THE ETHICS OF DIET.

APPENDIX.

AT the present day, in all parts of the civilised world, the once orthodox practices of cannibalism and human sacrifice universally are regarded with astonishment and horror. The history of human development in the past, and the slow but sure progressive movements in the present time, make it absolutely certain that, with the same astonishment and horror will the now prevailing habits of living by the slaughter and suffering of the inferior species—habits different in degree rather than in kind from the old-world barbarism—be regarded by an age more enlightened and more refined than ours. Of such certainty no one, whose beau idéal of civilisation is not a State crowded with jails, penitentiaries, reformatories, and asylums, and who does not measure Progress by the imposing but delusive standard of an ostentatious Materialism—by the statistics of commerce, by the amount of wealth accumulated in the hands of a small part of the community, by the increase of populations which are mainly recruited from the impoverished classes, by the number and popularity of churches and chapels, or even by the number of school buildings and lecture halls, or the number and variety of charitable institutions throughout the country—will pretend to have any reasonable doubt.

In searching the records of this nineteenth century—the minutes and proceedings of innumerable learned and scientific societies, especially those of Social and Sanitary Science Congresses—our more enlightened descendants (let us suppose, of the 2001st century of the Christian era), it is equally impossible to doubt, will observe with amazement that, amid all the immeasurable talking and writing upon social and moral science, there is discoverable little or no trace of serious inquiry in regard to a subject which the more thoughtful Few, in all times, have agreed in placing at the very foundation of all public or private well-being. Nor, probably, will the astonishment diminish when, further, it is found that, amid all the vast mass of theologico-religious[Pg v] publications, periodical or other (supposing, indeed, any considerable proportion of them to survive to that age), no consciousness appeared to exist of the reality of such virtues as Humaneness and Universal Compassion, or of any obligation upon the writers to exhibit them to the serious consideration of the world: and this, notwithstanding the contemporary existence of a long-established association of humanitarian reformers who, though few in number, and not in the position of dignity and power which compels the attention of mankind, none the less by every means at their disposal—upon the platform and in the press, by pamphlets and treatises appealing at once to physical science, to reason, to conscience, to the authority of the most earnest thinkers, to the logic of facts—had been protesting against the cruel barbarisms, the criminal waste, and the demoralising influences of Butchery; and demonstrating by their own example, and by that of vast numbers of persons in the most different parts of the globe, the entire practicability of Humane Living.

When, further, it is revealed in the popular literature, as well as in the scientific books and journals of this nineteenth century, that the innocent victims of the luxurious gluttony of the richer classes in all communities, subjected as they were to every conceivable kind of brutal atrocity, were yet, by the science of the time, acknowledged, without controversy, to be beings essentially of the same physical and mental organisation with their human devourers; to be as susceptible to physical suffering and pain as they; to be endowed—at all events, a very large proportion of them—with reasoning and mental faculties in very high degrees, and far from destitute of moral perceptions, the amazement may well be conjectured to give way to incredulity, that such knowledge and such practices could possibly co-exist. That the outward signs of all this gross barbarism—the entire or mangled bodies of the victims of the Table—were accustomed to be put up for public exhibition in every street and thoroughfare, without manifestations of disgust or abhorrence from the passers-by—even from those pretending to most culture or fashion—such outward proofs of extraordinary insensibility on the part of all classes to finer feeling may, nevertheless, scarcely provoke so much astonishment from an enlightened posterity as the fact that every public gathering of the governors or civil dignitaries of the country; every celebration of ecclesiastical or religious festivals appeared to be made the special occasion of the sacrifice and suffering of a greater number and variety than usual of their harmless[Pg vi] fellow-beings; and all this often in the near neighbourhood of starving thousands, starving from want of the merest necessaries of life.

Happily, however, there will be visible to the philosopher of the Future signs of the dawn of the better day in this last quarter of the nineteenth century. He will find, in the midst of the general barbarism of life, and in spite of the prevailing indifferentism and infidelity to truth, that there was a gradually increasing number of dissenters and protesters; that already, at the beginning of that period, there were associations of dietary reformers—offshoots from the English parent society, founded in 1847—successively established in America, in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, and, finally, in Italy; small indeed in numbers, but strenuous in efforts to spread their principles and practice; that in some of the larger cities, both in this country and in other parts of Europe, there had also been set on foot Reformed Restaurants, which supplied to considerable numbers of persons at once better food and better knowledge.

If the truth or importance of any Principle or Feeling is to be measured, not by its popularity, indeed—not by the quod ab omnibus—but by the extent of its recognition by the most refined and the most earnest thinkers in all the most enlightened times—by the quod a sapientibus—the value of no principle has better been established than that which insists upon the vital importance of a radical reform in Diet. The number of the protesters against the barbarism of human living who, at various periods in the known history of our world, have more or less strongly denounced it, is a fact which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the most superficial inquirer. But a still more striking characteristic of this large body of protestation is the variety of the witnesses. Gautama Buddha and Pythagoras, Plato and Epikurus, Seneca and Ovid, Plutarch and Clement (of Alexandria), Porphyry and Chrysostom, Gassendi and Mandeville, Milton and Evelyn, Newton and Pope, Ray and Linné, Tryon and Hecquet, Cocchi and Cheyne, Thomson and Hartley, Chesterfield and Ritson, Voltaire and Swedenborg, Wesley and Rousseau, Franklin and Howard, Lambe and Pressavin, Shelley and Byron, Hufeland and Graham, Gleïzès and Phillips, Lamartine and Michelet, Daumer and Struve—such are some of the more or less famous, or meritorious, names in the Past to be found among the prophets of Reformed Dietetics, who, in various degrees of abhorrence, have shrunk from the régime of blood. Of many of those who have revolted from it, it may almost be said that they revolted in spite of themselves—in[Pg vii] spite, that is to say, of the most cherished prejudices, traditions, and sophisms of Education.

