springs the\n principal source of the evils which oppress him--crime, disease,\n irresolution, trouble, despair.\u201d\n\nRejecting the still received prejudice which will not allow our humble\nfellow-beings the privilege of reason, but invents an imaginary faculty\ncalled \u201cinstinct,\u201d he repeats that--\n\n \u201cThere is no ground for supposing that other beings do by\n _natural and necessary inclination_ the same things that we do\n by choice, and while we are bound to infer from like effects\n like faculties--nay, from greater effects, greater faculties--we\n are forced to confess, consequently, that that same reason, that\n same method which we employ in action are also employed by the\n lower animals, or else that they have some still better reason\n or method. Why do we fancy in them that natural necessity or\n impulse [_contrainte_]--_we_ who have no experience of that sort\n ourselves.[115]\n\n \u201cAs for use in eating, it is with us as with them, natural\n and without instruction. Who doubts that a child, arrived at\n the necessary strength for feeding itself, could find its own\n nourishment? The earth produces and offers to him enough for his\n needs without artificial labour, and if not for all seasons,\n neither does she for the other races--witness the provisions\n which we observe the ants and others collecting for the sterile\n seasons of the year. Those nations whom we have lately discovered\n [the peoples of Hindustan and of parts of America], so abundantly\n furnished with natural meat and drink without care and without\n labour, have just instructed us that bread is not our sole food,\n and that without toil our mother Nature has furnished us with every\n plant we need, to shew us, as it seems, how superior she is to all\n our _artificiality_; while the extravagance of our appetite outruns\n all the inventions by which we seek to satisfy it.\u201d[116]\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\nGASSENDI. 1592-1655.\n\n\nGassendi, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the\npurpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in\nthe seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the\nfirst directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch\nand Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and\nMontaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate\nbarbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction\nof the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to\nenlighten the world upon this fundamental truth.\n\nHe was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest\nyears he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was\nprofessor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated \u201cEssays against the\nAristotleians\u201d (_Exercitationes Paradoxic\u00e6 Adversus Aristoteleos_)\nwas his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years\nearlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides\nwith the _Novum Organon_ of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost\ncontemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon\nthe old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of\nAristotle, during some three or four centuries of medi\u00e6val darkness\nhad kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at\nonce raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the\nold orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of\nfalsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five\nof the Books of the _Exercitationes_, by the advice of his friends,\nwho dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In\nthe Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not\nthe courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity\nof the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while\nthe Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal\nrecommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and\nVirtue are synonymous terms.\n\nIn the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted\nhimself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy,\nas well as to literary studies. \u201cAs the result of his anatomical\nresearches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to\nlive upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human\nconstitution, is baneful and unwholesome.\u201d[117] He was the first to\nobserve the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun\u2019s disc (1631),\npreviously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the\nopponent of Descartes in his _Disquisitiones Anticartesian\u00e6_ (1643)--a\nwork justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent\nGerman critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic\nworld was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient\nto observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in\nother respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that\nthe non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and\nperception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation\nfor common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part\nof the world. Yet this \u201canimated machine\u201d theory, incredible as it\nmay appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist\nof the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and\nexperience--a theory about which it needs only to be said that it\ndeserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous\nconceptions of medi\u00e6valism. As though, to quote Voltaire\u2019s admirable\ncriticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the\nend _that they might not feel and reason_. It was not thus, as the same\nwriter reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118]\n\nIn 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the\nUniversity of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners\nof all classes. His _Life and Morals of Epikurus_ (_De Vit\u00e2 et Moribus\nEpicuri_), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a\ntriumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations\nconnected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous\nof the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages.\nNeither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted\nby his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity\nof Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the\nluxurious or literary trifling of Paris:--\n\n \u201cHe had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home,\n and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where\n he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part\n of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of\n Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own\n doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several\n astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which\n those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He\n is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism,\n the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an\n eminent degree. Even in his _Syntagma Philosophicum_ he treats\n every subject, at first historically from all points of view....\n Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined\n to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the\n fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He\n long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On\n returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen\n fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.\u201d\n\nLange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to\nvindicate his position as a physical philosopher:--\n\n \u201cThe reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually\n ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi.\n Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his\n Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes\n which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a\n result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of\n hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences\n resulting from them became completely interfused.\u201d[119]\n\nAlthough of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often\nhappens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle,\nwriting at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as\n\u201cthe greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar\namongst philosophers;\u201d and Newton conceived the same high esteem for\nthe great vindicator of Epikurus.[120]\n\nIt is in his celebrated letter to his friend Van Helmont, that Gassendi\ndeals with the irrational assertions of certain physiologists,\napparently more devoted to the defence of the orthodox diet than to the\ndiscovery of unwelcome truth, as to the character of the human teeth:--\n\n \u201cI was contending,\u201d he writes to his medical friend, \u201cthat from\n the conformation of our teeth we do not appear to be adapted by\n Nature to the use of a flesh diet, since all animals (I spoke of\n terrestrials) which Nature has formed to feed on flesh have their\n teeth long, conical, sharp, uneven, and with intervals between\n them--of which kind are lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, cats, and\n others. But those who are made to subsist only on herbs and fruits\n have their teeth short, broad, blunt, close to one another, and\n distributed in even rows. Of this sort are horses, cows, deer,\n sheep, goats, and some others. And further--that men have received\n from Nature teeth which are unlike those of the first class, and\n resemble those of the second. It is therefore probable, since men\n are land animals, that Nature intended them to follow, in the\n selection of their food, not the carnivorous tribes, but those\n races of animals which are contented with the simple productions\n of the earth.... Wherefore, I here repeat that from the prim\u00e6val\n institution of our nature, the teeth were destined to the\n mastication, not of flesh, but of fruits.\n\n As for flesh, true, indeed, it is that man is sustained on flesh.\n But _how many things_, let me ask, _does man do every day which are\n contrary to, or beside, his nature_? So great, and so general, is\n the perversion of his mode of life, which has, as it were, eaten\n into his flesh by a sort of deadly contagion (_contagione veluti\n qu\u00e2dam jam inusta est_), that he appears to have put on another\n disposition. Hence, the whole care and concern of philosophy and\n moral instruction ought to consist in leading men back to the paths\n of Nature.\u201d\n\nHelmont, it seems, had rested his principal argument for flesh-eating,\nnot altogether in accordance with _Genesis_, and certainly not in\naccordance with Science, on the presumption that man was formed\nexpressly for carnivorousness. To this Gassendi replied that, without\nignoring theological argument, he still maintained comparative Anatomy\nto be a satisfactory and sufficient guide. He then applies himself to\nrefute the physiological prejudice of Helmont about the teeth, &c.\n(as already quoted), and begins by warning his friend that he is not\nto wonder if the self-love of men is constantly viewed by him with\nsuspicion.[121]\n\n \u201cFor, in fact, we all, with tacit consent, conspire to extol our\n own nature, and we do this commonly with so much arrogance that, if\n people were to divest themselves of this traditional and inveterate\n prejudice, and seriously reflect upon it, their faces must be\n immediately suffused with burning shame.\u201d\n\nHe repeats Plutarch\u2019s unanswerable challenge:--\n\n \u201cMan lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this\n food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as\n furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from\n seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and\n lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. Well, but\n if it were the intention of Nature that man should eat _cooked_\n flesh, she would surely have provided him with ready-made cooks;\n or, rather, she would have herself cooked it as she is wont to\n do fruits, which are best and sweetest without the intervention\n of fire. Nature, surely, does not fail in providing necessary\n provision for her children, according to the common boast. But what\n is more necessary than to make food pleasurable? And, as she does\n in the case of sexual love by which she procures the preservation\n of the _species_, so would she procure the preservation of the\n _genus_.\n\n \u201cNor let anyone say that Nature in this is corrected, since, to\n pass over other things, that is tantamount to convicting her of\n a blunder. Consider how much more benevolent she would be proved\n to be, in that case, towards the savage beasts than towards us.\n Again, since our teeth are not sufficient for eating flesh, even\n when prepared by fire, the invention of knives seems to me to be\n a strong proof. Because, in fact, we have no teeth given us for\n rending flesh, and we are therefore forced to have recourse to\n those _non-natural_ organs, in order to accomplish our purpose. As\n if, forsooth, Nature would have left us destitute in so essential\n things! I divine at once your ready reply: \u2018think that Nature\n has given man reason to supply defects of this kind.\u2019 But this,\n I affirm, is always to accuse Nature, _in order to_ defend our\n unnatural luxury. So it is about dress--so it is about other things.\n\n \u201cWhat is clearer [he sums up] than that man is not furnished for\n hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem\n to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for\n other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other\n animals. If you answer that \u2018that may be said to be an industry\n ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,\u2019 then,\n behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make\n weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of\n Nature? Can a use so noxious be called _natural_? Faculty is given\n by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of\n it.\u201d\n\nHe, finally, refutes the popular objection about the strength-giving\nproperties of flesh-meat, and instances Horses, Bulls, and others.[122]\n\nIn his _Ethics_ (affixed to his Books on _Physics_) he quotes and\nendorses the opinions of Epikurus on the slaughter of innocent life:--\n\n \u201cThere is no pretence,\u201d he asserts, \u201cfor saying that any right has\n been granted us by law to kill any of those animals which are not\n destructive or pernicious to the human race, for there is no reason\n why the innocent species should be allowed to increase to so great\n a number as to be inconvenient to us. They may be restrained within\n that number which would be harmless, and useful to ourselves.\u201d[123]\n\nWith that Great Master he thus rebukes the fashionable \u201chospitality\u201d:--\n\n \u201cI, for my part, to speak modestly of myself, lived contented\n with the plants of my little garden, and have pleasure in that\n diet, and I wish inscribed on my doors: \u2018Guest, here you shall\n have good cheer! here the _summum bonum_ is Pleasure. The guardian\n of this house, _humanely_ hospitable, is ready to entertain you\n with pearl-barley (_polenta_), and will furnish you abundantly\n with water. These little gardens do not increase hunger, but\n extinguish it; nor do they make thirst greater by the very\n potations themselves, but satisfy it by a natural and gratuitous\n remedy.\u2019\u201d[124]\n\n\nThere is one name which, in reputation, occupies a pre-eminent\nposition in philosophy, belonging to this period--Francis Bacon. But,\nfor ourselves, for whom true ethical and humanitarian principles have\na much deeper significance than mere mental force undirected to the\nhighest aims of truth and of justice, the name of the modern assertor\nof the truths of Vegetarianism will challenge greater reverence than\neven that of the author of the _New Instrument_.\n\nThat Bacon should exhibit himself in the character of an advocate\nof the rights of the lower races is hardly to be expected from the\nselfish and unscrupulous promoter of his own private interests at the\nexpense at once of common gratitude and common feeling. His remarks on\nVivisection (where he questions whether experiments on human beings\nare defensible, and suggests the limitation of scientific torture to\nthe non-human races)[125] are, in fact, sufficient evidence of his\nindifferentism to so unselfish an object as the advocacy of the claims\nof our defenceless dependants. When we consider his unusual sagacity\nin exposing the absurd quasi-scientific methods of his predecessors,\nand of the prevailing (so-called) philosophical system and the many\nprofound remarks to be found in his writings, it must be added that we\nare reluctantly compelled to believe that the opinions elsewhere which\nhe publishes inconsistent with those principles were inspired by that\nnotorious servility and courtiership by which he flattered the absurd\nand pedantic dogmatism of one of the most contemptible of kings.\n\nOne passage there is, however, in his writings which seems to give us\nhope that this eminent compromiser was not altogether insensible to\nhigher and better feeling:--\n\n \u201cNature has endowed man with a noble and excellent principle of\n compassion, which extends [? ought to extend] itself also to the\n dumb animals--whence this compassion has some resemblance to\n that of a prince towards his subjects. And it is certain that the\n noblest souls are the most extensively compassionate, for narrow\n and degenerate minds think that compassion belongs not to them; but\n a great soul, the noblest part of creation, is ever compassionate.\n Thus, under the old laws, there were numerous precepts (not merely\n ceremonial) enjoining mercy--for example, the not eating of\n flesh with the blood, &c. So, also, the sects of the Essenes and\n Pythagoreans totally abstained from flesh, as they do also to this\n day, with an inviolate religion, in some parts of the empire of the\n Mogul [Hindustan]. Nay, the Turks, though a savage nation, both in\n their descent and discipline, give alms to the dumb animals, and\n suffer them not to be tortured.\u201d[126]\n\nIf Bacon had lived longer (he died in 1626) we may entertain the hope\nthat the powerful arguments of his illustrious contemporary might have\ninspired him with more sound and satisfactory ideas on Dietetics than\nthe somewhat crude ones which he published in his _De Augmentis_ (iv.,\n2). As for Medicine, he had, reasonably enough, not conceived a high\nopinion of the methods of its ordinary professors. He says:--\n\n \u201cMedicine has been more professed than laboured, and more laboured\n than advanced; rather circular than progressive; for I find great\n repetition, and but little new matter in the writers of Physic.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\nRAY. 1627-1705.\n\n\nJohn Ray, the founder of Botanical and, only in little less degree, of\nZoological Science, was an _alumnus_ of the University of Cambridge. He\nwas elected Fellow of Trinity College in 1649, and Lecturer in Greek\nin the following year. While at Cambridge he formed a collection of\nplants growing in the neighbourhood, a catalogue of which he published\nin 1660. Three years later, with his friend Francis Willoughby, he\ntravelled over a large part of Europe, as during his academical life\nhe had traversed the greater part of these islands, in pursuit of\nbotanical and zoological science--an account of which tour he published\nin 1673.\n\nHe had been one of the first Fellows of the recently founded Royal\nSociety. In 1682 appeared his _New Method of Plants_, which formed a\nnew era in botany, or rather, which was the first attempt at making\nit a real science. It is the basis of the subsequent classification\nof Jussieu, which is still received; and its author was the first to\npropose the division of plants into _monocotyledons_ and _dicotyledons_.\n\nHis principal work is the _Historia Plantarum_, 1686-1704. \u201cIn it\nhe collected and arranged all the species of plants which had been\ndescribed by botanists. He enumerated 18,625 species. Haller, Sprengel,\nAdamson, and others speak of this work as being the produce of immense\nlabour, and as containing much acute criticism.\u201d\n\nWhat, however, is more interesting to us is the fact that \u201cin zoology\nRay ranks almost as high as in botany, and his works on this subject\nare even more important, as they still, in great measure, preserve\ntheir utility. Cuvier says that \u2018they may be considered as the\nfoundation of modern zoology, for naturalists are obliged to consult\nthem every instant for the purpose of clearing up the difficulties\nwhich they meet with in the works of Linn\u00e6us and his copyists.\u2019\u201d\n\nBetween 1676-1686 appeared _Ornithologia_ and _Historia Piscium_,\nthe materials of which had been left him by his friend Willoughby.\nTo his extraordinary erudition and industry the world was indebted\nfor _A Methodical Synopsis of Quadrupeds_ as well as a very valuable\nhistory of Insects. Conspicuous amongst his merits are his accuracy\nof observation and his philosophical method of classification. With\nothers, Buffon is largely indebted to the most meritorious of the\npioneers of zoological knowledge.\n\nRay has delivered his profession of faith in the superiority and\nexcellence of the non-flesh diet in the following eloquent passage\nwhich has been quoted with approval by his friend John Evelyn:--\n\n \u201cThe use of plants is all our life long of that universal\n importance and concern that we can neither live nor subsist with\n any decency and convenience, or be said, indeed, to live at\n all without them. Whatsoever food is necessary to sustain us,\n whatsoever contributes to delight and refresh us, is supplied and\n brought forth out of that plentiful and abundant store. And ah! [he\n exclaims] how much more innocent, sweet, and healthful is a table\n covered with those than with all the reeking flesh of butchered and\n slaughtered animals. Certainly man by nature was never made to be\n a carnivorous animal, nor is he armed at all for prey and rapine,\n with jagged and pointed teeth and crooked claws sharpened to rend\n and tear, but with gentle hands to gather fruit and vegetables, and\n with teeth to chew and eat them.\u201d[127]\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\nEVELYN. 1620-1706.\n\n\nJohn Evelyn, the representative of the more estimable part of the\nhigher middle life of his time, who has so eloquently set forth the\npraises of the vegetable diet, also claims with Ray the honour of\nhaving first excited, amongst the opulent classes of his countrymen,\na rational taste for botanical knowledge. Especially meritorious and\ntruly patriotic was his appeal to the owners of land, by growing trees\nto provide the country with useful as well as ornamental timber for the\nbenefit of posterity. He was one of the first to treat gardening and\nplanting in a scientific manner; and his own cultivation of exotic and\nother valuable plants was a most useful example too tardily followed by\nignorant or selfish landlords of those and succeeding times. It would\nhave been well indeed for the mass of the people of these islands,\nhad the owners of landed property cared to develope the teaching\nof Evelyn by stocking the country with various fruit trees, and so\nsupplied at once an easy and wholesome food. _O fortunatos nimium, sua\nsi bona n\u00f4rint, Agricolas!... Fundit humo facilem victum justissima\nTellus._[128]\n\nThe family of Evelyn was settled at Wooton, in Surrey. During the\nstruggle between the Parliament and the Court he went abroad, and\ntravelled for some years in France and in Italy, where he seems to have\nemployed his leisure in a more refined and useful way than is the wont\nof most of his travelling countrymen. He returned home in 1651. At the\nfoundation of the Royal Society, some ten years later, Evelyn became\none of its earliest Fellows. His first work was published in 1664,\n_Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber_.\nIts immediate cause was the application of the Naval Commissioners to\nthe Royal Society for advice in view of the growing scarcity of timber,\nespecially of oak, in England. A large quantity of the more valuable\nwood now existing is the practical outcome of his timely publication.\n\nIn 1675, appeared his _Terra: a Discourse of the Earth Relating to the\nCulture and the Improvement of it, to Vegetation and the Propagation\nof Plants_. The book by which he is most popularly known is his _Diary\nand Correspondence_, one of the most interesting productions of the\nkind. Besides its value as giving an insight into the manner of life\nin the fashionable society of the greater part of the seventeenth\ncentury, it is of importance as an independent chronicle of the public\nevents of the day. The work which has the most interest and value for\nus is his _Acetaria_ (Salads, or Herbs eaten with vinegar), in which\nthe author professes his faith in the truth and excellence of the\nVegetarian diet. Unfortunately, according to the usual perversity of\nliterary enterprise, it is one of those few books which, representing\nsome profounder truth, are nevertheless the most neglected by those who\nundertake to supply the mental and moral needs of the reading public.\n\nEvelyn held many high posts under the varying Governments of the day;\nand being, by tradition and connexion, attached to the monarchical\nparty, he attracted (contrary to the general experience) the grateful\nrecognition of the restored dynasty.\n\nHaving adduced other arguments for abstinence from flesh, Evelyn\ncontinues:--\n\n \u201cAnd now, after all we have advanced in favour of the herbaceous\n diet, there still emerges another inquiry, viz., whether the use of\n crude herbs and plants is so wholesome as is alleged? What opinion\n the prince of physicians had of them we shall see hereafter; as\n also what the sacred records of olden times seem to infer, before\n there were any flesh-shambles in the world; together with the\n reports of such as are often conversant among many nations and\n people, who, to this day, living on herbs and roots, arrive to\n an incredible age in constant health and vigour, which, whether\n attributable to the air and climate, custom, constitution, &c.,\n should be inquired into.\u201d\n\nCardan--the pseudo-savant of the sixteenth century--had written, it\nseems, in favour of flesh-meat. Evelyn informs us that:--\n\n \u201cThis, [the alleged superiority of flesh] his learned antagonist,\n utterly denies. Whole nations--flesh devourers, such as the\n farthest northern--become heavy, dull, inactive, and much more\n stupid than the southern; and such as feed more on plants are more\n acute, subtle, and of deeper penetration. Witness the Chaldeans,\n Assyrians, Egyptians, &c. And he further argues from the short\n lives of most carnivorous animals, compared with grass feeders, and\n the ruminating kind, as the Hart, Camel, and the long\u00e6vus Elephant,\n and other feeders on roots and vegetables.\n\n \u201cAs soon as old Parr came to change his simple homely diet to\n that of the Court and Arundel House, he quickly sank and drooped\n away; for, as we have shewn, the stomach easily concocts plain and\n familiar food, but finds it a hard and difficult task to vanquish\n and overcome meats of different substances. Whence we so often see\n temperate and abstemious persons of a collegiate diet [of a distant\n age, we must suppose] very healthy; husbandmen and laborious\n people more robust and longer-lived than others of an uncertain,\n extravagant habit.\u201d\n\nHe appeals to the biblical reverence of his readers, and tells them:--\n\n \u201cCertain it is, Almighty God ordaining herbs and fruit for the food\n of man, speaks not a word concerning flesh for two thousand years;\n and when after, by the Mosaic constitution, there were distinctions\n and prohibitions about the legal uncleanness of animals, plants\n of what kind soever were left free and indifferent for everyone\n to choose what best he liked. And what if it was held indecent\n and unbecoming the excellency of man\u2019s nature, before sin entered\n and grew enormously wicked, that any creature should be put to\n death and pain for him who had such infinite store of the most\n delicious and nourishing fruit to delight, and the tree of life to\n sustain him? Doubtless there was no need of it. Infants sought the\n mother\u2019s nipples as soon as born, and when grown and able to feed\n themselves, ran naturally to fruit, and still will choose to eat it\n rather than flesh, and certainly might so persist to do, did not\n Custom prevail even against the very dictates of Nature.[129]\n\n \u201cAnd now to recapitulate what other prerogatives the hortulan\n provision has been celebrated for besides its antiquity, and the\n health and longevity of the antediluvians--viz., that temperance,\n frugality, leisure, ease, and innumerable other virtues and\n advantages which accompany it, are no less attributable to it. Let\n us hear our excellent botanist, Mr. Ray.\u201d\n\nHe then quotes the profession of faith of the father of English\nbotany and zoology; and goes on eloquently to expatiate on the varied\npleasures of a non-flesh and fruit diet:--\n\n \u201cTo this might we add that transporting consideration, becoming\n both our veneration and admiration, of the infinitely wise and\n glorious Author of Nature, who has given to plants such astonishing\n properties; such fiery heat in some to warm and cherish; such\n coolness in others to temper and refresh; such pinguid juice to\n nourish and feed the body; such quickening acids to compel the\n appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the obedience of the\n palate; such vigour to renew and support our natural strength; such\n ravishing flavours and perfumes to recreate and delight us; in\n short, such spirituous and active force to animate and revive every\n part and faculty to all kinds of human and, I had almost said,\n heavenly capacity.\n\n \u201cWhat shall we add more? Our gardens present us with them all: and,\n while the Shambles are covered with gore and stench, our Salads\n escape the insults of the summer-fly, purify and warm the blood\n against winter rage. Nor wants there variety in more abundance than\n any of the former ages could show.\u201d\n\nEvelyn produces an imposing array of the \u201cOld Fathers\u201d:--\n\n \u201cIn short, so very many, especially of the Christian profession,\n advocate it [the bloodless food] that some even of the ancient\n fathers themselves have thought that the permission of eating flesh\n to Noah and his sons was granted them no otherwise than repudiation\n of wives was to the Jews--namely--for the hardness of their hearts\n and to satisfy a murmuring generation.\u201d[130]\n\nHe is \u201cpersuaded that more blood has been shed between Christians\u201d\nthrough addiction to the sanguinary food than by any other cause:--\n\n \u201cNot that I impute it _only_ to our eating blood; but I\n sometimes wonder how it happened that so strict, so solemn, and\n famous a sanction--not upon a ceremonial account, but (as some\n affirm) a moral and perpetual one, for which also there seem\n to be fairer proofs than for most other controversies agitated\n amongst Christians--should be so generally forgotten, and give\n place to so many other impertinent disputes and cavils about\n superstitious fopperies which frequently end in blood and cutting\n of throats.\u201d[131]\n\n\nIt is opportune here to refer to the sentiments of Evelyn\u2019s\ncontemporary and political and ecclesiastical opposite--the great\nPuritan poet and patriot--one of the very greatest names in all\nliterature. Milton\u2019s feeling, so far as he had occasion to express\nit, is quite in unison with the principles of dietetic reform, and in\nsympathy with aspirations after the more spiritual life.\n\nIn one of his earliest writings, on the eve of the production of one\nof the finest poems of its kind in the English language--the _Ode to\nChrist\u2019s Nativity_, composed at the age of twenty-one--he thus writes\nin Latin verse to his friend Charles Deodati, recommending the purer\ndiet at all events to those who aspired to the nobler creations of\npoetry:--\n\n \u201cSimply let those, like him of Samos, live:\n Let herbs to them a _bloodless_ banquet give.\n In beechen goblets let their beverage shine,\n Cool from the crystal spring their sober wine!\n Their youth should pass in innocence secure\n From stain licentious, and in manners pure.\n\n * * * * *\n\n For these are sacred bards and, from above,\n Drink large infusions from the mind of Jove.\u201d[132]\n\nTo readers of his master-piece the _Paradise Lost_, it is perhaps a\nwork of supererogation to point out the charming passages in which he\nsympathetically describes the food of the Age of Innocence:--\n\n \u201cSavoury fruits, of taste to please\n True appetites.\u201d\n\nIn Raphael\u2019s discourse with his terrestrial entertainers, the ethereal\nmessenger utters a prophecy (as we may take it) of the future general\nadoption by our race of \u201cfruit, man\u2019s nourishment,\u201d and we may\ninterpret his intimation:--\n\n \u201ctime may come when men\n With angels may participate, and find\n No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare.\n And from those corporal nutriments perhaps\n Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,\n Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend\n Ethereal as we; or may, at choice,\n _Here_, or in heavenly paradises, dwell,\u201d\n\nas a picture of the true earthly paradise to be--\u201cthe Paradise of\nPeace.\u201d\n\nWith these exquisite pictures of the life of bloodless feasts and\nambrosial food we may compare the fearful picture of the Court of\nDeath, displayed in prospective vision before the terror-stricken\ngaze of the traditional progenitor of our species, where, amongst the\noccupants, the largest number are the victims of \u201cintemperance in meats\nand drinks, which on the earth shall bring diseases dire.\u201d In this\nuniversal lazar-house might be seen--\n\n \u201call maladies\n Of ghastly Spasm, or racking torture, Qualms\n Of heart-sick agony, all Feverous kinds,\n Convulsions, Epilepsies, fierce Catarrhs,\n Intestine Stone and Ulcer, Colic pangs,\n Demoniac Phrensy, moping Melancholy,\n And moon-struck Madness, pining Atrophy,\n Marasmus, and wide-wasting Pestilence,\n Dropsies and Asthmas, and joint-racking Rheums.\u201d[133]\n\nVery different, in other respects, from those of the author of\nthe _History of the Reformation in England_ the sentiments of his\ncelebrated contemporary Bossuet, whose eloquence gained for him the\ndistinguishing title of the \u201cEagle of M\u00e9aux,\u201d as to the degrading\ncharacter of the prevalent human nourishment in the Western world,\nare sufficiently remarkable to deserve some notice. The _Oraisons\nFun\u00eabres_ and, particularly, his _Discours sur L\u2019Histoire Universelle_\nhave entitled him to a high rank in French literature. But a single\npassage in the last work, we shall readily admit, does more credit to\nhis heart than his most eloquent efforts in oratory or literature do\nto his intellect. That, in common with other theologians, Catholic and\nProtestant, he has thought it necessary to assume the intervention of\nthe Deity to sanction the sustenance of human life by the destruction\nof other innocent life, does not affect the weight of intrinsic\nevidence derivable from the natural feeling as to the debasing\ninfluence of the Slaughter-House. It is thus that he, impliedly at\nleast, condemns the barbarous practice:--\n\n \u201cBefore the time of the Deluge the nourishment which without\n violence men derived from the fruits which fell from the trees\n of themselves, and from the herbs which also ripened with equal\n ease, was, without doubt, some relic of the first innocence and\n of the gentleness (_douceur_) for which we were formed. Now to\n get food we have to shed blood in spite of the horror which it\n naturally inspires in us; and all the refinements of which we avail\n ourselves, in covering our tables, hardly suffice to disguise\n for us the bloody corpses which we have to devour to support\n life. But this is but the least part of our misery. Life, already\n shortened, is still further abridged by the savage violences which\n are introduced into the life of the human species. Man, whom in\n the first ages we have seen spare the life of other animals,\n is accustomed henceforward to spare the life not even of his\n fellow-men. It is in vain that God forbade, immediately after the\n Deluge, the shedding of human blood; in vain, in order to save some\n vestiges of the first mildness of our nature, while permitting the\n feeding on flesh did he prohibit consumption of the blood. Human\n murders multiplied beyond all calculation.\u201d\n\nBossuet, a few pages later, arrives at the necessary and natural\nconsequence of the murder of other animals, when he records that \u201cthe\nbrutalised human race could no longer rise to the true contemplation of\nintellectual things.\u201d[134]\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\nBERNARD DE MANDEVILLE. 1670-1733.\n\n\nThe most paradoxical of moralists, born at Dort, in Holland. He was\nbrought up to the profession of medicine, and took the degree of M.D.\nHe afterwards settled and practised in London.\n\nIt was in 1714 that he published his short poem called _The Grumbling\nHive: or, Knaves Turned Honest_, to which he afterwards added long\nexplanatory notes, and then republished the whole under the new and\ncelebrated title of _The Fable of the Bees_. This work \u201cwhich, however\nerroneous may be its views of morals and of society, is written in a\nproper style, and bears all the marks of an honest and sincere inquiry\non an important subject, exposed its author to much obloquy, and met\nwith answers and attacks.... It would appear that some of the hostility\nagainst this work, and against Mandeville generally, is to be traced to\nanother publication, recommending the public licensing of \u2018stews,\u2019 the\nmatter and manner of which are certainly exceptionable, though, at the\nsame time, it must be stated that Mandeville earnestly and with seeming\nsincerity commends his plan as a means of diminishing immorality, and\nthat he endeavoured, so far as lay in his power, by affixing a high\nprice and in other ways, to prevent the work from having a general\ncirculation.\u201d In fact, Mandeville is one of those injudicious but\nwell-meaning reformers who, by their propensity to perverse paradox,\nhave injured at once their reputation and their usefulness for after\ntimes.\n\nA second part of _The Fable_ appeared at a later period. Amongst other\nnumerous writings were two entitled, _Free Thoughts on Religion, the\nChurch, and National Happiness_, and _An Enquiry into the Origin of\nHonour_, and the _Usefulness of Christianity in War_. He appears to\nhave been enabled to pursue his literary career in great measure by the\nliberality of his Dutch friends, and he was a constant guest of the\nfirst Earl of Macclesfield. \u201c_The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices\nPublic Benefits_ may be received in two ways,\u201d says the writer in the\n_Penny Cyclop\u00e6dia_, whom we have already quoted, \u201cas a satire on men,\nand as a theory of society and national prosperity. So far as it is a\nsatire, it is sufficiently just and pleasant, but received in its more\nambitious character of a theory of society, it is altogether worthless.\nIt is Mandeville\u2019s object to show that national greatness depends on\nthe prevalence of fraud and luxury; and for this purpose he supposes\n\u2018a vast hive of bees\u2019 possessing in all respects institutions similar\nto those of men; he details the various frauds, similar to those among\nmen, practised by bees one upon another in various professions....\nHis hive of bees having thus become wealthy and great, he afterwards\nsupposes a mutual jealousy of frauds to arise, and Fraud to be, by\ncommon consent, dismissed; and he again assumes that wealth and luxury\nimmediately disappear, and that the greatness of the society is gone.\u201d\nFor our part, in place of \u201cgreatness,\u201d we should have rather written\n_misery_, as far as concerns the mass of communities.\n\nStrange, as it may appear, that views of this kind should be seriously\nput forth, \u201cit is yet more so that they should come from one whose\nobject always was, however strange the way in which he set about it, to\npromote good morals, for there is nothing in Mandeville\u2019s writings to\nwarrant the belief that he sought to encourage vice.\u201d[135]\n\nMandeville, like Swift, in the piece entitled _An Argument against\nAbolishing Christianity_; or like De Foe, in his _Shortest Way with the\nDissenters_, which were taken _au s\u00e9rieux_ almost universally at the\ntime of their appearance, may have used the style of grave irony, so\nfar as the larger portion of his Fable is concerned, for the purpose of\nmaking a stronger impression on the public conscience. If such were his\npurpose, the irony is so profound that it has missed its aim. Yet that\nhis purpose was true and earnest is sufficiently evident in his opinion\nof the practice of slaughtering for food:--\n\n \u201cI have often thought [writes Mandeville] if it was not for the\n tyranny which Custom usurps over us, that men of any tolerable\n good nature could never be reconciled to the killing of so many\n animals for their daily food, so long as the bountiful Earth so\n plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties. I\n know that Reason excites our compassion but faintly, and therefore\n I do not wonder how men should so little commiserate such imperfect\n creatures as cray-fish, oysters, cockles, and, indeed, all fish in\n general, as they are mute, and their inward formation, as well as\n outward figure, vastly different from ours: they express themselves\n unintelligently to us, and therefore \u2019tis not strange that their\n grief should not affect our understanding which it cannot reach;\n for nothing stirs us to pity so effectually as when the symptoms of\n misery strike immediately upon our senses, and I have seen people\n moved at the noise a live lobster makes upon the spit who could\n have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure.\n\n \u201cBut in such perfect animals as Sheep and Oxen, in whom the heart,\n the brain, and the nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom\n the separation of the spirits from the blood, the organs of sense,\n and, consequently, feeling itself, are the same as they are in\n human creatures, I cannot imagine how a man not hardened in blood\n and massacre, is able to see a violent death, and the pangs of it,\n without concern.\n\n \u201cIn answer to this [he continues], most people will think it\n sufficient to say that things being allowed to be made for the\n service of man, there can be no cruelty in putting creatures to the\n use they were designed for,[136] but I have heard men make this\n reply, while the nature within them has reproached them with the\n falsehood of the assertion.\n\n \u201cThere is of all the multitude not one man in ten but will own\n (if he has not been brought up in a slaughter-house) that of all\n trades he could never have been a _butcher_; and I question whether\n ever anybody so much as killed a chicken without reluctancy the\n first time. Some people are not to be persuaded to taste of any\n creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with while they\n were alive; others extend their scruples no further than to their\n own poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of\n themselves; yet all of them feed heartily and without remorse on\n beef, mutton, and fowls when they are bought in the market. In this\n behaviour, methinks, there appears something like a _consciousness\n of guilt_; it looks as if they endeavoured to save themselves from\n the imputation of a crime (which they know sticks somewhere) by\n removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves; and I\n discover in it some strong marks of primitive pity and innocence,\n which all the arbitrary power of Custom, and the violence of\n Luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.\u201d[137]\n\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nGAY. 1688-1732.\n\n\nThe intimate friend of Pope and Swift is best known by his charming\nand instructive _Fables_. He was born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire,\nand belonged to the old family of the Le Gays of that county. His\nfather, reduced in means, apprenticed him to a silk mercer in the\nStrand, London, in whose employment he did not long remain. The first\nof his poems, _Rural Sports_, appeared in 1711. In the following year\nhe became secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and he served for a\nshort time as secretary to the English embassy in Hanover. His next\nwork was his _Shepherd\u2019s Week, in Six Pastorals_, in which he ridicules\nthe sentimentality of the \u201cpastorals\u201d of his own and preceding age. It\ncontains much naturalness as well as humour, and it was the precursor\nof Crabbe\u2019s rural sketches. In 1726 he published the most successful of\nhis works, the _Beggars\u2019 Opera_--the idea of which had been suggested\nto him by the Dean of St. Patrick\u2019s. It was received with unbounded\napplause, and it originated the (so-called) English opera, which for a\ntime supplanted the Italian.\n\nThe _Fables_ first appeared in 1726. They were supplemented afterwards\nby others, and the volume was dedicated to the young Duke of\nCumberland, famous in after years by his suppression of the Highland\nrising of 1745. Gay\u2019s death, which happened suddenly, called forth the\nsincere laments of his devoted friends Swift and Pope. The former, in\nhis letters, frequently refers to his loss with deep feeling; and Pope\nhas characterised him as--\n\n \u201cOf manners gentle, of affections mild--\n In wit a man, simplicity a child.\u201d\n\nOf his _Fables_--the best in the language--one of the most interesting\nis the well-known _Hare and Many Friends_, in which he seems to record\nsome of his own experiences. _The Court of Death_, suggested probably\nby Milton\u2019s fine passage in the _Paradise Lost_, is one of his most\nforcible. When the principal Diseases have severally advanced their\nclaims to pre-eminence, Death calls upon _Intemperance_:--\n\n \u201cAll spoke their claim, and hoped the wand.\n Now expectation hushed the band,\n When thus the monarch from the throne:\n Merit was ever modest known--\n What! no physician speak his right!\n None here? But fees their toils requite.\n Let then Intemperance take the wand,\n Who fills with gold their jealous hand.\n You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest\n (Whom wary men as foes detest)\n Forego your claim. No more pretend--\n Intemperance is esteemed a friend.\n He shares their mirth, their social joys,\n And as a courted guest destroys.\n The charge on him must justly fall\n Who finds employment for you all.\u201d\n\nIt is in the following fable that Gay especially satirises the\nsanguinary diet:--\n\n \u201cPythagoras rose at early dawn,\n By soaring meditation drawn;\n To breathe the fragrance of the day,\n Through flow\u2019ry fields he took his way.\n In musing contemplation warm,\n His steps misled him to a farm:\n Where, on the ladder\u2019s topmost round,\n A peasant stood. The hammer\u2019s sound\n Shook the weak barn. \u2018Say, friend, what care\n Calls for thy honest labour there?\u2019\n\n \u201cThe clown, with surly voice, replies:\n \u2018Vengeance aloud for justice cries.\n This kite, by daily rapine fed,\n My hens\u2019 annoy, my turkeys\u2019 dread,\n At length his forfeit life hath paid.\n See on the wall his wings displayed,\n Here nailed, a terror to his kind.\n My fowls shall future safety find,\n My yard the thriving poultry feed,\n And my barn\u2019s refuse fat the breed.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Friend,\u2019 says the Sage, \u2018the doom is wise--\n For public good the murderer dies.\n But if these tyrants of the air\n Demand a sentence so severe,\n _Think how the glutton, man, devours;\n What bloody feasts regale his hours!\n O impudence of Power and Might!_\n Thus to condemn a hawk or kite,\n When thou, perhaps, carnivorous sinner,\n Had\u2019st pullets yesterday for dinner.\u2019\n\n \u201c\u2018Hold!\u2019 cried the clown, with passion heated,\n \u2018Shall kites and men alike be treated?\n When heaven the world with creatures stored,\n Man was ordained their sovereign lord.\u2019\n \u2018Thus tyrants boast,\u2019 the Sage replied,\n \u2018Whose murders spring from power and pride.\n Own then this man-like kite is slain\n _Thy greater luxury to sustain_--\n For petty rogues submit to fate\n That great ones may enjoy their state.\u2019\u201d[138]\n\nThis is not the only apologue in which the rhyming moralist exposes\nat once the inconsistency and the injustice of the human animal who,\nhimself choosing to live by slaughter, yet hypocritically stigmatises\nwith the epithets \u201ccruel\u201d and \u201cbloodthirsty\u201d those animals whom Nature\nhas evidently _designed_ to be predaceous. In _The Shepherd\u2019s Dog and\nthe Wolf_ he represents the former upbraiding the ravisher of the\nsheepfolds for attacking \u201ca weak, defenceless kind\u201d:--\n\n \u201c\u2018Friend,\u2019 says the Wolf, \u2018the matter weigh:\n Nature designed _us_ beasts of prey.\n As such, when hunger finds a treat,\n \u2019Tis necessary wolves should eat.\n If, mindful of the bleating weal,\n Thy bosom burn with real zeal,\n Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech--\n To _him_ repeat thy moving speech.\n A wolf eats sheep but now and then--\n _Ten thousands are devoured by men_!\n An open foe may prove a curse,\n But a pretended friend is worse.\u2019\u201d\n\nIn _The Philosopher and the Pheasants_ the same truth is conveyed with\nequal force:--\n\n \u201cDrawn by the music of the groves,\n Along the winding gloom he roves.\n From tree to tree the warbling throats\n Prolong the sweet, alternate notes.\n But where he passed he terror threw;\n The song broke short--the warblers flew:\n The thrushes chattered with affright,\n And nightingales abhorred his sight.\n All animals before him ran,\n To shun the hateful sight of man.\n \u2018Whence is this dread of every creature?\n Fly they our figure or our nature?\u2019\n As thus he walked, in musing thought,\n His ear imperfect accents caught.\n With cautious step, he nearer drew,\n By the thick shade concealed from view.\n High on the branch a Pheasant stood,\n Around her all her listening brood:\n Proud of the blessings of her nest,\n She thus a mother\u2019s care expressed:--\n \u2018No dangers here shall circumvent;\n Within the woods enjoy content.\n Sooner the hawk or vulture trust\n Than man, of animals the worst.\n In him ingratitude you find--\n A vice peculiar to the kind.\n The Sheep, whose annual fleece is dyed\n To guard his health and serve his pride,\n Forced from his fold and native plain,\n Is in the cruel shambles slain.\n The swarms who, with industrious skill,\n His hives with wax and honey fill,\n In vain whole summer days employed--\n Their stores are sold, their race destroyed.\n What tribute from the Goose is paid?\n Does not her wing all science aid?\n Does it not lovers\u2019 hearts explain,\n And drudge to raise the merchant\u2019s gain?\n What now rewards this general use?\n He takes the quills and eats the Goose!\u2019\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nIn another parable Gay, in some sort, gives the victims of the Shambles\ntheir revenge:--\n\n \u201cAgainst an elm a Sheep was tied:\n The butcher\u2019s knife in blood was dyed--\n The patient flock, in silent fright,\n From far beheld the horrid sight.\n A savage Boar, who near them stood,\n Thus mocked to scorn the fleecy brood:--\n \u2018All cowards should be served like you.\n See, see, your murderer is in view:\n With purple hands and reeking knife,\n He strips the skin yet warm with life.\n Your quartered sires, your bleeding dams,\n The dying bleat of harmless lambs,\n Call for revenge. O stupid race!\n The heart that wants revenge is base.\u2019\n \u2018I grant,\u2019 an ancient Ram replies,\n \u2018We bear no terror in our eyes.\n Yet think us not of soul so tame,\n Which no repeated wrongs inflame--\n Insensible of every ill,\n Because we want thy tusks to kill--\n Know, _those who violence pursue\n Give to themselves the vengeance due_,\n For in these massacres they find\n The two chief plagues that waste mankind--\n Our skin supplies the wrangling bar:\n It wakes their slumbering sons to war.\n And well Revenge may rest contented,\n Since drums and parchment were invented.\u2019\u201d[139]\n\n\n\n\nXIX.\n\nCHEYNE. 1671-1743.\n\n\nOne of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first\nmedical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of\nthe reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied\nmedicine at Edinburgh--then and still a principal school of medicine\nand surgery--where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of\nthirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,\nand took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis.\n\nThe manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of\nthe last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not\nonly personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually\nled him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of\n\u201cgood living;\u201d for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the\nfoundation of his practice. Cheyne\u2019s early habits of temperance thus\ngave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he\ncontracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous\nweight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy\ncombined to enfeeble and depress him.\n\nHis first appearance in literature was the publication of his _New\nTheory of Fevers_, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old\nmaster Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of\nepidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained,\nthough in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall\ninto oblivion. The Mechanical or _Iatro-Mathematical_ Theory, as it was\ncalled, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished\nexpounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to\nvital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical\nSchool. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent\nauthority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The\nnatural desire to discover some definite and simple _formul\u00e6_ of\nmedical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses.\nCheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all\nvital processes can be explained on mechanical principles.\n\nIn 1705 he published his _Philosophical Principles of Natural\nReligion_, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since\nit was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in\nliterature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the\npenalty of his old habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches,\nand depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point\nin his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of\nhis kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation\nin the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable\nmanners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which,\nimproved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his\nscientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now,\nhowever--not too soon--determined to abandon his _bon-vivantism_, and\nspeedily \u201ceven those who had shared the best part of my profusions,\u201d\nhe tells us, \u201cwho, in their necessities had been relieved by my false\ngenerosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now\nentirely relinquish and abandon me.\u201d He retired into solitude in the\ncountry and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life,\nset himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices\nof ordinary living.\n\nAt this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to\nthe smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished\nflesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the\nmost temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to\nhave regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases\nof nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and\nwhich were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year\n1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly\nre-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen\nwhich he had previously adopted.\n\nHis next publication was _An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters_ (1720),\nwhich passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the\nvegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings.\nHis relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former\nmaladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or\ntwelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last\nreached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his\ncondition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for\nLondon, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably\nrenewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of\nliving. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the\nmilk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he\nafterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors.\n\nIn the preceding year had appeared his first important and original\nwork--his well-known _Essay of Health and a Long Life_. In the preface\nhe declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly\npersons who\n\n \u201care able and willing to abstain from everything hurtful, and to\n deny themselves anything their appetites craved, to conform to\n any rules for a tolerable degree of health, ease, and freedom\n of spirits. It is for these, and these only,\u201d he proceeds, \u201cthe\n following treatise is designed. The robust, the luxurious, the\n pot-companions, &c., have here no business; their time is not yet\n come.\u201d\n\nIt is generally acknowledged to be one of the best books on the\nsubject. Haller pronounced it to be \u201cthe best of all the works bearing\nupon the health of sedentary persons and invalids.\u201d It went through\nseveral editions in the space of two years, and in 1726 was enlarged by\nthe author and translated by his friend and pupil John Robertson M.A.\ninto Latin, and three or four editions were quickly exhausted in France\nand Germany. In this book, while reducing flesh-meat to a _minimum_,\nand insisting upon the necessity of abstinence from grosser food and of\nthe use of vegetables only, at the morning and evening meals, he had\nnot advanced as yet so far as to preach the truth in its entirety. He\narrived at it only by slow and gradual conviction. Expatiating on the\nfollies and miseries of _bon-vivantism_, he proceeds to affirm that--\n\n \u201cAll those who have lived long, and without much pain, have lived\n abstemiously, poor, and meagre. Cornaro prolonged his life and\n preserved his senses by almost starving in his latter days; and\n some others have done the like. They have, indeed, thereby, in some\n measure, weakened their natural strength and qualified the fire\n and flux of their spirits, but they have preserved their senses,\n weakened their pains, prolonged their days, and procured themselves\n a gentle and quiet passage into another state.... All the rest\n will be insufficient without this [a frugal diet]; and this alone,\n without these [medicines, &c.], will suffice to carry on life as\n long as by its natural flame it was made to last, and will make the\n passage easy and calm, as a taper goes out for want of fuel.\u201d\n\nWhile the _Essay of Health_ added greatly to his reputation with all\nthinking people, it also exposed him (as was to be expected) to a storm\nof small wit, ridicule, and misrepresentation:--\n\n \u201cSome good-natured and ingenious retainers to the Profession,\u201d he\n tells us, \u201con the publication of my book on _Long Life and Health_,\n proclaimed everywhere that I was turned mere enthusiast, advised\n people to turn monks, to run into deserts, and to live on roots,\n herbs, and wild fruits! in fine, that I was, at bottom, a mere\n leveller, and for destroying order, ranks, and property, everyone\u2019s\n but my own. But that sneer had its day, and vanished into smoke.\n Others swore that I had eaten my book, recanted my _doctrine_ and\n _system_ (as they were pleased to term it), and was returned again\n to the devil, the world, and the flesh. This joke I have also\n stood. I have been slain again and again, both in prose and verse;\n but, I thank God, I am still alive and well.\u201d\n\nHis next publication was his _English Malady: or, a Treatise of Nervous\nDiseases of all kinds_, which was also well received, going through\nfour editions in two years. The incessant ridicule with which the\n_gourmands_ had assailed his last work seems to have made him cautious\nin his next attempt to revolutionise dietetics; and he is careful to\nadvertise the public that his milk and vegetable system was for those\nin weak health only. Denouncing the use of sauces and provocatives\nof unnatural appetite, \u201ccontrived not only to rouse a sickly stomach\nto receive the unnatural load, but to render a naturally good one\nincapable of knowing when it has enough,\u201d he asks, \u201cIs it any wonder\nthen that the diseases which proceed from idleness and fulness of meat\nshould increase in proportion?\u201d He is bold enough by this time to\naffirm that, for the cure of many diseases, an entire abstinence from\nflesh is indisputably necessary:--\n\n \u201cThere are some cases wherein a vegetable and milk diet seems\n absolutely necessary, as in severe and habitual gouts, rheumatisms,\n cancerous, leprous, and scrofulous disorders; extreme nervous\n colics, epilepsies, violent hysteric fits, melancholy, consumptions\n (and the like disorders, mentioned in the preface), and towards the\n last stages of all chronic distempers. In such distempers _I have\n seldom seen such a diet fail of a good effect at last_.\u201d\n\nSix years later, in 1740, appeared his _Essay on Regimen: together\nwith Five Discourses Medical Moral and Philosophical, &c._ Since his\nlast exhortation to the world Cheyne had evidently convinced himself,\nby long experience as well as reflection, of the great superiority of\nthe vegetable diet for all--sound as well as sick; and, accordingly,\nhe speaks in strong and clear language of the importance of a general\nreform. As a consequence of this plain speaking, his new book met with\na comparatively cold reception. Perhaps, too, its mathematical and\nsomewhat abstruse tone may have affected its popularity. As regards its\nmoral tone it was a new revelation, doubtless, for the vast majority of\nhis readers. He boldly asserts:--\n\n \u201cThe question I design to treat of here is, whether animal or\n vegetable food was, in the original design of the Creator, intended\n for the food of animals, and particularly of the human race. And I\n am almost convinced it _never was intended, but only permitted as\n a curse or punishment_.... At what time animal [flesh] food came\n first in use is not certainly known. He was a bold man who made the\n first experiment.\n\n _Illi robur et \u00e6s triplex\n Circa pectus erat._\n\n To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor\n fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to\n gratify luxury, and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a\n rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot\n find any great difference, _on the foot of natural reason and\n equity only, between feeding on human flesh and feeding on brute\n animal flesh, except custom and example_.\n\n I believe some [more] rational creatures would suffer less in being\n fairly butchered than a strong Ox or red Deer; and, in natural\n morality and justice, the _degrees of pain_ here make the essential\n difference, for as to other differences, _they are relative only_,\n and can be of no influence with an infinitely perfect Being. Did\n not use and example weaken this lesson, and make the difference,\n reason alone could never do it.\u201d--_Essay on Regimen, &c._ 8vo.\n 1740. Pages 54 and 70.\n\nNoble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member\nof a profession--which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical,\nin opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr.\nCheyne\u2019s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger\nthan in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of\nhis health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through\nhis writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen\nyears to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation\nand success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by\nwhom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst\nhis intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like\nhimself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the\nbedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot\nand Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence\nin favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his\n_Author\u2019s Case_, written towards the end of his life:--\n\n \u201cMy regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee, bread and\n butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with\n tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short,\n _everything that has not life_, dressed or not, as I like it, _in\n which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods_,\n so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any\n fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid,\n moist, or juicy.[141] Only after dinner I drink either coffee\n or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a\n glass of soft, small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more\n cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder,\n though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal\n diet; but then I am more alive than ever I was. As soon as I wake I\n get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.\u201d\n\nAs for the effect of this regimen, he tells us that \u201csince that\ntime [his last lapse] I thank God I have gone on in one constant\ntenor of diet, and enjoy as good health as, at my time of life\n(being now sixty), I or any man can reasonably expect.\u201d When we\nremember the complicity of maladies of which he had been the victim\nduring his adhesion to the orthodox mode of living, such experience\nis sufficiently significant. Some ten years later he records his\nexperiences as follows:--\n\n \u201cIt is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered\n upon a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period,\n this light food I took as my appetite directed, without any\n measures, and found myself easy under it. After some time, I found\n it became necessary to lessen this quantity, and I have latterly\n reduced it to one-half, at most, of what I at first seemed to\n bear; and if it should please God to spare me a few years longer,\n in order to preserve, in that case, that freedom and clearness\n which by his presence I now enjoy, I shall probably find myself\n obliged to deny myself one-half of my present daily sustenance,\n which, precisely, is three Winchester pints of new milk, and six\n ounces of biscuit, made without salt or yeast, baked in a quick\n oven.\u201d[142]--[_Natural Method of Curing Diseases_, &c., page 298;\n see also Preface to _Essay on Regimen_].\n\nThe last production of Dr. Cheyne was his \u201c_Natural Method of Curing\nthe Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending\non the Body_. In three parts. Part I.--General Reflections on the\nEconomy of Nature in Animal Life. Part II.--The Means and Methods for\nPreserving Life and Faculties; and also Concerning the Nature and Cure\nof Acute, Contagious, and Cephalic Disorders. Part III.--Reflections\non the Nature and Cure of Particular Chronic Distempers. 8vo. Strahan,\nLondon, 1742.\u201d It is dedicated to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who\nrecords his grateful recognition of the benefits he had experienced\nfrom his methods. He writes: \u201cI read with great pleasure your book,\nwhich your bookseller sent me according to your direction. The physical\npart is extremely good, and the metaphysical part _may be_ so too, for\nwhat I know, and I believe it is, for as I look upon all metaphysics\nto be guess work of imagination, I know no imagination likelier to hit\nupon the right than yours, and I will take your guess against any other\nmetaphysician\u2019s whatsoever. That part which is founded upon knowledge\nand experience I look upon as a work of public utility, and for which\nthe present age and their posterity may be obliged to you, if they will\nbe pleased to follow it.\u201d Lord Chesterfield, it will be seen below,\nwas one of those more refined minds whose better conscience revolted\nfrom, even if they had not the courage or self-control to renounce, the\nSlaughter House.\n\nThe _Natural Method_ its author considers as a kind of supplement\nto his last book, containing \u201cthe practical inferences, and the\nconclusions drawn from [its principles], in particular cases and\ndiseases, confirmed by forty years\u2019 experience and observation.\u201d\nIt is the most practical of all his works, and is full of valuable\nobservations. Very just and useful is his rebuke of that sort of\nJohn-Bullism which affects to hold \u201cgood living\u201d not only as harmless\nbut even as a sort of merit--\n\n \u201cHow it may be in other countries and religions I will not say, but\n among us good Protestants, abstinence, temperance, and moderation\n (at least in eating), are so far from being thought a virtue, and\n their contrary a vice, that it would seem that not eating the\n fattest and most delicious, and _to the top_, were the only vice\n and disease known among us--against which our parents, relatives,\n friends, and physicians exclaim with great vehemence and zeal. And\n yet, if we consider the matter attentively we shall find there is\n no such danger in abstinence as we imagine, but, on the contrary,\n the greatest abstinence and moderation nature and its external laws\n will suffer us to go into and practise for any time, will neither\n endanger our health, nor weaken our just thinking, be it ever so\n unlimited or unrestrained.... And it is a wise providence that\n Lent time falls out at that season which, if kept according to its\n original intention, in seeds and vegetables well dressed and not in\n rich high-dressed fish, would go a great way to preserve the health\n of the people in general, as well as dispose them to seriousness\n and reflection--so true it is that \u2018godliness has the promise of\n this life, and of that which is to come,\u2019 and it is very observable\n that in all civil and established religious worships hitherto\n known among polished nations Lents, days of abstinence, seasons of\n fasting and bringing down the brutal part of the rational being,\n have had a large share, and been reckoned an indispensable part\n of their worship and duty, except among a wrong-headed part of\n our Reformation, where it has been despised and ridiculed into a\n total neglect. And yet it seems not only natural and convenient for\n health, but strongly commended both in the Old and New Testament,\n and might allow time and proper disposition for more serious and\n weighty purposes. And this \u2018Lent,\u2019 or times of abstinence, is one\n reason of the cheerfulness or serenity of some Roman Catholic\n or Southern countries, which would be still more healthy and\n long-lived were it not for their excessive use of aromatics and\n opiates, which are the worst kind of dry drams, and the cause of\n their unnatural and unbridled lechery and shortness of life.\u201d\n\nDenouncing the general practice of the Profession of encouraging their\npatients in indulging vitiated habits and tastes, he reminds them:--\n\n \u201cThat such physicians do not consider that they are accountable\n to the community, to their patients, to their conscience, and to\n their Maker, for every hour and moment they shorten and cut off\n their patients\u2019 lives _by their immoral and murderous indulgence_:\n and the patients do not duly ponder that suicide (which this is\n in effect) is the most mortal and irremissible of all sins, and\n neither have sufficiently weighed the possibility that the patient,\n if not quickly cut off by both these preposterous means, may linger\n out miserably, and be twenty or thirty years a-dying, under these\n heart and wheel-breaking miseries thus exasperated; whereas, by the\n methods I propose, if they obtain not in time a perfect cure, yet\n they certainly lessen their pain, lengthen their days, and continue\n under the benign influence of \u2018the Sun of Righteousness, who has\n healing in His wings,\u2019 and, at worst, soften and lighten the\n anguish of their dissolution, as far as the nature of things will\n admit.\u201d\n\nNot the least useful and instructive portions of his treatise are his\nreferences to the proper regimen for mental diseases and disordered\nbrains, which, he reasonably infers, are best treated by the adoption\nof a light and pure dietary. He despairs, however, of the general\nrecognition, or at least adoption, of so rational a method by the\n\u201cfaculty\u201d or the public at large,\n\n \u201cWho do not consider that _nine parts in ten_ of the whole mass\n of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet (of farinacea,\n fruits, &c.), or pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of\n their senses, limbs, and faculties, without diseases or with but\n few, and those from accidents or epidemical causes; and that there\n have been nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who voluntarily\n confine themselves to vegetables only, ... and that there are whole\n villages in this kingdom whose inhabitants scarce eat animal food\n or drink fermented liquors a dozen times a year.\u201d\n\nIn regard to all nervous and brain diseases, he insists that the\nreformed diet would\n\n \u201cGreatly alleviate and render tolerable original distempers derived\n from diseased parents, and that it is absolutely necessary for the\n deep-thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties\n ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of life;\n and that it is the true and real antidote and preservative from\n wrong-headedness, irregular and disorderly intellect and functions,\n from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and senses, as far\n as the ends of Providence and the condition of mortality will\n allow.\u201d--(_Nat. Method_, page 90.)\n\nThis benevolent and beneficent dietetic reformer, according to the\ntestimony of an eye-witness, exemplified by his death the value of\nhis principles--relinquishing his last breath easily and tranquilly,\nwhile his senses remained entire to the end. During his last illness\nhe was attended by the famous David Hartley, noticed below. He was\nburied at Weston, near Bath. His character is sufficiently seen in his\nwritings which, if they contain some metaphysical or other ideas which\nour reason cannot always endorse, in their _practical_ teaching prove\nhim to have been actuated by a true and earnest desire for the best\ninterests of his fellow-men. One of the merits of Cheyne\u2019s writings is\nhis discarding the common orthodox _esoteric_ style of his profession,\nwho seem jealously to exclude all but the \u201cinitiated\u201d from their sacred\nmysteries. One of his biographers has remarked upon this point that\n\u201cthere is another peculiarity about most of Dr. Cheyne\u2019s writings\nwhich is worthy of notice. Although there are many passages that are\nquite unintelligible to the reader unless he possesses a considerable\nknowledge, not only of medicine but also of mathematics, yet there\nis no doubt but that the greater part of his works were intended for\npopular perusal, and in this undertaking he is one of the few medical\nwriters who have been completely successful. His productions, which\nwere much read and had an extensive influence in their day, procured\nhim a considerable degree of reputation, not only with the public, but\nalso with the members of his own profession. If they present to the\nreader no great discoveries (?) they possess the merit of putting more\nprominently forward some useful but neglected truths; and though now,\nprobably, but little read, they contain much matter that is well worth\nstudying, and have obtained for their author a respectable place in the\nhistory of medical literature.\u201d[143]\n\nOur notice of the author of the _Essay on Regimen_, &c., would\nscarcely be complete without some reference to his friendship with\ntwo distinguished characters--John Wesley and Samuel Richardson,[144]\nthe author of _Pamela_. It was to Dr. Cheyne that Wesley, as he tells\nus in his journals, was indebted for his conversion to those dietetic\nprinciples to which he attributes, in great measure, the invigoration\nof his naturally feeble constitution, and which enabled him to undergo\nan amount of fatigue and toil, both mentally and bodily, seldom or\nnever surpassed. Of Cheyne\u2019s friendship for Richardson there are\nseveral memorials preserved in his familiar letters to that popular\nwriter; and his free and na\u00efve criticisms of his novels are not a\nlittle amusing. The novelist, it seems, was one of his patients,\nand that he was not always a satisfactory one, under the abstemious\nregimen, appears occasionally from the remonstrances of his adviser.\n\n\n\n\nXX.\n\nPOPE. 1688-1744.\n\n\nThe most epigrammatic, and one of the most elegant, of poets. He was\nalso one of the most precocious. His first production of importance\nwas his _Essay on Criticism_, written at the age of twenty-one,\nalthough not published until two years later. But he had composed, we\nare assured, several verses of an Epic at the age of twelve; and his\n_Pastorals_ was given to the world by a youth of sixteen. Its division\ninto the Four Seasons is said to have suggested to Thomson the title of\nhis great poem. The MS. passed through the hands of some distinguished\npersons, who loudly proclaimed the merits of the boy-poet.\n\nIn the same year with his fine mock-heroic _Rape of the Lock_ (1712)\nappeared _The Messiah_, in imitation of Isaiah and of Virgil (in his\nwell-known _Eclogue_ IV.), both of whom celebrate, in similar strains,\nthe advent of a \u201cgolden age\u201d to be. The \u201cSybilline\u201d prophecy, which\nPope supposes the Latin poet to have read, existed, it need scarcely\nbe added, only in the imagination of himself and of the authorities on\nwhom he relied. _Windsor Forest_ (1713) deserves special notice as one\nof the earliest of that class of poems which derive their inspiration\ndirectly from Nature. It was the precursor of _The Seasons_, although\nthe anti-barbarous feeling is less pronounced in the former. We find,\nhowever, the germs of that higher feeling which appears more developed\nin the _Essay on Man_; and the following verses, descriptive of the\nusual \u201csporting\u201d scenes, are significant:--\n\n \u201cSee! from the brake the whirring Pheasant springs,\n And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:\n Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,\n Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.\n Ah, what avail his glossy, varying dyes,\n His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes--\n The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,\n His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?\n\n * * * * *\n\n To plains with well-breathed beagles they repair,\n And trace the mazes of the circling Hare.\n Beasts, urged by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,\n And learn of man each other to undo.\n With slaughtering guns the unwearied fowler roves,\n When frosts have whitened all the naked groves,\n Where Doves, in flocks, the leafless trees o\u2019ershade,\n And lonely Woodcocks haunt the watery glade--\n He lifts the tube, and level with his eye,\n Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky.\n Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,\n The clamorous Lapwings feel the leaden death:\n Oft, as the mounting Larks their notes prepare,\n They fall and leave their little lives in air.\u201d\n\nHis _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_ (a romantic version of a very\nrealistic story), _Temple of Fame_, _Imitations of Chaucer_,\ntranslation of the _Iliad_ (1713-1720)--characterised by Gibbon as\nhaving \u201cevery merit but that of likeness to its original\u201d--an edition\nof Shakspere, _The Dunciad_ (1728), translation of the _Odyssey_, are\nsome of the works which attest his genius and industry. But it is with\nhis _Moral Essays_--and in particular the _Essay on Man_ (1732-1735),\nthe most important of his productions--that we are especially concerned.\n\nAs is pretty well known, these _Essays_ owe their conception, in great\npart, to his intimate friend St. John Bolingbroke. Although the author\nby birth and, perhaps, still more from a feeling of pride which might\nmake him reluctant to abandon an unfashionable sect (such it was at\nthat time), belonged nominally to the Old Church, the theology and\nmetaphysics of the work display little of ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The\npervading principles of the _Essay on Man_ are natural theology or,\nas Warburton styles it, \u201cNaturalism\u201d (_i.e._, the putting aside human\nassertion for the study of the attributes of Deity through its visible\nmanifestations) and Optimism.[145]\n\nThe merits of the _Essay_, it must be added, consist not so much in the\nphilosophy of the poem as a whole as in the many fine and true thoughts\nscattered throughout it, which the author\u2019s epigrammatic terseness\nindelibly fixes in the mind. Of the whole poem the most valuable\npart, undoubtedly, is its ridicule of the common arrogant (pretended)\nbelief that all other species on the earth have been brought into\nbeing for the benefit of the human race--an egregious fallacy, by the\nway, which, ably exposed as it has been over and over again, still\nfrequently reappears in our popular theology and morals. To the writers\nand talkers of this too numerous class may be commended the rebukes of\nPope:--\n\n \u201cNothing is foreign--parts relate to whole:\n One all-extending, all-preserving soul\n Connects each being, greatest with the least--\n Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast:\n All served, all serving--nothing stands alone.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good,\n Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?\n\n * * * * *\n\n Is it for thee the Lark ascends and sings?\n Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.\n Is it for thee the Linnet pours his throat?\n Loves of his own and raptures swell the note.\n The bounding Steed you pompously bestride\n Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Know Nature\u2019s children all divide her care,\n The fur that warms a monarch warmed a Bear.\n While Man exclaims, \u2018See all things for my use!\u2019\n \u2018See Man for mine!\u2019 replies a pampered Goose.\n And just as short of reason he must fall,\n Who thinks _all made for one, not one for all_.\u201d\n\nHe then paints the picture of the \u201cTimes of Innocence\u201d of the Past, or\nrather (as we must take it) of the Future:--\n\n \u201c_No murder clothed him, and no murder fed._\n In the same temple--the resounding wood--\n All vocal beings hymned their equal God.\n The shrine, with gore unstained, with gold undrest,\n Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest.\n Heaven\u2019s attribute was universal care,\n And man\u2019s prerogative to rule but spare.\n Ah, how unlike the man of times to come--\n _Of half that live the butcher and the tomb_!\n Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,\n Murders their species, and betrays his own.\n But just disease to luxury succeeds,\n And every death its own avenger breeds:\n The fury-passions from that blood began,\n And turned on man a fiercer savage, man.\u201d\n\nAgain, depicting the growth of despotism and superstition, and\nspeculating as to--\n\n \u201cWho first taught souls enslaved and realms undone\n The enormous faith of Many made for One?\u201d\n\nhe traces the gradual horrors of sacrifice beginning with other, and\nculminating in that of the human, species:--\n\n \u201cShe [Superstition] from the rending earth and bursting skies\n Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:\n Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest, abodes--\n Fear made her devils and weak Hope her gods--\n Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,\n Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust--\n Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,\n And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore;\n _Then first the Flamen tasted living food,\n Next his grim idol smeared with human blood_.\n With Heaven\u2019s own thunders shook the earth below,\n And played the God an engine on his foe.\u201d\n\nWhenever occasion arises, Pope fails not to stigmatise the barbarity of\nslaughtering for food; and the _s\u00e6va indignatio_ urges him to upbraid\nhis fellows with the slaughter of--\n\n \u201cThe lamb thy riot dooms to bleed,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Who licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.\u201d\n\nAnd, again, he expresses his detestation of the selfishness of our\nspecies who--\n\n \u201cDestroy all creatures for their sport or gust.\u201d\n\nThat all this was no mere affectation of feeling appears from his\ncorrespondence and contributions to the periodicals of the time:--\n\n \u201cI cannot think it extravagant,\u201d he writes, \u201cto imagine that\n mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use\n of their dominion over the lower ranks of beings, than for the\n exercise of tyranny over their own species. The more entirely the\n inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable\n we must be for our mismanagement of them; and the rather, as the\n very condition of Nature renders them incapable of receiving any\n recompense in another life for ill-treatment in this.\u201d[146]\n\nConsistently with the expression of this true philosophy, he declares\nelsewhere that--\n\n \u201cNothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens\n sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring\n victims, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up\n here and there. It gives one the image of a giant\u2019s den in romance,\n bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs.\u201d[147]\n\nThe personal character of Pope, we may add, has of late been subjected\nto minute and searching criticism. Some meannesses, springing from an\nextreme anxiety for fame with after ages, have undoubtedly tarnished\nhis reputation for candour. His excessive animosity towards his public\nor private enemies may be palliated in part, if not excused, by his\nwell-known feebleness of health and consequent mental irritability.\nFor the rest, he was capable of the most sincere and disinterested\nattachments; and not his least merit, in literature, is that in an age\nof servile authorship he cultivated literature not for place or pay,\nbut for its own sake.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAmongst Pope\u2019s intimate friends were Dr. Arbuthnot, Dean Swift,\nand Gay. The first of these, best known as the joint author with\nPope and Swift of _Martinus Scriblerus_, a satire on the useless\npedantry prevalent in education and letters, and especially as the\nauthor of the _History of John Bull_ (the original of that immortal\npersonification of beef, beer, and prejudice), published his _Essay\nConcerning Aliments_, in which the vegetable diet is commended as a\npreventive or cure of certain diseases, about the year 1730. Not the\nleast meritorious of his works was an epitaph on the notorious Colonel\nChartres--one of the few epitaphs which are attentive less to custom\nthan to truth, and, we may add, in marked contrast with that typical\none on his unhistorical contemporary Captain Blifil.\n\nIn the _Travels of Lemuel Gulliver_ the reader will find the _s\u00e6va\nindignatio_ of Swift--or, at all events, of the Houyhnhnms--amongst\nother things, launched against the indiscriminating diet of his\ncountrymen:--\n\n \u201cI told him\u201d [the Master-Horse], says Gulliver, \u201cwe fed on a\n thousand things which operated contrary to each other--that we\n eat when we are not hungry, and drink without the provocation of\n thirst ... that it would be endless to give him a catalogue of all\n diseases incident to human bodies, for they could not be fewer than\n five or six hundred, spread over every limb and joint--in short,\n every part, external and intestine, having diseases appropriated to\n itself--to remedy which there was a sort of people bred up among us\n in the profession or pretence of curing the sick.\u201d\n\nAmong the infinite variety of remedies and prescriptions, in the\nhuman _Materia Medica_, the astounded Houyhnhnm learns, are reckoned\n\u201cserpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men\u2019s flesh and bones, birds,\nbeasts, fishes\u201d--no mere travellers\u2019 tales (it is perhaps necessary\nto explain), but sober fact, as any one may discover for himself by\nan examination of some of the received and popular medical treatises\nof the seventeenth century, in which the most absurd \u201cprescriptions,\u201d\ninvolving the most frightful cruelty, are recorded with all\nseriousness:--\n\n \u201cMy master, continuing his discourse, said there was nothing\n that rendered the Yahoos more odious than their undistinguishing\n appetite to devour everything that came in their way, whether\n herbs, roots, berries, the _corrupted flesh of animals, or all\n mingled together_; and that it was peculiar in their temper that\n they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth at a\n greater distance than much better food provided for them at home.\n If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to\n burst.\u201d\n\nAlthough unaccustomed to the better living, and finding it \u201cinsipid at\nfirst,\u201d the human slave of the Houyhnhnm (a word which, by the way, in\nthat language, means \u201cthe perfection of nature\u201d) records as the result\nof his experience, in the first place, how little will sustain human\nlife; and, in the second place, the fact of the superior healthfulness\nof the vegetable food.[148]\n\nAbout this period or a little earlier, Philippe Hecquet, a French\nphysician, published his _Trait\u00e9 des Dispenses du Car\u00eame_ (\u201cTreatise\non Dispensations in Lent\u201d), 1709, in which he gave in his adhesion\nto the principles of Vegetarianism--at all events, so far as health\nis concerned. He is mentioned by Voltaire, and is supposed to be the\noriginal of the doctor Sangrado of Le Sage.[149] If this conjecture\nhave any truth, the author of _Gil Blas_ is open to the grave charge\nof misrepresentation, of sacrificing truth to effect, or (what is still\nworse and still more common) of pandering to popular prejudices.[150]\n\n\n\n\nXXI.\n\nTHOMSON. 1700-1748.\n\n\nIn the long and terrible series of the Ages the distinguishing glory of\nthe eighteenth century is its _Humanitarianism_--not visible, indeed,\nin legislation or in the teaching of the ordinarily-accredited guides\nof the public faith and morals, but proclaimed, nevertheless, by the\ngreat prophets of that era. As far as ordinary life was concerned,\nthe last age is only too obnoxious to the charge of selfishness and\nheartlessness. Callousness to suffering, as regards the non-human\nspecies in particular, is sufficiently apparent in the common\namusements and \u201cpastimes\u201d of the various grades of the community.\n\nYet, if we compare the tone of even the common-place class of writers\nwith that of the authors of quasi-scientific treatises of the preceding\ncentury--in which the most cold-blooded atrocities on the helpless\nvictims of human ignorance and barbarity are prescribed for the\ncomposition of their medical _nostrums_, &c., with the most unconscious\naudacity and ignoring of every sort of feeling--considerable advance is\napparent in the slow onward march of the human race towards the goal of\na true morality and religion.\n\nTo the author of _The Seasons_ belongs the everlasting honour of being\nthe first amongst modern poets earnestly to denounce the manifold\nwrongs inflicted upon the subject species, and, in particular, the\nsavagery inseparable from the Slaughter-House--for Pope did not publish\nhis _Essay on Man_ until four years after the appearance of _Spring_.\n\nJames Thomson, of Scottish parentage, came to London to seek his\nfortune in literature, at the age of 25. For some time he experienced\nthe poverty and troubles which so generally have been the lot of\nyoung aspirants to literary, especially poetic, fame. _Winter_--which\ninaugurated a new school of poetry--appeared in March, 1726. That the\npublisher considered himself liberal in offering three guineas for the\npoem speaks little for the taste of the time; but that a better taste\nwas coming into existence is also plain from the fact of its favourable\nreception, notwithstanding the obscurity of the author. Three editions\nappeared in the same year. _Summer_, his next venture, was published\nin 1727, and the (Four) _Seasons_ in 1730, by subscription--387\nsubscribers enrolling their names for copies at a guinea each.\n\nNatural enthusiasm, sympathy, and love for all that is really beautiful\non Earth (a sort of feeling not to be appreciated by vulgar minds)\nforms his chief characteristic. But, above all, his sympathy with\nsuffering in all its forms (see, particularly, his reflections after\nthe description of the snowstorm in _Winter_), not limited by the\nnarrow bounds of nationality or of species but extended to all innocent\nlife--his indignation against oppression and injustice, are what most\nhonourably distinguish him from almost all of his predecessors and,\nindeed, from most of his successors. _The Seasons_ is the forerunner\nof _The Task_ and the humanitarian school of poetry. _The Castle of\nIndolence_ in the stanza of Spenser, has claims of a kind different\nfrom those of _The Seasons_; and the admirers of _The Faerie Queen_\ncannot fail to appreciate the merits of the modern romance. Besides\nthese _chefs-d\u2019\u0153uvre_ Thomson wrote two tragedies, _Sophonisba_ and\n_Liberty_, the former of which, at the time, had considerable success\nupon the stage. In the number of his friends he reckoned Pope and\nSamuel Johnson, both of whom are said to have had some share in the\nfrequent revisions which he made of his principal production.\n\nIt is with his _Spring_ that we are chiefly concerned, since it is in\nthat division of his great poem that he eloquently contrasts the two\nvery opposite diets. Singing the glories of the annual birth-time and\ngeneral resurrection of Nature, he first celebrates\n\n \u201cThe living Herbs, profusely wild,\n O\u2019er all the deep-green Earth, beyond the power\n Of botanist to number up their tribes,\n (Whether he steals along the lonely dale\n In silent search, or through the forest, rank\n With what the dull incurious weeds account,\n Bursts his blind way, or climbs the mountain-rock,\n Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow).\n With such a liberal hand has Nature flung\n Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,\n Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould,\n The moistening current and prolific rain.\n\n But who their virtues can declare? Who pierce,\n With vision pure, into those secret stores\n Of health and life and joy--the food of man,\n While yet he lived in innocence and told\n A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood?\n A stranger to the savage arts of life--\n Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease--\n The Lord, and not the Tyrant, of the world.\u201d\n\nAnd then goes on to picture the feast of blood:--\n\n \u201cAnd yet the wholesome herb neglected dies,\n Though with the pure exhilarating soul\n Of nutriment and health, and vital powers\n Beyond the search of Art, \u2019tis copious blessed.\n For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined Man\n Is now become the Lion of the plain\n And worse. The Wolf, who from the nightly fold\n Fierce drags the bleating Prey, ne\u2019er drank her milk,\n Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the Steer,\n At whose strong chest the deadly Tiger hangs,\n E\u2019er ploughed for him. They, too, are tempered high,\n With hunger stung and wild necessity,\n Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.\n\n But Man, whom Nature formed of milder clay,\n With every kind emotion in his heart,\n And taught alone to weep; while from her lap\n She pours ten thousand delicacies--herbs\n And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain\n Or beams that gave them birth--shall he, fair form,\n Who wears sweet smiles and looks erect on heaven,\n E\u2019er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd\n And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,\n Blood-stained, deserves to bleed. But you, ye Flocks,\n What have you done? Ye peaceful people, what\n To merit death? You who have given us milk\n In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat\n Against the winter\u2019s cold? And the plain Ox,\n That harmless, honest, guileless animal,\n In what has he offended? He, whose toil,\n Patient and ever ready, clothes the land\n With all the pomp of harvest--shall he bleed,\n And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands\n E\u2019en of the clowns he feeds, and that, perhaps,\n To swell the riot of the autumnal feast\n Won by his labour?\u201d[151]\n\nAnd again in denouncing the _amateur_ slaughtering (euphemised by the\nmocking term of _Sport_) unblushingly perpetrated in the broad light of\nday:--\n\n \u201cWhen beasts of prey retire, that all night long,\n Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark,\n As if their conscious ravage shunned the light,\n Ashamed. Not so [he reproaches] the steady tyrant Man,\n Who with the thoughtless insolence of Power,\n Inflamed beyond the most infuriate wrath\n Of the worst monster that e\u2019er roamed the waste,\n For Sport alone pursues the cruel chase,\n Amid the beamings of the gentle days.\n Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our _wanton_ rage,\n For hunger kindles _you_, and lawless want;\n But lavish fed, in Nature\u2019s bounty rolled--\n To joy at anguish, and delight in blood--\n Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.\u201d[152]\n\nWe conclude these extracts from _The Seasons_ with the poet\u2019s indignant\nreflection upon the selfish greed of Commerce, which barbarously\nsacrifices by thousands (as it does also the innocent mammalia of the\nseas) the noblest and most sagacious of the terrestrial races for the\nsake of a superfluous luxury:--\n\n \u201cPeaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast\n Their ample shade o\u2019er Niger\u2019s yellow stream,\n And where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves;\n Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,\n High raised in solemn theatre around,\n Leans the huge Elephant, wisest of _brutes_!\n O truly wise! with gentle might endowed:\n Though powerful, not destructive. Here he sees\n Revolving ages sweep the changeful Earth,\n And empires rise and fall: regardless he\n Of what the never-resting race of men\n Project. Thrice happy! could he \u2019scape their guile\n Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps:\n Or with his towering grandeur swell their state--\n The pride of kings!--or else his strength pervert,\n And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,\n Astonished at the madness of mankind.\u201d[153]\n\n\n\n\nXXII.\n\nHARTLEY. 1705-1757.\n\n\nCelebrated as the earliest writer of the utilitarian school of morals.\nAt the age of fifteen he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, of which\nhe was afterwards elected a Fellow. Scruples of conscience about the\n\u201cThirty-nine Articles\u201d would not allow him to subscribe them and take\norders, and he turned to the medical profession, in which he reached\nconsiderable eminence.\n\nHis _Observations on Man: his Frame, his Duties, and his Expectations_,\nappeared in 1748. The principal interest in the book consists in the\nfact of its containing the germs of that school of moral philosophy of\nwhich Paley, Bentham, and Mill have been the most able expositors. He\nhad imbibed the teaching of Locke upon the origin of ideas, which that\nfirst of English metaphysicians founded in Sensation and Reflection\nor Association, in contradiction to the old theory of _Innateness_.\nAlthough now universally received, it is hardly necessary to remark\nthat at its first promulgation it met with as great opposition as all\nrational ideas experience long after their first introduction; and\nLocke\u2019s controversy with the Bishop of Worcester is matter of history.\n\nIt has already been stated that David Hartley was the friend of Dr.\nCheyne, whom he attended in his last illness, and he numbered amongst\nhis acquaintances some of the most eminent personages of the day. His\ncharacter appears to have been singularly amiable and disinterested.\nHis theology is, for the most part, of unsuspected orthodoxy. The\nfollowing sentences reveal the bias of his mind in the matter of\n_kreophagy_:--\n\n \u201cWith respect to animal diet, let it be considered that taking\n away the lives of [other] animals in order to convert them into\n food, _does great violence to the principles of benevolence and\n compassion_. This appears from the frequent hard-heartedness and\n cruelty found among those persons whose occupations engage them\n in destroying animal life, as well as from the uneasiness which\n others feel in beholding the butchery of [the lower] animals. It\n is most evident, in respect to the larger animals and those with\n whom we have a familiar intercourse--such as Oxen, Sheep, and\n domestic Fowls, &c.--so as to distinguish, love, and compassionate\n individuals. They resemble us greatly in the make of the body in\n general, and in that of the particular organs of circulation,\n respiration, digestion, &c.; also in the formation of their\n intellects, memories, and passions, and in the signs of distress,\n fear, pain, and death. They often, likewise, win our affections by\n the marks of peculiar sagacity, by their instincts, helplessness,\n innocence, nascent benevolence, &c., &c., and, if there be any\n glimmering of hope of an hereafter for them--if they should\n prove to be our _brethren and sisters_ in this higher sense, in\n immortality as well as mortality--in the permanent principle of our\n minds as well as in the frail dust of our bodies--this ought to be\n still further reason for tenderness for them.