The Ethics of Diet / A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh Eating

“I cannot think it extravagant to imagine that mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion over the lower ranks of Beings, than for the exercise of tyranny over their own species. The more entirely the inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for the mismanagement of it; and the rather, as the very condition of Nature renders these beings incapable of receiving any recompense in another life, for their ill-treatment in this.

“It is observable of those noxious animals, who have qualities most powerful to injure us, that they naturally avoid mankind, and never hurt us unless provoked, or necessitated by hunger. Man, on the other hand, seeks out and pursues even the most inoffensive animals on purpose to persecute and destroy them. Montaigne thinks it some reflection on human nature itself, that few people take delight in seeing ‘beasts’ caress or play together, but almost every one is pleased to see them lacerate and worry one another.

“I am sorry this temper is become almost a distinguishing character of our own nation, from the observation which is made by foreigners of our beloved Pastimes—Bear-baiting, Cock-fighting, and the like. We should find it hard to vindicate the destroying of anything that has Life, merely out of wantonness. Yet in this principle our children are bred, and one of the first pleasures we allow them is the licence of inflicting Pain upon poor animals. Almost as soon as we are sensible what Life is ourselves, we make it our Sport to take it from other beings. I cannot but believe a very good use might be made of the fancy which children have for Birds and Insects. Mr. Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted them to her children; but rewarded or punished them as they treated well or ill. This was no other than entering them betimes into a daily exercise of Humanity, and improving their very diversion to a Virtue.

“I fancy, too, some advantage might be taken of the common notion, that ’tis ominous or unlucky to destroy some sorts of Birds, as Swallows or Martins. This opinion might possibly arise from the confidence these Birds seem to put in us, by building under our roofs, so that it is a kind of violation of the laws of Hospitality to murder them. As for Robin-red-breasts, in particular, ’tis not improbable they owe their security to the old ballad of the Children in the Wood. However it be, I don’t know, I say, why this prejudice, well-improved and carried as far as it would go, might not be made to conduce to the preservation of many innocent beings, who are now exposed to all the wantonness of an ignorant barbarity....

“When we grow up to be men we have another succession of sanguinary Sports—in particular, Hunting. I dare not attack a diversion which has such Authority and Custom to support it; but must have leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with the example and number of the chasers, not a little contribute to resist those checks which Compassion would naturally suggest in behalf of the Animal pursued. Nor shall I say, with M. Fleury, that this sport is a remain of the Gothic Barbarity; but I must animadvert upon a certain custom yet in use with us, barbarous enough to be derived from the Goths or even the Scythians—I mean that savage compliment our Huntsmen pass upon ladies of quality who are present at the death of a Stag, when they put the knife into their hands to cut the throat of a helpless, trembling, and weeping creature.

“But if our ‘Sports’ are destructive, our Gluttony is more so, and in a more inhuman manner. Lobsters roasted alive, Pigs whipt to death, Fowls sewed up,[303] are testimonies of our outrageous Luxury. Those who (as Seneca expresses it) divide their lives betwixt an anxious Conscience and a Nauseated Stomach, have a just reward of their gluttony in the diseases it brings with it. For human savages, like other wild beasts, find snares and poison in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetite to their destruction. I know nothing more shocking or horrid than the prospect of one of their kitchens covered with blood, and filled with the cries of Beings expiring in tortures. It gives one an image of a giant’s den in a romance, bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty.

“The excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of good nature in his writings than I remember in any author) cites a saying of Cato to this effect:—That ’tis no easy task to preach to the Belly which has no ears. Yet if (says he) we are ashamed to be so out of fashion as not to offend, let us at least offend with some discretion and measure. If we kill an animal for our provision, let us do it with the meltings of compassion, and without tormenting it. Let us consider that it is, in its own nature, cruelty to put a living being to death—we, at least destroy a soul that has sense and perception.[304]

“History tells us of a wise and polite nation that rejected a person of the first quality, who stood for a justiciary office, only because he had been observed, in his youth, to take pleasure in teasing and murdering of Birds. And of another that expelled a man out of the Senate for dashing a bird against the ground who had taken refuge in his bosom. Every one knows how remarkable the Turks are for their Humanity in this kind. I remember an Arabian author, who has written a Treatise to show how far a man, supposed to have subsisted in a desert island, without any instruction, or so much as the sight of any other man, may, by the pure light of Nature, attain the knowledge of Philosophy and Virtue. One of the first things he makes him observe is the benevolence of Nature, in the protection and preservation of her creatures.[305] In imitation of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his self-taught philosopher would, of course, fall into, is to relieve and assist all the animals about them in their wants and distresses....

“Perhaps that voice or cry, so nearly resembling the human, with which Nature has endowed so many different animals, might purposely be given them to move our Pity, and prevent those cruelties we are to apt to inflict upon our Fellow Creatures.”