If we seek the historical origin of anti-kreophagist philosophy, it is to the Pythagorean School, in the later development of the Platonic philosophy especially, that the western world is indebted for the first systematic enunciation of the principle, and inculcation of the practice, of anti-materialistic living—the first historical protest against the practical materialism of every-day eating and drinking. How Christianity, which, in its first origin, owes so much to, and was so deeply imbued with, on the one hand, Essenian, and, on the other, Platonic principles, to the incalculable loss of all the succeeding ages, has failed to propagate and develope this true and vital spiritualism—in spite, too, of the convictions of some of its earliest and best exponents, an Origen or Clemens, seems to be explained, in the first instance, by the hostility of the triumphant and orthodox Church to the “Gnostic” element which, in its various shapes, long predominated in the Christian Faith, and which at one time seemed destined to be the ruling sentiment in the Church; and, secondly, by the natural growth of materialistic principles and practice in proportion to the growth of ecclesiastical wealth and power; for, although the virtues of “asceticism,” derived from Essenism and Platonism, obtained a high reputation in the orthodox Church, they were relegated and appropriated to the ecclesiastical order (theoretically at least), or rather to certain departments of it.

Such was what may be termed the sectarian cause of this fatal abandonment of the more spiritual elements of the new Faith, operating in conjunction with the corrupting influences of wealth and power. As regards the humanitarian reason of anti-materialistic living, the failure and seeming incapacity of Christianity to recognise this, the most significant of all the underlying principles of reformation in Diet—the cause is not far to seek. It lay, essentially, in the (theoretical) depreciation of, and contempt for, present as compared with future existence. All the fatal consequence of this theoretical teaching (which yet has had no extensive influence, even in the way it might have been supposed to act beneficially), in regard to the status and rights of the non-human species, has been well indicated by a distinguished authority. “It should seem,” writes Dr. Arnold,[Pg viii] “as if the primitive Christians, by laying so much stress upon a future life, and placing the lower beings out of the pale of hope [of extended existence], placed them at the same time out of the pale of sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of [other] animals in the light of our fellow-beings. Their definition of Virtue was the same as that of Paley—that it was good performed for the sake of ensuring everlasting happiness; which, of course, excluded all the [so-called] brute creatures.”[1] Hence it comes about that Humanitarianism and, in particular, Humane Dietetics, finds no place whatever in the religionism or pseudo-philosophy of the whole of the ages distinguished as the Mediæval—that is to say, from about the fifth or sixth to the sixteenth century—and, in fact, there existed not only a negative indifferentism, but even a positive tendency towards the still further depreciation and debasement of the extra-human races, of which the great doctor of mediæval theology, St. Thomas Aquinas (in his famous Summa Totius Theologiæ—the standard text book of the orthodox church), is especially the exponent. After the revival of reason and learning in the sixteenth century, to Montaigne, who, following Plutarch and Porphyry, reasserted the rights of the non-human species in general; and to Gassendi, who reasserted the right of innocent beings to life, in particular, among philosophers, belongs the supreme merit of being the first to dispel the long-dominant prejudices, ignorance, and selfishness of the common-place teachers of Morals and Religion. For orthodox Protestantism, in spite of its high-sounding name, so far at least as its theology is concerned, has done little in protesting against the infringement of the moral rights of the most helpless and the most harmless of all the members of the great commonwealth of Living Beings.

The principles of Dietary Reform are widely and deeply founded upon the teaching of (1) Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; (2) Humaneness, in the two-fold meaning of Refinement of Living, and of what is commonly called “Humanity;” (3) National Economy; (4) Social Reform; (5) Domestic and Individual Economy; (6) Hygienic Philosophy, all of which are amply displayed in the following pages. Various minds are variously affected by the same arguments, and the force of each separate one will appear to be of different weight according to the special bias of the inquirer. The accumulated weight of all, for those who are able to form a calm and impartial judgment, cannot but cause the subject to appear one which demands and requires the most serious attention. To the present writer, the humanitarian argument appears to be of[Pg ix] double weight; for it is founded upon the irrefragable principles of Justice and Compassion—universal Justice and universal Compassion—the two principles most essential in any system of ethics worthy of the name. That this argument seems to have so limited an influence—even with persons otherwise humanely disposed, and of finer feeling in respect to their own, and, also, in a general way, to other species—can be attributed only to the deadening power of custom and habit, of traditional prejudice, and educational bias. If they could be brought to reflect upon the simple ethics of the question, divesting their minds of these distorting media, it must appear in a light very different from that in which they accustom themselves to consider it. This subject, however, has been abundantly insisted upon with eloquence and ability much greater than the present writer has any pretensions to. It is necessary to add here, upon this particular branch of the subject, only one or two observations. The popular objections to the disuse of the flesh-diet may be classified under the two heads of fallacies and subterfuges. Not a few candid inquirers, doubtless, there are who sincerely allege certain specious objections to the humanitarian argument, which have a considerable amount of apparent force; and these fallacies seem alone to deserve a serious examination.