\n\n \u201cThis, therefore, seems to be nothing else,\u201d he concludes, \u201cthan an\n argument to stop us in our career, to make us sparing and tender\n in this article of diet, and put us upon consulting experience\n more faithfully and impartially in order to determine what is most\n suitable to the purposes of life and health, our compassion being\n made, by the foregoing considerations in some measure, a balance to\n our impetuous bodily appetites.\u201d[154]\n\nDr. Hartley is not the only theologian who has suggested the\npossibility or probability of a future life for all or some of the\nnon-human races. This question we must leave to the theologians. All\nthat we here remark is, that Hartley is one of the very few amongst his\nbrethren who have had the consistency and the courage of their opinions\nto deduce the inevitable inference.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII.\n\nCHESTERFIELD. 1694-1773.\n\n\nNotwithstanding his strange self-deception as to the \u201cgeneral order\nof nature,\u201d by which he attempted (sincerely we presume) to silence\nthe better promptings of conscience, the remarkably strong feeling\nexpressed by Lord Chesterfield gives him some right to notice here.\nHis early _instinctive_ aversion for the food which is the product\nof torture and murder is much better founded, we shall be apt to\nbelieve, than the fallacious sophism by which he seems eventually to\nhave succeeded in stifling the voices of Nature and Reason in seeking\nrefuge under the shelter of a superficial philosophy. At all events\nhis example is a forcible illustration of Seneca\u2019s observation that\nthe better feelings of the young need only to be evoked by a proper\neducation to conduct them to a true morality and religion.[155]\n\nAs it is we have to lament that he had not the greater light (of\nscience) of the present time, if, indeed, the \u201cdeceitfulness of riches\u201d\nwould not have been for him, as for the mass of the rich or fashionable\nworld, the shipwreck of just and rational feeling.\n\nPhilip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, succeeded to the family title in\n1726. High in favour with the new king--George II.--he received the\nappointment of Ambassador-extraordinary to the Court of Holland in\n1728, and amongst other honours that of the knighthood of the Garter.\nIn 1745 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in which post,\nduring his brief rule, he seemed to have governed with more success\nthan some of his predecessors or successors. He was soon afterwards a\nSecretary of State: ill-health obliged him to relinquish this office\nafter a short tenure. He wrote papers for _The World_--the popular\nperiodical of the time--besides some poetical pieces, but he is\nchiefly known as an author by his celebrated _Letters to his Son_,\nwhich long served as the text-book of polite society. It contains some\nremarks in regard to the relations of the sexes scarcely consonant\nwith the custom, or at least with the outward code of sexual morals of\nthe present day. His sentiments upon the subject in question are as\nfollow:--\n\n \u201cI remember, when I was a young man at the University, being so\n much affected with that very pathetic speech which Ovid puts into\n the mouth of Pythagoras against the eating of the flesh of animals,\n that it was some time before I could bring myself to our college\n mutton again, with some inward doubt whether I was not making\n myself an accomplice to a murder. My scruples remained unreconciled\n to the committing of so horrid a meal, till upon serious reflection\n I became convinced of its legality[156] from the general order of\n Nature which has instituted the universal preying [of the stronger]\n upon the weaker as one of her first principles: though to me it has\n ever appeared an incomprehensible mystery that she, who could not\n be restrained by any want of materials from furnishing supplies for\n the support of her numerous offspring, should lay them under the\n necessity of devouring one another.[157]\n\n \u201cI know not whether it is from the clergy having looked upon this\n subject as too trivial for their notice, that we find them more\n silent upon it than could be wished; for as slaughter is at present\n no branch of the priesthood, it is to be presumed that they have as\n much compassion as other men. The _Spectator_ has exclaimed against\n the cruelty of roasting lobsters alive, and of whipping pigs to\n death, but the misfortune is the writings of an Addison are seldom\n read by cooks and butchers. As to the _thinking_ part of mankind,\n it has always been convinced, I believe, that however conformable\n to the _general_ rule of nature our devouring animals may be,\n we are nevertheless under indelible obligation to prevent their\n suffering any degree of pain more than is absolutely unavoidable.\n\n \u201cBut this conviction lies in such heads that I fear _not one\n poor creature in a million has ever fared the better for it_,\n and, I believe, never will: since people of condition, the only\n source from whence [effectual] pity is to flow, are so far from\n inculcating it to those beneath them, that a very few years ago\n they suffered themselves to be entertained at a public theatre\n by the performances of an unhappy company of animals who could\n only have been made actors by the utmost energy of whipcord and\n starving.\u201d[158]\n\nThe writer might have instanced still more frightful results of this\ninsensibility on the part of the influential classes of the community:\nnor indeed, the better few always excepted, were he living now could he\npresent a much more favourable picture of the morals (in this the most\nimportant department of them) of the ruling sections of society.\n\nRitson supplements the virtual adhesion of Lord Chesterfield to\nthe principles of Humanity, with some remarks of Sir W. Jones, the\neminent Orientalist, who (protesting against the selfish callousness\nof \u201cSportsmen\u201d and even of \u201cNaturalists\u201d in the infliction of pain)\nwrites: \u201cI shall never forget the couplet of Ferdusi[159] for which\nSadi,[160] who cites it with applause, pours blessings on his departed\nspirit:--\n\n \u201cAh! spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain:\n He lives with pleasure and he dies with pain.\u201d\n\nTo which creditable expression of feeling we would append a word\nof astonishment at that very common inconsistency, and failure in\nelementary logic, which permits men--while easily and hyperbolically\ncommiserating the fate of an emmet, a beetle, or a worm--to ignore\nthe necessarily infinitely greater sufferings of the highly-organised\nvictims of the _Table_.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXXIV.\n\nVOLTAIRE. 1694-1778.\n\n\nOf the life and literary productions of the most remarkable name in\nthe whole history of literature--if at least we regard the extent and\nvariety of his astonishing genius, as well as the immense influence,\ncontemporary and future, of his writings--only a brief outline can\nbe given here. Yet, as the most eminent humanitarian prophet of the\neighteenth century, the principal facts of his life deserve somewhat\nlarger notice than within the general scope of this work.\n\nFran\u00e7ois Marie Arouet--commonly known by his assumed name of\nVoltaire--on his mother\u2019s side of a family of position recently\nennobled, was born at Chatenay, near Paris. He was educated at the\nJesuits\u2019 College of Louis XIV., where, it is said, the fathers already\nforetold his future eminence. Like many other illustrious writers he\nwas originally destined for the \u201cLaw,\u201d which was little adapted to his\ngenius, and, like his great prototype, Lucian, and others, he soon\nabandoned all thought of that profession for letters and philosophy.\nHe had the good fortune, at an early age, to gain the favour of the\ncelebrated Ninon de Lenclos, who left him a legacy of 2,000 livres for\nthe purchase of a library--an important event which was doubtless the\nmeans of confirming his intellectual bias.\n\nVoltaire\u2019s first literary conceptions were formed in the Bastile, that\ninfamous representative of despotic caprice, to which some verses of\nwhich he was the reputed author, satirising the licentious extravagance\nof the Court of the late king, Louis XIV., had consigned him at the age\nof twenty. Soon afterwards appeared the tragedy of _\u00c6dipe_ (founded\nupon the well-known dramas of Sophocles), the first modern drama in\nwhich the universal and traditional love scenes were discarded. This\ncontempt for the conventionalities, however, excited the indignation\nof the play-goers, and the _\u00c6dipe_ was, at its first representation,\nhissed off the stage. The author found himself forced to sacrifice\nto the popular tastes, and his tragedy was received with applause.\nTwo memorable verses indicated the bias of the future antagonist of\necclesiastical orthodoxy, and naturally provoked the hostility of the\nprofession which he had dared so openly to assail:--\n\n \u201cNos pr\u00eatres ne sont pas ce qu\u2019un vain peuple pense:\n Notre credulit\u00e9 fait toute leur science.\u201d\n\nIt was during this imprisonment, too, that he formed the first idea\nof the _Henriade_ (or _The League_, as it was originally called),\nthe only epic poem worthy of the name in the French language. A\nchance quarrel with an insolent courtier was the cause of Voltaire\u2019s\nsecond incarceration in the Bastile with, at the end of six months, a\nperemptory order to absent himself from the capital. These experiences\nof despotic caprice and of sophisticated society he long afterwards\nembodied in two of his best romances, _L\u2019Ing\u00e9nu_ and _Micro-m\u00e9gas_ (the\n\u201cLittle-Big Man\u201d), one of the most exquisite productions of Satire.\n\nThe youthful victim of these malicious persecutions determined upon\nseeking refuge in England, whose freer air had already inspired\nNewton, Locke, Shaftesbury, and other eminent leaders of Thought. A\nflattering welcome awaited him--and subscriptions to the _Henriade_,\nbetter received here than in France, gratified his pride and filled\nhis purse. During his sojourn of three years in this country, he made\nthe most of his time in studying its best literature, and cultivating\nthe acquaintance of its most eminent living writers. His tragedy of\n_Brutus_ was followed by _La Mort de C\u00e9sar_ which, from its taint of\nliberalism, was not allowed to be printed in France. Upon his return\nto Paris he published his _Za\u00efre_--finished in eighteen days--the first\ntragedy in which, deserting the footsteps of Corneille and Racine, he\nventured to follow the bent of his own genius. The plan of _Za\u00efre_ has\nbeen pronounced to be one of the most perfect ever contrived for the\nstage.\n\nMore important, by its influence upon contemporary thought, was\nhis famous _Letters on the English_--a work designed to inform his\ncountrymen generally of the literature, thought, and political and\ntheological parties of the rival nation, and, more especially, of the\ndiscoveries of Newton and Locke. Descartes, at this moment supreme\nin France, had succeeded to the vacant throne of the so-called\nAristotelian Schoolmen. His system, a great advance upon the old,\nbroached some errors in physics, amongst others the theory of\n\u201cVortices\u201d to explain the planetary movements. A much more pernicious\nand reprehensible error was his absurd denial of conscious feeling\nand intelligence to the lower races, which was admirably exposed by\nVoltaire in his _El\u00e9mens de Newton_ and elsewhere. In England, Newton\u2019s\nextraordinary discoveries had already made Descartes obsolete, as far\nas the _savans_ were concerned at least, but the French scientific\nworld still clung, for the most part, to the Cartesian principles. As\nfor Locke, he had overturned the orthodox creed of \u201cinnate ideas,\u201d\nsupplying instead sensation and reflection. This advocacy of the new\nphilosophy, added to the success of his tragedies for the theatre,\n\n \u201cDrew [says Voltaire in his _M\u00e9moires_] a whole library of\n pamphlets down upon me, in which they proved I was a bad poet,\n an atheist, and the son of a peasant. A history of my life was\n printed in which this genealogy was inserted. An industrious German\n took care to collect all the tales of that kind which had been\n crammed into the libel, they had published against me. They imputed\n adventures to me with persons I never knew, and with others who\n never existed. I have found while writing this a letter from the\n Mar\u00e9chal de Richelieu which informed me of an impudent lampoon\n where it was proved his wife had given me an elegant couch, with\n something else, at a time when he had no wife. At first I took\n some pleasure in making collections of these calumnies, but they\n multiplied to such a degree I was obliged to leave off. Such are\n the fruits I gathered from my labours. I, however, easily consoled\n myself, sometimes in my retreat at Cirey, and at other times in\n mixing with the best society.\u201d\n\nAmongst other subjects the _Lettres_ (a masterpiece of criticism and\nsort of essays, since often imitated but seldom or never, perhaps,\nequalled in their kind) contains an admirable essay upon the Quakers,\nto whom he did justice. He introduces one of them in conversation with\nhim, thus apologising for his _eccentricities_:\n\n \u201cConfess that thou hast had some trouble to prevent thyself from\n laughing when I answered all thy civilities with my hat upon my\n head and with thouing and thee-ing thee (_en te tutoyant_). Yet\n thou seemest to me too well informed to be ignorant that, in\n the time of Christ, no nation fell into the ridiculousness of\n substituting the _plural_ for the singular. They used to say to\n C\u00e6sar-Augustus: \u2018I love thee,\u2019 \u2018I pray thee,\u2019 \u2018I thank thee.\u2019 He\n would not allow himself to be called \u2018Monsieur\u2019 (_dominus_). It was\n only a long time after him that men thought of causing themselves\n to be addressed as _you_ in place of _thou_, as though they\n were double, and of usurping impertinent titles of grandeur, of\n eminence, of holiness, of divinity even, which earthworms give to\n other earthworms, while assuring them with a profound respect (and\n with an infamous falseness), they are their _very humble and very\n obedient servants_. It is in order to be upon our guard against\n this unworthy commerce of lies and of flatteries that we \u2018thee\u2019 and\n \u2018thou\u2019 equally kings and kitchen-maids: that we give the ordinary\n compliments to no one, having for men only charity, and reserving\n our respect for the laws. We wear a dress a little different from\n other men, in order that it may be for us a continual warning not\n to resemble them. Others wear marks of their dignities, we those\n of Christian humility. We never use _oaths_, not even in law\n courts: we think that the name of the _Most High_ ought not to be\n pronounced in the miserable debates of men. When we are forced to\n appear before the magistrates on others\u2019 business (for we never\n have law suits ourselves), we affirm the truth by a \u2018yes\u2019 or a\n \u2018no,\u2019 and the judges believe us upon our simple word, while so many\n other Christians perjure themselves upon the _Gospel_. We never\n go to war. It is not that we fear death, but it is because we are\n neither tigers, nor wolves, nor dogs, but men, but Christians. Our\n God, who has told us to love our enemies and to suffer without a\n murmur, doubtless would not have us cross the sea to go and cut\n the throats of our brothers, because assassins, clothed in red\n and in hats of two feet high, enrol citizens to the accompaniment\n of a noise produced by two little sticks upon the dried skin of\n an ass. And when, after battles won, all London is brilliant with\n illuminations, when the sky is in flames with musket shots, when\n the air re-echoes with sounds of thanksgiving, with bells, with\n organs, with cannons, we groan in silence over the murders which\n cause the public light-heartedness.\u201d (_Lettre II._)\n\nAbout this period, frequenting less the fashionable and trifling\nsociety of the capital, and contenting himself with the company of a\nfew congenial minds, he formed amongst others a sympathetic friendship\nwith the Marquise de Ch\u00e2telet, a lady of extraordinary talents.\n\n \u201cI was tired [thus he begins his unfinished _M\u00e9moires_], I was\n tired of the lazy and noisy life led at Paris, of the multitude\n of _petit-ma\u00eetres_, of bad books printed with the approbation\n of censors and the privilege of the king, of the cabals and\n parties among the learned, and of the mean arts of plagiarism and\n book-making which dishonour Literature.\u201d\n\nThe lady was the equal of Madame Dacier in knowledge of the Greek\nand Latin languages, and she was familiar with all the best modern\nwriters. She wrote a commentary on Leibnitz. She also translated the\n_Principia_. Her favourite pursuits, however, were mathematics and\nmetaphysics.\n\n \u201cShe was none the less fond of the world and those amusements\n familiar to her age and sex. She determined to leave them all and\n bury herself in an old ruinous ch\u00e2teau on the borders of Champagne\n and Lorraine, situated in a barren and unhealthy soil. This old\n ch\u00e2teau she ornamented with sufficiently pretty gardens. I built\n a gallery, and formed a very good collection of natural history,\n added to which we had a library not badly furnished. We were\n visited by several of the _savans_, who came to philosophise in our\n retreat.... I taught English to Madame de Ch\u00e2telet, who, in about\n three months understood it as well as I did, and read Newton, and\n Locke, and Pope, with equal ease. We read all the works of Tasso\n and Ariosto together, so that when Algerotti came to Cirey, where\n he finished his _Newtonianism for Women_, he found her sufficiently\n skilful in his own language to give him some very excellent\n information by which he profited.\u201d\n\nVoltaire had already (1741) given to the world his _El\u00e9mens de\nNewton_--a work which, in conjunction with other parts of his writings,\nproves that had he chosen to apply himself wholly to natural philosophy\nor to mathematics he might have reached the highest fame in those\ndepartments of science. It is in the _El\u00e9mens_ that Voltaire records\nhis noble protest at the same time against the monstrous hypothesis of\nDescartes, to which we have already referred, and against the selfish\ncruelty of our species.\n\n \u201cThere is in man a disposition to compassion as generally diffused\n as his other instincts. Newton had _cultivated_ this sentiment of\n humanity, and he extended it to the lower animals. With Locke he\n was strongly convinced that God has given to them a proportion\n of ideas, and the same feelings which he has to us. He could not\n believe that God, who has made nothing in vain, would have given to\n them organs of feeling _in order that they might have no feeling_.\n\n \u201cHe thought it a very frightful inconsistency to believe that\n animals feel and _at the same time to cause them to suffer_. On\n this point his morality was in accord with his philosophy. _He\n yielded but with repugnance to the barbarous custom of supporting\n ourselves upon the blood and flesh of beings like ourselves_, whom\n we caress, and he never permitted in his own house the putting them\n to death by slow and exquisite [_recherch\u00e9es_] modes of killing for\n the sake of making the food more delicious. This compassion, which\n he felt for other animals, culminated in true charity for men. In\n truth, _without humanity, a virtue which comprehends all virtues_,\n the name of philosopher would be little deserved.\u201d[161]\n\nAt Cirey some of his best tragedies were composed--_Alzire_, _M\u00e9rope_,\nand _Mehemet_; the _Discours sur l\u2019Homme_, a moral poem in the style of\nPope\u2019s Essays, pronounced to be one of the finest monuments of French\npoetry; an _Essay on Universal History_, (for his friend\u2019s use, to\ncorrect as well as supplement Bossuet\u2019s splendid but little philosophic\nhistory), the foundation of perhaps his most admirable production the\n_Essai sur les M\u0153urs et l\u2019Esprit des Nations_, and many lesser pieces,\nincluding a large correspondence. Besides these literary works, he\nengaged in mathematical and scientific studies, which resulted in some\n_brochures_ of considerable value.\n\nAbout this time (1740) news arrived of the death of Friedrich Wilhelm\nof Prussia. Most readers know the extraordinary character of this\nstrange personage, who caned the women and his clergy in the streets\nof his capital, and who was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering\nhis son\u2019s execution. Narrowly escaping with his life the prince had\ndevoted himself to literary pursuits, and had kept up a correspondence\nwith the leading men of letters of France, and above all with the\nauthor of _Za\u00efre_ whom he regarded as little less than divine. The new\nking set about inspecting his territories, and proceeded _incognito_ to\nBrussels, where the first interview between the two future most eminent\npersons in Europe took place. Repairing to his majesty\u2019s quarters--\n\n \u201cOne soldier was the only guard I found. The Privy-Councillor\n and Minister of State was walking in the court-yard blowing his\n fingers. He had on a large pair of coarse ruffles, a hat all\n in holes, and a judge\u2019s old wig, one side of which hung into\n his pocket and the other scarcely touched his shoulder. They\n informed me that this man was charged with a state affair of\n great importance, and so indeed he was. I was conducted into his\n majesty\u2019s apartments, in which I found nothing but four bare walls.\n By the light of a taper I perceived a small truckle-bed two feet\n and a half wide in a closet, upon which lay a little man wrapped in\n a morning dressing-gown of blue cloth. It was his majesty who lay\n perspiring and shaking beneath a miserable coverlet in a violent\n ague fit. I made my bow, and began my acquaintance by feeling his\n pulse, as if I had been his first physician. The fit left him, and\n he rose, dressed himself, and sat down to table with Algerotti,\n Maupertuis, the ambassador of the States-general, and myself. At\n supper he treated most profoundly of the soul, natural liberty,\n and the _Androgynes_ of Plato. I soon found myself attached to\n him, for he had wit, an agreeable manner, and moreover was a king,\n which is a circumstance of seduction hardly to be vanquished by\n human weakness. Generally speaking, it is the employment of men of\n letters to flatter kings, but in this instance I was praised by\n a king from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet at the\n same time that I was libelled at least once a week by the Abb\u00e9\n Desfontaines and other Grub-street poets of Paris.\u201d\n\nVoltaire received a pressing invitation to Berlin.\n\n \u201cBut I had before given him to understand I could not come to stay\n with him; that I deemed it a duty to prefer friendship to ambition;\n that I was attached to Mdlle. de Ch\u00e2telet, and that, between\n philosophers, I loved a lady better than a king. He approved of the\n liberty I took, though, for his part, he did not love the ladies.\n I went to pay him a visit in October, and the Cardinal de Fleury\n [the French premier] wrote me a long letter, full of praises of the\n _Anti-Machiavel_, and of the author [Friedrich], which I did not\n forget to let him see.\u201d\n\nThe French court wished to secure the alliance of Friedrich. No one\nseemed a more fitting mediator than his early counsellor, who was\ninduced to accept the mission, and to set out for Berlin, where an\nenthusiastic welcome awaited him, apartments in the palace being\nplaced at his disposal. Yet, in spite of the success of this and other\npublic services, his enemies in Paris remained in full possession of\nthe field. For the second time Voltaire sought admission into the\n_Acad\u00e9mie_--an empty honour, the granting or refusal of which could\nneither add to nor detract from his fame. The prestige of that society,\nhowever, he seemed to consider essential to his safety against the\nincreasing violence and formidable array of his enemies, who were bent\non crushing him, by whatever means. It was only by submitting to the\nmortification of qualifying some of his opinions that he at length\nsucceeded in his object. Notwithstanding the address with which he\nmanages his language, it were better, as his biographer--the Marquis de\nCondorcet--justly remarks, he had renounced the _Acad\u00e9mie_ than have\nhad the weakness to submit to so evident a farce.\n\nOn succeeding to a vacant chair it was customary, besides a eulogy\nupon the deceased member, to speak in set terms of praise of Richelieu\nand Louis XIV. This traditional and servile practice the new\nAcademician was the first to break through. Philosophy and literature\nwere treated of in unaccustomed strains of freedom, and his good\nexample has been influential on after generations.\n\n \u201cI was deemed worthy [writes Voltaire] to be one of the forty\n useless members of the _Acad\u00e9mie_, was appointed historiographer of\n France, and created by the king one of the gentlemen in ordinary\n of his chamber. From this I concluded it was better, in order to\n make the most trifling fortune, to speak four words to a king\u2019s\n mistress, than to write a hundred volumes.\u201d\n\nA sort of experience he has finely illustrated in his romance of\n_Zadig_.\n\nStanislaus, the ex-king of Poland, was keeping his Court at Luneville,\nnot far from Cirey, where he divided his time between his mistress and\nhis confessor. To this royal retreat the friends of Cirey were invited,\nand the whole of the year 1749 was passed there. Meanwhile Madame de\nCh\u00e2telet died, and Voltaire, much affected by his loss, returned to\nParis. Friedrich redoubled his solicitation with new hope.\n\n \u201cI was destined to run from king to king, although I loved liberty\n to idolatry.... He was well assured that in reality his verse and\n prose were superior to my verse and prose; though as to the former,\n he thought there was a certain something that I, in quality of\n academician, might give to his writings, and there was no kind of\n flattery, no seduction, he did not employ to engage me to come.\u201d\n\nThe philosopher at length set out for Berlin, and his reception must\nhave reached his highest expectations. We have no intention to repeat\nthe account of this singular episode in his life, which has been\nso often narrated. Evenings of the most agreeable kind, abundance\nof wit, unrestrained conversation, the society of some of the most\ndistinguished men of science of the time, the unbounded adoration\nof a royal host, eager, above all things, to retain so brilliant a\nguest--such were the pleasures of this palace of Alcina, as he calls\nit. But the imperious tempers of the two unequal friends soon proved\nthe impossibility of a lasting _entente_, and rivalries amongst the\nliterary courtiers hastened, if they did not effect, the final rupture.\n\nAfter his escape from Berlin Voltaire passed a few weeks with the\nDuchess of Saxe-Gotha, \u201cthe best of princesses, full of gentleness,\ndiscretion, and equanimity, and who, God be thanked, did not make\nverses\u201d (alluding to his late host\u2019s proclivities), and some days with\nthe Landgrave of Hesse on his way to Frankfort. Literature had not\nsuffered during the life at Berlin. Finishing touches were put to many\nof the tragedies--the _\u00c2ge de Louis XIV._ was completed, part of the\n_Essai sur les M\u0153urs et l\u2019Esprit des Nations_ written, _La Pucelle_\n(the least worthy of all his productions) corrected, and a poem, _Sur\nla Loi Naturelle_, composed (a work of a far better inspiration than\nthe poem just mentioned, but which was publicly burned at Paris by the\nmisdirected zeal of the bigots). In a later poem on the destruction of\nLisbon, as well as in the romance of _Candide_, fired with indignation\nat the hypocrisies and mischiefs of the easy-going creed of Optimism\n(as generally understood), so welcome to self-complacent orthodoxy,\nhe displayed all his vast powers of sarcasm in exposing its fatal\nabsurdities. Leibnitz had been one of its most strenuous apologists.\nIn the person of the wretched Pangloss the theory of \u201cthe best of\nall possible worlds,\u201d and of the \u201ceternal fitness of things,\u201d is\noverwhelmed, indeed, with an excess of ridicule. It is to be lamented\nthat the satirist allowed his _s\u00e6va indignatio_ to overpower a\nproper sense of the proprieties of language and expression.\n\nVoltaire was now become a potentate more dreaded than a\nsovereign-prince on his throne, an object of hatred and terror to\npolitical and other oppressors. After some hesitation he had chosen\nfor his retreat the ever-memorable Ferney--a place within French\nterritory, on the borders of Switzerland--and also a spot near Geneva,\nwhere he alternately resided, escaping at pleasure either from Catholic\nintolerance or from Puritanic rigour, with his niece--Madame Denis,\nwho had anxiously attended him during a recent illness. From these\nretreats he made himself heard over all Europe in defence of reason and\nhumanity. It was about this time (1756) that he employed his eloquence\nto save Admiral Byng, a victim to ministerial necessities, who was\nnevertheless condemned, as his advocate expresses it in _Candide_,\n\u201cpour encourager les autres.\u201d A like philanthropic effort, equally\nvain, was made on behalf of the still more unfortunate Comte de Lally.\n\nThe year 1757 is memorable in literature as that in which he gave\nto the world an accurate edition of his already published works,\nenriched by one of his most meritorious productions, the _Essai sur\nles M\u0153urs et l\u2019Esprit des Nations_, which now appeared in its complete\nform. History, the author justly complained, had hitherto been but a\nuniform chronicle of kings, courts, and court intrigues. The history\nof legislation, arts, sciences, commerce, morals, had been always, or\nalmost always, neglected.\n\n \u201cWe imagine [says Condorcet], while we read such histories, that\n the human race was created only to exhibit the political or\n military talents of a few individuals, and that the object of\n society is not the happiness of the Species but the pleasure of the\n Few.\u201d\n\nIf the best historical works of the present day are a considerable\nimprovement upon those which were in fashion before Voltaire\u2019s\n_critiques_, the remarks of Condorcet are not altogether inapplicable\nto the popular and school manuals still in vogue. At all events this\nstyle of composing \u201chistory,\u201d ridiculed by the wit of Lucian sixteen\ncenturies before, was the universal method down to the appearance of\nthe celebrated _Essai_.\n\nBeginning with Charlemagne, it presents, in a rapid, concise, and\nphilosophic style, the most important and interesting features, not\nonly of European but of the world\u2019s history, adorned with all the grace\nand ease of which he was always so consummate a master. Many there\nalways are who conceive of philosophy and erudition only as enveloped\nin verbosity and obscurity. Dulness and learning in the common mind\nare convertible terms. The very transparency and clearness of his\nstyle were reproached to him as a sign of superficiality and want\nof exactness--the last faults which could be justly imputed to him.\nHowever, the influence of Voltaire became apparent in the productions\nof the English historical school, till then unknown, which soon\nafterwards arose. The Italian Vico, and Beaufort, in France, in the\nparticular branch of Roman antiquity, and Bayle in general, had already\ncontributed in some degree towards the founding of a critical school;\nbut these attempts were partial only. To Voltaire belongs the honour\nof having applied the principles of criticism at once universally and\npopularly.\n\nIn reviewing the history and manners of the Hindus he repeatedly\nexpresses his sympathy, more or less directly, with their aversion from\nthe coarser living of the West:--\n\n \u201cThe Hindus, in embracing the doctrine of the _Met\u00e9mpsychosis_, had\n one restraint the more. The dread of killing a father or mother, in\n killing men and other animals, inspired in them a terror of murder\n and every other violence, which became with them a second nature.\n Thus all the peoples of India, whose families are not allied either\n to the Arabs or to the Tartars, are still at this day the mildest\n of all men. Their religion and the temperature of their climate\n made these peoples entirely resemble those peaceful animals whom we\n bring up in our sheep pens and our dove cotes for the purpose of\n cutting their throats at our good will and pleasure....\n\n \u201cThe Christian religion, which these _primitives_ [the Quakers]\n alone follow out to the letter, is as great an enemy to bloodshed\n as the Pythagorean. But the Christian peoples have never practised\n _their_ religion, and the ancient Hindu castes have always\n practised theirs. It is because Pythagoreanism is the only religion\n in the world which has been able to educe a religious feeling from\n the horror of murder and slaughter....\n\n \u201cSome have supposed the cradle of our race to be Hindustan,\n alleging that the feeblest of all animals must have been born in\n the softest climate, and in a land which produces without culture\n the _most nourishing and most healthful fruits_, like dates and\n cocoa nuts. The latter especially easily affords men the means\n of existence, of clothing and of housing themselves--and of what\n besides has the inhabitant of that Peninsula need?... Our Houses of\n Carnage, which they call Butcher-Shops [_boucheries_], where they\n sell so many carcases to feed our own, would import the plague into\n the climate of India.\n\n \u201cThese peoples need and desire pure and refreshing foods. Nature\n has lavished upon them forests of citron trees, orange trees, fig\n trees, palm trees, cocoa-nut trees, and plains covered with rice.\n The strongest man can need to spend but one or two sous a day for\n his subsistence.[162] Our workmen spend more in one day than a\n Malabar native in a month....\n\n \u201cIn general, the men of the South-East have received from Nature\n gentler manners than the people of our West. Their climate\n disposes them to abstain from strong liquors and from the flesh\n of animals--foods which excite the blood and often provoke\n ferocity--and, although superstition and foreign irruptions have\n corrupted the goodness of their disposition, nevertheless all\n travellers agree that the character of these peoples has nothing of\n that irritability, of that caprice, and of that harshness which it\n has cost much trouble to keep within bounds in the countries of the\n North.\u201d\n\nIn noticing the comparative progress of the various foreign religions\nin India, Voltaire observes that--\n\n \u201cThe Mohammedan religion alone has made progress in India,\n especially amongst the richer classes, because it is the religion\n of the Prince, and because it teaches but the divine unity\n conformably to the ancient teaching of the first Brahmins.\n Christianity [he adds, only too truly] has not had the same\n success, notwithstanding the large establishments of the\n Portuguese, of the French, of the English, of the Dutch, of the\n Danes. It is, in fact, the conflict of these nations which has\n injured the progress of our Faith. As they all hate each other,\n and as several of them often make war one upon the other in their\n climates, what they teach is naturally hateful to the peaceful\n inhabitants. Their customs, besides, revolt the Hindus. Those\n people are scandalised at seeing us drinking wine and eating flesh,\n which they themselves abhor.\u201d[163]\n\nThis--one of the chief obstacles to the spread of Christian\ncivilisation in the East, and especially in India, viz., the eating of\nflesh and the drinking of alcohol, its legitimate attendant--has been\nacknowledged by Christian missionaries themselves of late years.\n\nEmployed as he was in various literary undertakings he had been\nwatching with great interest, not, perhaps, without a secret wish\nfor vengeance, the important political and military complications of\nEurope. After some brilliant successes the Prussian king had been\nreduced to the last extremity. At this juncture the former friends\nagreed to forget, as far as possible, their old quarrel, and Voltaire\nenjoyed the satisfaction of having succeeded in dissuading Friedrich\nfrom suicide. The victories of Rosbach and Breslau not long afterwards\nchanged the condition of things once again. From this time the prince\nand the philosopher resumed the name, if not the cordiality, of\nfriends. A curious accident put the arbitrament of peace and war\nfor some weeks into the hands of Voltaire. The Prussian king, while\ninactive in his fortified camp, wrote, as his custom was, a quantity\nof verse and sent the packet to Ferney. Amongst the mass--good, bad,\nand indifferent--was a satire on Louis and his mistress. The packet had\nbeen opened before reaching its destination.\n\n \u201cHad I been inclined to amuse myself, it depended only on me to\n set the King of France and the King of Prussia to war in rhyme,\n which would have been a novel farce on earth. But I enjoyed another\n pleasure--that of being more prudent than Friedrich. I wrote him\n word that his Ode was beautiful, but that he ought not to publish\n it.... To make the pleasantry complete I thought it possible to lay\n the foundation of the peace of Europe on these poetical pieces.\n My correspondence with the Duc de Choiseul [the French Premier]\n gave birth to that idea, and it appeared so ridiculous, so worthy\n of the transactions of the times, that I indulged it, and had the\n satisfaction of proving on what weak and invisible pivots the\n destinies of nations turn.\u201d\n\nSeveral letters passed between the three before the danger was averted.\n\nThe limited space at our disposal will allow us only rapidly to notice\nsome of the remaining _chefs-d\u2019\u0153uvre_ of Voltaire. The celebrated\n_Encyclop\u00e9die_, under the auspices of D\u2019Alembert and Diderot, had been\nlately commenced. To this great work, to which he looked with some hope\nas promising a severe assault on ignorance and prejudice, Voltaire\ncontributed a few articles. It is not the place here to narrate the\nhistory of the fierce war of words to which the _Encyclop\u00e9die_ gave\nbirth. It was completed in about fifteen years, in 1775--a memorable\nyear in literature.\n\n \u201cSeveral men of letters [thus Voltaire briefly describes the\n project], most estimable by their learning and character, formed\n an association to compose an immense Dictionary of whatever could\n enlighten the human mind, and it became an object of commerce with\n the booksellers. The Chancellor, the Ministry, all encouraged so\n noble an enterprise. Seven volumes had already appeared, and were\n translated into English, German, Dutch, and Italian. This treasure,\n opened by the French to all nations, may be considered as what did\n us most honour at the time, so much were the excellent articles in\n the _Encyclop\u00e9die_ superior to the bad, which also were tolerably\n numerous. One had little to complain of in the work, except too\n many puerile declamations unfortunately adopted by the editors, who\n seized whatever came to hand to swell the work. But all which those\n editors wrote themselves was good.\u201d\n\nThe article which was particularly selected by the prosecution was\nthat on the Soul, \u201cone of the worst in the work, written by a poor\ndoctor of the Sorbonne, who killed himself with declaiming, rightly\nor wrongly, against materialism.\u201d The writers, as \u201cencyclop\u00e9distes\u201d\nand \u201cphilosophers\u201d were long marked by those titles for the public\nopprobrium. This general persecution had the effect of uniting that\nparty for common defence. For Voltaire himself an important advantage\nwas secured. Most of the principal men of letters and science, up to\nthis time either avowed enemies or coldly-distant friends, henceforward\nenrolled themselves under his undisputed leadership.\n\nAbout the same period he published a number of pieces, prose and\nverse, directed against his enemies of various kinds, theatrical as\nwell as theological. Amongst the latter, conspicuous by their attacks,\nbut still more so by their punishment, were Fr\u00e9ron and Desfontaines,\nwhose chastisement was such that, according to Macaulay\u2019s hyperbolic\nexpression, \u201cscourging, branding, pillorying would have been a trifle\nto it.\u201d It is more pleasing, however, to turn from this fierce war of\nretaliation, in which neither party was free from blame, to proofs\nof the real benevolence of his disposition. We can merely note the\nstrenuous efforts he made, unsolicited, on behalf of Admiral Byng and\nthe Comte de Lally, and the still more meritorious labours in the\nless well-known histories of Calas and Serven. Not by these public\nacts alone did the man, who has been accused of malignity, discover\nthe humanity of his character: to whose ready assistance in money, as\nwell as in counsel, the unfortunate of the literary tribe and others\nacknowledged their obligations.\n\nHis _Philosophie de l\u2019Histoire_, the prototype of its successors\nin name at least, was designed to expose that long-established and\nprevailing idolatry of Antiquity, which received everything bequeathed\nby it with astounding credulity. The _Philosophie_ called forth a\nnumerous host of small critics, to which men who knew, or ought to\nhave known better, allied themselves. Their curious way of maintaining\nthe credit of Antiquity afforded, as may be imagined, the author of\nthe _Defence of my Uncle_, under which title Voltaire chose to defend\nhimself, full scope for the exercise of his unrivalled powers of irony.\nWarburton, the pedant Bishop of Gloucester, with his odd theories about\nthe \u201cDivine Legation,\u201d comes in for a share of this Dunciad sort of\nimmortalisation.\n\nA work of equal merit with the _Philosophie_ are the _Questions_,\naddressed to the lovers of science, upon the _Encyclop\u00e6dia_, wherein,\nin the form of a dictionary, he treats, as the Marquis de Condorcet\neloquently describes,\n\n \u201cSuccessively of theology, grammar, natural philosophy, and\n literature. At one time he discusses subjects of Antiquity; at\n another questions of policy, legislation, and public economy.\n His style, always animated and seductive, clothed these various\n subjects with a charm hitherto known to himself alone, and which\n springs chiefly from the licence with which, yielding to his\n successive emotions, adapting his style less to his subject than\n to the momentary disposition of his mind, sometimes he spreads\n ridicule over objects which seem capable of inspiring only\n horror, and almost instantaneously hurried away by the energy and\n sensibility of his soul, he vehemently and eloquently exclaims\n against abuses which he had just before treated with mockery. His\n anger is excited by false taste; he quickly perceives that his\n indignation ought to be reserved for interests more important, and\n he finishes by laughing in his usual way. Sometimes he abruptly\n leaves a moral or political discussion for a literary criticism,\n and in the midst of a lesson on taste he pronounces abstract maxims\n of the profoundest philosophy, or makes a sudden and terrible\n attack on fanaticism and tyranny.\u201d\n\nIt is with his romances that we are here chiefly concerned, since it is\nin those lighter productions of his genius that he has most especially\nallowed us to see his opinions upon flesh-eating. In the charming tale\nof _The Princess of Babylon_, her attendant _Ph\u0153nix_ thus accounts to\nhis mistress for the silence of his brethren of the inferior races:--\n\n \u201cIt is because men fell into the practice of eating us in place of\n holding converse with and being instructed by us. The barbarians!\n Ought they not to have convinced themselves that, having the same\n organs as they, the same power of feeling, the same wants, the same\n desires, we have what they call _soul_ as well as themselves, that\n we are their brethren, and that only the wicked and bad deserve to\n be cooked and eaten? We are to such a degree your brethren that the\n Great Being, the Eternal and Creative Being, having made a covenant\n with men[164], expressly comprised us in the treaty. He forbad\n _you_ to feed yourselves upon our blood, and _us_ to suck yours.\n The fables of your Lokman, translated into so many languages, will\n be an everlasting witness of the happy commerce which you formerly\n had with us. It is true that there are many women among you who are\n always talking to their Dogs; but they have resolved never to make\n any answer, from the time that they were forced by blows of the\n whip to go hunting and to be the accomplices of the murder of our\n old common friends, the Deer and the Hares and the Partridges. You\n have still some old poems in which Horses talk and your coachmen\n address them every day, but with so much grossness and coarseness,\n and with such infamous words, that Horses who once loved you now\n detest you.... The shepherds of the Ganges, born all equal, are\n the owners of innumerable flocks who feed in meadows that are\n perpetually covered with flowers. They are never slaughtered there.\n It is a horrible crime in the country of the Ganges to kill and eat\n one\u2019s fellows [_semblables_]. Their wool, finer and more brilliant\n than the most beautiful silk, is the greatest object of commerce in\n the Orient.\u201d\n\nA certain king had the temerity to attack this innocent people:--\n\n \u201cThe king was taken prisoner with more than 600,000 men. They\n bathed him in the waters of the Ganges; they put him on the\n salutary _r\u00e9gime_ of the country, which consists in vegetables,\n which are lavished by Nature for the support of all human beings.\n Men, fed upon carnage and drinking strong drinks, have all an\n empoisoned and acrid blood, which drives them mad in a hundred\n different ways. Their principal madness is that of shedding the\n blood of their brothers, and of devastating fertile plains to reign\n over cemeteries.\u201d\n\nHer admirable instructor caused the princess to enter\n\n \u201cA dining-hall, whose walls were covered with orange-wood. The\n under-shepherds and shepherdesses, in long white dresses girded\n with golden bands, served her in a hundred baskets of simple\n porcelain, with a hundred delicious meats, among which was seen\n no disguised corpse. The feast was of rice, of sago, of semolina,\n of vermicelli, of maccaroni, of omelets, of eggs in milk, of\n cream-cheeses, of pastries of every kind, of vegetables, of fruits\n of perfume and taste of which one has no idea in other climates,\n and a profusion of refreshing drinks superior to the best wines.\u201d\n\nHaving occasion to visit the land _par excellence_ of flesh-eaters, and\nbeing entertained at the house of a certain English lord, the hero, the\namiable lover of the princess, is questioned by his host\n\n \u201cWhether they ate \u2018good roast beef\u2019 in the country of the people\n of the Ganges. The Vegetarian traveller replied to him with his\n accustomed politeness that they did not eat their brethren in that\n part of the world. He explained to him the system and diet which\n was that of Pythagoras, of Porphyry, of Iamblichus; whereupon\n _milord_ went off into a sound slumber.\u201d[165]\n\nAmabed, a young Hindu, writes from Europe to his affianced mistress\nhis impressions of the Christian sacred books and, in particular, of\nChristian carnivorousness:--\n\n \u201cI pity those unfortunates of Europe who have, at the most, been\n created only 6,940 years; while our era reckons 115,652 years [the\n Brahminical computation]. I pity them more for wanting pepper, the\n sugar-cane, and tea, coffee, silk, cotton, incense, aromatics, and\n everything that can render life pleasing. But I pity them still\n more for coming from so great a distance, among so many perils, to\n ravish from us, arms in hand, our provisions. It is said at Calicut\n they have committed frightful cruelties only to procure pepper.\n It makes the Hindu nature, which is in every way different from\n theirs, shudder; their stomachs are carnivorous, they get drunk on\n the fermented juices of the vine, which was planted, they say, by\n their Noah. Father Fa-Tutto [one of the missionaries], polished\n as he is, has himself cut the throats of two little chickens; he\n has caused them to be boiled in a cauldron, and has devoured them\n without pity. This barbarous action has drawn upon him the hatred\n of all the neighbourhood, whose anger we have appeased only with\n much difficulty. May God pardon me! I believe that this stranger\n would have eaten our sacred Cows, who give us milk, if he had\n been allowed to do so. A promise has been extorted from him that\n he will commit no more murders of Hens, and that he will content\n himself with fresh eggs, milk, rice, and our excellent fruits\n and vegetables--pistachio nuts, dates, cocoa nuts, almond cakes,\n biscuits, ananas, oranges, and with everything which our climate\n produces, blessed be the Eternal!\u201d\n\nIn another letter to his old Hindu teacher from Rome, whither he had\nbeen induced to go by the missionaries, speaking of the feasts in that\n\u201ccitadel of the faith,\u201d he writes:--\n\n \u201cThe dining-hall was grand, convenient, and richly ornamented. Gold\n and silver shone upon the sideboards. Gaiety and wit animated the\n guests. But, meantime, in the kitchens blood and fat were streaming\n in one horrible mass; skins of quadrupeds, feathers of birds and\n their entrails, piled up pell-mell, oppressed the heart, and spread\n the infection of fevers.\u201d[166]\n\nThat one who hated and denounced injustice of all kinds, and who\nsympathised with the suffering of all innocent life, should thus\ncharacterise the cruelty of the Slaughter-House is what we might\nnaturally look for; as also that he should denounce the kindred and\neven worse atrocity of the physiological Laboratory. And it is a\nstrange and unaccountable fact that, amongst the humanitarians of\nhis time, he stands apparently alone in condemnation of the secret\ntortures of the vivisectionists and pathologists--although, perhaps,\nthe almost universal silence may be attributable, in part, to the\nvery secresy of the experiments which only recent vigilance has fully\ndetected. Exposing the equally absurd and arrogant denial of reason and\nintelligence to other animals, and instancing the dog, he proceeds:--\n\n \u201cThere are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously\n surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and\n dissect him alive to shew you the mezaraic veins. You discover\n in him all the same organs of feeling as in yourself. Answer me,\n Machinist [_i.e._, supporter of the theory of mere mechanical\n action], has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in\n this animal _to the end that he might not feel_? Has he nerves\n _that he may be incapable_ of suffering? Do not suppose that\n impertinent contradiction in Nature.\u201d[167]\n\nTo the final triumph which in Paris awaited this champion of the weak,\nat the advanced age of 84, and the unexampled enthusiasm of the people,\nand the closing act of his eventful life, we can here merely refer.\nIn Berlin, Friedrich ordered a solemn mass in the cathedral church in\ncommemoration of his genius and virtues. A more enduring monument than\nany conventional mark of human vanity is the legacy which he left to\nposterity, which will last as long as the French language, and, still\nmore, the humanity embodied in one of his later verses:--\n\n \u201cJ\u2019ai fait un peu de bien, c\u2019est mon meilleur ouvrage.\u201d\n\nThe faults of his character and writings which, for the most part, lie\non the surface (one of the most regretable of which was his sometimes\nservile flattery of men in power, and the only excuse for which was his\neagerness to gain them over to moderation and justice) will be deemed\nby impartial criticism to have been more than counterbalanced by his\nreal and substantial merits. That he allowed his ardent indignation to\novermaster the sense of propriety in too many instances, in dealing\nwith subjects which ought to be dealt with in a judicial and serious\nmanner, is that fault in his writings which must always cause the\ngreatest regret. In his discourse at his reception by the French\nAcademy he remarks that \u201cthe art of instruction, when it is perfect, in\nthe long run, succeeds better than the art of sarcasm, because Satire\ndies with those who are the victims of it; while Reason and Virtue are\neternal.\u201d It would have been well, in many instances, had he practised\nthis principle. But, however objectionably his convictions were\nsometimes expressed, his ardent love of truth and hatred of injustice\nhave secured for him an imperishable fame; while G\u00f6the\u2019s estimate of\nhis intellectual pre-eminence--that he has the greatest name in all\nLiterature--is not likely soon to be disputed by Posterity.\n\n\n\n\nXXV.\n\nHALLER. 1708-1777.\n\n\nThe founder of Modern Physiology was born at Berne. In 1723 he went\nto T\u00fcbingen to study medicine, afterwards to Leyden, where the famous\nBoerhaave was at the height of his reputation. Twelve years later he\nreceived the appointment of physician to the hospital at Berne; but\nsoon afterwards he was invited by George II., as Elector of Hanover, to\naccept the professorship of anatomy and surgery at the University of\nG\u00f6ttingen.\n\nHis scientific writings are extraordinarily numerous. From 1727 to 1777\nhe published nearly 200 treatises. His great work is his _Elements\nof the Physiology of the Human Body_ (in Latin), 1757-1766--the most\nimportant treatise on medical science--or at least on anatomy and\nsurgery--up to that time produced. The _Icones Anatomic\u00e6_ (\u201cAnatomical\nFigures\u201d) is \u201ca marvellously accurate, well-engraved representation of\nthe principal organs of the human body.\u201d His writings are marked by\nunusual clearness of meaning, as well as by accurate and deep research.\n\nWe wish that we could here stop; but the force of truth compels us\nto affirm that, for us at least, his reputation, great as it is in\nscience, has been for ever tarnished by his sacrifices--with frightful\ntorture--of innocent victims on the altars of a selfish and sanguinary\nscience.\n\nOne plea in extenuation of this callousness in regard to the suffering\nof other animals, and only one, can be offered in his defence. At this\nvery moment, after all the humanitarian doctrine that has been preached\nduring the century since the death of Haller, tortures of the most\ncold-blooded kind are being inflicted on tens of thousands of horses,\ndeer, dogs, rabbits, and others, in all the \u201claboratories\u201d of Europe;\nwhile he had neither the prolonged experience of the uselessness of\nall such unnatural experimentation, of which the vivisectors and\npathologists of our day are in possession, nor the same indoctrination\nof a higher morality, which has been the heritage of these latter days.\nThe scientific barbarity of Haller does not affect the nature of his\nphysiological testimony, which, it might be presumed, ought to be of\nsome weight with his disciples and representatives of the present day.\nHe asserts:--\n\n \u201cThis food, then, that I have hitherto described, in which flesh\n has no part, is salutary; inasmuch as it fully nourishes a man,\n protracts life to an advanced period, and prevents or cures such\n disorders as are attributable to the acrimony or the grossness of\n the blood.\u201d[168]\n\n\n\n\nXXVI.\n\nCOCCHI. 1695-1758.\n\n\nIt might justly provoke expression of feeling stronger than that of\nastonishment, when we have to record that in South Europe (where\nclimate and soil unite to recommend and render a _humane_ manner of\nliving[169] still more easy than in our colder regions) the followers,\nor, at all events, the prophets of the Reformed Diet have been\nconspicuously few. Since, by the _\u00e0 fortiori_ argument, if abundant\nexperience and teaching have proved it to be more conducive to health\nin higher latitudes, much more is it evident that it must be fitting\nfor the people of those parts of the globe nearer to the Equator.\n\nItaly, which has produced Seneca, Cornaro, and Cocchi, is\nless obnoxious to the reproach of indifferentism in this most\nvitally-important branch of ethics than the western peninsula. But the\n\u201cparadise of Europe\u201d has yet to deserve the more glorious title of\n\u201cthe paradise of Peace,\u201d and to atone (if, indeed, it be possible) for\nthe cruel shedding of innocent, and in an especial degree superfluous,\nblood.\n\nAn eminent professor of medicine and of surgery, Antonio Cocchi\ndistinguished himself also as a philologist. He was born at Benevento.\nBefore giving himself up to the practice of medicine he devoted several\nyears to the study of the old and the modern languages of Europe. His\nknowledge of English helped to bring him into contact with many men\nof science in England, some of whom he met on his visit to London.\nReturning to Italy he was named Professor of Medicine at Pisa. He\nsoon left that University for Florence, where he held the chair of\nAnatomy as well as of Philosophy. To him Florence was indebted for its\nBotanical Society, with which, in conjunction with Micheli, he endowed\nit.\n\nHe was a voluminous writer.[170] His _Greek Surgical Books_[171]\ncontain valuable extracts from the Greek writers on medicine\nand surgery not before published. Amongst other writings may\nbe distinguished his _Treatise on the Use of Cold Baths by the\nAncients_.[172] The treatise which gives him a place in this work was\npublished at Florence under the title of _The Pythagorean Diet: for the\nUse of the Medical Faculty_.[173]\n\nDr. Cocchi begins his little treatise with a eulogy and defence of the\ngreat reformer of Samos, and of his radical revolution in food. He\ncites the Greek and Latin writers, and especially the earlier Roman\nLaws, the Fannian and the Licinian. He proceeds:--\n\n \u201cTrue and constant vigour of body is the effect of health, which\n is much better preserved with watery, herbaceous, frugal, and\n tender food, than with _vinous_, abundant, hard, and gross flesh\n (_che col carneo vinoso ed unto abundante e duro_). And in a sound\n body, a clear intelligence, and desire to suppress the mischievous\n inclinations (_voglie dannose_), and to conquer the irrational\n passions, produces true worth.\u201d\n\nCocchi cites the examples of the Greeks and of the Romans as proof that\nthe non-flesh diet does not diminish courage or strength:--\n\n \u201cThe vulgar opinion, then, which, on health reasons, condemns\n vegetable food and so much praises animal food, being so\n ill-founded, I have always thought it well to oppose myself to it,\n moved both by experience and by that refined knowledge of natural\n things which some study and conversation with great men have given\n me. And perceiving now that such my constancy has been honoured by\n some learned and wise physicians with their authoritative adhesion\n (_della autorevole sequela_), I have thought it my duty publicly\n to diffuse the reasons of the Pythagorean diet, regarded as useful\n in medicine, and, at the same time, as full of innocence, of\n temperance, and of health. And it is none the less accompanied with\n a certain delicate pleasure, and also with a refined and splendid\n luxury (_non \u00e8 privo nemmeno d\u2019una certa delicate volutt\u00e0 e d\u2019un\n lusso gentile e splendido ancora_), if care and skill be applied in\n selection and proper supply of the best vegetable food, to which\n the fertility and the natural character of our beautiful country\n seem to invite us. For my part I have been so much the more induced\n to take up this subject, because I have persuaded myself that I\n might be of service to intending diet-reformers, there not being,\n to my knowledge, any book of which this is the sole subject, and\n which undertakes exactly to explain the origin and the reasons of\n it.\u201d\n\nHis special motive to the publication of his treatise, however, was to\nvindicate the claims of the reformer of Samos upon the gratitude of\nmen:--\n\n \u201cI wished to show that Pythagoras, the first founder of the\n vegetable regimen, was at once a very great physicist and a very\n great physician; that there has been no one of a more cultured\n and discriminating humanity; that he was a man of wisdom and of\n experience; that his motive in commending and introducing the new\n mode of living was derived not from any extravagant superstition,\n but from the desire to improve the health and the manners of\n men.\u201d[174]\n\n\n\n\nXXVII.\n\nROUSSEAU. 1712-1778.\n\n\nFew lives of writers of equal reputation have been exposed to our\nexamination with the fulness and minuteness of the life of this the\nmost eloquent name in French literature. With the exception of the\ngreat Latin father, St. Augustine, no other leader of thought, in\nfact, has so entirely revealed to us his inner life, his faults and\nweaknesses (often sufficiently startling), no less than the estimable\nparts of his character, and we remain in doubt whether more to lament\nthe infirmities or to admire the candour of the autobiographer.\n\nJean Jacques Rousseau, son of a Genevan tradesman, had the misfortune\nto lose his mother at a very early age. It is to this want of maternal\nsolicitude and fostering care that some of the errors in his after\ncareer may perhaps be traced. After a short experience of school\ndiscipline he was apprenticed to an engraver, whose coarse violence\nmust injuriously have affected the nervous temperament of the sensitive\nchild. Ill-treatment forced him to run away, and he found refuge with\nMde. de Warens, a Swiss lady, a convert to Catholicism, who occupies a\nprominent place in the first period of his _Confessions_. Influenced\nby her kindness, and by the skilful arguments of his preceptors at the\ncollege at Turin, where she had placed him, the young Rousseau (like\nBayle and Gibbon, before and after him, though from a different motive)\nabjured Protestantism, and, for the moment, accepted, or at least\nprofessed, the tenets of the old Orthodoxy. Dismissed from the college\nbecause he refused to take orders, he engaged himself as a domestic\nservant or valet. He did not long remain in this position, and he\nresought the protection of his friend Mde. de Warens at Chamb\u00e9ry. His\nconnexion with his too indulgent patroness terminated in the year 1740.\nFor some years after this his life was of a most erratic, and not\nalways edifying, kind. We find him employed in teaching at Lyons, and\nat another time acting as secretary to the French Embassy at Venice. In\n1745 he came to Paris. There he earned a living by copying music. About\nthis time he met with Ther\u00e8se Levasseur, the daughter of his hostess,\nwith whom he formed a lasting but unhappy connexion.\n\nIt was in 1748, at the age of 36, that he made the acquaintance, at\nthe house of Mde. d\u2019Epinay, of the editors of the _Encyclop\u00e9die_,\nD\u2019Alembert and Diderot, who engaged him to write articles on music\nand upon other subjects in that first of comprehensive dictionaries.\nHis first independent appearance in literature was in his essay on\nthe question, \u201cWhether the progress of science and of the arts has\nbeen favourable to the morals of mankind,\u201d in which paradoxically he\nmaintains the negative. It was the eloquence, we must suppose, rather\nthan the reasoning, which gained him the prize awarded by the Acad\u00e9mie\nof Dijon. His next production--a more important one--was his _Discours\nsur l\u2019Inegalit\u00e9 parmi les Hommes_ (\u201cDiscourse upon Inequality amongst\nMen\u201d). In this treatise--the prelude to his more developed _Contrat\nSocial_--Rousseau affirms the paradox of the _natural_ school, as it\nmay be termed, which alleged the state of nature--the life of the\nuncivilised man--to be the ideal condition of the species. His thesis\nthat all men are born with equal rights takes a much more defensible\nposition. In this _Discours_ diet is assigned its due importance in\nrelation to the welfare of communities.\n\nThe romance of _Julie: ou la Nouvelle H\u00e9loise_, which excited\nan unusual amount of interest, appeared in 1759. _Emile: ou de\nl\u2019Education_, was given to the world three years later. It is the most\nimportant of his writings. In the education of Emile, or Emilius, he\npropounds his ideas upon one of the most interesting subjects which\ncan engage attention--the right training of the young. The earlier\npart of the book is almost altogether admirable and useful. The later\nportion is more open to criticism, although not upon the grounds upon\nwhich was founded the hostility of the authorities of the day who\nunjustly condemned the book as irreligious and immoral. Rousseau begins\nwith laying down the principles of a new and more rational method of\nrearing infants, agreeing, in many particulars, with the system of\nhis predecessor, Locke. At least some of his protests against the\nunnatural treatment of children were not altogether in vain. Mothers\nin fashionable ranks of life began to recognise the mischief arising\nfrom the common practice of putting their infants out to nurse in\nplace of suckling them themselves. They began also to abandon the\nabsurd custom of confining their limbs in mummy-like bandages. Nor,\nthough long in bearing adequate fruit, were his denunciations of the\nbarbarous severity of parents and schoolmasters without some result. He\ninsists upon the incalculable evils of inoculating the young, according\nto the almost universal custom, with superstitious beliefs and fancies\nwhich grow with the growth of the recipient until they become radically\nfixed in the mind as by a natural development. Most important of all\nhis innovations in education, and certainly the most heretical, is his\nrecommendation of a pure dietary.\n\nThe publication of his treatise on education brought down a storm\nof persecution and opprobrium upon the author. The _Contrat Social_\n(in which he seemed to aim at subverting the political and social\ntraditions, as he had in _Emile_ the educational prejudices of the\nvenerated Past) appearing soon afterwards added fuel to the flames.\nRousseau found himself forced to flee from Paris, and he sought shelter\nin the territory of Geneva. But the authorities, unmindful of the old\nreputation of the land of freedom, refusing him an asylum, he proceeded\nto Neuch\u00e2tel, then under Prussian rule, where he was well received.\nFrom this retreat he replied to the attacks of the Archbishop of Paris,\nand addressed a letter to the magistrates of Geneva renouncing his\ncitizenship. He also published _Letters Written from the Mountain_,\nseverely criticising the civil and church government of his native\ncanton. These acts did not tend to conciliate the goodwill of the\nrulers of the people with whom he had taken refuge. At this moment an\nobject of dislike to all the Continental sovereign powers, he gladly\nembraced the offer of David Hume to find him an asylum in England. The\nsocial and political revolutionist arrived in London in 1766, and took\nup his residence in a village in Derbyshire. He did not remain long in\nthis country, his irritable temperament inducing him too hastily to\nsuspect the sincerity of the friendship of his host.\n\nThe next eight years of his life were passed in comparative obscurity,\nand in migrating from one place to another in the neighbourhood of\nParis. In his solitude gardening and botanising occupied a large part\nof his leisure hours. It was at this period he made the acquaintance of\nBernardin St. Pierre, his enthusiastic disciple, and immortalised as\nthe author of _Paul et Virginie_. His end came suddenly. He had been\nsettled only a few months in a cottage given him by one of his numerous\naristocratic friends and admirers, when one morning, feeling unwell, he\nrequested his wife to open the window that he \u201cmight once more look on\nthe lovely verdure of the fields,\u201d and as he was expressing his delight\nat the exquisite beauty of the scene and of the skies he fell forward\nand instantly breathed his last. At his special request his place of\nburial was chosen on an island in a lake in the Park of Ermondville, a\nfitting resting-place for one of the most eloquent of the high priests\nof Nature.\n\nHis character (as we have already remarked) is revealed in his\n_Confessions_--which was written, in part, during his brief exile\nin England. It, as well as his other productions, shews him to us\nas a man of extraordinary sensibility, which, in regard to himself,\noccasionally degenerated into a sort of disease or, in popular\nlanguage, _morbidness_ (a word, by the way, constantly abused by the\nmany who seem to excuse their own insensibility to surrounding evils\nby stigmatising with that vague expression the acuter feeling of the\nfew), which sometimes assumed the appearance of partial unsoundness of\nmind. This it was that caused him to suspect and quarrel with his best\nfriends, and which, we may suppose, led him, in his minute dissection\nof himself, to exaggerate his real moral infirmities.\n\nIn summing up his personal character we shall perhaps impartially judge\nhim to have been, on the whole, amiable rather than admirable, of good\nimpulses, and of a naturally humane disposition, cultivated by reading\nand reflection, but to have been wanting in firmness of mind and in\nthat virtue so much esteemed in the school of Pythagoras--self control.\nHis philosophy is distinguished rather by refinement than by vigour or\ndepth of thought.\n\nIt is in the education of the young that Rousseau exerts his eloquence\nto enforce the importance of a non-flesh diet:--\n\n \u201cOne of the proofs that the taste of flesh is not natural to man\n is the indifference which children exhibit for that sort of meat,\n and the preference they all give to vegetable foods, such as\n milk-porridge, pastry, fruits, &c. It is of the last importance\n not to _denaturalise_ them of this primitive taste (_de ne pas\n d\u00e9naturer ce go\u00fbt primitif_), and not to render them carnivorous,\n if not for health reasons, at least _for the sake of their\n character_. For, however the experience may be explained, it is\n certain that great eaters of flesh are, in general, more cruel and\n ferocious than other men. This observation is true of all places\n and of all times. English coarseness is well known.[175] The\n Gaures, on the contrary, are the gentlest of men. All savages are\n cruel, and it is not their morals that urge them to be so; this\n cruelty proceeds _from their food_. They go to war as to the chase,\n and treat men as they do bears. Even in England the butchers are\n not received as legal witnesses any more than surgeons.[176] Great\n criminals harden themselves to murder by drinking blood.[177] Homer\n represents the _Cyclopes_, who were flesh-eaters, as frightful\n men, and the Lotophagi [Lotus-eaters] as a people so amiable that\n as soon as one had any dealing with them one straightway forgot\n everything, even one\u2019s country, to live with them.\u201d\n\nRousseau, in a free translation, here quotes a considerable part of\nPlutarch\u2019s _Essay_. He insists, especially, that children should be\nearly accustomed to the pure diet:--\n\n \u201cThe further we remove from a natural mode of living the more\n do we lose our natural tastes; or rather habit makes a _second_\n nature, which we substitute to such a degree for the first that\n none among us any longer knows what the latter is. It follows from\n this that the most simple tastes must also be the most natural,\n for they are those which are most easily changed, while by being\n sharpened and by being irritated by our whims they assume a form\n which never changes. The man who is yet of no country will conform\n himself without trouble to the customs of any country whatever,\n but the man of one country never becomes that of another. This\n appears to me true in every sense, and still more so applied to\n taste properly so-called. Our first food was milk. We accustom\n ourselves only by degrees to strong flavours. At first they are\n repugnant to us. Fruits, vegetables, kitchen herbs, and, in fine,\n often broiled dishes, without seasoning and without salt, composed\n the feasts of the first men. The first time a savage drinks wine\n he makes a grimace and rejects it; and even amongst ourselves,\n whoever has lived to his twentieth year without tasting fermented\n drinks, cannot afterwards accustom himself to them. We should all\n be abstinents from alcohol if we had not been given wines in our\n early years. In fine, the more simple our tastes are the more\n universal are they, and the most common repugnance is for made-up\n dishes. Does one ever see a person have a disgust for water or\n bread? Behold here the impress of nature! Behold here, then, our\n rule of life. Let us preserve to the child as long as possible his\n primitive taste; let its nourishment be common and simple; let not\n its palate be familiarised to any but natural flavours, and let\n no exclusive taste be formed.... I have sometimes examined those\n people who attached importance to _good living_, who thought, upon\n their first awaking, of what they should eat during the day, and\n described a dinner with more exactitude than Polybius would use\n in describing a battle. I have thought that all these so-called\n men were but children of forty years without vigour and without\n consistence--_fruges consumere nati_.[178] Gluttony is the vice of\n souls that have no solidity (_qui n\u2019ont point d\u2019\u00e9toffe_). The soul\n of a gourmand is in his palate. He is brought into the world but to\n devour. In his stupid incapacity he is at home only at his table.\n His powers of judgment are limited to his dishes. Let us leave him\n in his employment without regret. Better that for him than any\n other, as much for our own sakes as for his.\u201d[179]\n\nIn the _Julie: ou la Nouvelle Heloise_ he describes his heroine as\npreferring the innocent feast:--\n\n \u201cAlthough luxurious in her repasts she likes neither flesh-meat nor\n rago\u00fbts. Excellent vegetable dishes, eggs, cream, fruits--these\n constitute her ordinary food; and, excepting fish, which she likes\n as much, she would be a true Pythagorean.\u201d[180]\n\nAlthough he was not a thorough or consistent abstainer, Rousseau speaks\nwith enthusiasm of the pleasures of his frugal repasts, in which,\nit seems, when he was not seduced by the sumptuous dinners of his\nfashionable admirers, flesh, as a rule, had no part:--\n\n \u201cWho shall describe, who shall understand, the charm of these\n repasts, composed of a quartern loaf, of cherries, of a little\n cheese, and of a half-pint of wine, which we drank together.\n Friendship, confidence, intimacy, sweetness of soul, how delicious\n are your seasonings!\u201d[181]\n\n\n\n\nXXVIII.\n\nLINN\u00c9. 1707-1778.\n\n\nKarl von Linn\u00e9, or (according to the antiquated fashion of _Latinising_\neminent names still retained) Linn\u00e6us, the distinguished Swedish\nnaturalist, and the most eminent name in botanical literature, in a\nnotable manner arrived at his destined immortality in spite of friends\nand fortune. Prophecies do not always fulfil themselves, and the\nestimate of his teachers that he was a hopeless \u201cblockhead,\u201d and the\nprediction that he would be of no intellectual worth in the world (they\nhad advised his parents to apprentice him to a handicraft trade), are\na conspicuous instance of the falsification of prophecy. After one\nyear\u2019s course of study at the University of Lund--where he had access\nto a good library and collections of natural history--he proceeded to\nthe University of Upsala. There, upon an allowance by his father of \u00a38\na year to meet all his expenses of living, he struggled desperately\nagainst the almost insuperable obstacles of extreme poverty, which\nforced him often to reduce his diet to one meal during the day. He was\nthen at the age of 20. At length, by the hospitable friendship of the\nprofessor of botany, and a small income derived from a few pupils,\nLinn\u00e9 found himself free to devote himself to the great labour of his\nlife. It was in the house of his host (Rudbeck) that he sketched the\nsubject-matter of the important works he afterwards published. In 1731\nhe was commissioned by his university to explore the vegetable life\nof Lapland. Within the space of five months he traversed alone, and\nwith slender provision, some 4,000 miles. The result of this laborious\nexpedition was his _Flora Laponica_.\n\nThree years later, with the sum of fifteen pounds, which he had with\ngreat difficulty gathered together, he set out in search of some\nuniversity where he might obtain the necessary degree of doctor in\nmedicine at the least outlay, in order to gain a living by the practice\nof physic. He found the object of his search in Holland. In that\ncountry he met with a hospitable reception. During his residence in\nHolland he came over to England, and visited the botanical collections\nat Oxford and Eltham, with which the Swedish _savant_, it seems, had\nnot much reason to be satisfied. Returning to Sweden, he began practice\nas a physician at the age of 31, and he lectured, by Government\nappointment, upon botany and mineralogy at Stockholm. His fame had now\nbecome European. He was in correspondence with some of the most eminent\nscientific men throughout the world. Books and collections were sent to\nhim from every quarter, and his pupils supplied him with the results\nof their explorations in the three continents. He was elected to the\nProfessorship of Medicine at Upsala, and (a vain addition to his real\ntitles) he was soon afterwards \u201cennobled.\u201d\n\nThe productions of his genius and industry during the twenty years\nfrom 1740 were astonishingly numerous. Besides his _Systema Natur\u00e6_\nand _Species Plantarum_, his two most considerable works, he wrote a\nlarge number of dissertations, afterwards collected under the title of\n_Am\u0153nitates Academic\u00e6_--\u201cAcademic Delights.\u201d Everything he wrote was\nreceived with the greatest respect by the scientific world. Upon his\ndeath the whole University of Upsala united in showing respect to his\nmemory; sixteen doctors of medicine, old pupils, bearing the \u201cpall,\u201d\nand a general mourning was ordered throughout the land of his birth.\n\nThe scientific merits of Linn\u00e9 are his exactness and conciseness in\nclassification. He reduced to something like order the chaotic and\npedantic systems of his predecessors, which were prolix and overladen\nwith names and classes. If the science still labours under the stigma\nof needless pedantry, the fault lies not with himself, but with his\nsuccessors. Linn\u00e9\u2019s evidence to the scientific truth of Vegetarianism\nis brief but _pregnant_:--\n\n \u201cThis species of food [fruits and farinacea] is that which _is most\n suited_ to man, as is proved by the series of quadrupeds, analogy,\n wild men, apes, the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of\n the hands.\u201d[182]\n\n\n\n\nXXIX.\n\nBUFFON. 1707-1788.\n\n\nAn eminent instance of perversity of logic--of which, by the way, the\nhistory of human thought supplies too many examples--is that of the\nwell-known author of the _Histoire Naturelle_, a work which (highly\ninteresting as it is, and always will be, by reason of the detailed\nand generally accurate delineation of the characters and habits of the\nvarious forms of animated nature, and by reason of the graces of style\nof that French classic) is, from a strictly scientific point of view,\nof not always the most reliable authority. Although Buffon has depicted\nas forcibly as well can be conceived the low position in Nature of\nthe carnivorous tribes, and not a few of the evils arising from human\naddiction to carnivorousness, yet, by a strange perversion of the facts\nof comparative physiology, he has chosen to enlist himself amongst the\napologists of that degenerate mode of living. But facts are stronger\nthan prejudices, and his very candid _admissions_, which we shall here\nquote, speak sufficiently for themselves:--\n\n \u201cMan [says he] knows how to use, as a master, his power over\n [other] animals. He has selected those whose flesh _flatters his\n taste_. He has made domestic slaves of them. He has multiplied them\n more than Nature could have done. He has formed innumerable flocks,\n and by the cares which he takes in propagating them he _seems_[183]\n to have acquired the right of sacrificing them for himself. But he\n extends that right _much beyond_ his needs. For, independently of\n those species which he has subjected, and of which he disposes at\n his will, he makes war also upon wild animals, upon birds, upon\n fishes. He does not even limit himself to those of the climate\n he inhabits. He seeks at a distance, even in the remotest seas,\n new meats, and entire Nature seems scarcely to suffice for his\n intemperance and the inconsistent variety of his appetites.\n\n \u201c_Man alone consumes and engulfs more flesh than all other animals\n put together. He is, then, the greatest destroyer, and he is\n so more by abuse than by necessity._ Instead of enjoying with\n moderation the resources offered him, in place of dispensing them\n with equity, in place of repairing in proportion as he destroys,\n of renewing in proportion as he annihilates, the rich man makes\n all his boast and glory in _consuming_, all his splendour in\n destroying, in one day, at his table, more material (_plus de\n biens_) than would be necessary for the support of several\n families. He abuses equally other animals and his own species, the\n rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only\n to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable\n vanity of this human being who, _destroying others by want,\n destroys himself by excess_.\n\n \u201cAnd yet Man might, like other animals, live upon vegetables.\n _Flesh is not a better nourishment than grains or bread._ What\n constitutes true nourishment, what contributes to the nutrition,\n to the development, to the growth, and to the support of the body,\n is not that brute matter which, to our eyes, composes the texture\n of flesh or of vegetables, but it is those organic molecules which\n both contain; since the ox, in feeding on grass, acquires as much\n flesh as man or as animals who live upon flesh and blood.... The\n essential source is the same; it is the same matter, it is the same\n organic molecules which nourish the Ox, Man, and all animals....\n It results from what we have just said that Man, whose stomach\n and intestines are not of a very great capacity relatively to the\n volume of his body, could not live simply upon grass. Nevertheless\n _it is proved by facts that he could well live upon bread,\n vegetables, and the grains of plants_, since we know entire nations\n and classes of men to whom religion forbids to feed upon anything\n that has life.\u201d\n\nTo the ordinary apprehension all this might seem _prim\u00e2 facie_\nconclusive evidence of the non-necessariness of the food of the\nricher classes of the community. But, unhappily, Buffon seems to have\nconsidered himself as holding a brief to defend his clients, the\nflesh-eaters, in the last resort, and, accordingly, in spite of these\nadmissions, which to an unbiassed mind might appear conclusive argument\nfor the relinquishment of flesh as food, he proceeds to contradict\nhimself by adding:--\n\n \u201cBut these examples, supported even by the authority of Pythagoras\n [and he might have added many later names of equal authority], and\n recommended by some physicians too friendly to a reformed diet\n (_trop amis de di\u00e8te!_), appear to me not sufficient to convince us\n that it would be for the advantage of human health (_qu\u2019il y e\u00fbt \u00e0\n gagner pour la sant\u00e8 des hommes_) and for the multiplication of the\n human species to live upon vegetables and bread only, for so much\n the stronger reason, that the poor country people, whom the luxury\n of the cities and towns and the extravagant waste of tables reduce\n to this mode of living, languish and die off sooner than persons\n of the middle class, to whom inanition and excess are equally\n unknown!\u201d[184]\n\nIn stigmatising, in the following sentence, the cruel rapacity of the\nlower carnivorous tribes, Buffon consciously or unconsciously stamps\nthe same stigma upon the carnivorous human animal:--\n\n \u201c_After Man_, the animals who live only upon flesh are the greatest\n destroyers. They are at once the enemies of Nature and the rivals\n of Man.\u201d[185]\n\n\n\n\nXXX.\n\nHAWKESWORTH. 1715-1773.\n\n\nBest known as the editor of _The Adventurer_--a periodical in imitation\nof the _Spectator_, _Rambler_, &c.--which appeared twice a week during\nthe years 1752-54. Johnson, Warton, and others assisted him in this\nundertaking, which has the honour of being one of the first periodicals\nwhich have ventured to denounce the cruel barbarism of \u201cSport,\u201d and the\npapers by Hawkesworth upon that subject are in striking contrast with\nthe usual tone and practice of his contemporaries and, indeed, of our\nown times.\n\nIn 1761 he published an edition of Swift\u2019s writings, with a life which\nreceived the praise of Samuel Johnson (in his _Lives of the Poets_),\nand it is a passage in that book which entitles him to a place here.\nIn 1773 he was entrusted by the Government of the day with the task\nof compiling a history of the recent voyages of Captain Cook. He also\ntranslated the _Aventures de T\u00e9l\u00e9maque_ of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. The coarseness\nand repulsiveness of the dishes of the common diet seldom have been\nstigmatised with greater force than by Dr. Hawkesworth. His expressions\nof abhorrence are conceived quite in the spirit of Plutarch:--\n\n \u201cAmong other dreadful and disgusting images which Custom has\n rendered familiar, are those which arise from eating animal food.\n He who has ever turned with abhorrence from the skeleton of a\n beast which has been picked whole by birds or vermin, must confess\n that _habit_ alone could have enabled him to endure the sight of\n the mangled bones and flesh of a dead carcase which every day\n cover his table. And he who reflects on the _number_ of lives that\n have been sacrificed to sustain his own, should enquire by _what_\n the account has been balanced, and whether his life is become\n proportionately of more value by the exercise of virtue and by the\n superior happiness which he has communicated to [more] reasonable\n beings.\u201d[186]\n\n\n\n\nXXXI.\n\nPALEY. 1743-1805.\n\n\nWith the exception of Joseph Butler, perhaps the ablest and most\ninteresting of English orthodox theologians. As one of the very few\nof this numerous class of writers who seem seriously to be impressed\nwith the difficulty of reconciling orthodox _dietetics_ with the higher\nmoral and religious instincts, Paley has for social reformers a title\nto remembrance, and it is as a moral philosopher that he has a claim\nupon our attention.\n\nThe son of a country curate, Paley began his career as tutor in an\nacademy in Greenwich. He had entered Christ\u2019s College, Cambridge,\nas \u201csizar.\u201d Being senior wrangler of his year, he was afterwards\nelected a Fellow of his college. His lectures on moral philosophy at\nthe University contained the germs of his most useful writing. After\nthe usual previous stages, finally he received the preferment of the\nArchdeaconry of Carlisle. The failure of the most eminent of the modern\napologists of dogmatic Christianity to attain the highest rewards of\necclesiastical ambition, and the refusal of George III. to promote\n\u201cpigeon\u201d Paley when it was proposed to that reactionary prince to make\nso skilful a controversialist a bishop--a refusal founded on the famous\napology for monarchy in the _Moral and Political Philosophy_--is well\nknown.\n\nThe most important, by far, of his writings, is the _Elements of\nMoral and Political Philosophy_ (1785). He founds moral obligation\nupon principles of utility. In politics he asserts the grounds of the\nduties of rulers and ruled to be based upon the same far-reaching\nconsideration, and upon this principle he maintains that as soon\nas any Government has proved itself corrupt or negligent of the\npublic good, whatever may have been the alleged legitimacy of its\noriginal authority, the right of the governed to put an end to it is\nestablished. \u201cThe final view of all national politics,\u201d he affirms,\n\u201cis [ought to be] to produce the greatest quantity of happiness.\u201d\nThe comparative boldness, indeed, of certain of his disquisitions\non Government alarmed not a little the political and ecclesiastical\ndignitaries of the time. His adhesion to the programme of Clarkson and\nthe anti-slavery \u201cfanatics\u201d (as that numerically insignificant band of\nreformers was styled) did not tend, it may be presumed, to counteract\nthe damaging effects of his political philosophy.\n\nIn his _Natural Theology_ (1802), his best theological production, he\nlabours to establish the fact of benevolent design from observation\nof the various phenomena of nature and life. Whatever estimate may be\nformed of the success of this undertaking, there can be no question\nof the ability and eloquence of the accomplished pleader; and the\nbook proves him, at least, to have acquired a surprising amount\nof physiological and anatomical knowledge. It is justly described\nby Sir J. Mackintosh as \u201cthe wonderful work of a man who, after\nsixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it.\u201d Of the _Evidences_\n(1790-94)--the most popularly known of his writings--the considerable\nliterary merit is in somewhat striking contrast, in regard to clearness\nand simplicity of style, with the ordinary productions of the\nevidential school.\n\nWe are concerned now with the _Moral and Political Philosophy_. It\nhas been already stated that it is based upon the principles of\nutilitarianism. As for personal moral conduct, he justly considered it\nto be vastly influenced by early custom; or, as he expresses it, the\nart of life consists in the right \u201csetting of our habits.\u201d\n\nOn the subjoined examination of the question of the lawfulness or\notherwise of flesh-eating, his ultimate refuge in an alleged biblical\nauthority (forced upon him, apparently, by the necessity of his\nposition rather than by personal inclination) confirms rather than\nweakens his preceding candid _admissions_, which sufficiently establish\nour position:--\n\n \u201cA right to the flesh of animals. This is a _very different claim_\n from the former [\u2018a right to the fruits or vegetable produce of\n the earth\u2019]. _Some_ excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss\n which we occasion to [other] animals by restraining them of their\n liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last, putting an end to\n their lives for our pleasure or convenience.\n\n \u201cThe reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the\n following--that the several species of animals being created to\n prey upon one another[187] affords a kind of analogy to prove that\n the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let\n alone, they would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from the\n occupation of it;[188] that they are requited for what they suffer\n at our hands by our care and protection.\n\n \u201cUpon which reasons I would observe that the analogy contended\n for _is extremely lame_, since [the carnivorous] animals have no\n power to support life by any other means, and _since we have, for\n the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse,\n herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindus[189] actually do_. The\n two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go, for,\n no doubt, if men had been supported entirely by vegetable food a\n great part of those animals who die to furnish our tables would\n never have lived[190] but they by no means justify our right over\n the lives of other animals to the extent to which we exercise it.\n What danger is there, _e.g._, of fish interfering with us in the\n occupation of their element, or what do we contribute to their\n support or preservation?\n\n \u201c_It seems to me that it would be difficult to defend this right\n by any arguments which the light and order of Nature afford_, and\n that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture\n (_Gen._ ix., 1, 2, 3). To Adam and his posterity had been granted,\n at the creation, \u2018every green herb for meat,\u2019 and nothing more.\n In the last clause of the passage now produced the old grant is\n recited and extended to the flesh of animals--\u2018even as the green\n herb, have I given you all things.\u2019 But this was not until after\n the Flood. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world had therefore\n no such permission that we know of. Whether they actually refrained\n from the flesh of animals is another question. Abel, we read, was\n a keeper of sheep, and for what purpose he kept them, except for\n food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifice). Might not,\n however, some of the stricter sects among the antediluvians be\n scrupulous as to this point? And might not Noah and his family\n be of this description? For, it is not probable that God should\n publish a permission to authorise a practice which had never been\n disputed.\u201d[191]\n\nThus far as regards the _moral_ aspect of the subject. Dealing with the\nsocial and economical view, Paley, untrammelled by professional views,\nis more decided. In his chapter, _Of Population and Provision, &c._, he\nwrites:--\n\n \u201cThe natives of Hindustan being confined, by the laws of their\n religion, to the use of vegetable food, and requiring little except\n rice, which the country produces in plentiful crops; and food, in\n warm climates, composing the only want of life, these countries are\n populous under all the injuries of a despotic, and the agitations\n of an unsettled, Government. If any revolution, or what would be\n called perhaps _refinement of manners (!)_, should generate in\n these people a taste for the flesh of animals, similar to what\n prevails amongst the Arabian hordes--should introduce flocks and\n herds into grounds which are now covered with corn--should teach\n them to account a certain portion of this species of food amongst\n the necessaries of life--the population from this single change\n would suffer in a few years a great diminution, and this diminution\n would follow in spite of every effort of the laws, or even of any\n improvement that might take place in their civil condition. In\n Ireland the simplicity of living alone maintains a considerable\n degree of population under great defects of police, industry,\n and commerce.... Next to the mode of living, we are to consider\n \u2018the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which is either\n raised in the country or imported into it,\u2019 for this is the order\n in which we assigned the causes of population and undertook to\n treat of them. Now, if we measure the quantity of provision by the\n number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour,\n this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil from which it\n is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the _kind_. For\n instance, a piece of ground capable of supplying animal food\n sufficient for the subsistence of ten persons _would sustain, at\n least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk_.\n\n \u201cThe first resource of savage life is in the flesh of wild animals.\n Hence the numbers amongst savage nations, compared with the tract\n of country which they occupy, are universally small, because this\n species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the slenderest\n proportion. The next step was the invention of pasturage, or the\n rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals. This alteration\n added to the stock of provision much. But the last and _principal\n improvement was to follow, viz., tillage, or the artificial\n production of corn, esculent plants, and roots_. This discovery,\n whilst it changed the quality of human food, augmented the quantity\n in a vast proportion.\n\n \u201cSo far as the state of population is governed and limited by\n the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that\n affects it so powerfully as the kind and quality of food which\n chance or usage hath introduced into a country. In England,\n notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been of late\n considerably increased by the enclosure of wastes and the adoption,\n in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not\n observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants, the\n reason of which appears to me to be the more general consumption\n of animal food amongst us. Many ranks of people whose ordinary\n diet was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk,\n roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion\n of the flesh of animals. _Hence a great part of the richest lands\n of the country are converted to pasturage._ Much also of the\n bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies,\n now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and\n oxen. _The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished_,\n and what is gained in the amelioration of the soil is lost in the\n quality of the produce.\n\n \u201cThis consideration teaches us that tillage, as an object of\n national care and encouragement, is universally preferable to\n pasturage, because the kind of provision which it yields goes\n much farther in the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also\n recommended by this additional advantage--that it _affords\n employment to a much more numerous peasantry_. Indeed pasturage\n seems to be the art of a nation, either imperfectly civilised, as\n are many of the tribes which cultivate it in the internal parts\n of Asia, or of a nation, like Spain, declining from its summit by\n luxury and inactivity.\u201d[192]\n\nElsewhere Paley asserts that \u201cluxury in dress or furniture is\nuniversally preferable to luxury _in eating_, because the articles\nwhich constitute the one are more the production of human art and\nindustry than those which supply the other.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXXXII.\n\nST. PIERRE. 1737-1814.\n\n\nPrincipally known as the author of the most charming of all idyllic\nromances--_Paul et Virginie_. Beginning his career as civil engineer\nhe afterwards entered the French army. A quarrel with his official\nsuperiors forced him to seek employment elsewhere, and he found it\nin the Russian service, where his scientific ability received due\nrecognition.\n\nEncouraged by the esteem in which he was held, he formed the project\nof establishing a colony on the Caspian shores, which should be under\njust and equal laws. St. Pierre submitted the scheme to the Russian\nMinister, who, as we should be apt to presume, did not receive it too\nfavourably. He then went to Poland in the vain expectation of aiding\nthe people of that hopelessly distracted country in throwing off the\nforeigners\u2019 yoke. Failing in this undertaking, and despairing, for\nthe time, of the cause of freedom, we next find him in Berlin and\nin Vienna. He had also previously visited Holland, in which great\nrefuge of freedom he had been received with hospitality. In Paris,\nupon his return to France, his project of a free colony found better\nreception than in St. Petersburg--owing, perhaps, to the not altogether\ndisinterested sympathy of the Government with the recently revolted\nAmerican colonies. To further his plans he accepted an official post in\nthe Ile de France, intending eventually to proceed to Madagascar, where\nwas to be realised his long-cherished idea. On the voyage he discovered\nthat his associates had formed a very different design from his\nown--to engage in the slave traffic. Separating from these nefarious\nspeculators, he landed in the Ile de France, where he remained two\nyears. It is to the experiences of this part of his life that we owe\nhis _Paul et Virginie_, the scenes of which are laid in that tropical\nisland.\n\nReturning home once again, he made the acquaintance of D\u2019Alembert\nand of other leading men of letters in Paris, and, particularly,\nof Rousseau, his philosophical master. At the period of the Great\nRevolution of 1789, St. Pierre lost his post as superintendent of the\nRoyal Botanical Gardens under the old Bourbon Government, and he found\nhimself reduced to poverty; and although his sympathies were with the\nparty of constitutional, though not of radical, reform, the supremacy\nof the extreme revolutionists (1792-1794) exposed him to some hazard by\nreason of his known deistic convictions. Upon the establishment of the\nreactionary revolution of the Empire, St. Pierre recovered his former\npost, and, with the empty honour of the Imperial Cross, he received the\nmore solid benefit of a pension and other emoluments.\n\nHis writings have been collected and published in two quarto volumes\n(Paris, 1836). Of these, after his celebrated romance, perhaps the most\npopular is _La Chaumi\u00e8re Indienne_ (\u201cThe Indian or Hindu Cottage\u201d). His\nprincipal productions are _Etudes de la Nature_ (\u201cStudies of Nature\u201d),\n_V\u0153ux d\u2019un Solitaire_ (\u201cAspirations of a Recluse\u201d), _Voyage \u00e0 L\u2019Ile\nde France_ (\u201cVoyage to Mauritius\u201d), and _L\u2019Arcadie_ (\u201cArcadia\u201d).\nHis merits consist in a certain refinement of feeling, in charming\neloquence in description of natural beauty, and in the humane spirit\nwhich breathes in his writings. Of the _Paul et Virginie_ he tells us--\n\n \u201cI have proposed to myself great designs in that little work....\n I have desired to reunite to the beauty of Nature, as seen in the\n tropics, the moral beauty of a small society of human beings. I\n proposed to myself thereby to demonstrate several great truths;\n amongst others this--that our happiness consists in living\n according to Nature and Virtue.\u201d\n\nHe assures us that the principal characters and events he describes\nare by no means only the imaginings of romance. In truth, it seems\ndifficult to believe that the genius of the author alone could have\nimpressed so wonderful an air of reality upon merely fictitious scenes.\nThe popularity of the story was secured at once in the author\u2019s own\ncountry, and it rapidly spread throughout Europe. _Paul et Virginie_\nwas successively translated into English, Italian, German, Dutch,\nPolish, Russian, and Spanish. It became the fashion for mothers to give\nto their children the names of its hero and heroine, and well would\nit have been had they also adopted for them that method of innocent\nliving which is the real, if too generally unrecognised, secret of the\nfascinating power of the book.\n\nIt is thus that he eloquently calls to remembrance the _natural_ feasts\nof his young heroine and hero:--\n\n \u201cAmiable children! thus in innocence did you pass your first days.