In the general constitution of life on our globe, suffering and slaughter, it is objected, are the normal and constant condition of things—the strong relentlessly and cruelly preying upon the weak in endless succession—and, it is asked, why, then, should the human species form an exception to the general rule, and hopelessly fight against Nature? To this it is to be replied, first: that, although, too certainly, an unceasing and cruel internecine warfare has been waged upon this atomic globe of ours from the first origin of Life until now, yet, apparently, there has been going on a slow, but not uncertain, progress towards the ultimate elimination of the crueller phenomena of Life; that, if the carnivora form a very large proportion of Living Beings, yet the non-carnivora are in the majority; and, lastly, what is still more to the purpose, that Man, most evidently, by his origin and physical organisation, belongs not to the former but to the latter; besides and beyond which, that in proportion as he boasts himself—and as he is seen at his best (and only so far) he boasts himself with justness—to be the highest of all the gradually ascending and co-ordinated series of Living Beings, so is he, in that proportion, bound to prove his right to the supreme place and power, and his asserted claims to moral as well as mental superiority, by his conduct.[Pg x] In brief, in so far only as he proves himself to be the beneficent ruler and pacificator—and not the selfish Tyrant—of the world, can he have any just title to the moral pre-eminence.

If the philosophical fallacy (the eidolon specûs) thus vanishes under a near examination; the next considerable objection, upon a superficial view, not wholly unnatural, that, if slaughtering for food were to be abolished, there would be a failure of manufacturing material for the ordinary uses of social life, is, in reality, based upon a contracted apprehension of facts and phenomena. For it is a reasonable and sufficient reply, that the whole history of civilisation, as it has been a history of the slow but, upon the whole, continuous advance of the human race in the arts of Refinement, so, also, has it proved that demand creates supply—that it is the absence of the former alone which permits the various substances, no less than the various forces, yet latent in Nature to remain uninvestigated and unused. Nor can any thoughtful person, who knows anything of the history of Science and Discovery, doubt that the resources of Nature and the mechanical ingenuity of man are all but boundless. Already, notwithstanding the absence of any demand for them, excepting within the ranks of anti-kreophagists, various non-animal substances have been proposed, in some cases used, as substitutes for the prepared skins of the victims of the Slaughter-house; and that, in the event of a general demand for such substitutes, there would spring up an active competition among inventors and manufacturers in this direction there is not the least reason for doubt. Besides, it must be taken into account that the process of conversion of the flesh-eating (that is to say, of the richer) sections of communities to the bloodless diet will, only too certainly, be very slow and gradual.

As for the popular—perhaps the most popular—fallacy (the eidolon fori), which exhibits little of philosophical accuracy, or, indeed, of common reason, involved in the questions: “What is to become of the animals?” and, “Why were they created, if they are not intended for Slaughter and for human food?”—it is scarcely possible to return a grave reply. The brief answer, of course, is—that those variously-tortured beings have been brought into existence, and their numbers maintained, by selfish human invention only. Cease to breed for the butcher, and they will cease to exist beyond the numbers necessary for lawful and innocent use; they were “created” indeed, but they have been created by man, since he has vastly modified and, by no means, for the benefit of his helpless dependants, the natural form and organisation of the original types, the parent stocks of the domesticated Ox, Sheep,[Pg xi] and Swine, now very remote from the native grandeur and vigour of the Bison, the Mouflon, and the wild Boar.

There remains one fallacy of quite recent origin. An association has been formed—somewhat late in the day, it must be allowed—consisting of a few sanitary reformers, who put forward, also, humane reasons, for “Reform of the Slaughter-Houses,” one of the secondary propositions of which is, that the savagery and brutality of the Butchers’ trade could be obviated by the partial or general use of less lingering and revolting modes of killing than those of the universal knife and axe. No humanitarian will refuse to welcome any sign, however feeble, of the awakening of the conscience of the Community, or rather of the more thoughtful part of it, to the paramount obligations of common Humanity, and of the recognition of the claims of the subject species to some consideration and to some compassion, if not of the recognition of the claims of Justice; or will refuse to welcome any sort of proposition to lessen the enormous sum total of atrocities to which the lower animals are constantly subjected by human avarice, gluttony, and brutality. But, at the same time, no earnest humanitarian can accept the sophism, that an attempt at a mitigation of cruelty and suffering which, fundamentally, are unnecessary, ought to satisfy the educated conscience or reason. Vainly do the more feeling persons, who happen to have some scruples of conscience in respect to the sanction of the barbarous practice of Butchering, think to abolish the cruelties, while still indulging the appetite for the flesh luxuries, of the Table. The vastness of the demands upon the butchers—demands constantly increasing with the pecuniary resources of the nation, and stimulated by the pernicious example of the wealthy classes; the immensity of the traffic in “live stock” (as they complacently are termed) by rail and by ship,[2] the frightful horrors of which it has often been attempted, though inadequately, to describe; the utter impossibility of efficiently supervising and regulating such traffic and such slaughter—even supposing the desire to do so to exist to any considerable extent—and the inveterate[Pg xii] indifferentism of the Legislature and of the influential classes, sufficiently declare the futility of such expectation and of the indulgence of such comfortable hope. It is, in brief, as with other attempts at patching and mending, or at applying salves to a hopelessly festered and gangrened wound, merely to put the “flattering unction” of compromise to the conscience. “Diseases, desperate grown, by desperate appliances are relieved, or not at all;” the foul stream of cruelty must be stopped at its source; the fountain and origin of the evil—the Slaughter-House itself—must be abolished. Delendum est Macellum.

It has been well said by one of the most eloquent of the prophets of Humane Living, that there are steps on the way to the summit of Dietetic Reform, and, if only one step be taken, yet that that single step will be not without importance and without influence in the world. The step, which leaves for ever behind it the barbarism of slaughtering our fellow-beings, the Mammals and Birds, is, it is superfluous to add, the most important and most influential of all.

As for the plan of the present work, living writers and authorities—numerous and important as they are—necessarily have been excluded. Its bulk, already extended beyond the original conception of its limits, otherwise would have been swollen to a considerably larger size. For its entire execution, as well as for the collection and arrangement of the matter, the compiler alone is responsible; and, conscious that it must fall short of the completeness at which he aimed, he can pretend only to the merits of careful research and an eclectic impartiality. To the fact that the work already has appeared in the pages of the Dietetic Reformer, to which it has been contributed periodically during a space of time extending over five years, is owing some repetition of matter, which also, necessarily, is due to the nature of the subject. Errors of inadvertence, it is hoped, will be found to be few and inconsiderable. For the rest, he leaves the Ethics of Diet to the candour of the critics and of the public.

HESIOD—the poet par excellence of peace and of agriculture, as Homer is of war and of the “heroic” virtues—was born at Ascra, a village in Bœotia, a part of Hellas, which, in spite of its proverbial fame for beef-eating and stupidity, gave birth to three other eminent persons—Pindar, the lyric poet, Epameinondas, the great military genius and statesman, and Plutarch, the most amiable moralist of antiquity.

The little that is known of the life of Hesiod is derived from his Works and Days. From this celebrated poem we learn that his father was an emigrant from Æolia, the Greek portion of the north-west corner of the Lesser Asia; that his elder brother, Perses, had, by collusion with the judges, deprived him of his just inheritance; that after this he settled at Orchomenos, a neighbouring town—in the pre-historical ages a powerful and renowned city. This is all that is certainly known of the author of the Works and Days, and The Theogony. Of the genuineness of the former there has been little or no doubt; that of the latter—at least in part—has been called in question. Besides these two chief works, there is extant a piece entitled The Shield of Herakles, in imitation of the Homeric Shield (Iliad xviii.) The Catalogues of Women—a poem commemorating the heroines beloved by the gods, and who were thus the ancestresses of the long line of heroes, the reputed founders of the ruling families in Hellas—is lost.

The charm of the Works and Days—the first didactic poem extant—is its apparent earnestness of purpose and simplicity of style. The author’s frequent references to, and rebuke of, legal injustices—his sense of which had been quickened by the iniquitous decisions of the judges already referred to—are as naïve as they are pathetic.

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Of the Theogony, the subject, as the title implies, is the history of the generation and successive dynasties of the Olympian divinities—the objects of Greek worship. It may, indeed, be styled the Hellenic Bible, and, with the Homeric Epics, it formed the principal theology of the old Greeks, and of the later Romans or Latins. The “Proœmium,” or introductory verses—in which the Muses are represented as appearing to their votary at the foot of the sacred Helicon, and consecrating him to the work of revealing the divine mysteries by the gift of a laurel-branch—and the following verses, describing their return to the celestial mansions, where they hymn the omnipotent Father, are very charming. To the long description of the tremendous struggle of the warring gods and Titans, fighting for the possession of heaven, Milton was indebted for his famous delineation of a similar conflict.

The Works and Days, in striking contrast with the military spirit of the Homeric epic, deals in plain and simple verse with questions ethical, political, and economic. The ethical portion exhibits much true feeling, and a conviction of the evils brought upon the earth by the triumph of injustice and of violence. The well-known passages in which the poet figures the gradual declension and degeneracy of men from the golden to the present iron race, are the remote original of all the later pleasing poetic fictions of golden ages and times of innocence.

According to Hesiod, there are two everlastingly antagonistic agents at work on the Earth; the spirit of war and fighting, and the peaceful spirit of agriculture and mechanical industry. And in the apostrophe in which he bitterly reproaches his unrighteous judges—

he seems to have a profound conviction of the truth taught by Vegetarianism—that luxurious living is the fruitful parent of selfishness in its manifold forms.[3]

That Hesiod regarded that diet which depends mainly or entirely upon agriculture and upon fruits as the highest and best mode of life is sufficiently evident in the following verses descriptive of the “Golden Age” life:—

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The second race—the “Silver Age”—inferior to the first and wholly innocent people, were, nevertheless, guiltless of bloodshed in the preparation of their food; nor did they offer sacrifices—in the poet’s judgment, it appears, a damnable error. For the third—the “Brazen Age”—it was reserved to inaugurate the feast of blood:—

According to Hesiod, who is followed by the later poets, the “immortals inhabiting the Olympian mansions” feast ever on the pure and bloodless food of Ambrosia, and their drink is Nectar, which may be taken to be a sort of refined dew. He represents the divine Muses of Helicon, who inspire his song, as reproaching the shepherds, his neighbours, “that tend the flocks,” with the possession of “mere fleshly appetites.”

Ovid, amongst the Latins, is the most charming painter of the innocence of the “Golden Age.” Amongst our own poets, Pope, Thomson, and Shelley—the last as a prophet of the future and actual rather than the poet of a past and fictitious age of innocence—have contributed to embellish the fable of the Past and the hope of the Future.

“A GREATER good never came, nor ever will come, to mankind, than that which was imparted by the gods through Pythagoras.” Such is the expression of enthusiastic admiration of one of his biographers. To those who are unacquainted with the historical development of Greek thought and Greek philosophy it may seem to be merely the utterance of the partiality of hero-worship. Those, on the other hand, who know anything of that most important history, and of the influence, direct or indirect, of Pythagoras upon the most intellectual and earnest minds of his countrymen—in particular upon Plato and his followers, and through them upon the later Jewish and upon very early Christian ideas—will acknowledge, at least, that the name of the prophet of Samos is that of one of the most important and influential factors in the production and progress of higher human thought.