\n How often in this spot have your mothers, pressing you in their\n arms, thanked Heaven for the consolation you were preparing for\n them in their old age, and for the happiness of seeing you enter\n upon life under so happy auguries! How often, under the shadow\n of these rocks, have I shared, with them, your out-door repasts\n _which had cost no animals their lives_. Gourds full of milk, of\n newly-laid eggs, of rice cakes upon banana leaves, baskets laden\n with potatoes, with mangoes, with oranges, with pomegranates,\n with bananas, with dates, with ananas, offered at once the most\n wholesome meats, the most beautiful colours, and the most agreeable\n juices. The conversation was as refined and gentle as their food.\u201d\n\nThe humaneness of their manners had attracted to the charming arbour,\nwhich they had formed for themselves, all kinds of beautiful birds,\nwho sought there their daily meals and the caresses of their human\nprotectors. Our readers will not be displeased to be reminded of this\ncharming scene:--\n\n \u201cVirginie loved to repose upon the slope of this fountain, which\n was decorated with a pomp at once magnificent and wild. Often\n would she come there to wash the household linen beneath the shade\n of two cocoa-nut trees. Sometimes she led her goats to feed in this\n place; and, while she was preparing cheese from their milk, she\n pleased herself in watching them as they browsed the herbage upon\n the precipitous sides of the rocks, and supported themselves in\n mid-air upon one of the jutting points as upon a pedestal. Paul,\n seeing that this spot was loved by Virginie, brought from the\n neighbouring forest the nests of all sorts of birds. The fathers\n and mothers of these birds followed their little ones, and came\n and established themselves in this new colony. Virginie would\n distribute to them from time to time grains of rice, maize, and\n millet. As soon as she appeared, the blackbirds, the _bengalis_,\n whose flight is so gentle, the cardinals, whose plumage is of the\n colour of fire, quitted their bushes; parroquets, green as emerald,\n descended from the neighbouring lianas, partridges ran along under\n the grass--all advanced pell-mell up to her feet like domestic\n hens. Paul and she delighted themselves with their transports of\n joy, with their eager appetites, and with their loves.\u201d\n\nIn his views upon national education, St. Pierre invites the serious\nattention of legislators and educators to the importance of accustoming\nthe young to the nourishment prescribed by Nature:--\n\n \u201cThey [the true instructors of the people] will accustom children\n to the vegetable _r\u00e9gime_. The peoples living upon vegetable foods,\n are, of all men, the handsomest, the most vigorous, the least\n exposed to diseases and to passions, and they whose lives last\n longest. Such, in Europe, are a large proportion of the Swiss. The\n greater part of the peasantry who, in every country, form the most\n vigorous portion of the people, eat very little flesh-meat. The\n Russians have multiplied periods of fasting and days of abstinence,\n from which even the soldiers are not exempt; and yet they resist\n all kinds of fatigues. The negroes, who undergo so many hard blows\n in our colonies, live upon manioc, potatoes, and maize alone. The\n Brahmins of India, who frequently reach the age of one hundred\n years, eat only vegetable foods. It was from the Pythagorean sect\n that issued Epaminondas, so celebrated by his virtues; Archytas,\n by his genius for mathematics and mechanics; Milo of Crotona, by\n his strength of body. Pythagoras himself was the finest man of his\n time, and, without dispute, the most enlightened, since he was the\n father of philosophy amongst the Greeks. Inasmuch as the non-flesh\n diet introduces many virtues and excludes none, it will be well to\n bring up the young upon it, since it has so happy an influence upon\n the beauty of the body and upon the tranquility of the mind. This\n regimen prolongs childhood, and, by consequence, human life.[193]\n\n \u201cI have seen an instance of it in a young Englishman aged fifteen,\n and who did not appear to be twelve years of age. He was of a most\n interesting figure, of the most robust health, and of the most\n sweet disposition. He was accustomed to take very long walks. He\n was never put out of temper by any annoyance that might happen. His\n father, Mr. Pigott, told me that he had brought him up entirely\n upon the Pythagorean regimen, the good effects of which he had\n known by his own experience. He had formed the project of employing\n a part of his fortune, which was considerable, in establishing\n in English America a society of dietary reformers who should be\n engaged in educating, under the same regimen, the children of\n the colonists in all the arts which bear upon agriculture. Would\n that this educational scheme, worthy of the best and happiest\n times of Antiquity, might succeed! Physically, it suits a warlike\n people no less than an agricultural one. The Persian children, of\n the time of Cyrus, and by his orders, were nourished upon bread,\n water, and vegetables.... It was with these children, become men,\n that Cyrus made the conquest of Asia. I observe that Lycurgus\n introduced a great part of the physical and moral regimen of the\n Persian children into the education of those of the Lacedemonians.\u201d\n (_Etudes._)[194]\n\n * * * * *\n\nOf the many practical witnesses of this period, more or less\ninteresting, for the sufficiency, or rather superiority, of the\nreformed regimen, four names stand out in prominent relief--Franklin,\nHoward, Swedenborg, Wesley--prominent either for scientific ability or\nfor philanthropic zeal. To his early resolution to betake himself to\nfrugal living, Benjamin Franklin, then in a printer\u2019s office in Boston,\nattributes mainly his future success in life.[195]\n\nIt was to his pure dietary that the great Prison Reformer assigns\nhis immunity, during so many years, from the deadly jail-fever, to\nthe infection of which he fearlessly exposed himself in visiting\nthose hotbeds of _malaria_--the filthy prisons of this country and of\ncontinental Europe. (See the correspondence of John Howard--_passim_.)\nEqually significant is the testimony of the eminent founder of\nMethodism whose almost unexampled energy and endurance, both of mind\nand body, during some fifty years of continuous persecution, both legal\nand popular, were supported (as he informs us in his _Journals_) mainly\nby abstinence from gross foods; while, in regard to Emanuel Swedenborg,\nif abstinence does not assume so prominent a place in his theological\nor other various writings as might have been expected from his special\nopinions, the cause of such silence must be referred not to personal\naddiction to an _anti-spiritualistic_ nourishment (for he himself was\nnotably frugal) but to preoccupation of mental faculties which seem to\nhave been absorbed in the elaboration of his well-known spiritualistic\nsystem.\n\nThe limits of this work do not permit us to quote all the many writers\nof the eighteenth century whom philosophy, science, or profounder\nfeeling urged _incidentally_ to question the necessity or to suspect\nthe barbarism of the Slaughter-House. But there are two names, amongst\nthe highest in the whole range of English philosophic literature, whose\nexpression of opinion may seem to be peculiarly noteworthy--the author\nof the _Wealth of Nations_ and the historian of the _Decline and Fall\nof the Roman Empire_.\n\n \u201cIt may, indeed, be doubted [writes the founder of the science of\n Political Economy] whether butchers\u2019 meat is _anywhere_ a necessary\n of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese,\n and butter, or oil (where butter is not to be had), it is known\n from experience, can, _without any butchers\u2019 meat, afford the most\n plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most\n invigorating diet_.\u201d[196]\n\nAs for the reflections of the first of historians, who seems always\ncarefully to guard himself from the expression of any sort of\nemotion not in keeping with the character of an impartial judge and\nunprejudiced spectator, but who, on the subject in question, cannot\nwholly repress the _natural_ feeling of disgust, they are sufficiently\nsignificant. Gibbon is describing the manners of the Tartar tribes:--\n\n \u201cThe thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the\n shepherds of the North, and their arms have spread terror and\n devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe.\n On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is\n forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision, and is compelled, with\n some reluctance, to confess that the pastoral manners, which have\n been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence,\n are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a\n military life.\n\n \u201cTo illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a\n nation of shepherds and of warriors in the three important articles\n of (1) their diet, (2) their habitations, and (3) their exercises.\n 1. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary\n and wholesome food of a civilised people, can be obtained only\n by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages\n who dwell between the tropics are plentifully nourished by the\n liberality of Nature; but in the climates of the North a nation\n of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful\n practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able\n to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be affected\n by the use of animal or of vegetable food; and whether the common\n association of carnivorous and cruel deserves to be considered\n in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary,\n prejudice of humanity. Yet if it be true that the sentiment of\n compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of\n domestic cruelty, we may observe that _the horrid objects which\n are disguised by the arts of European refinement_ are exhibited in\n their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a Tartar\n shepherd. The Oxen or the Sheep are slaughtered by the same hand\n from which they were accustomed to receive their daily food, and\n the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the\n table of their unfeeling murderers.\u201d[197]\n\nTo the poets, who claim to be the interpreters and priests of\nNature, we might, with justness, look for celebration of the\nanti-materialist living. Unhappily we too generally look in vain.\nThe prophet-poets--Hesiod, Kalid\u00e2sa, Milton, Thomson, Shelley,\nLamartine--form a band more noble than numerous. Of those who, not\nhaving entered the very sanctuary of the temple of humanitarianism,\nhave been content to officiate in its outer courts, Burns and Cowper\noccupy a prominent place. That the latter, who felt so keenly\n\n \u201cThe persecution and the pain\n That man inflicts on all inferior kinds\n Regardless of their plaints,\u201d\n\nand who has denounced with so eloquent indignation the pitiless wars\n\u201cwaged with defenceless innocence,\u201d and the protean shapes of human\nselfishness, should yet have stopped short of the _final_ cause of\nthem all, would be inexplicable but for the blinding influence of\nhabit and authority. Nevertheless, his picture of the savagery of\nthe Slaughter-House, and of some of its associated cruelties, is too\nforcible to be omitted:\n\n \u201cTo make him sport,\n To justify the phrensy of his wrath,\n _Or his base gluttony_, are causes good\n And just, in his account, why bird and beast\n Should suffer torture, and the stream be dyed\n With blood of their inhabitants impaled.\n Earth groans beneath the burden of a war\n Waged with defenceless Innocence: while he,\n _Not satisfied to prey on all around,\n Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs\n Needless, and first torments ere he devours_.\n Now happiest they who occupy the scenes\n The most remote from his abhorred resort.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Witness at his feet\n The Spaniel dying for some venial fault,\n Under dissection of the knotted scourge:\n _Witness the patient Ox, with stripes and yells\n Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs\n To madness, while the savage at his heels\n Laughs at the frantic sufferer\u2019s fury spent\n Upon the heedless passenger o\u2019erthrown_.\n He, too, is witness--noblest of the train\n Who waits on Man--the flight-performing Horse:\n With unsuspecting readiness he takes\n His murderer on his back, and, pushed all day,\n With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life,\n To the far-distant goal arrives, and dies!\n So little mercy shows, who needs so much!\n Does Law--so jealous in the cause of Man[?]--\n Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.\u201d[198]\n\n\n\n\nXXXIII.\n\nOSWALD. 1730-1793.\n\n\nAmongst the less known prophets of the new Reformation the author\nof the _Cry of Nature_--one of the most eloquent appeals to justice\nand right feeling ever addressed to the conscience of men--deserves\nan honourable place. Of the facts of his life we have scanty record.\nHe was a native of Edinburgh. At an early age he entered the English\narmy as a private soldier, but his friends soon obtained for him\nan officer\u2019s commission. He went to the East Indies, where he\ndistinguished himself by his remarkable courage and ability. He did not\nlong remain in the military life; and, having sold out, he travelled\nthrough Hindustan to inform himself of the principles of the Brahmin\nand Buddhist religions of the peninsula, whose dress as well as milder\nmanners he assumed upon his return to England.\n\nDuring his stay in this country he uniformly abstained from all\nflesh meats, and so great, we are told, was his abhorrence of the\nSlaughter-House, that, to avoid it or the butcher\u2019s shop, he was\naccustomed to make a long _d\u00e9tour_. His children were brought up in\nthe same way. In 1790, like some others of the more enthusiastic\nclass of his countrymen, he espoused the cause of the Revolution, and\nwent to Paris. By introducing some useful military reforms he gained\ndistinction amongst the Republicans, and he received an important post.\nHe seems to have fallen, with his sons, fighting in La Vend\u00e9e for the\nNational Cause.\n\nThe author, in his preface, tells us that--\n\n \u201cFatigued with answering the inquiries and replying to the\n objections of his friends with respect to the singularity of his\n mode of life, he conceived that he might consult his ease by\n making, once for all, a public apology for his opinions.... The\n author is very far from entertaining a presumption that his slender\n labours (crude and imperfect as they are now hurried to the press)\n will ever operate an effect on the public mind; and yet, when\n he considers the natural bias of the human heart to the side of\n mercy,[199] and observes, on all hands, the barbarous governments\n of Europe giving way to a better system of things, he is inclined\n to hope that the day is beginning to approach when the growing\n sentiment of peace and goodwill towards men will also embrace, in a\n wide circle of benevolence, the lower orders of life.\n\n \u201cAt all events, the pleasing persuasion that his work may have\n contributed to _mitigate_ the ferocities of prejudice, and to\n _diminish_, in some degree, the great mass of misery which\n oppresses the lower animal world, will, in the hour of distress,\n convey to the author\u2019s soul a consolation which the tooth of\n calumny will not be able to empoison.\u201d\n\nA noble and true inspiration nobly and eloquently used! The arguments,\nby which he attempts to reach the better feeling of his readers, are\ndrawn from the deepest source of morality. Having given a beautiful\npicture of the tempting and alluring character of Fruits, he exclaims\nin his poetic-prose:--\n\n \u201cBut far other is the fate of animals. For, alas! when they are\n plucked from the tree of Life, suddenly the withered blossoms of\n their beauty shrink to the chilly hand of Death. Quenched in his\n cold grasp expires the lamp of their loveliness, and struck by\n the livid blast of loathed putrefaction, their comely limbs are\n involved in ghastly horror. Shall we leave the living herbs to\n seek, in the den of death, an obscene aliment? Insensible to the\n blooming beauties of Pomona--unallured by the fragrant odours that\n exhale from her groves of golden fruits--unmoved by the nectar of\n Nature, by the ambrosia of innocence--shall the voracious vultures\n of our impure appetites speed along those lovely scenes and alight\n in the loathsome sink of putrefaction to devour the remains of\n other creatures, to load with cadaverous rottenness a wretched\n stomach?\u201d\n\nHe repeats Porphyry\u2019s appeal to the consideration of human interests\nthemselves--\n\n \u201cAnd is not the human race itself highly interested to prevent the\n habit of spilling blood? For, will the man, habituated to violence,\n be nice to distinguish the vital tide of a quadruped from that\n which flows from a creature with two legs? Are the dying struggles\n of a Lamb less affecting than the agonies of any animal whatever?\n Or, will the ruffian who beholds unmoved the supplicatory looks\n of innocence itself, and, reckless of the Calf\u2019s infantine cries,\n pitilessly plunges in her quivering side the murdering knife, will\n he turn, I say, with horror from human assassination?\n\n \u2018What more advance can mortals make in sin,\n So near perfection, who with blood begin?\n Deaf to the calf who lies beneath the knife,\n Looks up, and from the butcher begs her life.\n Deaf to the harmless kid who, ere he dies,\n All efforts to procure thy pity tries,\n And imitates, in vain, thy children\u2019s cries.\n Where will he stop?\u2019\n\n \u201cFrom the practice of slaughtering an innocent animal of another\n species to the murder of man himself the steps are neither many nor\n remote. This our forefathers perfectly understood, who ordained\n that, in a cause of blood, no butcher should be permitted to sit in\n jury....\n\n \u201cBut from the nature of the very human heart arises the strongest\n argument in behalf of the persecuted beings. Within us there\n exists a rooted repugnance to the shedding of blood, a repugnance\n which yields only to Custom, and which even the most inveterate\n custom can seldom entirely overcome. Hence the ungracious task of\n shedding the tide of life (for the gluttony of the table) has, in\n every country, been committed to the lowest class of men, and their\n profession is, in every country, an object of abhorrence.\n\n \u201cThey feed on the carcass without remorse, because the dying\n struggles of the butchered victim are secluded from their\n sight--because his cries pierce not their ears--because his\n agonising shrieks sink not into their souls. But were they forced,\n with their own hands, to assassinate the beings whom they devour,\n who is there among us who would not throw down the knife with\n detestation, and, rather than embrue his hands in the murder of\n the lamb, consent for ever to forego the accustomed repast? What\n then shall we say? Vainly planted in our breast is this abhorrence\n of cruelty--this sympathetic affection for innocence? Or do\n the feelings of the heart point to the command of Nature more\n unerringly than all the elaborate subtlety of a set of men who, at\n the shrine of science, have sacrificed the dearest sentiments of\n humanity?\u201d\n\nThis eloquent vindicator of the rights of the oppressed of the\nnon-human races here addresses a scathing rebuke to the torturers\nof the vivisection-halls, as well as to those who abuse Science by\nattempting to enlist it in the defence of slaughter.\n\n \u201cYou, the sons of modern science, who court not Wisdom in her\n walks of silent meditation in the grove--who behold her not in\n the living loveliness of her works, but expect to meet her in the\n midst of obscenity and corruption--you, who dig for knowledge in\n the depths of the dunghill, and who expect to discover Wisdom\n enthroned amid the fragments of mortality and the abhorrence of\n the senses--you, that with cruel violence interrogate trembling\n Nature, who plunge into her maternal bosom the butcher-knife, and,\n in quest of your nefarious science, delight to scrutinise the\n fibres of agonising beings, you dare also to violate the human\n form, and holding up the entrails of men, you exclaim, \u2018Behold the\n bowels of a carnivorous animal!\u2019 Barbarians! to these very bowels\n I appeal against your cruel dogmas--to these bowels which Nature\n hath sanctified to the sentiments of pity and of gratitude, to the\n yearnings of kindred, to the melting tenderness of love.\n\n \u2018Mollissima corda\n Humano generi dare se Natura fatetur,\n Qu\u00e6 _lachrymas_ dedit: h\u00e6c nostri pars optima sensus.\u2019[200]\n\n \u201cHad Nature intended man to be an animal of prey, would she have\n implanted in his breast an instinct so adverse to her purpose?...\n Would she not rather, in order to enable him to brave the piercing\n cries of anguish, have wrapped his ruthless heart in ribs of brass,\n and with iron entrails have armed him to grind, without shadow of\n remorse, the palpitating limbs of agonising life? But has Nature\n winged the feet of men with fleetness to overtake the flying prey?\n And where are his fangs to tear asunder the beings destined for\n his food? Does the lust of carnage glare in his eye-balls? Does he\n scent from afar the footsteps of his victim? Does his soul pant for\n the feast of blood? Is the bosom of men the rugged abode of bloody\n thoughts, and from the den of Death rush forth, at sight of other\n animals, his rapacious desires to slay, to mangle, and to devour?\n\n \u201cBut come, men of scientific subtlety, approach and examine with\n attention this dead body. It was late a playful Fawn, who skipping\n and bounding on the bosom of parent Earth, awoke in the soul of\n the feeling observer a thousand tender emotions. But the butcher\u2019s\n knife has laid low the delight of a fond mother, and the darling\n of Nature is now stretched in gore upon the ground. Approach, I\n say, men of scientific subtlety, and tell me, does this ghastly\n spectacle whet your appetite? But why turn you with abhorrence?\n Do you then yield to the combined evidence of your senses, to\n the testimony of conscience and common sense; or with a show of\n rhetoric, pitiful as it is perverse, will you still persist in your\n endeavour to persuade us that to murder an innocent being is not\n cruel nor unjust, and that to feed upon a corpse is neither filthy\n nor unfitting?\u201d\n\nAmid the dark scenes of barbarism and cold-blooded indifferentism\nto suffering innocence, there are yet the glimmers of a better\nnature, which need but the life-giving impulse of a true religion and\nphilosophy:--\n\n \u201cAnd yet those channels of sympathy for inferior animals, long--a\n very long--custom has not been able altogether to stifle. Even now,\n notwithstanding the narrow, joyless, and hard-hearted tendency of\n the prevailing superstitions; even now we discover, in every corner\n of the globe, some good-natured _prejudice_ in behalf of [certain\n of] the persecuted animals; we perceive, in every country, certain\n privileged animals, whom even the ruthless jaws of gluttony dare\n not to invade. For, to pass over unnoticed the vast empires of\n India and of China, where the lower orders of life are considered\n as relative parts of society, and are protected by the laws and\n religion of the natives,[201] the Tartars abstain from several\n kinds of animals; the Turks are charitable to the very dog, whom\n they abominate; and even the English peasant pays towards the\n _red-breast_ an inviolable respect to the rights of hospitality.\n\n \u201cLong after the perverse practice of devouring the flesh of animals\n had grown into inveterate habit among peoples, there existed still\n in almost every country, and of every religion, and of every sect\n of philosophy, a wiser, a purer, and more holy class of men who\n preserved by their institutions, by their precepts, and by their\n example, the memory of primitive innocence [?] and simplicity. The\n Pythagoreans abhorred the slaughter of any animal life; Epicurus\n and the worthiest part of his disciples bounded their delights with\n the produce of their garden; and of the first Christians several\n sects abominated the feast of blood, and were satisfied with the\n food which Nature, unviolated, brings forth for our support....\n\n \u201cMan, in a state of nature, is not, apparently, much superior to\n other animals. His organisation is, without doubt, extremely happy;\n but then the dexterity of his figure is counterpoised by great\n advantages in other beings. Inferior to the Bull in force, and in\n fleetness to the Dog, the _os sublime_, or erect front, a feature\n he bears in common with the Monkey, could scarcely have inspired\n him with those haughty and magnificent ideas which the pride of\n human refinement thence endeavours to deduce. Exposed, like his\n fellow-creatures, to the injuries of the air, urged to action by\n the same physical necessities, susceptible of the same impressions,\n actuated by the same passions, and equally subject to the pains of\n disease and to the pangs of dissolution, the simple savage never\n dreams that his nature was so much more noble, or that he drew his\n origin from a purer source or more remote than the other animals in\n whom he saw a resemblance so complete.\n\n \u201cNor were the simple sounds by which he expressed the singleness\n of his heart at all fitted to flatter him into that fond sense\n of superiority over the beings whom the unreasoning insolence of\n cultivated ages absurdly styles _mute_. I say absurdly styles\n _mute_; for with what propriety can that name be applied, for\n example, to the little sirens of the groves, to whom Nature has\n granted the strains of ravishment--the soul of song? Those charming\n warblers who pour forth, with a moving melody which human ingenuity\n vies with in vain, their loves, their anxiety, their woes. In\n the ardour and delicacy of his amorous expressions, can the most\n impassioned, the most respectful, human lover surpass the \u2018glossy\n kind,\u2019 as described by the most beautiful of all our poets?\n\n \u201cAnd, indeed, has not Nature given to almost every being the same\n spontaneous signs of the various affections? Admire we not in other\n animals whatever is most eloquent in man--the tremor of desire, the\n tear of distress, the piercing cry of anguish, the pity-pleading\n look--expressions which speak to the soul with a feeling which\n words are feeble to convey?\u201d\n\nThe whole of the little book of which the above extracts are properly\nrepresentative, breathes the spirit of a true religion. We shall only\nadd that it exhibits almost as much learning and valuable research as\nit exhibits justness of thought and sensibility--enriched, as it is, by\ncopious illustrative notes.[202]\n\n\n\n\nXXXIV.\n\nHUFELAND. 1762-1836.\n\n\nNot entitled to rank among the greater prophets who have had the\npenetration to recognise the _essential_ barbarism, no less than the\nunnaturalness, of Kreophagy (disguised, as it is, by the arts of\ncivilisation), this most popular of all German physicians, with the\nCornaros and Abernethys, may yet claim considerable merit as having, in\nsome degree, sought to stem the tide of unnatural living, which, under\nless gross forms indeed than those of the darker ages of dietetics,\nand partially concealed in the refinements of Art, is more difficult\nto be resisted by reason of its very disguise. If the renaissance of\nPythagorean dietetics had already dawned for the deeper thinkers,\nthe age of science and of reason, as regards the mass of accredited\nteachers, was yet a long way off; and to all pioneers, even though they\nfailed to clear the way entirely, some measure of our gratitude is due.\n\nChristian Wilhelm Hufeland is one of the most prolific of medical\nwriters. Having studied medicine at Jena and at Gottingen he took the\ndegree of doctor in 1783. At Jena he occupied a professorial chair\n(1793), and came to Berlin five years later, where he was entrusted\nwith the superintendence of the Medical College. Both as practical\nphysician and as professor, Hufeland attained a European reputation.\nThe French Academy of Sciences elected him one of its members. His\nnumerous writings have been often reprinted in Germany. Among the most\nuseful are: (1) _Popular Dissertations upon Health_ (Leipsig, 1794);\n(2) _Makrobiotik: oder die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verl\u00e4ngern_\n(Jena, 1796), a celebrated work which has been translated into all\nthe languages of Europe[203]; (3) _Good Advice to Mothers upon the\nmost Important Points of the Physical Education of Children in the\nFirst Years_ (Berlin, 1799); (4) _History of Health, and Physical\nCharacteristics of our Epoch_ (Berlin, 1812)[204]. Of Hufeland\u2019s\nwitness to the general superiority of the _Naturgem\u00e4sse Lebensweise_\nthe following sentences are sufficiently representative:\n\n \u201cThe more man follows Nature and obeys her laws the longer will he\n live. The further he removes from them (_je weiter er von ihnen\n abweicht_) the shorter will be his duration of existence....\n Only inartificial, simple nourishment promotes health and long\n life, while mixed and rich foods but shorten our existence.... We\n frequently find a very advanced old age amongst men who from youth\n upwards have lived, for the most part, upon the vegetable diet,\n and, perhaps, have never tasted flesh.\u201d[205]\n\n\n\n\nXXXV.\n\nRITSON. 1761-1830.\n\n\nKnown to the world generally as an eminent antiquarian and, in\nparticular, as one of the earliest and most acute investigators of\nthe sources of English romantic poetry, for future times his best and\nenduring fame will rest upon his at present almost forgotten Moral\nEssay upon Abstinence--one of the most able and philosophical of the\nethical expositions of anti-kreophagy ever published.\n\nHis birthplace was Stockton in the county of Durham. By profession a\nconveyancer, he enjoyed leisure for literary pursuits by his income\nfrom an official appointment. During the twenty years from 1782 to 1802\nhis time and talents were incessantly employed in the publication of\nhis various works, antiquarian and critical. His first notable critique\nwas his _Observations_ on Warton\u2019s _History of English Poetry_, in the\nshape of a letter to the author (1782), in which his critical zeal\nseems to have been in excess of his literary amenity. Of other literary\nproductions may be enumerated his _Remarks on the Commentators of\nShakspere_; _A Select Collection of English Songs, with a Historical\nEssay on the Origin and Progress of National Songs_ (1783); _Ancient\nSongs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution_ (1790),\nreprinted in 1829--perhaps the most valuable of his arch\u00e6ological\nlabours; _The English Anthology_ (1793); _Ancient English Metrical\nRomances_, and _Bibliographia Poetica_, a catalogue of English poets\nfrom the 12th to the 16th century, inclusive, with short notices of\ntheir works. These are only some of the productions of his industry and\ngenius.\n\nWe give the origin of his adhesion to the Humanitarian Creed as\nrecorded by himself in one of the chapters of his Essay, in which,\nalso, he introduces the name of an ardent and well-known humanitarian\nreformer:--\n\n \u201cMr. Richard Phillips,[206] the publisher of this compilation, a\n vigorous, healthy, and well-looking man, has desisted from animal\n food for upwards of twenty years; and the compiler himself, induced\n to serious reflection by the perusal of Mandeville\u2019s _Fable of the\n Bees_, in the year 1772, being the 19th year of his age, has ever\n since, to the revisal of these sheets [1802], firmly adhered to a\n milk and vegetable diet; having, at least, never tasted, during the\n whole course of those thirty years, any flesh, fowl, or fish, or\n anything, to his knowledge, prepared in or with those substances\n or any extract from them, unless, on one occasion, when tempted\n by wet, cold, and hunger in the south of Scotland, he ventured\n to eat a few potatoes dressed under roasted flesh, nothing less\n repugnant to his feelings being obtainable; or, except by ignorance\n or imposition, unless, it may be, in eating eggs, which, however,\n deprives no animal of life, although it may prevent some from\n coming into the world to be murdered and devoured by others.\u201d[207]\n\nRitson begins his Essay with a brief review of the opinions of some of\nthe old Greek and Italian philosophers upon the origin and constitution\nof the world, and with a sketch of the position of man in Nature\nrelatively to other animals. Amongst others he cites Rousseau\u2019s Essay\n_Upon Inequality Amongst Men_. He then demonstrates the unnaturalness\nof flesh-eating by considerations derived from Physiology and Anatomy,\nand from the writings of various authorities; the fallacy of the\nprejudice that flesh-meats are necessary or conducive to strength of\nbody, a fallacy manifest as well from the examples of whole nations\nliving entirely, or almost entirely, upon non-flesh food, as from\nthose of numerous individuals whose cases are detailed at length. He\nquotes Arbuthnot, Sir Hans Sloane, Cheyne, Adam Smith, Volney, Paley,\nand others. Next he insists upon the ferocity or coarseness of mind\ndirectly or indirectly engendered by the diet of blood:--\n\n \u201cThat the use of animal food disposes man to cruel and ferocious\n actions is a fact to which the experience of ages gives ample\n testimony. The Scythians, from drinking the blood of their cattle,\n proceeded to drink that of their enemies. The fierce and cruel\n disposition of the wild Arabs is supposed chiefly, if not solely,\n to arise from their feeding upon the flesh of camels: and as\n the gentle disposition of the natives of Hindustan is probably\n owing, in great degree, to temperance and abstinence from animal\n food, so the common use of this diet, with other nations, has, in\n the opinion of M. Pag\u00e8s, intensified the natural tone of their\n passions; and he can account, he says, upon no other principle,\n for the strong, harsh features of the Mussulmen and the Christians\n compared with the mild traits and placid aspect of the Gentoos.\n \u2018Vulgar and uninformed men,\u2019 it is observed by Smellie, \u2018when\n pampered with a variety of animal food, are much more choleric,\n fierce, and cruel in their tempers, than those who live chiefly\n upon vegetables.\u2019 This affection is equally perceptible in other\n animals--\u2018An officer, in the Russian service, had a bear whom\n he fed with bread and oats, but never gave him flesh. A young\n hog, however, happening to stroll near his cell, the bear got\n hold of him and pulled him in; and, after he had once drawn\n blood and tasted flesh, he became unmanageable, attacking every\n person who came near him, so that the owner was obliged to kill\n him.\u2019--[_Memoirs of P. H. Bruce._] It was not, says Porphyry,\n from those who lived on vegetables that robbers, or murderers, or\n tyrants have proceeded, but from flesh-eaters.[208] Prey being\n almost the sole object of quarrel amongst carnivorous animals,\n while the frugivorous live together in constant peace and harmony,\n it is evident that if men were of this latter kind, they would find\n it much more easy to subsist happily.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe barbarous and unfeeling sports (as they are called) of the\n English--their horse-racing, hunting, shooting, bull and bear\n baiting, cock-fighting,[209] prize-fighting, and the like, all\n proceed from their immoderate addiction to animal food. Their\n natural temper is thereby corrupted, and they are in the habitual\n and hourly commission of crimes against nature, justice, and\n humanity, from which a feeling and reflective mind, unaccustomed\n to such a diet, would revolt, but in which they profess to take\n delight. The kings of England have from a remote period, been\n devoted to hunting; in which pursuit one of them, and the son\n of another lost his life. James I., according to Scaliger, was\n merciful, except at the chase, where he was cruel, and was very\n much enraged when he could not catch the Stag. \u2018God,\u2019 he used\n to say, \u2018is enraged against me, so that I shall not have him.\u2019\n Whenever he had caught his victim, he would put his arm all entire\n into his belly and entrails. This anecdote may be paralleled with\n the following of one of his successors: \u2018The hunt on Tuesday last,\n (March 1st, 1784), commenced near Salthill, and afforded a chase\n of upwards of fifty miles. His Majesty was present at the death of\n the stag near Tring, in Herts. It is the first deer that has been\n ran to death for many months; and when opened, the heart strings\n were found to be quite rent, as is supposed, with the force of\n running.\u2019[210] _Siste, vero, tandem carnifex!_ The slave trade,\n that abominable violation of the rights of Nature, is most probably\n owing to the same cause, as well as a variety of violent acts,\n both national and personal, which usually are attributed to other\n motives. In the sessions of Parliament, 1802, a majority of the\n members voted for the continuance of bull-baiting, and some of them\n had the confidence to plead in favour of it.\u201d[211]\n\nRitson enforces his observations upon this head by citing Plutarch,\nCowper, and Pope (in the _Guardian, No. 61_--a most forcible\nand eloquent protest against the cruelties of \u201csport\u201d and of\ngluttony).[212] In his fifth chapter he traces the origin of human\nsacrifices to the practice of flesh eating:--\n\n \u201cSuperstition is the mother of Ignorance and Barbarity. Priests\n began by persuading people of the existence of certain invisible\n beings, whom they pretended to be the creators of the world and\n the dispensers of good and evil; and of whose wills, in fine,\n they were the sole interpreters. Hence arose the necessity of\n sacrifices [ostensibly] to appease the wrath or to procure the\n favour of imaginary gods, but in reality to gratify the gluttonous\n and unnatural appetites of _real_ demons. Domestic animals were\n the first victims. These were immediately under the eye of the\n priest, and he was pleased with their taste. This satisfied for a\n time; but he had eaten of the same things so repeatedly, that his\n luxurious appetite called for variety. He had devoured the sheep,\n and he was now desirous of devouring the shepherd. The anger of\n the gods--testified by an opportune thunderstorm, was not to be\n assuaged but by a sacrifice of uncommon magnitude. The people\n tremble, and offer him their enemies, their slaves, their parents,\n their children, to obtain a clear sky on a summer\u2019s day, or a\n bright moon by night. When, or upon what particular occasion, the\n first human being was made a sacrifice is unknown, nor is it of\n any consequence to enquire. Goats and bullocks had been offered up\n already, and the transition was easy from the \u2018brute\u2019 to the man.\n The practice, however, is of remote antiquity and universal extent,\n there being scarcely a country in the world in which it has not, at\n some time or other, prevailed.\u201d\n\nHe supports this probable thesis by reference to Porphyry, the most\nerudite of the later Greeks, who repeats the accounts of earlier\nwriters upon this matter, and by a comparison of the religious rites\nof various nations, past and present. Equally natural and easy was the\nstep from the use of non-human to that of human bodies:--\n\n \u201cAs human sacrifices were a natural effect of that superstitious\n cruelty which first produced the slaughter of other animals, so is\n it equally natural that those accustomed to eat the \u2018brute\u2019 should\n not long abstain from the man. More especially as, when roasted or\n broiled upon the altar, the appearance, savour, and taste of both,\n would be nearly, if not entirely the same. But, from whatever cause\n it may be deduced, nothing can be more certain than that the eating\n of human flesh has been a practice in many parts of the world from\n a very remote period, and is so, in some countries, at this day.\n That it is a consequence of the use of other animal food there can\n be no doubt, as it would be impossible to find an instance of it\n among people who were accustomed solely to a vegetable diet. The\n progress of cruelty is rapid. Habit renders it familiar, and hence\n it is deemed _natural_.\n\n \u201cThe man who, accustomed to live on roots and vegetables, first\n devoured the flesh of the smallest mammal, committed a greater\n violence to his own nature than the most beautiful and delicate\n woman, accustomed to other animal flesh, would feel in shedding\n the blood of her own species for sustenance; possessed as they are\n of exquisite feelings, a considerable degree of intelligence, and\n even, according to her own religious system, of a _living soul_.\n That this is a principle in the social disposition of mankind,\n is evident from the deliberate coolness with which seamen, when\n their ordinary provisions are exhausted, sit down to devour such\n of their comrades as chance or contrivance renders the victim of\n the moment; a fact of which there are but too many, and those too\n well-authenticated instances. Such a crime, which no necessity\n can justify, would never enter the mind of a starving Gentoo,\n nor, indeed, of anyone who had not been previously accustomed to\n other animal flesh. Even among the Bedouins, or wandering Arabs\n of the desert--according to the observation of the enlightened\n Volney--though they so often experience the extremity of hunger,\n the practice of devouring human flesh was never heard of.\u201d\n\nIn the two following chapters Ritson traces a large proportion of human\ndiseases and suffering, physical and mental, to indulgence in unnatural\nliving. He cites Drs. Buchan, Goldsmith, Cheyne, Stubbes (_Anatomy of\nAbuses_, 1583), and Sparrman the well-known pupil of Linn\u00e9 (_Voyages_).\n\nIn his ninth chapter, he gives a copious catalogue of \u201cnations and of\nindividuals, past and contemporary, subsisting entirely upon vegetable\nfoods\u201d--not the least interesting part of his work. Some of the most\neminent of the old Greek and Latin philosophers and historians are\nquoted, as well as various modern travellers, such as Volney and\nSparrman. Especially valuable are the enquiries of Sir F. M. Eden\n(_State of the Poor_), who, in a comparison of the dietary of the\npoor, in different parts of these islands, proves that flesh has, or\nat all events _had_, scarcely any share in it--a fact which is still\ntrue of the agricultural districts, manifest not only by the commonest\nobservation, but also by scientific and official enquiries of late\nyears.\n\nOf individual cases, two of the most interesting are those of John\nWilliamson of Moffat, the discoverer of the famous chalybeate spring,\nwho lived almost to the age of one hundred years, having abstained\nfrom all flesh-food during the last fifty years of his life,[213] and\nof John Oswald, the author of _The Cry of Nature_. It is in this part\nof his work that Ritson narrates the history of his own conversion and\ndietetic experiences, and of his well-known publisher, Mr. R. Phillips.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVI.\n\nNICHOLSON. 1760-1825.\n\n\nAmong the least known, but none the less among the most estimable,\nof the advocates of the rights of the oppressed species and the\nheralds of the dawn of a better day, the humble Yorkshire printer, who\nundertook the unpopular and unremunerative work of publishing to the\nworld the sorrows and sufferings of the non-human races, claims our\nhigh respect and admiration. He has also another title (second only to\nhis humanitarian merit) to the gratitude of posterity as having been\nthe originator of cheap literature of the best class, and of the most\ninstructive sort, which, alike by the price and form, was adapted for\nwide circulation.\n\nGeorge Nicholson was born at Bradford. He early set up a printing\npress, and began the publication of his _Literary Miscellany_,\n\u201cwhich is not, as the name might lead one to suppose, a magazine,\nbut a series of choice anthologies, varied by some of the gems of\nEnglish literature. The size is a small 18mo., scarcely too large for\nthe waistcoat pocket. The printing was a beautiful specimen of the\ntypographic art, and for the illustrations he sought the aid of the\nbest artists. He was one of the patrons of Thomas Bewick, some of whose\nchoicest work is to be found in the pamphlets issued by Nicholson.\nHe also issued 125 cards, on which were printed favourite pieces,\nafterwards included in the _Literary Miscellany_. This \u2018assemblage of\nclassical beauties for the parlour, the closet, the carriage, or the\nshade,\u2019 became very popular, and extended to twenty volumes. The plan\nof issuing them in separate numbers enabled individuals to make their\nown selection, and they are found bound up in every possible variety.\nComplete sets are now rare, and highly prized by collectors.\u201d\n\nOf his many useful publications may be enumerated--_Stenography:\nThe Mental Friend and Rational Companion, consisting of Maxims and\nReflections relating to the Conduct of Life_. 12mo. _The Advocate and\nFriend of Woman._ 12mo. _Directions for the Improvement of the Mind._\n12mo. _Juvenile Preceptor._ Three vols., 12mo. The books which concern\nus now are--_On the Conduct of Man to Inferior Animals_ (Manchester,\n1797: this was adorned by a woodcut from the hand of Bewick). And his\n_magnum opus_, which appeared in the year 1801, under the title of\n_The Primeval Diet of Man: Arguments in Favour of Vegetable Food; with\nRemarks on Man\u2019s Conduct to [other] Animals_ (Poughnill, near Ludlow).\n\nThe value of _The Primeval Diet_ was enhanced by the addition, in a\nlater issue, of a tract _On Food_ (1803), in which are given recipes\nfor the preparation of \u201cone hundred perfectly palatable and nutritious\nsubstances, which may easily be procured at an expense much below the\nprice of the limbs of our fellow animals.... Some of the recipes, on\naccount of their simple form, will not be adopted even by those in\nthe middle rank of life. Yet they may be valuable to many of scanty\nincomes, who desire to avoid the evils of want, or to make a reserve\nfor the purchasing of books and other mental pleasures.\u201d He also\npublished a tract _On Clothing_, which contains much sensible and\npractical advice on an important subject.\n\nNicholson resided successively in Manchester, Poughnill, and Stourport,\nand died at the last-named place in the year 1825. \u201cHe possessed,\u201d says\na writer in _The Gentleman\u2019s Magazine_ (xcv.), \u201cin an eminent degree,\nstrength of intellect, with universal benevolence and undeviating\nuprightness of conduct.\u201d The learned bibliographer, to whom we are\nindebted for this brief notice, thus sums up the character of his\nlabours: \u201cIn all his writings the purity and benevolence of his\nintentions are strikingly manifest. Each subject he took in hand was\nthought out in an independent manner, and without reference to current\nviews or prejudices.\u201d[214]\n\nIn his brief preface the author thus expresses his sad conviction of\nthe probable futility of his protests:--\n\n \u201cThe difficulties of removing deep-rooted prejudices, and the\n inefficiency of reason and argument, when opposed to habitual\n opinions established on general approbation, are fully apprehended.\n Hence the cause of humanity, however zealously pleaded, will\n not be materially promoted. Unflattered by the hope of exciting\n an impression on the public mind, the following compilation is\n dedicated to the sympathising and generous Few, whose opinions\n have not been founded on implicit belief and common acceptation:\n whose habits are not fixed by the influence of false and pernicious\n maxims or corrupt examples: who are neither deaf to the cries of\n misery, pitiless to suffering innocence, nor unmoved at recitals of\n violence, tyranny, and murder.\u201d\n\nIn the whole literature of humanitarianism, nothing can be more\nimpressive for the sympathising reader than this putting on record\nby these nobler spirits their profound consciousness of the moral\ntorpor of the world around them, and their sad conviction of the\nprematureness of their attempt to regenerate it. In both his principal\nworks, he judiciously chooses, for the most part, the method of\ncompilation, and of presenting in a concise and comprehensive form\nthe opinions of his humane predecessors, of various minds and times,\nrather than the presentation of his own individual sentiments. He\njustly believed that the large majority of men are influenced more by\nthe authority of great names than by arguments addressed simply to\ntheir conscience and reason. He intersperses, however, philosophic\nreflections of his own, whenever the occasion for them arises. Thus,\nunder the head of \u201cRemarks on Defences of Flesh-eating,\u201d he well\ndisposes of the common excuses:--\n\n \u201cThe reflecting reader will not expect a formal refutation of\n common-place objections, which _mean nothing_, as, \u2018There would be\n more unhappiness and slaughter among animals did we not keep them\n under proper regulations and government. Where would they find\n pasture did we not manure and enclose the land for them? &c.\u2019 The\n following objection, however, may deserve notice:--\u2018Animals must\n die, and is it not better for them to live a short time in plenty\n and ease, than be exposed to their enemies, and suffered in old\n age to drag on a miserable life?\u2019 The lives of animals in _a state\n of nature_ are very rarely miserable, and it argues a barbarous\n and savage disposition to cut them _prematurely_ off in the midst\n of an agreeable and happy existence; especially when we reflect\n on the _motives_ which induce it. Instead of a friendly concern\n for promoting their happiness, your aim is the gratification of\n your own sensual appetites. How inconsistent is your conduct with\n the fundamental principle of pure morality and true goodness\n (which some of you ridiculously profess)--_whatsoever you would\n that others should do to you, do you even so to them_. No man\n would willingly become the food of other animals; he ought not\n therefore to prey on _them_. Men who consider themselves members\n of universal nature, and links in the great chain of Being, ought\n not to usurp power and tyranny over others, beings naturally free\n and independent, however such beings may be inferior in intellect\n or strength.... It is argued that \u2018man has a permission, proved by\n the practice of mankind, to eat the flesh of other animals, and\n consequently to kill them; and as there are many animals which\n subsist wholly on the bodies of other animals, the practice is\n sanctioned among mankind.\u2019 By reason of the at present very low\n state of morality of the human race, there are many evils which\n it is the duty and business of enlightened ages to eradicate. The\n various refinements of civil society, the numerous improvements in\n the arts and sciences, and the different reformations in the laws,\n policy, and government of nations, are proofs of this assertion.\n That mankind, in the present stage of _polished_ life, act in\n direct violation of the principles of justice, mercy, tenderness,\n sympathy, and humanity, in the practice of eating flesh, is\n obvious. To take away the life of any happy being, to commit\n acts of depredation and outrage, and to abandon every refined\n feeling and sensibility, is to degrade the human kind beneath its\n professed dignity of character; but to _devour_ or eat any animal\n is an additional violation of those principles, because it is the\n _extreme_ of brutal ferocity. Such is the conduct of the most\n savage of wild beasts, and of the most uncultivated and barbarous\n of our own species. Where is the person who, with calmness, can\n hear himself compared in disposition to a lion, a hy\u00e6na, a tiger or\n a wolf? And yet, how exactly similar is his disposition.\n\n \u201cMankind affect to revolt at murders, at the shedding of blood, and\n yet eagerly, and without remorse, feed on the corpse after it has\n undergone the culinary process. What mental blindness pervades the\n human race, when they do not perceive that every feast of blood\n is a _tacit encouragement_ and licence to the very crime their\n pretended delicacy abhors! I say _pretended_ delicacy, for that\n it is pretended is most evident. The profession of sensibility,\n humanity, &c., in such persons, therefore, is egregious folly. And\n yet there are respectable persons among everyone\u2019s acquaintance,\n amiable in other dispositions, and advocates of what is commonly\n termed the cause of humanity, who are weak or prejudiced enough to\n be satisfied with such arguments, on which they ground apologies\n for their practice! Education, habit, prejudice, fashion, and\n interest, have blinded the eyes of men, and seared their hearts.\n\n \u201cOpposers of compassion urge: \u2018If we should live on vegetable food,\n what shall we do with our _cattle_? What would become of them? They\n would grow so numerous they would be prejudicial to us--they would\n eat us up if we did not kill and eat them.\u2019 But there is abundance\n of animals in the world whom men do not kill and eat; and yet we\n hear not of their injuring mankind, and sufficient room is found\n for their abode. Horses are not usually killed to be eaten, and yet\n we have not heard of any country overstocked with them. The raven\n and redbreast are seldom killed, and yet they do not become too\n numerous. If a decrease of cows, sheep, and others were required,\n mankind would readily find means of reducing them. Cattle are at\n present an article of trade, and their numbers are _industriously_\n promoted. If cows are kept solely for the sake of milk, and if\n their young should become too numerous, let the evil be nipped in\n the bud. Scarcely suffer the innocent young to feel the pleasure\n of breathing. Let the least pain possible be inflicted; let its\n body be deposited entire in the ground, and let a sigh have vent\n for the calamitous necessity that induced the painful act....\n Self-preservation justifies a man in putting noxious animals to\n death, yet cannot warrant the least act of cruelty to any being.\n By suddenly despatching one when in extreme misery, we do a kind\n office, an office which reason approves, and which accords with our\n best and kindest feelings, but which (such is the force of custom)\n we are denied to show, though solicited, to our own species. When\n they can no longer enjoy happiness, they may perhaps be deprived\n of life. Do not suppose that in this reasoning an intention is\n included of _perverting_ nature. No! some animals are savage and\n unfeeling; but let not _their_ ferocity and brutality be the\n standard and pattern of the conduct of _man_. Because _some_ of\n them have no compassion, feeling, or reason, are _we_ to possess no\n compassion, feeling, or reason?\u201d\n\nIn another section of his book Nicholson undertakes to expose the\ninconsistencies of flesh-eaters, and the strange illogicalness of the\nposition of many protestors against various forms of cruelty, who\ncondone the greatest cruelty of all--the (necessary) savagery of the\nbutchers:--\n\n \u201cThe inconsistencies of the conduct and opinions of mankind in\n general are evident and notorious; but when ingenious writers fall\n into the same glaring errors, our regret and surprise are justly\n and strongly excited. Annexed to the impressive remarks by Soame\n Jenyns, to be inserted hereafter, in examining the conduct of man\n to [other] animals, we meet with the following passage:--\n\n \u201c\u2018God has been pleased to create numberless animals intended for\n our sustenance, and that they are so intended, the agreeable\n flavour of their flesh to our palates, and the wholesome nutriment\n which it administers to our stomachs, are sufficient proofs; these,\n as they are formed for our use, propagated by our culture, and fed\n by our care, we have certainly a right to deprive of life, because\n it is given and preserved to them on that _condition_.\u2019\n\n \u201cNow, it has already been argued that the bodies of animals are\n _not_ intended for the sustenance of man; and the decided opinions\n of several eminent medical writers and others sufficiently\n disprove assertions in favour of the wholesomeness of the flesh\n of animals. The _agreeable taste_ of food is not always a proof\n of its _nourishing_ or _wholesome_ properties. This truth is too\n frequently experienced in mistakes, ignorantly or accidentally\n made, particularly by children, in eating the fruit of the deadly\n nightshade, the taste of which resembles black currants, and is\n extremely inviting by the beauty of its colour and shape.[215]\n\n \u201cThat we have a right to make attacks on the existence of any being\n _because_ we have assisted and fed such being, is an assertion\n opposed to every established principle of justice and morality. A\n \u2018condition\u2019 cannot be made without the mutual consent of parties,\n and, therefore, what this writer terms \u2018a condition,\u2019 is nothing\n less than an unjust, arbitrary, and deceitful imposition. \u2018Such is\n the deadly and stupifying influence of habit or custom,\u2019 says Mr.\n Lawrence, \u2018of so poisonous and brutalising a quality is prejudice,\n that men, perhaps no way inclined by nature to acts of barbarity,\n may yet live insensible of the constant commission of the most\n flagrant deeds.\u2019 ... A cook-maid will weep at a tale of woe, while\n she is skinning a living eel; and the devotee will mock the Deity\n by asking a blessing on food supplied by murderous outrages against\n nature and religion! Even women of education, who readily weep\n while reading an affecting moral tale, will clear away clotted\n blood, still warm with departed life, cut the flesh, disjoint\n the bones, and tear out the intestines of an animal, without\n sensibility, without sympathy, without fear, without remorse.\n What is more common than to hear this _softer_ sex talk of, and\n assist in, the cookery of a deer, a hare, a lamb or a calf (those\n acknowledged emblems of innocence) with perfect composure? Thus\n the female character, by nature soft, delicate, and susceptible of\n tender impressions, is debased and sunk. It will be maintained that\n in other respects they still possess the characteristics of their\n sex, and are humane and sympathising. The inconsistency then is the\n more glaring. To be virtuous in some instances does not constitute\n the moral character, but to be uniformly so.\u201d\n\nWe can allow ourselves space only for one or two further quotations\nfrom this excellent writer. The remarks upon the common usage of\nlanguage, by which it is vainly thought to conceal the true nature of\nthe dishes served up upon the tables of the rich, are particularly\nnoteworthy, because the inaccurate expression condemned is almost\nuniversal, and that even, from force of habit, amongst reformed\ndietists themselves:--\n\n \u201cThere is a natural horror at the shedding of blood, and some\n have an aversion to the practice of devouring the carcase of an\n innocent sufferer, which bad habits improper education, and silly\n prejudices have not overcome. This is proved by their affected and\n absurd refinement of calling the dead bodies of animals _meat_. If\n the meaning of words is to be regarded, this is a gross mistake;\n for the word _meat_ is a universal term, applying equally to all\n nutritive and palatable substances. If it be intended to express\n that all other kinds of food are comparatively not meat, the\n intention is ridiculous. The truth is that the proper expression,\n _flesh_, conveys ideas of murder and death. Neither can it easily\n be forgotten that, in grinding the body of a fellow animal,\n substances which constitute _human_ bodies are masticated. This\n reflection comes somewhat home, and is recurred to by eaters of\n flesh in spite of themselves, but recurred to _unwillingly_. They\n attempt, therefore, to pervert language in order to render it\n agreeable to the ear, as they disguise animal flesh by cookery in\n order to render it pleasing to the taste.\u201d\n\nHis reflections upon the essential injustice (to use no stronger term)\nof delegating the work of butchering to a particular class of men (to\nwhich frequent reference has already been made in these pages) are\nequally admirable:--\n\n \u201cAmong butchers, and those who qualify the different parts of an\n animal into food, it would be easy to select persons much further\n removed from those virtues which should result from reason,\n consciousness, sympathy, and animal sensations, than any savages\n on the face of the earth! In order to avoid all the generous and\n spontaneous sympathies of compassion, the office of shedding\n blood is committed to the hands of a set of men who have been\n educated in inhumanity, and whose sensibility has been blunted and\n destroyed by early habits of barbarity. Thus men _increase_ misery\n in order to avoid the sight of it, and because they cannot endure\n being obviously cruel themselves, or commit actions which strike\n painfully on their senses, they commission those to commit them who\n are formed to delight in cruelty, and to whom misery, torture, and\n shedding of blood is an amusement! They appear not once to reflect\n that _whatever we do by another we do ourselves_.\u201d\n\n \u201cWhen a large and gentle Ox, after having resisted a ten times\n greater force of blows than would have killed his murderers, falls\n stunned at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground with\n cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugular veins\n are cut asunder, what mortal can, without horror and compassion,\n hear the painful bellowings, intercepted by his flow of blood,\n the bitter sighs that speak the sharpness of his anguish, and the\n deep-sounding groans with loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of\n his strong and palpitating heart. Look on the trembling and violent\n convulsions of his limbs; see, whilst his reeking gore streams from\n him, his eyes become dim and languid, and behold his strugglings,\n gasps, and last efforts for life.\n\n \u201cWhen a being has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of\n terror and of pain and agony, is there a disciple of Descartes\n so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the\n philosophy of that vain reasoner?\u201d[216]\n\nIn his previous essay, _On the Conduct of Men to Inferior Animals_,\nNicholson has collected from various writers, both humane and\ninhumane, a fearful catalogue of atrocities of different kinds\nperpetrated upon his helpless dependants by the being who delights to\nboast himself (at least in civilised countries) to be made \u201cin the\nimage and likeness of God.\u201d Among these the hellish tortures of the\nvivisectionists and \u201cpathologists\u201d hold, perhaps, the bad pre-eminence,\nbut the cruel tortures of the Slaughter-House come very near to them in\nwanton atrocity.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVII.\n\nABERNETHY. 1763-1831.\n\n\nDistinguished as a practical surgeon and as a physiologist, Abernethy\nhas earned his lasting reputation as having been one of the first\nto attack the old prejudice of the profession as to the origin of\ndiseases, and as having sought for such origin, not in mere local and\naccidental but, in general causes--in the constitution and habits of\nthe body.\n\nA pupil of John Hunter, in 1786 he became assistant surgeon at St.\nBartholomew\u2019s Hospital, and shortly afterwards he lectured on anatomy\nand surgery at that institution, which to his ability and genius owes\nthe fame which it acquired as a school of surgery. As a lecturer he\nhad a reputation and popularity seldom or perhaps never before so well\nearned in the medical schools--founded, as they were, upon a rare\npenetration and logical method, united with clearness and perspicuity\nin communicating his convictions. In honesty, integrity, and in the\ndomestic virtues his character was unimpeachable, but the gentleness\nof deportment for which he was noted in his home he was far from\nexhibiting in public and towards his patients. His roughness and even\ncoarseness of manner in dealing with capricious valetudinarians,\nindeed, became notorious.\n\n_The Constitutional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases_--his\nprincipal work--in comparison with the vast mass of medical literature\nup to that time put forth, stands out in favourable relief. In it two\ngreat principles are laid down--that \u201clocal diseases are symptoms of\na disordered constitution, not primary and independent maladies, and\nthat they are to be cured by remedies calculated to make a salutary\nimpression on the _general frame_, not by local treatment, nor by\nany mere manipulations of surgery.\u201d This single principle changed\nthe aspect of the entire field of surgery, and elevated it from a\nmanual art into the rank of a science. And to this first principle\nhe added a second, the range of which is, perhaps, less extensive,\nbut the practical importance of which is scarcely inferior to that of\nthe first--namely, that \u201cthis disordered state of the constitution\neither originates from, or is rigorously allied with, derangement of\nthe stomach and bowels, and that it can only be reached by remedies\nwhich first exercise a curative influence upon these organs.\u201d It will\nnot detract from the merit of Abernethy to add to this account that\nhis predecessor, Dr. Cheyne, and his contemporary, Dr. Lambe, have\nmost satisfactorily and radically carried out into practice these just\nprinciples; or to remark that great public reputations ought not to\nbe allowed, as too often is the fact, to overwhelm less known but not\ntherefore less meritorious labours.\n\nAs to _dietetics_, the theory of Abernethy seems to have been better\nthan his practice. When reproached with the inconsistency that the\nreformed diet which he so forcibly commended to others he himself\nfailed to follow, he is related to have used the well-known simile of\nthe sign-post with his usual readiness of repartee.\n\nIt was while Dr. Lambe was at the Aldersgate Street Dispensary that\nAbernethy formed the acquaintance of that unostentatious but true\nreformer--an acquaintance which was destined to have no unimportant\ninfluence upon the medical theories of the great surgeon. Abernethy\nwas at that time writing his _Observations on Tumours_, and he had\nintrusted to his friend one of his cancer patients to be treated by\nthe non-flesh and distilled water regimen. He carefully watched the\neffects, and he has thus given us the results of his observations:--\n\n \u201cThere can be no subject which I think more likely to interest\n the mind of a surgeon than that of an endeavour to amend and\n alter the state of a cancerous constitution. The best timed and\n best conducted operation brings with it nothing but disgrace if\n the diseased propensities of the constitution are active and\n powerful. It is after an operation that, in my opinion, we are\n most particularly concerned to regulate the constitution, lest\n the disease should be revived or renewed by its disturbance. In\n addition to that attention, to tranquillise and invigorate the\n nervous system, and keep the digestive organs in as healthy a\n state as possible (which I have recommended in my first volume),\n I believe general experience sanctions the recommendation of a\n more vegetable because less stimulating diet, with the addition of\n so much milk, broth, and eggs, as seems necessary to prevent any\n declension of the patient\u2019s strength.\n\n \u201cVery recently Dr. Lambe has proposed a method of treating\n cancerous diseases, which is _wholly_ dietetic. He recommends\n the adoption of a strict vegetable regimen, to avoid the use of\n fermented liquors, and to substitute water purified by distillation\n in the place of common water as a beverage, and in all parts of\n diet in which common water is used, as tea, soups, &c. The grounds\n upon which he founds his opinion of the propriety of this advice,\n and the prospects of benefit which it holds out, may be seen in his\n _Reports on Cancer_, to which I refer my readers.\n\n \u201cMy own experience on the effects of this regimen is of course\n very limited. Nor does it authorise me to speak decidedly on the\n subject. But I think it right to observe that, in one case of\n cancerous ulceration in which it was used, the symptoms of the\n disease were, in my opinion, rendered more mild, the erysipelatous\n inflammation surrounding the ulcer was removed, and the life\n of the patient was, in my judgment, considerably prolonged. The\n more minute details of the facts constitute the sixth case of Dr.\n Lambe\u2019s _Reports_. It seems to me very proper and desirable that\n the powers of the regimen recommended by Dr. Lambe should be fairly\n tried, for the following reasons:--\n\n \u201cBecause I know some persons who, whilst confined to such diet,\n have enjoyed very good health; and further, I have known several\n persons, who did try the effects of such a regimen, declare that\n it was productive of considerable benefit. They were not, indeed,\n afflicted with cancer, but they were induced to adopt a change of\n diet to allay a state of nervous irritation and correct disorder of\n the digestive organs, upon which medicine had but little influence.\n\n \u201cBecause _it appears certain, in general, that the body can be\n perfectly nourished by vegetables_.\n\n \u201cBecause all great changes of the constitution are more likely\n to be effected _by alterations of diet and modes of life than by\n medicine_.\n\n \u201cBecause it holds out a source of hope and consolation to the\n patient in a disease in which medicine is known to be unavailing,\n and in which surgery affords no more than a temporary relief.\u201d[217]\n\n\u201cThe above opinion of Mr. Abernethy,\u201d remarks an experienced authority\nupon the subject, \u201cis most valuable, for he watched the case for three\nand a half years under Dr. Lambe\u2019s regimen, which is directly opposed\nto the system of diet which he had advocated, before he met Dr. Lambe,\nin the first volume of his work on _Constitutional Diseases_, and from\nhis rough honesty there is no doubt that had Dr. Abernethy lived to\npublish a second edition he would have corrected his mistake.\u201d As it\nis, the candour by which so distinguished an authority was impelled to\nalter or modify opinions already put forth to the world, claims our\nrespect as much as the too general want of it deserves censure.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVIII.\n\nLAMBE. 1765-1847.\n\n\nOne of the most distinguished of the hygeistic and scientific promoters\nof the reformed regimen, Dr. Lambe, occupies an eminent position in\nthe medical literature of vegetarianism, and he divides with his\npredecessor, Dr. Cheyne, the honour of being the founder of scientific\n_dietetics_ in this country.\n\nHis family had been settled some two hundred years in the county of\nHereford, in which they possessed an estate that descended to Dr.\nWilliam Lambe, and is now held by his grandson. He early gave promise\nof his future mental eminence. Head boy of the Hereford Grammar School,\nhe proceeded, in due course, to St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge. In\n1786, being then in the twenty-first year of his age, he graduated\nas fourth wrangler of his year. As a matter of course, he soon was\nelected a Fellow of his college, where he continued to reside until his\nmarriage in 1794. During this period of learned leisure he devoted his\ntime to the study of medicine, and the MS. notes in the possession of\nhis biographer, Mr. Hare, \u201cprove the diligence with which he studied\nhis profession, and there we see the origin of his enlarged views\nof the causes of disease, so much insisted on by these fathers of\nmedicine, and so much neglected by modern physicians in their search\nfor chemical remedies.\u201d After his marriage he went to reside and\npractise in Warwick, where he was the intimate friend of Parr, the\nwell-known Greek critic, and of Walter Savage Landor, who writes of him\nas \u201cvery communicative and good humoured. I had enough talk with Lambe\nto assure myself that he is no ordinary man.\u201d It was to the discoveries\nof Dr. Lambe, and to his publications reporting the curative value of\nits mineral waters, that Leamington owed its fame and popularity; and\nDr. Jefferson, in his address to the British Medical Association a few\nyears ago, thus eulogises him:--\n\n \u201cIt was not until the end of the last century that any really\n scientific research ever was recorded on this subject [impure\n water]. About this period Dr. Lambe was engaged in practice in\n Warwick. Somewhat eccentric in some of his practical views, Dr.\n Lambe was not the less a scientific man, an intelligent observer\n of nature, and an accomplished physician, and was, moreover,\n one of the most elegant medical writers of his day. The springs\n of the neighbouring village of Leamington did not escape his\n observation, and, having carefully studied and analysed the waters,\n he published an account of them, in 1797, in the fifth volume of\n the _Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Manchester_,\n a society embracing the respected names of Priestley, Dalton,\n Watt, and others, and not inferior, perhaps, to any contemporary\n association in Europe.\u201d\n\nLike many other seceders from orthodox dietetics both before and after\nhim, Dr. Lambe found himself impelled to experiment in the non-flesh\ndiet by ill-health. His bodily disorders, indeed, were so complicated\nand of such a nature, as to excite astonishment that not only he\ngreatly mitigated their violence, but that also he survived to an\nadvanced age. In an exceedingly minute and conscientious narrative of\nhis own case in his _Additional Reports_ (writing in the third person),\nhe informs us, that having during several years--from his eighteenth\nyear--suffered greatly and with constantly aggravated symptoms:--\n\n \u201cHe resolved, therefore, finally to execute what he had been\n contemplating for some time--to abandon animal food altogether,\n and everything analogous to it, and to confine himself wholly to\n vegetable food. This determination he put in execution the second\n week of February, 1806, and he has adhered to it with perfect\n regularity to the present time. His only subject of repentance with\n regard to it has been that it had not been adopted much earlier in\n life. He never found the smallest real ill-consequence from this\n change. He sank neither in strength, flesh, nor in spirits. He\n was at all times of a very thin and slender habit, and so he has\n continued to be, but upon the whole he has rather gained than lost\n flesh. He has experienced neither indigestion nor flatulence even\n from the sort of vegetables which are commonly thought to produce\n flatulence, nor has the stomach suffered from any vegetable matter,\n though unchanged by culinary art or uncorrected by condiments. The\n only unpleasant consequence of the change was a sense of emptiness\n of stomach, which continued many months. In about a year, however,\n he became fully reconciled to the new habit, and felt as well\n satisfied with his vegetable meal as he had been formerly with his\n dinner of flesh. He can truly say that since he has acted upon\n this resolution no year has passed in which he has not enjoyed\n better health than in that which preceded it. But he has found\n that the changes introduced into the body by a vegetable regimen\n take place with extreme slowness; that it is in vain to expect\n any _considerable_ amendment in successive weeks or in successive\n months. We are to look rather to the intervals of _half-years or\n years_.\u201d\n\nWith extreme candour as well as carefulness, this patient and\nphilosophic experimentalist details every particular circumstance of\nhis own _diagnosis_. After a minute report of the various symptoms of\nhis maladies and his gradual subjugation of them, he deduces the only\njust inference:--\n\n \u201cGranting this representation of facts to be correct, and the\n nature of this case to, be truly determined, I must be permitted\n to ask, What other method than that which has been adopted would\n have produced the same benefit? If such methods exist, I confess\n my ignorance of them.... But though these pains [in the head]\n still recur in a trifling degree, the relief given to the brain in\n general has been decided and most essential. It has appeared in\n an increased sensibility of all the organs, particularly of the\n senses--the touch, the taste, and the sight, in greater muscular\n activity, in greater freedom and strength of respiration, greater\n freedom of all the secretions, and in increased intellectual power.\n It has been extended to the night as much as to the day. The sleep\n is more tranquil, less disturbed by dreams, and more refreshing.\n Less sleep, upon the whole, appears to be required; but the loss\n of quantity is more than compensated by its being sound and\n uninterrupted....\n\n \u201cThe hypochondriacal symptoms continued to be occasionally very\n oppressive during the second year, particularly during the earlier\n part of it, but they afterwards very sensibly declined, and at\n present he enjoys more uniform and regular spirits than he had\n done for many years upon the mixed diet. From the whole of these\n facts it follows that all the organs, and indeed every fibre of\n the body, are simultaneously affected by the matters habitually\n conveyed into the stomach, and that it is the incongruity of these\n matters to the system, which gradually forms that morbid diathesis,\n which exists alike both in apparent health and in disease. I might\n illustrate this fact still more minutely by observations on the\n teeth, on the hair, and on the skin. I might show that by a steady\n attention to regimen, the skin of the palm of the hand becomes of a\n firmer and stronger texture, that even an excrescence which had for\n twenty years and upwards been growing more fixed, firm, and deep,\n had, first, its habitudes altered, and, finally, was softened and\n disappeared. But, perhaps, enough has been said already to give\n a pretty clear idea both of the kind of change introduced into\n the habit by diet, and of the extent to which it may be carried.\n I proceed, therefore, to relate some new phenomena which took\n place during the course of this regimen, which are both curious in\n themselves and lead to important conclusions.\u201d\n\nThe author then goes on to record further gradual diminution of painful\nsymptoms. From long and careful observation of himself, amongst other\nimportant deductions, Dr. Lambe infers that:--\n\n \u201cWe may conclude that it is the property of this regimen, and, in\n particular, of the vegetable diet, to transfer diseased action from\n the _viscera_ to the exterior parts of the body--from the central\n parts of the system to the periphery. Vegetable diet has often been\n charged with causing cutaneous diseases; in common language, they\n are, in these cases, said to proceed from poorness of blood.[218]\n In some degree the charge is probably just, and the observation I\n have already made may give us some insight into the causes of it.\n But this charge, instead of being a just cause of reproach, is\n _a proof of the superior salubrity of vegetable diet_. Cutaneous\n eruptions appear, because disease is translated from the internal\n organs to the skin.\u201d\n\nFor all brain disease abandonment of the gross and stimulating\nflesh-meats is shown to be of the first importance. At the same time,\nthat it involves any loss of actual bodily strength is a fallacy:--\n\n \u201cWe see, then, how ill-founded is the notion that inaction and\n loss of power are induced by a vegetable diet. In fact, all the\n observations that have been made have shewn the very reverse to be\n the truth. Symptoms of plenitude and oppression have continued in\n considerable force for at least five years; and the consequence of\n this peculiar regimen has been an increase of strength and power,\n and not a diminution. In the subject of this case the pulse, which\n may be deemed, perhaps, the best idea of the condition of all the\n other functions, is at present much more strong and full than under\n the use of animal food. It is also perfectly calm and regular.\u201d\n\nHis personal experience of satisfaction derivable from vegetables\nand fruits as affording, for the most part, sufficient liquids in\nthemselves, without use of extraneous drinks, is of importance:--\n\n \u201cHe had, when living on the common diet, been habitually thirsty,\n and, like most persons inclined to studious and sedentary habits,\n was much attached to tea-drinking. But for the last two or three\n years he has almost wholly relinquished the use of liquids, and by\n the substitution of fruit and recent vegetables he has found that\n the sensation of thirst has been in a manner abolished. Even tea\n has lost its charms, and he very rarely uses it. He is therefore\n certain, from his own experience, that the habit of employing\n liquids is an artificial habit, and not necessary to any of the\n functions of the animal economy.\u201d\n\nWhatever may be thought of the theory of the possibility of entire\nabstinence from all _extraneous_ liquids, there is not the least doubt\nthat a judicious use of vegetable foods reduces to a _minimum_ the\nfeeling of thirst and craving for artificial drinks, an experience, we\nimagine, almost universal with abstinents from flesh-dishes.\n\nDr. Lambe concludes the first part of his valuable _diagnosis_ with\nthe assurance, \u201cthat if those for whose service these labours are\nprincipally designed, I mean persons suffering under habitual and\nchronic illness, are able to go along with me in my argument to form a\ngeneral correct notion of what they are to expect from [a reformed]\nregimen, and, above all, to arm their minds with firmness, patience,\nand perseverance, I shall not readily be induced to think that I have\nwritten one superfluous line.\u201d[219]\n\nIn 1805, at the age of forty, we find him established in practice in\nLondon. Five years later he was physician to the General Dispensary,\nAldersgate Street. He was also elected Fellow and Censor of the College\nof Physicians, whose meetings he regularly attended. His peculiar\nopinions did not tend to secure popularity for him, and the adhesion\nof such men as Dr. Abernethy, Dr. Pitcairn, Lord Erskine, and of\nMr. Brotherton, M.P. (one of the earliest members of the Vegetarian\nSociety), served only to make the indifference of the mass of the\ncommunity more conspicuous.\n\nNot the least interesting fact in his life is his share in the\nconversion of Shelley, and his friendship with J. F. Newton and his\ninteresting family, at whose house these earlier pioneers of the New\nReformation were accustomed to meet, and celebrate their charming\n_r\u00e9unions_ with vegetarian feasts. A cardinal part of the dietetic\nsystem of Dr. Lambe was his insistance upon the use of _distilled_\nwater. In his _Reports on Regimen_ he writes of the Newton family: \u201cI\nam well acquainted with a family of young children who have scarcely\never touched animal food, and who now for three years have drunk only\ndistilled water. For clearness and beauty of complexion, muscular\nstrength, fulness of habit free from grossness, hardiness, healthiness,\nand ripeness of intellect these children are unparalleled.\u201d[220]\n\nWe have already mentioned Lord Erskine as one of the many eminent\nfriends of Dr. Lambe. That more humane and distinguished lawyer, in\na letter to his friend acknowledging the receipt of the _Reports_,\nwrites as follows: \u201cI am of opinion that both this work and the other\nreferred to in it are deserving of the highest consideration. I read\nthem both with more interest and attention from the abuse of the\n_British Critic_ [one of the periodicals of the day] mentioned in the\npreface, as no periodical criticism ever published in this country is\nso uniformly unjust, ignorant, and impudent.\u201d Dr. Abernethy\u2019s testimony\nto the efficacy of abstinence in cases of cancer will be found in\nthe notice of that eminent practitioner. Amongst the most interesting\ncorrespondence of his later years is his interchange of ideas with\nSylvester Graham--the first of the American prophets of the reformed\nregimen. The letter to the celebrated American vegetarian is, as Dr.\nLambe\u2019s latest biographer justly observes, \u201ca most valuable relic,\nbecause it continues the result of Dr. Lambe\u2019s diet up to September,\n1837--twenty-three years after the last notice of his health in the\naccount of his own case, which he published in November, 1814. It is,\nbesides, an admirable proof of his truthful and philosophic mind, which\nwas slow to arrive at conclusions, and willing rather to exaggerate\nthan otherwise the traces of disease which he still felt.\u201d He proves,\nalso, in this letter, how slow and yet sure are the effects of diet,\nand it supplies an answer to those objectors who complain that they\nhave tried the diet (perhaps for a few weeks only) without any good\nresult. After complimenting his transatlantic fellow-worker in the\ncause of truth upon his zeal and industry, Dr. Lambe proceeds:--\n\n \u201cMy book, entitled _Additional Reports on Regimen_, has now been\n before the world three and twenty years. That it has attracted\n little notice, and still less popular favour--though it may have\n excited in the writer some mortification--has not occasioned\n much surprise. The doctrine it seeks to establish is in direct\n opposition to popular and deep-rooted prejudice. It is thought\n (most erroneously) to attack the best enjoyments and most solid\n comforts of life; and, moreover, it has excited the bitter\n hostility of a numerous and influential body in society--I mean\n that body of medical practitioners who exercise their profession\n for the sake of its profits merely, and who appear to think that\n disease was made for the profession and not the profession for\n disease.\n\n \u201cTo drop, however, all idle complaints of public neglect, let\n us go to the more useful inquiry whether or not the principles\n propounded in these _Reports_ have been confirmed by subsequent and\n more extensive experience. To this inquiry I answer directly and\n fearlessly, that in the interval between the present time and the\n year 1815 (the date of that publication) the practice recommended\n has succeeded in cases very numerous and of extreme variety, and\n I can promise the practitioner who will try it fairly and judge\n with candour that he will experience no disappointment. I say,\n _let him try it fairly_. I do not assert that it will succeed\n in cases where the powers of life are sunk, in confirmed hectic\n fever, in ulcerated cancer, in established chronic disease, or in\n the decrepitude of old age. I may have attempted the relief of\n such cases in an early stage of my experiments, but experience\n speedily demonstrated the hopelessness of such attempts. But let\n subjects be taken not far advanced in life, let them be _tabid_\n children (for example) with tumid abdomen, swelled joints, and\n depraved appetites, or with obstinate cutaneous diseases, erythema,\n _scabus_, rickets, epileptic convulsions (not grown habitual by\n long continuance). But a practitioner in moderate practice will\n find no difficulty in selecting proper subjects, if he is himself\n actuated by a regard to humanity united to principles of honour.\n\n \u201cMoreover, let not the patient, particularly if arrived at\n mature age, expect to receive a perfect cure. In many cases the\n consequences are rather preventive than curative. This I hold to\n be no objection. It is enough, surely, if a disease which, from\n its nature, might be expected to be continually on the increase,\n is obviously checked in its progress, if the symptoms become more\n and more mild, and if a human being is preserved in comfortable\n existence who would otherwise have been consigned to the grave.\u201d\n\nHe devoted his great medical knowledge and experience particularly to\nthe cure or mitigation of cancer. In the letter, from which we have\nalready quoted, he informs his correspondent of this interesting fact:--\n\n \u201cMy most ardent wish was to attempt the relief of cases of cancer.\n This object I have steadily pursued (from the year 1803) to the\n present day. The case--the particulars of which I briefly mentioned\n to you in my former communication--has hitherto succeeded so\n perfectly that I should myself suspect an error in the _diagnosis_,\n if it were not for the strongly-marked constitutional symptoms,\n which are such as, in my mind, put it out of doubt. There does not\n now remain what I expected, and what I have called a _nucleus_,\n for the resolution is _complete_. Now, this is contrary to most\n of my former observations, and would furnish, as I have said,\n some ground of suspicion. But still it is not wholly unsupported\n by corroborative facts. I have observed, particularly in one\n case, that the whole extreme edge of a schirrous tumour has\n been restored, whilst the portion has remained unchanged; not,\n indeed, speedily as in the former case, but after having used the\n diet for a very considerable time. Now, if a portion of a true\n schirrous tumour can be resolved, there can be no reason why a\n resolution of the whole--taken very early and under favourable\n circumstances--shall be deemed impossible. The truth is, that at\n present we are not advanced enough to form general conclusions, but\n ought to content ourselves with _accumulating_ facts for the use of\n our successors.\u201d\n\nIf the experience of the benefits of a reasonable living in the cases\nof his patients was thus satisfactory, he himself afforded, in his own\nperson, perhaps the best testimony to its revivifying and invigorating\nqualities. One of his visitors gives his impressions of the now famous\n_doctor_ (a title, in the present instance, of real meaning) as follow:\n\u201cAgreeably to your request, I submit to your perusal a short account of\nthe friendly interview I had with Dr. Lambe in London. I first called\non him in February. I found him to be very gentlemanly in manners and\nvenerable in appearance. He is rather taller than the middle height.\nHis hair is perfectly white, for he is now seventy-two years of age.\nHe told me he had been on the vegetable diet thirty-one years, and\nthat his health was better now than at forty, when he commenced his\npresent system of living. He considers himself as likely to live\nthirty years longer as to have lived to his present age.... Although\nhe is seventy-two years of age he walks into town, a distance of three\nmiles from his residence, every morning, and back at night. Dr. Lambe,\nI am told, has spent large sums of money in making experiments and\npublishing their results to the world.\u201d In his earlier life he had\nbeen conspicuously thin and attenuated. In later years he seems to\nhave acquired even a certain amount of robustness, and he is described\nas being active and strong at an advanced age. Some instances of\nextraordinary energy and endurance have been put on record by his\nfamily; and his feats of pedestrianism, when he was verging on his\neightieth year, are, we imagine, rarely to be paralleled.\n\nHis hope of attaining the age of one hundred years, unhappily, was\nnot to be fulfilled. \u201cOur bodies,\u201d his biographer justly remarks,\n\u201care but machines adapted to perform a definite amount of work, and\nDr. Lambe\u2019s originally weak constitution had been severely tried by\nsickness and wrong diet during the first forty years of his life. At\nthe age of eighty his strength began to fail, but his grandson writes,\n\u2018up to a very short time before his death there were no outward signs\nof ill-health, only the marks of old age.\u2019\u201d[221] Existence had its\nenjoyment for him up to almost the last days, and his intellectual\npowers remained to the end. He calmly expired in his eighty-third year.\n\nOf contemporary and posthumous eulogies of his personal, as well as\nscientific, worth, the following may suffice: \u201cA man of learning, a\nman of science, a man of genius, a man of distinguished integrity\nand honour.\u201d Such is the testimony of his friend Dr. Parr, as quoted\nby Samuel Johnson. In the Anniversary Harveian Oration before the\nCollege of Physicians, by Dr. Francis Hawkins, in the year 1848, the\nrepresentative of the Faculty thus recalls his memory: \u201cNor can I pass\nover in silence the loss we have sustained in Dr. William Lambe--an\nexcellent chemist, a learned man, and a skilful physician. His manners\nwere simple, unreserved, and most modest. His life was pure. Farewell,\ntherefore, gentle spirit, than whom no one more pure and innocent has\npassed away!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXXXIX.\n\nNEWTON. 1770-1825.\n\n\nJohn Frank Newton, the friend and associate of Dr. Lambe, Shelley,\nand the little band who met at the house of the former to share his\nvegetarian repasts, appears to have been one of the earliest converts\nof Dr. Lambe, to whom he dedicated his _Return to Nature_, in gratitude\nfor the recovery of his health through the adoption of the reformed\nregimen.\n\nHe published his little work, as he informs us in his preface, to\nimpart to others the benefits which he himself had experienced; and\nespecially to make known to the heads of households the fact that his\nwhole family of himself, wife, and four children under nine years of\nage, with their nurse, had been living, at the date of his publication,\nfor two years upon a non-flesh diet, during which time the apothecary\u2019s\nbill, he tells us, had amounted to the sum of sixpence; and that charge\nhad been incurred by himself.\n\nThe ever-memorable meetings of the reformers at the house of Newton,\nwhere Shelley was a constant guest, have been thus recorded by one of\nthe biographers of the great poet:--\u201cShelley was intimate with the\nNewton family, and was converted by them in 1813, and he began then a\nstrict vegetable diet. His intimate association with the amiable and\naccomplished votaries of a _Return to Nature_ was perhaps the most\npleasing portion of his poetical, philosophical, and lovely life....\nFor some years I was in the thick of it; for I lived much with a\nselect and most estimable society of persons (the Newtons), who had\n\u2018returned to Nature,\u2019 and I heard much discussion on the topic of\nvegetable diet. Certainly their vegetable dinners were delightful,\nelegant, and excellent repasts; flesh, fowl, fish, and \u2018game\u2019 never\nappeared--nor eggs nor butter _bodily_, but the two latter were\nadmitted into cookery, but as sparingly as possible, and under protest,\nas not approved of and soon to be dispensed with. We had soups in great\nvariety, that seemed the more delicate from the absence of flesh-meat.\n\n\u201cThere were vegetables of every kind, plainly stewed or scientifically\ndisguised. Puddings, tarts, confections and sweets abounded. Cheese\nwas excluded. Milk and cream might not be taken unreservedly, but they\nwere allowed in puddings, and sparingly in tea. Fruits of every kind\nwere welcomed. We luxuriated in tea and coffee, and sought variety\noccasionally in cocoa and chocolate. Bread and butter, and buttered\ntoast were eschewed; but bread, cakes, and plain seed-cakes were\nliberally divided among the faithful.\u201d[222]\n\nThe cause of the publication of his book Newton thus states:--\n\n \u201cHaving for many years been an habitual invalid, and having at\n length found that relief from regimen which I had long and vainly\n hoped for from drugs, I am anxious, from sympathy with those\n afflicted, to impart to others the knowledge of the benefit I have\n experienced, and to dispel, as far as in me lies, the prejudices\n under which I conceive mankind to labour on points so nearly\n connected with their health and happiness.\n\n \u201cThe particulars of my case I have already related at the\n concluding pages of Dr. Lambe\u2019s _Reports on Cancer_. To the account\n there given I have little to add, but that, by continuing to\n confine myself to the regimen advised in that work, I continue to\n experience the same benefit; that the winter which has just elapsed\n has been passed much more comfortably than that which preceded it,\n and that, if my habitual disorder is not completely eradicated, it\n is so much subdued as to give but little inconvenience; that I have\n suffered but a single day\u2019s confinement for several months; and,\n upon the whole, that I enjoy an existence which many might envy who\n consider themselves to be in full possession of the blessings of\n health.\n\n \u201cAll that I have to regret in my present undertaking is the\n imperfect way in which it is executed. The adepts in medicine\n have gained their knowledge originally from the experience of the\n sick. I have taken my own sensations for my guide, and am myself\n alone responsible for the conclusions which I have drawn from\n them, the manuscript of this volume having been neither corrected\n nor looked over by any individual. While I make no pretensions to\n medical science, I cannot consent to be reasoned or ridiculed out\n of my feelings; nor to believe that to be an illusion, the truth\n of which has been confirmed to me by long-continued and repeated\n observation.\u201d\n\nThe use of distilled water was a cardinal article in the dietary creed\nof his friend Dr. Lambe, and upon this point Newton particularly\ninsists. He appeals with much fervour, as we have just stated, to\nparents to have recourse to the natural means of prevention and\ncure, in place of vainly trying every available _artificial_ method\nby medicine and drugs. He instances, with minute particularity, the\nregimen of his children, whom he asserts to have been, up to the moment\nof his writing, perfectly free from any sort of malady or disorder, and\nto be--\n\n \u201cSo remarkably healthy that several medical men who have seen\n and examined them with a scrutinizing eye, all agreed in the\n observation that they knew nowhere a whole family which equals\n them in robustness. Should the success of this experiment, now of\n three years\u2019 standing, proceed as it has begun, there is little\n doubt, [he ventures to flatter himself] that it must at length\n have some influence with the public, and that every parent who\n finds the illness of his family both afflicting and expensive, will\n say to himself \u2018Why should I any longer be imprudent or foolish\n enough to have my children sick?\u2019 All hail to the resolution which\n that sentiment implies! But until it becomes general, I feel it\n necessary to exhort, in the warmest language I can think of, those\n who have the young in their charge to institute an experiment\n which I have made before them with the completest success. To\n those parents especially do I address myself who, aware that\n temperance in enjoyment is the best warrant of its duration, feel\n how dangerous and how empty are all the feverous amusements of\n our assemblies, our dinners, and our theatres, compared with the\n genuine and tranquil pleasures of a happy circle at home.\u201d\n\nHe presents an alluring picture of the health-producing results for the\nyoung of the natural regimen. He promises that\n\n \u201cThey will become not only more robust but more beautiful;\n that their carriage will be erect, their step firm; that their\n development at a critical period of youth, the prematurity of which\n has been considered an evil, will be retarded; that, above all,\n the danger of being deprived of them will in every way diminish;\n while by these light repasts their hilarity will be augmented, and\n their intellects cleared in a degree which shall astonishingly\n illustrate the delightful effects of this regimen.... I will\n beg here to attempt an answer in this place to that trite and\n specious objection to Dr. Lambe\u2019s opinions that \u2018what is suitable\n to one constitution may be not so to another.\u2019 If there be a\n single person existing, whose health would not be improved by the\n vegetable diet and distilled water, then the whole system falls\n at once to the ground. The question is simply, whether fruits and\n other vegetables be not the natural sustenance of man, who would\n have occasion for no other drink than these afford, and whose\n thirst is at present excited by an unnatural flesh diet, which\n causes his disorders bodily and mentally.... Another objection\n sometimes urged is this: \u2018If children, brought up on a vegetable\n regimen, should at a future period of their lives adopt a flesh\n diet, they will certainly suffer more from the change than they\n otherwise would have done.\u2019 The very contrary of this, I conceive,\n would happen. The stomach is so fortified by the general increase\n of health, that a person thus nourished is enabled to bear what\n one whose humours are less impaired would sink under. The children\n of our family can each of them eat a dozen or eighteen walnuts for\n supper without the most trifling indigestion, an experiment which\n those who feed their children in the usual manner would consider\n it adventurous to attempt. So also the Irish porters in London\n bear these alterations of diet successfully, and owe much of their\n actual vigour to the vegetable food of their forefathers, and\n to their own, before they emigrated from Ireland, where, in all\n probability, they did not taste flesh half-a dozen times in the\n year.\u201d\n\nAs to another well-known pretext, that the propensity to flesh-eating,\nand the relish with which it is evidently enjoyed by the majority\nof flesh eaters, is proof of its fitness, Newton justly objects the\nvarious unnatural and disgusting foods of many savage peoples which are\neaten with equal relish, so that \u201cthe argument of the agreeable flavour\nproves nothing, I apprehend, by proving too much.\u201d He exhorts the\nmedical faculty generally, and those members of it who are in charge of\nhospitals, infirmaries, or workhouses, to try the effect of the pure\nregimen on the sufferers and patients--in particular, in the cases of\nthe victims of cancer. Amongst others of his personal acquaintance who\nhad derived the greatest benefit from the regimen, he instances Dr.\nAdam Ferguson, the historian of the Roman Republic, who lived strictly\non a vegetable diet. He was in the habit of accompanying Mr. Newton,\nin the year 1794, in rides through the environs of Rome. He was still\nliving in 1811, and he died, in fact, at the age of ninety, holding a\nprofessorship in the University of Edinburgh.\n\n\n\n\nXL.\n\nGLE\u00cfZ\u00c8S. 1773-1843.\n\n\nOf all the enlightened and humane spirits to which the philosophic\neighteenth century gave birth, and who were quickened into activity\nby the great movement which originated in France in its last quarter,\nnot one, assuredly, was actuated by a purer and more exalted feeling\nthan Jean Antoine Gle\u00efz\u00e8s--the most _enthusiastic_, perhaps, of all\nthe apostles of humanity and of refinement. He was born at Dourgne,\nin the (present) department of the Tarn. His father was advocate to\nthe old provincial parliament. His mother\u2019s name was Anna Francos.\nAfter attending preliminary schools, he applied himself to the study\nof medicine--urged, says his biographer, more by love of his species\nthan by predilection for the profession. His intense horror of the\nvivisectional experiments in the physiological torture-dens soon\ncompelled him to abandon his intended career: the experience, however,\ngained during his brief medical course he was able to utilize more than\nonce in his after life for the benefit of his neighbours.\n\nThe earlier period of the Revolution had been hailed by him, still\nvery young as he then was, as the hopeful beginning of a new era; when\nits direction, unhappily, fell into the hands of fanatical leaders,\nwho, following too much the examples of the old _r\u00e9gimes_, thought,\nby wholesale executions, to clear the way for the establishment of a\nuniversal republic and of lasting peace. The youthful enthusiast, whose\nwhole soul revolted from the very idea of bloodshed and of suffering,\nwithdrew despairing into solitude, and devoted himself to scientific\nand literary studies, and to calm contemplation of Nature.\n\nIn 1794, at the age of 21, Gle\u00efz\u00e8s married Aglae de Baumelle, daughter\nof a writer of some repute. At this time he seems to have entertained\nthe hope of instructing his countrymen, by engaging in public teaching;\nbut, disappointed in a scheme for the inauguration of a course of\nhistorical lectures in the central school of his department, he retired\naltogether from the active business of the world, and settled down in\na happy and peaceful home, in a small ch\u00e2teau belonging to his wife,\nat the foot of the Pyrenees near Mezi\u00e8res. It was here, amidst the\nmagnificent solitudes of Nature, that in 1798, in his twenty fifth\nyear, he determined upon abandoning for ever the diet of blood and\nslaughter. Until the moment of his death, forty-five years later, his\ndiet consisted solely of milk, fruits, and vegetables.\n\nSo great was his scrupulousness, that there might be no possibility or\nmistake Gle\u00efz\u00e8s prepared his own food; and he always ate alone (his\nwife being unable or unwilling to follow his loftier aims), since he\ncould not endure either the smell or the sight of the ordinary dishes.\nAnd this intense aversion it was, indeed, that compelled him to forego\nin great measure his intercourse with the world, or, at all events, to\nshun the ordinary celebrations of social \u201cfestivity.\u201d\n\nFull of enthusiastic belief that the transparent truth and sublimity of\nhis creed could not fail to commend themselves to the better spirits\nof the age amongst his countrymen, Gle\u00efz\u00e8s addressed himself to some\nof the more thoughtful of his contemporaries; amongst others to\nLamartine, Lamennais, and Chate\u00e2ubriand. Lamartine--the author of the\n_Fall of an Angel_, in which he gives expression to his akreophagistic\nsympathies--responded, if not with the enthusiasm that might justly\nhave been expected from the author of that poem, at least in a friendly\nspirit. The others kept silence. This indifferentism of those who\nshould have been the first to lend the support of their names naturally\naffected him; and made much more sensible the intellectual and moral\nisolation of his existence. He was not left quite alone, however.\nThere were found three or four minds of a loftier reach who had the\ncourage of their convictions, and followed them out to their logical\nconclusion. These were Anquetil (the author of _Recherches sur les\nIndes_), Charles Nodier, Girod de Chantrans, and Cabantous, dean of the\nFaculty of Letters at Toulouse. His brother, Colonel Gle\u00efz\u00e8s, a member\nof the Academy of Sciences of the same university, also declared for\nthe reformation. It is superflous to say that these converts were all\nmen of superior moral calibre to their contemporaries, however high\nthey might be exalted by popular estimates of worth.\n\nDeeply sensible as he was of the profound selfishness and\nindifferentism of the world surrounding him upon the subject which\nto him had all the interest and importance of a new religion, he yet\nconstantly displayed the benevolence of his disposition, and the\nbeneficence of his morality, in his efforts for the good of all with\nwhom he came in contact, and particularly in respect to his domestics\nand his tenants, amongst whom his memory was long held in reverence.\n\u201cHis exalted nature,\u201d states his brother, \u201cglowed with enthusiasm for\neverything true and good.\u201d His \u201clife-sorrow\u201d seems to have been the\nwant of sympathy on the part of his wife, to whom, nevertheless, he\nproved an indulgent husband.\n\nHis first book, _Les M\u00e9lancolies d\u2019un Solitaire_, appeared in the\nyear 1794, in 1800 his _Nuits Elysiennes_, and four years later\nhis _Agrestes_; all more or less advocating the truth. A long\ninterval elapsed before he again essayed an appeal to the world.\nHis _Christianisme Expliqu\u00e9: ou l\u2019Unit\u00e9 de Croyance pour tous les\nChr\u00e9tiens_ (Christianity Explained: or, Unity of Belief for all\nChristians) was published in 1830. Seven years later it appeared\nunder the title of \u201cChristianity Explained: or, the True Spirit of\nthat Religion Misinterpreted up to the Present Day.\u201d In this work,\nsays his estimable editor and translator Herr Springer, \u201che sought\nto prove, from the standing-point of a protestant christian, that\nChrist\u2019s mission had for its end the abolition of the murder of animals\n(_Thiermord_), and that the whole significance of his teaching lay\nin the words spoken at the institution of the \u2018Supper,\u2019 that is to\nsay, the substitution of bread instead of flesh, and wine instead of\nblood.\u201d This undertaking, it is needless to remark, admirable as was\nits motive, could hardly, from the nature of the case, be successful.\n\nHis last work was his _Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence_, the first\npart of which was published at Paris in 1840, the second in 1842.\nHe survived this his final appeal to the world on behalf of the new\nreformation but a few months. He had reached the proverbial limit of\nhuman existence; but that his life was shortened by disappointment\nand the bitter weariness of hope deferred, \u201cby that sorrow which\nperpetually gnaws at the heart of the unrecognised reformer\u201d (as his\nbiographer well expresses it), we have too much reason to believe. The\n_Thalysie_--his _magnum opus_--excited, it appears, little interest,\nor even notice, upon its first appearance. It found one sympathising\ncritic in M. Cabantous, to whom reference has been already made, who\ndelivered a course of lectures upon it from his professorial chair. A\nfew years later a Parisian advocate, M. Blot-Lequ\u00e8ne, wrote a treatise\nin terms of strong recommendation of its principles; and Eug\u00e8ne\nStourm, editor of _The Phalanx_, also eloquently advocated its claims\nupon the public notice. At length it was criticised in the _R\u00e9vue des\nDeux Mondes_ by Alphonse Esquiros, known to English readers by his\ncontributions to that Review on English life and manners. We are hardly\nsurprised that the criticism was conceived in the usual supercilious\nand prejudiced spirit.\n\nNo attempt appears to have been made to re-publish the _New Existence_\nuntil Herr Springer undertook the task for his countrymen. His German\nversion, with an interesting notice of the life and labours of Gle\u00efz\u00e8s,\nwas published at Berlin in 1872. Criticising a flippant article in\n_The Food Journal_ in the same year, Herr Springer eloquently rebukes\nthe easy and arrogant tone--so successful in appealing to popular\nprejudices--and observes: \u201cGle\u00efz\u00e8s at last published his eminent work,\nwhich, as Weilha\u00fcser says, he has written with the blood of his own\nheart. If it be eccentric, as Mr. Jerrold asserts, it has only _the\neccentricity of a gospel of humanity_. Gle\u00efz\u00e8s was so eccentric as to\nwrite the following lines, which were found amongst his posthumous\npapers: \u2018God, pure Source of Light, in order to obey thy commands I\nwrote this book. Be gracious to protect and to support my efforts;\nfor the humble creature which raises its voice from its grain of\nsand may, perhaps, be speechless to-morrow, and deep silence reign\nin the desert.\u2019 Yes; Mr. Jerrold is right: that theory was to its\nauthor a religion. In the _Thalysie_ we are instructed in the highest\nquestions concerning the health and happiness of mankind. Surpassing\nall naturalists and philosophers, he explained to us the great mystery\nof Nature--that robbery and murder [in its full meaning] arose only\nby corruption, and by alienation from the original laws of creation,\nand that man, instead of favouring the corruption, as he has done till\nnow, would be able to abolish it. In this way, and in contradiction\nto the hollow phrases of optimism and the depressing contemplation of\npessimism, Gle\u00efz\u00e8s restores the peace of our mind, and bestows upon us\nthe hope for a future reign of Wisdom and Love.\u201d[223]\n\nIn the preface to the _Thalysie_ Gle\u00efz\u00e8s thus expresses his\nconvictions, his hopes, and the general purpose of his labours:--\n\n \u201cThe system which I now publish to the world is not, as the usual\n acceptation of that word might seem to indicate, a collection of\n principles more or less probable, and of which it depends upon\n each one to admit or reject the consequences. It is a chain of\n principles, rigorously true and just, from which man cannot depart\n without incurring penalties proportionate to his deviation. But, in\n spite of these penalties which he has suffered, and which he still\n suffers, he is not aware of his lost condition [_\u00e9garement_]. His\n fate is that of the slave, born in servitude, who plays with his\n chains, sometimes insults the freemen, and carries his madness to\n the point of refusing freedom when it is offered to him, and of\n choosing slavery.\n\n \u201cIt is not that _all_ men have allowed themselves to be carried\n willingly down the fatal descent: a large number have struggled\n against the press, but their diverse and scattered efforts have\n resembled the eddies of the flood, which ends with forcing together\n all the diverging waters and hurrying away with them into the gulf\n of the ocean. Or, if some few have raised and kept themselves above\n the rapid current, no permanent advantage has resulted from it to\n the human race, which has been none the less abandoned to itself.\u201d\n\nWe know that the greatest intellects amongst the Greeks[224] had taught\nthe better way; but they failed, says Gle\u00efz\u00e8s, inasmuch as their\ndoctrine was too exclusive and esoteric.\n\n \u201cThe condition of the human race is a plain witness of its error.\n This condition, in fact, is so alarming that it might seem\n desperate, if it were certain that men had acquired _all_ their\n knowledge. But, happily, there is one branch of it--the most\n essential of all, and without which the rest is scarcely of any\n account--which is yet entirely ignored. This knowledge is precisely\n that of which these great men had glimpses, and of which they\n reserved to themselves the sole enjoyment;[225] and it is this\n knowledge, or, rather, this wisdom (and we know that with the\n Greeks these two things were comprised under the same denomination)\n which I publish. I shall give it an extension which it was not\n possible for _them_ to perceive or to give; because Nature refuses\n its life-giving spirit [_esprit de vie_] to solitary and isolated\n seeds, and makes those only to fructify which enter into the common\n heritage of mankind.\n\n \u201cWith such support, the most feeble must have an advantage over\n the strongest without it. I have, besides, another advantage. Men\n feeling to-day, more than ever, the privation of what is wanting\n to them, invoke on all sides new principles, and demand a higher\n civilisation. It is not the first time, doubtless, that such a\n state of things has been manifested. It has been seen to supervene\n after all the moral revolutions that have left man greater than\n they have found him. But that of which we have been the witnesses\n [the revolution in France of 1789--the reforms of 1830] seems to\n have something more remarkable, more complete--one would almost be\n tempted to believe that it must be the last, and terminate that\n long sequence of vain disputes across which the human kind has\n painfully advanced, seeing it rise in the midst of the _d\u00e9bris_\n of all the old-world ideas which have expired or are expiring at\n one\u2019s feet. What a moment for rebuilding! No more favourable one\n could exist; and it is urged on, so to speak, by the breeze of\n these happy circumstances that I offer to the meditation of men the\n following propositions....\n\n \u201cI shall add but a few words. The principles which I have laid down\n are absolute--they cannot bend [_fl\u00e9chir_]. But there are _steps_\n on the route which conduct to the heights which they occupy; and\n were there but a single step made in that direction, that single\n step could not be regarded as indifferent and unimportant. Thus\n this work--guide of those whom it shall convince--will be useful\n also to the rest of the world as, at least, a moderator and a\n check; and, I shall avow it, my hopes do not extend beyond this\n latter object. I should feel myself even perfectly satisfied, if\n this book should inspire in my contemporaries enough of esteem\n and favour to prevent them from arresting and impeding it at its\n start, and to allow it to follow its course towards a generation, I\n will not say more worthy, but better prepared than the present to\n receive it.\u201d\n\nGle\u00efz\u00e8s divides his great work into twelve Discourses, in two volumes,\nsupplemented by a third volume which he entitles _Moral Proofs_. It is\nan almost exhaustive, as well as eloquent, _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the history and\nethics of the subject. The only fault of this, perhaps, most heartfelt\nappeal to the reason and conscience of mankind ever published is its\ntoo great discursiveness. The manifest anxiety of the author to meet,\nor to anticipate, every possible objection or subterfuge on the part of\nthe hostile or the indifferent, may well excuse this apparent blemish;\nand the slightest acquaintance with his _New Existence_ can hardly\nfail to extort, even from the most prejudiced reader, a tribute of\nadmiration to a spirit so noble and so pure, devoting all its energies\nto the furtherance of an exalted and refined morality.\n\nIn the earlier portion of his book he reviews the dietetic habits and\npractices of the various peoples of the younger world, and notices the\nvarious philosophic and other writers who have left any record of their\nopinions upon flesh-eating. He next treats of modern authorities, and,\nafter quoting a large number of anti-kreophagistic testimonies, in his\nfifth Discourse he applies himself to answer the sophisms of the chief\nopponents, and particularly of its arch-enemy--his countryman, Buffon,\nin his well-known _Histoire Naturelle_--and he may be said effectually\nto have disposed of his astonishing fallacies.[226]\n\n \u201cWhat most strikes the observer when he throws an attentive glance\n over the earth, is the _relative_ inferiority of man, considered as\n what he is, in regard to what he ought to be: it is the feebleness\n of the work compared with the aptitude of the workman. All his\n inspirations are good, and all his actions bad; and it is to this\n singular fact that must be attributed, without doubt, the universal\n contempt that man exhibits towards his fellows.... We must remount\n to the source, and see if there is not in man\u2019s existence some\n essential act which, reflecting itself on all the rest, would\n communicate to them its fatal influence. Let us consider, above\n everything, the _distinctive_ quality of man--that which raises him\n above all other beings. It is clear that it is Pity,[227] source\n of that intelligence which has placed him at the head of that\n fine moral order, invincible in the midst of the catastrophes of\n Nature. His utter failure to exhibit this feeling of pity towards\n his humble fellow-beings, as well as to his own kind, engages us\n to inquire what is the _permanent_ cause of such failure; and\n we find it, at first, in that unhappy facility with which man\n receives his _impressions_ of the beings by whom he is surrounded.\n These impressions, transmitted with life and cemented by habit,\n have formed a creation apart and separate from himself, which is\n consequently beyond the domain of his conscience, or, if you prefer\n it, of the ordinary jurisprudence of men. Thus men continue to\n accuse themselves of being unjust, violent, cruel, and treacherous\n to one another, but they do not accuse themselves of cutting the\n throats of other animals and of feeding upon their mangled limbs,\n which, nevertheless, is the single cause of that injustice, of that\n violence, of that cruelty, and of that treachery.\n\n \u201cAlthough all have not these vices to the same degree, and it is\n exactly this fact which aids the self-deception, I shall clearly\n prove that all have the _germs_ of them; and that, if they are not\n equally developed, we must thank the circumstances only which have\n failed them.\n\n \u201cIt is thus that many Europeans, whom their destiny conducts to the\n cannibal countries, after some months of sojourn with the natives,\n make no difficulty of seating themselves at their banquet, and of\n sharing their horrible repast, which at first had excited their\n horror and disgust. They begin with devouring a dog: from the dog\n to the man the space is soon cleared.\n\n \u201cMen believe themselves to be just, provided that they fulfil, in\n regard to their fellows, the duties which have been prescribed to\n them. But it is goodness which is the justice of man; and it is\n impossible, I repeat it, to be good towards one\u2019s fellow without\n being so towards other existences. Let us not be the dupes of\n _appearances_. Seneca, who lived only on the herbs of his garden,\n to which he owed those last gleams of philosophy which enlightened,\n so to speak, the fall of the Roman Empire, also thinks that crime\n cannot be circumscribed: _Nullum intr\u00e0 se manet vitium_. And if,\n as Ovid affirms, the sword struck men only after having been first\n dyed in the blood of the lower animals, what interest have we not\n in respecting such a barrier? Like \u00c6olus, who held in his hands the\n bag in which the winds were confined, we may at our will, according\n as we live upon plants or upon animals, tranquillize the earth or\n excite terrible tempests upon it.\n\n \u201cI am too well aware that a subterfuge will be found in excusing\n the crime by necessity, and calumniating Providence. According to\n the pretended belief of the greatest number of people, if other\n animals were not put to death, they would deprive men of the empire\n of the earth. But it is easy to reply to this objection by the\n examples of people who, holding in horror the effusion of blood,\n and robbing no being of life--even the vilest or most hateful--are\n by no means disturbed in the exercise of their sovereignty.[228]\n And it would result from the examples of these people, if one had\n not other proofs besides, that man is absolutely master of the\n means of increasing or limiting the multiplication of the species\n which are more or less in dependence upon him. And it is not less\n evident that the earth, in this latter hypothesis, would support\n an infinitely greater number of the human species. Thus will the\n vegetable regimen be _necessarily_ adopted one day over the whole\n earth, when the multiplication of our species shall have reached\n a certain number fixed and pre-established by that imperious and\n irrevocable law which is intimately connected, for the most part,\n with humanity, justice, and virtue--the number at which it is\n slowly arriving, arrested by the very causes which I am striving\n to destroy, and which, for that single reason, ought to arm\n against them all generous beings who appreciate the benefit of\n existence.\u201d[229]\n\nAmongst other pretexts by which men seek to excuse selfishness, is\nthe assertion that its victims have little or no consciousness of\nsuffering, and that their death is so unexpected that it cannot excite\ntheir terror. This monstrous fiction is eloquently exposed by Gle\u00efz\u00e8s,\nas it is, indeed, by the commonest everyday experience:--\n\n \u201cThe instinct of life among animals generally gives them a\n presentiment and fear of death--that is to say _violent_ death; for\n as for natural death it inspires in them no alarm, for the simple\n reason that it is in the course of nature. And it is the same with\n man. He is not afflicted with the thought of dying when he knows\n his hour is come; he resigns himself to that fate as to any other\n imposed upon him by necessity. The sensations of other beings\n differ in no respect from those of men; and when the horse, for\n example, is condemned to death by the lion, that is to say, when he\n hears the confused roar of that terrible beast which fills space,\n while the precise spot from which it emanates cannot be determined,\n which takes from the victim all hope of escape by flight, the\n perspiration rolls down all his limbs, he falls to the earth as if\n he had just been struck by a thunderbolt, and would die of terror\n alone if the lion did not run up to terminate the tragedy.\u201d[230]\n\n \u201cThere exists so great an analogy, so strong a resemblance, between\n the life of man and that of other animals who surround him, that a\n simple return to himself--simple reflection--ought to suffice to\n make him respect the latter; and if he were condemned by Nature to\n rend it from them, he might justly curse the order of things which,\n on the one hand, should have implanted in his heart the source of\n feeling so gentle, and, on the other, should have imposed on him a\n necessity so cruel.... And if this man have children, if he bear in\n his heart objects which are so dear to him, how can he unceasingly\n surround himself with images of death--of that death which must\n deprive him one day of those whom he loves, or snatch himself away\n from their love? And if he be just, if he be good, how will he not\n have repugnance for acts which will continually recall to him ideas\n of ingratitude, of cruelty, and of violence? There exists in the\n East a tree which, by a mechanical movement, inclines its branches\n towards the traveller, whom it seems to invite to repose under\n its shade. This simple image of hospitality, which is revered in\n that part of the world, makes them regard it as sacred, and they\n would punish with death him who should dare to apply a hatchet to\n its trunk. Our humble fellow-beings, should _they_ be less sacred\n because they represent, not by mechanical movements, but by actions\n resembling our own, feelings the dearest to our hearts? Ah! let us\n respect them, not alone because they aid us to bear the burdens\n of the world, which would overwhelm us without them but _because\n they have the same right with ourselves to life_.... A reason which\n is without reply, at least for generous souls, is the trust and\n confidence reposed in man by other animals. Nature has not taught\n them to distrust him. He is the only enemy whom she has not pointed\n out to them. Is it not evident proof that he was not intended to be\n so? For can one believe that Nature, who holds so just a balance,\n could have been willing to deceive all other beings in favour of\n man alone? It has been observed that birds of the gentle species\n express certain cries when they perceive the fox, the weasel,\n &c., although they have nothing to fear from them, without doubt,\n by reason of the analogy which they offer. They are the cries of\n hatred rather than of fear, whilst they utter these latter at sight\n of the eagle, of the hawk, &c. Now, it is certain that in all the\n islands on which man has landed, the native animals have not fled\n before them. They have been able to take even birds with the hand.\u201d\n\nGle\u00efz\u00e8s rejects the common fallacy that, because men have _acquired_ a\nlust for flesh, _therefore_ it is natural or proper for them.\n\n \u201cIt is a specious but very false reason to allege that, since man\n has acquired this taste, he ought to be permitted to indulge it--in\n the first place because Nature has not given him _cooked_ flesh,\n and because several ages must have rolled away before fire was\n used. It is very well known that there are many countries in which\n it was not known at the period of their discovery. Nature, then,\n could have given man only _raw_ or _living_ flesh, and we know that\n it is repugnant to him over the whole extent of the earth. Now it\n is exactly this character which essentially distinguishes animals\n of prey from others. The former, those at least of the larger\n species, have generally an extreme repugnance, not only for cooked\n flesh, but even for that which has lost its freshness. Man, then,\n is not carnivorous but under certain abnormal conditions; and his\n senses, to which he appeals in support of his carnivorousness, are\n perverted to such a degree, that he would devour his fellow-man\n without perceiving it, if they served him up in place of veal, the\n flesh of which is said to have the same taste. Thus Harpagus ate,\n without knowing it, the corpse of his son.\u201d\n\nGle\u00efz\u00e8s instances the case of Cows and of Reindeer who, in Norway, have\nbeen denaturalised so far as to feed on fish, and readily to take to\nthat unnatural food.\n\n \u201cIt would be too long to enumerate here all the causes which may\n have produced so great an aberration. This will be the matter of\n another Discourse. I shall content myself for the moment with\n saying some words upon that which perpetuates it. It is essentially\n that lightness of mind, or, rather, that sort of stupidity, which\n makes all reflection upon anything which is opposed to their habits\n painful to the generality of mankind. They would turn their head\n aside with horror if they saw what a single one of their repasts\n costs Nature. They eat animals as some amongst them launch a\n bomb into the midst of a besieged town, without thinking of the\n evils which it must bring to a crowd of individuals, strangers to\n war--women, children, and old men--evils the near spectacle of\n which they could not support, in spite of the hardness of their\n hearts.... To-day, when everything is calculated with so much\n precision [he remarks with bitterness], there will not be wanting\n persons with sufficient assurance to attempt to prove that there\n is more of advantage for the domesticated animals to be born and\n live on condition of having their throats cut, than if they had\n remained in \u2018nothingness,\u2019 or in the natural state. As for the\n word \u2018nothingness,\u2019 I confess that I do not understand it, but I\n understand the other very well; and I have never conceived how man\n could have had the barbarity to accumulate all the calamities of\n the earth upon a single individual; that is to say, to slaughter\n it in return for having caused its degeneracy. But if he thinks\n himself to escape from the influence of an action so dastardly and\n so infamous, he would be in a very great error....\n\n \u201cI shall finish these prolegomena with an important remark. I have\n known a large number of good souls who offered up the most sincere\n wishes for the establishment of this doctrine of humaneness,\n who thought it just and true in all its aspects, who believed\n in all that it announces; but who, in spite of so praiseworthy\n a disposition, dared not be the first to give the example. They\n awaited this movement from minds stronger than their own. Doubtless\n they are the minds which give the impulse to the world; but is it\n necessary to await this movement when one is convinced of one\u2019s\n self? Is it permissible to temporise in a question of life or\n death for innocent beings whose sole crime is _to have been born_,\n and is it in a case like this that strength of mind should fail\n justice? No! Well-doing is, happily, not so difficult. Ah! what\n is your excuse, besides, pusillanimous souls? I blush for you at\n the miserable pretexts which keep you back. It would be necessary,\n say you, to separate one\u2019s self from the world; to renounce one\u2019s\n friends and neighbours. I see no such necessity, and I think,\n on the contrary, that if you truly loved the world and your\n neighbours, you would hasten to give them an example which must\n have so powerful an influence upon their present happiness and upon\n their future destiny.\u201d[231]\n\nWe have reason once again to lament the perversity of literary or\npublishing enterprise which will produce and reproduce, _ad infinitum_,\nbooks of no real and permanent value to the world, and altogether\nneglect its true luminaries. This is, in an especial manner, the case\nwith Gle\u00efz\u00e8s. The _Nouvelle Existence_ has never been republished,\nwe believe, in the author\u2019s own country; while it has never found a\ntranslator, perhaps scarcely a reader, in this country outside the\nVegetarian ranks. Germany, as we have already noticed, alone has the\nhonour of attempting to preserve from oblivion one of the few who have\ndeserved immortality.\n\n\n\n\nXLI.\n\nSHELLEY. 1792-1822.\n\n\nThat a principle of profound significance for the welfare of our own\nspecies in particular, and for the peaceful harmony of the world\nin general--that a true spiritualism, of which some of the most\nadmirable of the poets of the pre-Christian ages proved themselves not\nunconscious, has been, for the most part, altogether overlooked or\nignored by modern aspirants to poetic fame is matter for our gravest\nlament. Thomson, Pope, Shelley, Lamartine--to whom Milton, perhaps, may\nbe added--these form the small band who almost alone represent, and\nhave developed the earlier inspiration of a Hesiod, Ovid, or Virgil,\nthe prophet-poets who, faithful to their proper calling,[232] have\nsought to _unbarbarise_ and elevate human life by arousing, in various\ndegree, feelings of horror and aversion from the prevailing materialism\nof living.\n\nOf this illustrious band, and, indeed, of all the great intellectual\nand moral luminaries who have shed a humanising influence upon our\nplanet--who have left behind them \u201cthoughts that breathe and words\nthat burn\u201d--none can claim more reverence from humanitarians than the\npoet of poets--the influence of whose life and writings, considerable\neven now, and gradually increasing, doubtless in a not remote future\nis destined to be equal to that of the very foremost of the world\u2019s\nteachers, and of whom our sketch, necessarily limited though it is,\nwill be extended beyond the usual allotted space.\n\nPercy Bysshe Shelley descended from an old and wealthy family long\nsettled in Sussex. At the age of 13 he was sent to Eton, where (such\nwas the spirit of the public and other schools at that time, and,\nindeed, of long afterwards) he was subjected to severe trials of\nendurance by the rough and rude manners of the ordinary schoolboy, and\nthe harsh and unequal violence of the schoolmaster. Of an exceptionally\nrefined and sensitive temperament, he was none the less determined\nin resistance to injustice and oppression, and his refusal to submit\ntamely to their petty tyrannies seems to have brought upon him more\nthan the common amount of harsh treatment. It penetrated into his\ninmost soul, and inspired the opening stanzas of \u201cThe Revolt of\nIslam,\u201d in intensity of feeling seldom equalled. Some alleviation of\nthese sufferings of childhood he found in his own mental resources.\nFor his amusement he translated, we are assured, several books of\nthe _Natural History_ of Pliny. Of Greek writers he even then (in an\nEnglish version) read Plato, who afterwards, in his own language,\nalways remained one of his chief literary companions, and he applied\nhimself also to the study of French and of German. In natural science,\nChemistry seems to have been his especial pursuit.\n\nIn 1810, at the age of seventeen, he entered University College,\nOxford. There he studied and wrote unceasingly. With a strong\npredilection for metaphysics, he devoted himself in particular to\nthe great masters of dialectics, Locke and Hume, and to their chief\nrepresentatives in French philosophy. Ardent and enthusiastic in\nthe pursuit of truth, he sought to enlarge his knowledge and ideas\nfrom every possible quarter, and he engaged in correspondence with\ndistinguished persons, suggested to him by choice or chance, with\nwhom he discussed the most interesting philosophical questions. Like\nall truly fruitful minds, the youthful inquirer was not satisfied\nwith the _dicta_ of mere authority, or with the _consensus_, however\ngeneral, of past ages, and he hesitated not, in matters of opinion in\nwhich every well-instructed intelligence is capable of judging for\nitself, to bring to the test of right reason the most widely-received\ndogmas of Antiquity. Actuated by this spirit, rather than by any\nmatured convictions, and wishing to elicit sincere as well as\nexhaustive argument on the deepest of all metaphysical inquiries,\nin an unfortunate moment for himself, he caused to be printed an\nabstract of anti-theistic speculations, drawn from David Hume and\nother authorities, presented in a series of mathematically-expressed\npropositions. Copies of this modest thesis of two pages were sent\neither by the author, or by some other hand, to the heads of his\nCollege. The clerical dignitaries, listening to the dictates of\noutraged authority, rather than influenced by calm reflection, which\nwould have, perhaps, shewn them the useless injustice of so extreme a\nmeasure, proceeded at once to expel him from the University.[233]\n\nThat in spite of this impetuous attack upon the stereotyped\npresentations of Theism, Shelley had an eminently religious temperament\nhas been well insisted upon by a recent biographer:--\n\n \u201cBrimming over with love for men, he was deficient in sympathy with\n the conditions under which they actually think and feel. Could he\n but dethrone the anarch, Custom, the \u2018Millennium,\u2019 he argued, would\n immediately arrive; nor did he stop to think how different was\n the fibre of his own soul from that of the unnumbered multitudes\n around him. In his adoration of what he recognised as _living_,\n he retained no reverence for the ossified experience of past\n ages.... For he had a vital faith, and this faith made the ideals\n he conceived seem possible--faith in the duty and desirability of\n overthrowing idols; faith in the gospel of liberty, fraternity,\n equality; faith in the divine beauty of Nature; faith in the\n perfectibility of man; faith in the omnipresent soul, whereof our\n souls are atoms; faith in love, as the ruling and co-ordinating\n substance of morality. The man who lived by this faith was in no\n vulgar sense of the word \u2018atheist.\u2019 When he proclaimed himself to\n be one he pronounced his hatred of a gloomy religion which had been\n the instrument of kings and priests for the enslavement of their\n fellow beings. As he told his friend Trelawney, he used the word\n _Atheism_ \u2018to express his abhorrence of superstition: he took it\n up, as a knight took up a gauntlet, in defiance of injustice.\u2019\u201d[234]\n\nSo thorough was his contempt for mere received and routine thought,\nthat even Aristotle, the great idol of the medi\u00e6val schoolmen, and\nstill an object of extraordinary veneration in the elder University,\nbecame for him a kind of synonym for despotic authority--\n\n \u201cTomes\n Of reasoned Wrong glozed on by Ignorance\u201d--\n\nand was, accordingly, treated with undue neglect. As for politics,\nas represented in the parliament and public Press of his day, he was\nindignantly impatient of the too usual trifling and unreality of public\nlife. He seldom read the newspapers; nor could he ever bring himself to\nmix with the \u201crabble of the House.\u201d\n\nThus, forced into antipathy to the ordinary and orthodox business of\nlife around him, the poet withdrew himself more and more from it into\nhis own thoughts, and hopes, and aspirations, which he communicated to\nhis familiar friends. Some of those, however, into whose society he\nchanced to be thrown, were not of a sort of mind most congenial to his\nown. Yet they all bear witness to his surpassing moral no less than\nmental, constitution. \u201cIn no individual, perhaps, was the moral sense\never more completely developed than in Shelley,\u201d says one of his most\nintimate acquaintances; \u201cin no being was the perception of right and\nwrong more acute.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs his love of intellectual pursuits was vehement, and the vigour\nof his genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of\nhis life most conspicuous.... I have had the happiness to associate\nwith some of the best specimens of gentleness; but (may my candour\nand preference be pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the\nonly example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in the most\nminute particular, of the infinite and various observances of pure,\nentire, and perfect gentility.\u201d This is the voluntary testimony of a\nfriend who was not inclined to excess of praise.[235]\n\nThe sudden end of his career at Oxford had estranged him from his\nfather, who was of a temperament the very opposite to that of\nthe enthusiastic reformer--harsh, intolerant, and bigoted in his\nprejudices; and the young Shelley\u2019s marriage, shortly afterwards,\nto Harriet Westbrook, a young girl of much beauty, but of little\ncultivation of mind, and in a position of life different from his\nown, incensed him still further. The marriage, happy enough in the\nbeginning, proved to be an ill-assorted one, and various causes\ncontributed to the inevitable _d\u00e9nouement_. After a union of some\nthree years, the marriage, by mutual consent, was dissolved. Two years\nlater--not, it seems, in consequence of the divorce, as sometimes has\nbeen suggested--the young wife put an end to her existence--a terrible\nand tragic termination of an ill-considered attachment, which must have\ncaused him the deepest pangs of grief, and which seems always, and\njustly, to have cast a gloomy shadow upon his future life.\n\nBrief as his career was, we can refer only to the most interesting\nevents in it. Of these, his enthusiastic effort to arouse a bloodless\nrevolution in Ireland, such as, if effected, might have prevented the\ncontinued miseries of that especially neglected portion of the three\nkingdoms, is not the least noteworthy. With his lately-married wife and\nher sister he was living at Keswick, when, by a sudden inspiration, he\nresolved to cross the Channel, and engage in the work of propagating\nhis principles of political and social reform. This was in the early\npart of 1812. In Dublin, where they established their head-quarters,\nhe printed an _Address to the Irish People_, which, by his own hands,\nas well as by other agency, was distributed far and wide. In this\nwonderfully well-considered and reasonable manifesto, the principles\nlaid down as necessary to success in attempting deliverance from ages\nof bad laws and misgovernment, are as sound as the ardour and sincerity\nof his hopeless undertaking are unmistakeable. The cosmopolitan scope\nof the _Address_ appears in such passages as these:--\n\n \u201cDo not inquire if a man be a heretic, if he be a Quaker, a Jew,\n or a Heathen, but if he be a virtuous man, if he love liberty and\n truth, if he wish the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man\n be ever so much \u2018a believer,\u2019 and love not these things, he is a\n heartless hypocrite and a knave.... It is not a merit to tolerate,\n but it is a crime to be intolerant.... Be calm, mild, deliberate,\n patient.... Think, and talk, and discuss.... Be free and be happy,\n but _first be wise and good_.... Habits of sobriety, regularity,\n and thought must be entered into and firmly resolved upon.\u201d\n\nTruer in his perception of the radical causes and cure of national\nevils than most party politicians, he urged the essential need of\nethical and social change, without which mere political change of\nparties, or increase in material wealth of some sections in the\ncommunity, must be valueless in any true estimate of a nation\u2019s\nprosperity. Shelley also issued, in pamphlet form, _Proposals for an\nAssociation_--a plan for the formation of a vast society of Irish\nCatholics, to enforce their \u201cemancipation\u201d--a measure which was\nnot brought about until twenty years later after long and vehement\nopposition.\n\nTwo months were devoted to this generous but futile work; the people of\nIreland did not move, and the young reformer returned to England, but\nwithout abandoning his _propaganda_ of the principles of liberty and\njustice. While residing in Somersetshire he published a paper entitled\na _Declaration of Rights_, to circulate which recourse was had to\ningenious methods. Four years later, in 1817, he published _A Proposal\nfor putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Kingdom_. \u201cHe saw that\nthe House of Commons did not represent the country; and acting upon his\nprinciple that Government is the servant of the Governed, he sought\nmeans for ascertaining the real will of the nation with regard to its\nParliament, and for bringing the collective opinions of the population\nto bear upon its rulers. The plan proposed was that a large network of\ncommittees should be formed, and that by their means every individual\nman should be canvassed. We find here the same method of advancing\nreform by peaceable associations as in Ireland.\u201d At the same time, in\npresence of the incalculable amount of ignorance, destitution, and\nconsequent venality of the great mass of the community--the necessary\noutcome of long ages of bad and selfish legislation--Universal\nSuffrage for the present appeared to him to be not a safe experiment.\nEvidence of controversial power, is his \u201cgrave and lofty\u201d Letter to\nLord Ellenborough, who had recently sentenced to imprisonment the\nprinters of the _Age of Reason_, \u201can eloquent argument in favour of\ntoleration and the freedom of the intellect, carrying the matter beyond\nthe instance of legal tyranny, which occasioned its composition, and\ntreating it with philosophical if impassioned, seriousness.\u201d[236]\nBefore his visit to Ireland, he had been engaged (as he tells his\ncorrespondent, William Godwin) in writing _An Inquiry into the Causes\nof the Failure of the French Revolution to Benefit Mankind_. We have\nto lament that this Essay seems never to have been completed, since it\nis hardly doubtful that it would have been of unusual interest. Such\nwas the force and activity of Shelley\u2019s intellect, as displayed in the\nregions of practical philosophy, at the age of twenty, and before he\nhad given to the world his first productions in poetry.\n\n_Queen Mab_, written in part two years before, was finished and printed\nin 1813. Although it may have some of the defects of immaturity of\ngenius, it has the charm of a genuine poetic inspiration. Intense\nhatred of selfish injustice and untruth in all their shapes, equally\nintense sympathy with all suffering, sublime faith in the ultimate\ntriumph of Good, clothed in the language of entrancing eloquence and\nsublimity, are the characteristics of this unique poem. The author\u2019s\ndepreciation of his earliest poetic attempt in after years, in a letter\naddressed to the _Examiner_, only a month before his death, strikes us\nas scarcely sincere, and as having been a sort of necessary sacrifice\non the altar of Expediency.\n\nIn this exquisitely beautiful prophecy of a \u201cGolden Age\u201d to be, the\nfairy Queen Mab, the unembodied being who acts as his instructress and\nguide through the Universe, displays to his affrighted vision, in one\nvast panorama, the horrors of the Past and the Present. She afterwards,\nin a glorious apocalypse, relieves his despair by revealing to him the\n\u201cnew heavens and the new earth,\u201d which eventually will displace the\npresent evil constitution of things on our planet. On the redeemed and\nregenerated Globe:--\n\n \u201cAmbiguous Man! he that can know\n More misery, and can dream more joy than all:\n Whose keen sensations thrill within his heart,\n To mingle with a loftier instinct there,\n Lending their power to pleasure and to pain,\n Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each:\n Who stands amid the ever-varying world\n The burden or the glory of the Earth--\n He chief perceives the change: his being notes\n The gradual renovation, and defines\n Each movement of its progress on his mind.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Here now the human being stands, adorning\n This loveliest Earth with taintless body and mind.\n Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,\n Which gently in his truthful bosom wake\n All kindly passions and all pure desires.\n Him (still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,\n Which from the exhaustless store of human weal\n Draws on the virtuous mind), the thoughts that rise\n In time-destroying infiniteness, gift\n With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks\n The unprevailing hoariness of age:\n And Man, once fleeting o\u2019er the transient scene,\n Swift as an unremembered vision, stands\n Immortal upon Earth. _No longer now\n He slays the Lamb who looks him in the face_,\n And horribly devours his mangled flesh,\n Which, still avenging Nature\u2019s broken law,\n Kindled all putrid humours in his frame--\n All evil passions and all vain belief--\n Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,\n The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.\n No longer now the wing\u00e8d habitants,\n That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,\n Flee from the form of Man.\n\n * * * * *\n\n All things are void of terror. Man has lost\n His terrible prerogative, and stands\n An equal amidst equals. Happiness\n And Science dawn, though late, upon the Earth.\n Peace cheers the mind, Health renovates the frame.\n Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,\n Reason and passion cease to combat there;\n Whilst each, unfettered, o\u2019er the Earth extends\n Its all-subduing energies, and wields\n The sceptre of a vast dominion there;\n Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends\n Its force to the omnipotence of Mind,\n Which from its dark mine drags the gem of Truth\n To decorate its paradise of Peace.\u201d\n\nIn rapt vision the prophet-poet apostrophises the \u201cNew Earth\u201d:\n\n \u201cO happy Earth! reality of Heaven,\n To which those restless souls, that ceaselessly\n Throng through the human universe, aspire.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Of purest spirits, thou pure dwelling-place,\n Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,\n Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come.\n O happy Earth! reality of Heaven.\n Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams;\n And dim forebodings of thy loveliness,\n Haunting the human heart, have there entwined\n Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss.\n\n * * * * *\n\n and the souls\n That, by the paths of an aspiring change,\n Have reached thy haven of perpetual Peace,\n There rest from the eternity of toil,\n That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.\u201d\n\nFrom the Essay, in the form of a note, which he subjoined to the\npassage we have quoted, we extract the principal arguments:--\n\n \u201cMan, and the other animals whom he has afflicted with his malady\n or depraved by his dominion, are _alone diseased_. The Bison,\n the wild Hog, the Wolf, are perfectly exempt from malady, and\n invariably die either from external violence or from mature old\n age. But the domestic Hog, the Sheep, the Cow, the Dog, are subject\n to an incredible variety of distempers, and, like the corruptors\n of their nature, have physicians who thrive upon their miseries.\n The super-eminence of man is, like Satan\u2019s, the super-eminence of\n pain; and the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease,\n and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event that, by\n enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the\n level of his fellow-animals. But the steps that have been taken\n are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one\n question: How can the advantages of intellect and civilisation be\n reconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life?\n How can we take the benefits and reject the evils of the system\n which is now interwoven with the fibre of our being? I believe\n that abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors would, in\n a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this important\n question.\n\n \u201cIt is true that mental and bodily derangements are attributable,\n in part, to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those\n which concern diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting\n the connexion of the sexes, whence the misery and diseases of\n unsatisfied celibacy, unenjoyed prostitution, and the premature\n arrival of puberty, necessarily spring. The putrid atmosphere of\n crowded cities, the exhalations of chemical processes, the muffling\n of our bodies in superfluous apparel, the absurd treatment of\n infants--all these, and innumerable other causes, contribute their\n mite to the mass of human evil.\n\n \u201cComparative Anatomy teaches us that man resembles the frugivorous\n animals in everything, the carnivorous in nothing. He has neither\n claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth\n to tear the living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with\n nails two inches long, would probably find them alone inefficient\n to hold even a hare. After every subterfuge of gluttony, the bull\n must be degraded into the \u201cox,\u201d and the ram into the \u201cwether,\u201d by\n an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the flaccid fibre may\n offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature. It is only by\n softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it\n is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the\n sight of its bloody juice and raw horror does not excite loathing\n and disgust.\n\n \u201cLet the advocate of animal food force himself to a decisive\n experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a\n living lamb with his teeth and, plunging his head into its vitals,\n slake his thirst with the streaming blood. When fresh from this\n deed of horror, let him revert to the irresistible instinct of\n nature that would rise in judgment against it and say, \u2018Nature\n formed me for such work as this.\u2019 Then, and then only would he be\n consistent.\n\n \u201cMan resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless\n man be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated\n colons.\n\n \u201cThe orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order\n and in the number of his teeth. The orang-outang is the most\n anthropomorphous of the ape tribe, all of whom are strictly\n frugivorous. There is no other species of animals, which live\n on different food, in which this analogy exists.[237] In many\n frugivorous animals the canine teeth are more pointed and distinct\n than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to\n that of the orang-outang is greater than to that of any other\n animal.\n\n \u201cThe structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to\n a pure vegetable diet in every essential particular. It is true\n that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have\n been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons\n of weak minds as to be scarcely overcome. But this is far from\n bringing any argument in its favour. A Lamb, who was fed for some\n time on flesh by a ship\u2019s crew, refused her natural diet at the end\n of the voyage. There are numerous instances of Horses, Sheep, Oxen,\n and even Wood-Pigeons having been taught to live upon flesh until\n they have loathed their natural aliment. Young children evidently\n prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other fruit, to the flesh of\n animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the digestive organs,\n the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced serious\n inconveniences--_for a time_, I say, since there never was an\n instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food\n to vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate\n the body by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to\n restore to the mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not\n one in fifty possesses on the present system. A love of strong\n liquors also is with difficulty taught infants. Almost every one\n remembers the wry faces which the first glass of port produced.\n Unsophisticated instinct is invariably unerring, but to decide on\n the fitness of animal food from the _perverted_ appetites which its\n continued adoption produces, is to make the criminal a judge of his\n own cause. It is even worse, for it is appealing to the infatuated\n drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy.\n\n \u201cExcept in children, there remain no traces of that instinct which\n determines, in all other animals, what aliment is _natural_ or\n otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning\n adults of our species, that it has become necessary to urge\n considerations drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are\n _naturally_ frugivorous.\n\n \u201cCrime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of\n disease shall be discovered, the root from which all vice and\n misery have so long overshadowed the Globe will be bare to the\n axe. All the exertions of man, from that moment, may be considered\n as tending to the clear profit of his species. No sane mind in\n a sane body resolves upon real crime.... The system of a simple\n diet promises no Utopian advantages. It is no mere reform of\n legislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of\n the human heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged.\n It _strikes at the root of all evil_, and is an experiment which\n may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small\n societies, families, and even individuals. In no cases has a return\n to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has\n been attended with changes undeniably beneficial. Should ever a\n physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded that he\n might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural\n habits as clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to\n sensation....\n\n \u201cBy all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure\n those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the\n vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject\n whose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at\n rest. But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so\n great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even\n though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is\n found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease to _palliate_\n their torments by medicine than to _prevent_ them by regimen.\n The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile, yet\n I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of\n vegetable diet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear that\n those who live naturally are exempt from premature death as that\n one is not nine, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference\n towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful,\n life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three years.\n Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be\n given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on\n vegetables and pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than\n two years have now elapsed--_not one of them has died_. No such\n example will be found in any sixty persons taken at random.\n\n \u201cSeventeen persons of all ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr.\n Newton) have lived for seven years on this diet without a death,\n _and almost without the slightest illness_.... In proportion to the\n number of proselytes, so will be the weight of evidence, and when a\n thousand persons can be produced living on vegetables and distilled\n water,[238] who have to dread no disease but old age, the world\n will be compelled to regard flesh and fermented liquors as slow but\n certain poisons.\u201d\n\nShelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet\neconomically, socially, and politically:--\n\n \u201cThe monopolising eater of flesh would no longer destroy his\n constitution by devouring an acre at a meal; and many loaves of\n bread would cease to contribute to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in\n the shape of a pint of porter or a dram of gin, when appeasing the\n long-protracted famine of the hard-working peasant\u2019s hungry babes.\n The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening\n the carcase of an ox would afford ten times the sustenance,\n undepraved, indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if\n gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile\n districts of the habitable globe are now actually cultivated by men\n for [other] animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely\n incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to any\n great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead\n flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by\n subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the\n nation, that should take the lead in this great reform, would\n insensibly become _agricultural_.\n\n \u201cThe advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that\n of any other. It strikes at the _root_ of the evil. To remedy the\n abuses of legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by\n which they are produced, is to suppose that by taking away the\n _effect_ the _cause_ will cease to operate....\n\n \u201cLet not too much, however, be expected from this system. The\n healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most\n symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly\n inferior to what he would have been, had not the unnatural habits\n of his ancestors accumulated for him a certain portion of malady\n and deformity. In the most perfect specimen of civilised man,\n something is still found wanting by the physiological critic. Can a\n return to Nature, then, instantaneously eradicate predispositions\n that have been slowly taking root in the silence of innumerable\n Ages? Undoubtedly not. All that I contend for is, that from the\n moment of relinquishing all _unnatural_ habits no new disease is\n generated; and that the predisposition to hereditary maladies\n gradually perishes for want of its accustomed supply. In cases\n of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, such is the\n invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water....\u201d\n\nHe concludes this philosophic discourse with an earnest appeal to the\nvarious classes of society:--\n\n \u201cI address myself not to the young enthusiast only, to the ardent\n devotee of truth and virtue--the pure and passionate moralist,\n yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a\n pure system from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity,\n and its promise of wide-extended benefit. Unless custom has\n turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the\n chase by instinct. It will be a contemplation full of horror and\n disappointment to his mind that beings, capable of the gentlest and\n most admirable sympathies, should take delight in the deathpangs\n and last convulsions of dying animals.\n\n \u201cThe elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance,\n or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted\n with a variety of painful maladies, would find his account in\n a beneficial change, produced without the risk of poisonous\n medicines. The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of\n disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to her children, are the\n causes of incurable unhappiness, would, on this diet, experience\n the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual health and natural\n playfulness.[239] The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by\n diseases that it is dangerous to palliate, and impossible to cure,\n by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the\n gluttony of Death--his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?\u201d\n\nSome time after the melancholy death of his first wife, Shelley married\nMary Wolstoncroft, the daughter of William Godwin, author of _Political\nJustice_--perhaps the most revolutionary of all pleas for a change in\nthe constitution of society that has ever proceeded from a prosaic\ntradesman, such as, in the ordinary intercourse of life and interchange\nof ideas, his biography and correspondence (lately published) prove\nhim to have been. Her mother was the celebrated and earliest advocate\nof the rights of women. Previously, the lovers had travelled through\nFrance and part of Germany, and an account of their six weeks\u2019 tour was\nafterwards printed by Mrs. Shelley.\n\nIn 1815 appeared his _Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude_. In 1817\nhe again left England for Geneva. While in Switzerland he made the\nacquaintance of Byron, which was renewed during his stay in Italy.\nIn the same year he returned to this country and, after a short\nsojourn with Leigh Hunt, he settled at Great Marlow, one of the most\npicturesque parts of the Thames. There, in spite of his own ill-health,\nhe showed the active benevolence of his character, not only in the\neasier form of alms-giving but also in frequent visits to the sick\nand destitute, at the risk of aggravating symptoms of consumption now\nalarmingly apparent. There, too, he composed the _Revolt of Islam_,\nor, as it was originally more fitly entitled, _Laon and Cythna_. In\nthis poem, by the mouth of Laone, he again expresses his humanitarian\nconvictions and sympathies. She calls upon the enfranchised nations:--\n\n \u201c\u2018My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing\n Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing\n O\u2019er the ripe corn; the Birds and Beasts are dreaming--\n Never again may blood of bird or beast\n Stain with his venomous stream a human feast,\n To the pure skies in accusation steaming.\n Avenging poisons shall have ceased\n To feed disease, and fear, and madness.\n The dwellers of the earth and air\n Shall throng around our steps in gladness,\n Seeking their food or refuge there.\n Our toil from Thought all glorious forms shall cul.\n To make this earth, our home, more beautiful,\n And Science, and her sister Poesy,\n Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the Free.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cTheir feast was such as Earth, the general Mother,\n Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles\n In the embrace of Autumn--to each other\n As when some parent fondly reconciles\n Her warring children, _she_ their wrath beguiles\n With her own sustenance; _they_, relenting, weep--\n Such was this Festival, which, from their isles,\n And continents, and winds, and oceans deep,\n All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep:\n\n \u201cMight share in peace and innocence, for _gore_,\n _Or poison none this festal did pollute_.\n But, piled on high, an overflowing store\n Of pomegranates, and citrons--fairest fruit,\n Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root\n Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes, ere yet\n Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute\n Into a mortal bane; and brown corn set\n In baskets: with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.\u201d[240]\n\nWhile he was yet residing in Marlow, the Princess Charlotte, daughter\nof the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.,) died; and, since her\ncharacter had been in strong contrast with her father\u2019s and with\nroyal persons\u2019 in general, her early death seems to have caused, not\nonly ceremonial mourning, but also genuine regret amongst all in the\ncommunity having any knowledge of her exceptional amiability. The poet\nseized the opportunity of so public an event, and published _An Address\nto the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. By the Hermit of\nMarlow_, in which he inscribed the motto--\u201cWe pity the plumage, but\nforget the dying bird.\u201d In this pamphlet, while paying due tribute of\nregret for the death of an amiable girl, and fully appreciating the\nsorrow caused by death as well among the destitute and obscure (with\nwhom, indeed, the too usual absence of the care and sympathy of friends\nintensifies the sorrow) as among the rich and powerful, he invited, in\nstudiously moderate language, attention to the many just reasons for\nnational mourning in the interests of the poor no less than of princes;\nand, in particular, invited the nation to express its indignant grief\nfor the fate of the Lancashire mechanics who, missing the happier\nfate of their brethren slaughtered at Peterloo, were subjected to an\nignominious death by a government which had, by its neglect, encouraged\nthe growth of a just discontent.\n\nIn 1818 Shelley left England never to return. At this time was composed\nthe principal part of his masterpiece--_Prometheus Unbound_, the most\nfinished and carefully executed of all his poems. While in Rome (1819)\nhe published _The Cenci_, which had been suggested to him by the famous\npicture of Guido, until lately supposed to be that of Beatrice Cenci,\nand by the traditions, current even in the poet\u2019s time, of the cruel\nfate of his heroine. Shakspere\u2019s four great dramas excepted, _The\nCenci_ must take rank as the finest tragic drama since the days of\nthe Greek masters. It is worked up to a degree of pathos unsurpassed\nby anything of the kind in literature. \u201cThe Fifth Act,\u201d remarks Mrs.\nShelley, his editor and commentator, \u201cis a masterpiece. Every character\nhas a voice that echoes truth in its tones.\u201d _The Cenci_ was followed\nin quick succession by the _Witch of Atlas_, _Adonais_ (an elegy on\nthe death of Keats), the most exquisite \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d--not excepting\nMilton\u2019s or Tennyson\u2019s--ever written; and _Hellas_, which was inspired\nby his strong sympathy with the Greeks, who were then engaged in the\nwar of independence.\n\nOf his lesser productions, the _Ode to the Skylark_ is of an\ninspiration seldom equalled in its kind. With the \u201cblythe spirit,\u201d whom\nhe apostrophises, the poet rises in rapt ecstasy \u201chigher still and\nhigher.\u201d For the rest of his productions (the _Letters from Italy_ and\ncriticisms or rather eulogies on Greek art have an especial interest)\nand for the other events in his brief remaining existence we must\nrefer our readers to the complete edition of his works.[241] The last\nwork upon which he was engaged was his _Triumph of Life_, a poem in\nthe _terza rima_ of the _Divine Comedy_. It breaks off abruptly--it is\npeculiarly interesting to note--with the significant words, \u201cThen what\nis Life, I cried?\u201d\n\nThe manner of his death is well known. While engaged in his usual\nrecreation of boating he was drowned in the bay of Spezia. His body\nwas washed on to the shore and, according to regulations then in force\nby the Italian governments of the day, in guarding against possible\ninfection from the plague, it was burned where it lay, in presence of\nhis friends Byron and Trelawney, and the ashes were entombed in the\nProtestant cemetery in Rome--a not unfitting disposal of the remains of\none the most spiritualised of human beings.\n\nThe following just estimate of the character of his genius and\nwritings, by a thoughtful critic, is worth reproduction here:--\u201cNo man\nwas more essentially a poet--\u2018glancing from earth to heaven.\u2019 He was,\nindeed, \u2018of imagination all compact.\u2019 ... In all his poems he uniformly\ndenounces vice and immorality in every form; and his descriptions of\nlove, which are numerous, are always refined and delicate, with even\nless of sensuousness than in many of our most admired writers. It\nis true that he decried marriage, but not in favour of libertinism;\nand the evils he depicts, or laments, are those arising from the\nindissolubility of the bond, or from the opinions of society as to its\nnecessity--opinions to which he himself submitted by marrying the woman\nto whom he was attached.... His reputation as a poet has gradually\nwidened since his death, and has not yet reached its culminating point.\nHe was the poet of the future--of an ideal futurity--and hence it was\nthat his own age could not entirely sympathise with him. He has been\ncalled the \u2018poet of poets,\u2019 a proud title, and, in some respects,\ndeserved.\u201d[242]\n\nOf his creed, the article which he most firmly held, and which,\nperhaps, most distinguishes him from ordinary thinkers, was the\n_Perfectibility_ of his species, and his firm faith in the ultimate\ntriumph of Good. \u201cHe believed,\u201d says the one authority who had the\nbest means of knowing his thought and feeling, \u201cthat mankind had only\nto _will_ that there should be no evil, and there would be none. It is\nnot my part in these notes to criticise the arguments that have been\nurged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he entertained\nit, and was, indeed, attached to it with fervent enthusiasm. That man\ncould be so perfectionised as to be able to expel Evil from his own\nnature, and from the greater part of the world, was the cardinal point\nof his system. And the subject he liked best to dwell upon was the\nimage of One warring with an evil principle, oppressed not only by it\nbut by all, even the good, who were deluded into considering evil a\n_necessary_ portion of humanity--a victim full of gratitude and of hope\nand of the spirit of triumph emanating from a reliance in the ultimate\nomnipotence of Good.\u201d Such was the conviction which inspired his\ngreatest poem _The Prometheus Unbound_.\n\nA principal charm of his poetry is that which repels the common class\nof readers: \u201cHe loved to _idealise_ reality, and this is a task shared\nby few. We are willing to have our passing whims exalted into passions,\nfor this gratifies our vanity. But few of us understand or sympathise\nwith the endeavour to ally the love of abstract beauty and adoration\nof abstract Good with sympathies with our own kind.\u201d[243] Of so rare a\nspirit it is peculiarly interesting to know something of the outward\nform:--\n\n \u201cHis features [describes one of his biographers] were not\n symmetrical--the mouth, perhaps, excepted. Yet the effect of the\n whole was extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire,\n an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence, that I never\n met with in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression\n less beautiful than the intellectual: for there was a softness, a\n delicacy, a gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise\n many) that air of profound religious veneration that characterises\n the best works, and chiefly the frescoes, of the great Masters of\n Florence and of Rome.\n\n \u201cHis eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair was\n brown: but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled\n face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted\n on all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him.\n Mulready is reported to have said that he was too beautiful to\n paint. And yet, although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his\n charm to regularity of feature, or to grace of movement, than to an\n indescribable personal fascination.\u201d\n\nAs to his voice, impressions varied:--\n\n \u201cLike all finely-tempered natures, he vibrated in harmony with\n the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his utterance shrill\n and sharp. Deep feeling, or the sense of beauty, lowered its\n tone to richness; but the _timbre_ was always acute, in sympathy\n with his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley\u2019s\n nature. This peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and\n affecting different sensibilities in diverse ways, corresponds to\n the high-strung passion of his life, his finedrawn and ethereal\n fancies, and the clear vibrations of his palpitating verse. Such a\n voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and unearthly, befitted one who\n lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights of human thought.\u201d[244]\n\nIf the physical characteristics of a great Teacher or of a sublime\nGenius excite a natural curiosity, it is the principal _moral_\ncharacteristics which most reasonably and profoundly interest us. To\nthe supremely amiable disposition of the creator of _The Cenci_ and\n_Prometheus Unbound_ brief reference has been made; and we shall fitly\nsupplement this imperfect sketch of his humanitarian career with the\nvivid impressions left on the mind of the friend who best knew him.\nLove of truth and hatred of falsehood and injustice were not, in his\ncase, limited to the pages of a book, and forgotten in the too often\ndeadening influence of intercourse with the world--they permeated his\nwhole life and conversation.\n\n \u201cThe qualities that struck any one newly introduced to Shelley\n were, first, a gentle and cordial goodness that animated his\n discourse with warm affection and helpful sympathy; the other, the\n eagerness and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of\n human happiness and improvement, and the fervent eloquence with\n which he discussed such subjects. His conversation was marked\n by its happy abundance, and the beautiful language in which he\n clothed his poetic ideas and philosophical notions. To defecate\n life of its misery and its evil was the ruling passion of his\n soul; he dedicated to it every power of his mind, every pulsation\n of his heart. He looked on political freedom as the direct agent\n to effect the happiness of mankind; and thus any new-sprung hope\n of liberty inspired a joy and even exultation more intense and\n wild than he could have felt for any personal advantage. Those\n who have never experienced the workings of passion on general and\n unselfish subjects cannot understand this; and it must be difficult\n of comprehension to the younger generation rising around, since\n they cannot remember the scorn and hatred with which the partisans\n of reform were regarded some few years ago, nor the persecution to\n which they were exposed.\n\n \u201cMany advantages attended his birth; he spurned them all when\n balanced with what he considered his duties. He was generous to\n imprudence--devoted to heroism. These characteristics breathe\n throughout his poetry. The struggle for human weal; the resolution\n firm to martyrdom; the impetuous pursuit; the glad triumph in\n good; the determination not to despair.... Perfectly gentle\n and forbearing in manner, he suffered a great deal of internal\n irritability, or rather excitement, and his fortitude to bear was\n almost always on the stretch; and thus, during a short life, he had\n gone through more experience of sensation than many whose existence\n is protracted. \u2018If I die to-morrow,\u2019 he said, on the eve of\n unanticipated death, \u2018I have lived to be older than my father.\u2019 The\n weight of thought and feeling burdened him heavily. You read his\n sufferings in his attenuated frame, while you perceived the mastery\n he held over them in his animated countenance and brilliant eyes.\n\n \u201cHe died, and the world showed no outward sigh; but his influence\n over mankind, though slow in growth, is fast augmenting; and in\n the ameliorations that have taken place in the political state of\n his country we may trace, in part, the operation of his arduous\n struggles.... He died, and his place among those who knew him\n intimately has never been filled up. He walked beside them like a\n spirit of good to comfort and benefit--to enlighten the darkness of\n life with irradiations of genius, to cheer with his sympathy and\n love.\u201d[245]\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith the name of Shelley is usually connected that of his more popular\ncontemporary, Byron (1788-1824). The brother poets, it already has been\nnoted, met in Switzerland; and, afterwards, they had some intercourse\nin Italy during Shelley\u2019s last years. Excepting surpassing genius,\nand equal impatience of conventional laws and usages they had little\nin common. The one was first and above all a reformer, the other a\nsatirist. To assert, however, the author of _Childe Harold_ to have\nbeen inspired solely by cynical contempt for his species is unjust.\nA large part of his poems is pervaded apparently with an intense\nconviction of the evils of life as produced by human selfishness and\nfolly. But what distinguishes the author of _Prometheus Unbound_ from\nhis great rival (if he may be so called) is the sure and certain\nhope of a future of happiness for the world. Thus, that belief in\nthe all-importance of humane dietetics, as a principal factor in the\nproduction of weal or woe on earth, is far less apparent in Byron is\nmatter of course.\n\nYet, that in moments of better feeling, Byron revolted from the gross\nmaterialism of the banquets, of which, as he expresses it, England\n\n \u201cWas wont to boast--as if a Glutton\u2019s tray\n Were something very glorious to behold.\u201d[246]\n\nand that, had he not been seduced by the dinner-giving propensity\nof English society, he would have retained his early preference for\nthe refined diet, we are glad to believe. In a letter to his mother,\nwritten in his early youth, he announces that he had determined upon\nrelinquishment of flesh-eating, and his clearer mental perceptions in\nconsequence of his reformed living;[247] and he seems even to have\nadvanced to the extreme frugality of living, at times, upon biscuits\nand water only.\n\nIt would have been well for him had he, like Shelley, abstained from\ngross eating and drinking upon _principle_; and had he uniformly\nadhered to the resolution formed in his earlier years, we should, in\nthat case, not have to lament his too notorious sexual intemperance.\n\n\n\n\nXLII.\n\nPHILLIPS. 1767-1840.\n\n\nIt is an obvious truth--in vain demonstrated seventeen centuries\nsince by the best moral teachers of non-Christian antiquity--that\nabolition of the slaughter-house, with all the cruel barbarism\ndirectly or indirectly associated with it, by a necessary and logical\ncorollary, involves abolition of every form of injustice and cruelty.\nOf this truth the subject of the present article is a conspicuous\nwitness. During his long and active career, in social and political\nas well as in literary life, Sir Richard Phillips was a consistent\n_philanthropist_; and few, in his position of influence, have\nsurpassed him in real beneficence. In the face of rancorous obloquy\nand opposition from that too numerous proportion of communities which\nsystematically resist all \u201cinnovation\u201d and deviation from the \u201cancient\npaths,\u201d he fearlessly maintained the cause of the oppressed; and, as a\nprison reformer, he claims a place second only to that of Howard.\n\nOf his life we have fuller record than we have of some others of the\nprophets of dietetic reformation. Yet there is uncertainty as to his\nbirthplace. One account represents him to have been born in London,\nand to have been the son of a brewer. Another statement, which appears\nto be more authentic, reports his place of birth to have been in the\nneighbourhood of Leicester, and his father to have been a farmer. What\nis of more permanent interest is the account preserved of the reason\nof his first revolt from the practice of kreophagy. Disliking the\nbusiness of farming, it seems, while yet quite young, not without the\nacquiescence of his parents, he had adventurously sought his living, on\nhis own account, in the metropolis. What, if any, plans had been formed\nby him is not known; but it is certain that he soon found himself\nin imminent danger of starvation, and, after brief trial, he gladly\nre-sought his home. Upon his return to the farm, he found awaiting him\nthe welcome of the \u201cProdigal Son\u201d--although, happily, he had no just\nclaim to the title of that well-known character. A \u201cfatted calf\u201d was\nkilled, and the boy shared in the dish with the rest of the family.\nIt was not until after the feast that he learned that the slaughtered\ncalf had been his especial favourite and playmate. So revolting to\nhis keener sensibility was the consciousness of this fact, that he\nregistered a vow never again to live upon the products of slaughter.\nTo this determination he adhered during the remainder of his long\nlife.[248]\n\nHis next venture, and first choice of a profession, while he was still\nquite young, led him to engage in teaching. As an advertisement he\nplaced a flag at the door of a house in which he rented a room, where\nhe gave elementary instruction to such children as were entrusted to\nhis tuition by the townspeople of Leicester. The experiment proved not\nvery successful, and at the end of a twelvemonth he tried his fortune\nelsewhere. He next turned to commerce--at first in a humble fashion.\nHis business prospered, and his next important undertaking was the\nestablishment of a newspaper--the _Leicester Herald_. This journal\nwas what is now called a \u201cLiberal\u201d paper. Yet by those who affected\nto identify the welfare of England with the continued existence of\nrotten boroughs and other corruptions, it was held up to opprobrium as\nrevolutionary and \u201cincendiary.\u201d Phillips himself had the reputation\nof an able political writer; but the chief support of the journal was\nthe celebrated Dr. Priestley, whose name and contributions gave it a\nreputation it otherwise might not have gained. The responsible editor\ndid not escape the perils that then environed the denouncers of legal\nor social iniquity, and Phillips, convicted of a \u201cmisdemeanour,\u201d was\nsentenced to three years\u2019 imprisonment in the Leicester jail. During\nhis imprisonment he displayed the beneficence of his disposition in\nrelieving the miseries of some of his more wretched companions. Upon\nhis release, he sold his interest in the _Leicester Herald_, and for\nsome time confined himself altogether to his business.\n\nLeaving Leicester he migrated to London and set up a hosiery\nestablishment, which, however, he soon converted into the more\ncongenial bookshop. It was the success of the _Leicester Herald_\nthat, probably, led him to think of starting a new periodical. Upon\nconsultation with Priestley and other friends he was encouraged to\nproceed, and the _Monthly Magazine_ was the result. It commenced in\nJuly 1795 and proved to be a most decided success. At first conducted\nby Priestley, it was afterwards partly under the editorship of Dr.\nAikin, author of the _Country Around Manchester_. The proprietors\nshared in the management of the magazine, but to what extent it is\ndifficult to ascertain. Amongst the contributors was \u201cPeter Pindar,\u201d\nso well known as the author, amongst other satirical rhymes, of the\nverses upon George III., perplexed by the celebrated \u201capple dumpling.\u201d\nThe monthly receipts from the sale amounted to \u00a31,500. A quarrel\nwith Aikin was followed by the resignation of the editor. Increase\nof business soon led to a removal of the publishing-house from St.\nPaul\u2019s Churchyard to a much larger establishment in Blackfriars. His\nhome was at Hampstead where, in a beautiful neighbourhood and in an\nelegant villa, the opulent publisher enjoyed the refined pleasures\nwhich his humaneness of living, as well as beneficent industry, had\njustly deserved. At this time he began a correspondence with C. J.\nFox, on the subject of the History of James II., upon which the famous\nWhig statesman was then engaged. Four letters addressed to him by\nFox have been printed, but they have no special importance. He was\nalready married, and the story of his courtship has more than the mere\ngossiping interest of ordinary biography. Upon his first arrival in\nLondon, he had taken lodgings in the house of a milliner. One of her\nassistants was a Miss Griffiths, a beautiful young Welsh girl, who,\nlearning the unconquerable aversion of their guest from the common\nculinary barbarism, had amiably volunteered to prepare his dishes on\nstrictly anti-kreophagist principles. This incident induced a sympathy\nand friendship which speedily resulted in a proposal of marriage. They\nwere a handsome pair; and a somewhat precipitate matrimonial alliance\nwas followed by many years of unmixed happiness for both.\n\nIn 1807 the \u201cLivery\u201d of London elected him to the office of High\nSheriff of the City and County of Middlesex for the ensuing year. This\nresponsible post put to the proof the sincerity of his professions as\na reformer. Nor did he fail in the trial. During his term of power he\neffected many improvements in the treatment of the real or pretended\ncriminals who, as occupants of the jails, came under his jurisdiction.\nNo one who has read Howard\u2019s _State of the Prisons_, published thirty\nyears before Phillips\u2019 entrance upon his office, or even general\naccounts of them, needs to be told that they were the very nurseries\nof disease, vice, misery, and crime of all kinds--one of the many\neverlasting disgraces of the governments and civilisation of the day.\nNor had they been appreciably improved during the interval of thirty\nyears.\n\nThe new Sheriff daily visited Newgate and the Fleet prisons and, by\npersonal inquiry, made himself acquainted with the actual state of the\noccupants, and in many ways was able to ameliorate their condition. By\nhis direction several collecting boxes were conspicuously displayed,\nand the alms collected were applied to the relief of the families of\ndestitute debtors. He further insisted that persons, whose indictments\nhad been ignored by the grand jury, should not be detained in the\nfoul and pestilential atmosphere, as was then the case, but should be\nimmediately released.\n\nIn his admirable _Letter to the Livery of London_, he begins with an\nappeal to the common sentiments of humanity which ought to have some\ninfluence with those in authority. He reminds his readers that:--\n\n \u201cIt is too much the fashion to exclude _feeling_ from the\n business of public life, and a total absence of it is considered\n as a necessary qualification in a public man. Among statesmen\n and politicians he is considered as weak and incompetent who\n suffers natural affection to have any influence on his political\n calculations.\u201d\n\nIn a note to this passage he adds:--\n\n \u201cIt appears to me that political errors of all kinds arise, in\n a great degree, from the studied banishment of feeling from the\n consideration of statesmen. Reasoning frequently fails us from\n a false estimate of the premises on which our deductions are\n founded. But _feeling_, which, in most respects, is synonymous\n with conscience, is almost always right. Statesmen are apt to view\n society as a machine, the several parts of which must be made by\n them to perform their respective functions for the success of\n the whole. The comparison is often made, but the analogy is not\n perfect. The parts of the social machine are made up of sensitive\n beings, each of whom (though in the obscurest situation) is\n equal, in all the affections of our nature, to those in the most\n conspicuous places. The harmony and happiness of the whole will\n depend on the _degree_ of feeling exercised by the directors and\n prime movers.\u201d\n\nAfter this preliminary exhortation, he presents to their contemplation\nan appalling revelation of the stupid cruelties of the criminal law\nand its administration. He gives a graphic account of the jail of\nNewgate--both of the felons\u2019 and the debtors\u2019 division. The dimensions\nof the entire building were 105 yards by 40 yards, of which only\none-fourth part was used by the prisoners. Into this space were crowded\nsometimes seven or eight hundred, never less than four or five hundred,\nhuman beings of both sexes and of all ages. \u201cFelons\u201d and debtors seem\nto have fared pretty much the same, and filth, fever, and starvation\nprevailed in all parts of the jail alike. The women prisoners he\ndescribes as pressed together so closely as, upon lying down, to\nleave no atom of space between their bodies. As for the results of\nthis neglect on the part of the State, he finds it impossible to draw\nan adequate picture of them, and is at a loss to imagine how the whole\ncity is not carried off by a plague. By persevering energy he obtained\nsome reformation, although he failed in his proposal for a new building.\n\nAs to the individual occupants of these pest-houses, he found a large\nnumber whose offences were comparatively of an innocent kind, but who\nwere herded with the most savage criminals. He espoused the cause\nof several of these prisoners--especially of the women--who, after\nsome years of incarceration, were frequently drifted off to Botany\nBay, which, besides its other terrors, was for almost all of them a\nperpetual separation from their homes, their husbands, and families.\nTwice he vainly addressed a memorial to the Secretary of State (Lord\nHawkesbury) on their behalf. The traditions and routine of office were\ntoo powerful even for his persistent energy.\n\nRomilly had lately introduced his measure for amendment of the\nbarbarous and bloody penal code of this country. Sir Richard Phillips\naddressed to him also a thoughtful letter, in which were pointed out\nsome of the more glaring abuses in the administration of the laws, with\nwhich his official experience as High Sheriff had made him familiar.\nWhen Mansfield was Lord Chief Justice, and Thurlow Lord Chancellor,\nthe hangings were so numerous that, as he informs us, on one \u201changing\nholiday\u201d he saw nineteen persons on the gallows, the eldest of whom\nwas not twenty-two years of age. The larger number, probably, had\nbeen sentenced to this barbarous death for theft of various kinds.\nThree hundred years had passed away since the animadversions of\nMore (_before_ his accession to office) in the _Utopia_, and some\nhalf-century since Beccaria and Voltaire had protested against this\nmonstrous iniquity of criminal legislation, without effect, in England,\nat least. As far as their contemporaries and their successors for long\nafterwards were concerned these philanthropists had written wholly in\nvain.\n\nIn the letter to Romilly Phillips insists particularly upon the\nfollowing reforms: (1) No prisoner to be placed in irons before trial.\n(2) None to be denied free access of friends or legal advisers. (3)\nNone to be deprived of adequate means of subsistence--14 ounces of\nbread then being the _maximum_ of allowance of food. (4) Every prisoner\nto be discharged as soon as the grand jury shall have thrown out the\nbill of indictment. (5) Abolition of payment to jailors by exactions\nforced from the most destitute prisoners, and of various other\nexorbitant or illegal fines and extortions. (6) Separation of lunatic\nfrom other occupants of the jails. (7) That counsel be provided for\nthose too poor to pay for themselves.\n\nIn 1811 Phillips published his _Treatise on the Powers and Duties of\nJuries, and on the Criminal Laws of England_. Three years later _Golden\nRules for Jurymen_, which he afterwards expanded into a book entitled\n_Golden Rules of Social Philosophy_ (1826), in which he lays down rules\nof conduct for the ordinary business of life--lawyers, clergymen,\nschoolmasters, and others being the objects of his admonitions. It is\nin this work that the civic dignitary--so \u201csplendidly false\u201d to the\nhabits of his class--sets forth at length the principles upon which his\nunalterable faith in the truth of humanitarian dietetics was founded.\nThe reasons of this \u201ctrue confession\u201d are fully and perspicuously\nspecified, and the first forms the key-note of the rest:--[249]\n\n \u201c1. _Because_, being mortal himself, and holding his life on the\n same uncertain and precarious tenure as all other sensitive beings,\n he does not find himself justified by any supposed superiority or\n inequality of condition in destroying the enjoyment of existence of\n any other mortal, except in the necessary defence of his own life.\n\n \u201c2. _Because_ the desire of life is so paramount, and so\n affectingly cherished in all sensitive beings, that he cannot\n reconcile it to his feelings to destroy or become a voluntary party\n in the destruction of any innocent living being, however much in\n his power, or apparently insignificant.\n\n \u201c3. _Because_ he feels the same abhorrence from devouring flesh in\n general that he hears carnivorous men express against eating human\n flesh, or the flesh of Horses, Dogs, Cats, or other animals which,\n in some countries, it is not customary for carnivorous men to\n devour.\n\n \u201c4. _Because_ Nature seems to have made a superabundant provision\n for the nourishment of [frugivorous] animals in the saccharine\n matter of Roots and Fruits, in the farinaceous matter of Grain,\n Seed, and Pulse, and in the oleaginous matter of the Stalks,\n Leaves, and Pericarps of numerous vegetables.\n\n \u201c5. _Because_ he feels an utter and unconquerable repugnance\n against receiving into his stomach the flesh or juices of deceased\n animal organisation.\n\n \u201c6. _Because_ the destruction of the mechanical organisation of\n vegetables inflicts no sensible suffering, nor violates any moral\n feeling, while vegetables serve to sustain his health, strength,\n and spirits above those of most carnivorous men.\n\n \u201c7. _Because_ during thirty years of rigid abstinence from the\n flesh and juices of deceased sensitive beings, he finds that he has\n not suffered a day\u2019s serious illness, that his animal strength and\n vigour have been equal or superior to that of other men, and that\n his mind has been fully equal to numerous shocks which he has had\n to encounter from malice, envy, and various acts of turpitude in\n his fellow-men.\n\n \u201c8. _Because_ observing that carnivorous propensities among animals\n are accompanied by a total want of sympathetic feelings and gentle\n sentiments--as in the Hy\u00e6na, the Tiger, the Vulture, the Eagle, the\n Crocodile, and the Shark--he conceives that the practice of these\n carnivorous tyrants affords no worthy example for the imitation or\n justification of rational, reflecting, and _conscientious_ beings.\n\n \u201c9. _Because_ he observes that carnivorous men, unrestrained by\n reflection or sentiment, even refine on the most cruel practices\n of the most savage animals [of other species], and apply their\n resources of mind and art to prolong the miseries of the victims\n of their appetites--bleeding, skinning, roasting, and boiling\n animals alive, and torturing them without reservation or remorse,\n if they thereby add to the variety or the delicacy of their\n carnivorous gluttony.\n\n \u201c10. _Because_ the natural sentiments and sympathies of human\n beings, in regard to the killing of other animals, are generally\n so averse from the practice that few men or women could devour the\n animals whom _they might be obliged themselves to kill_; and yet\n they forget, or affect to forget, the living endearments or dying\n sufferings of the being, while they are wantoning over his remains.\n\n \u201c11. _Because_ the human stomach appears to be naturally so averse\n from receiving the remains of animals, that few could partake\n of them if they were not disguised and flavoured by culinary\n preparation; yet rational beings ought to feel that the prepared\n substances are not the less what they truly are, and _that no\n disguise of food, in itself loathsome_, ought to delude the\n unsophisticated perceptions of a considerate mind.\n\n \u201c12. _Because_ the forty-seven millions of acres in England and\n Wales _would maintain in abundance as many human inhabitants_,\n if they lived wholly on grain, fruits, and vegetables; but they\n sustain only twelve millions [in 1811] _scantily_, while animal\n food is made the basis of human subsistence.\n\n \u201c13. _Because_ animals do not present or contain the substance of\n food in mass, like vegetables; every part of their economy being\n subservient to their mere existence, and their entire frames being\n solely composed of blood necessary for life, of bones for strength,\n of muscles for motion, and of nerves for sensation.\n\n \u201c14. _Because_ the practice of killing and devouring animals can\n be justified by no moral plea, by no physical benefit, nor _by any\n just allegation of necessity in countries where there is abundance\n of vegetable food_, and where the arts of gardening and husbandry\n are favoured by social protection, and by the genial character of\n the soil and climate.\n\n \u201c15. _Because_ wherever the number and hostility of predatory land\n animals might so tend to prevent the cultivation of vegetable food\n as to render it necessary to destroy and, perhaps, to eat them,\n there could in that case exist no necessity for destroying the\n animated existences of the distinct elements of air and water; and,\n as in most civilised countries, there exist no land animals besides\n those which are properly bred for slaughter or luxury, of course\n the destruction of mammals and birds in such countries must be\n ascribed either to unthinking wantonness or to carnivorous gluttony.\n\n \u201c16. _Because_ the stomachs of locomotive beings appear to have\n been provided for the purpose of conveying about with the moving\n animal nutritive substances, analogous in effect to the soil in\n which are fixed the roots of plants and, therefore, nothing ought\n to be introduced into the stomach for digestion and for absorption\n by the _lacteals_, or roots of the animal system, but the natural\n bases of simple nutrition--as the saccharine, the oleaginous, and\n the farinaceous matter of the vegetable kingdom.\u201d[250]\n\nPerhaps his most entertaining book is his _Morning Walk from London\nto Kew_ (1817). In it he avails himself of the various objects on his\nroad for instructive moralising--as, for example, when he meets with\na mutilated soldier, on the frightful waste and cruelty of war; or\nwith a horse struggling up a precipitous hill in agony of suffering\nfrom the torture of the bearing-rein, on the common forms of selfish\ncruelty; or again, when he deplores the incalculable waste of food\nresources, by the careless indifferentism of owners of land and of the\nState in allowing the country to remain encumbered with useless, or\ncomparatively useless, timber, in place of planting it with valuable\nfruit trees of various sorts according to the nature of the soil.\n\nHis next publication of importance was his _Million of Facts and\nCorrect Data and Elementary Constants in the entire Circle of the\nSciences, and on all Subjects of Speculation and Practice_ (1832) 8vo.\nIt is this work by which, perhaps, Phillips is now most known--an\nimmense collection and, although many of the \u201cConstants\u201d may be open\nto criticism or have already become obsolete, it may still be examined\nwith interest. The plan of the work is that of a classified collection\nof scraps of information on all the arts and sciences. It was so\npopular that five large editions were published in seven years. His\npreface to the stereotyped edition is dated 1839. He remarks that\n\u201chis pretensions for such a task are a prolonged and uninterrupted\nintercourse with books and men of letters. He has, for forty-nine\nyears, been occupied as the literary conductor of various public\njournals of reputation; he has superintended the press in the printing\nof many hundred books in every branch of human pursuit, and he has been\nintimately associated with men celebrated for their attainments in each\nof them.\u201d In the facts concerning anatomy and physiology will be found\nreferences to scientific and other authorities upon the subject of\nflesh-eating.\n\nOccasionally we meet with biographical facts of special interest.\nThus, he says that, early in 1825, he suggested the first idea of the\nSociety for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to Dr. Birkbeck and then,\nby his advice, to Lord Brougham. His idea was the establishment of a\nfund for selling or giving away books and tracts, after the manner of\nthe Religious Tract Society. As regards his astronomic paradoxes, his\ntheory, in opposition to the Newtonian, that the phenomena attributed\nto gravitation are, in reality, the \u201cproximate effects of the orbicular\nand rotatory motions of the earth\u201d (for which he was severely\ncriticised by Professor De Morgan), exhibits at least the various\nactivity, if not the invariable infallibility, of his mental powers.\n\nA work of equal interest with a _Million of Facts_ is his next\ncompilation--_A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation_\n(1833). Under the article _Diet_ he well remarks:--\n\n \u201cSome regard it as a purely _egotistical_ question whether men live\n on flesh or on vegetables. But others mix with it moral feelings\n towards animals. If theory prescribed _human_ flesh, the former\n party would lie in wait to devour their brethren; but the latter,\n regarding the value of life to all that breathe, consider that,\n even in a balance of argument, feelings of sympathy ought to turn\n the scale.... We see all the best animal and social qualities in\n mere vegetable-feeders.... Beasts of prey are necessarily solitary\n and fearful, even of one another. Physiologists, themselves\n carnivorous, differ on the subject, but they never take into\n account _moral_ considerations.\n\n \u201cThough it is known that the Hindus and other Eastern peoples live\n wholly on rice--that the Irish and Scotch peasantry subsist on\n potatoes and oatmeal--and that the labouring poor of all countries\n live on the food, of which an acre yields one hundred times more\n than of flesh, while they enjoy unabated health and long life--yet\n an endless play of sophistry is maintained about the alleged\n necessity of killing and devouring animals.\n\n \u201cAt twelve years of age the author of this volume was struck with\n such horror in accidentally seeing the barbarities of a London\n slaughter-house, that since that hour he has never eaten anything\n but vegetables. He persevered, in spite of vulgar forebodings,\n with unabated vigorous health; and at sixty-six finds himself more\n able to undergo any fatigue of mind and body than any other person\n of his age. He quotes himself because the case, in so carnivorous\n a country, is uncommon--especially in the grades of society in\n which he has been accustomed to live.... On principle he does not\n abstain from any _vegetable_ luxuries or from fermented liquors;\n but any indulgence in the latter requires (he hastens to add) the\n correction of carbonate of soda. He is always in better health when\n water is his sole beverage; and such is the case with all who have\n imitated his practice.\u201d[251]\n\nUnder the article \u201cFarming,\u201d he observes that \u201ca man who eats 1lb.\nof flesh eats the exact equivalent of 6lbs. of wheat, and 128lbs. of\npotatoes.