There is a true and there is a false hero-worship. The latter, whatever it may have done to preserve the blind and unreasoning subservience of mankind, has not tended to accelerate the progress of the world towards the attainment of truth. The old-world occupants of the popular Pantheon—“the patrons of mankind, gods and sons of gods, destroyers rightlier called and plagues of men”—are indeed fast losing, if they have not entirely lost, their ancient credit, but their vacant places have yet to be filled by the representatives of the most exalted ideals of humanity. Whenever, in the place of the representatives of mere physical and mental force, the true heroes shall be enthroned, amongst the moral luminaries and pioneers who have contributed to lessen the thick darkness of ignorance, barbarism, and selfishness, the name of the first western apostle of humanitarianism and of spiritualism must assume a prominent position.

It is a natural and legitimate curiosity which leads us to wish to know, with something of certainty and fulness, the outer and inner life of the master spirits of our race. Unfortunately, the personality of many of the most interesting and illustrious of them is of a vague and shadowy kind. But when we reflect that little more is known of the personal life of Shakspere than of that of Pythagoras or Plato—not to mention other eminent names—our surprise is lessened that, in an age long preceding the discovery of printing, the records of a life even so important and influential as that of the founder of Pythagoreanism are meagre and scanty.

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The earliest account of his teaching is given by Philolaus (“Lover of the People,” an auspicious name) of Tarentum, who, born about forty or fifty years after the death of his master—was thus contemporary with Sokrates and Plato. His Pythagorean System, in three books, was so highly esteemed by Plato that he is said to have given £400 or £500 for a copy, and to have incorporated the principal part of it in his Timæus. Sharing the fate of so many other valuable products of the Greek genius, it has long since perished. Our remaining authorities for the Life are Diogenes of Laerte, Porphyry, one of the most erudite writers of any age, and Iamblichus. Of these, the biography of the last is the fullest, if not the most critical; that of Porphyry wants the beginning and the end; whilst of the ten books of Iamblichus On the Pythagorean Sect (Περὶ Πυθαγόρου Αἱρέσεως), of which only five remain, the first was devoted to the life of the founder. Diogenes, who seems to have been of the school of Epikurus, belongs to the second, while Porphyry and Iamblichus, the well-known exponents of Neo-Platonism, wrote in the third and fourth centuries of our era.

Pythagoras was born in the Island of Samos, somewhere about the year 570 B.C. At some period in his youth, Polykrates—celebrated by the fine story of Herodotus—had acquired the tyranny of Samos, and his rule, like that of most of his compeers, has deserved the stigma of the modern meaning of the Greek equivalent for princely and monarchical government. The future philosopher, we are told, unable to descend to the ordinary arts of sycophancy and dissimulation, left his country, and entered, like the Sirian philosopher of Voltaire, upon an extensive course of travels—extensive for the age in which he lived. How far he actually travelled is uncertain. He visited Egypt, the great nurse of the old-world science, and Syria, and it is not impossible that he may have penetrated eastwards as far as Babylon, perhaps as the captive of the recent conqueror of Egypt—the Persian Kambyses. It was in the East, and particularly in Egypt, that he probably imbibed the dogma of the immortality of the soul, or, as he chose to represent it to the public, that of the metempsychosis—a fancy widely spread in the eastern theologies.

It has been asserted that he had already abandoned the orthodox diet at the age of nineteen or twenty. If this was actually the fact, he has the additional merit of having adopted the higher life by his own original force of mind and refinement of feeling. If not, he may have derived the most characteristic as well as the most important of his teachings from the Egyptians or Persians, or, through them, even from the Hindus—the most religiously strict abstainers from the flesh of animals. It is remarkable that the two great apostles of abstinence—Pythagoras[Pg 6] and Sakya-Muni, or Buddha—were almost contemporaries; nor is it impossible that the Greek may, in whatever way, have become acquainted with the sublime tenets of the Hindu prophet, who had lately seceded from Brahminism, the established sacerdotal and exclusive religion of the Peninsula, and promulgated his great revelation—until then new to the world—that religion, at least his religion, was to be “a religion of mercy to all beings,” human and non-human.[7]

As the natural and necessary result of his pure living, we are told by Iamblichus that “his sleep was brief, his soul vigilant and pure, and his body confirmed in a state of perfect and invariable health.” He appears to have passed the period of middle life when he returned to Samos, where his reputation had preceded him. Either, however, finding his countrymen hopelessly debased by the corrupting influence of despotism, or believing that he would find a better field for the propagandism of his new revelation, he not long afterwards set out for Southern Italy, then known as “Great Greece,” by reason of its numerous Greek colonies, or, rather, autonomous communities. At Krotona his fame and eloquence soon attracted, it seems, a select if not numerous auditory; and there he founded his famous society—the first historical anti-flesh-eating association in the western world—the prototype, in some respects, of the ascetic establishments of Greek and Catholic Christendom. It consisted of about three hundred young men belonging to the most influential families of the city and neighbourhood.

It was the practice of the Egyptian priestly caste and of other exclusive institutions to reserve their better ideas (of a more satisfactory sort, at all events, than the system of theology that was promulgated to the mass of the community), into which only privileged persons were initiated. This esoteric method, which under the name of the mysteries has exercised the learned ingenuity of modern writers—who have, for the most part, vainly laboured to penetrate the obscurity enveloping the most remarkable institution of the Hellenic theology—was accompanied with the strictest vows and circumstances of silence and secrecy. As for the priestly order, it was their evident policy to maintain the superstitious ignorance of the people and to overawe their minds, while in regard to the philosophic sects, it was perhaps to shield themselves from the priestly or popular suspicion that they shrouded their scepticism in this dark and convenient disguise. The parabolic or esoteric method was, perhaps, almost a necessity of the earlier ages. It is to be lamented that it should be still in favour in this safer age, and that the old exclusiveness[Pg 7] of the mysteries is in esteem with many modern authorities, who seem to hold that to unveil the spotless Truth to the multitude is “to cast pearls before swine.”