\u201d That is, that he, in such proportion, wastes the national\nresources of a country.\n\nThe High Sheriff, on the occasion of some petition to the King, had\nbeen knighted, (to the affected scandal of his political enemies, who,\napparently, wished to reserve all titular or other recognition for\ntheir own party), and the conspicuous beneficence of his career, while\nin office, had gained for him an honourable popularity. But fortune,\nso long favourable, now for a time showed itself adverse. In 1809\nhis affairs became embarrassed, and recourse to the bankruptcy court\ninevitable. Happily his friends aided him in saving from the general\nwreck the copyright of the _Monthly Magazine_. Its management was a\nchief occupation of his remaining years; and his own contributions,\nunder the signature of \u201cCommon Sense,\u201d attracted marked attention.\nIn his publishing career, the most curious incident was the refusal\nof the MSS. of _Waverley_. The author\u2019s demands seem to have been in\nexcess of the value placed upon the novel by the publisher. It had been\nadvertised in the first instance (he tells us) as the production of Mr.\nW. Scott. The name was then withdrawn, and the famous novel came before\nthe world anonymously.\n\nBesides the writings already noticed, Phillips compiled or edited a\nlarge number of school books. He tells us that all the elementary\nbooks, published under the names of Goldsmith, Blair and others, were\nhis own productions--between the years 1798 and 1815. Nor was his\nmental activity confined to literary work; mechanical and scientific\ninventions largely occupied his attention. To prevent the enormous\nexpenses of railway viaducts, embankments, and removals of streets, he\nproposed suspension roads, ten feet above the housetops, with inclined\nplanes of 20\u00b0 or 30\u00b0, and stationary engines to assist the rise and\nfall at each end. Cities, he maintained, might be traversed in this way\non right lines, with intermediate points for ascent and descent. This\nbold and ingenious idea seems to be very like an anticipation of the\nelevated railways of New York, although even these have not yet reached\nthe height Phillips thought to be desirable.\n\nHe interested himself, also, in steam navigation. When Fulton was in\nEngland he was in frequent communication with his English friend, to\nwhom he despatched a triumphant letter on the evening of his first\nvoyage on the Hudson. This letter, having been shown to Earl Stanhope\nand some eminent engineers, was treated by them with derision as\ndescribing an impossibility. Sir R. Phillips then advertised for a\ncompany, to repeat on the Thames what had become an accomplished fact\non the American rivers. After expenditure of a large sum of money in\nadvertising he obtained only two ten-pound conditional subscribers.\nHe then printed, with commendation, Fulton\u2019s letters in the _Monthly\nMagazine_, and his credulity was almost universally reprobated. It is\nworth recording that, in the first steam voyage from the Clyde to the\nThames, Phillips, three of his family, and five or six others, were the\nonly passengers who had the courage to test the experiment. To allay\nthe public alarms he published a letter in the newspapers, and before\nthe end of that summer he saw the same packet set out on its voyage\nwith 350 passengers.[252]\n\nIn 1840, the year following the final edition of his most popular book,\nhe died at Brighton in the seventy-third year of his age. During his\nbusy life if, by his reforming energy, he had raised up some bitter\nenemies and detractors, he had made, on the other hand, some valuable\nfriendships. Amongst these--not the least noteworthy--is his intimate\nfriendship with that most humane-minded lawyer, Lord Erskine, one of\nthose who have best adorned the legal profession in this country.\n\n\n\n\nXLIII.\n\nLAMARTINE. 1790-1869.\n\n\nOf aristocratic descent, and educated at the college of the \u201cFathers\nof the Faith\u201d (P\u00e8res de la Foi), Du Prat--such was the name of his\nfamily--imbibed in his youth principles very different from those of\nhis great literary contemporary Michelet. Happily, Nature seems to have\nendowed his mother with a rare refinement and humaneness of feeling;\nand from her example and instruction he derived, apparently, the germs\nof those loftier ideas which, in maturer age, characterise a great part\nof his writings. While the first Napol\u00e9on was still emperor, he entered\nthe army, from which he soon retired to employ his leisure in the more\ncongenial amusement of travel.\n\nIn 1820 he first came before the world as the author of _M\u00e9ditations\nPo\u00e9tiques_, of which, within four years, 45,000 copies were sold, and\nthe new poet was eagerly welcomed by the party of Reaction, who thought\nto find in him a future successor to the brilliant author of the _G\u00e9nie\ndu Christianisme_, the literary hope of their party, and the champion\nof the Church and royalty--the political counterbalance to B\u00e9ranger,\nthe poet of the Revolution--for Hugo had not yet raised the standard of\nrevolt. Yet this remarkable volume with the greatest difficulty found\nits way into print. \u201cA young man, [writes one of his biographers] his\nhealth scarcely re-established from a cruel malady, his face pale with\nsuffering and covered with a veil of sadness, through which could be\nread the recent loss of an adored being, went about from publisher\nto publisher, carrying a small packet of verses dyed with tears.\nEverywhere the poetry and the poet were politely bowed out. At length,\na bookseller, better advised, or seduced by the infinite grace of the\nyoung poet, decided to accept the manuscript so often rejected.\u201d It was\npublished without a name and without recommendation. The melancholy\nbeauty of the style, and the melody of the rhythm, could not fail to\nattract sympathy from readers of taste and feeling, even from those\nopposed to his political prejudices--\u201cA rhythm of a celestial melody,\nverse supple, cadenced, and sonorous, which softly vibrates as an\n\u00c6olian harp sighing in the evening breeze.\u201d\n\nIts political, rather than its poetical, recommendations, we\nmay presume, gained for the writer from the Government of Louis\nXVIII. a diplomatic post at Florence, which he held until the\ndynastic revolution of 1830. For some short time he acted as secretary\nto the French Embassy in London, and during his stay in England he\nmade the acquaintance of a rich Englishwoman, whom he afterwards\nmarried at Florence. A legacy of valuable property from an uncle, upon\nthe condition of his assuming the name of Lamartine, still further\nenriched him.\n\nIn 1829 appeared the collection of _Harmonies Po\u00e9tiques et\nR\u00e9ligieuses_, in which, as in all his poetry up to this time, one of\nthe most characteristic features is his devotion to Legitimacy and the\nChurch. The _renversement_ of 1830 considerably modified his political\nand ecclesiastical ideas. \u201cI wish,\u201d he declared at this turning-point\nin his career, \u201cto enter the ranks of the people; to think, speak,\nact, and struggle with them.\u201d One of the first proofs of his advanced\nopinions was his pamphlet advocating abolition of \u201ccapital\u201d punishment.\nHe failed to obtain a seat in the Chambre des D\u00e9put\u00e9s of Louis\nPhilippe, whether in consequence of this advocacy or by reason of his\nantecedent politics. His enforced leisure he employed in travelling,\nand in 1832, with his English wife and their young daughter Juliette\n(whose death at Beyrout caused him inconsolable grief), he set sail for\nthe East in a vessel equipped and armed at his own expense. A narrative\nof these travels he published in his _Voyage en Orient_ (1835). In the\nfollowing year appeared his _Jocelyn_, a poem of charming tenderness\nand eloquence, and, in 1838, _La Chute d\u2019un Ange_ (\u201cThe Fall of an\nAngel\u201d), in which he, for the first time, gives expression to his\nfeeling of revolt from the barbarisms of the Slaughter-House. In this\nstrikingly original poem, one of the most remarkable of its kind in\nany language, Lamartine discovers to us that he no longer views human\ninstitutions, the customs of society, and the consecrated usages of\nnations through the rose-coloured medium of traditional prejudice. It\nis penetrated with a deep consciousness of the injustice and falseness\nof a large proportion of those things which are tolerated, and even\napproved, under the sanction of religious or social law, and with\nardent indignation against cruelty and selfishness. In the frightful\nrepresentation of the practices of the early tyrants of the world saved\nfrom the \u201cuniversal deluge,\u201d he allows us to see his own feeling. One\nof more humane race thus addresses his charming heroine Da\u00efdha:--\n\n \u201cCes hommes, pour apaiser leur faim,\n N\u2019ont pas assez des fruits que Dieu mit sous leur main.\n Par un crime envers Dieu dont fr\u00e9mit la Nature,\n Ils demandent au sang une autre nourriture.\n Dans leur cit\u00e9 fangeuse il coule par ruisseaux!\n Les cadavres y sont \u00e9tal\u00e9s en monceaux.\n _Ils tra\u00eenent par les pieds des fleurs de la prairie,\n L\u2019innocente brebis que leur main a nourrie,\n Et sous l\u2019\u0153il de l\u2019agneau l\u2019\u00e9gorgeant sans remords,\n Ils savourent ses chairs et vivent de la mort!_\n\n * * * * *\n\n De cruels aliments incessamment repus,\n Toute piti\u00e9 s\u2019efface en leurs c\u0153urs corrompus.\n Et leur \u0153il, qu\u2019au forfait le forfait habitue,\n Aime le sang qui coule et l\u2019innocent qu\u2019on tue.\n _Ils aiguisent le fer en fl\u00e8ches, en poignard;\n Du m\u00e9tier de tuer ils ont fait le grand art:\n Le meurtre par milliers s\u2019appelle une victoire,\n C\u2019est en lettres de sang que l\u2019on \u00e9crit la Gloire._\u201d\n\nFrom the pages of the \u201cPrimitive Book,\u201d which he imagines to have been\noriginally delivered to men, their hermit-host reads to Da\u00efdha and her\ncelestial, but incarnate, lover the true divine revelation, which is\nthus sublimely prefaced:--\n\n \u201cHommes! ne dites pas, en adorant ces pages,\n Un Dieu les \u00e9crivit par la main de ses sages.\n\n * * * * *\n\n La langue qu\u2019il \u00e9crit chante \u00e9ternellement--\n Ses lettres sont ces feux, mondes du firmament\n Et, par del\u00e0 ces cieux, des lettres plus profondes--\n Mondes \u00e9tincelants voil\u00e9s par d\u2019autres mondes.\n Le seul livre divin dans lequel il \u00e9crit\n Son nom toujours croissant, homme, c\u2019est Ton Esprit!\n C\u2019est ta Raison, miroir de la Raison supr\u00eame,\n O\u00f9 se peint dans ta nuit quelque ombre de lui-m\u00eame.\n Il vous parle, \u00f4 Mortel, mais c\u2019est par ce seul sens.\n Toute bouche de chair alt\u00e8re ses accents.\u201d\n\nIn pronouncing the following code of morality, the voice of conscience\nand of reason coincides with the divine voice in our hearts:--\n\n \u201cTu ne leveras point la main contre ton fr\u00e8re:\n Et tu ne verseras aucun sang sur la terre,\n Ni celui des humains, ni celui des troupeaux\n Ni celui des animaux, ni celui des oiseaux:\n _Un cri sourd dans ton c\u0153ur d\u00e9fend de le r\u00e9pandre_,\n Car le sang est la vie, et tu ne peux la rendre.\n Tu ne te nourriras qu\u2019avec les \u00e9pis blonds\n Ondoyant comme l\u2019onde aux flancs de tes vallons,\n Avec le riz croissant en roseaux sur tes rives--\n Table que chaque \u00e9t\u00e9 renouvelle aux convives,\n Les racines, les fruits sur la branche m\u00fbris,\n L\u2019exc\u00e9dant des rayons par l\u2019abeille p\u00e9tris,\n Et tous ces dons du sol o\u00f9 la s\u00e9ve de vie\n Vient s\u2019offrir de soi-m\u00eame \u00e0 ta faim assouvie.\n _La chair des Animaux crierait comme un remord,\n Et la Mort dans ton sein engendrerait la Mort!_\u201d\n\nNot only is the human animal sternly forbidden to imbrue his hands in\nthe blood of his innocent earth-mates: it is also enjoined upon him to\nrespect and cultivate their undeveloped intelligence and reason:--\n\n \u201cVous ferez alliance avec les \u2018brutes\u2019 m\u00eame:\n Car Dieu, qui les cr\u00e9a, veut que l\u2019homme les aime.\n D\u2019intelligence et d\u2019\u00e2me, \u00e0 diff\u00e9rents degr\u00e9s,\n Elles ont eu leur part, vous la reconna\u00eetrez:\n Vous livez dans leurs yeux, douteuse comme un r\u00eave,\n L\u2019aube de la raison qui commence et se l\u00e8ve.\n Vous n\u2019\u00e9toufferez pas cette vague clart\u00e9,\n Pr\u00e9sage de lumi\u00e8re et d\u2019immortalit\u00e9:\n Vous la respecterez.\n La cha\u00eene \u00e0 mille anneaux va de l\u2019homme \u00e0 l\u2019insecte:\n Que ce soit le premier, le dernier, le milieu,\n N\u2019en insultez aucun, car tous tiennent \u00e0 Dieu!\u201d\n\nFrom such more rational estimate should follow, necessarily, just\ntreatment:--\n\n \u201cNe les outragez pas par des noms de col\u00e8re:\n Que la verge et le fouet ne soient pas leur salaire.\n Pour assouvir par eux vos brutaux app\u00e9tits,\n Ne leur d\u00e9robez pas le lait de leurs petits:\n Ne les encha\u00eenez pas serviles et farouches:\n Avec des mors de fer ne brisez pas leurs bouches\n Ne les \u00e9crasez pas sous de trop lourds fardeaux:\n Comprenez leur nature, adoucissez leur sort:\n _Le pacte entre eux et vous, hommes, n\u2019est pas la Mort_.\n \u00c0 sa meilleure fin fa\u00e7onnez chaque engeance,\n Pr\u00eatez-leur un rayon de votre intelligence:\n Adoucissez leurs m\u0153urs en leur \u00e9tant plus doux,\n Soyez m\u00e9diateurs et juges entre eux tous.\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Le plus beau don de l\u2019homme, c\u2019est la Mis\u00e9ricorde._\u201d\n\nConsistently with, and consequently from, such just human relations\nwith the lower species are the admonitions to break down the walls\nof partition between the various human races, and to the proper\ncultivation of the Earth, the common mother of all:--\n\n \u201cVous n\u2019\u00e9tablirez pas ces s\u00e9parations\n En races, en tribus, peuples ou nations.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Vous n\u2019arracherez pas la branche avec le fruit:\n _Gloire \u00e0 la main qui s\u00e8me, honte \u00e0 la main qui nuit_!\n Vous ne laisserez pas le terre aride et nue,\n Car vos p\u00e8res par Dieu la trouv\u00e8rent v\u00eatue.\n Que ceux qui passeront sur votre trace un jour\n Passent en b\u00e9nissant leurs p\u00e8res \u00e0 leur tour.\n Vous l\u2019aimerez d\u2019amour comme on aime sa m\u00e8re,\n Vous y poss\u00e9derez votre place \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8re,\n Comme an soleil assis les hommes, tour \u00e0 tour,\n Possed\u00e8nt le rayon tant que dure le jour.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Par un inconcevable et maternel myst\u00e8re,\n L\u2019homme en la fatiguant fertilise la Terre.\n Nulle bouche ne sent sa tendresse tarir:\n Tout ce qu\u2019elle a port\u00e9, son flanc peut le nourrir.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Vous vous assisterez dans toutes vos mis\u00e8res,\n Vous serez l\u2019un \u00e0 l\u2019autre enfants, p\u00e8res, et m\u00e8res:\n _Le fardeau de chacun sera celui de tous,\n La Charit\u00e9 sera la justice entre vous_.\n Votre ombre ombragera le passant, votre pain\n Restera sur le seuil pour quiconque aura faim:\n Vous laisserez toujours quelques fruits sur la branche\n Pour que le voyageur vers ses l\u00e8vres la penche.\n Et vous n\u2019amasserez jamais que pour un temps,\n _Car la Terre pour vous germe chaque printemps_,\n Et Dieu, qui verse l\u2019onde et fait fleurir ses rives,\n Sait au festin des champs le nombre des convives.[253]\n\nIt is hardly necessary to record that _The Fall of an Angel_ was far\nfrom receiving, from the world of fashion, the applause of his earlier\nand more conventional productions.\n\nLamartine was still in the East (we refer to an earlier period),\nwhen news of his election to the Chambre des Deput\u00e9s by a Legitimist\nconstituency brought him back to Paris. Among the prominent political\nleaders of the day he figured \u201cas a progressive Conservative, strongly\nblending reverence for the antique with a kind of philosophical\ndemocracy. He spoke frequently on social and philanthropic questions.\u201d\nIn 1838 he became deputy for Macon, his native town. During the\nOrleanist r\u00e9gime he refused to hold office, professing aversion for the\n\u201cvulgar utility\u201d of the government of Guizot and the Bourgeois King,\nand in 1845 he openly joined the Liberal opposition. His _Histoire\ndes Girondins_ (1847) probably contributed to the expulsion of the\nOrleanist dynasty in the next year.\n\nIn the scenes of the Revolution of February, 1848, he occupied a\nprominent position as mediator between the two opposite parties;\nand the retention of the tricolour, in place of the Red flag, is\nattributed to his intervention. Elected a member of the Provisional\nGovernment, Lamartine served as Foreign Minister of the Republic. In\nthis capacity he published his well-known _Manifesto \u00e0 l\u2019Europe_.\nBut, in spite of the fact that ten departments had elected him as\nrepresentative in the Assembl\u00e9e Constituante, and that he was also made\none of the five members of the Executive Commission, his popularity\nwas short-lived. With all his, apparently, sincere sympathy with the\ncause of the Oppressed, traditionary associations and strong family\nattachments (sufficiently manifest in his _M\u00e9moirs_) impeded him in\nhis political course; and his compromising attitude provoked the\ndistrust of more advanced political reformers. In competition with\nLouis Napol\u00e9on and Cavaignac, he was nominated for the presidency; but\nhe received the support of few votes. From this period he withdrew\ninto private life and devoted himself entirely to literature. His\n_Histoire de la R\u00e9volution_ (1849), _Histoire de la Restauration_,\n_Histoire de la Russie_, _Histoire de la Turquie_, _Raphael_ (a\nnarrative of his childhood and youth) _Confidences_ (1849-1851), a\nfurther autobiography--one of the most interesting of all his prose\nproductions--and various other writings, most of them appearing,\nin the first instance, in the periodicals of the day, attested the\nactivity and versatility of his genius. He also for some time conducted\na journal--_Conseiller du Peuple_. In 1860 he collected his entire\nwritings into forty-one volumes. Of them his _Histoire des Girondins_\nis, probably, the most widely known. But, next to _The Fall of an\nAngel_, it is his own Memoirs which will always have most interest\nand instruction for those who know how to appreciate true refinement\nof soul, and, making due deductions from political or traditionary\nprejudice, can discern essential worth of mind. In _Les Confidences_\nhe allows us to see the natural sensibility and superiority of his\ndisposition in his deep repugnance to the orthodox table--none the less\nreal because he seems, unhappily, to have deemed himself forced to\ncomply with the universal or, rather, fashionable barbarism. Writing of\nhis early education, he tells us:--\n\n \u201cPhysically it was derived (_d\u00e9coulait_) in a large measure from\n Pythagoras and from the _Emile_. Thus it was based upon the\n greatest simplicity of dress and the most rigorous frugality with\n regard to food. My mother was convinced, as I myself am, that\n killing animals for the sake of nourishment from their flesh and\n blood, is one of the infirmities of our human condition; that it is\n one of those curses imposed upon man either by his fall, or by the\n obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, as I do still, that\n the habit of hardening the heart towards the most gentle animals,\n our companions, our helpmates, our brothers in toil, and even in\n affection, on this earth; that the slaughtering, the appetite\n for blood, the sight of quivering flesh are the very things to\n _have the effect_ (_sont faits pour_) to brutalise and harden\n the instincts of the heart. She believed, as I do still, that\n such nourishment, although, apparently, much more succulent and\n active (_\u00e9nergique_) contains within itself irritating and putrid\n principles which embitter the food and shorten the days of man.\n\n \u201cTo support these ideas she would instance the numberless refined\n and pious people of India who abstain from everything that has had\n life, and the hardy, robust pastoral race, and even the labouring\n population of our fields, who work the hardest, live the longest\n and most simply, and who do not eat meat ten times in their\n lives. She never allowed me to eat it until I was thrown into the\n rough-and-tumble (_p\u00eale-m\u00eale_) life of the public schools. To\n wean me from the liking for it she used no arguments, but availed\n herself of that instinct in us which reasons better than logic.\n I had a lamb, which a peasant of Milly had given me, and which I\n had trained to follow me everywhere, like the most attached and\n faithful dog. We loved each other with that first love (_premi\u00e8re\n passion_) which children and young animals naturally have for\n each other. One day the cook said to my mother in my presence\n \u201cMadame, the lamb is fat, and the butcher has come for it; must\n I give it him?\u201d I screamed and threw myself on the lamb, asking\n what the butcher would do with it, and what was a \u2018butcher.\u2019 The\n cook replied that he was a man who gained his living by killing\n lambs, sheep, calves and cows. I could not believe it. I besought\n my mother and readily obtained mercy for my favourite. A few days\n afterwards my mother took me with her to the town and led me, as\n by chance, through the shambles. There I saw men with bared and\n blood-stained arms felling a bullock. Others were killing calves\n and sheep, and cutting off their still palpitating limbs. Streams\n Of blood smoked here and there upon the pavement. I was seized with\n a profound pity, mingled with horror, and asked to be taken away.\n The idea of these horrible and repulsive scenes, the necessary\n preliminaries of the dishes I saw served at table, made me hold\n animal food in disgust, and butchers in horror.\n\n \u201cAlthough the necessity of conforming to the customs of society\n has since made me eat what others eat, I shall preserve a rational\n (_raisonn\u00e9e_) dislike to flesh dishes, and I have always found it\n difficult not to consider the trade of a butcher almost on a par\n with that of the executioner. I lived, then, till I was twelve on\n bread, milk-products, vegetables and fruit. My health was not the\n less robust, nor my growth the less rapid; and perhaps it is to\n that _regimen_ that I owed the beauty of feature, the exquisite\n sensibility, the serene sweetness of character and temper that I\n preserved till that date.\u201d[254]\n\nSome years before the publication of his _Fall of an Angel_, Lamartine,\nfrom the height of the National Tribune, had given significant\nexpression to the feeling of all the more thoughtful minds, vague\nthough it was, of the urgent need of some new and better principle to\ninspire and govern human actions than any hitherto tried:--\n\n \u201cI see [he exclaimed] men who, alarmed by the repeated shocks\n of our political commotions, await from providence a social\n revolution, and look around them for some man, a philosopher, to\n arise--_a doctrine_ which shall come to take violent possession\n of the government of minds (_une doctrine qui vienne s\u2019emparer\n violemment du gouvernement des esprits_), and reinvigorate the\n staggered (_\u00e9branl\u00e9_) world. They hope, they invoke, they look for\n this power, which shall impose itself by inherent right (_de son\n plein droit_) as the Arbitrator and Supreme Ruler of the Future.\u201d\n\nBut a few years earlier, in the same place, a still more positive\nprotest--not the less noteworthy because futile--was heard upon\nthe occasion of a discussion as to the introduction into France of\nforeign \u201cCattle,\u201d when one of the Deputies, Alexandre de Laborde,\nmaintained that flesh-meat is but an _object of luxury_; and was\nsupported, at least, by one or two other thoughtful deputies who had\nthe courage of their better convictions. It deserves to be noted that\nwhile the Left seemed not unfavourable to the humaner feeling, the\nCentre apathetic, and the Right derisively antagonistic, the minister\nof the King (Charles X.) threw all the weight of his position into\nthe materialistic side of the scales. Thus this feeble and last\npublic attempt in France to stop the torrent of Materialism proved\nabortive.[255]\n\n\n\n\nXLIV.\n\nMICHELET. 1797-1874.\n\n\nThe early life of this most original and eloquent of French historians\npassed amidst much hardship and difficulty. His father, who was a\nprinter, had been employed by the government of the Revolution period\n(1790-1794), and at the political reaction, a few years later, he found\nhimself reduced to poverty. From the experiences of his earlier life\nJules Michelet doubtless derived his contempt for the common rich and\nluxuriant manner of living. Until his sixteenth year, flesh-meat formed\nno part of his food; and his diet was of the scantiest as well as\nsimplest kind.\n\nNaturally sensitive and contemplative, and averse from the rough\nmanners and petty tyranny of his schoolfellows, the young student found\ncompanionship in a few choice books, of which A\u2019Kempis\u2019 _Imitation\nof Christ_ seems to have been at that time one of the most read. At\nthe Sorbonne Michelet carried away some of the most valued prizes,\nwhich were conferred with all the _\u00e9clat_ of the public awards of the\n_Acad\u00e9mie_. At the age of 24, having graduated as doctor in philosophy,\nhe obtained the chair of History in the Rollin College. His manner,\noriginal and full of enthusiasm, though wanting often in method and\naccuracy, possessed an irresistible fascination for his readers; and\nall, who had the privilege of listening to him, were charmed by his\nearnest eloquence.\n\nHis first principal work was his _Synopsis of Modern History_ (1827).\nHis version of the celebrated _Scienza Nuova_ of Vico, of whom he\nregarded himself as the especial disciple, appeared soon after. Upon\nthe revolution of July, Michelet received the important post of Keeper\nof the Archives, by which appointment he was enabled to prosecute his\nresearches in preparation for his _magnum opus_ in history, _L\u2019Histoire\nde la France_, the successive volumes of which appeared at long\nintervals. It contains some of the finest passages in French prose, the\nepisode of _La Pucelle d\u2019Orleans_ being, perhaps, the finest of all.\nHaving previously held a professorship in the Sorbonne (of which he was\ndeprived by Guizot, then minister), he was afterwards invited to fill\nthe chair of History in the Coll\u00e8ge de France.\n\nIn 1847 his advanced political views deprived him once more of his\nprofessorial post and income, in which the Revolution of the next year,\nhowever, reinstated him. The _coup d\u2019\u00e9tat_ of 1851 finally banished\nhim from public life--at least as far as teaching was concerned--for\nbeing too conscientious to subscribe the oath of allegiance to the\nnew Empire. Michelet, like an eminent writer of the present day,\nupon principle, elected to be his own publisher; a fact which, in\nconjunction with the unpopularity of his opinions, considerably\nlessened the sale and circulation of his books; and, by this\nindependency of action, the historian was a pecuniary loser to a great\nextent.\n\nDeprived of the means of subsistence by his conscientiousness, he\nleft Paris almost penniless, and sought an asylum successively in\nthe Pyrenees and on the Normandy coast. In 1856 appeared the book\nwith which the name of Michelet will hereafter be most worthily\nassociated--the one which may be said to have been written with his\nheart\u2019s blood. That the taste of the reading world was not entirely\ncorrupt, was proved by the rapid sale of this the most popular of\nall his productions. A new edition of _L\u2019Oiseau_ came from the press\neach year for a long period of time, and it has been translated into\nvarious European languages. How far the attractiveness of the book,\nthrough the illustrative genius of Giacomelli, influenced the buying\npublic; how far the surpassing merits of the style and matter of the\nwork--we will not stay to determine; but it is certain that _The Bird_\nat once established his popularity as a writer, and relieved his\npecuniary needs. _L\u2019Oiseau_ was followed by several other eloquent\ninterpretations of Nature. But the first--there can be no question with\npersons of taste--remains the masterpiece. It is, indeed, unique in its\nkind in literature--by the intense sympathy and love for the subject\nwhich inspired the writer. It is the only book which treats the Bird\nas something more than an object of interest to the mere classifier,\nto the natural-history collector, or to the \u201csportsman.\u201d It considers\nthe winged tribes--those of the non-raptorial kinds--as possessed of\na high intelligence, of a certain moral faculty, of devoted maternal\naffection--of a soul, in fine.\n\nOf his remaining writings, _La Bible de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9_ (1863) is one of\nthe most notable, characteristic as it is of the author\u2019s method of\ntreatment of historical and ethnographical subjects.\n\nThe calamities of his native land he so greatly loved, through the\ncorrupt government which had brought upon it the devastations of a\nterrible war, ending, by a natural sequence, in the fearful struggle\nof the suffering proletariat, deeply affected the aged champion of\nthe rights of humanity. Almost broken-hearted, he withdrew from his\naccustomed haunts and went to Switzerland, and afterwards to Italy. He\ndied at Hy\u00e8res, in 1874, in the 77th year of his age. A public funeral,\nattended by great numbers of the working classes, awaited him in the\ncapital.\n\nIn the following passage Michelet _virtually_ subscribes to the creed\nof Vegetarianism. The saving clause, in which he seems to suppose the\ndiet of blood to be imposed upon our species by the \u201ccruel fatalities\u201d\nof life, it is pretty certain he would have been the first to wish to\ncancel, had he enjoyed the opportunity of investigating the scientific\nbasis of dietetic reform:--\n\n \u201cThere is no selfish and exclusive salvation. Man merits his\n salvation only _through the salvation of all_. The animals below us\n have also their rights before God. \u2018Animal life, sombre mystery!\n Immense world of thoughts and of dumb sufferings! But signs too\n visible, in default of language, express those sufferings. All\n Nature protests against the barbarity of man, who misapprehends,\n who humiliates, who tortures his inferior brethren.\u2019 This sentence,\n which I wrote in 1846, has recurred to me very often. This year\n (1863), in October, near a solitary sea, in the last hours of the\n night, when the wind, the wave were hushed in silence, I heard the\n voices of our humble domestics. From the basement of the house,\n and from the obscure depths, these voices of captivity, feeble\n and plaintive, reached me and penetrated me with melancholy--an\n impression of no vague sensibility, but a serious and positive one.\n\n \u201cThe further we advance in knowledge, the more we apprehend the\n true meaning of realities, the more do we understand simple but\n very serious matters which the hurry (_entra\u00eenement_) of life\n makes us neglect. Life! Death! The daily murder, which feeding\n upon other animals implies--those hard and bitter problems sternly\n placed themselves before my mind. Miserable contradiction! Let us\n hope that there may be another globe in which the base, the cruel\n fatalities of this may be spared to us.\u201d[256]\n\nExtolling the greater respect of the Hindus for other life, as\nexhibited in their sacred scriptures, Michelet vindicates the\npre-eminently beneficent character of the Cow, in Europe so\nungratefully treated by the recipients of her bounty:--\n\n \u201cLet us name first, with honour, his beneficent nurse--so honoured\n and beloved by him--the sacred Cow, who furnished the happy\n nourishment--favourable intermediate between insufficient herbs and\n flesh, which excites horror. The Cow, whose milk and butter has\n been so long the sacred offering. She alone supported the primitive\n people in the long journey from Bactria to India. By her, in face\n of so many ruins and desolations--by this fruitful nurse, who\n unceasingly renovates the earth for him, he has lived and always\n lives.\u201d[257]\n\nIn his _Bird_ he constantly preaches the faith that can remove\nmountains--the faith that regards the regeneration and pacification of\nearth as the proper destiny of our species:--\n\n \u201cThe devout faith which we cherish at heart, and which we teach\n in these pages, is that man will peaceably subdue the whole\n earth, when he shall gradually perceive that every adopted being,\n accustomed to a domesticated life, or at least to that degree of\n friendship and companionship of which his nature is susceptible,\n will be a hundred times more useful to him than he can be with\n his throat cut (_qu\u2019il ne pourrait l\u2019\u00eatre \u00e9gorg\u00e9_). Man will not\n be truly man until he shall labour seriously for that which the\n Earth expects from him--the pacification and harmonious union\n (_ralliement_) of all living Nature. Hunt and make war upon the\n lion and the eagle if you will, but not upon the Weak and Innocent.\u201d\n\nThis Michelet never wearies of repeating, and he returns again and\nagain to a truth which is scorned by the modern self-seeking and\nmoney-getting, as it was by the fighting, wholly barbarous, world:--\n\n \u201cConquerors have never failed to turn into derision this\n gentleness, this tenderness for animated Nature. The Persians, the\n Romans in Egypt, our Europeans in India, the French in Algeria,\n have often outraged and stricken these innocent brothers of\n man--the objects of his ancient reverence. Cambyses slew the sacred\n Cow; a Roman the Ibis who destroyed unclean reptiles. But what\n means the Cow? The fecundity of the country. And the Ibis? Its\n salubrity. Destroy these animals, and the country is no longer\n habitable. That which has saved India and Egypt through so many\n misfortunes and preserved their fertility, is neither the Nile nor\n the Ganges. It is respect for other life, the mildness and the\n [comparatively] gentle heart of man.\n\n \u201cProfound in meaning was the speech of the Priest of Sa\u00efs to the\n Greek Herodotus--\u2018You shall be children always.\u2019\n\n \u201cWe shall always be so--we men of the West--subtle and graceful\n reasoners, so long as we shall not have comprehended, with a\n simple and more exhaustive view, the _motive_ of things. To be a\n child, is to seize life only by partial glimpses. To be a man is\n to be fully conscious of _all its harmonious unity_. The child\n disports himself, shatters and destroys; he finds his happiness\n in _undoing_. And science, in its childhood, does the same. It\n cannot study unless it kills. The sole use which it makes of a\n living mind, is, in the first place, to dissect it. None carry into\n scientific pursuits that tender reverence for life which Nature\n rewards by unveiling to us her mysteries.\u201d[258]\n\nLike Shelley, he firmly believed in the indefinite amelioration of our\nworld by the ultimate triumph of principles of _humaneness_, so that\nthe \u201csting of death\u201d and of pain might almost, if not entirely, be\nremoved:--\n\n To prevent death is, undoubtedly, impossible; but we may _prolong_\n life. We may eventually render pain rarer, less cruel, and _almost\n suppress_ it. That the hardened old world laughs at our expression\n is so much the better. We saw quite such a spectacle in the days\n when our Europe, barbarised by war, centered all medical art in\n surgery, and made the knife its only means of cure, while young\n America discovered the miracle of that profound dream in which all\n pain is annihilated.\n\nHe upbraids the sportsman no less than he does the scientist, and finds\nsufficient cause for the too general sterility of the intellect in the\nhabituation to slaughter, and in disregard for the subject species:--\n\n \u201cWoe to the ungrateful! By this phrase I mean the sporting crowd,\n who, unmindful of the numerous benefits we owe to other animals,\n exterminate innocent life. A terrible sentence weighs upon the\n tribes of \u2018sportsmen\u2019--_they can create nothing_. They originate\n no art, no industry. They have added nothing to the hereditary\n patrimony of the human species....\n\n \u201cDo not believe the axiom, that huntsmen gradually develope into\n agriculturalists. It is not so--they kill or die. Such is their\n whole destiny. We see it clearly through experience. He who has\n killed will kill--he who has created will create.\n\n \u201cIn the want of emotion, which every man suffers from his birth,\n the child who satisfies it habitually by murder, by a miniature\n ferocious drama of surprise and treason, of the torture of the\n weak, will find no great enjoyment in the gentle and tranquil\n emotions arising from the progressive success of toil and study,\n from the limited industry which does everything itself. To create,\n to destroy--these are the two raptures of infancy. To create is a\n long, slow process; to destroy is quick and easy.\n\n \u201cIt is a shocking and hideous thing to see a child partial to\n \u2018sport;\u2019 to see woman enjoying and admiring murder, and encouraging\n her child. That delicate and \u2018sensitive\u2019 woman would not give him\n a knife, but she gives him a gun. Kill at a distance if it pleases\n you, for we do not see the suffering. And this Mother will think it\n admirable that her son, kept confined to his room, will drive off\n _ennui_ by plucking the wings from flies, by torturing a bird or a\n little dog.\n\n \u201cFar-seeing mother! She will know, when too late, the evil of\n having formed a bad heart. Aged and weak, rejected of the world,\n she will experience, in her turn, her son\u2019s brutality.\n\n \u201cAmong too many children we are saddened by their almost incredible\n sterility. A few recover from it in the long circle of life, when\n they have become experienced and enlightened men. But the first\n freshness of the heart? It shall return no more.\u201d[259]\n\nAlthough, as has already been indicated, Michelet evidently had not\nexamined the _scientific_ basis of akreophagy, yet all his aspirations\nand all his sympathies, it is also equally evident, were for the\nbloodless diet. With Locke and Rousseau, and many others before\nhim, he presses upon mothers the vital import of not perverting\nthe early preferences of their children for the foods prescribed\nby unsophisticated nature and their own truer instincts. In one of\nhis books, the most often republished, in laying down rules for the\neducation of young girls, he thus writes:--\n\n \u201cPurity, above everything, _in regimen and nourishment_. What are\n we to understand by this?\n\n \u201cI understand by it that the young girl should have the proper\n nourishment of a child--that she should continue the mild,\n tranquilising, unexciting regimen of milk; that, if she eats at\n your table, she will be accustomed not to touch the dishes upon it,\n which for her, at least, are poisons.\n\n \u201cA revolution has taken place. We have quitted the more sober\n French regimen, and have adopted more and more the coarse and\n bloody diet of our neighbours, appropriate to their climate much\n more than to ours. The worst of it all is that we inflict this\n manner of living upon our children. Strange spectacle! To see a\n mother giving her daughter, whom but yesterday she was suckling\n at her breast, this gross aliment of bloody meats, and the\n dangerous excitant wine! She is astonished to see her violent,\n capricious, passionate; but it is herself whom she ought to accuse\n as the cause. What she fails to perceive, and yet what is very\n grave, is that with the French race, so precocious, the arousing\n of the passions is so directly provoked by this food. Far from\n strengthening, it agitates, it weakens, it unnerves. The mother\n thinks it fine (_plaisant_) to have a child so preternaturally\n mature. All this comes from herself. Unduly excitable, she wishes\n her child to be such another as she, and she is, without knowing\n it, the corruptress of her own daughter.\n\n \u201cAll this [unnatural stimulation] is of no good to her, and is\n little better for you, Madame. You have not the heart, you say, to\n eat anything in which she has no share. Ah, well! abstain yourself,\n or, at all events, moderate your indulgence in this food, good,\n possibly, for the hard-worked man, but fatal in its consequences\n to the woman of ease and leisure--regimen which _vulgarises_\n her, perturbs her, renders her irritable, or oppresses her with\n indigestion.\n\n \u201cFor the woman and the child it is a grace--an amiable grace (_gr\u00e2ce\n d\u2019amour_)--to be, above all things, _frugivorous_--to avoid the\n coarseness and foulness (_f\u00e9tidit\u00e9_) of flesh-meats, and to live\n rather upon innocent foods, which bring death to no one (_qui\n ne co\u00fbtent la mort \u00e0 personne_)--sweet nourishment which charms\n the sense of smell as much as it does the taste. The real reason\n why the beloved ones in nothing inspire in us repugnance but, in\n comparison with men, seem ethereal, is, in a special manner, their\n [presumed] preference for herbs and for fruits--for that purity of\n regimen which contributes not a little to that of the soul, and\n assimilates them to the innocency of the flowers of the field.\u201d[260]\n\n\n\n\nXLV.\n\nCOWHERD. 1763-1816.\n\n\nIn any history of Vegetarianism it is impossible to omit record of the\nlives and labours of the institutors of a religious community who, in\nestablishing humane dietetics as an essential condition of membership,\nmay well claim the honourable title of religious reformers, and to whom\nbelongs the singular merit of being the first and only founders of a\nChristian church who have inculcated a true religion of life as the\n_basis_ of their teaching.\n\nWilliam Cowherd, the first founder of this new conception of the\nChristian religion, which assumed the name of the \u201cBible Christian\nChurch,\u201d was born at Carnforth, near Lonsdale, in 1763. His first\nappearance in public was as teacher of philology in a theological\ncollege at Beverley. Afterwards, coming to Manchester, he acted as\ncurate to the Rev. J. Clowes, who, while remaining a member of the\nEstablished Church, had adopted the theological system of Swedenborg.\nCowherd attached himself to the same mystic creed, and he is said\nto be one of the few students of him who have ever read through all\nthe Latin writings of the Swedish theologian. He soon resigned his\ncuracy, and for a short time he preached in the Swedenborgian temple\nin Peter Street. There he seems not to have found the freedom of\nopinion and breadth in teaching he had expected, and he determined to\npropagate his own convictions, independently of other authority. In\nthe year 1800 he built, at his own expense, Christ Church, in King\nStreet, Salford--the first meeting-place of the reformed church.[261]\nHis extraordinary eloquence and ability, as well as earnestness\nof purpose, quickly attracted a large audience, and may well have\nbrought to recollection the style and matter of the great orator\nof Constantinople of the fourth century. One characteristic of his\nChurch--perhaps unique at that time--was the non-appropriation of\nsittings. Another unfashionable opinion held by him was the Pauline\none of the obligation upon Christian preachers to maintain themselves\nby some \u201csecular\u201d labour, and he therefore kept a boarding school,\nwhich attained extensive proportions. In this college some zealous\nand able men, who afterwards were ordained by him to carry on a truly\nbeneficent ministry, assisted in the work of teaching, of whom the\nnames of Metcalfe, Clark, and Schofield are particularly noteworthy.\nFollowing out the principles of their Master, two of them took degrees\nin medicine, and gained their living by that profession. The Principal\nhimself built an institute, connected with his church in Hulme, where,\nmore recently, the late Mr. James Gaskill presided, who, at his death,\nleft an endowment for its perpetuation as an educational establishment.\n\nIt was in the year 1809 that Cowherd formally promulgated, as cardinal\ndoctrines of his system, the principle of abstinence from flesh-eating,\nwhich, in the first instance, he seems to have derived from \u201cthe\nmedical arguments of Dr. Cheyne and the humanitarian sentiments of\nSt. Pierre.\u201d He died not many years after this formal declaration of\nfaith and practice, not without the satisfaction of knowing that able\nand earnest disciples would carry on the great work of renovating the\nreligious sentiment for the humanisation of the world.\n\nOf those followers not the least eminent was Joseph Brotherton, the\nfirst M.P. for Salford, than which borough none has been more truly\nhonoured by the choice of its legislative representative. A printing\npress had been set up at the Institution, and, after the death of\nthe Master, his _Facts Authentic in Science and Religion towards a\nNew Foundation of the Bible_, under which title he had collected the\nmost various matter illustrative of passages in the Bible, and in\ndefence of his own interpretation of them, was there printed. It is,\nas his biographer has well described it, \u201ca lasting memorial of his\nwide reading and research--travellers, lawyers, poets, physicians,\nall are pressed into his service--the whole work forming a large\nquarto common-place book filled with reading as delightful as it is\ndiscursive. Some of his minor writings have also been printed. He was,\nbesides his theological erudition, a practical chemist and astronomer,\nand he caused the dome of the church in King Street to be fitted up for\nthe joint purposes of an observatory and a laboratory. His microscope\nis still preserved in the Peel Park Museum. His valuable library,\nwhich at one time was accessible to the public on easy terms, is now\ndeposited in the new Bible Christian Church in Cross Lane. The books\ncollected exhibit the strong mind which brought them together for its\nown uses. This library is the workshop in which he wrought out a new\nmode of life and a new theory of doctrine--with these instruments he\nmoulded minds like that of Brotherton, and so his influence has worked\nin many unseen channels.\u201d He died in 1816, and is buried in front of\nhis chapel, in King Street, Salford.[262]\n\n\n\n\nXLVI.\n\nMETCALFE. 1788-1862.\n\n\nAmongst the immediate disciples of the founder of the new community,\nthe most active apostle of the principles of Vegetarianism, William\nMetcalfe, to whom reference has been already made, claims particular\nnotice. Born at Orton in Westmoreland, after instruction in a classical\nschool kept by a philologist of some repute, he began life as an\naccountant at Keighley, in Yorkshire. His leisure hours were devoted to\nmental culture, both in reading and in poetic composition. Converted by\nCowherd in 1809, in the twenty-first year of his age, he abandoned the\nflesh diet, and remained to the end a firm believer in the truths of\n\u201cThe Perfect Way.\u201d In the year following he married the daughter of the\nRev. J. Wright who was at the head of the \u201cNew Church\u201d at Keighley, and\nwhom he assisted as curate. His wife, of highly-cultured mind, equally\nwith himself was a persistent follower of the reformed mode of living.\nSharing the experiences of many other dietary reformers, the young\nconverts encountered much opposition from their family and friends, who\nattempted at one moment ridicule, at another dissuasion, by appealing\nto medical authority. Unmoved from their purpose, they continued\nunshaken in their convictions.\n\n \u201cThey assured me,\u201d he writes at a later period, \u201cthat I was rapidly\n sinking into a consumption, and tried various other methods to\n induce me to return to the customary dietetic habits of society;\n but their efforts proved ineffectual. Some predicted my death in\n three or four months; and others, on hearing me attempt to defend\n my course, hesitated not to tell me I was certainly suffering from\n mental derangement, and, if I continued to live without flesh-food\n much longer, would unquestionably have to be shut up in some insane\n asylum. All was unavailing. Instead of sinking into consumption,\n I gained several pounds in weight during the first few weeks of\n my experiment. Instead of three or four months bringing me to the\n silent grave, they brought me to the matrimonial altar.\n\n \u201cShe [his wife] fully coincided with me in my views on vegetable\n diet, and, indeed, on all other important points was always ready\n to defend them to the best of her ability--studied to show our\n acquaintances, whenever they paid us a visit, that we could live,\n in every rational enjoyment, without the use of flesh for food.\n As she was an excellent cook, we were never at a loss as to what\n we should eat. We commenced housekeeping in January, 1810, and,\n from that date to the present time, we have never had a pound\n of flesh-meat in our dwelling, have never patronised either\n slaughter-houses or spirit shops.\n\n \u201cWhen, again, in the course of time we were about to be blessed\n with an addition to our family, a renewed effort was made. We\n were assured it was impossible for my wife to get through her\n confinement without some _more strengthening food_. Friends\n and physicians were alike decided upon that point. We were,\n notwithstanding, unmoved and faithful to our principles. Next we\n were told by our kind advisers that the little stranger could not\n be sufficiently nourished unless the mother could eat a little\n \u2018meat\u2019 once a day; or, if not that, drink a pint or half a pint of\n ale daily. To both proposals my wife turned a deaf ear; and both\n she and the child did exceedingly well.[263] It may be proper to\n add here [remarks the biographer], that the \u2018little stranger\u2019 above\n referred to is the author of this _Memoir_,--that he is in the\n fifty-sixth year of his age, that he has never so much as _tasted_\n animal food, nor used intoxicating drinks of any kind, and that he\n is hale and hearty.\u201d\n\nThese experiences, it is scarcely necessary to remark, in the lives of\nfollowers of reformed dietetics, have been not seldom repeated.\n\nIn the Academy of Sciences, instituted by Dr. Cowherd, Metcalfe was\ninvited to assume the direction of the \u201cclassical\u201d department (1811).\nIn the same year he took \u201cOrders,\u201d and, at the solicitation of the\nsecessionists from the Swedenborgian Communion (which, with some\ninconsistency, seems to have looked with indifference, or even dislike,\nupon the principles of akreophagy), he officiated at Adingham, in\nYorkshire. By the voluntary aid of one of his admirers a church was\nbuilt, to which was added a commodious school-room. He then resigned\nhis position under Dr. Cowherd, and opened a grammar school in\nAdingham, where he was well supported by his friends.\n\nThe United States of America, however, was the field to which he\nhad long been looking as the most promising for the mission work to\nwhich he had devoted himself; and in this hope he had been sustained\nby his Master. In the spring of 1817 a company of forty-one persons,\nmembers of the Bible Christian community, embarked at Liverpool\nfor Philadelphia, They comprised two clerics--W. Metcalfe and Jas.\nClark--twenty other adults, and nineteen children. Of this band only a\npart were able to resist the numerous temptations to conformity with\nthe prevalent social practices; and the vast distances which separated\nthe leaders from their followers were almost an insuperable bar to\nsympathy and union. Settling in Philadelphia--for them at least a name\nof real significance--Metcalfe supported his family by teaching, while\nperforming the duties of his position as head of the faithful few who\nformed his church. His day-school, which was attended by the sons\nof some of the leading people of the city, proved to be pecuniarily\nsuccessful until the appearance of yellow fever in Philadelphia, which\nbroke up his establishment and involved him in great difficulties;\nfor upon his school he depended entirely for his living. He had many\ninfluential friends, who tempted him, at this crisis of his fortunes,\nwith magnificent promises of support, if only he would desert the cause\nhe had at heart--the propagandism of a religion based upon principles\nof true temperance and active goodness. Both moral and physical\nsuperiority pointed him out as one who could not fail to bring honour\nto any undertaking, and, had he sacrificed conviction to interest, he\nmight have greatly advanced his material prospects. All such seductions\nhe firmly resisted.\n\nMeanwhile, through the pulpit, the schoolroom, and, more widely,\nthrough the newspapers, he scattered the seeds of the gospel\nof Humanity. But the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of\nself-seeking religionism, and of rancorous prejudice, was by no means\nextinct even in the great republic, and the (so-called) \u201creligious\u201d\npress united to denounce his humane teaching as well as his more\nliberal theology. Nor did some of his more unscrupulous opponents\nhesitate, in the last resort, to raise the war-cry of \u201cinfidel\u201d and\n\u201csceptic.\u201d These assailants he treated with contemptuous silence; but\nthe principle of moral dietetics he defended in the newspapers with\nability and vigour. In 1821 he published an essay on _Abstinence from\nthe Flesh of Animals_, which was freely and extensively circulated. For\nseveral years his missionary labours appear to have been unproductive.\nIn the year 1830 he made two notable converts--Dr. Sylvester Graham,\nwho was at that time engaged as a \u201ctemperance\u201d lecturer, and was\ndeep in the study of human physiology; and Dr. W. Alcott. Five years\nlater, the _Moral Reformer_ was started as a monthly periodical,\nwhich afterwards appeared under the title of the _Library of Health_.\nIn 1838-9 the _Graham Journal_ was also published in Boston, and\nscientific societies were organised in many of the New England towns.\nThe Bible was largely appealed to in the controversy, and a sermon of\nMetcalfe\u2019s had an extensive circulation through the United States. With\nall this controversy upon his hands, he was far from neglecting his\nprivate duties, and, in fact, his health was over-taxed in the close\nand constant work in the schoolrooms, overcrowded and ill-ventilated\nas they were. In the day and night school he was constantly employed,\nduring one half of the year, from eight in the morning until ten at\nnight; and Sunday brought him no remission of labour.\n\nIn the propagandism of his principles through the press he was not\nidle. The _Independent Democrat_, and, in 1838, the _Morning Star_,\nwas printed and published at his own office--by which latter journal,\nin spite of the promise of support from political friends, he was a\npecuniary loser to a large amount. _The Temperance Advocate_, also\nissued from his office, had no better success. Several years earlier,\nabout 1820, it is interesting to note, he had published a tract on _The\nDuty of Abstinence from all Intoxicating Drinks_; and the founder of\nthe Bible Christian Church in America can claim the merit of having\nbeen the first systematically to inculcate this social reform.\n\nIn the year 1847 the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain had been\nfounded, of which Mr. James Simpson had been elected the first\npresident. Metcalfe immediately proposed the formation of a like\nsociety in the United States. He corresponded with Drs. Graham,\nAlcott, and others; and finally an American Vegetarian Convention\nassembled in New York, May 15, 1850. Several promoters of the cause,\npreviously unknown to each other (except through correspondence),\nhere met. Metcalfe was elected president of the Convention; addresses\nwere delivered, and the constitution of the society determined upon.\nThe Society was organised by the election of Dr. William Alcott as\npresident, Rev. W. Metcalfe as corresponding secretary, and Dr.\nTrall as recording secretary. An organ of the society was started in\nNovember, 1850, under the title of _The American Vegetarian and Health\nJournal_, and under the editorship of Metcalfe. Its regular monthly\npublication, however, did not begin until 1851. In that year he was\nselected as delegate to the English Vegetarian Society, as well as\ndelegate from the Pennsylvania Peace Society to the \u201cWorld\u2019s Peace\nConvention,\u201d which was fondly supposed to be about to be inaugurated\nby the _Universal Exhibition_ of that year. The proceedings at the\nannual meeting of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, and the\neloquent address, amongst others, of the American representative, are\nfully recorded in the _Vegetarian Messenger_ for 1852. On this occasion\nJoseph Brotherton, M.P. presided.\n\nTwo years later he suffered the irreparable loss of the sympathising\nsharer in his hopes for the regeneration of the world. Mrs. Metcalfe\ndied in the seventy-fourth year of her age, having been, during\nforty-four years, a strict abstinent. Her loss was mourned by the\nentire Vegetarian community. By far the larger part of the matter, as\nwell as the expenses of publication, of the _American Vegetarian_,\nwas supplied by the editor, and, being inadequately supported by the\nrest of the community, the managers were forced to abandon its further\npublication. The last volume appeared in 1854. It has been succeeded\nin later times, under happier circumstances, by the _Health Reformer_\nwhich is still in existence.\n\nIn 1855 Metcalfe received an invitation to undertake the duties\nattached to the mother church at Salford. Leaving his brother-in-law\nin charge of the church in Philadelphia, he embarked for England once\nmore, and the most memorable event, during his stay in this country,\nwas the deeply and sincerely lamented death of Joseph Brotherton, who\nfor twenty years had represented Salford in the Legislature, and whose\ntrue benevolence had endeared him to the whole community. Metcalfe\nwas chosen to preach the funeral eulogy, which was listened to by a\nlarge number of Members of Parliament and municipal officers, and by\nan immense concourse of private citizens. Returning to America soon\nafterwards, at the urgent request of his friends in Philadelphia,\nhe was, in 1859, elected to fill the place of President vacated by\nDr. Alcott, whose virtues and labours in the cause he commemorated\nin a just eulogy. His own death took place in the year 1862, in the\nseventy-fifth year of his age, caused by hemorrhage of the lungs,\ndoubtless the effect of excessive work. His end, like his whole\ninterior if not exterior life, was, in the best meaning of a too\nconventional expression, full of peace and of hope. His best panegyric\nis to be found in his life-work; and, as the first who systematically\ntaught the truths of reformed dietetics in the \u201cNew World,\u201d he has\ndeserved the unceasing gratitude of all sincere reformers in the\nUnited States, and, indeed, throughout the globe. By all who knew him\npersonally he was as much loved as he was esteemed, and the newspapers\nof the day bore witness to the general lamentation for his loss.[264]\n\n\n\n\nXLVII.\n\nGRAHAM. 1794-1851.\n\n\nAs an exponent of the physiological basis of the Vegetarian theory of\ndiet, in the most elaborate minuteness, the author of _Lectures on\nthe Science of Human Life_ has always had great repute amongst food\nreformers both in the United States and in this country. Collaterally\nconnected with the ducal house of Montrose, his father, a graduate of\nOxford, emigrated to Boston, U.S., in the year 1718. He must have\nattained an advanced age when his seventeenth child, Sylvester,\nwas born at Suffield, in Connecticut. Yet he seems to have been of\na naturally dyspeptic and somewhat feeble constitution, which was\ninherited by his son, whose life, in fact, was preserved only by the\nmethod recommended by Locke--free exposure in the open air. During\nseveral years he lived with an uncle, on whose farm he was made to work\nwith the labourers. In his twelfth year he was sent to a school in New\nYork, and at fourteen he was set for a short time to learn the trade of\npaper-making. \u201cHe is described as handsome, clever, and imaginative.\n\u2018I had heard,\u2019 he says, \u2018of noble deeds, and longed to follow in the\nfield of fame.\u2019 Ill health soon obliged his return to the country, and\nat sixteen symptoms of consumption appeared. Various occupations were\ntried until the time, when about twenty years of age, he commenced as\na teacher of youth, proving highly successful with his pupils. Again\nill-health obliged the abandonment of this pursuit.\u201d[265]\n\nAt the age of thirty-two he married, and soon after became a preacher\nin the Presbyterian Church. Deeply interested in the question of\n\u201cTemperance,\u201d he was invited to lecture for that cause by the\nPennsylvania Society (1830). He now began the study of physiology and\ncomparative anatomy, in which his interest was unremitting. These\nimportant sciences were used to good effect in his future dietetic\ncrusade. At this time he came in contact with Metcalfe, by whom he\nwas confirmed in, if not in the first instance converted to, the\nprinciples of radical dietary reform. \u201cHe was soon led to believe that\nno permanent cure for intemperance could be found, except in such\nchange of personal and social customs as would relieve the human being\nfrom all desire for stimulants. This idea he soon applied to medicine,\nso that the prevention and cure of disease, as well as the remedy for\nintemperance, were seen to consist mainly in the adoption of correct\nhabits of living, and the judicious adaptation of hygienic agencies.\nThese ideas were elaborated in an _Essay on the Cholera_ (1832), and\na course of lectures which were delivered in various parts of the\ncountry, and subsequently published under the title of _Lectures on\nthe Science of Human Life_ (2 vols., Boston, 1839). This has been\nthe leading text-book of all the dietetic and nearly all the health\nreformers since.\u201d[266]\n\n_The Science of Human Life_ is one of the most comprehensive as well as\nminute text books on scientific dietetics ever put forth. If it errs\nat all, it errs on the side of redundancy--a feature which it owes to\nthe fact that it was published to the world as it was orally given. It\ntherefore well bears condensation, and this has been judiciously done\nby Mr. Baker, whose useful edition is probably in the hands of most of\nour readers. Graham was also the author of a treatise on _Bread and\nBread-Making_, and \u201cGraham bread\u201d is now universally known as one of\nthe most wholesome kinds of the \u201cstaff of life.\u201d Besides these more\npractical writings, for some time before his death he occupied his\nleisure in the production of a _Philosophy of Sacred History_, the\ncharacteristic idea of which seems to have been to harmonise the dogmas\nof the Jewish and Christian Scriptures with his published views on\nphysiology and dietetics. He lived to complete one volume only (12mo.),\nwhich appeared after his death.\n\nTracing the history of Medicine from the earlier times, and its more or\nless of empiricism in all its stages, Graham discovers the cause of a\nvast proportion of all the egregious failure of its professors in the\nblind prejudice which induces them to apply to the _temporary cure_,\nrather than to the _prevention_, of disease. As it was in its first\nbarbarous beginning, so it has continued, with little really essential\nchange, to the present moment:--\n\n \u201cEverything is done with a view to _cure_ the disease, without\n any regard to its cause, and the disease is considered as\n the infliction of some supernatural being. Therefore, in the\n progress of the healing art thus far, not a step is taken towards\n investigating the laws of health and the philosophy of disease.\n\n \u201cNor, after Medicine had received a more systematic form, did\n it apply to those researches which were most essential to its\n success, but, like religion, it became blended with superstitions\n and absurdities. Hence, the history of Medicine, with very limited\n exceptions, is a tissue of ignorance and error, and only serves\n to demonstrate the absence of that knowledge upon which alone an\n enlightened system of Medicine can be founded, and to show to\n what extent a noble art can be perverted from its capabilities of\n good to almost unmixed evil by the ignorance, superstition, and\n cupidity of men. In modern times, anatomy and surgery have been\n carried nearly to perfection, and great advance has been made\n in physiology. The science of human life has been studied with\n interest and success, but this has been confined to the few, while\n even in our day, and in the medical profession itself, the general\n tendency is adverse to the diffusion of scientific knowledge.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cThe result is, that men prodigally waste the resources as if the\n energies of life were inexhaustible; and when they have brought on\n disease which destroys their comforts, they fly to the physician,\n _not to learn by what violation of the laws of life_ they have\n drawn the evil upon themselves, and by what means they can avoid\n the same; but, considering themselves visited with afflictions\n which they have in no manner been concerned in causing, they\n require the physician\u2019s remedies, by which their sufferings may be\n alleviated. In doing this, the more the practice of the physician\n conforms to the _appetites_ of the patient, the greater is his\n popularity and the more generously is he rewarded.\n\n \u201cEverything, therefore, in society tends to confine the practising\n physician to the department of therapeutics, and make him a\n mere curer of disease; and the consequence is, that the medical\n fraternity have little inducement to apply themselves to the\n study of the _science of life_, while almost everything, by which\n men can be corrupted, is presented to induce them to become the\n mere panderers of human ignorance and folly; and, if they do not\n sink into the merest empiricism, it is owing to their own moral\n sensibility rather than to the encouragement they receive to pursue\n an elevated scientific professional career.\n\n \u201cThus the natural and acquired habits of man concur to divert\n his attention from the study of human life, and hence he is left\n to _feel_ his way to, or gather from what he calls experience,\n all the conclusions which he embraces. It has been observed\n that men, in their (so-called) inductive reasonings deceive\n themselves continually, and think that they are reasoning from\n facts and experience, when they are only reasoning _from a mixture\n of truth and falsehood_. The only end answered by facts so\n incorrectly apprehended is that of making error more incorrigible.\n Nothing, indeed, is so hostile to the interests of Truth as\n facts incorrectly observed. On no subjects are men so liable to\n misapprehend facts, and _mistake the relation between cause and\n effect_, as on that of human life, health, and disease.\u201d\n\nBy the opponents of dietetic reform it has been pretended that climate,\nor individual constitution, must determine the food proper for nations\nor individuals:--\n\n \u201cWe have been told that some enjoy health in warm, and others\n in cold climates some on one kind of diet, and under one set of\n circumstances, and some under another; that, therefore, what is\n best for one is not for another; that what agrees _well_ with one\n disagrees with another; that what is one man\u2019s meat is another\n man\u2019s poison; that different constitutions require different\n treatment; and that, consequently, no rules can be laid down\n adapted to all circumstances which can be made a basis of regimen\n to all.\n\n \u201cWithout taking pains to examine circumstances, people consider the\n bare fact that some intemperate individuals reach old age evidence\n that such habits are not unfavourable to life. With the same loose\n reasoning, people arrive at conclusions equally erroneous in regard\n to nations. If a tribe, subsisting on vegetable food, is weak,\n sluggish, and destitute of courage and enterprise, it is concluded\n that vegetable food is the cause. Yet examination might have shown\n that causes fully adequate to these effects existed, which not only\n exonerated the diet, _but made it appear that the vegetable diet\n had a redeeming effect, and was the means by which the nation was\n saved from a worse condition_.\n\n \u201cThe fact that individuals have attained a great age in certain\n habits of living is no evidence that those habits are favourable to\n longevity. The only use which we can make of cases of extraordinary\n old age, is to show how the human constitution is capable of\n sustaining the vital economy, _and resisting the causes which\n induce death_.\n\n \u201cIf we ask _how_ we must live to secure the best health and longest\n life, the answer must be drawn from physiological knowledge; but\n if we ask _how long_ the best mode of living will preserve life,\n the reply is, Physiology cannot teach you that. Probably each\n aged individual has a mixture of good and bad habits, and has\n lived in a mixture of favourable and unfavourable circumstances.\n Notwithstanding apparent diversity, there is a pretty equal amount\n of what is salutary in the habits and circumstances of each. Some\n have been \u2018correct\u2019 in one thing, some in another. All that is\n proved by instances of longevity in connexion with bad habits is,\n that such individuals are able to resist causes that have, in the\n same time, sent thousands of their fellow-beings to an untimely\n grave; and, under a proper regimen, they would have sustained life,\n perhaps, a hundred and fifty years.\n\n \u201cSome have more constitutional [or inherited] powers to resist the\n causes of disease than others, and, therefore, what will destroy\n the life of one may be borne by another a long time without any\n manifestations of immediate injury. There are, also, constitutional\n peculiarities, but these are far more rare than is generally\n supposed. Indeed, such may, in almost every case, be overcome by\n a correct regimen. So far as the general laws of life and the\n application of general principles of regimen are considered,\n the human constitution is _one_: there are no constitutional\n differences which will not yield to a correct regimen, and thus\n improve the individual. Consequently, what is best for one is best\n for all.... Some are born without any tendency to disease while\n others have the predisposition to particular diseases of some kind.\n But _differences result from causes which man has the power to\n control_, and it is certain that all can be removed by conformity\n to the laws of life for generations, and that the human species can\n be brought to as great uniformity, as to health and life, as the\n lower animals.\u201d\n\nWith Hufeland, Flourens, and other scientific authorities, he maintains\nthat:--\n\n \u201cPhysiological science affords no evidence that the human\n constitution is not capable of gradually returning to the\n primitive longevity of the species. The highest interests of our\n nature require that _youthfulness_ should be prolonged. And it\n is as capable of being preserved as life itself, both depending\n on the same conditions. If there ever was a state of the human\n constitution which enabled it to sustain life [much beyond the\n present period], that state involved a harmony of relative\n conditions. The vital processes were less rapid and more complete\n than at present, development was slower, organisation more perfect,\n childhood protracted, and the change from youth to manhood took\n place at a greater remove from birth. Hence, if we now aim at long\n life, we can secure our object only by conformity to those laws by\n which youthfulness is prolonged.\u201d\n\nAs for the _omnivorousness_ of the human animal:--\n\n The ourang-outang, on being domesticated, readily learns to eat\n animal food. But if this proves that animal to be _omnivorous_,\n then the Horse, Cow, Sheep, and others are all omnivorous, for\n everyone of them is easily trained to eat animal food. Horses\n have frequently been trained to eat animal food,[267] and Sheep\n have been so accustomed to it as to refuse grass. All carnivorous\n animals can be trained to a vegetable diet, and brought to subsist\n upon it, with less inconvenience and deterioration than herbivorous\n or frugivorous animals can be brought to live on animal food.\n Comparative anatomy, therefore, proves that Man is naturally a\n frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and\n farinaceous vegetables.[268]\n\nThe _stimulating_, or alcoholic, property of flesh produces the\ndelusion that it is, therefore, the most _nourishing_:--\n\n \u201cYet by so much as the stimulation exceeds that which is necessary\n for the performance of the functions of the organs, the more does\n the expenditure of vital powers exceed the renovating economy; and\n the exhaustion which succeeds is commensurate with the excess.\n Hence, though food which contains the greatest proportion of\n stimulating power causes a _feeling_ of the greatest strength, it\n also produces the greatest exhaustion, which is commensurately\n importunate for relief; and, as the same food affords such by\n supplying the requisite stimulation, their _feelings_ lead the\n consumers to believe that it is most strengthening.... Those\n substances, the stimulating power of which is barely sufficient to\n excite the digestive organs in the appropriation of nourishment,\n are most conducive to vital welfare, causing all the processes to\n be most perfectly performed, without any unnecessary expenditure,\n thus contributing to health and longevity.\n\n \u201cFlesh-meats average about _thirty-five per cent_ of nutritious\n matter, while rice, wheat, and several kinds of pulse (such as\n lentils, peas, and beans), afford from _eighty to ninety-five per\n cent_; potatoes afford twenty-five per cent of nutritious matter.\n So that one pound of rice contains more nutritious matter than two\n pounds and a half of flesh meat; three pounds of whole meal bread\n contain more than six pounds of flesh, and three pounds of potatoes\n more than two pounds of flesh.\u201d\n\nThat the human species, _taken in its entirety_, is no more carnivorous\n_de facto_ than it could be _de jure_, is apparent on the plain\nevidence of facts. In all countries of our Globe, with the exception of\nthe most barbarous tribes, it is, in reality, only the ruling and rich\nclasses who are kreophagist. The Poor have, almost everywhere, but the\nbarest sufficiency even of vegetable foods:--\n\n \u201cThe peasantry of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece,\n Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, a\n considerable portion of Prussia, and other parts of Europe subsist\n mainly on non-flesh foods. The peasantry of modern Greece [like\n those of the days of Perikles] subsist on coarse brown bread and\n fruits. The peasantry in many parts of Russia live on very coarse\n bread, with garlic and other vegetables, and, like the same class\n in Greece, Italy, &c., they are obliged to be extremely frugal even\n in this kind of food. Yet they are [for the most part] healthy,\n vigorous, and active. Many of the inhabitants of Germany live\n mainly on rye and barley, in the form of coarse bread. The potato\n is the principal food of the Irish peasantry, and few portions\n of the human family are more healthy, athletic, and active, when\n uncorrupted by intoxicating substances [and, it may be added, when\n under favourable political and social conditions]. But alcohol,\n opium, &c. [equally with bad laws] have extended their blighting\n influence over the greater portion of the world, and nowhere do\n these scourges so cruelly afflict the self-devoted race as in the\n cottages of the poor, and when, by these evils and neglect of\n sanitation, &c., diseases are generated, sometimes epidemics, we\n are told that these things arise from their poor, meagre, low,\n _vegetable_ diet. Wherever the various sorts of intoxicating\n substances are absent, and a decent degree of cleanliness is\n observed, the vegetable diet is not thus calumniated.\n\n \u201cThat portion of the peasantry of England and Scotland who subsist\n on their barley and oatmeal bread, porridge, potatoes, and other\n vegetables, with temperate, cleanly habits [and surroundings],\n are able to endure more fatigue and exposure than any other class\n of people in the same countries. _Three-fourths of the whole\n human family_, in all periods of time [excepting, perhaps, in the\n primitive wholly predatory ages] have subsisted on non-flesh foods,\n and when their supplies have been abundant, and their habits in\n other respects correct, they have been well nourished.\u201d\n\nThat the sanguinary diet and savagery go hand in hand, and that in\nproportion to the degree of carnivorousness is the barbarous or\nmilitant character of the people, all History, past and present, too\nclearly testifies. Nor are the carnivorous tribes conspicuous by their\ncruel habits only:--\n\n \u201cTaking all flesh-eating nations together, though some, whose\n other habits are favourable, are, comparatively, well-formed, as\n a general average they are small, ill-formed races; and taking\n all vegetable-eating nations, though many, from excessive use\n of narcotics, and from other unfavourable circumstances, are\n comparatively small and ill-formed, as a general average they are\n much better formed races than the flesh-eaters.[269] It is only\n among those tribes whose habits are temperate, and who subsist on\n the non-flesh diet, that the more perfect specimens of symmetry are\n found.\n\n \u201cNot one human being in many thousands dies a _natural_ death.\n If a man be shot or poisoned we say he dies a violent death, but\n if he is ill, attended by physicians, and dies, we say he dies a\n \u2018natural\u2019 death. This is an abuse of language--the death in the\n latter case being as truly violent as if he had been shot. Whether\n a man takes arsenic and kills himself, or by small doses or other\n means, however common, gradually destroys life, he equally dies a\n violent death. He only dies a natural death who so obeys the laws\n of his nature as by neither irritation nor intensity to waste his\n energies, but slowly passes through the changes of his system to\n old age, and falls asleep in the exhaustion of vitality.\u201d[269]\n\nWith Flourens he adduces a number of instances both of individuals and\nof communities who have attained to protracted ages by reason of a pure\ndiet. He afterwards proceeds to prove from comparative physiology and\nanatomy, and, in particular, from the conformation of the human teeth\nand stomach (which, by an astounding perversion of fact, are sometimes\nalleged to be formed carnivorously, in spite of often-repeated\nscientific authority, as well as of common observation), the natural\nfrugivorous character of the human species, and he quotes Linn\u00e9,\nCuvier, Lawrence, Bell, and many others in support of this truth.[270]\n\n\n\n\nXLVIII.\n\nSTRUVE. 1805-1870.\n\n\nGermany, at the present day able to boast so many earnest apostles of\nhumanitarianism, until the nineteenth century was some way advanced,\nhad contributed little, definitely, to the literature of _Humane\nDietetics_. A Haller or a Hufeland, indeed, had, with more or less\nboldness, raised the banner of partial revolt from orthodox medicine\nand orthodox living, but their heterodoxy was rather hygienic than\nhumane. In the history of humanitarianism in Germany the honour of the\nfirst place, in order of time, belongs to the author of _Pflanzenkost,\ndie Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung_, and of _Mandaras\u2019\nWanderungen_, whose life, political as well as literary, was one\ncontinuous combat on behalf of justice, freedom, and true progress.\n\nGustav von Struve was born at M\u00fcnchen (Munich), October 11, 1805, from\nwhence his father, who was residing there as Russian Minister, shortly\nafterwards removed to Stuttgart. The foundation of his education was\nlaid in the gymnasium of that capital, where he remained until his\ntwelfth year. From 1817 to 1822 he was a scholar in the Lyceum in\nKarlsruhe. Having finished his preparatory studies in those schools,\nhe proceeded to the University of G\u00f6ttingen, which, after a course of\nnearly two years, he exchanged for Heidelberg. Four years of arduous\nstudy enabled him to pass his first examination, and, as the result of\nhis brilliant attainments and success, he received the appointment of\n_Attach\u00e9_ to the Bundestag Embassy at Oldenberg.\n\nWith such an opening, a splendid career in the service of courts and\nkings seemed to be reserved for him. His family connexions, his great\nabilities, and his unusual acquirements at so early an age guaranteed\nto him quick promotion, with reward and worldly honour. But to figure\nin the service of the oppressors of the people--to waste in luxurious\ntrifling the resources of a peasantry, supplied by them only at the\ncost of a life-time of painful destitution, to support the selfish\ngreed and vain ostentation of the Jew--such was not the career which\ncould stimulate the ambition of Struve. The conviction that this was\nnot his proper destiny grew stronger in him, and he soon abandoned his\ndiplomatic position and Oldenberg at the same time. Without wealth\nor friends, at variance with his relatives, who could not appreciate\nhis higher aims, he settled himself in G\u00f6ttingen (1831), and in the\nfollowing year in Jena. His attempts to obtain fixed employment\nas professor or teacher, or as editor of a newspaper, long proved\nunsuccessful, for independent and honest thought, never anywhere\ngreatly in esteem, at that time in Germany was in especial disfavour\nwith all who, directly or indirectly, were under court influences. Yet\nthe three years which he lived in G\u00f6ttingen and Jena supplied him with\nvaried and useful experiences.\n\nIn 1833 he went to Karlsruhe. After years of long patience and effort,\nhe at length effected his object (to gain a position which should\nmake it possible for him to carry out his schemes of usefulness for\nhis fellow-beings), and, at the end of 1836, he obtained the office\nof Obergerichts-Advocat in Mannheim. This position gave leisure\nand opportunity for the prosecution of his various scientific and\nphilosophic pursuits, and to engage in literary undertakings. He\nfounded periodicals and delivered lectures, the constant aim of which\nwas the improvement of the world around him. At this period he wrote\nhis philosophic romance, _Mandaras\u2019 Wanderungen_ (\u201cThe Wanderings of\nMandaras\u201d), through which he conveys distasteful truths in accordance\nwith the principles of Tasso.[271]\n\nStruve\u2019s active political life began in 1845. In that year were\npublished _Briefwechsel zwischen einen ehemaligen and einen jetzigen\nDiplomaten_,(\u201cCorrespondence between an Old and a Modern Diplomatist\u201d),\nwhich was soon followed by his _Oeffentliches Recht des Deutschen\nBundes_ (\u201cPublic Rights of the German Federation\u201d) and his _Kritische\nGeschichte des Allgemeinen Staats-Rechts_ (\u201cCritical History of the\nCommon Law of Nations\u201d). In the same year he undertook the editorship\nof the _Mannheimer Journal_, in which he boldly fought the battles\nof political and social reform. He was several times condemned to\nimprisonment, as well as to payment of fines; but, undeterred by such\npersecution, the champion of the oppressed succeeded in worsting most\nof his powerful enemies.\n\nIn the beginning of 1847 he founded a weekly periodical, the _Deutscher\nZuschauer_ (\u201cThe German Spectator\u201d), in which, without actually\nadopting the invidious names, he maintained in their fullest extent\nthe principles of Freedom and Fraternity; and it was chiefly by the\nefforts of Struve that the great popular demonstration at Oldenberg of\nSeptember 12, 1847, took place, which formulated what was afterwards\nknown as the \u201cDemands of the People.\u201d The public meeting, assembled\nat the same town March 9, 1848, which was attended by 25,000 persons,\nand which, without committing itself to the adoption of the term\n\u201crepublican,\u201d yet proclaimed the inherent Rights of the People, was\nalso mainly the work of the indefatigable Struve. He took part, too, in\nthe opening of the Parliament at Frankfurt. His principal production\nat this time was _Grundz\u00fcge der Staats-Wischenschaft_ (\u201cOutlines of\nPolitical Science\u201d). This book, inspired by the movement for freedom\nwhich was then agitating, but, as it proved, for the most part\nineffectually, a large part of Europe, is not without significance\nin the education of the community for higher political conceptions.\nStruve and F. Hecker took a leading part in the democratic movements\nin Baden. These attempts failing, after a short residence in Paris,\nhe settled near Basel (Basle). There he published his _Grundrechte\ndes Deutschen Volkes_ (\u201cFundamental Rights of the German People\u201d),\nand, in association with Heinzen, a _Plan f\u00fcr Revolutionierung und\nRepublikanisierung Deutschlands_. The earnest and noble convictions\napparent in all the writings of the author, and the unmistakable purity\nof his aims, forced from the more candid of the opponents of his\npolitical creed recognition and high respect. Nevertheless, he narrowly\nescaped legal assassination and the _fusillades_ of the Kriegsgericht\nor Military Tribunal.\n\nLater the unsuccessful lover of his country sought refuge in England,\nand from thence proceeded to the United States (1850). Upon the\nbreaking out of the desperate struggle between the North and South, he\nthrew in his lot with the former, and took part in several battles. In\nAmerica he wrote his historical work _Weltgeschichte_ (12 vols.) and,\namongst others, _Abeilard und Heloise_. In 1861 he returned to Europe,\nand, at different periods, wrote two of his most important books,\n_Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung_ (\u201cVegetable\nDiet, the Foundation of a New World-View\u201d), and _Das Seelenleben,\noder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen_ (\u201cThe Spiritual Life, or the\nNatural History of Man\u201d), in both of which he earnestly insists, not\nonly upon the vast and incalculable suffering inflicted, in the most\nbarbarous manner, upon the victims of the _Table_, but, further, upon\nthe demoralising influence of living by pain and slaughter:--\n\n \u201cThe thoughts and feelings which the food we partake of provokes\n are not remarked in common life, but they, nevertheless, have their\n significance. A man who daily sees Cows and Calves slaughtered,\n or who kills them himself, Hogs \u2018stuck,\u2019 Hens plucked, or Geese\n roasted alive, &c., cannot possibly retain any true feeling for\n the sufferings of his own species. He becomes hardened to them by\n witnessing the struggles of other animals as they are being driven\n by the butcher, the groans of the dying Ox, or the screams of the\n bleeding Hog, with indifference.... Nay, he may come even to find\n a devilish pleasure in seeing beings tortured and killed, or in\n actually slaughtering them himself....\n\n \u201cBut even those who take no part in killing, nay, do not even see\n it, are conscious that the flesh-dishes upon their tables come from\n the Shambles, and that _their feasting and the suffering of others\n are in intimate connexion_. Doubtless, the majority of flesh-eaters\n do not reflect upon the manner in which this food comes to them,\n but this thoughtlessness, far from being a virtue, is the parent of\n many vices.... How very different are the thoughts and sentiments\n produced by the non-flesh diet!\u201d[272]\n\nThe last period of his life was passed in Wien (Vienna), and in that\ncity his beneficently-active career closed in August, 1870. His last\nbroken words to his wife, some hours before his end, were, \u201cI must\nleave the world ... this war ... this conflict!\u201d With the life of\nGustav Struve was extinguished that of one of the noblest soldiers of\nthe Cross of Humanity. His memory will always be held in high honour\nwherever justice, philanthropy, and humane feeling are in esteem.\n\nIn _Mandaras\u2019 Wanderungen_, of a different inspiration from that of\nordinary fiction, and which is full of refinement of thought and\nfeeling, are vividly represented the repugnance of a cultivated Hindu\nwhen brought, for the first time, into contact with the barbarisms of\nEuropean civilisation. To few of our English readers, it is presumable,\nis this charming story known; and an outline of its principal incidents\nwill not be supererogatory here.\n\nThe hero, a young Hindu, whose home is in one of the secluded\nvalleys of the Himalaya, urged by the solicitude of the father of\nhis betrothed, who wishes to prove him by contact with so different\na world, sets out on a course of travel in Europe. The story opens\nwith the arrival of his ship at Leftheim (Livorno) on the Italian\ncoast. Mandaras has no sooner landed than he is accosted by two\nclerics (_ordensgeistliche_), who wish to acquire the honour and\nglory of making a convert. But, unhappily for their success, like his\npredecessor Amabed, he had already on his voyage discovered that the\nreligion of the people, among whom he was destined to reside, did not\nexclude certain horrible barbarisms hitherto unknown to him in his own\nunchristian land:--\n\n \u201cWhile still on board ship I had been startled when I saw the rest\n of the passengers feeding on the flesh of animals. \u2018By what right,\u2019\n I asked them, \u2018do you kill other animals to feed upon their flesh?\u2019\n They could not answer, but they continued to eat their salted\n flesh as much as ever. For my part, I would have rather died than\n have eaten a piece of it. But now it is far worse. I can pass\n through no street in which there are not poor slaughtered animals,\n hung up either entire or cut into pieces. Every moment I hear the\n cries of agony and of alarm of the victims whom they are driving\n to the slaughter-house,--see their struggles against the murderous\n knife of the butcher. Ever and again I ask of one or other of the\n men who surround me, _by what right_ they kill them and devour\n their flesh; but if I receive an answer, it is returned in phrases\n which mean nothing or in repulsive laughter.\u201d\n\nIn fact the Hindu traveller had been but a brief space of time in\nChristian lands when he finds himself, almost unconsciously, in the\nposition of a _catechist_ rather than of a _catechumen_. One day,\nfor example, he finds himself in the midst of a vast crowd, of all\nclasses, hurrying to some spectacle. Inquiring the cause of so vast an\nassemblage, he learns that some persons are to be put to death with\nall the frightful circumstances of public executions. After travelling\nthrough a great part of Germany, he fixes his residence, for the\npurpose of study, in the University of Lindenberg. In the society of\nthat place he meets with a young girl, Leonora, the daughter of a\nSecretary of Legation, who engages his admiration by her exceptional\nculture and refinement of mind. On the occasion of an excursion of\na party of her father\u2019s visitors, of some days, to an island on the\nneighbouring coast, the first discussion on humane dietetics takes\nplace, when, being asked the reason of his _eccentricity_, he appeals\nto the ladies of the party, believing that he shall have at least\n_their_ sympathy with the principles he lays down:--\n\n \u201cFrom you, ladies, doubtless I shall meet with approval. Tell\n me, could you, _with your own hands_, kill to-day a gentle Lamb,\n a soft Dove, with whom perhaps you yesterday were playing? You\n answer--No? You dare not say you could. If you were to say yes,\n you would, indeed, betray a hard heart. But why could you not? Why\n did it cause you anguish, when you saw a defenceless animal driven\n to slaughter? Because you felt, _in your inmost soul_, that it is\n wrong, that it is unjust to kill a defenceless and innocent being!\n With quite other feelings would you look on the death of a Tiger\n that attacks men, than on that of a Lamb who has done harm to no\n one. To the one action attaches, naturally, justice; to the other,\n injustice. Follow the inner promptings of your heart,--no longer\n sanction the slaughter of innocent beings by feeding on their\n bodies (_bef\u00f6rden Sie nicht deren T\u00f6dtung dadurch dass Sie ihr\n Fleisch essen_).\u201d\n\nThis exhortation, to his surprise, was received by all \u201cthe softer sex\u201d\nwith coldness, and even with signs of impatience, excepting Leonora,\nwho acknowledged the force of his appeal and promised to the best\nof her power to follow his example. Pleased and encouraged by her\napproval, he proceeds:--\n\n \u201cAssuredly it will not repent you to have formed this resolution.\n The man who, with firmly-grounded habits, denies himself something\n which lies in his power, to spare pain and death to living and\n sentient beings, must become milder and more loving. The man who\n steels himself against the feeling of compassion for the lower\n animals, will be more or less hard towards his own species; while\n he who shrinks from giving pain to other beings, will so much the\n more shrink from inflicting it upon his fellow men.\u201d\n\nLeonora, however, was a rare exception in his experience; and the more\nhe saw of Christian customs, the less did he feel disposed to change\nhis religion, which, by the way, was of an unexceptionable kind. Some\ntime before his leaving Lindenberg, the secretary\u2019s wife gave a dinner\nin his honour, which, in compliment to her guest, was without any\nflesh-dish. As a matter of course, the conversation soon turned upon\nDietetics; and one of the guests, a cleric, challenged the Hindu to\ndefend his principles. Mandaras had scarcely laid down the cardinal\narticle of his creed as a fundamental principle in Ethics--that it is\nunjust to inflict suffering upon a living and sensitive being, which\n(as he insists) cannot be called in question _without shaking the very\nfoundations of Morality_ (_welcher nicht die Sittenlehre in ihren\nFundamenten ersch\u00fcttern will_)--when opponents arise on all sides of\nhim. A doctor of medicine led the opposition, confidently affirming\nthat the human frame itself proved men to be intended for flesh-eating.\nMandaras replied that:--\n\n \u201cIt seemed to him, on the contrary, that it is the bodily frame of\n man that especially declares _against_ flesh-eating. The Tiger,\n the Lion, in short, all flesh-eating animals seized their prey,\n running, swimming, or flying, and tore it in pieces with their\n teeth or talons, devouring it there and then upon the spot. Man\n cannot catch other animals in this way, or tear them in pieces, and\n devour them as they are.... Besides he has higher, and not merely\n animal, impulses. The latter lead him to gluttony, intemperance,\n and many other vices. Providence has given him reason to prove what\n is right and what wrong, and power of will to avoid what he has\n discovered to be wrong. The doctor, however, in place of admitting\n this argument, grew all the warmer. \u2018In all Nature,\u2019 said he, \u2018one\n sees how the lower existence is serviceable to the higher. As man\n does, so do other animals seize upon the weaker, and the weakest\n upon plants, &c.\u2019\u201d\n\nTo this the Hindu philosopher in vain replies, _that_ the sphere of\nman, is _wider_, and ought therefore to be _higher_ than that of other\nanimals, for the larger the circle in which a being can freely move,\nthe greater is the possible degree of his perfection; _that_, if we\nare to place ourselves on the plane of the carnivora in one point,\nwhy not in all, and recognise also treachery, fierceness, and murder\nin general, as proper to man _that_ the different character of the\nTiger, the Hy\u00e6na, the Wolf on the one side, and of the Elephant, the\nCamel, the Horse on the other, instruct us as to the mighty influence\nof food upon the disposition, and certainly not to the advantage of\nthe flesh-eaters; _that_ man is to strive not after the lower but the\nhigher character, &c., &c. To this the hostess replies: \u201cThis may\nbe all very beautiful and good, but how is the housekeeper to be so\nskilful as to provide for all her guests, if she is to withhold from\nthem flesh dishes?\u201d \u201cExactly as our housekeepers do in the Himalayan\nvalley--exactly as our hostess does to-day,\u201d rejoins Mandaras. He\nalleges many other arguments, and in particular the high degree\nof reasoning faculty, and even of moral feeling, exhibited by the\nmiserable slaves of human tyranny. Various are the objections raised,\nwhich, it is needless to say, are successfully overthrown by the\nchampion of Innocence, and the company disperse after a prolonged\ndiscussion.\n\nThe second division of the story takes us to the Valley of Suty, the\nHimalayan home of Mandaras, and introduces us to his amiable family.\nA young German, travelling in that region, chances to meet with the\nfather of Urwasi (Mandaras\u2019s betrothed), whom he finds bowed down\nwith grief for the double loss of his daughter, who had pined away in\nthe protracted absence of her lover and succumbed to the sickness of\nhope deferred, and of his destined son-in-law, who, upon his return\nto claim his mistress, had fallen (as it appeared) into a death-swoon\nat the shock of the terrible news awaiting him. The old man conducts\nthe stranger to the scene of mourning, where Damajanti, the sister\nof Mandaras, with her friend Sunanda, is engaged in weaving garlands\nof flowers to deck the bier of her beloved brother. An interesting\nconversation follows between the European stranger and the Hindu\nladies, who are worthy representatives of their countrywoman,\nSakuntal\u00e0.[273] Accidentally they discover that he is a flesh-eater.\n\n _Sunanda_: Is it possible that you really belong to those men who\n think it lawful to kill other beings to feed upon their bleeding\n limbs?\n\n _Theobald_: In my country it is the ordinary custom. Do you not, in\n your country, use such food?\n\n _Damajanti_: Can you ask? Have not other animals feeling? Do they\n not enjoy their existence?\n\n _Theobald_: Certainly; but they are so much below us, that there\n can be no _reciprocity_ of duties between us.\n\n _Damajanti_: The higher we stand in relation to other animals,\n the more are we bound to disregard none of the eternal laws of\n Morality, and, in particular, that of Love. Hateful is it, at all\n events, to inflict pain upon an innocent being capable of feeling\n pain. Or do you consider it permissible to strike a dog, to witness\n the trembling of his limbs, and to hear his cries?\n\n _Theobald_: By no means. I hold, also, that it is wrong to torture\n them, because we ought to feel no pleasure in the sufferings of\n other animals.\n\n _Damajanti_: We ought to feel no _pleasure_! That is very cold\n reasoning. Detestation--disgust, rather, is the sensation we ought\n to have. Where this sentiment is real, there can be no desire\n to profit by the sufferings of others. Yet, where the feelings\n of disgust for what is bad are weaker than inclination to the\n self-indulgence which it promises, there is no possibility of their\n triumphing. For _gain_ the butcher slaughters the victim; for\n _horrible luxury_ other men participate in this murder, while they\n devour the pieces of flesh, in which, a few moments before, the\n blood was still flowing, the nerves yet quivering, the life still\n breathing!\n\n _Theobald_: I admit it: but all this is new to me. From childhood\n upwards I have been accustomed to see animals driven to the\n slaughter-house. It gave me no pleasure rather it was a positively\n displeasing spectacle; but I did not think about it--whether we\n have the right to slaughter for food, because I had never heard\n doubt expressed on the matter.\n\n _Sunanda_: Ah! Now I can well believe that the men in your country\n _must_ be hard and cold. Every softer feeling _must_ be hardened,\n every tenderer one be dulled in the daily scenes of murder which\n they have before their eyes, by the blood which they shed daily,\n which they taste daily. Happy am I that I live far from your world.\n A thousand times would I rather endure death than live in so\n horrible a land.\n\n _Damajanti_: To me, too, residence in such a land would be torture.\n Yet, were I a man, had I the power of eloquence, I would go from\n village to village, from town to town, and vehemently denounce\n such horrors. I should think that I had achieved more than the\n founders of all religions, if I should succeed in inspiring men\n with sympathy for their fellow-beings. What is religious belief,\n if it tolerates this murder, or rather sanctions it? What is all\n Belief without Love? And what is a Love _that excludes from its\n embrace the infinitely larger part of living beings_? Sweet and\n fair indeed is it to live in a valley which harbours only mild and\n loving people; but it is greater, and worthier of the high destiny\n of human life, to battle amongst the Bad for Goodness, to contend\n for the Light amongst the prisoners of Darkness. What is Life\n without Doing? We women, indeed, cannot, and dare not ourselves\n venture forth into the wild surge of rough and coarse men; but it\n is our business at least to incite to all that is True, Beautiful,\n and Good; to have regard for no man who is not ardent for what is\n noble, to accept none of them who does not come before us adorned\n with the ornament of worthy actions (der nicht mit dem Schmucke\n w\u00fcrdigen Thaten vor uns tritt).\n\nThis eloquent discourse takes place while the three friends are\nwatching, during the night, at the bier of the supposed dead. At\nthe moment when the last funeral rites are to be performed, equally\nwith the spectators we are surprised and pleased at the unexpected\nresuscitation of Mandaras, who, it appeared, had been in a trance,\nfrom which at the critical moment he awoke. With what transports he\nis welcomed back from the confines of the shadow-land, may easily be\ndivined. For some time they live together in uninterrupted happiness;\nthe young German, who had adopted their simple mode of living,\nremaining with them. In the intervals of pleasing labours in the\nfield and the garden, they pass their hours of recreation in refined\nintellectual discourse and speculation, the younger ones deriving\ninstruction from the experienced wisdom of the venerable sage. The\nconversation often turns upon the relations between the human and\nnon-human races; and, in the course of one of his philosophical\nprelections, the old man, with profound insight, declares that \u201cso\nlong as other animals continue to be excluded from the circle of Moral\nExistence, in which Rights and Duties are recognised, so long is there\nno step forward in Morality to be expected. So long as men continue\nto support their lives upon bodies essentially like to their own,\nwithout misgiving and without remorse, so long will they be fast bound\nby blood-stained fetters (_mit blutgetr\u00e4nkten Fesseln_) to the lower\nplanes of existence.