It was probably from the philosophic motive that the founder of the new society instituted his grades of catechumens and probationary course, as well as vows of the strictest secrecy. The exact nature of all his interior instruction is necessarily very much matter of conjecture, inasmuch as, whether he committed his system to writing or not, nothing from his own hand has come down to us. However this may be, it is evident that the general spirit and characteristic of his teaching was self-denial or self-control, founded upon the great principles of justice and temperance; and that communism and asceticism were the principal aim of his sociology. He was the founder of communism in the West—his communistic ideas, however, being of an aristocratic and exclusive rather than of a democratic and cosmopolitan kind. “He first taught,” says Diogenes, “that the property of friends was to be held in common—that friendship is equality—and his disciples laid down their money and goods at his feet, and had all things common.”

The moral precepts of the great master were much in advance of the conventional morality of the day. He enjoined upon his disciples, the same biographer informs us, each time they entered their houses to interrogate themselves—“How have I transgressed? What have I done? What have I left undone that I ought to have done?” He exhorted them to live in perfect harmony, to do good to their enemies and by kindness to convert them into friends. “He forbade them either to pray for themselves, seeing that they were ignorant of what was best for them; or to offer slain victims (σφαγια) as sacrifices; and taught them to respect a bloodless altar only.” Cakes and fruits, and other innocent offerings were the only sacrifices he would allow. This, and the sublime commandment “Not to kill or injure any innocent animal,” are the grand distinguishing doctrines of his moral religion. So far did he carry his respect for the beautiful and beneficent in Nature, that he specially prohibited wanton injury to cultivated and useful trees and plants.

By confining themselves to the innocent, pure, and spiritual dietary he promised his followers the enjoyment of health and equanimity, undisturbed and invigorating sleep, as well as a superiority of mental and moral perceptions. As for his own diet, “he was satisfied,” says Porphyry, “with honey or the honeycomb, or with bread only, and he did not taste wine from morning to night (μεθ’ἣμεραν); or his principal dish was often kitchen herbs, cooked or uncooked. Fish he ate rarely.”

Humanitarianism—the extension of the sublime principles of justice and of compassion to all innocent sentient life, irrespective of nationality,[Pg 8] creed, or species—is a very modern and even now very inadequately recognised creed; and, although there have been here and there a few, like Plutarch and Seneca, who were “splendidly false,” to the spirit of their age, the recognition of the obligation (the practice has always been a very different thing) of benevolence and beneficence, so far from being extended to the non-human races, until a comparatively recent time has been limited to the narrow bounds of country and citizenship; and patriotism and internationalism are, apparently, two very opposite principles.

The obligation to abstain from the flesh of animals was founded by Pythagoras on mental and spiritual rather than on humanitarian grounds. Yet that the latter were not ignored by the prophet of akreophagy is evident equally by his prohibition of the infliction of pain, no less than of death, upon the lower animals, and by his injunction to abstain from the bloody sacrifices of the altar. Such was his abhorrence of the Slaughter-House, Porphyry tells us, that not only did he carefully abstain from the flesh of its victims, but that he could never bring himself to endure contact with, or even the sight of, butchers and cooks.

While thus careful of the lives and feelings of the innocent non-human races, he recognised the necessity of making war upon the ferocious carnivora. Yet to such a degree had he become familiar with the habits and dispositions of the lower animals that he is said, by the exclusive use of vegetable food, not only to have tamed a formidable bear, which by its devastations on their crops had become the terror of the country people, but even to have accustomed it to eat that food only for the remainder of its life. The story may be true or fictitious, but it is not incredible; for there are well-authenticated instances, even in our own times, of true carnivora that have been fed, for longer or shorter periods, upon the non-flesh diet.[8]

“Amongst other reasons, Pythagoras,” says Iamblichus, “enjoined abstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to peace. For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of other animals, as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more unjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war.” Specially, he[Pg 9] “exhorted those politicians who are legislators to abstain. For if they were willing to act justly in the highest degree, it was indubitably incumbent upon them not to injure any of the lower animals. Since how could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were proved to be indulging an insatiable avidity by devouring these animals that are allied to us. For through the communion of life and the same elements, and the sympathy thus existing, they are, as it were, conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance.”[9] Maxims how different from those in favour in the present “year of grace,” 1877! If the refined thinker of the sixth century B.C. were now living, what would be his indignation at the enormous slaughter of innocent life for the public banquets at which our statesmen and others are constantly fêted, and which are recorded in our journals with so much magniloquence and minuteness? His hopes for the regeneration of his fellow-men would surely be terribly shattered. We may apply the words of the great Latin satirist, Juvenal, who so frequently denounces in burning language the luxurious gluttony of his countrymen under the Empire—“What would not Pythagoras denounce, or whither would he not flee, could he see these monstrous sights—he who abstained from the flesh of all other animals as though they were human?” (Satire xv.)

How long the communistic society of Krotona remained undisturbed is uncertain. Inasmuch as its reputation and influence were widely spread, it may be supposed that the outbreak of the populace (the origin of which is obscure), by which the society was broken up and his disciples massacred, did not happen until many years after its establishment. At all events, it is commonly believed that Pythagoras lived to an advanced age, variously computed at eighty, ninety, or one hundred years.