\u201d\n\nAt length the sorrowful day of separation arrives. It is decided that\nMandaras should return to Germany, a wider sphere of useful action than\nthe Himalayan valleys presented; and an additional reason is found\nin the discovery that his mother herself had been German. With much\npainful reluctance in parting from beloved friends, he recognises the\nforce of their arguments, and once more leaves his peaceful home for\nthe turmoil of European cities. After suffering shipwreck, in which\nhe rescues a mother and child--at the expense of what he had held\nas his most precious possession, a casket of relics of his beloved\nUrwasi--Mandaras lands once again at Livorno. He finds his old friends\nas eager as ever for proselytising \u201cthe heathen,\u201d and quite unconscious\nof the need of conversion for themselves. At the death of the aged\nfather of Damajanti, she, with her friend Sunanda and Theobald, who\nstill remains with them, and (as may have been divined) is the devoted\nlover of the charming Sunanda, determines to leave her ancestral abode\nand join her brother in his adopted German home. When they arrive at\nthe appointed place of meeting they are overwhelmed with grief to find\nthat he, for whose sake so long a pilgrimage had been undertaken, had\nbeen taken from them for ever. Having lost his passport he had been\narrested on suspicion and imprisoned. In confinement he had shrunk from\nthe European flesh-dishes, and, unsupplied with proper nourishment or a\nsufficiency of it, had died (in the true sense of the word) a _martyr_,\nto the last, to his moral principles. With great difficulty his final\nwords in writing are discovered, and these, in the form of letters to\nhis sister, declare his unshaken faith and hopes for the future of the\nWorld. There are, also, found short poems, which are published at the\nend of his Memoirs, and are fully worthy of the refined mind of the\nauthor of _Mandaras_. Thus ends a romance which, for beauty of idea and\nsentiment, may be classed with the _Aventures de T\u00e9l\u00e9maque_ of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\nand, still more fitly, with the _Paul et Virginie_ of St. Pierre.[274]\n\nThe space we have been tempted to give to _Mandaras\u2019s Wanderings_\nprecludes more than one or two further extracts from Struve\u2019s admirable\nwritings. His _Pflanzenkost_, perhaps the best known, as it is his\nmost complete, exposition of his views on Humane Dietetics, appeared\nin the year 1869. In it he examines Vegetarianism in all its varied\naspects--in regard to Sociology, Education, Justice, Theology, Art and\nScience, Natural Economy, Health, War and Peace, the practical and\nreal Materialism of the Age, Health, Refinement of Life, &c. From the\nsection which considers the Vegetable Diet in its relations to National\nEconomy we quote the following just reflections:--\n\n \u201cEvery step from a lower condition to a higher is bound up with\n certain difficulties. This is especially the case when it is a\n question of shaking off habits strengthened by numbers and length\n of time. Had the human race, however, not the power to do so,\n then the step from Paganism to Christianity, from predatory life\n to tillage, in particular from savage barbarousness to a certain\n stage in civilisation, would have been impossible. All these steps\n brought many struggles in their train, which to many thousands\n produced some hardships (_Schaden_); to untold millions, however,\n incalculable benefits. So, also, the steps onward from Flesh-Diet\n cannot be established without some disturbances. The great majority\n of men hold fast to old prejudices. They struggle, not seldom with\n senseless rage, against enlightenment and reason, and a century\n often passes away before a new idea has forced the way for the\n spread of new blessings.\n\n \u201cTherefore, we need not wonder if we, also, who protest and stand\n out against the evils of Flesh-Eating, and proclaim the advantages\n of the Vegetable Diet, find violent opponents. The gain which would\n accrue to the whole race of man by the acceptance of that diet is,\n however, so great and so evidently destined, that our final victory\n is certain....\n\n \u201cDoubtless the Political Economy of our days will be shaken to its\n foundations by the step from the flesh to the non-flesh diet; but\n this was also the case when the nomads began to practise tillage,\n and the hunters found no more _game_. The relics of certain\n barbarisms must be shaken off. All barbarians, or semi-barbarians,\n will struggle desperately against this with their selfish\n coarseness (_eigenth\u00fcmlichen Rohheit_). But the result will be that\n the soil which, under the influence of the Flesh-R\u00e9gime supported\n one man only, will, with the unfettered advantages of the Vegetable\n Diet support five human beings. Liebig, even, recognised so much\n as this--that the Flesh-Diet is twelve times more costly than the\n Non-Flesh.\u201d[275]\n\nStruve\u2019s _Seelenleben_,[276] published in the same year with the\n_Pflanzenkost_, and his last important work, forms a sort of _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_\nof his opinions already given to the world, and is, therefore, a more\ncomprehensive exposition of his opinions on Sociology and Ethics than\nis found in his earlier writings. It is full of the truest philosophy\non the Natural History of Man, inspired by the truest refinement of\nsoul. In the section entitled _Moral_ he well exposes the futility\nof hap-hazard speeches, meaning nothing, which, vaguely and in an\nindefinite manner addressed to the child, are allowed to do duty for\n_practical_ moral teaching:--\n\n \u201cThey tell children, perhaps, that they must not be cruel either\n to \u2018Animals\u2019 or to human beings weaker than themselves. But when\n the child goes into the kitchen, he sees Pigeons, Hens, and Geese\n slaughtered and plucked; when he goes into the streets, he sees\n animals hung up with bodies besmeared with blood, feet cut off, and\n heads twisted back. If the child proceeds still further, he comes\n upon the slaughter-house, in which harmless and useful beings of\n all kinds are being slaughtered or strangled. We shall not here\n dwell upon all the barbarisms bound up in the butchery of animals;\n but in the same degree in which men abuse their superior powers, in\n regard to other species, do they usually cause their tyranny to be\n felt by weaker human beings in their power.\n\n \u201cWhat avails all the fine talk about morality, in contrast with\n _acts of barbarism and immorality presented to them on all sides_?\n\n \u201cIt is no proof of an exalted morality when a man acts justly\n towards a person stronger than himself, who can injure him.\n _He alone acts justly who fulfils his obligatory duties\n (Verpflichtungen) in regard to the weaker._ ... He, who has\n no _human_ persons under him, at least can strike his horse,\n barbarously drive his calf, and cudgel his dog. The relations\n of men to the inferior species are so full of significance, and\n exercise so mighty an influence upon the development of human\n character, that Morality wants a wider province that shall embrace\n those beings within it.\u201d\n\nIn the chapter devoted especially to Food and Drinks (_Speise und\nTrank_) Struve warns those whom it most concerns that:--\n\n \u201cThe monstrous evils and abuses, which gradually and stealthily\n have invaded our daily foods and drinks, have now reached to such a\n pitch that they can no longer be winked at. He who desires to work\n for the improvement of the human species, for the elevation of the\n human soul, and for the invigoration of the human body, dares not\n leave uncontested the general dominant unnaturalness of living.\n\n \u201cWith a people struggling for Freedom the Kitchen must be no\n murderous den (_M\u00f6rdergrube_); the Larder no den of corruption;\n the Meal no occasion for stupefaction. In despotic states the\n oppressors of the People may intoxicate themselves with spirituous\n drink, and bring disease and feebleness upon themselves with\n unlawful and unwholesome meats. The sooner such men perish (_zu\n grunde gehen_) the better. But in free states (or in such as are\n striving for Freedom), Simplicity, Temperance, Soberness must be\n the first principles of citizen-life. No people can be free whose\n individual members are still slaves to their own passions.[277]\n Man must first free himself from these before he can, _with any\n success_, make war upon those of his fellow-men.\u201d\n\nWeighty words coming from a student of Science and of Human Life.\nStill weightier coming from one who had devoted so large a part of his\nexistence to assist, and had taken so active a part in, the struggles\nof the people for Justice and Freedom.\n\n\n\n\nXLIX.\n\nDAUMER. 1800-1875.\n\n\nOne of the earliest pioneers of the New Reformation in Germany, chiefly\nfrom what may be termed the religious-philosophical standpoint, and one\nwhose useful learning was equalled only by his true conception of the\nsignificance of the religious sentiment, was born at N\u00fcrnberg, in the\nlast year of the eighteenth century.\n\nOf a naturally feeble constitution, unable to mix in the ordinary\namusements of school-life, he found ample leisure for literature and\nfor music, to which especially he was devoted. Much of his time, also,\nwas given to theological, and, in particular, biblical reading, so that\nhis mother unhesitatingly fixed upon the clerical profession as his\nfuture career. He attended the Gymnasium of his native town, at that\ntime under the direction of Hegel, who exercised a permanent influence\nupon his mental development. In the eighteenth year of his age he\nproceeded to the University of Erlangen for the study of theology.\nDoubts, however, began to disturb his contentment with orthodoxy;\nand, more and more dissatisfied with its systems, the young student\nrelinquished the course of life for which he had believed himself\ndestined; and, after attending the lectures of Schelling, he went\nto Leipsic to apply himself wholly to philology. Having completed\nthe usual course of study, he was appointed teacher, and afterwards\nProfessor of Latin in the N\u00fcrnberg Gymnasium (1827). Unpleasant\nrelations with the Rector of the schools (whose orthodoxy seems to have\nbeen less questionable than his amiability), and also, in part, his\nfeeble health, obliged him to resign this post, and from that time he\ngave himself up exclusively to literary occupations, which were, for\nthe most part, in the domain of philosophic theology.\n\nDuring his professoriate Daumer had written his _Urgeschichte des\nMenschengeistes_ (\u201cPrimitive History of the Human Mind\u201d), which was\nsucceeded, at an interval of some years, by his _Andeutungen eines\nSystems Speculativer Philosophie_ (\u201cIntimations of a System of\nSpeculative Philosophy\u201d), in which he attempted to found and formulate\na philosophic Theism. The unreality of the professions and trifling of\nthose who had most reputation in the \u201creligious\u201d world, estranged him\nmore and more from the prevalent interpretations of Christianity.\n\nHis _Philosophie, Religion, und Alterthum_ appeared in 1833. Two\nyears later his _Z\u00fcge zu einer neuen Philosophie der Religion\nand Religionsgeschichte_ (\u201cIndications for a New Philosophy of\nReligion and History of Religion\u201d). In 1842 was published _Der\nFeuer-und-Moloch-Dienst der Hebr\u00e4er_ (\u201cThe Fire and Moloch-Worship of\nthe Hebrews\u201d), and (1847) _Die Geheimnisse des Christlichen Alterthums_\n(\u201cThe Mysteries of Christian Antiquity\u201d), in which he pointed out\nthat human sacrifice, and even cannibalism, were connected with the\nold Baal-worship of the Jews, and maintained the newer religion to\nbe, in one important respect, not so much a purification of Judaism,\nas an apparently retrograde movement to the still older religionism.\nBesides these and other philosophic writings, Daumer published a free\ntranslation of the Persian poet Hafiz. _Hafiz_ was followed by _Mahomed\nund seine Werke: eine Sammlung Orientalischer Geschichte_ (\u201cMahommed\nand his Actions: a R\u00e9sum\u00e9 of Oriental History\u201d) 1848; and in 1855 by\n_Polydora: ein Weltpoetisches Liederbuch_ (\u201cPolydora: A Book of Lays\nfrom the World\u2019s Poetry\u201d).\n\nIn his _Anthropologismus und Kriticismus_ (\u201cAnthropology and\nCriticism\u201d), 1844, are many assaults upon the orthodox dietetic\npractices; and in _Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber Kaspar Hauser_ (\u201cRevelations\nin regard to Kaspar Hauser\u201d) he displays the noxious influences of\nflesh-eating upon a \u201cwild boy of the woods,\u201d who had been deserted or\nlost by his parents in his childhood, and who had lived an entirely\nnatural life in the forests, eating only wild fruits. When he had\nbeen reclaimed from the _savage_ state, his guardians, it seems,\nthought that the most effectual method of \u201ccivilising\u201d their charge\nwas to force him to discard fruits for flesh. The result, as shown by\nProfessor Daumer, who watched the case with the greatest interest,\nwas not reassuring for the orthodox believers. The inveteracy of the\npractice of kreophagy, which blinds men to its essential barbarism, as\nwell as its anti-ethical, anti-humanising influences, is eloquently\ninsisted upon:--\n\n \u201cAmong the reforms necessary for the triumph of true refinement and\n true morality, which ought to be our earnest aim, is the Dietetic\n one, which, if not the weightiest of all (_allerwichtigste_), yet,\n undoubtedly, is one of the weightiest. Still is the \u2018civilised\u2019\n world stained and defiled by the remains of a horrible barbarity;\n while the old-world revolting practice of slaughter of animals and\n feeding on their corpses still is in so universal vogue, that men\n have not the faculty even of recognising it as such, as otherwise\n they would recognise it; and aversion from this horror provokes\n censure of such eccentricity, and amazement at any manifestion of\n tendency to reform, as at something absurd and ridiculous--nay,\n arouses even bitterness and hate. To extirpate this barbarism is a\n task, the accomplishment of which lies in the closest relationship\n with the most important principles of humaneness, morality,\n \u00e6sthetics, and physiology. A foundation for real culture--a\n thorough civilising and refining of humanity--is clearly impossible\n so long as an organised system of murder and of corpse-eating\n (_organisirten Mord-und-Leichenfratz System_) prevails by\n recognised custom.\n\n \u201cThat through a manner of living, of a character so fostering of\n corrupting and putrefying principles, is generated and nourished a\n whole host of diseases which, otherwise, would not exist, is so\n easy to see, that only an extremely obstinate love of flesh-meat\n can blind one to the fact. Before I renounced flesh-eating, which,\n unhappily, I had not the courage to do before I had lived a half\n century, I suffered from time to time from a frightful neuralgia,\n which tortured me many long days and nights. Since I abstained from\n that diet I have rid myself of this evil entirely. Observations of\n other individuals, in respect of the same and other maladies, have\n led me to the same conclusion. Worms, for instance, from which it\n formerly suffered, have entirely disappeared in a child, when it no\n longer was fed upon flesh.\n\n \u201cThat through the _cadaverous_ diet, also, very great disadvantages\n are derived to the spiritual and moral nature of men, appears to me\n to be proved by my experience in the case of my former foster-son,\n the celebrated Kaspar Hauser. This young man, maintained during his\n close confinement upon bread and water, for a long time after his\n introduction to the world ate nothing else, and wished for nothing\n else, as food. While he was accustomed, without ill-effect, to take\n bread-sops, oatmeal, and plain chocolate, from flesh, which had\n for him an intolerable odour, he had conceived a violent aversion.\n Living in this way he always looked sufficiently well-nourished,\n he developed a remarkable intelligence, and exhibited an\n extraordinarily refined and tender feeling. He was induced at last,\n but only by the most extraordinary caution and gradually, to take\n the usual flesh-dishes, by being given at first only a few drops\n of flesh-soup in his bread-sops, and, when he had grown in some\n measure accustomed to it, by infusing stronger ingredients, and so\n on.\n\n \u201cThere was now manifested the most disastrous change in his mind\n and disposition: learning became for him strangely difficult--the\n nobility of his nature disappeared into the background, and he\n turned out to be nothing more than a very ordinary individual.\n They ascribed this, of course, to every other cause than to\n his habituation to the flesh-diet. I myself was at that time\n very remote from the opinion of which I now am. From my present\n standpoint, however, I certainly cannot doubt that dietetic\n barbarism is for man of the most essential harm, not alone in a\n physical, but also in an intellectual and moral, point of view,\n however much it may, at present, be taken under the patronage of\n physiologists and physicians--upon no other ground, apparently,\n than because they themselves, to a melancholy degree, are devotedly\n attached to this inhuman diet. For, alas! man is wont to make use\n of his reason to justify by specious show of reasoning what he\n likes and delights in upon quite other grounds.\u201d[278]\n\nOf the rest of the little band of the propagators of the truer\nPhilosophy in Germany no longer living--who resolutely bore aloft\nthe standard of the Humanitarian Creed, at a time when it was yet\nmore scouted and scorned by the infidels than even at the present\nday--deserving as they are of everlasting gratitude and remembrance\nat the hands of their more fortunate successors, the limits of this\nbook compel us to be content with recording here the witness of one\nor two more only; while for acquaintance with the numerous able and\neloquent expositions of their living representatives--of such earnest\nhumanitarian and social reformers as Ed. Baltzer, Emil Weilsh\u00e4user,\nTheodor Hahn, Dr. Aderholdt, A. von Seefeld, R. Springer, and\nothers-- we must refer our readers, who wish to form an adequate idea\nof contemporary German _anti-kreophagistic_ literature (as also in\nregard to the equally extensive contemporary English literature of the\nsubject), to the original works themselves.\n\nFrom _Der Weg zum Paradiese_ (\u201cThe Way to Paradise\u201d) the following\nextract sufficiently represents the inspiration of the writer, Dr. W.\nZimmermann:--\n\n \u201cMen are almost entirely everything that they are by the force of\n custom; and this force, for the most part, resists every other\n power, and remains victorious over all. Reason itself, morality,\n and conscience are submissive to it. In the matter of Dietary\n Reform it displays itself as the enemy _par excellence_ (_die\n Hauptmacht_). People will fall back upon alleged _impossibilities_,\n although it is a question only of will and resolution. They will\n reject many of the dietetic propositions hitherto advanced as\n dangerous \u2018abstractions,\u2019 although they are founded in history,\n reason, and human destiny; although a brief enquiry ought to\n suffice to convince one of the first importance of the Reform. For\n although one must suppose that all would prefer a long, healthy,\n and happy existence to a feeble, painful life upon the old regimen,\n yet will the majority of human beings think it easier to attempt to\n assuage their torments and pains by uncertain, and, by no means,\n unhazardous medicine, rather than to remove them by obedience to\n Nature\u2019s laws. As it is with most of the highest truths, so is\n it especially with Dietary Reform. People will reject it as an\n _abstraction_, and pronounce it an _impossibility_. In the future,\n however, by the greater number of the higher minds--for such a\n sacrifice of the lower and unnatural appetite we dare not expect\n from the ordinary run of men--will it be regarded in practice as\n a great blessing. For even now there are many exceptions in the\n social organism for whom Nature\u2019s laws are superior to unreasoning\n impulse; for whom morality is superior to materialistic and mere\n sensual living; for whom duty is superior to superfluity. Besides,\n we are advancing towards a humaner century; and, as the present\n is a humaner time than the century before, so later will there\n be a milder _r\u00e9gime_ than now. Just as, in our days, exposure\n of children, combats of gladiators, torture of prisoners, and\n other atrocities are held to be scandalous and shameful, while\n in earlier times they were thought quite justifiable and right,\n so in the future will the murder of animals, to feed upon their\n corpses, be pronounced to be immoral and indefensible. Already\n (1846) are associations being formed for the protection of these\n beings; already now are there many who, like the nobler spirits\n of antiquity, apply to their diet the watchword of morality (_das\n Losungswort der Moral_) _to do good and to abstain from wrong is\n always, and above everything, possible_, and no longer give their\n sanction, by feeding on animals, to the torture and killing of\n innocent sentient beings.\n\n \u201cAccording to the _number_ of proselytes will the importance of\n the evidence be adjudged. When thousands, practising natural diet,\n are observed in the midst of diseased flesh-eaters to be in the\n enjoyment of a prolonged, happy, old age, without disease and the\n sufferings of a vicious method of life, then will the way be laid\n down for _the many_ to abandon the living upon the corpses of other\n animals.\u201d\n\nOf a like inspiration is the indignant protest of another of the\napostles of Humanitarianism in Germany:--\n\n \u201cWhat humiliation, what disgrace for us all, _that it should be\n necessary_ for one man to exhort other men not to be inhuman and\n irrational towards their fellow-creatures!\n\n Do they recognise, then, no mind, no soul in them--have they not\n feeling, pleasure in existence, do they not suffer pain? Do their\n voices of joy and sorrow indeed fail to speak to the human heart\n and conscience--so that they can murder the jubilant lark, in the\n first joy of his spring-time, who ought to warm their hearts with\n sympathy, from delight in bloodshed or for their \u2018sport,\u2019 or with\n a horrible insensibility and recklessness only to practise their\n aim in shooting! Is there no _soul_ manifest in the eyes of the\n living or dying animal--no expression of suffering in the eye of\n a deer or stag hunted to death--nothing which accuses them of\n murder before the avenging Eternal Justice?... Are the souls of\n all other animals but man mortal, or are they essential in their\n organisation? Does the world-idea (_Welt-Idee_) pertain to them\n also--the soul of nature--a particle of the Divine Spirit? I know\n not; but I feel, and every reasonable man feels like me, it is in\n miserable, intolerable contradiction with our human nature, with\n our conscience, with our reason, with all our talk of humanity,\n destiny, nobility; it is in frightful (_himmelschreinder_)\n contradiction with our poetry and philosophy, with our nature and\n with our (pretended) love of nature, with our religion, with our\n teachings about _benevolent design_--that we bring into existence\n merely to kill, to maintain our own life by the destruction of\n other life.... It is a frightful wrong that other species are\n tortured, worried, flayed, and devoured by us, in spite of the fact\n that we are not obliged to this by necessity; while in sinning\n against the defenceless and helpless, just claimants as they are\n upon our reasonable conscience and upon our compassion, we succeed\n only in brutalising ourselves. This, besides, is quite certain,\n that man has no real pity and compassion for his own species, so\n long as he is pitiless towards other races of beings.\u201d[279]\n\n\n\n\nL.\n\nSCHOPENHAUER. 1788-1860.\n\n\nThe chief interpreter of Buddhistic ideas in Europe, and whose bias\nin this direction is exercising so remarkable an influence upon\ncontemporaneous thought, in Germany in particular, was born at\nDantzig, the son of a wealthy merchant of that city. His mother,\nherself distinguished in literature, was often the centre of the most\neminent persons of the day at Weimar. At a very early age devoted to\nthe philosophies of Plato and of Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer studied\nat the Universities of G\u00f6ttingen and Berlin. His course of studies,\nboth scientific and literary, was, even for a German, unusually severe\nand searching; and his acquirements were encyclop\u00e6dic in their range.\nUnlike most German students, it is worth noting, he was addicted\nneither to beer-drinking nor to duelling.\n\nHis most important writings are: _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_\n(\u201cThe World as Will and Representation\u201d), 2 vols; _Die Grundprobleme\nder Ethik_ (\u201cThe Ground-Problems of Ethics\u201d); _Parerga und\nParalipomena_ (\u201cIncidental and Neglected Subjects\u201d), 2 vols; _Das\nFundament der Moral_ (\u201cThe Foundation of Morality\u201d), 1840.\n\nThe peculiar characteristics of his philosophy are uncompromising\nopposition to the hollow doctrines of easy-going Optimism--an\nantagonism which, indeed, assumes the form of an exaggerated\nPessimism--and (what especially distinguishes him from most\nsystematisers and formularisers of morals) his making _Compassion_ the\nprincipal, and, indeed, the exclusive source of moral action; and it\nis his vindication of the _rights_ of the subject species, in marked\ncontrast with the silence, or even positive depreciation and contempt\nfor them, on the part of ordinary moralists, which will always entitle\nhim to take exceptionally high rank among reformers of Ethical systems,\nin spite of his exaggerations and short-comings in other respects.\nDr. David Strauss (_Der Alte und der Neue Glaube_) thus writes of his\nclaims on these grounds:--\n\n \u201cCriminal history shows us how many torturers of men, and\n murderers, have first been torturers of the lower animals. _The\n manner in which a nation, in the aggregate, treats the other\n species, is one chief measure of its real civilisation._ The\n Latin races, as we know, come forth badly from this examination;\n we Germans not half well enough. Buddhism has done more, in this\n direction, than Christianity; and Schopenhauer more than all\n ancient and modern philosophers together. The warm sympathy with\n sentient nature, which pervades all the writings of Schopenhauer,\n is one of the most pleasing aspects of his thoroughly intellectual,\n though often unhealthy and unprofitable, philosophy.\u201d\n\nThis, it is necessary to add, plainly is written in ignorance of the\nnumerous writings of earlier and contemporaneous humanitarian dietists,\nto whom, of course, is due a higher, because more consistent and more\nlogical, position than even Schopenhauer can claim, who, from ignorance\nof the physical and moral arguments of anti-kreophagy (it reasonably\nmay be presumed), at the same time that he established the rights of\nthe subject species on the firmest basis, and included them as an\nessential part of any moral code, yet, with a strange, but too common,\ninconsistency, did not perceive that to hand over the Cow, the Ox, or\nthe Sheep, &c., to the butcher, is in most flagrant violation of his\nown ethical standard. While, then, the author of the _Foundation of\nMorality_ cannot claim the highest place, absolutely; outside the ranks\nof anti-kreophagistic writers, a high rank may properly be conceded\nto him as one of the most eminent moralists who, short of entire\nemancipation, have done most to vindicate the position of the innocent\nnon-human races.[280] Especially has he denounced the horrible outrage\nupon the commonest principles of justice by the pseudo-scientific\ntorturers of the physiological laboratory.[281] It is thus that he lays\nthe foundations of morality:--\n\n \u201cA Pity, without limits, which unites us with all living\n beings--_in that_ we have the most solid, the surest guarantee\n of morality. _With that_ there is no need of casuistry. Whoso\n possesses it will be quite incapable of causing harm or loss to\n any one, of doing violence to any one, of doing ill in any way.\n But rather he will have for all long-suffering, he will aid the\n helpless with all his powers, and each one of his actions will\n be marked with the stamp of justice and of love. Try to affirm:\n \u2018this man is virtuous, only he knows no pity,\u2019 or rather: \u2018he is\n an unjust and wicked man: nevertheless, he is compassionate.\u2019 The\n contradiction is patent to everyone. Each one to his taste: but for\n myself, I know no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus,\n of old used in closing their public spectacles (just as the English\n of to-day end with a prayer for their king). They said: \u2018May All\n that have life be delivered from suffering!\u2019\u201d\n\nEnforcing his teaching that the principles and mainspring of all moral\naction must be justice and love, Schopenhauer maintains that the real\ninfluence of these first of virtues is tested, especially, by the\nconduct of men to other animals:--\n\n \u201cAnother proof that the moral motive, here proposed, is, in fact,\n the true one, is, that in accordance with it the lower animals\n themselves are protected. The unpardonable forgetfulness in which\n they have been iniquitously left hitherto by all the [popular]\n moralists of Europe is well known. It is pretended that the\n [so-called] beasts have no rights. They persuade themselves that\n our conduct in regard to them has nothing to do with morals, or (to\n speak in the language of their morality) that we have no duties\n towards \u2018animals:\u2019 a doctrine revolting, gross, and barbarous,\n peculiar to the west, and which has its root in Judaism. In\n Philosophy, however, it is made to rest upon a hypothesis, admitted\n in the face of evidence itself, of an absolute difference between\n man and \u2018beast.\u2019 It is Descartes who has proclaimed it in the\n clearest and most decisive manner: and, in fact, it was a necessary\n consequence of his errors. The Cartesian-Leibnitzian-Wolfian\n philosophy, with the assistance of entirely abstract notions, had\n built up the \u2018rational psychology,\u2019 and constructed an immortal\n _anima rationalis_: but, visibly, the world of \u2018beasts,\u2019 with its\n very natural claims, stood up against this exclusive monopoly--this\n _brevet_ of immortality decreed to man alone--and, silently,\n Nature did what she always does in such cases--she protested. Our\n philosophers, feeling their scientific conscience quite disturbed,\n were forced to attempt to consolidate their \u2018rational psychology\u2019\n by the aid of empiricism. They, therefore, set themselves to work\n to hollow out between man and \u2018beast\u2019 an enormous abyss, of an\n immeasurable width; by this they would wish to prove to us, in\n contempt of evidence, an impassable difference. It was at all these\n efforts that Boileau already laughed:--\n\n \u2018Les animaux ont-ils des Universit\u00e9s?\n Voit-on fleurir chez eux les Quatre Facult\u00e9s?\u2019\n\n In accordance with this theory, \u2018beasts\u2019 would have finished with\n no longer knowing how to distinguish themselves from the external\n world, with having no more consciousness of their own existence\n than of mine. Against these intolerable assertions one remedy only\n was needed. Cast a single glance at an animal, even the smallest,\n the lowest in intelligence. See the unbounded _egoism_ of which\n it is possessed. It is enough to convince you that \u2018beasts\u2019 have\n thorough consciousness of their _ego_, and oppose it to the\n world--to the _non-ego_. If a Cartesian found himself in the\n claws of a Tiger, he would learn, and in the most evident way\n possible, whether the Tiger can distinguish between the _ego_ and\n the _non-ego_. To these sophisms of the philosophers respond the\n sophisms of the people. Such are certain _idiotisms_, notably those\n of the German, who, for eating, drinking, conception, birth, death,\n corpse (when \u2018beasts\u2019 are in question), has special terms; so much\n would he fear to employ the same words as for men. He thus succeeds\n in dissimulating, under this diversity of terms, the perfect\n identity of things.\n\n \u201cThe ancient languages knew nothing of this sort of synonymy,\n and they simply called things which are the same by one and the\n same name. These artificial ideas, then, must needs have been\n an invention of the priesthood [_pr\u00e9traille_] of Europe, a lot\n of sacrilegious people who knew not by what means to debase, to\n vilipend the eternal essence which lives in the substance of every\n animated being. In this way they have succeeded in establishing\n in Europe those wicked habits of hardness and cruelty towards\n \u2018beasts,\u2019 which a native of High Asia could not behold without a\n just horror. In English we do not find this infamous invention;\n that is owing, doubtless, to the fact that the Saxons, at the\n moment of the conquest of England, were not yet Christians.\n Nevertheless, the pendent of it is found in this particularity of\n the English language: all the names of animals there are of the\n _neuter gender_: and, as a consequence, when the name is to be\n represented by the pronoun, they use the neuter _it_, absolutely as\n for inanimate objects. Nothing is more shocking than this idiom,\n especially when the _primates_ are spoken of--the Dog, for example,\n the Ape, and others. One cannot fail to recognise here a dishonest\n device (_fourberie_) of the priests to debase [other] animals\n to the rank of things. The ancient Egyptians, for whom Religion\n was the unique business of life, deposed in the same tombs human\n mummies and those of the Ibis, &c.; but in Europe it would be an\n abomination, a crime, to inter the faithful Dog near the place\n where his master lies; and yet it is upon this tomb sometimes that,\n more faithful and more devoted than man ever was, he has awaited\n death.\n\n \u201cIf you wish to know how far the identity between \u2018beast\u2019 and\n man extends, nothing will conduct to such knowledge better than\n a little Zoology and Anatomy. Yet what are we to say when an\n anatomical bigot is seen at this day (1839) to be labouring to\n establish an absolute, radical, distinction between man and other\n animals; proceeding so far in enmity against true Zoologists--those\n who, without conspiracy with the priesthoods, without platitude,\n without _tartuferie_, permit themselves to be conducted by Nature\n and Truth--as to attack them, to calumniate them!\n\n \u201cYet this superiority [of man over other mammals of the higher\n species] depends but upon a more ample development of the\n brain--upon a difference in one part of the body only; this\n difference, besides, being but one of _quantity_. Yes, man and\n other animals are, both as regards the moral and the physical,\n identical _in kind_, without speaking of other points of\n comparison. Thus one might well recall to them--these Judaising\n westerns, these menagerie-keepers, these adorers of \u2018reason\u2019--that\n if _their_ mother has given suck to them, Dogs also have _theirs_\n to suckle _them_. Kant fell into this error, which is that of\n his time and of his country: I have already brought the reproach\n against him. The morality of Christianity has no regard for\n \u2018beasts;\u2019 it is therein a vice, and it is better to avow it than\n to eternise it. We ought to be all the more astonished at it,\n because this morality is in striking accord with the moral codes of\n Brahmanism and of Buddhism.\n\n \u201cBetween pity towards \u2018beasts\u2019 and goodness of soul there is a\n very close connexion. One might say without hesitation, when\n an individual is wicked in regard to them, that he cannot be a\n _good_ man. One might, also, demonstrate that this pity and the\n social virtues have the same source.... That [better section of\n the] English nation, with its greater delicacy of feeling, we\n see it taking the initiative, and distinguishing itself by its\n unusual compassion towards other species, giving from time to time\n new proofs of it--this compassion, triumphing over that \u2018cold\n superstition\u2019 which, in other respects, degrades the nation, has\n had the strength to force it to fill up the chasm which Religion\n had left in morality. This Chasm is, in fact, the reason why\n in Europe and in N. America, we have need of societies for the\n protection of the lower animals. In Asia the Religions suffice to\n assure to \u2018beasts\u2019 aid and protection (?), and there no one thinks\n of Societies of that kind. Nevertheless in Europe, also, from day\n to day [rather by intervals of _decades_] is being awakened the\n feeling of the Rights of the lower animals, in proportion as,\n little by little, disappear, vanish, the strange ideas of man\u2019s\n domination over [other] animals, as if they had been placed in the\n world but for our service and enjoyment, for it is thanks to those\n ideas that they have been treated as _Things_.\n\n \u201cSuch are, certainly, the causes of that gross conduct, of that\n absolute want of regard, of which Europeans are guilty towards the\n lower animals; and I have shown the source of those ideas, which is\n in the _Old Testament_, in section 177 of the second volume of my\n _Parerga_.\u201d[282]\n\n * * * * *\n\nOf the many eminent scientists who, in recent times, indirectly have\naffirmed the _wantonness_ of slaughtering for human food, the most\nfamous of European Chemists, Justus von Liebig, may seem to demand\nespecial notice. THE founder of the science of Organic Chemistry\nand the method of Organic Analysis (1803-1873), educated at the\nUniversities of Bonn and Erlangen, received his diploma of Doctor\nin Philosophy (physical and mathematical sciences) at the age of\nnineteen. Two years later, chiefly by the influence of Humboldt, he\nwas named Professor Extraordinary of Chemistry at Giessen, whither a\ncrowd of disciples flocked from all parts of Germany and from England.\nIn 1832 he accepted a Chair at Munich. All the Scientific Societies of\nEurope were eager in offering him honorary distinctions.\n\nIt is his application of his Special Science to the advancement of\nAgriculture, and his more philosophic, though (it must be added)\noccasionally contradictory views upon the comparative values of Foods,\nwhich give him his best title to remembrance with posterity. We can\nenumerate only a few of his numerous works: _Ueber Theorie und Praxis\nder Landwirthschaft_ (\u201cUpon the Theory and Practice of Agricultural\nEconomy),\u201d Brunswick, 1824, translated into English; _Anleitung zur\nAnalyse Organische K\u00f6rper_ (\u201cIntroduction to the Organic Analysis\nof Bodies\u201d), 1837; _Die Organische Chemie in ihren Anwendung auf\nPhysiologie und Pathologie_ (\u201cOrganic Chemistry in its Relationship\nto Physiology and Pathology\u201d), 1839; \u201cResearches upon Alimentary\nChemistry,\u201d 1849; _Chemische Briefe_ (\u201cLetters upon Chemistry\nconsidered in Relation with Industry, Agriculture, and Physiology\u201d),\n1852.\n\nWhatever opinions this eminent German Chemist may have published\nelsewhere inconsistent with the statements below, such inconsistency,\nno more than in the case of Buffon, can weaken the force of his more\nreasonable utterance. Upon the essential ultimate identity of the\nnutritive properties of animal and vegetable substance he thus clearly\npronounces:--\n\n \u201cVegetable fibrine and animal fibrine, vegetable albumen and\n animal albumen, differ at the most (_h\u00f6chstens_) in form. If these\n principles in nourishment fail, the nourishment of the animal will\n be cut off; if they obtain them, then the grass-feeding animal gets\n the same principles in his food as those upon which the flesh-eater\n entirely depends. Vegetables produce in their organism the blood\n of all beings. So that when the flesh-eaters consume the blood and\n flesh of the vegetable-eaters, they take to themselves exactly and\n simply the vegetable principles.\n\n \u201cVegetable Foods, in particular Corn of all kinds, and through\n these Bread, contain as much iron as the flesh of Oxen or as other\n kinds of flesh.\n\n \u201cCertain it is, that of three men, of whom the one has fed upon\n ox-flesh and bread, the other upon bread and cheese, the third\n upon potatoes, each considers it a peculiar hardship from quite\n different points of view; yet in fact the only difference between\n them is the action of the peculiar elements of each food upon the\n brain and nervous system. A Bear, who was kept in a zoological\n garden, displayed, so long as he had bread exclusively for\n nourishment, quite a mild disposition. Two days of feeding with\n flesh made him vicious, aggressive, and even dangerous to his\n attendant. It is well known that the _vis irritabilis_ of the Hog\n becomes so excessive through flesh-eating that he will then attack\n a man.\n\n \u201cThe flesh-eating man needs for his support an enormous extent of\n land, wider and more extensive even than the Lion and the Tiger.\n A nation of Hunters in a circumscribed territory is incapable\n of multiplying itself for that reason. The carbon necessary for\n maintaining life must be taken from animals, of whom in the limited\n area there can be only a limited number. These animals collect\n from the plants the elements of their blood and their organs, and\n supply them to the Indians living by the chase, who devour them\n unaccompanied by the substance (_stoffen_) which during the life\n of the animal maintained the life processes. While the Indian, by\n feeding upon a single animal, might contrive to _sustain_ his life\n and health a certain number of days, he must, in order to gain\n for that time the requisite heat, devour _five_ animals. His food\n contains a superfluity of nitrogenous substance. What is wanting to\n it during the greater portion of the year is the necessary quantity\n of carbon, and hence the inveterate inclination of flesh consumers\n for brandy.\n\n \u201cThe practical illustration of agricultural superiority cannot be\n more clearly and profoundly given than in the speech of the North\n American Chief, which the Frenchman Crevecous has reported to us.\n The Chief, recommending to his tribe the practice of Agriculture,\n thus addressed it: \u2018Do you not observe that, while we live upon\n Flesh, the white men live [_in part_] upon Grain? That Flesh takes\n more than thirty months to grow to maturity, and besides is often\n scarce? That each of these miraculous grains of corn, which they\n bury in the earth, gives back to them more than a hundredfold? That\n Flesh has four legs upon which to run away, and we have only two\n to overtake them? That the Corn remains and grows where the white\n men sow it; that the winter, which for us is a time of toilsome\n hunting, is for them the time of rest? Therefore have they so many\n children, and live so much longer than we. I say, then, to each\n one who hears me: Before the trees over our wigwams have died from\n old age, and the maples have ceased to supply us with sugar, the\n race of the corn-planter will have exterminated the race of the\n flesh-eater, because the hunters determine not to sow.\u2019\u201d[283]\n\nLiebig\u2019s views as to the mischievous effects of the propensity of\nfarmers, and of so-called agriculturists, to convert arable into\npasture land are sufficiently well known.[284]\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nHESIOD.\n\n\nThe original of the English version, given in the beginning of this\nwork, is as follows:--\n\n \u039d\u03ae\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72 \u1f34\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u1f40\u03c3\u1ff3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd \u1f23\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03c5 \u03a0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2,\n \u039f\u1f50\u03b4\u2019 \u1f43\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u039c\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u1fc3 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f08\u03c3\u03c6\u03bf\u03b4\u03ad\u03bb\u1ff3 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u2019 \u1f44\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03c1.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u03a7\u03c1\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd\n \u1f08\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03af\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u1f48\u03bb\u03cd\u03bc\u03c0\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2.\n \u1f6b\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b4\u2019 \u1f10\u03b6\u03c9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03ba\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2,\n \u039d\u03cc\u03c3\u03c6\u03b9\u03bd \u1f04\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f40\u03ca\u03b6\u03cd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u1f78\u03bd\n \u0393\u1fc6\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u1fc6\u03bd, \u03b1\u1f30\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u1fd6\u03bf\u03b9\n \u03a4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u1fc3\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f14\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u00b7\n \u0398\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u2019 \u1f61\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bd\u1ff3 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b4\u03bc\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u00b7 \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u1f70 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\n \u03a4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f14\u03b7\u03bd\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c0\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u2019 \u1f14\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5 \u03b6\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f0c\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\n \u0391\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f04\u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u00b7 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f10\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u1f76\n \u1f2b\u03c3\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u2019 \u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03ad\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd,\n [\u1f08\u03c6\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bc\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9, \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9][285]\n \u0391\u1f50\u03c4\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u1f74 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd,\n \u03a4\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c3\u03b9 \u0394\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u1f70\u03c2\n \u1f18\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03bf\u03af, \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c7\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9, \u03c6\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd,[286]\n \u039f\u1f33 \u1fe5\u03b1 \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c7\u03ad\u03c4\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1,\n \u1f29\u03c1\u03b1 \u1f11\u03c3\u03c3\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u1fc3 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u2019 \u03b1\u1fd6\u03b1\u03bd,\n \u03a0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03ae\u03ca\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c3\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u1f74\u03c1 \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd\n \u03a7\u03ac\u03bb\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03af\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u039f\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u1fd6\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\n \u1f2b\u03c3\u03b8\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u1f00\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd,\n \u1f0c\u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u00b7 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b2\u03af\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f04\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\n \u1f18\u03be \u1f64\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03ad\u03c6\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\n \u1f1c\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f2b\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9 (_Works and Days_), _passim_.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n _Extracts from \u201cThe Golden Verses\u201d_ (\u03a7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u1fb6 \u1f1c\u03c0\u03b7). _An Exposition of\n Pythagorean Doctrine, of the Third Century, B.C., in Hexameters._\n (See pages 21, 22.)\n\n\n \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03b4\u2019 \u03b5\u1f30\u03b8\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b4\u03b5--\n \u0393\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6, \u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5,\n \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6\u00b7 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ae\u03be\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b4\u2019 \u03b1\u1f30\u03c3\u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u2019\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\n \u039c\u03ae\u03c4\u2019 \u1f30\u03b4\u03af\u1fc3\u00b7 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u2019 \u03b1\u1f30\u03c3\u03c7\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03bf \u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd.\n \u0395\u1f36\u03c4\u03b1 \u0394\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u1f00\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c1\u03b3\u1ff3 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u1ff3 \u03c4\u03b5.\n \u039c\u03b7\u03b4\u2019 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f10\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u1f72\u03bd \u1f14\u03b8\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u00b7\n \u0391\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f61\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03ad\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f03\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u039c\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u1ff3 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u1fc3, \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b9 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u1ff3,\n \u03a0\u03c1\u03ae\u03be\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u2019 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03bd \u1f43 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03b2\u03ad\u03bb\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u00b7\n \u0395\u1f30\u03b8\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f04\u03b8\u03c1\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u039c\u03b7\u03b4\u2019 \u1f53\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u2019 \u1f44\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b4\u03ad\u03be\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9\n \u03a0\u03c1\u1f76\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u1f76\u03c2 \u1f13\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd--\n \u03a0\u1fc6 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03b2\u03b7\u03bd\u00b7 \u03a4\u03af \u03b4\u2019 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b5\u03be\u03b1\u00b7 \u03a4\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03ba \u1f10\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u00b7--\n \u1f08\u03c1\u03be\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f10\u03c0\u03ad\u03be\u03b9\u03b8\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b1\n \u0394\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03c0\u03c1\u03ae\u03be\u03b1\u03c2, \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5\u03bf\u00b7 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5.\n \u03a4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9, \u03c4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03ba\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u1f74 \u1f10\u03c1\u1fb7\u03bd.\n \u03a4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f34\u03c7\u03bd\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u00b7\n \u039d\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f70 \u03a4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f01\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u1fb3 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fb7 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03a4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03cd\u03bd,\n \u03a0\u03b1\u03b3\u1f70\u03bd \u1f00\u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bf\u03bd \u03a8\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u03a4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2\n \u0393\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u1fc3 \u1f00\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u0398\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd, \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u2019 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd\n \u03a3\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u1fc7\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f13\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u1fc7\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n \u0393\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u1fc3 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f96 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76, \u03a6\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03b7\u03bd\n \u1f6e\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f04\u03b5\u03bb\u03c0\u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\n \u0393\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u1fc3 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03b8\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\n \u03a4\u03bb\u03ae\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2, \u03bf\u1f33 \u03c4\u2019 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03c3\u03bf\u03c0\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd\n \u039f\u1f54\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03bb\u03cd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u00b7 \u03bb\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u039a\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9.\n \u0396\u03b5\u1fe6 \u03a0\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1, \u1f26 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bb\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f03\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2,\n \u0395\u1f30 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03be\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f33\u03c9 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9 \u03c7\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n \u1f0c\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c3\u1f7a \u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9, \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76 \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd,\n \u039f\u1f37\u03c2 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ad\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03a6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03ba\u03bd\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f12\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\n \u1f6f\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30 \u03c3\u03bf\u03af \u03bc\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9, \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f67\u03bd \u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\n \u1f18\u03be\u03b1\u03ba\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c3\u03b1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n \u1f08\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u03b5\u1f34\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f67\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u1f14\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2,\n \u1f18\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03c5 \u1f13\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1,\n \u1f29\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03cd\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd\u00b7\n \u1f28\u03bd \u03b4\u2019 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c8\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 \u1f10\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u2019 \u1f10\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2,\n \u1f1c\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f00\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f14\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2.[287]\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nIn _Texts from the Buddhist Canon_, Love or Compassion for all living\nbeings is thus inculcated by Buddha, in a sermon addressed to a number\nof women (belonging to a class of hunters) whose husbands were then\nengaged on one of their predatory excursions:--\n\n \u201cHe who is humane does not kill; he is ever able to preserve [his\n own?] life. This principle is imperishable. Whosoever observes it,\n no calamity shall betide that man. Politeness, indifference to\n worldly things, hurting no one, without place for annoyance--this\n is the character of the Brahma Heaven. Ever exercising love towards\n the infirm; pure, according to the teaching of Buddha; knowing when\n sufficient has been had; knowing when to stop.\n\n \u201cThere are eleven advantages which attend the man who practises\n compassion, and is tender to all that lives: his body is always\n in health (happy); he is blessed with peaceful sleep, and when\n engaged in study he is also composed; he has no evil dreams, he is\n protected by Heaven (Devas) and loved by men; he is unmolested by\n poisonous things, and escapes the violence of war; he is unharmed\n by fire or water; he is successful wherever he lives, and, when\n dead, goes to the Heaven of Brahma.\u201d\n\nWhen he had uttered these words, both men and women were admitted into\nthe company of his disciples, and obtained rest.\n\nThere was, in times gone by, a certain mighty King, called Ho-meh\n(_love-darkness_), who ruled in a certain district where no tidings of\nBuddha or his merciful doctrine had yet been heard; but the religious\npractices were the usual ones of sacrifice and prayer to the gods for\nprotection. Now it happened that the King\u2019s mother, being sick, the\nphysicians having vainly tried their medicine, all the wise men were\ncalled to consult as to the best means of restoring her health.... On\nthe King asking them [the Brahman priests] what should be done, they\nreplied ... sacrifices of a hundred beasts of different kinds should\nbe offered on the four hills (or to the four quarters), with a young\nchild, as a crowning oblation to Heaven. [Here follows a description\nof the King ordering a hundred head of Elephants, Horses, Oxen, and\nSheep to be driven along the road from the Eastern Gate towards the\nplace of sacrifice, and how their piteous cries rang through heaven\nand earth.--_Editor\u2019s Note._] On this Buddha, moved with compassion,\ncame to the spot, and preached a sermon on \u201cLove to all that Live,\u201d and\nadded these words:--\n\n \u201cIf a man live a hundred years, and engage the whole of his time\n and attention in religious offerings to the gods, sacrificing\n Elephants and Horses, and other life, all this is not equal to _one\n act of pure love in saving life_.\u201d\n\nSee _Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada--with\naccompanying Narratives--Translated from the Chinese_, by Samuel Beal,\nProfessor of Chinese, University College, London--Tr\u00fcbner, 1878: and\nthe similar scene in _The Light of Asia_, where Buddha interposes at\nthe moment of a religious sacrifice:--\n\n \u201cBut Buddha softly said,\n \u2018Let him not strike, great King!\u2019 and therewith loosed\n The victim\u2019s bonds, none staying him, so great\n His presence was. Then, craving leave, he spake\n Of life which all can take but none can give,\n Life, which all creatures love and strive to keep,\n Wonderful, dear and pleasant unto each,\n Even to the meanest; yea, a boon to all\n Where Pity is, for Pity makes the world\n Soft to the Weak, and noble for the Strong.\n Unto the dumb lips of his flock he lent\n Sad pleading words, shewing how man, who prays\n For mercy to the Gods, is merciless,\n Being as God to those: albeit all Life\n Is linked and kin, and what we slay have given\n Meek tribute of the milk and wool, and set\n Fast trust upon the hands that murder them.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cNor, spake he, shall one wash his spirit clean\n _By blood_; nor gladden gods, being good, with blood;[288]\n Nor bribe them, being evil: nay, nor lay\n Upon the brow of innocent bound beasts\n One hair\u2019s weight of that answer all must give\n For all things done amiss or wrongfully,\n Alone--each for himself--reckoning with that\n The fixed arithmic of the Universe,\n Which meteth good for good and ill for ill,\n Measure for measure, unto deeds, words, thoughts.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cWhile still our Lord went on, teaching how fair\n This earth were, if all living things be linked\n In friendliness, and common use of foods,\n Bloodless and pure; the golden grain, bright fruits,\n Sweet herbs which grow for all, the waters wan,\n Sufficient drinks and meats--which when these heard,\n The might of gentleness so conquered them,\n The priests themselves scattered their altar-flames\n And flung away the steel of sacrifice:\n And through the land next day passed a decree\n Proclaimed by criers, and in this wise graved\n On rock and column: \u2018Thus the King\u2019s will is:--\n There hath been slaughter for the Sacrifice,\n And slaying for the Meat, but henceforth none\n Shall spill the blood of life, nor taste of flesh,\n Seeing that Knowledge grows, and Life is one,\n And mercy cometh to the merciful.\u2019\u201d[289]\n\nSee also the annexed extracts from the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures,\nwritten probably about the third century B.C.:--\n\n\n _\u201cThe Short Paragraphs on Conduct.\u201d--The K\u00fbla S\u00eelam._\n\n 1. \u201cNow wherein, V\u00e2settha, is his [the true disciple\u2019s] Conduct\n good? Herein, O V\u00e2settha, that putting away the Murder of that\n which lives, he abstains from Destroying Life. The cudgel and\n the sword he lays aside; and, full of Modesty and Pity, he is\n compassionate and kind to all beings that have life.\n\n \u201cThis is the kind of Goodness that he has.\n\n [After strict prohibitions of Robbery and Unchastity, Gautama\n Buddha proceeds.]\n\n 4. \u201cPutting away Lying, he abstains from speaking Falsehood.\n He speaks Truth. From the Truth he never swerves. Faithful and\n trustworthy, he injures not his fellow-men by deceit.\n\n \u201cThis is the kind of Goodness that he has.\n\n 5. \u201cPutting away Slander, he abstains from Calumny. What he learns\n here he repeats not elsewhere, to raise a quarrel against the\n people here. What he learns elsewhere, &c. Thus he lives as a\n binder together of those who are divided, an encourager of those\n who are friends, impassioned for Peace, a speaker of words that\n make for Peace.\n\n \u201cThis, too, &c.\n\n 6. \u201cPutting away Bitterness of Speech, he abstains from harsh\n language. Whatever word is humane, pleasant to the ear, lovely,\n reaching to the heart, urbane--such are the words he speaks.\n\n 7. \u201cPutting away Foolish Talk, he abstains from Vain Conversation,\n &c.\n\n 8. \u201cHe abstains from Injuring any Herb [uselessly] or any Animal.\n He takes but one meal a day, abstaining from food at night-time, or\n at the wrong time, &c.\n\n 10. \u201cHe abstains from Bribery, Cheating, Fraud, and Crooked Ways.\n\n \u201cThis, too, &c.\n\n 11. \u201cHe refrains from Maiming, Killing, Imprisoning,\n Highway-Robbery, Plundering Villages, or obtaining money by threats\n of Violence.\n\n * * * * *\n\n 1. \u201cAnd he lets his mind pervade one quarter of the World with\n thoughts of Love, and so the second, and so the third, and so\n the fourth. And thus the whole Wide World above, below, around,\n and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of\n Love--far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.\n\n 2. \u201cJust, V\u00e2settha, as a mighty Trumpeter makes himself heard, and\n that without difficulty, in all the four directions, even so, of\n all Things that have Shape or Life, there is not one that he passes\n by or leaves aside; but he regards them all with mind set free, and\n deep-felt love.\n\n \u201cVerily this, V\u00e2settha, is the way to a state of union with Brahm\u00e2.\n\n 3. \u201cAnd he lets his mind pervade all parts of the World with\n thoughts of Pity, Sympathy, and Equanimity.\n\n * * * * *\n\n 9. \u201cWhen he had thus spoken, the young Br\u00e2hmans, V\u00e2settha and\n Bh\u00e2radv\u00e2ga, addressed the Blessed One, and said:--\n\n \u2018Most excellent, Lord, are the words of thy mouth, most excellent!\n Just as if a man were to set up that which is thrown down, or\n were to reveal that which is hidden away, or were to point out\n the right road to him who has gone astray, or were to bring a\n Lamp into the Darkness, so that those who have eyes can see\n eternal forms--just even so, Lord, has the Truth been made known\n to us, in many a figure, by the Blessed One. And we, even we,\n betake ourselves, Lord, to the Blessed One, as our Refuge, to the\n Truth and to the Brotherhood. May the Blessed One accept us as\n disciples, as true believers from this time forth, so long as life\n endures!\u2019\u201d--_Buddhist Suttas_, Translated from P\u00e2li, by T. W. Rhys\n Davids. _Sacred Books of the East._ Ed. by Max M\u00fcller, Clarendon\n Press, Oxford. 1881.\n\nAs for the older (sacerdotal) religionism of the Peninsula--that of\nBrahma--the force of Truth obliges us here to remark that, while the\ngreat mass of the Hindus continue to shrink with disgust and abhorrence\nfrom the Slaughter-house and from the sanguinary diet of their\nconquerors and rulers, Mohammedan and Christian, the richer classes,\nand even many of the Brahmins and priests have long conformed, in great\nmeasure at least, to Western dietetic practices; and (the flesh of the\nCow or Ox excepted), no more than other religionists do they scruple to\nviolate the laws of their Sacred Books--the _Vedas_--which, however,\nare not so _humane_ as the teaching of the great Founder of Buddhism,\nas preserved in the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, the _Tripataka_, being\nmore essentially ritual and ceremonial than its popular off-shoot.\nYet there are traces in the sacred writings of Hinduism of a strong\nconsciousness of the irreligionism of feeding upon slaughtered animals,\nas in the Laws of Manu, their Sacred Legislator, where it is laid down\nthat:--\n\n \u201cThe man who forsakes not the Laws, and eats not flesh-meat like\n a blood-thirsty demon, shall attain good-will in this world, and\n shall not be afflicted with Maladies.\u201d--(Quoted in the Works of Sir\n Wm. Jones, _vol. iii., 206_.)\n\n \u201cThe man who perceives in his own soul the Supreme Good present\n in all beings acquires equanimity towards them all, and shall be\n absorbed, at last, in the highest Essence--even in that of the\n Almighty himself.\u201d--_Conclusion of the Laws of Manu._\n\nIt is superfluous to insist upon the fact that inhabitants of the\nhotter and, in particular, of the tropical regions of the globe\nhave, as a matter of course, even less valid pretexts for resorting\nto _butchering_ than have the natives of colder climates; and that\nproportionally, therefore, is the reprobation to which they are\nobnoxious. (See, among other recent testimony, that of Shib Chunder\nBose in his interesting book--_The Hindus as they Are_. London: Ed.\nStanford, 1881). The writer has usefully exposed the yearly-increasing\nevils to India from the example of English dietetic habits.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nOVID.\n\n\nThe original (the peculiar beauties of which cannot easily be\nrepresented in a modern idiom) of the English version already given in\nthis work, with the concluding verses omitted in that translation, is\nhere subjoined:--\n\n Primusque animalia mensis\n Arcuit imponi: primus quoque talibus ora\n Docta quidem solvit, sed non et credita, verbis:--\n \u201cParcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis\n Corpora. _Sunt Fruges; sunt deducentia ramos\n Pondere Poma suo, tumid\u00e6que in vitibus Uv\u00e6.\n Sunt Herb\u00e6 Dulces; sunt, qu\u00e6 mitescere flamm\u00e2,\n Mollirique queant. Nec vobis lacteus Humor\n Eripitur, nec Mella thymi redolentia florem.\n Prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia Tellus\n Suggerit: atque epulas sine C\u00e6de et Sanguine pr\u00e6bet._\n Carne Fer\u00e6 sedant jejunia; _nec tamen Omnes_.\n Quippe Equus, et Pecudes, Armentaque gramine vivunt.\n At quibus ingenium est immansuetumque ferumque--\n Armeni\u00e6 Tigres, iracundique Leones,\n Cumque Lupis Ursi--dapibus cum sanguine gaudent.\n Heu quantum Scelus est--in viscera viscera condi,\n Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus,\n Alteriusque animantem animantis vivere leto!\n Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas optima Matrum\n Terra parit, _nil to nisi tristia mandere s\u00e6vo\n Vulnera dente juvat, ritusque referre Cyclopum?\n Nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis\n Et male morati poteris jejunia ventris?_\n At vetus illa \u00c6tas, cui fecimus Aurea nomen,\n F\u0153tibus arboreis et, quas humus educat, Herbis\n Fortunata fuit: nee polluit ora Cruore.\n Tunc et Aves tutas movere per a\u00ebra pennas,\n Et Lepus impavidus mediis erravit in agris:\n Nec sua credulitas piscem suspenderat hamo.\n Cuncta sine insidiis, nullamque timentia Fraudem,\n Plenaque Pacis erant. Postquam non utilis auctor\n Victibus invidit (quisquis fuit ille virorum),\n Corporeasque dapes avidam demersit in alvum.\n Fecit iter sceleri; prim\u00e2que e c\u00e6de Ferarum\n Incaluisse putem maculatum sanguine ferrum.\n Idque satis fuerat; nostrumque petentia letum\n Corpora missa neci, salv\u00e2 pietate, fatemur:\n Sed qu\u00e0m danda neci, t\u00e0m non epulanda, fuerunt.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Quid meruistis, Oves, placidum pecus, inque tuendos\n Natum homines, pleno qu\u00e6 fertis in ubere nectar?\n Mollia qu\u00e6 nobis vestras velamina Lanas\n Pr\u00e6betis, Vit\u00e2que magis qu\u00e0m morte juvatis.\n Quid meru\u00eare Boves--animal sine fraude dolisque\n Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores?\n _Immemor est dem\u00f9m, nee Frugum, munere dignus,\n Qui potuit, curvi dempto modo pondere aratri,\n Ruricolam mactare suum: qui trita labore\n Illa, quibus toties durum renovaverat Arvum,\n Tot dederat messes, percussit colla securi._\u201d\n \u201cNec satis est qu\u00f2d tale nefas committitur: _ipsos\n Inscrips\u00eare Deos sceleri_, numenque Supernum\n C\u00e6de Laboriferi credunt gaudere Juvenci!\n Victima labe carens, et pr\u00e6stantissima form\u00e2,\n (Nam placuisse nocet), vittis pr\u00e6signis et auro,\n Sistitur ante aras, auditque ignara precantem:\n Imponique su\u00e6 videt, inter cornua, fronti\n Quas coluit fruges, percussaque sanguine cultros\n Inficit in liquid\u00e2 pr\u00e6visos forsitan und\u00e2.\n Protinus ereptas viventi pectore fibras\n Inspiciunt: mentesque De\u00fbm scrutantur in illis![290]\n \u201cUnde fames Homini vetitorum tanta ciborum?\n Audetis vesci, _genus O Mortale_! Quod, oro,\n Ne facite: et monitis animos advertite nostris.\n Cumque Bo\u00fbm dabitis c\u00e6sorum membra palato\n _Mandere vos vestros scite et sentite Colonos_.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \u201cNeve Thyest\u00eais cumulemur viscera mensis.\n _Qu\u00e0m male consuescit, qu\u00e0m se parat ille cruori.\n Impius humano, Vituli qui guttura cultro\n Rumpit, et immotas pr\u00e6bet mugitibus aures!\n Aut qui vagitus similes puerilibus H\u0153dum\n Edentem jugulare potest; aut Alite vesci\n Cui dedit ipse cibos--Quantum est, quod desit in istis\n Ad plenum facinus! Qu\u00f2 transitus inde paratur!_\n \u201cBos aret, aut mortem senioribus imputet annis:\n Horriferum contra Borean Ovis arma ministret;\n Ubera dent satur\u00e6 manibus pr\u00e6standa Capell\u00e6.\n Retia cum pedicis, laqueosque, artesque dolosas\n Tollite: nec Volucrem viscat\u00e2 fallite virg\u00e2,\n Nec formidatis Cervos eludite pinnis,\n Nec celate cibis uncos fallacibus hamos.\n Perdite, si qua nocent: ver\u00f9m h\u00e6c qu\u00f2que perdite tant\u00f9m:\n Ora vacent epulis, alimentaque congrua carpant.\u201d\n\n _Metamorphoseon_, _Lib._ xv. 72-142, 462-478.\n\nNor is this the only passage in his writings in which the Pagan poet\nproves himself to have been not without that humaneness and feeling so\nrare alike in non-Christian and in Christian poetry. In the charming\nstory of the visit of the disguised and incarnate Celestials to the\ncottage of the pious peasants, Philemon and Baucis, Ovid takes the\nopportunity to present an alluring picture of the innocent fruits which\nwere placed before the divine guests--a picture which, probably, was\npresent to Milton in recording the similar hospitality of Eve.\n\nAmong the fragrant dishes--\u201csavoury fruits, of taste to please true\nappetite\u201d--appear Figs, Nuts, Dates, Plums, Grapes, Apples, Olives,\nRadishes, Onions, and Endive, with Honey, Eggs, and Milk:--\n\n \u201cPonitur h\u00ecc bicolor sincer\u00e6 bacca Minerv\u00e6,\n Conditaque in liquid\u00e2 Corna autumnalia f\u00e6ce:\n Intubaque et Radix, et Lactis massa Coacti:\n Ovaque, non acri leviter versata Favill\u00e2.\n\n * * * * *\n\n H\u00ecc Nux, h\u00ecc mista est rugosis Carica Palmis,\n Prunaque, et in patulis redolentia Mala canistris,\n Et de purpureis collect\u00e6 vitibus Uv\u00e6.\n Candidus in medio Favus est: super omnia vultus\n Access\u00eare boni.\u201d ...\n\nWe are not surprised, however, that, notwithstanding all this variety\nof sufficient foods, ignorant peasants, imitating the vicious examples\nof their rich neighbours, thought it due to \u201chospitality\u201d to sacrifice\nlife; and they were on the point of slaughtering the only _non-human_\nbeing belonging to them--a Goose, the \u201cguardian of the cottage\u201d--when\nthe heavenly visitants intervene, and forbid the unnecessary\nbarbarism:--\n\n \u201cUnicus anser erat, minim\u00e6 custodia vill\u00e6,\n Quem D\u00ees hospitibus domini mactare parabant.\n Ille celer penn\u00e2 tardos \u00e6tate fatigat,\n Eluditque diu. Tandemque est visus ad ipsos\n Confugisse Deos. Superi vetu\u00eare necari:\n \u2018D\u00eeque sumus,\u2019\u201d &c.\n\nWhen the rest of the inhabitants of Phrygia, were, for their\nwickedness, destroyed by indignant Heaven, the two old peasants, we\nmay add, found safety from the general _Deluge_. (_Metam._ viii.\n664-688).[291]\n\nIt may be noted in this place that the great \u201cEpicurean\u201d poet, Horace\n(Ovid\u2019s contemporary), _bon-vivant_ though he was, and apparently\nuninspired by humanitarian feeling, yet now and again expresses his\nconviction of the superiority of the Fruit to the Flesh banquet, and of\nthe greater compatibility of the former with the poetic genius. E.g.\n_Carmina_ I., 31. _Ad Apollinem_:--\n\n _Me pascunt Oliv\u00e6\n Me Cichorea levesque Malv\u00e6._\n\n (\u201cOlives, Endives, and easily-digested Mallows are my fare.\u201d)\n\n_Satire II._ 2. \u201cFrugality.:\u201d--\n\n \u201cQu\u00e6 virtus et quanta, boni, sit vivere Parvo,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Discite non inter lances mensasque nitentes,\n Cum stupet insanis acies fulgoribus, et cum\n Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat,\n Verum hic impransi mecum disquirite--\n _Male Vervum examinat omnis\n Corruptus judex_.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Cum labor extuderit fastidia, siccus, inanis\n Sperne cibum vilem: nisi Hymettia mella Falerno\n Ne biberis diluta....\n _Cum sale Panis\n Latrantem stomachum bene leniet._...\n _Non in caro nidore voluptas\n Summa sed in te ipso. Tu pulmentaria qucere\n Sudando_: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea,\n Nec scarus aut poterit peregrina juvare lagois.\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Num vesceris ist\u00e2\n Quam laudas, plum\u00e2? Cocto num adest honor idem?_\n\n * * * * *\n\n At vos\n Pr\u00e6sentes Austri, coquite horum obsonia.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Ergo\n Si quis nunc mergos suaves edixerit assos,\n Parebit pravi docilis Romana juventus.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Accipe nunc, victus tenuis qu\u00e6 quantaque secum\n Afferat. Imprimis valeas bene....\u201d\n\nHis arraignment of the rich glutton, who obliges and allows the poor\nman to starve in the midst of plenty, is worthy of the morality of\nSeneca:--\n\n \u201cErgo,\n Quod superat, non est melius quo insumere possis?\n _Cur eget indignus quisquam te divite?_\u201d\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nMUSONIUS (1ST CENTURY, A.D.),\n\n\na stoic writer of great repute with his contemporaries, son of a\nRoman Eques, was born at Volsinii (Bolsena), in Etruria, at the end\nof the reign of Augustus. He was banished by Nero, who especially\nhated the professors of the _Porch_; but by Vespasian he was held in\nextraordinary honour when the rest of the philosophers were expelled\nfrom Rome. The time of his death is uncertain. He was the author of\nvarious philosophical works which are characterised by Su\u00efdas as\n\u201cdistinguished writings of a highly philosophic nature,\u201d who also\nattributes to him (but on uncertain evidence) letters to Apollonius\nof Tyana. We are indebted for knowledge of his opinions to a work (of\nunknown authorship) entitled _Memoirs of Musonius the Philosopher_. It\nis from this work that Stob\u00e6us (_Anthologion_), Aulus Gellius, Arrian,\nand others seem to have borrowed, in quoting the _dicta_ of the great\nStoic teacher. All the extant fragments of his writings are carefully\ncollected by Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1822). (See also Herr Ed. Baltzer\u2019s\nvaluable monograph, _Musonius: Charakterbild aus Der R\u00f6mischen\nKaiserzeit_. Nordhausen, 1871):--\n\n \u201cOn diet he used to speak often and very earnestly, as of a matter\n important in itself and in its effects. For he thought that\n continence in meats and drinks is the beginning and groundwork of\n temperance. Once, forsaking his usual line of argument, he spoke as\n follows:--\n\n \u201c\u2018As we should prefer cheap fare to costly, and that which is easy\n to that which is hard to procure, so also, that which is akin\n to man to that which is not so. Akin to us is that from plants,\n grains, and such other vegetable products as nourish him well;\n also what is derived from (other) animals--not slaughtered, but\n otherwise serviceable. Of these foods the most suitable are such\n as we may use at once without fire, for such are readiest to hand.\n Such are fruits in season, and some herbs, milk, cheese, and\n honeycombs. Moreover such as need fire, and belong to the classes\n of grains or herbs, are also not unsuitable, but are all, without\n exception, akin to man.\u2019\n\n \u201cEating of flesh-meat he declared to be _brutal_, and adapted to\n savage animals. It is heavier, he said, and hindering thought and\n intelligence; the vapour arising from it is turbid and darkens the\n soul, so that they who partake of it abundantly are seen to be\n slower of apprehension. As man is [at his best] most nearly related\n to the Gods of all beings on earth, so, also, his _food_ should be\n most like to that of the Gods. They, he said, are content with the\n steams that rise from earth and waters, and we shall take the food\n most like to theirs, if we take that which is _lightest and purest_.\n\n \u201cSo our soul also will be pure and clear, and, being so, will be\n best and wisest, as Heracleitus judges when he says the clear\n soul is wisest and best. As it is, said Musonius, we are fed far\n worse than the irrational beings; for they, though they are driven\n fiercely by appetite as by a scourge, and pounce upon their food,\n still are devoid of cunning and contrivance in regard to their\n fare--being satisfied with what comes in their way, seeking only\n to be filled and nothing further. But we invent manifold arts and\n devices the more to sweeten the pleasure of food and to deceive the\n gullet. Nay, to such a pitch of daintiness and greediness have we\n come, that some have composed treatises, as of music and medicine,\n so also of cookery, which greatly increase the pleasure in the\n gullet, but ruin the health. At any rate, you may see that those\n who are fastidious in the choice of foods are far more sickly in\n body--some even, like craving women, loathing customary foods, and\n having their stomachs ruined. Hence, as good-for-nothing steel\n continually needs sharpening, so their stomachs at table need the\n continual whet of some strong tasting food.... Hence, too, it is\n our duty to eat for life, not for pleasure (only), at least if we\n are to follow the excellent saying of Socrates, that, while most\n men lived to eat, he ate to live. For, surely, no one, who aspires\n to the character of a virtuous man, will deign to resemble the\n many, and live for eating\u2019s sake as they do, hunting from every\n quarter the pleasure which comes from food.\n\n \u201cMoreover, that God, who made mankind, provided them with meats\n and drinks for preservation, not for pleasure, will appear from\n this. When food is most especially performing its proper function\n in digestion and assimilation, then it gives no pleasure to the man\n at all--yet we are then fed by it and strengthened. _Then_ we have\n no sensation of pleasure, and yet this time is longer than that in\n which we are eating. But if it were for pleasure that God contrived\n our food, we ought to derive pleasure from it throughout this\n longer time, and not merely at the passing moment of consumption.\n _Yet, nevertheless, for that brief moment of enjoyment we make\n provision of ten thousand dainties_; we sail the sea to its\n furthest bounds; _cooks are more sought after than husbandmen_.\n Some lavish on dinners the price of estates, and that though their\n bodies derive no benefit from the costliness of the viands.\n\n \u201cQuite the contrary; _it is those who use the cheapest food who are\n the strongest_. For example, you may, for the most part, see slaves\n more sturdy than masters, country-folk than towns-folk, poor than\n rich--more able to labour, sinking less at their work, seldomer\n ailing, more easily enduring frost, heat, sleeplessness, and the\n like. Even if cheap food and dear strengthens the body alike,\n still we ought to choose the cheap; for this is more sober and\n more suited to a virtuous man; inasmuch as what is easy to procure\n is, for good men, more proper for food than what is hard--what is\n free from trouble than what gives trouble--what is ready than what\n is not ready. To sum up in a word the whole use of diet, I say\n that we ought to make its aim health and strength, for these are\n the only ends for which we should eat, and they require no large\n outlay.\u201d[292]\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nLESSIO. 1554-1623,\n\n\nBorn at Brechten, a town in Brabant, of influential family, this noted\nHygeist, at a very early age, exhibited so exceptional a disposition as\nto be known among his school-fellows as the \u201cprophet.\u201d His ardour for\nlearning was so intense as to cause him to forget the hours of meals,\nand to reduce his time for sleep to the shortest period possible.\nHaving obtained a scholarship at the Arras College in Louvain, Lessio\npursued the course of studies there with the greatest success, and by\nhis fellow-students was proclaimed \u201cprince of philologers.\u201d At the age\nof seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. Two years later he was\nelected to the Chair of Philosophy at Douai. In 1585 he accepted the\nProfessorship of Theology at Louvain.\n\nSo extraordinary were the respect and veneration which he had attracted\nin his Order and from all who had access to him, that not only did his\ndeath cause the greatest regret, but (as we are assured) his friends\ncontended among themselves for possession of every possible relic and\nmemento \u201cof one who had composed so admirable works.\u201d He was interred\nbefore the high altar of the church of his college in Louvain. Held\nin high honour during life, after his death so rare an ornament of\nhis Church was signally eulogised by the Pope, Urbano VIII.; and he\nwas even believed to have worked miracles. His praises are especially\nrecorded in a book entitled _De Vit\u00e2 et Moribus R. P. Leonardi\nLessii_--reprinted at Paris, 1644.\n\nPrincipal Writings: _De Justiti\u00e2 et de Jure Actionum, Humanarum, &c._\n(reprinted seven times). Many of the propositions, it seems, eventually\ncame under the censure of the Theological Faculty, the Bishops, and the\nPontiffs.\n\n_Qu\u00e6 Fides et Religio sit Capessenda, Consultatio._ Anvers, 1610.\nIn the estimation of S. Fran\u00e7ois de Sales, a work \u201cnot so much that of\nLessio as of an Angel of the Judgment (Ange du Grand Conseil).\u201d\n\n_Hygiasticon_ (Anvers, 1613-14, 8vo); it is superfluous to remark, his\nreally valuable work. It was translated from the Latin into French by\nSebastian Hardy, with the title of _Le Vrai R\u00e9gime de Vivre pour la\nConservation du Corps et de l\u2019Ame_. Paris, 1646. Another editor, _La\nBonnodi\u00e8re_, added notes, republishing it under the title of _De la\nSobri\u00e9t\u00e9 et de Ses Avantages_. Paris, 1701.\n\n\u201cLessio,\u201d writes the author of the article in the _Biographie\nUniverselle_, \u201chaving been condemned by the physicians to have no\nmore than two years longer to live, himself studied the principles of\n_Hygiene_, was struck by the example of Cornaro, resolved to imitate\nhim, and found himself so well from such imitation that he translated\nhis book (_Della Vita Sobria_), joining to it the results of his own\nexperience, to which he owed the prolongation of his life by forty\nyears.\u201d For the rest, he was a man of extensive erudition; and Justus\nLipsius celebrates, in some fine verse, the variety of his talents.\n(See _Biog. Universelle Ancienne et Moderne_. \u00c0 Paris, chez Michaud,\n1819.)\n\nThe _Hygiasticon_ is prefaced by testimonials from three eminent\nphysicians, setting forth their concurrence in the principles of the\nauthor. The English translation (1634) has prefixed to it addresses, in\nverse, to him; one of which is by Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, and\na _Dialogue between Glutton and Echo_, also in verse. Affixed to this\nedition are an English version of Cornaro, by George Herbert, and a\ntranslation of an anonymous treatise by another Italian writer--_That a\nSpare Diet is better than a Splendid and Sumptuous One: A Paradox_.\n\nIn his chap. v. \u201cOf the Advantages which a Sober Diet brings to the\nBody, and first, That it freeth almost from all Diseases\u201d--Lessio\npromises the adherents of it, that in the first place:--\n\n \u201cIt cloth free a man and preserve him from almost all manner\n of diseases. For it rids him of catarrhs, coughs, wheezings,\n dizziness, and pain in the head and stomach. It drives away\n apoplexies, lethargies, falling-sickness, and other ill-affections\n of the brain. It cures the gout in the feet and in the hands; the\n sciatica and diseases in the joints. It also prevents crudity\n (indigestion), the parent of all diseases. In a word, it so tempers\n the humours, and maintains them in an equal proportion, that they\n hurt not any way, either in quantity or quality. And this both\n reason and experience do confirm. For we see that those who keep\n themselves to a sober course of diet are very seldom, or rather\n never, molested with diseases; and if at any time they happen to\n be oppressed with sickness, _they do bear it much better, and\n sooner recover than those others whose bodies are full fraught with\n ill-humours_.\n\n \u201cI know very many who, though they be weak by natural constitution,\n and well grown in years, and continually busied in employments of\n the mind, nevertheless by the help of this temperance, live in\n health, and have passed the greater part of their lives, which have\n been many years long, without any notable sickness....\n\n \u201cThe self-same comes to pass in wounds, bruises, puttings out of\n joint, and breaking of bones; in regard that there is either no\n flux at all of ill-humours, or, at least, very little of that part\n affected.... Furthermore an abstinent diet doth arm and fortify\n against the plague; for the venom thereof is much better resisted\n if the body be clear and free--wherefore Sokrates brought to pass\n that he himself was never sick of the plague, which ofttimes\n greatly wasted the city of Athens, where he lived, as Laertius\n writeth. The third commodity of the diet is that, although it doth\n not cure such diseases as are incurable in their own nature, yet\n it doth _so much mitigate and allay them as that they are easily\n borne_, and do not much hinder the functions of the mind. This is\n seen by daily experience.\u201d\n\nLessio proceeds to descant upon the other benefits of the reformed\nregimen--such as that it prolongs life (other things being equal) to\nextreme old age, produces cheerfulness, activity, memory, and the\nlike.[293]\n\n * * * * *\n\nMoffet, another hygienic writer of the sixteenth century, demands\nindignantly:--\n\n \u201cTill God (_i.e._, Superstition or Fraud) would have it so [the\n slaying of other animals for food], who dared to touch with his\n lips the remnant of a dead carcase? or to set the prey of a wolf,\n or the meat of a falcon, upon his table? Who, I say, durst feed\n upon those members which, lately, did see, go, bleat, low, feel,\n and move?[294]\n\n \u201cNay, tell me, can civil and human eyes yet abide the slaughter of\n an innocent \u2018beast,\u2019 the cutting of his throat, the smashing him on\n the head, the flaying of his skin, the quartering and dismembering\n of his limbs, the sprinkling of his blood, the ripping up of his\n veins, the enduring of ill-savours, the heaving of heavy sighs,\n sobs, and groans, the passionate struggling and panting for life,\n which only hard-hearted butchers can endure to see?\n\n \u201cIs not the earth sufficient to give us meat, but that we must also\n rend up the bowels of \u2018beasts,\u2019 birds, and fishes? Yes, truly,\n there is enough in the earth to give us meat; yea, verily, and\n choice of meats, needing either none or no great preparation, which\n we may take without fear, and cut down without trembling; which,\n also, we may mingle a hundred ways to delight our taste, and feed\n on safely to fill our bellies.\u201d--_Health\u2019s Improvement_, by Dr. W.\n Moffet (ed. 1746), as quoted by Ritson. The author died in 1604.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe author of the _Anatomy of Abuses_, a writer of the same period,\ndenouncing the unnatural and luxurious living of his time, compares the\ntwo diets with equal force and truth:--\n\n \u201cI cannot persuade myself otherwise, but that our _niceness_\n and _cautiousness_ in diet hath altered our nature, distempered\n our bodies, and made us subject to hundreds of diseases and\n _discrasies_ (indigestions) more than ever our forefathers were\n subject unto, and consequently of shorter life than they.... Who\n are sicklier than they who fare deliciously every day? Who is\n corrupter? Who belcheth more? Who looketh worse? Who is weaker and\n feebler than they? Who hath more filthy phlegm and putrefaction\n (replete with gross humours) than they? And, to be brief, who dieth\n sooner than they?\n\n \u201cDo we not see the poor man who eateth brown bread (whereof some\n is made of rye, barley, _peason_, beans, oats, and such other\n gross grains), and drinketh small drink, yea, sometimes water, and\n feedeth upon milk, butter and cheese--I say do we not see such a\n one healthfuller, stronger, fairer complexioned, and longer-living\n than the other that fares daintily every day; and how should it be\n otherwise?\u201d--_Stubbes\u2019s Anatomy of Abuses_, 1583. Quoted by Ritson\n (_Abstinence from Flesh: A Moral Duty._).\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nCOWLEY. 1620-1667.\n\n\nAmong the poets of the age second only to Milton and to Dryden. _The\nGarden_, from which we extract the following just sentiments, is\nprefixed by way of dedication to the _Kalendarium Hortense_ of John\nEvelyn, his personal and political friend. _The Gardener\u2019s Almanac_, it\nis worthy of note, is one of the earliest prototypes of the numerous\nmore modern treatises of the kind. It had reached a tenth edition in\n1706.\n\n \u201cWhen Epicurus to the world had taught\n That pleasure is the chiefest good,\n (And was, perhaps, i\u2019th\u2019 right, if rightly understood),\n His life he to his doctrine brought,\n And in a garden\u2019s shade that Sovereign pleasure sought:\n Whoever a true _Epicure_ would be.\n May there find cheap and virtuous luxury.\n Vitellius his table which did hold\n As many creatures as the ark of old--\n That fiscal table to which every day\n All countries did a constant tribute pay--\n Could nothing more delectable afford\n Than Nature\u2019s Liberality--\n Helped with a little Art and Industry--\n Allows the meanest gardener\u2019s board.\n _The wanton Taste no Flesh nor Fowl can choose,\n For which the Grape or Melon it would lose,\n Though all th\u2019 inhabitants of Earth and Air\n Be listed in the Glutton\u2019s bill of fare._\n\n * * * * *\n\n Scarce any Plant is growing here.\n Which against Death some weapon does not bear.\n Let Cities boast that they provide\n For life the ornaments of Pride;\n But \u2019tis the Country and the Field\n That furnish it with Staff and Shield.\n\n _The Garden._ Chertsey, 1666.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nTRYON. 1634-1703.\n\n\nOne of the best known of the seventeenth century humane Hygeists, was\nborn at Bibury, a village in Gloucestershire. His father was a tiler\nand plasterer, who by stress of poverty was forced to remove his son,\nwhen no more than six years of age, from the village school, and to set\nhim at the work of spinning and carding, (the woollen manufacture being\nthen extensively carried on in Gloucestershire). At eight years of age\nhe became so expert, he tells us, as to be able to spin four pounds a\nday, earning two shillings a week. At the age of twelve he was made\nto work at his father\u2019s employment. At this period he first learned\nto read. He next took to keeping sheep. With the sum of three pounds,\nrealised by the sale of his four sheep, he went to London to seek his\nfortune, when seventeen years old, and bound himself apprentice to a\n\u201ccastor-maker,\u201d in Fleet Street. His master was an Anabaptist--\u201can\nhonest and sober man;\u201d and, after two years\u2019 apprenticeship, Tryon\nadopted the same religious creed. All his spare time was now devoted\nentirely to study; and, with the usual ardour of scholars who depend\nupon their own talents and exertions, he scarcely gave any time to food\nor sleep. The holiday period, too, spent by his fellow-apprentices in\neating and drinking, and gross amusements, was utilised in the same\nway. Science, and Physiology in particular, attracted his attention.\n\nAt the age of twenty-three he first adopted the reformed diet, \u201cmy\ndrink being only water, and food only bread and some fruit, and that\nbut once a day for some time; but afterwards I had more liberty given\nme by my guide, Wisdom, to eat butter and cheese; my clothing being\nmean and thin; for, in all things, self-denial was now become my real\nbusiness.\u201d This strict life he maintained for more than a year, when he\nrelapsed, at intervals, during the next two years. At the end of this\nperiod he had become confirmed in his reform, and he remained to the\nend strictly akreophagist, and, indeed, strictly frugal, \u201ccontenting\nmyself with herbs, fruits, grains, eggs, butter and cheese for food,\nand pure water for drink.\u201d About two years after his marriage he made\nvoyages to Barbadoes and to Holland in the way of trade--\u201cmaking\nbeavers.\u201d He finally settled himself in England, and at the age of\nforty-eight he published his first book on _Dietetics_.\n\nHis brief autobiography, from which the above facts are drawn, ends at\nthis period. His editor adds, as to his appearance and character: \u201chis\naspect easily discovered something extraordinary; his air was cheerful,\nlively, and brisk; but grave with something of authority, though he was\nof the easiest access. Notwithstanding he was of no strong make, yet,\nthrough his great temperance, regularity, and by the strength of his\nspirits and vigour of his mind, he was capable of any fatigue, even to\nhis last illness, equally with any of the best constitutions of men\nhalf his years. Through all his lifetime he had been a man of unwearied\napplication, and so indefatigable that it may be as truly said of him\nas it can be of any man that he was never idle; but of such despatch\nthat, though fortune had allotted him as great multiplicity of business\nas, perhaps, to any one of his contemporaries, yet, without any\nneglect thereof, he found leisure to make such a search into Nature,\nthat perhaps few of this age equalled him therein: and not only into\nNature, but also into almost all arts and sciences, of some whereof he\nwas an improver, and of all innocent and useful ones an encourager and\npromoter.\u201d[295]\n\nIn spite of that penetration of mind and justness of thought which\ninfluenced him to abandon the cruelty and coarseness of the orthodox\ndiet, the author of _The Way to Health_ could not free himself from\ncertain of the credulous fancies of his age; and, it must be admitted,\nhis writings are by no means exempt from such prejudices. It is as a\nmoral reformer that he has deserved our respect, and of his numerous\nbooks the following are noteworthy:--\n\n _A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks._ London, 1682.\n\n _The Way to Health, Long Life, &c._ 1683, 1694, 1697. 3 vols., 8vo.\n\n _Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West\n Indies._ London, 1684.\n\n _The Way to Make All People Rich: or, Wisdom\u2019s Call to Temperance\n and Frugality._ 1685.\n\n _Wisdom\u2019s Doctrine: or, Aphorisms and Rules for Preserving the\n Health of the Body and the Peace of the Mind._ 1696.\n\n _England\u2019s Grandeur and the Way to Get Wealth: or, Promotion of\n Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced._ 1699. 4_to._\n\nNothing can be more just or forcible than these expostulations:--\n\n \u201cMost men will, in words, confess that there is no blessing this\n world affords comparable to health. Yet rarely do any of them\n value it as they ought to do till they feel the want of it. To\n him that hath obtained this goodly gift the meanest food--even\n bread and water--is most pleasant, and all sorts of exercise and\n labour delightful. But the contrary makes all things nauseous and\n distasteful. What are full-spread Tables, Riches, or Honours, to\n him that is tormented with distempers? In such a condition men do\n desire nothing so much as _Health_. But no sooner is that obtained,\n but their thoughts are changed, forgetting those solemn promises\n and resolutions they made to God and their own souls, going on in\n the old road of _Gluttony_, taking little or no care to continue\n that which they so much desired when they were deprived of it.\n\n \u201cHappy it were if men did but use the tenth part of that care and\n diligence to preserve their minds and bodies in Health, as they\n do to procure those dainties and superfluities which do generate\n Diseases, and are the cause of committing many other evils, there\n being but few men that do know how to use riches as they ought.\n For there are not many of our wealthy men that ever consider that\n as little and mean food and drink will suffice to maintain a\n _lord_ in perfect health as it will a _peasant_, and render him\n more capable of enjoying the benefits of the Mind and pleasures\n of the Body, far beyond all \u2018dainties and superfluities.\u2019 But,\n alas! the momentary pleasures of the _Throat-Custom_, vanity,\n &c., do ensnare and entice most people to exceed the bounds of\n necessity or convenience; and many fail through a false opinion or\n misunderstanding of Nature--childishly imagining that the richer\n the food is, and the more they can cram into their bellies, the\n more they shall be strengthened thereby. But experience shews to\n the contrary; for are not such people as accustom themselves to the\n richest foods, and most _cordial_ drinks, generally the most infirm\n and diseased?\n\n \u201cNow the sorts of foods and drinks that breed the best blood and\n finest spirits, are Herbs, Fruits, and various kinds of Grains;\n also Bread, and sundry sorts of excellent food made by different\n preparations of Milk, and all dry food out of which the sun hath\n exhaled the gross humidity, by which all sorts of Pulses and Grains\n become of a firmer substance. So, likewise, Oil is an excellent\n thing, in nature more sublime and pure than Butter.\u201d ...\n\nAs to the unsuspected cause of the various diseases so abundant:--\n\n \u201cMany of the richest sort of people in this nation might know by\n woful experience, especially in London, who do yearly spend many\n hundreds, I think I may say thousands, of pounds on their _ungodly\n paunches_. Many of whom may save themselves that charge and trouble\n they are usually at in learning of _Monsieur Nimble-heels_, the\n Dancing-Master, how to go upright; for their bellies are swollen up\n to their chins, which forces them \u2018to behold the sky,\u2019[296] but not\n for contemplation sake you may be sure, but out of pure necessity,\n and without any more impressions of reverence towards the Almighty\n Creator than their fellow-brutes; for their brains are sunk into\n their bellies; _injection and ejection_ is the business of their\n life, and all their precious hours are spent between the platter\n and the glass and the close-stool. Are not these fine fellows to\n call themselves _Christians_ and _Right-Worshipfuls_.\u201d[297]\n\nIn his xiv chapter, \u201cOf Flesh and its Operation on the Body and Mind,\u201d\nTryon employs all his eloquence in proving that the practice of\nslaughtering for food is not only cruel and barbarous in itself, but\noriginates, or, at all events, intensifies the worst passions of men.\n\nEulogising the milder manners of the followers of Pythagoras, and of\nthe Hindus generally, he tells his countrymen that:--\n\n \u201cThe very same, and far greater, advantages would come to\n pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from contention,\n oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto) the\n killing of other animals, and eating their flesh and blood; and,\n in a short time, human murders and devilish feuds and cruelties\n amongst each other would abate, and, perhaps, scarce have a\n being amongst them. For _separation_ has greater power than most\n imagine, whether it be from evil or from good; for whatever any\n man separates himself from, that property in him presently is\n weakened. Likewise, _separation_ from cruelty does wonderfully\n dispel the dark clouds of ignorance, and makes the understanding\n able to distinguish between the good and evil principles--first in\n himself, and then in all other things proportionably. But so long\n as men live under the power of all kinds of uncleanness, violence,\n and oppression, they cannot see any evil therein. For this cause,\n those who do not separate themselves from these evils, but are\n contented to follow the multitude in the left-hand-way, and resolve\n to continue the religion of their fore-fathers--though thereby they\n do but continue mere _Custom_, the greatest of tyrants--\u2019tis, I\n say, impossible for such people ever to understand or know anything\n _truly_, either of divine or of human things....\n\n \u201cIt is a grand mistake of people in this age to say or suppose:\n That Flesh affords not only a stronger nourishment, but also more\n and better than Herbs, Grains, &c.; for the truth is, it does yield\n more stimulation, _but not of so firm, a substance, nor so good\n as that which proceeds from the other food_; for flesh has more\n matter for corruption, and nothing so soon turns to putrefaction.\n Now, \u2019tis certain, such sorts of food as are subject to putrify\n _before_ they are eaten, are also liable to the same afterwards.\n Besides, Flesh is of soft, moist, gross, phlegmy quality, and\n generates a nourishment of a like nature; thirdly, Flesh heats the\n body, and causeth a drought; fourthly, Flesh does breed great store\n of noxious humours; fifthly, it must be considered that \u2018beasts\u2019\n and other living creatures are subject to diseases[298] and many\n other inconveniences, and uncleannesses, surfeits, over-driving,\n abuses of cruel butchers, &c., which renders their flesh still more\n unwholesome. But on the contrary, all sorts of dry foods, as Bread,\n Cheese, Herbs, and many preparations of Milk, Pulses, Grains, and\n Fruits; as their original is more clean, so, being of a sound firm\n nature, they afford a more excellent nourishment, and more easy\n of concoction; so that if a man should exceed in quantity, the\n Health will not, thereby, be brought into such danger as by the\n superfluous eating of flesh....\n\n \u201cWhat an ill and ungrateful sight is it to behold dead carcasses,\n and pieces of bloody, raw, flesh! It would undoubtedly appear\n dreadful, and no man but would abhor to think of putting it in\n his mouth, had not Use and Custom from generation to generation\n familiarised it to us, which is so prevalent, that we read in some\n countries the mode is to eat the bodies of their dead parents\n and friends, thinking they can no way afford them a more noble\n sepulchre than their own bowells. And because it is _usual_, they\n do it with as little regret or nauseousness as others have when\n they devour the leg of a Rabbit or the wing of a Lark. Suppose a\n person were bred up in a place where it were not a _custom_ to kill\n and eat flesh, and should come into our Leadenhall Market, or view\n our Slaughter Houses, and see the communication we have with dead\n bodies, and how blythe and merry we are at their funerals, and\n what honourable sepulchres we bury the dead carcasses of beasts\n in--nay, their very guts and entrails--would he not be filled with\n astonishment and horror? Would he not count us cruel monsters, and\n say we were _brutified_, and performed the part of beasts of prey,\n to live thus on the spoils of our fellow-creatures?\n\n \u201cThus, Custom has awakened the inhuman, fierce nature, which makes\n killing, handling, and feeding upon flesh and blood, without\n distinction, so easy and familiar unto mankind. And the same is\n to be understood of men killing and oppressing those of their own\n kind; for do we not see that a soldier, who is trained up in the\n wars of bloody-minded princes, shall kill a hundred men without any\n trouble or regret of spirit, and such as have given him no more\n offence than a sheep has given the butcher that cuts her throat.\n If men have but Power and Custom on their side, they think all is\n well.\u201d\n\nWhatever may be thought of the zealous attempt of the pious author to\nmeet the assertions of the (practical) materialists, who draw their\narguments from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures, or elsewhere, his replies\nto the common subterfuges or prejudices of the orthodox dietists are\nable and conclusive. His _humane_ arguments, indeed, are worthy of the\nmost advanced thinkers of the present day; and those who are versed\nin the anti-kreophagist literature of the last thirty years--in the\ncontroversy in the press, and on the platform--will, perhaps, be\nsurprised to find that the ordinary prejudices or subterfuges of this\nyear \u201cof Grace\u201d are identical with those current in the year 1683. We\nwish that we could transcribe some of these replies. We cannot forbear,\nhowever, to quote his representation of the changed condition of things\nunder the imagined humanitarian _r\u00e9gime_:--\n\n \u201cHere all contention ceaseth, no hideous cries nor mournful groans\n are heard, neither of man nor of \u2018beast.\u2019 No channels running with\n the blood of slaughtered animals, no stinking shambles, nor bloody\n butchers. No roaring of cannons, nor firing of towns. No loathsome\n stinking prisons, nor iron grates to keep men from enjoying their\n wife, children, and the pleasant air; nor no crying for want of\n food and clothes. No rioting, nor wanton inventions to destroy as\n much in one day as a thousand can get by their hard labour and\n travel. No dreadful execrations and coarse language. No galloping\n horses up hills, without any consideration or fellow-feeling\n of the victim\u2019s pains and burdens. No deflowering of virgins,\n _and then exposing them and their own young to all the miseries\n imaginable_. No letting lands and farms so dear that the farmer\n must be forced to oppress himself, servants, and cattle almost\n to death, and all too little to pay his rent. No oppressions of\n inferiors by superiors; neither is there any want, because there\n is no superfluity nor gluttony. No noise nor cries of wounded men.\n No need of chirurgeons to cut bullets out of their flesh; nor no\n cutting off hands, broken legs, and arms. No roaring nor crying out\n with the torturing pains of the gout, nor other painful diseases\n (as leprous and consumptive distempers), except through age, and\n the relics of some strain they got whilst they lived intemperately.\n Neither are their children afflicted with such a great number of\n diseases; but are as free from distempers as lambs, calves, or the\n young ones of any of the \u2018beasts\u2019 who are preserved sound and\n healthful, because they have not outraged God\u2019s law in Nature, the\n breaking of which is the foundation of most, or all, cruel diseases\n that afflict mankind; there being nothing that makes the difference\n between Man and \u2018Beasts\u2019 in health, but only superfluity and\n intemperance, both in quality and in quantity.\u201d\n\nHis chapter, in which he deals with the relations between the sexes and\nthe married state, shews him to have been as much in advance of his\ntime, in a sound knowledge and apprehension of Physiology, and of the\nlaws of Health, in that important part of hygienic science, as he was\nin the special branch of Diet.[299]\n\nAffixed to this work is a very remarkable Essay, in the shape of _A\nDialogue between an East-Indian Brachman and a French Gentleman,\nconcerning the Present Affairs of Europe_. In this admirable piece, the\nauthor ably exposes the folly no less than the horrors of war--and,\nin particular, _religious_ war--all which he ultimately traces to\nthe first source--the iniquities and barbarism of the Shambles. The\nDialogue is worthy of the most trenchant of the humanitarian writers\nof the next century. It was by meeting with _The Way to Health_ that\nBenjamin Franklin, in his youth, was induced to abandon the flesh-diet,\nto which revolutionary measure he ascribes his success, as well as\nhealth in after life.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nHECQUET. 1661-1737.\n\n\nThis meritorious medical reformer, at first intended for the Church,\nhappily (in the event) adopted the profession which he has so truly\nadorned, by his virtues, as well as by his enlightened labours. After\na long and severe course of Anatomy and Physiology, in 1684 he was\nadmitted as \u201cDoctor\u201d at Reims, and as Fellow (_Agr\u00e9g\u00e9_) in the College\nof Physicians in his native town. He then returned to Paris to perfect\nhimself in physiological science. Disgusted with the _tricasseries_\nwhich were excited against him by the members of his profession,\nhe withdrew (in 1688) to Port-Royal-des-Champs, where he succeeded\nHamon, who had just died, as physician. Here he practised the reforms\nhe taught, while he devoted himself to the most laborious works of\ncharity, giving all his time and attention to the poor for several\nleagues round, and travelling the distances, great as they were, on\nfoot.\n\nHis health enfeebled by excessive labour in this way, he was induced\nto retire from his post at Port-Royal, and he went back to the capital\nwhere, having gone through the necessary formalities, he was regularly\nenrolled as Doctor of the Paris University, receiving the official hat\nafter an examination of \u201crare success\u201d (1697).\n\nSoon afterwards the Faculty named him _Docteur-R\u00e9gent_, and appointed\nhim to the post of Professor of _Materia Medica_. \u201cHecquet had soon\nnumerous and illustrious patients, and his services were eagerly\nsought for, particularly in religious communities and in hospitals. He\nattached himself to that of Charity.\u201d In 1712 he was named Dean of the\nFaculty. In the midst of so much work, he found time to publish several\nmedical books.\n\n\u201cHe exercised his art with a noble disinterestedness. The poor were\nhis favourite patients. He presented himself at the houses of the rich\nonly when absolutely obliged, or when courtesy required it. He had\nmuch studied his art, and contributed with all his power, to advance\nit, as well by his writings as by his guidance and encouragement of\nyoung physicians.... He was in correspondence with the most famous\nsavants and physicians of his age. His style in Latin is correct, and\ndoes not want eloquence; in French he is more negligent, and a little\nunpolished. He was animated (_vif_) in debate, and strongly attached to\nhis opinions; but he sought Truth in good faith.\u201d\n\nAmongst his numerous works are:--\n\n_De l\u2019Ind\u00e9cence aux Hommes d\u2019Accoucher les Femmes, et de l\u2019Obligation,\nde Celles-ci de nourrir leurs enfants._ (On the Indecency of Male\nPhysicians Attending Women in Child-Birth) 1708. _Trait\u00e9 des Dispenses\ndu Car\u00eame_, 1709--his most celebrated book. _De la Digestion et des\nMaladies de l\u2019Estomac_, 1712. _Novus Medicin\u00e6 Conspectus cum Appendice\nDe Peste_, 1722. \u201cHe there combats the various systems upon the origin\nof diseases, which he attributes to the disorders which supervene, in\naccordance with the laws which direct the movement of the blood:\u201d the\nPlague, upon which he writes, was desolating the south of France at\nthat time. Also, at this period, various _brochures_ upon the Small-Pox.\n\n_La M\u00e9decine, la Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie des Pauvres_ (1740-2),\nhis most popular book--_La Brigandage de la M\u00e9decine_ (1755),\nwhich he supplemented with _Brigandage de la Chirurgie, et de la\nPharmacie_--will sufficiently mark his attitude towards the orthodox\nSchools of Medicine of his day. _Le Naturalisme des Convulsions dans\nles Maladies_ (1755), with several other books upon the same subject.\nThe history of the _Convulsionnaires_ occupies a curious episode in\nthe religious history of the period, as it has occupied, and, in some\nmeasure still, in fact, occupies the attention of physiologists and\npsychologists of our own age. Hecquet, with the physiologists of the\npresent time, attributes the phenomena to physical and natural causes.\n_La M\u00e9decine Naturelle_: \u201cin this work the author alleges that it is\nnot in the blood only that is to be sought the causes of maladies, but\nalso in the nervous fluid.\u201d[300]\n\nThe books in which he treats of reform in Dietetics are the _Trait\u00e9 des\nDispenses and La M\u00e9decine des Pauvres_.\n\nHowever _dietetically_ heterodox and heretical, the author of _The\nTreatise on Dispensations_ was of unsuspected ecclesiastical as well\nas theological orthodoxy; yet he takes occasion, at the outset of\nhis book, to reproach his Church with its indifferentism towards so\nessentially important a matter as Dietetics--scientific or moral:--\n\n \u201cIt will, perhaps, be found that much theology enters into this\n undertaking. We acknowledge it. One might even expect that some\n zealous ecclesiastic or other would have done himself the credit of\n sustaining so beautiful a cause (que quelque ecclesiastique zel\u00e9\n se seroit fait gloire de soutenir une si belle cause). It might be\n hoped, especially in an age like ours, when physical science is\n in honour and for the benefit of everyone, and in which Medicine\n has become the property of every condition.... It ought then to\n have been the duty of so many Abb\u00e9s, Monks and Religious Orders,\n who invest themselves with the titles of physicians--who receive\n their pay, who fill their employments--to advocate this part of\n ecclesiastical discipline [abstinence]. But, instead of doing so,\n though they undertake the care of the body, they, in fact, apply\n themselves solely to the _healing_ of maladies.... One can see\n enough of it, nevertheless, to be convinced that the public has\n gained less from their _secrets_ than they themselves, while their\n patients die more than ever under their hands....\u201d\n\nIn Chap. VI., _Que les Fruits, les Grains, les Legumes sont les Alimens\nles plus Naturels \u00e0 l\u2019Homme_, after appealing to _Gen._ i. and \u201cthe\nGarden of Eden,\u201d Hecquet proceeds to insist that our foods should be\nanalogous and consistent with the juices which maintain our life; and\nthese are Fruits, Grains, Seeds, and Roots. But prejudice, of long\nstanding, opposes itself to this truth. The false ideas attached to\ncertain traditional terms have warped the minds of the majority of the\nworld, and they have succeeded in persuading themselves that it is upon\nstimulating foods that depend the strength and health of men. From\nthence has come the love of wine, of spirituous liquors, and of gross\nmeats. The ambiguity (\u00e9quivoque) comes from confounding the idea of\nRemedy with that of Food.\n\n \u201cHere the greater part of the world take alarm. \u2018How,\u2019 say they,\n \u2018can we be supported on Grains, which furnish but dry meal, fitter\n to cloy than to nourish; on Fruits, which are but condensed water;\n with vegetables, which are fit but for manure (fumier)?\u2019 But this\n meal, well prepared, forms Bread, the strongest of all aliments,\n this condensed water is the same that has caused the Trees to\n attain so great bulk, this _fumier_ becomes such only because\n they prepare vegetables badly, and eat of them to excess. Besides,\n how can men affect to fear failure in strength, in eating what\n nourishes even the most robust animals, who would become even\n formidable to us, if only they knew their own strength.\u201d\n\nIn Chap. VII., _Que l\u2019Usage de la Viande n\u2019est pas le plus naturel \u00e0\nl\u2019Homme, ni absolument N\u00e9cessaire_, he remarks:--\n\n\u201cIt is incredible how much Prejudice has been allowed to operate\nin favour of [flesh] meat, while so many facts are opposed to the\npretended necessity of its use.\u201d\n\nHaving entered into the physiological argument, now so well-worn, among\nother reasons he adduces the fact that \u201cthe soundest part of the world,\nor the most enlightened, have believed in the obligation to abstain\nfrom flesh,\u201d and \u201cthe very nature of flesh, which is digested with\ndifficulty, and which furnishes the worst juices.\u201d\n\nNature being uniform in her method of procedure, is anything else\nnecessary to determine whether Man is intended to live upon flesh-meats\nthan to compare the organs which have to prepare them for his\nnourishment, with those of animals whom Nature manifestly has destined\nfor carnage? And herein it may be clearly recognised, since men have\nneither fangs nor talons to tear flesh, that it is very far from being\nthe food most natural to them.\n\nHe quotes numerous examples of eminent persons, as well as of nations\nin all times, and adds, as an argument not easy to be answered, that:--\n\u201cIt is proved it would not be difficult to nourish animals who live\non flesh with non-flesh substances, while it is almost impossible to\nnourish with flesh those who live ordinarily upon vegetable substances.\u201d\n\nHecquet devotes several chapters to a description of various Fruits and\nHerbs, and also of various kinds of Fish, which he holds to be much\nless objectionable and more innocent food than flesh. Comparing the two\ndiets, we must acknowledge:--\n\n \u201cIt causes our nature to revolt, and excites horror to eat raw\n flesh, and as it is presented to us naturally; and it becomes\n supportable for us to the taste and to the sight only after long\n preparation of cooking, which deprives it of what is inhuman and\n disgusting in its original state; and, often, it is only after\n _many_ various preparations and strange seasonings that it can\n become agreeable or sanitarily good. It is not so with other meats:\n the majority, as they come from the hand of Nature, without cookery\n and without art, are found proper to nourish, and are pleasant to\n the taste--plain proof that they are intended by Nature to maintain\n our health. Fruits are of such property that, when well-chosen and\n quite ripe, they excite the appetite by _their own virtue_, and\n might become, without preparation, sufficing.... If Vegetables or\n Fish have need of fire to accommodate them to our nature, the fire\n appears to be used less to _correct_ these sorts of foods than to\n penetrate them, to make them soft and tender, and to develope what\n in them is most proper and suitable for health.... In fine, it is\n clear that vegetables and fish have need of less, and less strange\n and r\u00e9cherch\u00e9, condiments--all sensible marks that these aliments\n are the most natural and suited to man.\u201d[301]\n\nHecquet\u2019s _Trait\u00e9 des Dispenses_ received the formal approval and\ncommendation of several \u201cdoctors regent\u201d of the Faculty of Medicine\nof the Paris University, which testimonies are prefixed to the second\nedition of 1710. With his English contemporary, Dr. Cheyne, and other\nmedical reformers, however, he experienced much insult and ridicule\nfrom anonymous professional critics.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nPOPE. 1688-1744.\n\n _Prim\u00e2que e c\u00e6de ferarum\n Incaluisse putem maculatum sanguine ferrum._\n\n (Ovid _Metam._ XV. 106).\n\n\n \u201cI cannot think it extravagant to imagine that mankind are no\n less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion\n over the lower ranks of Beings, than for the exercise of tyranny\n over their own species. The more entirely the inferior creation\n is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for\n the mismanagement of it; and the rather, as the very condition of\n Nature renders these beings incapable of receiving any recompense\n in another life, for their ill-treatment in this.\n\n \u201cIt is observable of those noxious animals, who have qualities\n most powerful to injure us, that they naturally avoid mankind, and\n never hurt us unless provoked, or necessitated by hunger. Man, on\n the other hand, _seeks_ out and pursues even the most inoffensive\n animals on purpose to persecute and destroy them. Montaigne thinks\n it some reflection on human nature itself, that few people take\n delight in seeing \u2018beasts\u2019 caress or play together, but almost\n every one is pleased to see them lacerate and worry one another.\n\n \u201cI am sorry this temper is become almost a distinguishing character\n of our own nation, from the observation which is made by foreigners\n of our beloved _Pastimes_--Bear-baiting, Cock-fighting, and the\n like. We should find it hard to vindicate the destroying of\n anything that has Life, merely out of wantonness. Yet in this\n principle our children are bred, and one of the first pleasures we\n allow them is the licence of inflicting Pain upon poor animals.\n Almost as soon as we are sensible what Life is ourselves, we make\n it our Sport to take it from other beings. I cannot but believe a\n very good use might be made of the fancy which children have for\n Birds and Insects. Mr. Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted\n them to her children; but rewarded or punished them as they treated\n well or ill. This was no other than entering them betimes into a\n daily exercise of Humanity, and improving their very diversion to a\n Virtue.\n\n \u201cI fancy, too, some advantage might be taken of the common notion,\n that \u2019tis ominous or unlucky to destroy some sorts of Birds, as\n Swallows or Martins. This opinion might possibly arise from the\n confidence these Birds seem to put in us, by building under our\n roofs, so that it is a kind of violation of the laws of Hospitality\n to murder them. As for Robin-red-breasts, in particular, \u2019tis\n not improbable they owe their security to the old ballad of the\n _Children in the Wood_. However it be, I don\u2019t know, I say, why\n this prejudice, well-improved and carried as far as it would go,\n might not be made to conduce to the preservation of many innocent\n beings, who are now exposed to all the wantonness of an ignorant\n barbarity....\n\n \u201cWhen we grow up to be men we have another succession of sanguinary\n Sports--in particular, _Hunting_. I dare not attack a diversion\n which has such Authority and Custom to support it; but must have\n leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with\n the example and number of the chasers, not a little contribute to\n resist those checks which Compassion would naturally suggest in\n behalf of the Animal pursued. Nor shall I say, with M. Fleury,\n that this sport is a remain of the Gothic Barbarity; but I must\n animadvert upon a certain custom yet in use with us, barbarous\n enough to be derived from the Goths or even the Scythians--I mean\n that savage compliment our Huntsmen pass upon ladies of quality who\n are present at the death of a Stag, when they put the knife into\n their hands to cut the throat of a helpless, trembling, and weeping\n creature.\n\n \u201c_Questuque cruentus,\n Atque imploranti similis._\u201d[302]\n\n \u201cBut if our \u2018Sports\u2019 are destructive, our _Gluttony_ is more so,\n and in a more inhuman manner. Lobsters roasted alive, Pigs whipt\n to death, Fowls sewed up,[303] are testimonies of our outrageous\n Luxury. Those who (as Seneca expresses it) divide their lives\n betwixt an anxious Conscience and a Nauseated Stomach, have a\n just reward of their gluttony in the diseases it brings with it.\n For human savages, like other wild beasts, find snares and poison\n in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetite to\n their destruction. I know nothing more shocking or horrid than the\n prospect of one of their kitchens covered with blood, and filled\n with the cries of Beings expiring in tortures. It gives one an\n image of a giant\u2019s den in a romance, bestrewed with the scattered\n heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty.\n\n \u201cThe excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of good nature in\n his writings than I remember in any author) cites a saying of Cato\n to this effect:--_That \u2019tis no easy task to preach to the Belly\n which has no ears._ Yet if (says he) we are ashamed to be so out\n of fashion as not to offend, let us at least offend with _some_\n discretion and measure. If we kill an animal for our provision, let\n us do it with the meltings of compassion, and without tormenting\n it. Let us consider that it is, in its own nature, cruelty to put a\n living being to death--we, at least destroy a soul that has sense\n and perception.[304]\n\n \u201cHistory tells us of a wise and polite nation that rejected a\n person of the first quality, who stood for a justiciary office,\n only because he had been observed, in his youth, to take pleasure\n in teasing and murdering of Birds. And of another that expelled a\n man out of the Senate for dashing a bird against the ground who\n had taken refuge in his bosom. Every one knows how remarkable the\n Turks are for their Humanity in this kind. I remember an Arabian\n author, who has written a Treatise to show how far a man, supposed\n to have subsisted in a desert island, without any instruction, or\n so much as the sight of any other man, may, by the pure light of\n Nature, attain the knowledge of Philosophy and Virtue. One of the\n first things he makes him observe is the benevolence of Nature, in\n the protection and preservation of her creatures.[305] In imitation\n of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his self-taught\n philosopher would, of course, fall into, is to relieve and assist\n all the animals about them in their wants and distresses....\n\n \u201cPerhaps that voice or cry, so nearly resembling the human, with\n which Nature has endowed so many different animals, might purposely\n be given them to move our Pity, and prevent those cruelties we are\n to apt to inflict upon our Fellow Creatures.\u201d\n\nPope quotes, in part, the admirable verses of Ovid, Metam. XV., with\nDryden\u2019s translation--and an apposite _fable_ of the Persian Pilpai,\nwhich illustrates the base ingratitude of men who torture and slaughter\ntheir fellow labourers.--\u201cI know it\u201d (this common ingratitude) said\nthe Cow, \u201cby woful experience; for I have served a man this long time\nwith milk, butter, and cheese, and brought him, besides, a Calf every\nyear--but now I am old, he turns me into this pasture with design to\nsell me to a butcher, who, shortly, will make an end of me.\u201d--_The\nGuardian_, LXI, May 21, 1713.\n\nWith Pilpai or Bidpai\u2019s fable, compare that of La Fontaine on the same\nsubject--_L\u2019Homme et la Couleuvre_.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nCHESTERFIELD. 1694-1773.\n\n\nTo the expression of the opinion or feeling of Lord Chesterfield on\nbutchering, given, in its place, in the body of this work (page 140),\nis here subjoined the remainder of his paper in _The World_. The value\nof such testimony may be deemed proportionate to the extreme rarity\nof any protests of this sort from those who, by their influential\nposition, are the most _bound_ to make them:--\n\n \u201cAlthough this reflection [the fact of the preying of the\n stronger upon the weaker throughout Nature] had force enough to\n _dispythagorise_ me _before my companions_ [in his college at\n the University of Oxford] _had time to make observations upon my\n behaviour, which could by no means have turned to my advantage in\n the world_, I for a great while retained so tender a regard for\n all my fellow-creatures, that I have several times brought myself\n into imminent peril by putting butcher-boys in mind, that their\n Sheep were going to die, and that they walked full as fast as\n could reasonably be expected, without the cruel blows they were so\n liberal in bestowing upon them. As I commonly came off the worst\n in these disputes, and as I could not but observe that I often\n aggravated, never diminished, the ill-treatment of these innocent\n sufferers, I soon found it necessary to consult my own ease, as\n well as security, by turning down another street, whenever I met\n with an adventure of this kind, rather than be compelled to be a\n spectator of what would shock me, or be provoked to run myself into\n danger, without the least advantage to those whom I would assist.\n\n \u201cI have kept strictly, ever since, to this method of fleeing from\n the sight of cruelty, wherever I could find ground-room for it;\n and I make no manner of doubt, that I have more than once escaped\n the horns of a Mad Ox, as all of that species are called, that do\n not choose to be tortured as well as killed. But, on the other\n hand, these escapes of mine have very frequently run me into great\n inconveniences. I have sometimes been led into such a series of\n blind alleys, that it has been matter of great difficulty to me to\n find my way out of them. I have been betrayed by my hurry into the\n middle of a market--_the proper residence of Inhumanity_. I have\n paid many a six-and-eightpence for non-appearance at the hour my\n lawyer had appointed for business; and, what would hurt some people\n worse than all the rest, I have frequently arrived too late for the\n dinners I have been invited to at the houses of my friends.\n\n \u201cAll these difficulties and distresses, I began to flatter myself,\n were going to be removed, and that I should be left at liberty\n to pursue my walks through the straightest and broadest streets,\n when Mr. Hogarth first published his Prints upon the subject of\n Cruelty.[306] But whatever success so much ingenuity, founded upon\n so much humanity, might deserve, all the hopes I had built of\n seeing a Reformation, proved vain and fruitless. I am sorry to say\n it, but there still remain in the _streets_ of this metropolis,\n more scenes of Barbarity than, perhaps, are to be met with in all\n Europe besides. Asia (at least in the larger population of it--the\n Hindus) is well known for compassion to \u2018brutes\u2019; and nobody who\n has read Busbequius, will wonder at me for most heartily wishing\n that our common people were no crueller than Turks.\n\n \u201cI should have apprehensions of being laughed at, were I to\n complain of want of compassion in our Laws [!]; the very word\n seeming contradictory to any idea of it. But I will venture to own\n that to me it appears strange, that the men against whom I should\n be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door,\n may, with _impunity_, drive by it half-a-dozen Calves, _with their\n tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered\n with blood_....\n\n \u201cTo conclude this subject--as I cannot but join in opinion with Mr.\n Hogarth, that the frequency of murders among us is greatly owing\n to those scenes of Cruelty, which the lower ranks of people are so\n much accustomed to; _instead of multiplying such scenes_, I should\n rather hope that some proper method might be fixed upon either\n _for preventing them_, or removing them out of sight; so that our\n infants might not grow up into the world in a familiarity with\n blood.\n\n \u201cIf we may believe the Naturalists, that a Lion is a gentle animal\n until his tongue has been dipped in blood, _what precaution ought\n we to use to prevent MAN from being inured to it, who has such\n superiority of power to do mischief_.\u201d--_The World_, No. LXI., Aug.\n 19, 1756.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nJENYNS. 1704-1787.\n\n\nA supporter of the Walpole Administration, he represented the county\nof Cambridge, and during twenty-five years held the office of\nCommissioner of the Board of Trade. He wrote papers in _The World_ and\nother periodicals, and published two volumes of Poems. His principal\nbook is the _Free Enquiry into the Origin of Evil_, in which he\nseeks to reconcile the obvious evils in the constitution of things\nwith his optimistic creed. Johnson, who, with all his orthodoxy, was\npessimistic, severely criticised this apology for Theism. In striking\ncontrast with the indifferentism of the vast majority of his class,\nhis just and humane feeling is sufficiently remarkable. The line of\nreasoning, in his comprehensive arraignment of the various atrocities\nperpetrated, sanctioned, or condoned by English Society or English Law\nin the last century, and which, for the most part, still continue (it\nis scarcely necessary to add), _logically_ leads to the abolition of\nthe Slaughter-House--the fountain and origin of the evil:--\n\n \u201cHow will Man, that sanguinary Tyrant, be able to excuse himself\n from the charge of those innumerable cruelties inflicted on his\n unoffending subjects, committed to his care, and placed under\n his authority, by their common father? To what horrid deviations\n from these benevolent intentions are we daily witnesses! No small\n part of Mankind derive their chief amusement from the deaths and\n sufferings of inferior Animals. A much greater part still, consider\n them only as engines of wood or iron, useful in their several\n occupations. The Carman drives his Horse as the Carpenter his nail\n by repeated blows; and so long as these produce the desired effect,\n and they both go, they neither reflect nor care whether either of\n them have any sense of feeling.\n\n \u201cThe Butcher knocks down the stately Ox with no more compassion\n than the Blacksmith hammers a horse-shoe, and plunges his knife\n into the throat of the innocent Lamb with as little reluctance as\n the Tailor sticks his needle into the collar of a coat.[307] If\n there are some few who, formed in a softer mould, view with pity\n the sufferings of these defenceless beings, _there is scarce one\n who entertains the least idea that Justice or Gratitude can be due\n to their Merits or their Services_.\n\n \u201cThe social and friendly Dog, if by barking, in defence of his\n master\u2019s person and property, he happens unknowingly to disturb\n his rest--the generous Horse, who has carried his ungrateful\n master for many years, with ease and safety, worn out with age\n and infirmities contracted in his service, is by him condemned to\n end his miserable days in a dust-cart, where the more he exerts\n his little remains of spirit, the more he is whipped to save his\n stupid driver the trouble of whipping some other less obedient\n to the lash. Sometimes, having been taught the practice of many\n unnatural and useless feats in a Riding-House, he is, at last,\n turned out and consigned to the dominion of a hackney-coachman, by\n whom he is every day corrected for performing those tricks which he\n has learned under so long and severe a discipline. [Add the final\n horrors of the _Knackers\u2019 Yard_, to which sort of hell the worn-out\n Horse is usually consigned.]\n\n \u201cThe Sluggish Bear, in contradiction to his nature, is taught to\n dance, for the diversion of an ignorant mob, by placing red-hot\n irons under his feet. The majestic Bull is tortured by every mode\n that malice can invent, for no offence but that he is unwilling\n to assail his diabolical tormentors.[308] These and innumerable\n other acts of Cruelty, Injustice, and Ingratitude are every day\n committed--not only with impunity, but _without censure, and even\n without observation_....\n\n \u201cThe law of self-defence, undoubtedly, justifies us in destroying\n those animals that would destroy us, that injure our properties,\n or annoy our persons; but not even these, whenever their situation\n incapacitates them from hurting us....\n\n \u201cIf there are any [there are vast numbers even now], whose tastes\n are so vitiated, and whose hearts are so hardened, as to delight in\n such inhuman sacrifices [the tortures of the Slaughter-House and of\n the Kitchen], and to partake of them without remorse, they should\n be looked upon as demons in human shape, and expect a retaliation\n of those tortures _which they have inflicted on the Innocent for\n the gratification of their own depraved and unnatural appetites_.\n\n \u201cSo violent are the passions of anger and revenge in the human\n breast, that it is not wonderful that men should persecute their\n real or imaginary enemies with cruelty and malevolence. But that\n there should exist in Nature a being who can receive pleasure from\n giving pain would be totally incredible, if we were not convinced\n by melancholy experience that there are not only many--but that\n this unaccountable disposition is in some manner inherent in the\n nature of men.[309] For as he cannot be taught by example, nor led\n to it by temptation, nor prompted to it by interest, it must be\n derived from his native constitution.[310]\n\n \u201cWe see children laughing at the miseries which they inflict on\n every unfortunate animal who comes within their power. All Savages\n are ingenious in contriving and executing the most exquisite\n tortures, and [not alone] the common people of all countries\n are delighted with nothing so much as with Bull-Baitings,\n Prize-Fightings, \u2018Executions,\u2019 and all spectacles of cruelty and\n horror.... They arm Cocks with artificial weapons which Nature had\n kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and\n triumph see them plunge them into each other\u2019s hearts. They view\n with delight the trembling Deer and defenceless Hare flying for\n hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and, at last,\n sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers. They\n see with joy the beautiful Pheasant and harmless Partridge drop\n from their flight, weltering in their blood, or, perhaps, perishing\n with wounds and hunger under the cover of some friendly thicket,\n to which they have in vain retreated for safety.... And to add to\n all this, they spare neither labour nor expense to preserve and\n propagate these innocent animals for no other end than to multiply\n the objects of their persecution.\n\n \u201cWhat name should we bestow upon a Supreme Being whose whole\n endeavours were employed, and whose whole pleasure consisted, in\n terrifying, ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying mankind; whose\n superior faculties were exerted in fomenting animosities amongst\n them, in contriving engines of destruction, inciting them to use\n them in maiming and murdering each other; whose power over them\n was employed in assisting the rapacious, deceiving the simple, and\n oppressing the innocent? Who, without provocation or advantage,\n should continue, from day to day, void of all pity and remorse,\n thus to torment mankind for diversion; and, at the same time,\n endeavouring, with the utmost care, to preserve their lives and\n propagate their species, in order to increase the number of victims\n devoted to his malevolence? I say, what name detestable enough\n could we find for such a being. Yet if we impartially consider the\n case, and our intermediate situation, with respect to inferior\n animals, just such a being is a \u2018Sportsman,\u2019 [and let us add,\n by way of corollary, _\u00e0 fortiori_ one who consciously sanctions\n the daily and hourly cruelties of the Slaughter-House and the\n Butcher.\u201d]--_Disquisition II._ \u201cOn Cruelty to Animals,\u201d by Soame\n Jenyns.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\nPRESSAVIN. 1750.\n\n\nAn eminent Surgeon of Lyon, in the Medical and Surgical College of\nwhich city he held a professorship, and where he collected an extensive\nAnatomical Museum. At the Revolution of 1789 he embraced its principles\nwith ardour, and filled the posts of Municipal Officer and of Procureur\nde la Commune. On the day of the Lyon executions, under the direction\nof the revolutionary tribunals, Sept. 9, 1792, Pressavin intervened,\nand attempted to save several of the condemned. In the Convention\nNationale, to which he had been elected deputy, he voted for the\nexecution of the King; in other respects he was opposed to the extreme\nmeasures of the violent revolutionists, and in Sept., 1793, he was\nexpelled from the Society of the Jacobins. In 1798 he was named Member\nof the Council of Five Hundred, for two years, by the department of the\nRhone. The date of his death seems to be uncertain.\n\nHis chief writings are:--\n\n_Trait\u00e9 des Maladies des Nerfs_, 1769. _Trait\u00e9 des Maladies\nV\u00e9n\u00e9riennes, o\u00f9 l\u2019on indique un Nouveau Rem\u00e8de_, 8vo., 1773. Last, and\nmost important, _L\u2019Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la Sant\u00e9_,\n8vo. Paris, 1786. It was translated into Spanish, Madrid, 8vo., 1799.\n\nPressavin thus expresses his convictions as to the fatal effects of\nKreophagy:--\n\n \u201cWe cannot doubt that, if Man had always limited himself to the use\n of the nourishment destined for his organs, he would not be seen,\n to-day, to have become the victim of this multitude of maladies\n which, by a premature death, mows down (moissonne) the greatest\n number of individuals, before Age or Nature has put bounds to the\n career of his life. Other Animals, on the contrary, almost all\n arrive at that term without having experienced any infirmity. I\n speak of those who live free in the fields; for those whom we\n have subjected to our needs (real or pretended), and whom we call\n _domestic_, share in the penalty of our abuses, experience nearly\n the same alteration in their temperament, and become subject to an\n infinity of maladies from which Wild Animals are exempt.\n\n \u201cMen, then, coming from the hands of Nature, lived a long\n time without thinking of immolating living beings to gratify\n (s\u2019assouvir) their appetite. They are, without doubt, those happy\n times which our ancient poets have represented to us under the\n agreeable allegory of the _Golden Age_. In fact Man, _by natural\n organisation_ mild, nourishing himself only on vegetable-foods,\n must have been originally of pacific disposition, quite fitted\n (bien propre) to maintain among his fellows that happy Peace which\n makes the delights of Society. Ferocity, I repeat it, is peculiar\n to carnivorous animals; the blood which they imbibe maintains that\n character in them....\n\n \u201cBut if this faculty (reflection), which is called Reason, has\n furnished Man with so great resources for extending his enjoyments\n and increasing his well-being, how many evils have not the\n multiplied abuses, which he has made of them, drawn upon him? That\n which regards his Food is not the one of them which has _least_\n contributed to his degradation, as well physical as moral....\n\n \u201cAmong other evidences of this, country-people, who subsist upon\n the non-flesh diet, are exempt from the multitude of maladies which\n engender corruption of the juices of the blood, such as _humoral_,\n putrid, and malign fevers, from Apoplexy, from _Cachexy_, from\n Gout, and from an infinity of miserable disorders--their offspring;\n they arrive at a very advanced Age, free from the infirmities which\n early affect our old _Sybarites_. On the contrary, the inhabitants\n of towns, who make flesh their principal food, pass their lives\n miserably, a prey to all these maladies which one may regard, for\n that reason, endemic among them.\n\n \u201cAnother very evident proof that Flesh is not a food natural to man\n is that, whoever has abstained, during a certain time, when he goes\n back to it--it is rare that this new regimen does not soon become\n in him the germ of a disease, the graver in proportion to the\n abstinence from that food. We have opportunities of observing this\n after the Fasts of the Catholics--in the majority of those who have\n faithfully practised abstinence from flesh.\u201d\n\nHe admits that there may be some constitutions, whose organs of\ndigestion have been so corrupted by the long use of flesh, that a\n_sudden_ change may be unadvisable; but a gradual reform cannot but be\nalways beneficial:--\n\n \u201cI do not doubt that Apoplexy, that fatal Malady so common among\n the rich people of the towns, might be escaped by those who are\n threatened with it, by entire abstinence from flesh. A Sanguine\n or humoral _plethora_ is always the predisposing cause of this\n disease. A sudden rarefaction of the blood or of the humours in the\n vessels is the proximate cause of it; this rarefaction takes place\n only by the predisposition of the juices of the body to corruption.\u201d\n\nPressavin devotes a considerable proportion of his Treatise to the\narguments from Comparative Physiology.--While firmly persuaded both\nof the unnaturalness, and of the fatal mischiefs, of the diet of\nblood,[311] he expresses his despair of an early triumph of Reason and\nHumanity by means of a general dietetic reformation.[312]\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\nSCHILLER. 1759-1805.\n\n\nAfter Goethe the greatest of German Poets, began life as a surgeon\nin the army. In his twenty-second year he produced his first drama,\n_Die R\u00e4uber_ (\u201cThe Robbers\u201d). Some passages in it betrayed the \u201ccloven\nhoof\u201d of revolutionary, or at least democratic, bias, and he brought\nupon himself the displeasure of the sovereign Duke of W\u00fcrtemberg, in\nconsequence of which he was forced to leave Stuttgart. His principal\ndramas are _Wallenstein_, _Wilhelm Tell_, _Die Jungfrau von Orleans_,\n_Maria Stuart_, and _Don Carlos_, of which _Wallenstein_ is, usually,\nplaced first in merit. Even greater than the dramatic power of Schiller\nis the genius of his ballad poetry, and in lyrical inspiration he is\nthe equal of Goethe. _Das Lied von der Glocke_ (\u201cThe Lay of the Bell\u201d),\none of his most widely-known ballads, is also one of the most beautiful\nin its kind.\n\nIn prose literature, his _Briefe Philosophische_ (\u201cPhilosophical\nLetters\u201d), and his correspondence with his great poetical rival, are\nthe most interesting of his writings.\n\nIn _Das Eleusische Fest_ (\u201cThe Eleusinian Feast\u201d) and _Der Alpenj\u00e4ger_\n(\u201cThe Hunter of the Alps\u201d) are to be found the humanitarian sentiments\nas follow:--\n\n Schwelgend bei dem Siegesmahle\n Findet sie die rohe Schaar,\n Und die blutgef\u00fcllte Schaale\n Bringt man ihr zum Opfer dar\n Aber schauernd, mit Entsetzen,\n Wendet sie sich weg and spricht:\n \u2019_Blut\u2019ge Tigermahle_ netzen\n Eines Gottes Lippen nicht.\n Reine Opfer will er haben\n Fr\u00fcchte, die der Herbst bescheert--\n Mit des Feldes frommen gaben\n Wird der Heilige verehrt.\n\n Und sie nimmt die Wucht des Speeres\n Aus des J\u00e4ger\u2019s rauher hand;\n Mit dem Schaft des Mordgewehres\n Furchet sie den leichten Sand,\n Nimmt von ihres Kranzes Spitze\n Einen Kern mit Kraft gef\u00fcllt,\n Senkt ihn in die zarte Ritze,\n Und der Trieb des Keimes schwillt.[313]\n\n * * * * *\n\n Mit des Jammers Stummen Blicken\n Fleht sie zu dem harten Mann,\n Fleht umsonst, denn, loszudr\u00fccken,\n Legt er schon den Bogen an;\n Pl\u00f6tzlich aus der Felsenspalte\n Tritt der Geist, der Bergesalte\n\n Und mit seinen G\u00f6tterh\u00e4nden\n Sch\u00fctzt er das gequ\u00e4lte Thier:\n \u201c_Musst du Tod und Jammer Senden_\u201d\n Ruft er \u201cbis herauf zu mir?\n _Raum fur alle hat die Erde_\n Was verfolgst du meine Heerde?\u201d[314]\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\nBENTHAM. 1749-1832.\n\n\nThis great legal reformer was educated at Westminster, and at the\nage of thirteen proceeded to Queen\u2019s College, Oxford. At the age of\nsixteen he took his first degree in Arts. The mental uneasiness with\nwhich he signed the obligatory test of the \u201cThirty-nine Articles\u201d he\nvividly recorded in after years. At the Bar, which he soon afterwards\nentered, his prospects were unusually promising; but unable to\nreconcile his standard of ethics with the recognised morality of the\nProfession, he soon withdrew from it. His first publication,--_A\nFragment on Government_, 1776--which appeared without his name, was\nassigned to some of the most distinguished men of the day. His next,\nand principal work, was his _Introduction to the Principles of Morals\nand Legislation_ (1780), not published until 1789. At this period\nhe travelled extensively in the East of Europe. _Panopticon: or the\nInspection-House_ (on prison discipline), appeared in 1791. The _Book\nof Fallacies_ (reviewed by Sidney Smith, in the _Edinburgh_), in\nwhich the \u201cwisdom of our ancestors\u201d delusion was, mercilessly exposed\n(1824), is the best known, and is the most lively of all his writings.\n_Rationale of Judicial Procedure_, and the _Constitutional Code_,\nare those which have had most influence in effecting legislative and\njudicial reform.\n\nBentham stands in the front rank of legal reformers; and as a fearless\nand consistent opponent of the iniquities of the English Criminal\nLaw, in particular, he has deserved the gratitude and respect of all\nthoughtful minds. Yet, during some sixty years, he was constantly held\nup to obloquy and ridicule by the enemies of Reform, in the Press and\non the Platform; and his name was a sort of synonym for _utopianism_,\nand revolutionary doctrine. In his own country his writings were long\nin little esteem; but elsewhere, and in France especially, by the\ninterpretation of Dumont, his opinions had a wider dissemination.\nIn _Morals_, the foundation of his teaching is the principle of the\ngreatest Happiness of the Greatest Number; that other things are good\nor evil in proportion as they advance or oppose the general Happiness,\nwhich ought to be the end of all morals and legislation.\n\nNot the least of his merits as a moralist is his assertion of the\nrights of other animals than man to the protection of Law, and his\nprotest against the culpable selfishness of the lawmakers in wholly\nabandoning them to the capricious cruelty of their human tyrants. The\nmost eminent of the disciples of Bentham, John Stuart Mill (who found\nhimself forced to defend the teaching of his master, in this respect,\nagainst the sneers of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, and others),\nrepeats this protest, and declares that--\n\n \u201cThe reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not\n less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims\n of the most brutal part of mankind, the lower animals. It is by\n the grossest misunderstanding of the principles of Liberty, that\n the infliction of exemplary punishment on ruffianism practised\n towards these defenceless beings has been treated as a meddling by\n Government with things beyond its province--an interference with\n domestic life. The domestic life of domestic tyrants is one of the\n things which it _is the most imperative on the Law to interfere\n with_. And it is to be regretted that metaphysical scruples,\n respecting the nature and source of the authority of governments,\n should induce many warm supporters of laws against cruelty to\n the lower animals to seek for justification of such laws in the\n incidental consequences of the indulgence of ferocious habits\n to the interest of human beings, _rather than in the intrinsic\n merits of the thing itself_. What it would be the duty of a human\n being, possessed of the requisite physical strength, to prevent by\n force, if attempted in his presence, it cannot be less incumbent\n on society generally to repress. The existing laws of England are\n chiefly defective in the trifling--often almost nominal--maximum\n to which the penalty, even in the worst cases, is limited.\u201d\n (_Principles of Political Economy_, ed. 1873.)\n\nThe observations both of Bentham and of Mill upon this subject,\nslighted though they are, are pregnant with consequences. It is thus\nthat the former authority expresses his opinion:--\n\n \u201cWhat other agents are those who, at the same time that they\n are under the influence of man\u2019s direction, are susceptible of\n Happiness? They are of two sorts: (1) Other Human beings, who\n are styled _Persons_. (2) Other Animals who, on account of their\n interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient\n Jurists, stand degraded into the class of _Things_. Under the\n Gentoo and Mahometan religions, the interests of the rest of the\n animal kingdom seem to have met with _some_ attention. Why have\n they not, universally, with as much as those of human beings,\n allowance made for the differences in point of sensibility?\n _Because the Laws that are have been the work of mutual fear_--a\n sentiment which the less rational animals have not had the same\n means, as men have, of turning to account. Why _ought_ they not [to\n have the same allowance made]? No reason can be given....\n\n \u201cThe day has been (and it is not yet past) in which the greater\n part of the Species, under the denomination of _Slaves_, have been\n treated by the Laws exactly upon the same footing--as in England,\n for example, the inferior races of beings are still. The day _may_\n come, when other Animals may obtain those rights _which never could\n have been withholden from them but by the hand of Tyranny_. The\n French have already (1790) recognised that the blackness of the\n skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned, without\n redress, to the caprice of a tormentor.\n\n \u201cIt may come one day to be recognised that the number of the legs,\n the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the _os sacrum_,\n are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being\n to the same fate. What else is it should fix the insuperable\n line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of\n discourse? But a full-grown Horse or Dog is, beyond comparison, a\n more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant\n of a day, or a week, or even of a month old. But suppose the case\n were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, can they\n reason? Nor is it, can they talk? But, _can they suffer_?\u201d[315]\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\nSINCLAIR. 1754-1835.\n\n\nThis celebrated Agricultural Reformer and active promoter of various\nbeneficent enterprises was a most voluminous writer. During sixty years\nhe was almost constantly employed in producing more or less useful\nbooks. He was born at Thurso Castle, in Caithness, and received his\neducation at the Edinburgh High School, and at the Universities of\nGlasgow and Oxford. In 1775 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of\nAdvocates, and afterwards was called to the English Bar. Five years\nlater he was elected to represent his county in the Legislature; and\nfor more than half a century Sir John Sinclair occupied a prominent\nposition in the world of politics, as well as of science and\nliterature. His reputation as an Agriculturist extended far and wide\nthroughout Europe and America; and statesmen and political economists,\nif they did not aid them as they ought to have done, professed for his\nlabours the highest esteem.\n\nHis principal writings are: (1) _A History of the Revenue of Great\nBritain_, 3 vols.; (2) _A Statistical Account of Scotland_, a most\nlaborious work; (3) _Considerations on Militias and Standing Armies_;\n(4) _Essays on Agriculture_; (5) Not the least important, _The Code of\nHealth and Longevity_, in which the sagacious and indefatigable author\nhas collected a large number of interesting particulars in regard to\nthe diet of various peoples. Comparing the two diets, he asserts:--\n\n \u201cThe Tartars, who live wholly on animal food, possess a degree of\n ferocity of mind and fierceness of character which form the leading\n feature of all carnivorous animals. On the other hand, an entire\n diet of vegetable matter, as appears in the Brahmin and Gentoo,\n gives to the disposition a softness, gentleness, and mildness of\n feeling directly the reverse of the former character. It also has\n a particular influence on _the powers of the mind_, producing\n liveliness of imagination and acuteness of judgment in an eminent\n degree.\u201d\n\nSir John Sinclair elsewhere quotes the following sufficiently\ncondemnatory remarks from the _Encyclop\u00e9die Methodique_, vol. vii.,\npart 1:--\n\n \u201cThe man who sheds the blood of an Ox or a Sheep will be habituated\n more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his\n fellow-creatures. Inhumanity takes possession of his soul, and the\n trades, whose occupation is to sacrifice animals for the purpose\n of supplying the [pretended] necessities of men, impart to those\n who exercise them a ferocity which their relative connections with\n Society but imperfectly serve to mitigate.\u201d--_Code of Health and\n Longevity_, vol. i., 423, 429, and vol. iii., 283.[316]\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\nBYRON. 1788-1824.\n\n\n \u201cAs we had none of us been apprised of his peculiarities with\n respect to food, the embarrassment of our host [Samuel Rogers] was\n not little, on discovering that there was nothing upon the table\n which his noble guest could eat or drink. Neither [flesh] meat,\n fish, nor wine would Lord Byron touch; and of biscuits and soda\n water, which he asked for, there had been, unluckily, no provision.\n He professed, however, to be equally well pleased with potatoes and\n vinegar; and of these meagre materials contrived to make rather a\n hearty meal....\n\n \u201cWe frequently, during the first months of our acquaintance dined\n together alone.... Though at times he would drink freely enough\n of claret, he still adhered to his system of abstinence in food.\n _He appeared, indeed, to have conceived a notion that animal food\n has some peculiar influence on the character_;[317] and I remember\n one day, as I sat opposite to him, employed, I suppose, rather\n earnestly over a \u2018beef-steak,\u2019 after watching me for a few seconds,\n he said in a grave tone of inquiry,--\u2018Moore, don\u2019t you find eating\n _beef-steak_ makes you ferocious?\u2019\u201d--_Life, Letters, and Journals\n of Lord Byron_, by Thomas Moore. New Edition. Murray, 1860.\n\nIn these Memorials of Byron, reference to his aversion from all\n\u201cbutcher\u2019s meat\u201d is frequent; and for the greater part of his life,\nhe seems to have observed, in fact, an extreme abstinence as regards\neating; although he had by no means the same repugnance for fish as\nfor flesh-eating. That this abstinence from flesh-meats was founded\nupon physical or mental, rather than upon moral, reasons, has already\nbeen pointed out. Nor, unhappily, was he as abstinent in drinking as in\neating; to which fact, in great measure, must be attributed the failure\nof his purer eating to effect all the good which, otherwise, it would\nhave produced.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe observations of the author of a book entitled _Philozoa_, published\nin 1839, and noticed with approval by Schopenhauer, are sufficiently\nworthy of note, and may fitly conclude this work:--\n\n \u201cMany very intelligent men have, at different times of their lives,\n abstained wholly from flesh; and this, too, with very considerable\n advantage to their health. Mr. Lawrence, whose eminence as a\n surgeon is well known, lived for many years on a vegetable diet.\n Byron, the poet, did the same, as did P. B. Shelley, and many other\n distinguished _literati_ whom I could name. Dr. Lambe and Mr. F.\n Newton have published very able works in defence of a diet of\n herbs, and have condemned the use of flesh as tending to undermine\n the constitution by a sort of slow poisoning. Sir R. Phillips\n has published _Sixteen Reasons for Abstaining from the Flesh of\n Animals_, and a large society exists in England of persons who eat\n nothing which has had life.\n\n \u201cThe most attentive researches, which I have been able to make\n into the health of all these persons, induce me to believe that\n vegetable food is the natural diet of man. I tried it once with\n very considerable advantage. My strength became greater, my\n intellect clearer, my power of continued exertion protracted, and\n my spirits much higher than they were when I lived on a mixed diet.\n I am inclined to think that the \u2018inconvenience\u2019 which some persons\n profess to experience from vegetable food is only _temporary_.\n A few repeated trials would soon render it not only safe but\n agreeable, and a disgust for the taste of flesh, _under any\n disguise_, would be the result of the experiment. The Carmelites,\n and other religious orders, who subsist only on the productions\n of the vegetable world, live to a greater age than those who feed\n on flesh; and, in general, frugivorous persons are milder in\n their disposition than other people. The same quantity of ground\n has been proved to be capable of sustaining a _larger[318] and\n stronger population_ on a vegetable than on a flesh-meat diet; and\n experience has shown _that the juices of the body are more pure,\n and the viscera much more free from disease, in those who live in\n this simple way_.\n\n \u201cAll these facts, taken collectively, point to a period in\n the history of civilisation when men will cease to slay their\n fellow-mortals for food, and will tend to realise the fictions\n of Antiquity, and of the Sybilline oracles respecting a \u2018Golden\n Age.\u2019\u201d[319]\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n Abernethy John, M.D., _Surgical Observations on Tumours_,\n quoted, 196\n\n Aderholdt A., M.D., referred to, 271-284\n\n \u00c6sop, _Fable of the Wolf_, referred to, 117\n\n Alcott Wm., M.D., referred to, 262-264\n\n Anquetil Du Perron, _R\u00e9cherches sur les Indes_,\n referred to, 177-210\n\n Apollonius of Tyana (_Life_ by Philostratus),\n quoted and referred to, 50-51, 303\n\n Arbuthnot John, M.D., _Essay Concerning Aliments_,\n referred to, 132\n\n Arnold Edwin, _The Light of Asia_, quoted, 296\n\n Attalus, noticed by Seneca, 30\n\n Axon W. E. A.,(Biog. Sketches of George Nicholson,\n Sir R. Phillips, and William Cowherd), referred to, 191, 244, 260\n\n\n Baker Thomas, Abstract of Graham\u2019s _Science of Human Life_,\n referred to, 265, 266\n\n Baltzer Eduard, _Porphyry_ and _Musonius_, 68, 284, 304\n\n Bartolini Biagio, M.D. (Notice of Cornaro), referred to, 89\n\n Bentham Jeremy, quoted, 327, 328\n\n Blot-Lequ\u00e8ne, Critique of _Thalysie_, quoted by R. Springer, 211\n\n Bonnodi\u00e8re La, _De la Sobri\u00e9t\u00e9 et de ses Avantages_,\n referred to, 306\n\n Bossuet Jacques B\u00e9nigne, _Discours sur l\u2019Histoire Universelle_,\n quoted, 112\n\n Brewster Sir David, _More Worlds than One_, quoted, 255\n\n Brotherton Joseph, M.P., President of the English\n Vegetarian Society, referred to, 202, 259, 264\n\n Buddha Gautama, referred to and noticed, 6, 295-296\n\n Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, Texts from the Buddhist Canon,\n commonly known as _Dhammapada_, also the _K\u00fbla S\u00eelam_,\n translated from the P\u00e2li, 295-299\n\n Buffon George Louis Le Clerc de, _Histoire Naturelle_,\n quoted and referred to, 166, 214\n\n Burigni de (Translator of Porphyry, and author of a Treatise\n against Flesh-Eating, noticed by Voltaire), 67\n\n Busbecq Augier de, on the Turks, referred to by Lord\n Chesterfield, 321\n\n Byron George Gordon, Lord, _Life, Letters, and Journals_,\n by Moore, and _Poems_, 234, 331\n\n\n Cabantous J., Doyen de in Facult\u00e9 de Lettres, Toulouse,\n noticed by R. Springer, 210\n\n Chantrans Girod de, noticed by R. Springer, 210\n\n Charron Pierre, _De la Sagesse_, referred to, 99\n\n Chesterfield Philip Dormer, Lord, _The World_, CXC.,\n quoted, 139, 320-321\n\n Cheyne George, M.D., _Essay on the Gout_; _Of Health\n and a Long Life_; _English Malady: or, a Treatise of\n Nervous Diseases of all Kinds_; _Essay on Regimen_;\n _Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Body,\n and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body_,\n referred to and quoted, 97, 120-128\n\n Christian Sacred Scriptures, 52, 54, 55, 79\n\n Chrysostom Ioannes, _Homilies_, _Golden Book_, quoted, 76-81\n\n Cicero Marcus Tullius, _Epistles_ vii. 1, quoted, 24\n\n Clarke James, referred to, 259\n\n Clemens Titus Flavius (of Alexandria), _P\u00e6dagogus_ or\n _Instructor_, _Stromata_ or _Miscellanies_, quoted, 56-63\n\n _Clementine Homilies_, quoted and referred to, 56\n\n Cocchi Antonio, M.D., _Del Vitto Pithagorico Per Uso\n Della Medicina_, quoted, 157-159\n\n Collyns C. H., _The Times_, referred to, 202\n\n Cornaro Luigi di, _Trattato della Vita Sobria,\n Amorevole Esortazione, &c._; _Lettera a Barbaro_,\n quoted and referred to, 83-90, 306\n\n Cowherd William, noticed, 258-260\n\n Cowley Abraham, _The Garden_, quoted, 308-309\n\n Cowper William, _The Task_, quoted, 178\n\n Cuvier George, &c., Baron de, _Le\u00e7ons d\u2019Anatomie\n Comparative, III._, 169, 373, 443, 465, 480\n _R\u00e9gne Animal_, noticed by Shelley, 226\n\n\n Daumer Georg, _Anthropologismus und Kriticismus_;\n _Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber Kaspar Hauser_,\n referred to and quoted, 281-283\n\n _Dietetic Reformer_, referred to, 212, 251\n\n\n Eden Sir F. M., _State of the Poor_, referred to, 177, 189\n\n Epikurus, _De Sobrietate Contra Gulam_,\n quoted by Gassendi, 101, 104\n\n Erasmus Desiderius, _Encomium Mori\u00e6_, quoted, 92\n\n Erskine Thomas, Lord, referred to, 202\n\n Essenians and Essenism, noticed, 56, 72\n\n Euripides, quoted by Athen\u00e6us, 32\n\n Evelyn John, _Acetaria: On Sallets_, quoted, 107-110\n\n\n Ferdusi, quoted by Sir William Jones, 141\n\n Ferguson Adam, referred to, 208\n\n Flaubert G., _L\u00e9gende de St. Julien_, quoted in\n _Fortnightly Review_, 187\n\n Flourens, I. M. P., _Long\u00e9vit\u00e9 de la Race Humaine_,\n referred to, 175, 268, 270\n\n Fontaine La, Jean de, _Fables_ x. 2, quoted, 117\n\n Forster T., M.D., _Philozoa_, &c., quoted, 332\n\n Franklin Benjamin, _Autobiography_, referred to, 176\n\n\n Galen, Greek Physician, referred to, 35\n\n Gaskill James, referred to, 259\n\n Gay John, _Fables_--_Pythagoras and the Countryman_;\n _The Court of Death_; _The Shepherd\u2019s Dog and the Boy_;\n _The Wild Boar and the Ram_; _The Philosopher and the\n Pheasants_, quoted, 115-119\n\n Gassendi Pierre, _Letter_ to Van Helmont, _Ethics_, quoted, 100-104\n\n Gibbon Edward, _History of the Decline and Fall of the\n Roman Empire_, xxvi, quoted and referred to, 177, 220\n\n Gle\u00efz\u00e8s Jean Antoine, _Thalysie: ou la Nouvelle\n Existence_; _Les Nuits Elysiennes_, &c., quoted, 208-218, 252\n\n Gle\u00efz\u00e8s Colonel, referred to, 210\n\n Gr\u00e6vius Johann Georg, referred to, 293\n\n Graham Sylvester, M.D., _The Science of Human Life_,\n referred to and quoted, 262, 263, 264, 271\n\n _Golden Verses The_, referred to and quoted, 21, 294\n\n G\u00f6the Johann Wolfgang von, _Italienische Reise_;\n _Werther\u2019s Leiden_, &c., referred to, 327\n\n Goltz Bogumil, _Das Menschendasein in Seinen Weltewigen\n Z\u00fcgen und Zeichen_, 285\n\n Gompertz Lewis, referred to by Forster, 332\n\n Greg W. R., _Social Problems_, referred to and quoted, 215, 332\n\n G\u00fctzlaff V., M.D., _Schopenhauer \u00fcber die Thiere und\n den Thierschutz_; _Ein Beitrag zur ethischen Seite\n der Vivisectionsfrage_, referred to, 288\n\n\n Hahn Theodor, _Die Naturgem\u00e4sse Di\u00e4t: die Di\u00e4t der Zukunft_,\n quoted, 284, 292\n\n Haller Albrecht von, M.D., quoted, 156, 157\n\n Hardy Sebastian, _Le Vrai R\u00e9g\u00eeme de Vivre_, &c., referred to, 306\n\n Hare Edward, _Life of William Lambe, M.D._, quoted, 205\n\n Hartley David, M.D., _Observations on Man_, quoted, 138, 139\n\n Hartlib Samuel, _A Design for Plenty, by a Universal\n Planting of Fruit-Trees_, referred to, 108\n\n Hawkesworth John, _Edition of Swift\u2019s Works_; _Adventurer_,\n quoted and referred to, 168\n\n Hecquet Philippe, M.D., _De L\u2019Ind\u00e9cence aux Hommes\n d\u2019Accoucher les Femmes, &c._; _Trait\u00e9 des Dispenses\n du Car\u00eame_; _La M\u00e9dicine, La Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie\n des Pauvres_; _La Brigandage de la M\u00e9dicine_, &c.,\n referred to and quoted, 68, 133, 314-318\n\n Helps Sir Arthur, _Animals and Their Masters_, referred to, 329\n\n Hesiodos, \u1f1c\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f2b\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9 (_Works and Days_), quoted, 1, 3, 293\n\n Hierokles, \u03a7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u1fb6 \u0395\u03c0\u03b7 (_Golden Verses_), referred to\n and quoted, 21, 294\n\n Hindu Sacred Books, _Laws of Manu_, referred to\n and quoted, 182, 298\n\n Hippokrates, \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f59\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u0394\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 (_On the Healthful\n Regimen_), referred to, 12\n\n Hogarth William, _Four Stages of Cruelty_, referred to, 179, 321\n\n Hogg Jefferson, _Life of Shelley_, quoted, 206\n\n Horatius Flaccus, _Odes_, _Ars Poet._, _Sat. II. 2._,\n quoted, 74, 299-303\n\n Howard John, _Life of_, referred to, 189\n\n Hufeland Christian Wilhelm, M.D., _Makrobiotik, oder\n die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verl\u00e4ngern_, &c.,\n quoted and referred to, 184, 268\n\n Hypatia, referred to, 67, 82\n\n\n Iamblichus, _Life of Pythagoras_, referred to, 5, 8\n\n\n Jenyns Soame, quoted, 322-324\n\n Jewish Sacred Scriptures, quoted and referred to, 54, 61, 79\n\n Jones Sir William, _Asiatic Researches_, iv. 12, quoted, 141\n\n Josephus Flavius, _Antiquities of the Jews_, quoted, 73\n\n Julianus, Emperor, _Misopogon (Beard Hater)_, noticed, 74-76\n\n Juvenalis Decimus Junius, _Sat._ I., xv., &c.,\n quoted, 9, 48, 85, 182\n\n\n Kalid\u00e2sa, _Sak\u00fantala_, referred to, 182, 277\n\n Kingsford Anna, M.D., _The Perfect Way in Diet_, referred to, 271\n\n\n Laborde Alexandre de, referred to, 252\n\n Lamartine Alphonse de, _M\u00e9moires_; _La Chute d\u2019un Ange_,\n quoted, 247-252\n\n Lambe William, M.D., _Additional Reports on Regimen_,\n referred to and quoted, 197, 198-205, 206, 207, 331\n\n Lawrence William, Professor, F.R.C.S., _Lectures\n on Physiology_, quoted, 270\n\n L\u00e9mery Louis, M.D., _Trait\u00e9 des Alimens_, referred to,\n\n Lesage Alain R\u00e9n\u00e9, _Gil Blas_ ii. 2, quoted, 134\n\n Lessio Leonard, _Hygiasticon_, quoted, 305-307\n\n Liebig Justus von, _Chemische Briefe_, referred to\n and quoted, 215, 290-292\n\n Linn\u00e9 Karl von, _Am\u0153nitates Accademic\u00e6_, quoted, 164-165\n\n Lipsius Justus von, edition of Seneca, quoted, 31-32\n\n Locke John, _Thoughts on Education_, referred to, 109, 251\n\n Lucretius Titus Carus, _De Rerum Natur\u00e2 II._, referred\n to and quoted, 25, 300\n\n Lyford H. G., M.D., referred to, 205\n\n\n _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, Story of the Princess Sav\u00eetri, quoted, 297\n\n Mandeville Bernard de, M.D., _Fable of the Bees_, quoted, 113-115\n\n Martin John, referred to, 179, 187\n\n Mayor J. E. B., Professor, _Musonius_ and _Juvenal_,\n quoted and referred to, 305\n\n Metcalfe William, M.D., _Essay on Abstinence from the\n Flesh of Animals_; _Moral Reformer_; _American\n Vegetarian and Health Journal_, &c., noticed, 260-264\n\n Michelet Jules, _La Bible de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9_; _La Femme_;\n _L\u2019Oiseau_, quoted, 252-258\n\n Mill John Stuart, _Principles of Political Economy_;\n _Dissertations_, referred to and quoted, 328\n\n Milton John, _Paradise Lost_, v., xi.; _Latin Poem_\n addressed to Diodati, quoted, 110-112\n\n Moffet Thomas, M.D., _Health\u2019s Improvement_, quoted, 307\n\n Montaigne Michel de, _Essais_, quoted, 94-99\n\n More Sir Thomas, _Utopia_, quoted, 90-94\n\n Musonius Rufus, in _Anthologion_ of Stob\u00e6us, quoted\n by Professor Mayor, 303-305\n\n\n Neo-Platonism, referred to, 56, 67, 82\n\n Newman F. W., Professor, President of the English\n Vegetarian Society, _Lectures on Vegetarianism_,\n referred to, 93, 172, 215, 292\n\n Newton Sir Isaac, referred to by Voltaire (_El\u00e9mens\n de la Philosophie de Newton_), and by Haller, 101, 145\n\n Newton J. F., _The Return to Nature_, quoted and\n referred to, 205-208, 331\n\n Nichols T. L., M.D. (Hygienic Literature), referred to, 314\n\n Nicholson George, _On the Conduct of Man to Inferior\n Animals_; _The Primeval Diet of Man_, quoted, 190-196\n\n Nicholson E. B., _The Rights of an Animal_, referred to, 329\n\n Nodier Charles, referred to, 210\n\n\n Oswald John, _The Cry of Nature_, quoted, 179-183\n\n Ovidius Naso, _Metamorphoses_, xv.; _Fasti_, iv.,\n quoted, 23-27, 49, 299-303\n\n\n Paley William, _Principles of Moral and Political\n Philosophy_, quoted, 169-172\n\n Phillips Sir Richard, _Golden Rules of Social Philosophy_;\n _Medical Journal_ (July 27, 1811); _Dictionary of the\n Arts of Life and Civilisation_, quoted and\n referred to, 235-244, 331\n\n Philolaus, _Pythagorean System_, referred to, 5\n\n Philostratus, _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, quoted, 50-51\n\n Pilpai, _Fable of the Cow_, quoted by Pope, 320\n\n Pitcairn Archibald, M.D., referred to, 200\n\n Plato, _Republic_ ii; _Laws_, quoted, 12-22\n\n Plinius the Elder, _Hist. Naturalis_, quoted, 24\n\n Plotinus, noticed by Donaldson, 65-66\n\n Plutarch, _Essay on Flesh-Eating_; _Symposiacs_;\n _Parallel Lives_, quoted, 41-49\n\n Pope Alexander, _Pastorals_; _Essay on Man_; _The\n Guardian_, quoted, 71, 128-132, 318-320\n\n Porphyry, \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03a4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f08\u03c0\u03cc\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 (_On Abstinence_); _Life\n of Pythagoras_, quoted, 63-74\n\n Pressavin Jean Baptiste, Membre du Coll\u00e9ge Royale\n de Chirurgie, Lyon, Demonstrateur en Mati\u00e8re\n M\u00e9dicale-Chirurgicale \u00e0 Lyon, _L\u2019Art de Prolonger\n la Vie et de Conserver la Sant\u00e9_, quoted, 324-326\n\n Proklus, referred to, 82\n\n Pythagoras (in Hierokles, Diogenes, Iamblichus,\n Porphyry, and Cocchi) noticed and quoted, 4-11, 21, 158, 294\n\n\n Ramazzini Bernardo, M.D., referred to, 89\n\n Ray John, _Historia Plantarum_, quoted, 106, 107\n\n Richardson B. W., M.D., _Salutisland_; _Hygieia_, referred to, 326\n\n Richter Jean Paul, _Levana_, quoted, 287, 288\n\n Ritson Joseph, _Abstinence from Animal Food: a Moral Duty_,\n quoted, 185-190, 323\n\n Rorarius, _Qu\u00f2d Animalia Bruta S\u00e6pe Utantur Ratione\n Melius Homine_, referred to, 99\n\n Rousseau Jean Jacques, _De l\u2019In\u00e9galit\u00e9 Parmi les Hommes_;\n _Emile_; _Julie: ou la Nouvelle H\u00e9loise_; _Confessions_,\n referred to and quoted, 159-164, 195\n\n\n Sadi, Persian Poet, referred to, 141\n\n Sakya Muni, referred to, 182\n\n Schiller Johann Friedrich, _Das Eleusische Fest_;\n _Alpenj\u00e4ger_, quoted, 326-327\n\n Schopenhauer Arthur, _Fundament der Moral_ (_Le Fondement\n de la Morale_); _Parerga und Paralipomena_, quoted and\n referred to, 286-290\n\n Seefeld A. von, referred to, 284\n\n Seneca Marcus Ann\u00e6us, _Epistol\u00e6 ad Lucilium_; _De\n Clententi\u00e2_; _De Vit\u00e2 Beat\u00e2_; _De Ir\u00e2_; _Questiones\n Naturales_, quoted, 27-40\n\n Sextius Quintus, referred to, 31\n\n Shelley Percy Bysshe, _Queen Mab_ and _Note_; _The Revolt\n of Islam_, quoted, 218-234\n\n Shakespeare William, _As You Like It_, ii. 1; _Cymbeline_,\n i. 6, referred to and quoted, 105\n\n Simpson James, President of English Vegetarian Society,\n referred to, 263\n\n Sinclair Sir John, _The Code of Health and Longevity_,\n quoted, 330\n\n Sloane Sir Hans, _Nat. Hist. of Jamaica_, referred to, 177\n\n Smith Adam, _The Wealth of Nations_, quoted, 177\n\n Smith John, _Fruits and Farinacea: the Proper Food of Man_,\n edited by Professor Newman, quoted, 71\n\n Smith Sydney, quoted, 168\n\n Sotion, referred to by Seneca, 31\n\n Sparrman Andr\u00e9, referred to, 177\n\n Sperone Speroni, referred to, 89\n\n Springer Robert, German translator of _Thalysie, ou\n la Nouvelle Existence_, quoted, 211\n\n Strauss David Friedrich Dr., _Der Alte und der Neue Glaube_,\n quoted, 287\n\n Struve Gustav, _Mandaras\u2019 Wanderungen_; _Das Seelenleben_;\n _Die Pflanzenkost_, quoted;, 271-281\n\n St. Pierre Bernardin, _Paul et Virginie_; _Etudes de\n la Nature_, quoted, 173-176\n\n Stubbs Philip, _Anatomy of Abuses_, quoted by Ritson, 307\n\n Swedenborg Emanuel, referred to, 176\n\n Swift Jonathan, Dean, _Gulliver\u2019s Travels_, 133\n\n\n Tertullianus Quintus Septimius, _De Jejuniis Adversus\n Psychicos_, quoted, 51-55\n\n Thomson James, _The Seasons_, quoted, 134-137\n\n Trelawney F., _Life of Shelley_, referred to, 220\n\n Tryon Thomas, _The Way to Health and Long Life_;\n _A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks_;\n _The Way to make all People Rich_; _England\u2019s Grandeur_;\n _Dialogue between an East-India Brachman and a French\n Gentleman_, &c., 309-314\n\n\n Villeneuve C. de, M.D., referred to, 202\n\n Virgilius Maro, _Georgica_; _\u00c6neis_, quoted, 50, 51, 96\n\n Volney Constantine Comte de, _Voyages en Syrie et en\n Egypte_, referred to and quoted, 109, 330\n\n Voltaire Fran\u00e7ois Marie Arouet de, _Essai sur les M\u0153urs\n et L\u2019Esprit des Nations_; _Dictionnaire Philosophique_\n (Art. _Viande_); _Princesse de Babylone_; _Lettres\n d\u2019Amabed \u00e0 Shastasid_; _Dialogue du Chapon et de la\n Poularde_, quoted and referred to, 39, 68, 101, 141-156\n\n\n Weilsh\u00e4user Emil, quoted by R. Springer, 211\n\n Wesley John, _Journals_, referred to, 176\n\n Williamson John (noticed by Ritson, and by writer in\n _Gentleman\u2019s Magazine_, Aug. 1787), 189\n\n _Woman and the Age_, an Essay, referred to, 256\n\n\n Young Thomas, _On Cruelty_, referred to by Forster (_Philozoa_), 333\n\n\n Zimmerman W., M.D. _Der Weg zum Paradiese_ (_The Way\n to Paradise_), quoted, 285\n\n\nJOHN HEYWOOD, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works,\nHulme Hall Road, Manchester.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Quoted by Sir Arthur Helps in his _Animals and their Masters_.\n(Strahan, 1873.) The further just remark of Arnold upon this subject\nmay here be quoted:--\u201cKind, loving, submissive, conscientious,\nmuch-enduring we know them to be; but _because_ we deprive them of\nall stake in the future--_because_ they have no selfish, calculated\naims--these are not virtues. Yet, if we say a \u2018vicious\u2019 Horse, why not\nsay a \u2018virtuous\u2019 Horse?\u201d\n\n[2] That the indescribable atrocities inflicted in the final scene of\nthe slaughter-house, are far from being the only sufferings to which\nthe victims of the Table are liable, is a fact upon which, at this\nday, it ought to be superfluous to insist. The frightful sufferings\nduring \u201cthe middle passage,\u201d in rough weather, and especially in severe\nstorms, have over and over again been recounted even by spectators\nthe least likely to be easily affected by the spectacles of lower\nanimal suffering. Thousands of Oxen and Sheep, year by year, are\nthrown _living_ into the sea during the passage from the United States\nalone. In the year 1879, according to the official report, 14,000 thus\nperished, while 1,240 were landed dead, and 450 were slaughtered on\nthe quay upon landing to prevent death from wounds.--See, among other\nrecent works on humane Dietetics, the _Perfect Way in Diet_ of Dr.\nAnna Kingsford for some most instructive details upon this subject.\nThe reader is also referred to the Lecture recently addressed to the\nStudents of Girton College, Cambridge, by the same able and eloquent\nwriter, for other aspects of the humanitarian argument.\n\n[3] Cf. Horace (whom, however, we do not quote as an authority)--\n\n \u201cLet olives, endives, mallows light\n Be all my fare;\u201d\n\nand Virgil thus indicates the charm of a rural existence for him who\nrealises it:--\n\n \u201cWhatever fruit the branches and the mead\n Spontaneous bring, he gathers for his need.\u201d\n\n[4] The same apparent contradiction--the co-existence of \u201cflocks and\nherds\u201d with the prevalence of the non-flesh diet--appears in the Jewish\ntheology, in _Genesis_. It is obvious, however, that in both cases\nthe \u201cflocks and herds\u201d might be existing for other purposes than for\nslaughter.\n\n[5] _Daimones._ The _d\u00e6mon_ in Greek theology was simply a lesser\ndivinity--an _angel_.\n\n[6] Compare Spenser\u2019s charming verses (\u201cFaery Queen,\u201d Book ii., canto\n8): \u201cAnd is there care in heaven,\u201d &c.\n\n[7] His moral principles are reduced to these:--\u201c1. Mercy established\non an immovable basis. 2. Aversion to all cruelty. 3. A boundless\ncompassion for all creatures.\u201d Quoted from Klaproth by Huc, _Chinese\nEmpire_, xv. Buddhism was to Brahminism, sacerdotally, what early\nChristianity was to Mosaism.\n\n[8] All the varieties of the bear tribe, it is perhaps scarcely\nnecessary to observe, are by organisation, and therefore by preference,\nfrugivorous. It is from necessity only, for the most part, that they\nseek for flesh.\n\n[9] Compare Montaigne (_Essais_, Book II., chap. 12), who, to the shame\nof the popular opinion of the present day, ably maintains the same\nthesis.\n\n[10] The allegory of the trials and final purification of the soul was\na favourite one with the Greeks, in the charming story of the loves and\nsorrows of Psyche and Eros. Apuleius inserted it in his fiction of _The\nGolden Ass_, and it constantly occurs in Greek and modern art.\n\n[11] Beans, like lean flesh, are very nitrogenous, and it is possible\nthat Pythagoras may have deemed them too invigorating a diet for the\nmore aspiring ascetics. This may seem at least a more solid reason than\nthe absurd conjectures to which we have referred.\n\n[12] \u201cAs regards the fruits of this system of training or belief\n(the Pythagorean), it is interesting to remark,\u201d says the author\nof the article Pythagoras in Dr. Smith\u2019s _Dictionary of Greek and\nRoman Biography_, \u201cthat, wherever we have notices of distinguished\nPythagoreans, we usually hear of them as men of great uprightness,\nconscientiousness, and self-restraint, and as capable of devoted and\nenduring friendship.\u201d Amongst them the names of Archytas, and Damon,\nand Phintias are particularly eminent. Archytas was one of the very\ngreatest geniuses of antiquity: he was distinguished alike as a\nphilosopher, mathematician, statesman, and general. In mechanics he was\nthe inventor of the wooden flying dove--one of the wonders of the older\nworld. Empedokles (the Apollonius of the 5th century B.C.), who devoted\nhis marvellous attainments to the service of humanity, may be claimed\nas, at least in part, a follower of Pythagoras.\n\n[13] \u201cQu\u00e6 Philosophia fuit, facta Philologia est.\u201d (Ep. cviii.)\nCompare Montaigne, _Essais_, i., 24, on Pedantry, where he admirably\ndistinguishes between _wisdom_ and _learning_.\n\n[14] _The Republic of Plato._ By Davies and Vaughan.\n\n[15] In support of this thesis Plato adduces arguments derived from\nanalogy. Amongst the non-human species the sexes, he points out, are\nnearly equal in strength and intelligence. In human savage life the\ndifference is far less marked than in artificial conditions of life.\n\n[16] \u1f4c\u03c8\u03bf\u03bd--the name given by the Greeks generally to everything which\nthey considered rather as a \u201crelish\u201d than a necessary. Bread was held\nto be--not only in name but in fact--the veritable \u201cstaff of life.\u201d\nOlives, figs, cheese, and, at Athens especially, fish were the ordinary\n\u1f4c\u03c8\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n[17] Translated by Davies and Vaughan. 1874.\n\n[18] The _four_ sacred Pythagorean virtues--justice, temperance,\nwisdom, fortitude. See notice of Plato above.\n\n[19] Upon which excellent maxim Hierokles justly remarks: \u201cThe judge\nhere appointed is the most just of all, and the one which is [ought to\nbe] most at home with us, viz.: conscience and right reason.\u201d\n\n[20] _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1877. The Greek original of\nthe _Golden Verses_ is found in the text of Mullach, in _Fragmenta\nPhilosophorum Gr\u00e6corum_. Paris, 1860.\n\n[21] The Romans, we may remark, imported the gladiatorial fights from\nSpain.\n\n[22] _Hist. Naturalis VIII._ 7. His nephew says of these huge\nslaughter-houses that \u201cthere is no novelty, no variety, or anything\nthat could not be seen once for all.\u201d On one occasion, in the year\nA.D. 284, we are credibly informed that 1,000 ostriches, 1,000 stags,\n1,000 fallow-deer, besides numerous wild sheep and goats, were mingled\ntogether for indiscriminate slaughter by the wild beasts of the forest\nor the equally wild beasts of the city. (See _Decline and Fall._)\n\n[23] Some traces of it may be found, _e.g._, in Lucretius (_De Rerum\nNat. II._, where see his touching picture of the bereaved mother-cow,\nwhose young is ravished from her for the horrid sacrificial altar);\nVirgil (_\u00c6neis VII._), in his story of Silvia\u2019s deer--the most touching\npassage in the poem; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ In earlier Greek literature,\nEuripides seems most in sympathy with suffering--at least as regards\nhis own species.\n\n[24] I see and approve the better way; I pursue the worse.--_Metam._\nvii., 20.\n\n[25] In a note on this passage Lipsius, the famous Dutch commentator,\nremarks: \u201cI am quite in accord with this feeling. The constant use of\nflesh meat (_assidua_ \u03ba\u03c1\u03b5\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1) by Europeans makes them stupid and\nirrational (_brutos_).\u201d\n\n[26] Lipsius suggests, with much reason, that Seneca actually wrote\nthe opposite respecting his father, \u201cwho had no dislike for this\nphilosophy, but who feared calumny,\u201d &c.\n\n[27] On this melancholy truth compare Montaigne\u2019s _Essais_.\n\n[28] Ep. xxv. Lipsius here quotes Lucan \u201cstill more a philosopher than\na poet\u201d:--\n\n \u201c_Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam,\n Et quantum natura petat.\n . . Satis est populis fluviusque Ceresque._\u201d\n\n\u201cLearn by how little life may he sustained, and how much nature\nrequires. The gifts of Ceres and water are sufficient nourishment for\nall peoples.\u201d--(_Pharsalia._)\n\nAlso Euripides:--\n\n \u201c\u1f18\u03c0\u03b5\u1f76 \u03c4\u03af \u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9 . . . .\n . . . \u03c0\u03bb\u1f74\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u0394\u03b7\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03ba\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2, \u03c0\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u2019 \u1f51\u03b4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c7\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5,\n \u1f0b\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c6\u03c5\u03c7\u2019 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u00b7\n \u1f6f\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f00\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae\u00b7 \u03c4\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u1fc7 \u03b3\u03ad \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\n \u1f0c\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd.\u201d\n\nWhich may be translated:--\n\n \u201c_Since what need mortals, save twain things alone,\n Crush\u2019d grain (heaven\u2019s gift), and streaming water-draught?\n Food nigh at hand, and nature\u2019s aliment--\n Of which no glut contents us. Pampered taste\n Hunts out device of other eatables._\u201d\n\n (Fragment of lost drama of Euripides, preserved in _Athen\u00e6us_ iv.\n and in _Gellius_ vii.)\n\nSee, too, the elder Pliny, who professes his conviction that\n\u201cthe plainest food is also the most beneficial\u201d (_cibus simplex\nutilissimus_), and asserts that it is from his eating that man derives\nmost of his diseases, and from thence that all the drugs and all the\narts of physicians abound. (_Hist. Nat._ xxvi., 28.)\n\n[29] Cf. Pope\u2019s accusation of the gluttony of his species:--\n\n \u201cOf half that live, the butcher and the tomb.\u201d\n\n --_Essay on Man._\n\n[30] Compare Juvenal _passim_, Martial, Athen\u00e6us, Plutarch, and Clement\nof Alexandria.\n\n[31] _Ep._ cx. Cf. St. Chrysostom (_Hom._ i. on _Coloss._ i.) who seems\nto have borrowed his equally forcible admonition on the same subject\nfrom Seneca.\n\n[32] _Epistola_ vii. and _De Brevitate Vit\u00e6_ xiv. As to the effect\nof the gross diet of the later _athletes_, Ariston (as quoted by\nLipsius) compared them to columns in the _gymnasium_, at once \u201csleek\nand stony\u201d--\u03bb\u03b9\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bb\u03b9\u03b8\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2. Diogenes of Sinope, being asked why\nthe athletes seemed always so void of sense and intelligence, replied,\n\u201cBecause they are made up of ox and swine flesh.\u201d Galen, the great\nGreek medical writer of the second century of our \u00e6ra, makes the same\nremark upon the proverbial stupidity of this class, and adds: \u201cAnd\nthis is the universal experience of mankind--that a gross stomach does\nnot make a refined mind.\u201d The Greek proverb, \u201c\u03c0\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u1f74\u03c1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\n\u03c4\u03af\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03bd,\u201d exactly expresses the same experience.\n\n[33] _De Clementi\u00e2_ i. and ii. The author has been accused of\nflattering a notorious tyrant. The charge is, however, unjust, since\nNero, at the period of the dedication of the treatise to him, had not\nyet discovered his latent viciousness and cruelty. Like Voltaire, in\nrecent times, Seneca bestowed perhaps unmerited praise, in the hope of\nflattering the powerful into the practice of justice and virtue.\n\n[34] Cf. the sad experiences of the great Jewish prophet. \u201cThe prophets\nprophesy falsely,\u201d &c.\n\n[35] In the original, \u201cdumb animals\u201d (_mutis animalibus_)--a term\nwhich, it deserves special note, Seneca usually employs, rather\nthan the traditional expressions \u201cbeasts\u201d and \u201cbrutes.\u201d The term\n\u201cdumb animals\u201d is not strictly accurate, seeing that almost all\n_terrestrials_ have the use of voice though it may not be intelligible\nto human ears. Yet it is, at all events, preferable to the old\ntraditional terms still in general use.\n\n[36] Compare the advice of the younger Pliny--\u201cRead much rather\nthan many books.\u201d (_Letters_ vii., 9 in the excellent revision of\nMr. Bosanquet, Bell and Daldy, 1877) and Gibbon\u2019s just remarks\n(_Miscellaneous Works_).\n\n[37] See this finely and wittily illustrated in _Microm\u00e9gas_ (one\nof the most exquisite satires ever written), where the philosopher\nof the star Sirius proposes the same questions to the contending\nmetaphysicians and _savans_ of our planet.\n\n[38] This essay ranks among the most valuable productions that have\ncome down to us from antiquity. Its sagacious anticipation of the\nmodern argument from comparative physiology and anatomy, as well as\nthe earnestness and true feeling of its eloquent appeal to the higher\ninstincts of human nature, gives it a special interest and importance.\nWe have therefore placed it separately at the end of this article.\n\n[39] \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a4\u1f70 \u1f0c\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1 \u039b\u03bf\u03b3\u1ff6 \u03a7\u03c1\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9--\u201cAn Essay to prove that the Lower\nAnimals reason.\u201d\n\n[40] This essay is remarkable as being, perhaps, the first speculation\nas to the existence of other _worlds_ than ours.\n\n[41] As regards this complete silence of Plutarch, it may be attributed\nto his eminently _conservative_ temperament, which shrank from an\nexclusive system that so completely broke with the sacred traditions\nof \u201cthe venerable Past.\u201d Besides, Christianity had not assumed the\nimposing proportions of the age of Lucian, whose indifference is\ntherefore more surprising than that of Plutarch.\n\n[42] See, for example, the _Isis and Osiris_, 49. And yet, with\nFrancis Bacon, and Bayle, and Addison, he prefers Atheism to fanatical\nSuperstition.\n\n[43] Of the many eminent persons who have been indebted to, or who have\nprofessed the greatest admiration for, the writings of Plutarch are\nEusebius, who places him at the head of all Greek philosophers, Origen,\nTheodoret, Aulus Gellius, Photius, Suidas, Lipsius. Theodore of Gaza,\nwhen asked what writer he would first save from a general conflagration\nof libraries, answered, \u201cPlutarch; for he considered his philosophical\nwritings the most beneficial to society, and the best substitute for\nall other books.\u201d Amongst moderns, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire,\nand especially Rousseau, recognise him as one of the first of moralists.\n\n[44] See Milton (_Paradise Lost_, xi.), and Shelley (_Queen Mab_).\n\n[45] Cf. Pope:--\u201cOf half that live, the butcher and the tomb.\u201d--_Moral\nEssays._\n\n[46] _Parallel Lives: Cato the Censor._ Translated by John and William\nLanghorne, 1826.\n\n[47] See _Odyssey_, xii., 395, of the oxen of the sun impiously\nslaughtered by the companions of Ulysses.\n\n[48] \u201cHinc subit\u00e6 mortes, atque intestata Senectus.\u201d--\u201cHence sudden\ndeaths, and age without a will.\u201d Juvenal, _Sat._ I.\n\n[49]\n\n \u201cThe anarch Custom\u2019s reign.\u201d\n\n Shelley: _Revolt of Islam_.\n\n[50] Such it seems, were some of the popular methods of torture in\nthe Slaughter Houses in the first century of our \u00e6ra. Whether the\n\u201ccalf-bleeding,\u201d and the preliminary operations which produce the\n_p\u00e2t\u00e9 de foie gras_, &c., or the older methods, bear away the palm for\ningenuity in culinary torture, may be a question.\n\n[51] See \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03a3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2--in the Latin title, _De Esu\nCarnium_--\u201cOn Flesh-Eating,\u201d Parts 1 and 2. We shall here add the\nauthority of Pliny, who professes his conviction that \u201cthe plainest\nfood is the most beneficial.\u201d (_Hist. Nat._ xi., 117); and asserts\nthat it is from his eating that man derives most of his diseases.\n(xxv., 28.) Compare the feeling of Ovid, whom we have already\nquoted--_Metamorphoses_ xv. We may here refer our readers also to the\ncelebration, by the same poet, of the innocent and peaceful gifts of\n_Ceres_, and of the superiority of her pure table and altar--_Fasti_\niv., 395-416.\n\n _Pace, Ceres, l\u00e6ta est._ At vos optate, Coloni,\n _Perpetuam pacem_, perpetuumque ducem.\n Farra De\u00e6, mic\u00e6que licet salientis honorem\n Detis: et in veteres turea grana focos.\n Et, si thura aberant, unctas accendite t\u00e6das.\n Parva bon\u00e6 Cereri, _sint modo casta_, placent.\n _A Bove succincti cultros removete ministri:\n Bos aret....\n Apta jugo cervix non est ferienda securi:\n Vivat, et in dur\u00e2 s\u00e6pe laboret humo._\n\nAnd the fine picture of Virgil of the agricultural life in the ideal\n\u201cGolden Age,\u201d in which slaughter for food and war was unknown:--\n\n _Ante\n Impia quam c\u00e6sis gens est epulata juvencis._\n\n \u201cBefore\n An impious world the labouring oxen slew.\u201d--_Georgics II._\n\n[52] \u201cThe proclamation of the birth of Apollonius to his mother\nby Proteus, and the incarnation of Proteus himself--the chorus of\nswans which sang for joy on the occasion--the casting out of devils,\nraising the dead, and healing the sick--the sudden disappearances and\nreappearances of Apollonius--his adventures in the Cave of Trophonius,\nand the sacred Voice which called him at his death, to which may be\nadded his claim as a teacher to reform the world--cannot fail to\nsuggest the parallel passages in the Gospel history.... Still, it must\nbe allowed that the resemblances are very general, and on the whole\nit seems probable that the life of Apollonius was not written with a\n_controversial_ aim, as the resemblances, though real, only indicate\nthat a few things were borrowed, and exhibit no trace of a systematic\nparallel.\u201d--_Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography._ Edited by Wm.\nSmith, LL.D. So great was the estimation in which he was held, that\nthe emperor Alexander Severus (one of the very few good Roman princes)\nplaced his statue or bust in the imperial _Larium_ or private Chapel,\ntogether with those of Orpheus and of Christ.\n\n[53] Cf. Virgil, _Georgics_ II.: \u201cFundit humo _facilem_ victum\n_justissima_ Tellus.\u201d\n\n[54] So greatly was he esteemed by the later and leading Fathers of the\nChurch that Cyprian, the celebrated Bishop of Carthage, and \u201cthe doctor\nand guide of all the Western Churches,\u201d was accustomed to say, whenever\nhe applied himself to the study of his writings, \u201c_Da mihi magistrum_\u201d\n(\u201cGive me my master\u201d).--Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_ I., 284.\n\n[55] _On Fasting or Abstinence Against the Carnal-Minded._ The style of\nTertullian, we may remark, is, for the most part, obscure and abrupt.\n\n[56] It is worth noting that neither the original (\u03b2\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd) of\nthe \u201cAuthorised Version,\u201d nor the _meats_ of the \u201cA. V.\u201d itself,\nsays anything about _flesh-eating_ in this favourite resort of its\napologists. Both expressions merely signify foods of _any kind_;\nso that the passage in question of this Pastoral Letter--which is\napparently post-Pauline--can be made to condemn _absolute_ fasting\nonly: nor does the context warrant any other interpretation. As to\nSt. Paul, the great opponent of the earlier Christian belief and\npractice, it must be conceded that he seems not to have shared the\nabhorrence of the immediately accredited disciples of Jesus for the\nsanguinary diet, especially of St. Matthew, of St. James, and of St.\nPeter, who, as we are expressly assured by Clement of Alexandria,\nSt. Augustine, and others, lived entirely on _non-flesh_ meats. The\napparent indifferentism of St. Paul upon the question of abstinence is\nbest and most briefly explained by his avowed principle of action--from\nthe missionary point of view useful, doubtless, but from the point of\nview of abstract ethics not always satisfactory--the being \u201call things\nto all men.\u201d\n\n[57] Compare Seneca, _Epistles_, cx., and Chrysostom, _Homilies_.\n\n[58] _Aquis sobrius, et cibis ebrius._ This important truth we venture\nto commend to the earnest attention of those philanthropists, or\nhygeists, who are adherents of what may be termed the _semi_-temperance\nClause--who abstain from alcoholic drinks but not from flesh.\n\n[59] A more accurate version of the original than that of the _A.\nV._ (1 _Cor._ viii., 8-13). We may here quote the conclusion of the\nargument of the Greek-Jew Apostle--\u201cWherefore, if [the kind of] meat\nis a cause of offence to my brother, I will eat no flesh while the\nworld stands, that I may not be a cause of offence to my brother\u201d--and\npress it, more particularly, upon the attention of English residents,\nand especially of Christian _missionaries_, amongst the sensitive and\nrefined Hindus who form so overwhelming a proportion of the population\nof the British Empire. According to the evidence of the missionaries of\nthe various Christian churches themselves, their habits of flesh-eating\nhave not infrequently been found to prejudice all but the lowest caste\nof Hindus against the reception of other ideas of Christian and Western\n\u201ccivilisation.\u201d\n\n[60] _Usque ad choleram ortygometras cruditando._ In the present case\nit seems that the wanderers in the Arabian deserts were not so much\nclamorous for flesh as for _some_ kind of sustenance, or rather for\nsomething more than the _manna_ with which they were supplied; since\nthe late Egyptian slaves are reported to have said, \u201cWe remember the\nfish that we did eat in Egypt freely--the cucumbers, the melons, and\nthe leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dried\naway: _there is nothing at all_ besides this manna before our eyes.\u201d\n\nWe may here take occasion to observe that the fact of the existence of\n_sacrifice_ throughout their history necessarily involves the practice\nof flesh-eating--indeed, the two practices are, historically, clearly\nconnected. What, however, we may fairly deduce from their simple and\nfrugal living in the Egyptian slavery, lasting, as it did, through\nseveral centuries, during which period they must have been weaned\nfrom the gross living of their previous barbarous _pastoral_ life, is\nthis--that but for the sacrificial rites (and, perhaps, the necessities\nof the desert) the Jews would have, like other Eastern peoples,\nprobably adopted this _frugal_ living--of cucumbers, melons, onions,\n&c.--in their new homes. Such, at least, seems to be a legitimate\ninference from the highly-significant fact that, throughout their\nsacred scriptures, not flesh-meats but corn, and oil, and honey, and\npomegranates, and figs, and other vegetable products (in which their\nland originally abounded), are their highest dietary _ideal_--_e.g._,\n\u201cO that my people would have hearkened to me; for if Israel had walked\nin my ways.... He should have fed them with the finest wheat flour: and\nwith honey out of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee.\u201d (Ps.\nlxxxi., 17; cf. also Ps. civ., 14, 15.) It is equally significant of\nthe latent and secret consciousness of the _unspiritual_ nature of the\nproducts of the Slaughter-House, even in the Western world, that in the\n_liturgies_ or \u201cpublic services\u201d of the Christian churches, wherever\nfood is prayed for or whenever thanks are returned for it, there is (as\nit seems) a natural shrinking from mention of that which is obtained\nonly by cruelty and bloodshed, and it is \u201cthe kindly fruits of the\nearth\u201d which represent the legitimate dietary wants of the petitioners.\n\n[61] \u201cFor they that are after the Flesh do mind the things of the\nFlesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For\nto be _carnally minded is death_; but to be _spiritually minded is life\nand peace_.... So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God....\nTherefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the\nflesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through\nthe spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.\u201d (_Rom._\nviii., 5, &c.) A more spiritual apprehension of \u2018divine verities,\u2019 if\nwe may so say, than the apparently more equivocal utterance of the same\ngreat reformer elsewhere. Here it is well to observe, once for all that\nthe whole significance of the utterances of St. Paul upon flesh-eating\ndepends upon the bitter controversies between the older Jew and the\nnewer Greek or Roman sections of the rising Church. It is, in fact,\na question of the lawfulness of eating the flesh of the victims of\nthe Pagan and Jewish sacrificial altars--not of the question of\nflesh-eating in the _abstract_ at all. In fine, it is a question not of\n_ethics_, but of theological ritual. It is greatly to be lamented that\nthe confused and obscure translation of the _A. V._ has for so many\ncenturies hopelessly mystified the whole subject--as far, at least, as\nthe mass of the community is concerned.\n\n[62] See _De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos_. (Quinti. Sept. Flor.\nTertulliani Opera. Edited by Gersdorf, Tauchnitz.)