It is not within our purpose to discuss minutely the scientific or theological theories of Pythagoras. In accordance with the abstruse speculative character of the Ionic school of science, which inclined to refer the origin of the universe to some one primordial principle, he was led by his mathematical predilections to discover the cosmic element in numbers, or proportion—a theory which savours of John Dalton’s philosophy, now accepted in chemistry, and a virtual enunciation of what we now call quantitative science. Pythagoras taught the Kopernican theory prematurely. He regarded the sun as more divine than the earth, and therefore set it in the centre of the earth and planets. The argument was surely a mark of genius, but it was too transcendental for his contemporaries, even for Plato and Aristotle. His elder contemporary, the celebrated Thales of Miletus, with whom in his early youth he may have been acquainted, may claim, indeed, to be the remote originator of the famous nebular hypothesis of Laplace and modern astronomy. Another cardinal doctrine of the Pythagorean school was the musical, from whence the idea, so popular with the poets, of the “music of the spheres.” To[Pg 10] music was attributed the greatest influence in the control of the passions. In its larger sense, by the Greeks generally, the term “Music” (Musice—pertaining to the Muses) denoted, it is to be remembered, not alone the “concord of sweet sounds,” but also an artistic and æsthetic education in general—all humanising and refining instruction.

The famous doctrine of the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls also was, doubtless, a prominent feature in the Pythagorean system; but it is probable that we may presume that by it Pythagoras intended merely to convey to the “uninstructed,” by parable, the sublime idea that the soul is gradually purified by a severe course of discipline until finally it becomes fitted for a fleshless life of immortality.[10] We are chiefly concerned with his attitude in regard to flesh eating. There can be no question that abstinence was a fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics—little in sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life, or, indeed, with self-denial of any kind—have sometimes affected either to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence, thus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most important residuum of Pythagoreanism. In support of this scepticism the fact of the celebrated athlete Milo, whose prodigies of strength have become proverbial, has been quoted. Yet if these critics had been at the pains of inquiring somewhat further, they would have learned, on the contrary, that the non-flesh diet is exactly that which is most conducive to physical vigour; that in the East there are at this day non-flesh eaters, who in feats of strength might put even our strongest men to the blush. The extraordinary powers of the porters and boatmen of Constantinople have been remarked by many travellers; and the Chinese coolies and others are almost equally notorious for their marvellous powers of endurance. Yet their food is not only of the simplest—rice, dhourra (i.e., millet), onions, &c.—but of the scantiest possible. Moreover, the elder Greek athletes themselves, for the most part, trained on vegetarian diet. Not to multiply details, the fact that, upon a moderate calculation, two-thirds at least of the population of our globe—including the mass of the inhabitants of these islands—live, nolentes, volentes, on a dietary from which flesh is almost altogether necessarily excluded, is on the face of it sufficient proof in itself of the non-necessity of the diet of the rich.

While the general consent of antiquity and of later times has received as undoubted the obligation of strict abstinence on the part of the immediate followers of Pythagoras, it seems that as regards the un[Pg 11]initiated, or (to use the ecclesiastical term) catechumens, the obligation was not so strict. Indeed relaxation of the rules of the higher life was simply a sine quâ non of securing the attention of the mass of the community at all; and, like one still more eminent than himself in an after age, he found it a matter of necessity to present a teaching and a mode of living not too exalted and unattainable by the grossness and “hardness of heart” of the multitude. Hence, in all probability, the seeming contradictions in his teaching on this point found in the narratives of his followers.

If his critics had been more intent on discovering the excellence of his rules of abstinence than on discussing, with frivolous diligence, the probable or possible reasons of his alleged prohibition of beans, it would have redounded more to their credit for wisdom and love of truth. Assuming the fact of the prohibition, in place of collecting all the most absurd gossip of antiquity, they might perhaps have found a more rational and more solid reason in the hypothesis that the bean being, as used in the ballot, a symbol and outward and visible sign of political life, was employed by Pythagoras parabolically to dissuade his followers from participating in the idle strife of party faction, and to exhort them to concentrate their efforts upon an attempt to achieve the solid and lasting reformation of mankind.[11] But to be much concerned in a patient inquiry after truth unhappily has been not always the characteristic of professional commentators.

Blind hero-worship or idolatry of genius or intellect, even when directed to high moral aims, is no part of our creed; and it is sufficient to be assured that he was human, to be free to confess that the historical founder of akreophagy was not exempt from human infirmity, and that he could not wholly rise above the wonder-loving spirit of an uncritical age. Deducting all that has been imputed to him of the fanciful or fantastic, enough still remains to force us to recognise in the philosopher-prophet of Samos one of the master-spirits of the world.[12]

THE most renowned of all the prose writers of antiquity may be said to have been almost the lineal descendant, in philosophy, of the teacher of Samos. He belonged to the aristocratic families of Athens—“the eye of Greece”—then and for long afterwards the centre of art and science. His original name was Aristokles, which he might well have retained. Like another equally famous leader in literature, François Marie Arouet, he abandoned his birth-name, and he assumed or acquired the name by which he is immortalised, to characterise, as it is said, either the breadth of his brow or the extensiveness of his mental powers. In very early youth he seems to have displayed his literary aptitude and tastes in the various kinds of poetry—epic, tragic, and lyric—as well as to have distinguished himself as an athlete in the great national contests or “games,” as they were called, the grand object of ambition of every Greek. He was instructed in the chief and necessary parts of a liberal Greek education by the most able professors of the time. He devoted himself with ardour to the pursuit of knowledge, and sedulously studied the systems of philosophy which then divided the literary world.

In his twentieth year he attached himself to Sokrates, who was then at the height of his reputation as a moralist and dialectician. After the judicial murder of his master, 399, he withdrew from his native city, which, with a theological intolerance extremely rare in pagan antiquity, had already been disgraced by the previous persecution of another eminent teacher—Anaxagoras—the instructor of Euripides and of Perikles. Plato then resided for some time at Megara, at a very short distance from Athens, and afterwards set out, according to the custom of the eager searchers after knowledge of that age, on a course of travels.