\n\n[63] In the _Clementine Homilies_, which had a great authority\nand reputation in the earlier times of Christianity, St. Peter is\nrepresented, in describing his way of living to Clement of Rome, as\nprofessing the _strictest_ Vegetarianism. \u201cI live,\u201d he declares, \u201cupon\nbread and olives only, with the addition, rarely, of kitchen herbs\u201d\n(\u1f04\u03c1\u03c4\u1ff3 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u1ff3 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c7\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 xii. 6.) Clement of\nAlexandria (_P\u00e6dagogus_ ii. 1) assures us that \u201cMatthew the apostle\nlived upon seeds, and hard-shelled fruits, and other vegetables,\nwithout touching flesh;\u201d while Hegesippus, the historian of the Church\n(as quoted by Eusebius, _Ecclesiastical Hist._ ii. 2, 3) asserts of\nSt. James that \u201che never ate any animal food\u201d--\u03bf\u1f54\u03b4\u03b5 \u03b5\u03bc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5: an\nassertion repeated by St. Augustine (_Ad. Faust_, xxii. 3) who states\nthat James, the brother of the Lord, \u201clived upon seeds and vegetables,\nnever tasting flesh or wine\u201d (_Jacobus, frater Domini, seminibus\net oleribus usus est, non carne nec vino_). The connexion of the\nbeginnings of Christianity with the sublime and simple tenets of the\nEssenes, whose communistic and abstinent principles were strikingly\ncoincident with those of the earliest Christians, is at once one of\nthe most interesting and one of the most obscure phenomena in its\nnascent history. The Essenes, \u201cthe sober thinkers,\u201d as their assumed\nname implies, seem to have been to the more noisy and ostentatious\nJewish sects, what the Pythagoreans were to the other Greek schools\nof philosophy--_practical moralists_ rather than mere talkers and\ntheorisers. They first appear in Jewish history in the first century\nB.C. Their communities were settled in the recesses of the Jordan\nvalley, yet their members were sometimes found in the towns and\nvillages. Like the Pythagoreans, they extorted respect even from the\nworldly and self-seeking religionists and politicians of the capital.\nSee Josephus (_Antiquities_ xiii. and xviii.), and Philo, who speak in\nthe highest terms of admiration of the simplicity of their life and\nthe purity of their morality. Dean Stanley (_Lectures on the Jewish\nChurch_, vol. iii.) regards St. John the Baptist as Essenian in his\nsubstitution of \u201creformation of life\u201d for \u201cthe sanguinary, costly gifts\nof the sacrificial slaughter-house.\u201d\n\n[64] It is a curious and remarkable inconsistency, we may here observe,\nthat the modern ardent admirers of the Fathers and Saints of the\nChurch, while professing unbounded respect for their _doctrines_,\nfor the most part ignore the one of their _practices_ at once the\nmost ancient, the most highly reputed, and the most universal. _Quod\nsemper, quod ubique_, &c., the favourite maxim of St. Augustine and the\northodox church, is, in this case, \u201cmore honoured in the breach than\nin the observance.\u201d Partial and periodical Abstinence, it is scarcely\nnecessary to add, however consecrated by later ecclesiasticism, is\nsufficiently remote from the daily _frugal_ living of a St. James, a\nSt. Anthony, or a St. Chrysostom.\n\n[65] The full title of the treatise is--_The Miscellaneous Collection\nof T. F. Clemens of Gnostic (or Speculative) Memoirs upon the true\nPhilosophy_.\n\n[66] This celebrated term distinguished the superiority of _knowledge_\n(_gnosis_) of \u201cthe most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy\nof the Christian name.\u201d During the first three or four centuries the\nGnostics formed an extremely numerous as well as influential section of\nthe Church. They sub-divided themselves into more than fifty particular\nsects, of whom the followers of Marcion and the Manicheans are the most\ncelebrated. Holding opinions regarding the Jewish sacred scriptures\nand their authority the opposite to those of the Ebionites or Jewish\nChristians, they agreed, at least a large proportion of them, with the\nlatter on the question of kreophagy.\n\n[67] _History of the Literature of Ancient Greece_, by K. O. M\u00fcller,\ncontinued by J. W. Donaldson, D.D., vol. iii., 58.\n\n[68] The argument here suggested, although rarely, if ever, adduced,\nmay well be deemed worthy of the most serious consideration. It is,\nto our mind, one of the most forcible of all the many reasons for\nabstinence. That the life even of a really useful member of the human\ncommunity should be supported by the slaughter of hundreds of innocent\nand intelligent beings is surely enough to \u201cgive us pause.\u201d What,\nthen, shall be said of the appalling fact, that every day thousands of\nworthless, and too often worse than useless, human lives go down to\nthe grave (to be thenceforth altogether forgotten) after having been\nthe cause of the slaughter and suffering of countless beings, surely\nfar superior to themselves in all real worth? To object the privilege\nof an \u201cimmortal soul\u201d is, in this case, merely a miserable subterfuge.\nSidney Smith calculated that _forty-four_ wagon-loads of flesh had been\nconsumed by himself during a life of seventy years! (See his letter to\nLord Murray.)\n\n[69] It was the fond belief of the _mediating_ Christian writers that\nthe best parts of Greek philosophy were derived, in whole or in part,\nfrom the Jewish Sacred Scriptures. For this belief, which has prevailed\nso widely, which, perhaps, still lingers amongst us, and which has\nengaged the useless speculation of so many minds, an Alexandrian Jew\nof the age of the later Ptolemies is responsible. It is now well known\nthat he deliberately forged passages in the (so-called) Orphic poems\nand \u201cSybilline\u201d predictions, in order to gain the respect of the Greek\nrulers of his country for the Jewish Scriptures. This patriotic but\nunscrupulous Jew is known by his Greek name of Aristobulus. He was\npreceptor or counsellor of Ptolemy VI.\n\n[70] 2 _Sam._ vi., 19. Clement, in common with all the first Christian\nwriters, quotes from the _Septuagint_ version, which differs\nconsiderably from the Hebrew. The English translators of the latter,\npresuming that \u201cflesh\u201d must have formed part of the royal bounty,\ngratuitously insert that word in the context.\n\n[71] _P\u00e6dagogus_ ii. 1, \u201cOn Eating.\u201d\n\n[72] These works, which would have been highly interesting, have, with\nso many other valuable productions of Greek genius, long since perished.\n\n[73] _Miscellanies_ vii. \u201cOn Sacrifices.\u201d\n\n[74] See Plutarch\u2019s denunciation of the very same practice of the\nbutchers of his day, _Essay on Flesh Eating_. Unfortunately for\nthe credit of Jewish humanity, it must be added that the method of\nbutchering (enjoined, it is alleged, by their religious laws) entails\na greater amount of suffering and torture to the victim than even the\nChristian. This fact has been abundantly proved by the evidence of many\ncompetent witnesses. The cruelty of the Jewish method of slaughter was\nespecially exposed at one of the recent International Congresses of\nrepresentatives of European Societies for Prevention of Cruelty.\n\n[75] _Miscellanies_ ii., 18. We have used for the most part the\ntranslation of the writings of Clement, published in the Ante-Nicene\nLibrary, by Messrs. Clarke, Edinburgh, 1869. The Greek text is corrupt.\n\n[76] \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f08\u03c0\u03bf\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03a4\u1ff6\u03bd \u0395\u03bc\u03c8\u03cd\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd\n\n[77] \u201cThe first book discussed alleged contradictions and other marks\nof human fallibility in the Scriptures; the third treated of Scriptural\ninterpretation, and, strangely enough, repudiated the allegories of\nOrigen; the fourth examined the ancient history of the Jews; and, the\ntwelfth and thirteenth maintained the point now generally admitted by\nscholars--that _Daniel_ is not a prophecy, but a retrospective history\nof the age of Antiochus Epiphanes.\u201d--_Donaldson_ (_Hist. of Gr. Lit._)\n\n[78] In justice to the old Greek Theology which, as it really was,\nhas enough to answer for, it must be remarked that its Demonology, or\nbelief in the powers of subordinate divinities--in the first instance\nmerely the internunciaries, or mediators, or _angels_ between Heaven\nand Earth--was a very different thing from the _Diabolism_ of Christian\ntheology, a fact which, perhaps, can be adequately recognised by\nthose only who happen to be acquainted with the history of that most\nwidely-spread and most fearful of all superstitions. Necessarily, from\nthe vague and, for the most part, merely secular character of the\nearlier theologies, the _infernal_ horrors, with the frightful creed,\ntortures, burnings, &c., which characterised the faith of Christendom,\nwere wholly unknown to the religion of Apollo and of Jupiter.\n\n[79] Neo or New-Platonism may be briefly defined as a _spiritual_\ndevelopment of the Socratic or Platonic teaching. In the hands of some\nof its less judicious and rational advocates it tended to degenerate\ninto puerile, though harmless, superstition. With the superior\nintellects of a Plotinus, Porphyry, Longinus, Hypatia, or Proclus, on\nthe other hand, it was, in the main at least, a sublime attempt at the\npurification and spiritualisation of the established orthodox creed.\nIt occupied a position midway between the old and the new religion,\nwhich was so soon to celebrate its triumph over its effete rival.\nThat Christianity, on its spiritual side (whatever the ingratitude of\nits later authorities), owes far more than is generally acknowledged\nto both the old and newer Platonism, is sufficiently apparent to the\nattentive student of theological history.\n\n[80] Author of a _Treatise on the Abandonment of the Flesh Diet_, 1709.\nHe died in the year 1737.\n\n[81] Voltaire might have added the examples of the Greek _Coenobites_.\nThere is at least one celebrated and long-established religious\ncommunity, in the Sinaitic peninsula, which has always rigidly excluded\nall flesh from their diet. Like the community of La Trappe, these\nreligious Vegetarians are notoriously the most free from disease and\nmost long-lived of their countrymen.\n\n[82] Article _Viande_ (_Dict. Phil._) In other passages in his writings\nthe philosopher of Ferney, we may here remark, expresses his sympathy\nwith the humane diet. See especially his _Essai sur les M\u0153urs et\nl\u2019Esprit des Nations_ (introduction), and his Romance of _La Princesse\nde Babylone_.\n\n[83] \u039f\u1f30\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 strictly means adoption, admission to intimacy and\nfamily life, or \u201cdomestication.\u201d\n\n[84] The founder of the new Academy at Athens, and the vigorous\nopponent of the Stoics.\n\n[85] That unreasoning arrogance of human selfishness, which pretends\nthat all other living beings have come into existence for the sole\npleasure and benefit of man, has often been exposed by the wiser, and\ntherefore more humble, thinkers of our race. Pope has well rebuked this\nsort of monstrous arrogance:--\n\n \u201cHas God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good,\n Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?\n\n * * * * *\n\n Know, Nature\u2019s children all divide her care,\n The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear.\n While man exclaims: \u2018See, all things for my use!\u2019\n \u2018See, man for mine,\u2019 replies a pampered goose.\n And just as short of reason he must fall,\n Who thinks _all made for one, not one for all_.\u201d\n\n _Essay on Man, III._\n\nAnd, as a commentary upon these truly philosophic verses, we may\nquote the words of a recent able writer, answering the objection,\n\u201cWhy were sheep and oxen created, if not for the use of man? replies\nto the same effect as Porphyry 1600 years ago:\u201d It is only pride and\nimbecility in man to imagine all things made for his sole use. There\nexist millions of suns and their revolving orbs which the eye of man\nhas never perceived. Myriads of animals enjoy their pastime unheeded\nand unseen by him--many are injurious and destructive to him. All exist\nfor purposes but partially known. Yet we must believe, in general, that\nall were created for their own enjoyment, for mutual advantage, and for\nthe preservation of universal harmony in Nature. If, merely because we\ncan eat sheep pleasantly, we are to believe that they exist only to\nsupply us with food, we may as well say that man was created solely\nfor various parasitical animals to feed on, \u201c_because_ they do feed on\nhim.\u201d--(_Fruits and Farinacea: the Proper Food of Man._ By J. Smith.\nEdited by Professor Newman. Heywood, Manchester; Pitman, London.) See,\nalso, amongst other philosophic writers, the remarks of Joseph Ritson\nin his \u201cEssay on Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty\u201d--(Phillips,\nLondon, 1802). As to Oxen and Sheep, it must be further remarked that\nthey have been made what they are by the intervention of man alone. The\noriginal and wild stocks (especially that of sheep) are very different\nfrom the metamorphosed and almost helpless domesticated varieties.\nNaturam violant, pacem appellant.\n\n[86] The Artificer or _Creator, par excellence_. In the Platonic\nlanguage, the usual distinguishing name of the subordinate creator of\nour imperfect world.\n\n[87] Cf. Ovid\u2019s _Metam._, xv.; Plutarch\u2019s _Essay on Flesh-Eating_;\nThomson\u2019s _Seasons_.\n\n[88] \u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f18\u03c0\u03bf\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03ba. \u03c4. \u03bb. In the number of the traditionary reformers\nand civilisers of the earlier nations, the name of Orpheus has always\nheld a foremost place. In early Christian times Orpheus and the\nliterature with which his name is connected occupy a very prominent\nand important position, and some celebrated forged prophecies passed\ncurrent as the utterances of that half-legendary hero. Horace adopts\nthe popular belief as to his radical dietetic reform in the following\nverses:--\n\n Silvestres homines sacer, interpresque Deorum,\n _C\u00e6dibus et f\u0153do victu_ deterruit Orpheus.\n\n --_Ars Poetica._\n\nVirgil assigns him a place in the first rank of the Just in the Elysian\nparadise.--_\u00c6n._ vi.\n\n[89] In his witty satire, the _Misopogon_ or _Beard-Hater_--\u201ca sort\nof inoffensive retaliation, which it would be in the power of few\nprinces to employ\u201d--directed against the luxurious people of Antioch,\nwho had ridiculed his frugal meals and simple mode of living, \u201che\nhimself mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual\nappetite\u201d of that orthodox but corrupt Christian city. When they\ncomplained of the high prices of flesh-meats, \u201cJulian publicly declared\nthat a _frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of\nwine, oil, and bread_.\u201d--_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxiv.\n\n[90] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxii. The\nphilosophical fable of Julian--_The C\u00e6sars_--has been pronounced by\nthe same historian to be \u201cone of the most agreeable and instructive\nproductions of ancient wit.\u201d Its purpose is to estimate the merits or\ndemerits of the various Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. As for\nthe _Enemy of the Beard_, it may be ranked, for sarcastic wit, almost\nwith the _Jupiter in Tragedy_ of Lucian.\n\n[91] Article, \u201cChrysostom,\u201d in the _Penny Cyclop\u00e6dia_.\n\n[92] Baur\u2019s _Life and Work of St. Paul_. Part ii., chap. 3.\n\n[93] We here take occasion to observe that, while final appeals to\nour sacred Scriptures to determine any sociological question--whether\nof slavery, polygamy, war, or of dietetics--cannot be too strongly\ndeprecated, a candid and impartial inquirer, nevertheless, will gladly\nrecognise traces of a consciousness of the unspiritual nature of the\nsacrificial altar and shambles. He will gladly recognise that if--as\nmight be expected in so various a collection of sacred writings\nproduced by different minds in different ages--frequent sanction of the\nmaterialist mode of living may be urged on the one side; on the other\nhand, the inspiration of the more exalted minds is in accord with the\npractice of the true spiritual life. Cf. _Gen._ i., 29, 30; _Isaiah_\ni., 11-17, and xi., 9 _Ps._ l., 9-14; _Ps._ lxxxi., 14-17; _Ps._\nciv., 14, 15; _Prov._ xxiii., 2, 3, 20, 21; _Prov._ xxvii., 25-27:\n_Prov._ xxx., 8, 22; _Prov._ xxxi., 4; _Eccl._ vi., 7; _Matt._ vi. 31;\n1 _Cor._ viii., 13, and ix., 25; _Rom._ viii., 5-8, 12, 13; _Phil._\niii., 19, and iv., 8; _James_ ii., 13, 4, and iv., 1-3; 1 _Pet._ ii.,\n11. Perhaps, next to the alleged authority of _Gen._ ix. (noticed\nand refuted by Tertullian, as already quoted), the trance-vision of\nSt. Peter is most often urged by the _bibliolaters_ (or those who\nrevere the _letter_ rather than the _true inspiration_ of the Sacred\nBooks) as a triumphant proof of biblical sanction of materialism. Yet,\nunless, indeed, _literalism_ is to over-ride the most ordinary rules\nof common sense, as well as of criticism, all that can be extracted\nfrom the \u201cVision\u201d (in which were presented to the sleeper \u201call manner\nof four-footed beasts of the earth, and _wild beasts_ and _creeping\nthings_,\u201d which it will hardly be contented he was expected to eat)\nis the fact of a mental illumination, by which the Jewish Apostle\nrecognises the folly of his countrymen in arrogating to themselves the\nexclusive privileges of the \u201cChosen People.\u201d Besides, as has already\nbeen pointed out, the earliest traditions concur in representing St.\nPeter as always a strict abstinent, insomuch that he is stated to have\ncelebrated the \u201cEucharist\u201d with nothing but bread and salt.--_Clement\nHom._, xiv., 1.\n\n[94] _Homily_, lxix. on _Mat._ xxii., 1-14.\n\n[95] The _male_ sex, according to our ideas, might have been more\nproperly apostrophised; and St. Chrysostom may seem, in this passage\nand elsewhere, to be somewhat partial in his invective. Candour,\nindeed, forces us to remark that the \u201cGolden-mouthed,\u201d in common\nwith many others of the Fathers, and with the Greek and Eastern\nworld in general, depreciated the qualities, both moral and mental,\nof the feminine sex. That the weaker are what the stronger choose\nto make them, is an obvious truth generally ignored in all ages and\ncountries--by modern satirists and other writers, as well as by a\nSimonides or Solomon. The _partial_ severity of the Archbishop of\nConstantinople, it is proper to add, may be justified, in some measure,\nby the contemporary history of the Court of Byzantium, where the\nbeautiful and licentious empress Eudoxia ruled supreme.\n\n[96] St. Chrysostom seems to have derived this forcible appeal from\nSeneca. Compare the remarks of the latter, Ep. cx.: \u201cAt, mehercule,\nista solicite scrutata varieque condita, cum subierint ventrem, una\natque cadem f\u00e6ditas occupabit. Vis ciborum voluptatem contemnere?\n_Exitum specta._\u201d\n\n[97] The _Homilies_ of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of\nConstantinople, Translated by Members of the English Church. Parker,\nOxford. See _Hom._ vii. on _Phil._ ii. for a forcible representation of\nthe inferiority, in many points, of our own to other species.\n\n[98] For example, we may refer to the fact of trials of \u201ccriminal\u201d\ndogs, and other non-human beings, with all the formalities of ordinary\ncourts of justice, and in the gravest manner recorded by credible\nwitnesses. The convicted \u201cfelons\u201d were actually hanged with all the\ncircumstances of human executions. Instances of such trials are\nrecorded even so late as the sixteenth century.\n\n[99] His biographer, Marinus, writes in terms of the highest admiration\nof his virtues as well as of his genius, and of the perfection to which\nhe had attained by his unmaterialistic diet and manner of living. He\nseems to have had a remarkably cosmopolitan mind, since he regarded\nwith equal respect the best parts of all the then existing religious\nsystems; and he is said even to have paid solemn honours to all the\nmost illustrious, or rather most meritorious, of his philosophic\npredecessors. That his intellect, sublime and exalted as it was, had\ncontracted the taint of superstition must excite our regret, though\nscarcely our wonder, in the absence of the light of modern science;\nnor can there be any difficulty in perceiving how the miracles and\ncelestial apparitions--which form a sort of halo around the great\nteachers--originated, viz., in the natural enthusiasm of his zealous\nbut uncritical disciples. One of his principal works is _On the\nTheology of Plato_, in six books. Another of his productions was a\nCommentary on the _Works and Days of Hesiod_. Both are extant. He\ndied at an advanced age in 485, having hastened his end by excessive\nasceticism.\n\n[100] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xl. This testimony of\nthe great historian to the merits of the last of the New-Platonists is\nall the more weighty as coming from an authority notoriously the most\nunimpassioned and unenthusiastic, perhaps, of all writers. Compare\nhis remarkable expression of personal feeling--guardedly stated as it\nis--upon the question of kreophagy in his chapter on the history and\nmanners of the Tartar nations (chap. xxvi).\n\n[101] _Trattato della Vita Sobria_, 1548.\n\n[102] _S\u00e6vior armis Luxuria._ We may be tempted to ask ourselves\nwhether we are reading denunciations of the gluttony and profusion of\nthe sixteenth century or contemporary reports of public dinners in our\nown country, _e.g._, of the Lord Mayor\u2019s annual dinner. The vast amount\nof slaughter of all kinds of victims to supply the various dishes of\n_one_ of these exhibitions of national gluttony can be adequately\ndescribed only by the use of the Homeric word _hecatomb_--slaughter of\nhundreds.\n\n[103] _Amorevole Esortazione a Seguire La Vita Ordinata e Sobria._\n\n[104] Cornaro\u2019s heterodoxy in dietetics was not allowed, as may well\nbe supposed, to pass unchallenged by his contemporaries. One of his\ncountrymen, a person of some note, Sperone Speroni, published a reply\nunder the title of \u201cContra la Sobriet\u00e0;\u201d but soon afterwards recanting\nhis errors (_rimettendosi spontaneamente nel buon sentiero_) he\nwrote a Discourse in favour of Temperance. About the same time there\nappeared in Paris an \u201cAnti-Cornaro,\u201d written \u201cagainst all the rules\nof good taste,\u201d and which the editors of the _Biographie Universelle_\ncharacterise as full of remarks \u201c_tout \u00e0 fait oiseuses_.\u201d\n\n[105] More points out very forcibly that to hang for theft is\ntantamount to offering a premium for _murder_. Two hundred and fifty\nyears later Beccaria and other humanitarians vainly advanced similar\nobjections to the criminal code of christian Europe. It is hardly\nnecessary to remark that this Draconian bloodthirstiness of English\ncriminal law remained to belie the name of \u201ccivilisation\u201d so recently\nas fifty years ago.\n\n[106] Erasmus (who, to lash satirically and more effectively the\nvarious follies and crimes of men places the genius of Folly itself in\nthe pulpit) seems to have shared the feeling of his friend in regard to\nthe character of \u201csport.\u201d \u201cWhen they (the \u2018sportsmen\u2019) have run down\ntheir victims, what strange pleasure they have in cutting them up! Cows\nand sheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, but those animals that\nare killed in hunting must be mangled by none under a gentleman, who\nwill fall down on his knees, and drawing out a slashing dagger (for a\ncommon knife is not good enough) after several ceremonies shall dissect\nall the joints as artistically as the best skilled anatomist, while\nall who stand round shall look very intently and seem to be mightily\nsurprised with the novelty, though they have seen the same thing a\nhundred times before; and he that can but dip his finger and taste of\nthe blood shall think his own bettered by it. And yet the constant\nfeeding on such diet does but assimilate them to the nature (?) of\nthose animals they eat,\u201d &c.--_Encomium Mori\u00e6_, or _Praise of Folly_.\nIf we recall to mind that three centuries and a half have passed away\nsince More and Erasmus raised their voices against the sanguinary\npursuits of hunting, and that it is still necessary to reiterate the\ndenunciation, we shall justly deplore the slow progress of the human\nmind in all that constitutes true morality and refinement of feeling.\n\n[107] _Utopia_ II.\n\n[108] For a full and eloquent exposition of the social evils which\nthreaten the country from the natural but mischievous greed of\nlandowners and farmers, our readers are referred, in particular,\nto Professor Newman\u2019s admirable Lectures upon this aspect of the\nVegetarian creed, delivered before the Society at various times.\n(Heywood: Manchester.)\n\n[109] _Utopia._ Translated into English by Ralph Robinson, Fellow of\nCorpus Christi College. London: 1556; reprinted by Edward Arber, 1869.\nWe have used this English edition as more nearly representing the style\nof Sir Thomas More than a modern version. It is a curious fact that no\nedition of the _Utopia_ was published in England during the author\u2019s\nlifetime--or, indeed, before that of Robinson, in 1551. It was first\nprinted at Louvain; and, after revision by the author, it was reprinted\nat Basle, under the auspices of Erasmus, still in the original Latin.\n\n[110] \u201cWith plaintive cries, all covered with blood, and in the\nattitude of a suppliant.\u201d See the story of the death of Silvia\u2019s deer\n(_\u00c6neis_, viii.)--the most touching episode in the whole epic of\nVirgil. The affection of the Tuscan girl for her favourite, her anxious\ncare of her, and the deep indignation excited amongst her people by the\nmurder of the deer by the son of \u00c6neas and his intruding followers--the\ncause of the war that ensued--are depicted with rare grace and feeling.\n\n[111] \u201cIt was in the slaughter, in the prim\u00e6val times, of wild beasts\n(I suppose) the knife first was stained with the warm life-blood.\u201d--See\n_Ovid Metam._ xv.\n\n[112] _Christian_ theology, to which doubtless Montaigne here refers,\nthe force of truth compels us to note, has always uttered a very\n\u201cuncertain sound\u201d in regard to the rights and even to the frightful\nsufferings of the non-human species. Excepting, indeed, two or three\nisolated passages in the Jewish and Christian sacred Scriptures which,\naccording to the theologians, bear a somewhat _equivocal_ meaning, it\nis not easy to discover what _particular_ theological or ecclesiastical\nmaxims Montaigne could adduce.\n\n[113] We use the term in deference to universal custom, although\nFrancis Bacon protested 250 years ago that \u201cAntiquity, as we call\nit, is the young state of the world; for those times are ancient\nwhen the world is ancient, and not those we vulgarly account ancient\nby computing backwards--so that the present time is the real\nAntiquity.\u201d--_Advancement of Learning, I._ See also _Novum Organum_.\n\n[114] Compare Shakspere\u2019s eloquent indignation:--\n\n \u201cMan, proud Man,\n Dressed in a little brief authority,\n Most ignorant of what he\u2019s most assured--\n His glassy essence--like an angry ape,\n Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,\u201d &c.\n\n _Measure for Measure._\n\n[115] With these just and common-sense arguments of Montaigne compare\nthe very remarkable treatise (remarkable both by the profession and\nby the age of the author) of Hieronymus or Jerome Rorarius, published\nunder the title--\u201cThat the [so-called] irrational animals often make\nuse of reason better than men.\u201d (_Quod Animalia Bruta S\u00e6pe Utantur\nRatione Melius Homine._) It was given to the world by the celebrated\nphysician, Gabriel Naud\u00e9, in 1648, one hundred years after it was\nwritten, and, as pointed out by Lange, it is therefore earlier than\nthe Essais of Montaigne. \u201cIt is distinguished,\u201d according to Lange,\n\u201cby its severe and serious tone, and by the assiduous emphasising of\njust such traits of the lower animals as are most generally denied to\nthem, as being products of the higher faculties of the soul. With their\nvirtues the vices of men are set in sharp contrast. We can therefore\nunderstand that the MS., although written by a priest, who was a friend\nboth of Pope and Emperor, had to wait so long for publication.\u201d (_Hist.\nof Materialism._ Vol. i., 225. Eng. Trans.) It is noteworthy that the\ntitle, as well as the arguments, of the book of Rorarius reveals its\noriginal inspiration--the Essay of Plutarch. Equally heterodox upon\nthis subject is the _De La Sagesse_ of Montaigne\u2019s friend, Pierre\nCharron.\n\n[116] _Essais_ de Michel de Montaigne, II., 12.\n\n[117] See Article in _English Cyclop\u00e6dia_.\n\n[118] See _El\u00e9mens de la Philosophie de Newton_. The whole passage\nbreathes the true spirit of humanity and philosophy, and deserves\nto be quoted in full in this place: \u201cIl y a surtout dans l\u2019homme\nune disposition \u00e0 la compassion aussi g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement r\u00e9pandue que nos\nautres instincts. Newton avait cultiv\u00e9 ce sentiment d\u2019humanit\u00e9, et\nil l\u2019etendait jusqu\u2019aux animaux. Il \u00e9tait fortement convaincu avec\nLocke, que Dieu a donn\u00e9 aux animaux une m\u00e9sure d\u2019id\u00e9es, et les m\u00eames\nsentiments qu\u2019\u00e0 nous. Il ne pouvait penser que Dieu, qui ne fait rien\nen vain, e\u00fbt donn\u00e9 aux animaux des organes de sentiment, _afin qu\u2019elles\nn\u2019eussent point de sentiment_. Il trouvait une contradiction bien\naffreuse \u00e0 croire que les animaux sentent, et \u00e0 les faire souffrir.\nSa morale s\u2019accordait en ce point avec sa philosophie. _Il ne c\u00e9dait\nqu\u2019avec r\u00e9pugnance \u00e0 l\u2019usage barbare de nous nourrir du sang et de\nla chair des \u00eatres semblables \u00e0 nous_, que nous caressons tous les\njours. Il ne permit jamais dans sa maison qu\u2019on les fit mourir par\ndes morts lentes et recherch\u00e9es, pour en rendre la nourriture plus\nd\u00e9licieuse. Cette compassion qu\u2019il avait pour les animaux se tournait\nen vraie charit\u00e9 pour les hommes. En effet, _sans l\u2019humanit\u00e9--vertu\nqui comprend toutes les vertus--on ne m\u00e9riterait gu\u00e8re le nom de\nphilosophe_.\u201d--_El\u00e9mens_ v. An expression of feeling in sufficiently\nstriking contrast to the ordinary ideas. Compare _Essay on the Human\nUnderstanding_, ii., 2.\n\n[119] _History of Materialism._--We may here observe that Descartes\nseems to have adopted his extraordinary theory as to the non-human\nraces as a sort of _dernier resort_. In a letter to one of his friends\n(Louis Racine) he declares himself driven to his theory by the rigour\nof the dilemma, that (seeing the innocence of the victims of man\u2019s\nselfishness) it is necessary either that they should he insensible to\nsuffering, or that God, who has made them, should be unjust. Upon which\nGle\u00efz\u00e8s makes the following reflection: \u201cThis reasoning is conclusive.\nOne must either be a Cartesian, or allow that man is very vile. Nothing\nis more rigorous than this consequence.\u201d--(_Thalysie Ou La Nouvelle\nExistence_). La Fontaine has well illustrated the absurdity of the\nanimated machine theory in _Fables_ x. 1.\n\n[120] See \u201c_El\u00e9mens de la Philosophie de Newton_.\u201d\n\n[121] _Suspecta mihi semper fuerit_ (he writes) _ipsa hominis_ \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03af\u03b1.\n\n[122] See Gassendi\u2019s Letter, _Viro Clarissimo et Philosopho ac Medico\nExpertissimo Joanni Baptist\u00e6 Helmontio Amico Suo Singulari_. Dated,\nAmsterdam, 1629.\n\n[123] _Physics._ Book II. _De Virtutibus._\n\n[124] See _Philosophi\u00e6 Epicuri Syntagma. De Sobrietate contra Gulam._\n(\u201cView of the Philosophy of Epikurus: On Sobriety as opposed to\nGluttony.\u201d) Part III. Florenti\u00e6, 1727. Folio. Vol. III.\n\n[125] _Advancement of Learning_, iv., 2. Bacon\u2019s suggestion seems\nto imply that human beings were still vivisected, for the \u201cgood\u201d of\nscience, in his time. Celsus, the well-known Latin physician of the\nsecond century, had protested against this cold-blooded barbarity of\ndeliberately cutting up a living human body. The wretched victims\nof the vivisecting knife were, it seems, slaves, criminals, and\ncaptives, who were handed over by the authorities to the physiological\n\u201claboratory.\u201d Harvey, Bacon\u2019s contemporary, is notorious (and, it ought\nto be added, infamous) for the number and the unrelenting severity of\nhis experiments upon the non-human slaves, which, though constantly\nalleged by modern vivisectors to have been the means by which he\ndiscovered the \u201ccirculation of the blood,\u201d have been clearly proved to\nhave served merely as demonstrations in physiology to his pupils. But\nwe no longer wonder at Harvey\u2019s indifference to the horrible suffering\nof which he was the cause, when we read the similar atrocities of\nvivisection and \u201cpathology\u201d of our own time. From the cold-blooded\ncruelties of Harvey, who was accustomed to amuse Charles I. and his\nfamily with his demonstrations, it is a pleasant relief to turn to\nthe better feeling of Shakspere on that subject. See his _Cymbeline_\n(i., 6), where the Queen, who is experimenting in poisons, tells her\nphysician,\n\n \u201cI will try the force of these thy compounds on such creatures as\n We count not worth the hanging--but none human.\u201d\n\nand is reminded that she would \u201cfrom this practice but make hard\nher heart.\u201d Such a rebuke is in keeping with the true feeling which\ninspired the poet to picture the undeserved pangs of the hunted Deer in\n_As You Like It_, ii., 1.\n\n[126] _Advancement of Learning._ viii., 2.\n\n[127] See _Acetaria_ (page 170). By John Evelyn.\n\n[128] The tract of Samuel Hartlib, entitled, _A Design for Plenty,\nby a Universal Planting of Fruit Trees_, which appeared during the\nCommonwealth Government, no doubt suggested to Evelyn his kindred\npublication. Hartlib (of a distinguished German family) settled in this\ncountry somewhere about the year 1630. By his writings, in advocacy\nof better agriculture and horticulture, he has deserved a grateful\ncommemoration from after-times. Cromwell gave him a pension of \u00a3300,\nwhich was taken away by Charles II., and he died in poverty and\nneglect. It was to him Milton dedicated his _Tractate on Education_.\n\n[129] Locke (one of the very highest names in Philosophy) had already\nexhorted English mothers to make their children abstain \u201cwholly from\nflesh,\u201d at least until the completion of the fourth or fifth year. He\nstrongly recommends a very sparing amount of flesh for after years; and\nthinks that many maladies may be traceable to the foolish indulgence of\nmothers in respect to diet.--See _Thoughts on Education_, 1690.\n\n[130] He quotes, amongst others, Tertullian _De Jejuniis_ (On Fasting),\ncap. iv.; Jerome (_Adv. Jovin_); Clemens of Alexandria (_Strom._ vii.);\nEusebius, _Preparatio Evangelica_ (Preparation for the Gospel), who\ncites several abstinents from amongst the philosophers of the old\ntheologies.\n\n[131] _Acetaria_ (\u201cA Discourse of Salads\u201d). Dedicated to Lord Somers,\nof Evesham, Lord High Chancellor of England, and President of the Royal\nSociety, London, 1699.\n\n[132] Translated by Cowper from the Latin poems of Milton. In a note\nto the original poem Thomas Warton justly remarks that \u201cMilton\u2019s\npanegyrics on temperance both in eating and in drinking, resulting from\nhis own practice, are frequent.\u201d\n\n[133] _Paradise Lost_, v. and xi. Cf. _Queen Mab_.\n\n[134] _Le sang humain abruti ne pouvait plus s\u2019\u00e9lever aux choses\nintellectuelles._ See _Discours sur L\u2019Histoire Universelle_, a\nhistorical sketch which, though necessarily infected by the theological\nprejudices of the bishop, is, for the rest, considering the period in\nwhich it was written, a meritorious production as one of the earliest\nattempts at a sort of \u201cphilosophy of history.\u201d\n\n[135] _Penny Cyclop\u00e6dia_, Article Mandeville.\n\n[136] Upon which Ritson aptly remarks: \u201cThe sheep is not so much\n\u2018designed\u2019 for the _man_ as the _man_ is for the _tiger_, this animal\nbeing naturally carnivorous, which man is not. But nature, and justice,\nand humanity are not always one and the same thing.\u201d To this remark we\nmay add with equal force, that almost all the living beings upon whom\nour species preys have been so artificially changed from their natural\ncondition for the gratification of its selfish appetite as to be with\ndifficulty identified with the original stocks. So much for this theory\nof creative _design_.\n\n[137] _Fable of the Bees_, i. 187, &c.\n\n[138] _Fable_ xxxvi., _Pythagoras and the Countryman_. This fable of\nGay may have been suggested by that of \u00c6sop--preserved by Plutarch--who\nrepresents a wolf watching a number of shepherds eating a sheep,\nand saying to himself--\u201cIf _I_ were doing what _you_ are now about,\nwhat an uproar you would make!\u201d See also the instructive fable of La\nFontaine--_L\u2019Homme et la Couleuvre_, one of the finest in the whole\ntwelve Books (_Livre_ x., 2), in which the Cow and Ox accuse the\nbase ingratitude of Man for the cruel neglect, and, finally, for the\nbarbarous slaughter of his fellow-labourers. The Cow, appealed to by\nthe Adder, replies:--\n\n \u201cPourquoi dissimuler?\n Je nourris celui-ci depuis longues ann\u00e9es:\n Il n\u2019a sans mes bienfaits pass\u00e9 nulles journ\u00e9es.\n Tout n\u2019est que pour lui seul: mon lait et mes enfants\n Le font \u00e0 la maison revenir les mains pleines.\n M\u00eame j\u2019ai r\u00e9tabli sa sant\u00e9, que les ans\n Avaient alt\u00e9r\u00e9e; et mes peines\n Ont pour but son plaisir ainsi que son besoin.\n Enfin me voil\u00e0 vieille. _Il me laisse\n Sans herbe._ S\u2019il voulait encore me laisser pa\u00eetre!\n Mais je suis attach\u00e9e.....\n Force coups, peu de gr\u00e9. Puis, quand il \u00e9tait vieux,\n On croyait l\u2019honorer chaque fois que les hommes\n _Achetaient de son sang l\u2019indulgence des dieux_.\u201d\n\n[139] _The Wild Boar and the Ram._ For admirable rebukes of human\narrogance, see _The Elephant and the Bookseller_ and _The Man and the\nFlea_.\n\n[140] He was at one time so corpulent that he could not get in and out\nof his carriage in visiting his patients at Bath.\n\n[141] One of the many excellences of the non-flesh dietary is this\nessential quality of fruits and vegetables, that they contain in\nthemselves sufficient liquid to allow one to dispense with a large\nproportion of all extraneous drinks, and certainly with all alcoholic\nkinds. Hence it is at once the easiest and the surest preventive of all\nexcessive drinking. Much convincing testimony has been collected to\nthis effect by the English and German Vegetarian Societies.\n\n[142] It is neither necessary nor possible for everyone to practise\nso extreme abstemiousness; but it is instructive to compare it for a\nmoment with the ordinary and prevalent indulgence in eating.\n\n[143] _A Life of George Cheyne, M.D._, Parker and Churchill, 1846. See\nalso _Biog. Britannica_.\n\n[144] Dr. Samuel Johnson gave up wine by the advice of Cheyne, and\ndrank tea with Mrs. Thrale and Boswell till he died, \u00e6t. 75.\n\n[145] Bayle, the author of the great _Dictionnaire Historique et\nCritique_ (1690), to whom belongs the lasting honour of having\ninaugurated the critical method in history and philosophy, which\nhas since led to such extensive and important results, seems also\nto have been the first explicitly to state the difficulties of that\ngreatest _crux_ of Theology--the problem of the existence, or rather\ndominance, of Evil. His rival Le Clerc, in his _Biblioth\u00e9que_, took up\nthe orthodox cudgels. Lord Shaftesbury, the celebrated theologian and\nmoralist, wrote his dialogue--_The Moralists_ (1709)--in direct answer\nto Bayle, followed the next year by the _Theodike or Vindication of\nthe Deity_ of Leibnitz. Two of the most able and distinguished of the\nAnti-Optimists are Voltaire and Schopenhauer, the former of whom never\nwearies of using his unrivalled powers of irony and sarcasm on the\n_Tout est Bien_ theory. As for the latter philosopher, he has carried\nhis Anti-Optimism to the extremes of Pessimism.\n\n[146] Pope here is scarcely logical upon his own premiss. It seems\nimpossible, upon any grounds of reason or analogy, to deny to the\nlower animals a posthumous existence while vindicating it for\nourselves, inasmuch as the _essential_ conditions of existence are\nidentical for many other beings. To the serious thinker the question\nof a post-terrestrial state of existence must stand or fall for both\nupon the same grounds. Yet what can well be more weak, or more of\na subterfuge, than the pretence of many well-meaning persons, who\nseek to excuse their indifferentism to the cruel sufferings of their\nhumble fellow-beings by the expression of a belief or a hope that\nthere is a future retributive state for them? It must be added that\nthis idle speculation--whether the non-human races are capable of\npost-terrestrial life or no--might, to any serious apprehension,\nseem to be wholly beside the mark. But what can be more monstrously\nridiculous (\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, in Lucian\u2019s language) than the inconsistency\nof those who would maintain the affirmative, and yet persist in\n_devouring_ their clients? _Risum teneatis, amici!_\n\n[147] _Spence\u2019s Anecdotes_ and _The Guardian_, May 21, 1713. His\nindignation was equally aroused by the tortures of the vivisectors of\nthe day. And he demands how do men know that they have \u201ca right to kill\nbeings whom they [at least, the vast majority] are so little above, for\ntheir own curiosity, or even for some use to them.\u201d\n\n[148] See _Travels_, &c. Part IV.\n\n[149] _Dict. Phil._, in article _Viande_, where it is lamented that\nhis book, as far as appeared, had made no more converts than had the\nTreatise of Porphyry fifteen centuries before.\n\n[150] See the amusing scene of the gourmand Canon Sedillo and Dr.\nSangrado, who had been called in to the gouty and fever-stricken\npatient: \u201c\u2018Pray, what is your ordinary diet?\u2019 [asks the physician.] \u2018My\nusual food,\u2019 replied the Canon, \u2018is broth and juicy meat.\u2019 \u2018Broth and\njuicy meat!\u2019 cried the doctor, alarmed. \u2018I do not wonder to find you\nsick; such dainty dishes are poisoned pleasures and snares that luxury\nspreads for mankind, so as to ruin them the more effectually.... What\nan irregularity is here! what a frightful regimen! You ought to have\nbeen dead long ago. How old are you, pray?\u2019 \u2018I am in my sixty-ninth\nyear,\u2019 replied the Canon. \u2018Exactly,\u2019 said the physician; \u2018an early old\nage is always the fruits of intemperance. If you had drunk nothing\nelse than pure water all your life, and had been satisfied with\nsimple nourishment--such as boiled apples, for example--you would\nnot now be tormented with the gout, and all your limbs would perform\ntheir functions with ease. I do not despair, however, of setting you\nto rights, provided that you be wholly resigned to my directions.\u2019\u201d\n(_Adventures of Gil Blas_, ii., 2.) We may comment upon the satire\nof the novelist (for so it was intended), that irony or sarcasm is a\nlegitimate and powerful weapon when directed against falsehood; that\nthere was, and is, only too much in the practice and principles of the\nprofession open to ridicule; but that the attempted ridicule of the\nbetter living does not redound to the penetration or good sense of the\nsatirist.\n\n[151] Compare the similar thoughts of the Latin poet, _Metam._ xv.\n\n[152] _Autumn._ Read the verses which immediately follow, describing,\nwith profound pathos, the sufferings and anguish of the hunted Deer and\nHare.\n\n[153] _Summer._\n\n[154] _Observations on Man, II., 3._\n\n[155] Quam vehementes haberent tirunculi impetus primos ad optima\nqu\u00e6que _si quis exhortaretur, si quis impelleret_! The general failure\nSeneca traces partly to the fault of the schoolmasters, who prefer to\ninstil into the minds of their pupils a knowledge of _words_ rather\nthan of _things_--of _dialectics_ rather than of _dietetics_ (nos\ndocent disputare non vivere), and partly to the fault of parents who\nexpect a head in place of a heart training. (See _Letters to Lucilius_,\ncviii.) _Quis doctores docebit?_\n\n[156] An instance of the common confusion of thought and logic. The too\nobvious fact that a large proportion of animals are carnivorous neither\nproves nor justifies the carnivorousness of the _human_ species.\nThe real question is, is the human race originally _frugivorous_ or\n_carnivorous_? Is it allied to the Tiger or to the Ape?\n\n[157] \u201cWho is this female personification \u2018Nature\u2019? What are \u2018her\nprinciples,\u2019 and where does she reside?\u201d asks Ritson quoting this\npassage.\n\n[158] _The World._ No. 190, as quoted by Ritson.\n\n[159] Persian poets of the tenth and thirteenth centuries of our era.\n\n[160] _Asiatic Researches._ iv. 12\n\n[161] _El\u00e9mens de la Philosophie de Newton_, v. Haller, the founder\nof modern physiology, assures us that \u201cNewton, while he was engaged\nupon his _Optics_, lived almost entirely on bread, and wine, and\nwater\u201d (_Newtonus, dum_ Optica _scribebat, solo p\u0153n\u00e8 vino pane et aqu\u00e2\nvixit_).--_Elements of Physiology_, vi., 198.\n\n[162] A fact which brings out into strong relief the entirely\nsuperfluous luxuries of living of the English residents.\n\n[163] _Essai sur les M\u0153urs et l\u2019Esprit des Nations_, introduction\nsection xvi., and chap. iii. and iv.\n\n[164] See _Gen._ ix. and _Ecclesiastes_ iii., 18, 19.--Note by Voltaire.\n\n[165] See _Lettres d\u2019Amabed \u00e0 Shastasid_. See also article _Viande_ in\nthe _Dictionnaire Philosophique_.\n\n[166] _La Princesse de Babylone._ Cf. _Dialogue du Chapon et de la\nPoularde_.\n\n[167] See article _B\u00eates_ in the _Dict. Phil._\n\n[168] _Elements of Physiology._\n\n[169] Cf. Virgil\u2019s \u201cMagna parens frugum.\u201d\n\n[170] See the _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_. Didot, Paris.\n\n[171] _Gr\u00e6corum Chirurgici Libri._ Firenze, 1754.\n\n[172] _Dissertazione sopra l\u2019uso esterno appresso gli Antichi\ndell\u2019acqua fredda sul corpo umano._ Firenze, 1747.\n\n[173] _Del Vitto Pithagorico Per Uso Della Medicina: Discorso D\u2019Antonio\nCocchi._ Firenze, 1743. A translation appeared in Paris in 1762 under\nthe title of _Le R\u00e9gime de Pythagore_.\n\n[174] _Del Vitto Pithagorico._ Amongst the heralds and forerunners\nof Cocchi deserve to be mentioned with honour Ramazzini (1633-1714),\nwho earned amongst his countrymen the title of Hippokrates the Third;\nLessio (in his _Hygiastricon_, or Treatise on Health), in the earlier\npart of the 17th century; and Lemcry, the French Physician and Member\nof the Acad\u00e9mie, author of _A Treatise on all Sorts of Food_, which was\ntranslated into English by D. Hay, M.D., in 1745.\n\n[175] Rousseau adds in a note: \u201cI know that the English boast loudly of\ntheir humanity and of the good disposition of their nation, which they\nterm \u2018good nature,\u2019 but it is in vain for them to proclaim this far and\nwide. Nobody repeats it after them.\u201d Gibbon, in the well-known passage\nin his xxvith chapter, in which he speculates upon the influence of\nflesh-eating in regard to the savage habits of the Tartar tribes,\nquoting this remark of Rousseau, in his ironical way, says: \u201cWhatever\nwe may think of the general observation, _we_ shall not easily allow\nthe truth of his example.\u201d--_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,\nxxvi.\n\n[176] He corrects this mistake in a note: \u201cOne of my English\ntranslators has pointed out this error, and both [of my translators]\nhave rectified it. Butchers and surgeons are received as witnesses, but\nthe former are not admitted as jurymen or peers in _criminal_ trials,\nwhile surgeons are so.\u201d Even this amended statement needs revision.\n\n[177] How the French apostle of humanitarianism and refinement of\nmanners, if he were living, would regard the recently reported practice\nof French and other physicians of sending their patients to the\nslaughter-houses to drink the blood of the newly-slaughtered oxen may\nbe more easily imagined than expressed.\n\n[178] Rather _carnes consumere nati_--\u201cborn simply to devour.\u201d--See\n_Hor._, Ep. I., 2.\n\n[179] _Emile: ou de l\u2019Education_, II.\n\n[180] _Julie_ IV., _Lettre_ 10. See also her protests against shooting\nand fishing.\n\n[181] _Confessions._ One of his friends, Dussault, surprised him, it\nseems, on one occasion eating a \u201ccutlet.\u201d Rousseau, conscious of the\nbetrayal of his principles, \u201cblushed up to the whites of his eyes.\u201d\n(See Gle\u00efz\u00e8\u2019s _Thalysic_.) In truth, as we have already observed, his\nprinciples on the subject of _dietetics_, as on some other matters,\nwere better than his practice. His sensibility was always greater than\nhis strength of mind.\n\n[182] _Am\u0153nitates Academic\u00e6_, x., 8.\n\n[183] This little word \u201cseems\u201d here, as in very many other\ncontroversies, has a vast importance and needs a double emphasis.\n\n[184] Buffon here entirely ignores the true cause of the \u201cinanition\u201d of\nthe poor classes of the community. It is not the want of _flesh_-meats,\nbut the want of all solid and nutritious _meat_ of any kind, which\nis to be found amply in the abundant stores supplied by Nature at\nfirst hand in the various parts of the vegetable world. Were the poor\nable to procure, and were they instructed how best to use, the most\nnourishing of the various _farinacea_, fruits, and kitchen herbs,\nsupplied by the home and foreign markets, we should hear nothing or\nlittle of the scandalous scenes of starvation which are at present of\ndaily occurrence in our midst. The example of the Irish living upon\na few potatoes and buttermilk, or of the Scotch peasantry, instanced\nby Adam Smith, proves how all-sufficient would be a diet judiciously\nselected from the riches of the vegetable world. For, _\u00e0 fortiori_, if\nthe Irish, living thus meagrely, not only support life, but exhibit\na _physique_ which, in the last century, called forth the admiration\nof the author of _The Wealth of Nations_, might not our English poor\nthrive upon a richer and more substantial vegetable diet which could\neasily be supplied but for the astounding indifference of the ruling\nclasses?\n\n[185] _Hist. Naturelle, Le B\u0153uf._\n\n[186] Edition of Swift\u2019s Works. Canon Sydney Smith, equally celebrated\nas a _bon-vivant_ and as a wit, at the termination of his life writes\nthus to his friend Lord Murray: \u201cYou are, I hear, attending more to\ndiet than heretofore. If you wish for anything like happiness in the\n_fifth_ act of life _eat and drink about one-half what you could\neat and drink_. Did I ever tell you my calculation about eating and\ndrinking? Having ascertained the weight of what I could live upon, so\nas to preserve health and strength, and what I did live upon, I found\nthat, between ten and seventy years of age, I had eaten and drunk\n_forty-four horse wagon-loads of meat and drink more than would have\npreserved me in life and health_! The value of this mass of nourishment\nI considered to be worth seven thousand pounds sterling. It occurred\nto me _that I must, by my voracity, have starved to death fully a\nhundred persons_. This is a frightful calculation, but irresistibly\ntrue.\u201d Commentary upon this candid statement is superfluous. _Ab uno\ndisce omnes._ If amongst the richer classes the ordinary liver may\nconsume a somewhat smaller quantity of life during his longer or\nshorter existence, at all events the _sum total_ must be a sufficiently\nstartling one for all who may have the courage and candour to reflect\nupon this truly appalling subject. Another thought irresistibly\nsuggests itself. What _proportion_ of human lives thus supported is of\nany real value in the world?\n\n[187] In reply to this sort of apology it is obvious to ask--\u201cHave\nthe _frugivorous_ races, who form no inconsiderable proportion of the\n_mammals_, no claim to be considered?\u201d\n\n[188] To this very popular fallacy it is necessary only to object that\nNature may very well be supposed able to maintain the proper balance\nfor the most part. For the rest, man\u2019s proper duty is to harmonise and\nregulate the various conditions of life, as far as in him lies, not\nindeed by satisfying his selfish propensities, but by assuming the\npart of a benevolent and beneficent superior. To this we may add with\nsome force, that man appeared on the scene within a comparatively very\nrecent geological period, so that the Earth fared, it seems, very well\nwithout him for countless ages.\n\n[189] And, in point of fact, two-thirds at least of the whole human\npopulation of our globe.\n\n[190] This popular excuse is perhaps the feeblest and most disingenuous\nof all the defences usually made for flesh-eating. Can the mere gift\nof life compensate for all the horrible and frightful sufferings\ninflicted, in various ways, upon their victims by the multiform\nselfishness and barbarity of man? To what unknown, as well as known,\ntortures are not every day the victims of the slaughter-house\nsubjected? From their birth to their death, the vast majority--it is\ntoo patent a fact--pass an existence in which freedom from suffering of\none kind or other--whether from insufficient food or confined dwellings\non the one hand, or from the positive sufferings endured _in transitu_\nto the slaughter-house by ship or rail, or by the brutal savagery of\ncattle-drivers, &c.--is the exception rather than the rule.\n\n[191] _Moral and Political Philosophy_, i., 2. It is deeply to be\ndeplored that Dr. Paley is in a very small minority amongst christian\ntheologians, of candour, honesty, and feeling sufficient to induce\nthem to dispute at all so orthodox a thesis as the right to slaughter\nfor food. That he is compelled, by the force of truth and honesty, to\nabandon the popular pretexts and subterfuges, and to seek refuge in the\n_supposed_ authority of the book of _Genesis_, is significant enough.\nOf course, to all reasonable minds, such a course is tantamount to\ngiving up the defence of kreophagy altogether; and, if it were not for\ntheological necessity, it would be sufficiently surprising that Paley\u2019s\nintelligence or candour did not discover that if flesh-eating is to be\ndefended on biblical grounds, so, by parity of reasoning, are also to\nbe defended--slavery, polygamy, wars of the most cruel kind, &c.\n\n[192] _The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_, xii., 11.\nSee, amongst others, the philosophical reflections of Mr. Greg in his\n_Enigmas of Life_, Appendix. But the subject has been most fully and\nsatisfactorily dealt with by Professor Newman in his various Addresses.\n\n[193] Compare the similar observation of Flourens, Secretary of the\nFrench Academy of Sciences, in his _Treatise on the Longevity of Man_\n(Paris, 1812). He quotes Cornaro, Lessio, Haller, and other authorities\non the reformed regimen.\n\n[194] He well exposes the fatal mischief of _emulation_ (in place of\nlove of truth and of love of knowledge, for its own sake) in schools\nwhich tends to intensify, if not produce, the _selfism_ dominant in all\nranks of the community. Not the least meritorious of his exhortations\nto Governments is his desire that they would employ themselves in such\nuseful works as the general planting of trees, producing nourishing\nfoods, in place of devastating the earth by wars, &c.\n\n[195] The reason, as given by himself, for his abandonment in after\nyears of his self-imposed reform, is worthy neither of his philosophic\nacumen nor of his ordinary judgment. It seems that on one occasion,\nwhile his companions were engaged in sea-fishing, he observed that the\ncaptured fish, when opened, revealed in its interior the remains of\nanother fish recently devoured. The young printer seemed to see in this\nfact the ordinance of Nature, by which living beings live by slaughter,\nand the justification of human carnivorousness. (See _Autobiography_.)\nThis was, however, to use the famous Sirian\u2019s phrase, \u201cto reason\nbadly;\u201d for the sufficient answer to this alleged justification of\nman\u2019s flesh-eating propensity is simply that the fish in question was,\nby natural organisation, _formed_ to prey upon its fellows of the sea,\nwhereas man is _not formed_ by Nature for feeding upon his fellows of\nthe land; and, further, that the larger proportion of _terrestrials_ do\nnot live by slaughter.\n\n[196] _Wealth of Nations_ iii., 341. See, too, Sir Hans Sloane\n(_Natural History of Jamaica_, i., 21, 22), who enumerates almost\nevery species of vegetable food that has been, or may be, used for\nfood, in various parts of the globe; the philosophic French traveller,\nVolney (_Voyages_), who, in comparing flesh with non-flesh feeders, is\nirresistibly forced to admit that the \u201chabit of shedding blood, or even\nof seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiment of humanity;\u201d the Swedish\ntraveller Sparrman, the disciple of Linn\u00e9, who corrects the astonishing\nphysiological errors of Buffon as to the human digestive apparatus;\nAnquetil (_R\u00e9cherches sur les Indes_), the French translator of the\n_Zend-Avesta_ who, from his sojourn with the vegetarian Hindus and\nPersians, derived those more refined ideas which caused him to discard\nthe coarser Western living; and Sir F. M. Eden (_State of the Poor_).\n\n[197] _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xxvi.\nNotwithstanding Gibbon\u2019s expression of horror, we shall venture to\nremark that the \u201cunfeeling murderers\u201d of the Tartar steppes, in\nslaughtering each for himself, are more just than the _civilised_\npeoples of Europe, with whom a pariah-class is set apart to do the\ncruel and degrading work of the community.\n\n[198] _The Task._ When Cowper wrote this (in 1782) the Law was entirely\nsilent upon the rights of the lower animals to protection. It was not\nuntil nearly half a century later that the British Legislature passed\nthe first Act (and it was a very partial one) which at all considered\nthe rights of any non-human race. Yet Hogarth\u2019s _Four Stages of\nCruelty_--to say nothing of literature--had been several years before\nthe world. It was passed by the persistent energy and courage of one\nman--an Irish member--who braved the greatest amount of scorn and\nridicule, both within and without the Legislature, before he succeeded\nin one of the most meritorious enterprises ever undertaken. Martin\u2019s\nAct has been often amended or supplemented, and always with no little\nopposition and difficulty.\n\n[199] The term \u201cMercy,\u201d it is important to observe, is one of those\nwords of ambiguous meaning, which are liable, in popular parlance, to\nbe misused. It seems to have a double origin--from _misericordia_,\n\u201cPity\u201d (its better parentage), and _merces_, \u201cGain,\u201d and, by deduction,\n\u201cPardon\u201d granted for some consideration. It is in this latter sense\nthat the term seems generally to be used in respect of the non-human\nraces. But it is obvious to object that \u201cpardon,\u201d applicable to\n_criminals_, can have no meaning as applied to the innocent. _Pity_\nor _Compassion_, still more _Justice_--these are the terms properly\nemployed.\n\n[200] The observation of a _non-Christian_ moralist (_Juvenal_, xv.) It\nis the motto chosen by Oswald for his title page.\n\n[201] In the Hindu sacred scriptures, and especially in the teaching\nof the great founder of the most extensive religion on the globe, this\nregard for non-human life, however originating, is more obvious than\nin any other sacred books. But it is most charmingly displayed in that\nmost interesting of all Eastern poetry and drama--_Sakuntala; or The\nFatal Ring_, of the Hindu Kalid\u00e2sa, the most frequently translated of\nall the productions of Hindu literature. We may refer our readers also\nto _The Light of Asia_, an interesting versification of the principal\nteaching of Sakya-Muni or Gautama.\n\n[202] _The Cry of Nature: an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice on behalf\nof the Persecuted Animals._ By John Oswald. London, 1791.\n\n[203] _Long Life, or the Art of Prolonging Human Existence._\n\n[204] See the _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle_ for complete\nenumeration of his writings.\n\n[205] _Makrobiotik._\n\n[206] Afterwards Sir Richard Phillips, whose admirable exposition of\nhis reasons for abandoning flesh-eating, published in the _Medical\nJournal_, July 1811, is quoted in its due place.\n\n[207] _Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty_, IX. Ritson, in a\nnote, quotes the expression of surprise of a French writer, that\nwhereas abstinence \u201cfrom blood and from things strangled\u201d is especially\nand solemnly enjoined by the immediate successors of Christ, in a\nwell-known prohibition, yet this sacred obligation is daily \u201cmade of\nnone effect\u201d by those calling themselves _Christians_.\n\n[208] \u201cI have known,\u201d says Dr. Arbuthnot, \u201cmore than one instance of\nirascible passions having been much subdued by a vegetable diet.\u201d--Note\nby Ritson.\n\n[209] Written in 1802. Since that time the \u201cpastime\u201d of worrying\nbulls and bears, has in this country become illegal and extinct.\nCock-fighting, though illegal, seems to be still popular with the\n\u201csporting\u201d classes of the community.\n\n[210] _General Advertiser_, March 4th, 1784. Since Ritson quoted this\nfrom the newspaper of his day, 80 years ago, the same scenes of equal\nand possibly of still greater barbarity have been recorded in our\nnewspapers, season after season, of the royal and other hunts, with\ndisgusting monotony of detail. Voltaire\u2019s remarks upon this head are\nworthy of quotation: \u201cIt has been asserted that Charles IX. was the\nauthor of a book upon hunting. It is very likely that if this prince\nhad cultivated less the art of torturing and killing other animals,\nand had not acquired in the forests the habit of seeing blood run,\nthere would have been more difficulty in getting from him the order of\nSt. Bartholomew. The chase is one of the most sure means for blunting\nin men the sentiment of pity for their own species; an effect so much\nthe more fatal, as those who are addicted to it, placed in a more\nelevated rank, have more need of this bridle.\u201d--_\u0152uvres_ LXXII., 213.\nIn Flaubert\u2019s remarkable story of _La L\u00e9gende de St. Julien_ the hero\n\u201cdevelopes by degrees a propensity to bloodshed. He kills the mice in\nthe chapel, the pigeons in the garden, and soon his advancing years\ngave him opportunity of indulging this taste in hunting. He spends\nwhole days in the chase, caring less for the \u2018sport\u2019 than for the\nslaughter.\u201d One day he shoots a Fawn, and while the despairing mother,\n\u201clooking up to heaven, cried with a loud voice, agonising and human,\u201d\nSt. Julien remorselessly kills her also. Then the male parent, a\nnoble-looking Stag, is shot last of all; but, advancing, nevertheless,\nhe comes up to the terrified murderer, and \u201cstopped suddenly, and with\nflaming eyes and solemn tone, as of a just judge, he spoke three times,\nwhile a bell tolled in the distance, \u2018Accursed one! ruthless of heart!\nthou shalt slay thy father and mother also,\u2019 and tottering and closing\nhis eyes he expired.\u201d The blood-stained man on one occasion is followed\nclosely by all the victims of his wanton cruelty, who press around him\nwith avenging looks and cries. He fulfils the prophecy of the Stag, and\nmurders his parents.--See _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1878.\n\n[211] It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that a quarter of\na century later (1827), when Martin had the courage to introduce the\nfirst bill for the prevention of cruelty to certain of the domesticated\nanimals (a very partial measure after all), the humane attempt was\ngreeted by an almost universal shout of ridicule and derision, both in\nand out of the Legislature.\n\n[212] See Appendix.\n\n[213] Quoted from an article in the _Gentleman\u2019s Magazine_, (August,\n1787), signed _Etonens\u012bs_, who, amongst other particulars, states of\nthe hero of his sketch that he was \u201cone of the most original geniuses\nwho have ever existed.... He was well skilled in natural philosophy,\nand might be said to have been a moral philosopher, not in _theory_\nonly, but in strict and uniform _practice_. He was remarkably humane\nand charitable; and, though poor, was a bold and avowed enemy to every\nspecies of oppression.... Certain it is, that he accounted the murder\n(as he called it) of the meanest animal, except in self defence, a\nvery criminal breach of the laws of nature; insisting that the creator\nof all things had constituted man not the _tyrant_, but the lawful\nand limited _sovereign_, of the inferior animals, who, he contended,\nanswered the ends of their being better than their little despotic\nlord.... He did not think it\n\n \u2018Enough\n In this late age, advent\u2019rous to have touched\n Light on the precepts of the Samian Sage,\u2019\n\nfor he acted in strict conformity with them.... His vegetable and milk\ndiet afforded him, in particular, very sufficient nourishment; for\nwhen I last saw him, he was still a tall, robust, and rather corpulent\nman, though upwards of fourscore.\u201d He was reported it seems, to be a\nbeliever in the _Metempsychosis_. \u201cIt was probably so said,\u201d remarks\nRitson, \u201cby ignorant people who cannot distinguish justice or humanity\nfrom an absurd and impossible system. The compiler of the present book,\nlike Pythagoras and John Williamson, abstains from flesh-food, but he\ndoes not believe in the _Metempsychosis_, and much doubts whether it\nwas the _real_ belief of either of those philosophers.\u201d--_Abstinence\nfrom Animal Food a Moral Duty_, by Joseph Ritson. R. Phillips, London,\n1802.\n\n[214] In a sketch of the life of George Nicholson, contributed to a\nManchester journal, by Mr. W. E. A. Axon.\n\n[215] Perhaps the fallacy of this line of apology, on the part of the\nordinary dietists, cannot be better illustrated than by the example\nof the man-eating tribes of New Zealand, Central Africa, and other\nparts of the world, who confessedly are (or were) _hominivorous_, and\nwho have been by travellers quoted as some of the finest races of men\non the globe. The \u201cwholesome nutriment\u201d of their human food was as\nforcible an argument for their stomach as the \u201cagreeable flavour\u201d was\nattractive for their palates. Such glaring fallacy might be illustrated\nfurther by the example of the man-eating tiger who, we may justly\nimagine, would use similar apologies for his practice.\n\n[216] _On the Conduct, &c._, and _The Primeval Diet of Man_, &c., by\nGeorge Nicholson, Manchester and London, 1797, 1801. The author assumes\nas his motto for the title-page the words of Rousseau--_Hommes, soyez\nhumains! C\u2019est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse y a-t-il pour vous\nhors de l\u2019humanit\u00e9?_ \u201cHumans, be _humane_! It is your first duty. What\nwisdom is there for you without humanity?\u201d\n\n[217] _Surgical Observations on Tumours._ John Abernethy, M.D., F.R.C.S.\n\n[218] Excessive poverty of blood, it is obvious to remark, is caused,\nnot by abstaining from flesh but by abstaining from a _sufficient_\namount of _nutritious_ non-flesh foods.\n\n[219] _Additional Reports_, 1814. Amongst valuable diagnoses of this\nkind the reader may be referred in particular to the highly interesting\none of the Rev. C. H. Collyns, M.A., Oxon, which originally appeared\nin the _Times_ newspaper, and which twice has been republished by the\nVegetarian Society. The success of the pure regimen in first mitigating\nand, finally, in altogether subduing long-inherited gouty affections,\nwas complete and certain. The recently published evidence of the\nPresident of the newly-formed French Society, Dr. A. H. de Villeneuve,\nis equally satisfactory. (See _Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 V\u00e9g\u00e9tarienne_ of\nParis, as quoted in _Nature_, Jan., 1881.)\n\n[220] See, too, the testimony of Newton, _Return to Nature_, and of\nShelley in his _Essay on the Vegetable Diet_, in which he describes\nthese children as \u201cthe most beautiful and healthy beings it is possible\nto conceive. The girls are the most perfect models for a sculptor.\nTheir dispositions, also, are the most gentle and conciliating.\u201d\n\n[221] _The Life of William Lambe, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of\nPhysicians._ By E. Hare, C.S.I., Inspector-General of Hospitals, to\nwhich valuable biography we are indebted for the present sketch. In\nMr. Hare\u2019s memoir will be found, among other testimonies to the truths\nof Vegetarianism, a highly-interesting letter, written to him by his\nfriend Dr. H. G. Lyford, an eminent physician of Winchester.\n\n[222] _Life of Shelley_, by Jefferson Hogg, quoted by Mr. Hare in Life\nof Dr. Lambe. Hogg adds that he conformed for good fellowship, and\nfound the purer food an agreeable change.\n\n[223] See the _Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger_, August,\n1873.\n\n[224] _Pythagoran, Anytique reum, doctumque Platona_: \u201cPythagoras and\nthe Man accused by Anytus [Socrates] and the learned Plato.\u201d--_Satires_\nof Horace.\n\n[225] This is, perhaps, scarcely just to Pythagoras and his school. It\nis, without doubt, deeply to be lamented that they did not more widely\npromulgate a doctrine of such vital importance to the world; but the\nreasons of their reserve and partial reticence have been indicated\nalready in our notice of the founder of _Akreophagy_. In a word--like\nthe Founder of Christianity in a later age--they had many things to say\nwhich the world could not then learn. Moreover, as Gle\u00efz\u00e8s remarks, the\nteachers themselves could not have, from the nature of the case, the\nfull knowledge of later times.\n\n[226] The eloquence and style of Buffon, it need scarcely be remarked,\nare more indisputable than his scientific accuracy. Amongst his many\nerrors, none, however, is more surprising than his assertion of the\ncarnivorous anatomical organisation of man, which has been corrected\nover and over again by physiologists and _savants_ more profound than\nBuffon.\n\n[227] \u201c_Lachrymas--nostri pars optima sensus._\u201d\n\n[228] In newly-discovered countries, no decided predominance of one\nspecies over another has been found; and the reason is, that qualities\nare pretty nearly equally divided, and that the strongest animal is not\nat the same time the most agile or the most intelligent.--_Note_ by\nGle\u00efz\u00e8s.\n\n[229] Upon this, not the least interesting and important of the\nside views of Vegetarianism, we refer our readers, amongst numerous\nauthorities, to the opinions of Paley, Adam Smith, Prof. Newman,\nLiebig, and W. R. Greg (in _Social Problems_).\n\n[230] That the victims of the Slaughter-House have, in fact, a full\npresentiment of the fate in store for them, must be sufficiently\nevident to every one who has witnessed a number of oxen or sheep\ndriven towards the scene of slaughter--the frantic struggles to escape\nand rush past the horrible locality, the exertions necessary on the\npart of the drovers or slaughtermen to force them to enter as well as\nthe frequent breaking away of the maddened victim--maddened alike by\nthe blows and clamours of its executioners and the presentiment of\nits destiny--who frantically rushes through the public streets and\nscatters the terrified human passengers--all this abundantly proves\nthe transparent falsity of the assertion of the unconsciousness or\nindifference of the victims of the shambles. See a terribly graphic\ndescription of a scene of this kind in _Household Words_, No. 14,\nquoted in _Dietetic Reformer_ (1852), in _Thalysie_, and in the\n_Dietetic Reformer_, _passim_. Also in _Animal World_, &c., &c.\n\n[231] _Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence_: Par J. A. Gle\u00efz\u00e8s. Paris,\n1840, in 3 vols., 8vo. See also preface to the German version of R.\nSpringer, Berlin, 1872. Our English readers will be glad to learn\nthat a translation by the English Vegetarian Society is now being\ncontemplated.\n\n[232] _Poeta_, in its original Greek meaning, marks out a _creator_ of\nnew, and, therefore, (it is presumable) true ideas.\n\n[233] Compare the fate of Gibbon, who, at the same age, found himself\nan outcast from the University for a very opposite offence--for having\nembraced the dogmas of Catholicism. (See _Memoirs of my Life and\nWritings_, by Edw. Gibbon.) The future historian of _The Decline and\nFall_, it may be added, speedily returned to Protestantism, though not\nto that of his preceptors.\n\n[234] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds. Macmillan, 1887.\n\n[235] Hogg\u2019s _Life of Shelley_. Moxon (1858).\n\n[236] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds.\n\n[237] Cuvier\u2019s _Le\u00e7ons d\u2019Anatomie Comp._, Tom. III., pages 169, 373,\n443, 465, 480. Rees\u2019 _Cyclop._, Art Man.\n\n[238] Inasmuch as at this moment there are in this country more than\ntwo thousand persons of all classes, very many for thirty or forty\nyears strict abstinents from flesh-meat, enrolled members of the\nVegetarian Society (not to speak of a probably large number of isolated\nindividual abstinents scattered throughout these islands, who, for\nwhatever reason, have not attached themselves to the Society), and\nthat there have long been Anti-flesh eating Societies in America and\nin Germany, the _\u00e0 fortiori_ argument in the present instance will be\nallowed to be of _double_ weight.\n\n[239] \u201cSee Mr. Newton\u2019s Book [_Return, to Nature._ Cadell, 1811.] His\nchildren are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible\nto conceive. The girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their\ndispositions also are the most gentle and conciliating. The judicious\ntreatment they receive may be a correlative cause of this. In the first\nfive years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500\ndie of various diseases--and how many more that survive are rendered\nmiserable by maladies not immediately mortal! The quality and quantity\nof a mother\u2019s milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh.\nOn an island, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the\nchildren invariably die of _tetanus_ before they are three weeks old,\nand the population is supplied from the mainland.--Sir G. Mackenzie\u2019s\n_History of Iceland_--note by Shelley.\u201d\n\n[240] _Revolt of Islam_, v. 51, 55, 56.\n\n[241] Lately given to the world by Mr. Forman who has carefully\ncollated and printed from Shelley\u2019s MSS.\n\n[242] _English Cyclop\u00e6dia._\n\n[243] _Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Edited by Mrs. Shelley. Moxon.\n\n[244] _Shelley._ By J. A. Symonds.\n\n[245] See preface to _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_.\nEdited by Mrs. Shelley. New edition. London, 1869. The increasing\nreputation of Shelley is proved, at the present time, by the increasing\nnumber of editions of his writings, and by the increasing number of\nthoughtful criticisms and biographies of the poet, by some of the most\ncultured minds of the day. Since the time, indeed, when a popular\nwriter but sometimes rash critic, with condemnable want of discernment\nand still more condemnable prejudice, so egregiously misrepresented to\nhis readers the character as well of the poet as of his poems--which\nlatter, nevertheless, he was constrained to admit to be the most\n\u201cmelodious\u201d of all English poetry excepting Shakespere, and (their\n\u201cutopian\u201d inspiration apart) the most \u201cperfect\u201d--(_Thoughts on Shelley\nand Byron_, by Rev. C. Kingsley, \u201cFraser,\u201d 1853,) the pre-eminence\nof the poet, both morally and \u00e6sthetically, has been sufficiently\nestablished.\n\n[246] In another place he indulges his ironical wit at the expense of\nthe beef-eaters, in representing a certain Cretan personage in Greek\nstory to have\n\n \u201cPromoted breeding cattle,\n To make the Cretans bloodier in battle;\n For we all know that English people are\n _Fed upon beef_.....\n We know, too, _they are very fond of war_--\n A pleasure--like all pleasures--rather dear.\u201d\n\n[247] See _Life and Letters_. Murray.\n\n[248] _Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Sir R. Phillips._\nLondon, 1808.\n\n[249] They had been published by him several years earlier in the\n_Medical Journal_ for July 27 1811.\n\n[250] _Golden Rules of Social Philosophy: being a System of Ethics._\n1826.\n\n[251] _A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation._ 1833.\nLondon: Sherwood & Co. It will be seen that the origin of his revolt\nfrom orthodox dietetics, given by himself, differs from that narrated\nin the Life from which we have quoted above. It is possible that both\nincidents may have equally affected him at the moment, but that the\nspectacle of the London slaughter-house remained most vividly impressed\nupon his mind.\n\n[252] _Million of Facts_, p. 176. For the substance of the greater part\nof this biography, our acknowledgments are due to the researches of Mr.\nW. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L., F.S.S.\n\n[253] _La Chute d\u2019un Ange. Huiti\u00e8me Vision._\n\n[254] _Les Confidences_, par Alphonse de Lamartine, Paris, 1849-51,\nquoted in _Dietetic Reformer_, August, 1881. It is in this book,\ntoo, that he commemorates some of the many atrocities perpetrated by\nschoolboys with impunity, or even with the connivance of their masters,\nfor their amusement, upon the helpless victims of their unchecked\ncruelty of disposition.\n\n[255] The question of kreophagy and anti-kreophagy had already been\nmooted, it appears, in the _Institut_, at the period of the great\nRevolution of 1789, as a legitimate consequence of the apparent general\nawakening of the human conscience, when slavery also was first publicly\ndenounced. What was the result of the first raising of this question in\nthe French Chamber of Savans does not appear, but, as Gle\u00efz\u00e8s remarks,\nwe may easily divine it. One interesting fact was published by the\ndiscussion in the Deputies\u2019 Chamber--viz., that in the year 1817, in\nParis, the consumption of flesh was less than that of the year 1780 by\n40,000,000lb., in proportion to the population (see Gle\u00efz\u00e8s, _Thalysie,\nQuatri\u00e8me Discours_), a fact which can only mean that the rich, who\nsupport the butchers, had been _forced_ by reduced means to live less\n_carnivorously_.\n\n[256] In the same strain an eminent _savan_, Sir D. Brewster, has given\nexpression to his feeling of aversion from the slaughter-house--a\nrighteous feeling which (strange perversion of judgment) is so\nconstantly repressed in spite of all the most forcible promptings of\nconscience and reason! These are his words: \u201cBut whatever races there\nbe in other spheres, we feel sure that there must be one amongst whom\nthere are no man-eaters--no heroes with red hands--no sovereigns with\nbloody hearts--and no statesmen who, leaving the people untaught,\neducate them for the scaffold. In the Decalogue of that community will\nstand pre-eminent, in letters of burnished gold, the highest of all\nsocial obligations--\u2018_Thou shalt not kill_, neither for territory,\nfor fame, for lucre, _nor for food_, _nor for raiment_, _nor for\npleasure_.\u2019 The lovely forms of life, and sensation, and instinct, so\ndelicately fashioned by the Master-hand, shall no longer be destroyed\nand trodden under foot, but shall be the objects of increasing love and\nadmiration, the study of the philosopher, the theme of the poet, and\nthe companions and auxiliaries of Man.\u201d--_More Worlds than One._\n\n[257] _Bible de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9--Redemption de la Nature, VI._\n\n[258] Cf. a recently published Essay, in the form of a letter to the\npresent Premier, Mr. Gladstone, entitled _The Woman and the Age_. The\nauthor, one of the most refined thinkers of our times, has at once\nadmirably exposed the utter sham as well as cruelty of a vivisecting\nscience, and demonstrated the necessary and natural results to the\nhuman race from its shameless outrage upon, and cynical contempt for,\nthe first principles of morality.\n\n[259] _The Bird_, by Jules Michelet. English Translation. Nelson,\nLondon, 1870. See, too, his eloquent exposure of the scientific or\npopular error which, denying conscious reason and intelligence, in\norder to explain the mental constitution of the non-human races (as\nwell that of the higher mammals as of the inferior species), has\ninvented the vague and mystifying term \u201cinstinct.\u201d\n\n[260] _La Femme_, vi. Onzi\u00e8me Edition. Paris, 1879.\n\n[261] This memorable building has been succeeded by the present\nwell-known one in Cross Lane, where the Rev. James Clark, one of the\nmost esteemed, as well as one of the oldest, members of the Vegetarian\nSociety is the able and eloquent officiating minister.\n\n[262] These biographical facts we have transferred to our pages from an\ninteresting notice by Mr W. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L.\n\n[263] _Memoir of the Rev. William. Metcalfe, M.D._ By his son, Rev.\nJoseph Metcalfe, Philadelphia, 1865.\n\n[264] See _Memoir of the Rev. William Metcalfe_. By his son, the Rev J.\nMetcalfe. Philadelphia; J. Capen. 1866.\n\n[265] See Memoir in _Sylvester Graham\u2019s Lectures on the Science\nof Human Life_. Condensed by T. Baker, Esq., of the Inner Temple,\nBarrister-at-Law. Manchester: Heywood; London: Pitman.\n\n[266] _The New American Cyclop\u00e6dia._ Appleton, New York, 1861. It\ndeserves remark in this place that, in no English cyclop\u00e6dia or\nbiographical dictionary, as far as our knowledge extends, is any\nsort of notice given of this great sanitary reformer. The same\ndisappointment is experienced in regard to not a few other great names,\nwhether in hygienic or humanitarian literature. The absence of the\nnames of such true benefactors of the world in these books of reference\nis all the more surprising in view of the presence of an infinite\nnumber of persons--of all kinds--who have contributed little to the\nstock of true knowledge or to the welfare of the world.\n\n[267] The Greek story of the savage horses of the Thracian king who\nwere fed upon human flesh, therefore, may very well be true.\n\n[268] Graham here quotes various authorities--Linn\u00e9, Cuvier, Lawrence\nBell, and others.\n\n[269] Professor Lawrence instances particularly \u201cthe Laplanders,\nSamoides, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Bamtschatdales, in\nNorthern Europe and Asia, as well as the Esquimaux in the northern,\nand the natives of Tierra del Fuego in the southern, extremity of\nAmerica, who, although they live almost entirely on flesh, and\nthat often raw, are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people\nof the globe.\u201d--_Lectures on Physiology._ Of all races the North\nAmerican native tribes, who subsist almost entirely by the chase, are\nnotoriously one of the most ferocious and cruel. That the _omnivorous_\nclasses in \u201ccivilised\u201d Europe--in this country particularly--have\nattained their present position, political or intellectual, _in spite\nof their kreophagistic habits_ is attributable to a complex set of\nconditions and circumstances (an extensive inquiry, upon which it is\nimpossible to enter here) which have, _in some measure_, mitigated\nthe evil results of a barbarous diet, will be sufficiently clear to\nevery unprejudiced inquirer. If flesh-eating be the cause, or one of\nthe principal causes, of the present dominance of the European, and\nespecially English-speaking peoples, it may justly be asked--how is\nto be explained, _e.g._, the dominance of the Saracenic power (in S.\nEurope) during seven centuries--a dominance in arms as well as in arts\nand sciences--when the semi-barbarous Christian nations (at least as\nregards the ruling classes) were _wholly_ kreophagistic.\n\n[270] For one of the ablest and most exhaustive scientific arguments\non the same side ever published we refer our readers to _The Perfect\nWay in Diet_, by Mrs. Algernon Kingsford, M.D. (Kegan Paul, London,\n1881). Originally written and delivered as a Thesis for _le Doctorat en\nM\u00e9dicine_ at the Paris University, under the title of _L\u2019Alimentation\nV\u00e9g\u00e9tale Chez L\u2019Homme_ (1880), it was almost immediately translated\ninto German by Dr. A. Aderholdt under the same title of _Die\nPfanzennahrung bei dem Menschen_. It is, we believe, about to be\ntranslated into Russian. The humane and moral argument of this eloquent\nwork is equally admirable and equally persuasive with the scientific\nproofs.\n\n[271]\n\n \u201cSai, che l\u00e0 corre il mondo ove pi\u00f9 versi\n Di sue dolcesse il lusinghier Parnaso,\n E che\u2019l Vero condito in molli versi\n I pi\u00f9 schivi allettando ha persuaso.\n Cosi all\u2019 egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi\n Di soave licor gli orli del vaso:\n Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,\n E dall\u2019 inganno sua vita riceve.\u201d\n\n Gerusalemme Liberata, I.\n\n[272] See _Pflanzenkost; oder die Grundlage einer Neuen\nWeltanschauung_, Von Gustav Struve, Stuttgart, 1869. For the substance\nof the brief sketch of the life of Struve we are indebted to the\ncourtesy of Herr Emil Weilshaeuser, the recently-elected President of\nthe Vegetarian Society of Germany (Jan., 1882), himself the author of\nsome valuable words on Reformed Dietetics.\n\n[273] See _Sakuntal\u00e0, or the Fatal Ring_, of the Hindu Shakspere\nKalid\u00e2sa, the most interesting production of the Hindu Poetry. It has\nbeen translated into almost every European language.\n\n[274] _Mandaras\u2019 Wanderungen._ Zweite Ausgabe. Mannheim. Friedrich\nG\u00f6tz. 1845. For a copy of this now scarce book we are indebted to the\ncourtesy of Herr A. von Seefeld, of Hanover.\n\n[275] _Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer neuen Weltanschauung._\nStuttgart, 1869. Cf. Liebig\u2019s _Chemische Briefe_ (\u201cLetters on\nChemistry.\u201d)\n\n[276] _Das Seelenleben; oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen._ Von\nGustav Struve. Berlin: Theobald Grieben. 1869.\n\n[277]\n\n \u201cWeh\u2019 denen, die dem _Ewigblinden_\n Des Lichtes Himmelsfackel leihen!\u201d\n\n SCHILLER. _Das Lied von der Glocke._\n\n[278] Quoted in _Die Naturgem\u00e4sse Di\u00e4t: die Di\u00e4t der Zukunft_, von\nTheodor Hahn, C\u00f6then, 1859. For the substance of biographical notice\nprefixed to this article we are again indebted to the kindness of Herr\nEmil Weilsh\u00e4user, of Oppeln.\n\n[279] _Das Menschendasein in seinen Weltewigen Z\u00fcgen und Zeichen._ Von\nBogumil Goltz. Frankfurt.\n\n[280] Compare the remarks of Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825), in his\ntreatise on Education, _Levana_, in which he, too, in scarcely less\nemphatic language, protests against the general neglect of this\ndepartment of morals. Among other references to the subject, the\ncelebrated novelist thus writes: \u201cLove is the second hemisphere of the\nmoral heaven. Yet is the sacred being of love little established. Love\nis an inborn but differently distributed force and blood-heat of the\nheart (_blutw\u00e4rme des herzens_). There are cold and warm-blooded souls,\nas there are animals. As for the child, so for the lower animal, love\nis, in fact, an essential impulse; and this central fire often, in the\nform of compassion, pierces its earth-crust, but not in every case....\nThe child (under proper education) learns to regard all animal life as\nsacred--in brief, they impart to him the feeling of a Hindu in place\nof the heart of a Cartesian philosopher. There is here a question of\nsomething more even than compassion for other animals; but this also\nis in question. Why is it that it has so long been observed that the\ncruelty of the child to the lower animals presages cruelty to men,\njust as the Old-Testament sacrifice of animals preshadowed that of the\nsacrifice of a man? It is for _himself only_ the undeveloped man can\nexperience pains and sufferings, which speak to him with the native\ntones of his own experience. Consequently, the inarticulate cry of the\ntortured animal comes to him just as some strange, amusing sound of\nthe air; and yet he sees there life, conscious movement, both which\ndistinguish them from the inanimate substances. Thus he sins against\nhis own life, whilst he sunders it from the rest, as though it were a\npiece of machinery. Let life be to him [the child] sacred (_heilig_),\neven that which may be destitute of reason; and, in fact, does the\nchild know any other? Or, because the heart beats under bristles,\nfeathers, or wings, is it, _therefore_, to be of no account?\u201d\n\n[281] See a pamphlet upon this subject by Dr. V.\nG\u00fctzlaff--_Schopenhauer ueber die Thiere und den Thierschutz: Ein\nBeitrag zur ethischen Seite der Vivisectionsfrage_. Berlin, 1879.\n\n[282] _Le Fondement de La Morale_, par Arthur Schopenhauer, traduit de\nl\u2019Allemand par A. Burdeau. Paris, Bailli\u00e8re et Cie, 1879.\n\n[283] Quoted in _Die Naturgem\u00e4sse Di\u00e4t, die Di\u00e4t der Zukunft_, von\nTheodor Hahn, 1859. We may note here that Moleschott, the eminent Dutch\nphysiologist, and a younger contemporary of Liebig, alike with the\ndistinguished German Chemist and with the French zoologist, Buffon, is\nchargeable with a strange inconsistency in choosing his place among\nthe apologists of kreophagy, in spite of his conviction that \u201cthe\nlegumes are superior to flesh-meat in abundance of solid constituents\nwhich they contain; and, while the amount of albuminous substances may\nsurpass that in flesh-meat by one-half, the constituents of fat and the\nsalts are also present in a greater abundance.\u201d (See _Die Naturgem\u00e4sse\nDi\u00e4t_, von Theodor Hahn, 1859). But, in fact, it is only too obvious\n_why_ at present the large majority of Scientists, while often fully\nadmitting the virtues, or even the superiority of the purer diet,\nyet after all enrol themselves on the orthodox side. Either they are\naltogether indifferent to humane teaching, or they want the courage of\ntheir convictions to proclaim the Truth.\n\n[284] Among English philosophic writers, the arguments and warnings\n(published in the _Dietetic Reformer_ during the past fifteen years) of\nthe present head of the Society for the promotion of Dietary Reform in\nthis country, Professor Newman, in regard to National Economy and to\nthe enormous evils, present and prospective, arising from the prevalent\ninsensibility to this aspect of National Reform are at once the most\nforcible and the most earnest. It would be well if our public men, and\nall who are in place and power, would give the most earnest heed to\nthem. But this, unhappily, under the _present_ prevailing political and\nsocial conditions, experience teaches to be almost a vain expectation.\n\n[285] \u039c\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9 Gr\u00e6vius, the famous German Scholar of the 17th century,\nmaintains to mean here _Fruits_, not \u201cFlocks,\u201d according to the vulgar\ninterpretation, and the translation of Gr\u00e6vius, it will be allowed, is\nat least more consistent with the context than is the latter. It must\nbe added that the whole verse bracketed is of doubtful genuineness.\n\n[286] This remarkable passage, it is highly interesting to note, is the\nearliest indication of the idea of \u201cguardian angels,\u201d which afterwards\nwas developed in the Platonic philosophy; and which, considerably\nmodified by Jewish belief, derived from the Persian theology, finally\ntook form in the Christian creed. Compare the beautiful idea of\nguardian angels, or spirits in the Prologue of the _Shipwreck_ of\nPlautus.\n\n[287] See _Poet\u00e6 Minores Gr\u00e6ci ... Aliisque Accessionibus Aucta._\nEdited by Thomas Gaisford. Vol. III. Lipsi\u00e6, 1823.\n\n[288]\n\n \u201cQuum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te?\n Stultitia est, _morte alterius_ sperare Salutem.\u201d\n\n[289] _The Light of Asia: or, The Great Renunciation_\n(_Mah\u00e2bhinishkramana_). Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince\nof India, and Founder of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian\nBuddhist). By Edwin Arnold. London: Tr\u00fcbner.--In the Hindu Epic, the\n_Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, the same great principle is apparent, though less\nconspicuously:--\n\n \u201cThe constant virtue of the Good is tenderness and love\n To all that live in earth, air, sea--great, small--below, above:\n Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle will to each:\n _Who pities not, hath not the Faith_. Full many a one so lives.\u201d\n\n III.--Story of Sav\u00eetri\n\n[290] Compare the beautiful verses of Lucretius--who, almost alone\namongst the poets, has indignantly denounced the vile and horrible\npractice of sacrifice--picturing the inconsolable grief the Mother Cow\nbereft of her young, who has been ravished from her for the sacrificial\naltar:--\n\n \u201cS\u00e6pe ante De\u00fbm vitulus delubra decora\n Thuricremas propter mactatus concidit aras\n Sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen,\n At mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans\n Noacit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis,\n Omnia convisens oculis loca, si queat usquam\n Conspicere amissum f\u0153tum, completque querellis\n Frondiferum nemus absistens, et crebra revisit\n Ad stabulum desiderio perfixa Juvenci;\n Nec tener\u00e6 salices atque herb\u00e6 rore vigentes,\n Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis\n Oblectare animum, subitamque avertere curam,\n Nee vitulorum ali\u00e6 species per pabula l\u00e6ta\n Derivare queunt animum cur\u00e2que levare.\u201d\n\n (_De Rerum Natur\u00e2 II._)\n\nSee also the memorable verses in which the rationalist poet stigmatises\nthe vicarious sacrifice of Iphigeneia.--_Tantum Religio potuit suadere\nMalorum_ (L).\n\n[291] See, also, _Fasti_, already quoted above.\n\n \u201cPace Ceres l\u00e6ta est......\n A Bove succincti cultros removete Ministri, &c.\u201d IV. 407-416.\n\n[292] _Florilegium_ of Stob\u00e6us--(17-43 and 18-38), quoted by Professor\nMayor in _Dietetic Reformer_, July, 1881. In the erudite and exhaustive\nedition of Juvenal, by Professor Mayor (Macmillan, Cambridge), will be\nfound a large number of quotations from Greek and Latin writers, and a\ngreat deal of interesting matter upon frugal living.\n\n[293] \u201c_Hygiasticon: On the Right Course of Preserving Life and Health\nunto Extreme Old Age; together with Soundness and Integrity of the\nSenses, Judgment, and Memory._ Written in Latin by Leonard Lessius, and\nnow done into English. The second edition. Printed by the printers to\nthe Universitie of Cambridge, 1634.\u201d Lessio, like his master Cornaro,\nHaller, and many other advocates of a reformed diet, was influenced not\nat all by humanitarian, but by health reasons only.\n\n[294] Cf. Plutarch--_Essay on Flesh-Eating_.\n\n[295] _Some Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Tryon, late of London,\nMerchant. Written by Himself._ London, 1705.\n\n[296] Os homini sublime dedit, c\u0153lumque tueri.--Ovid, _Met._ I.\n\n[297] Compare Seneca and Chrysostom, above.\n\n[298] If Tryon could point to diseases among the victims of the\nshambles in the 17th century, what use might he not make of the\nepidemics or endemics of the present day?\n\n[299] _The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness: or a Discourse\nof Temperance, and the Particular Nature of all things Requisite for\nthe Life of Man.... The Like never before Published. Communicated to\nthe World, for the General Good, by Philotheos Physiologus_ [Tryon\u2019s\n_nom de plume_.] _London, 1683_. It is (in its best parts) the worthy\nprecursor of _The Herald of Health_, and of the valuable hygienic\nphilosophy of its able editor--Dr. T. L. Nichols.\n\n[300] See _Biog. Universelle_, Art. _Philippe Hecquet_\n\n[301] _Trait\u00e9 des Dispenses, &c._ Par Philippe Hecquet, M.D., Paris.\nEd. 1709.\n\n[302]\n\n \u201cThat lies beneath the knife,\n Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life.\u201d\n\n \u00c6n. VII. (Pope\u2019s translation.) Quoted first by Montaigne. _Essais._\n\n[303] And, Pope might have added, a more diabolical torture\nstill--calves bled to death by a slow and lingering process--hung\nup (as they often are) head downwards. Although not universal as\nit was some ten years ago, this, among other Christian practices,\nyet flourishes in many parts of the country, unchecked by legal\nintervention.\n\n[304] See Article, Plutarch, above.\n\n[305] So far, at least, as the _natural and necessary wants_ of each\nspecies are concerned.--That \u201cNature\u201d is regardless of suffering, is\nbut too apparent in all parts of our globe. It is the opprobrium and\nshame of the human species that, placed at the head of the various\nraces of beings, it has hitherto been the _Tyrant_, and not the\n_Pacificator_.\n\n[306] _The Four Stages of Cruelty_, in which, beginning with the\ntorture of other animals, the legitimate sequence is fulfilled in the\nmurder of the torturer\u2019s mistress or wife.\n\n[307] Which is the accomplice _really guilty_? The ignorant, untaught,\nwretch who has to gain his living some way or other, or those who\nhave been entrusted with, or who have assumed, the control of the\npublic conscience--the statesman, the clergy, and the schoolmaster?\nUndoubtedly it is upon these that almost all the guilt lies, and always\nwill lie.\n\n[308] Bull-baiting, in this country, has been for some years illegal;\nbut that moralists, and other writers of the present day, while\nboasting the abolition of that popular _pastime_, are silent, upon the\nequally barbarous, if more fashionable _sports_ of Deer-hunting, &c.,\nis one of those inconsistencies in logic which are as unaccountable as\nthey are common.\n\n[309] \u201cThat is,\u201d remarks Ritson, \u201cin a state of Society influenced by\nSuperstition, Pride, and a variety of prejudices equally unnatural and\nabsurd.\u201d\n\n[310] \u201cThe converse of all this is true. He is certainly taught by\nexample, and by temptation, and prompted by (what he thinks is)\ninterest.\u201d--Note by Ritson in _Abstinence from Flesh a Moral Duty_.\n\n[311] Among living enlightened medical authorities of the present\nday, Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., perhaps the most eminent hygeist\nand sanitary reformer in the country now living, has delivered his\ntestimony in no doubtful terms to the superiority of the purer\ndiet. In his recent publication _Salutisland_ he has banished the\nslaughter-house, with all its abominations, from that model State. See\nalso his _Hygieia_.\n\n[312] _L\u2019Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la Sant\u00e9: ou, Trait\u00e9\nd\u2019Hygi\u00e8ne._ Par M. Pressavin, Gradu\u00e9 de l\u2019Universit\u00e9 de Paris; Membre\ndu Coll\u00e8ge Royal de Chirurgie de Lyon, et Ancien Demonstrateur en\nMati\u00e8re Medicale-Chirurgicale. A Lyon, 1786.\n\n[313] _Die Eleusische Fest._\n\n[314] _Der Alpenj\u00e4ger._ See also G\u00f6the--_Italienische Reise_, XXIII.\n42; _Aus Meinem Leben_, XXIV. 23; _Werther\u2019s Leiden_; Brief 12.\n\n[315] _Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation_\n(page 311). By Jeremy Bentham, M.A., Bencher of Lincoln\u2019s Inn, &c.;\nOxford: Clarendon Press, 1876. It must be added that the assumption\n(on the same page on which this cogent reasoning is found), that\nman has the right to _kill_ his fellow-beings, for the purpose of\nfeeding upon their flesh, is one more illustration of the strange\ninconsistencies into which even so generally just and independent a\nthinker as the author of the _Book of Fallacies_ may be forced by\nthe \u201clogic of circumstances.\u201d Among recent notable Essays upon the\nRights of the Lower Animals (the _right to live_ excepted) may here be\nmentioned--_Animals and their Masters_, by Sir Arthur Helps (1873), and\n_The Rights of an Animal_, by Mr. E. B. Nicholson, librarian of the\nBodleian, Oxford (1877).\n\n[316] Compare the _Voyages_ of Volney, one of the most philosophical\nof the thinkers of the eighteenth century, who himself for some time\nseems to have lived on the non-flesh diet. Attributing the ferocious\ncharacter of the American savage, \u201chunter and butcher, who, in every\nanimal sees but an object of prey, and who is become an animal of the\nspecies of wolves and of tigers,\u201d to such custom, this celebrated\ntraveller adds the reflection that \u201cthe habit of shedding blood, or\nsimply of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiments of humanity.\u201d (See\n_Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte_.) See, too, Thevenot (the younger), an\nearlier French traveller, who describes a Banian hospital, in which\nhe saw a number of sick Camels, Horses, and Oxen, and many invalids\nof the feathered race. Many of the lower Animals, he informs us, were\nmaintained there for life, those who recovered being sold to Hindus\nexclusively.\n\n[317] This feeling occasionally appears in his poems, as, for instance,\nwhen describing a \u201cbanquet\u201d and its flesh-eating guests, he wonders how\n\u201cSuch bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.\u201d\n\n[318] Note on this point the words of the late W. R. Greg, to the\neffect that \u201cthe amount of human life sustained on a given area may\nbe almost indefinitely increased by the substitution of vegetable for\nanimal food;\u201d and his further statement--\u201cA given acreage of wheat\nwill feed at least ten times as many men as the same acreage employed\nin growing \u2018mutton.\u2019 It is usually calculated that the consumption of\nwheat by an adult is about one quarter per annum, and we know that good\nland produces four quarters. But let us assume that a man living on\ngrain would require two quarters a year; still one acre would support\ntwo men. But, a man living on [flesh] meat would need 3lbs. a day, and\nit is considered a liberal calculation if an acre spent in grazing\nsheep and cattle will yield in \u2018beef\u2019 and \u2018mutton\u2019 more than 50lb. on\nan average--the best farmer in Norfolk having averaged 90lb., but a\ngreat majority of farms in Great Britain only reach 20lb. On these data\nit would require 22 acres of pasture land to sustain one adult person\nliving on [flesh] meat. It is obvious that in view of the adoption of a\nvegetable diet lies the indication of a vast increase in the population\nsustainable on a given area.\u201d--_Social and Political Problems_\n(_Tr\u00fcbner_).\n\n[319] \u201cOf the Cruelty connected with he Culinary Arts\u201d in _Philozoa;\nor, Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom,\nand on the Means of Improving the Same_; with numerous Anecdotes and\nIllustrative Notes, addressed to Lewis Gompertz, Esq., President of\nthe Animals\u2019 Friend Society: By T. Forster, M.B., F.R.A.S., F.L.S.,\n&c. Brussels, 1839. The writer well insists that, however remote may\nbe a _universal_ Reformation, every individual person, pretending\nto any culture or refinement of mind, is morally bound to abstain\nfrom sanctioning, by his dietetic habits, the revolting atrocities\n\u201cconnected with the culinary arts, of which Mr. Young, in his Book on\nCruelty, has given a long catalogue.\u201d","title":"The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh Eating","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":179554}