He traversed the countries which had been visited by Pythagoras, but his alleged visit to the further East is as traditional as that of his predecessor. The most interesting fact or tradition in his first travels is his alleged intimacy with the Greek prince of Syracuse, the elder Dionysius, and his invitation to the western capital of the Hellenic world. The story that he was given up by his perfidious host to the Spartan envoy, and by him sold into slavery, though not disprovable, may be merely an exaggerated account of the ill-treatment which he actually received.

His grand purpose in going to Italy was, without doubt, the desire to become personally known to the eminent Pythagoreans whose head[Pg 13]quarters were in the southern part of the Peninsula, and to secure the best opportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted with their philosophic tenets. At that time the most eminent representative of the school was the celebrated Archytas, one of the most extraordinary mathematical geniuses and mechanicians of any age. Upon his return to Athens, at about the age of forty, he established his ever-memorable school in the suburban groves or “gardens” known as Ἀκαδημία—whence the well-known Academy by which the Platonic philosophy is distinguished, and which, in modern days, has been so much vulgarised. All the most eminent Athenians, present and future, attended his lectures, and among them was Aristotle, who was destined to rival the fame of his master. From about 388 to 347, the date of his death, he continued to lecture in the Academy and to compose his Dialogues.

In the intervals of his literary and didactic labours he twice visited Sicily; the first time at the invitation of his friend Dion, the relative and minister of the two Dionysii, the younger of whom had succeeded to his father’s throne, and whom Dion hoped to win to justice and moderation by the eloquent wisdom of the Athenian sage. Such hopes were doomed to bitter disappointment. His second visit to Syracuse was undertaken at the urgent entreaties of his Pythagorean friends, of whose tenets and dietetic principles he always remained an ardent admirer. For whatever reason, it proved unsuccessful. Dion was driven into exile, and Plato himself escaped only by the interposition of Archytas. Thus the only chance of attempting the realisation of his ideal of a communistic commonwealth—if he ever actually entertained the hope of realising it—was frustrated. Almost the only source of the biographies of Plato are the Letters ascribed to him, commonly held to be fictitious, but maintained to be genuine by Grote. The narrative of the first visit to Sicily is found in the seventh Letter.

We can refer but briefly to the nature of the philosophy and writings of Plato. In the notice of Pythagoras it has been stated that Plato valued very highly that teacher’s methods and principles. Pythagoreanism, in fact, enters very largely into the principal writings of the great disciple and exponent (and, it may safely be added, improver) of Sokrates, especially in the Republic and the Timæus. The four cardinal virtues inculcated in the Republic—justice or righteousness (Δικαιοσύνη), temperance or self-control (Εγκρατεία or Σωφροσύνη), prudence or wisdom (Φρονήσις), fortitude (Ἀνδρεία)—are eminently pythagorean.

The characteristic of the purely speculative portion of Platonism is the theory of ideas (used by the author in the new sense of unities, the original meaning being forms and figures), of which it may be said that its merit depends upon its poetic fancy rather than upon its scientific value.[Pg 14] Divesting it of the verbiage of the commentators, who have not succeeded in making it more intelligible, all that need be said of this abstruse and fantastic notion is, that by it he intended to convey that all sensible objects which, according to him, are but the shadows and phantoms of things unseen, are ultimately referable to certain abstract conceptions or ideas, which he termed unities, that can only be reached by pure thinking. Hence he asserted that “not being in a condition to grasp the idea of the Good with full distinctness, we are able to approximate to it only so far as we elevate the power of thinking to its proper purity.” Whatever may be thought of the premiss, the truth and utility of the deduction may be allowed to be as unquestionable as they are unheeded. This characteristic theory may be traced to the belief of Plato not only in the immortality, but also in the past eternity of the soul. In the Phædrus, under the form of allegory, he describes the soul in its former state of existence as traversing the circuit of the universe where, if reason duly control the appetite, it is initiated, as it were, into the essences of things which are there disclosed to its gaze. And it is this ante-natal experience, which supplies the fleshly mind or soul with its ideas of the beautiful and the true.

The subtlety of the Greek intellect and language was, apparently, an irresistible temptation to their greatest ornaments to indulge in the nicest and most mystic speculation, which, to the possessors of less subtle intellects and of a far less flexible language, seems often strangely unpractical and hyperbolic. Thus while it is impossible not to be lost in admiration of the marvellous powers of the Greek dialectics, one cannot but at the same time regret that faculties so extraordinary should have been expended (we will not say altogether wasted) in so many instances on unsubstantial phantoms. If, however, the transcendentalism of the Platonic and other schools of Greek thought is matter for regret, how must we not deplore the enormous waste of time and labour apparent in the theological controversies of the first three or four centuries of Christendom—at least of Greek Christendom—when the omission or insertion of a single letter could profoundly agitate the whole ecclesiastical world and originate volumes upon volumes of refined, indeed, but useless verbiage. Yet even the ecclesiastical Greek writers of the early centuries may lay claim to a certain originality and merit of style which cannot be conceded to the “schoolmen” of the mediæval ages, and of still later times, whose solemn trifling—under the proud titles of Platonists and Aristotelians, or Nominalists and Realists, and the numerous other appellations assumed by them—for centuries was received with patience and even applause. Nor, unfortunately, is this war of Phantoms by any means unknown or extinct in our day. It was the lament of Seneca,[Pg 15] often echoed by the most earnest minds, that all, or at least the greater part of, our learning is expended upon words rather than upon the acquisition of wisdom.[13]

Plato deserves his high place among the Immortals not so much on account of any very definite results from his philosophy as on account of its general tendency to elevate and direct human thought and aspirations to sublime speculations and aims. Of all his Dialogues, the most valuable and interesting, without doubt, is the Republic—the one of his writings upon which he seems to have bestowed the most pains, and in which he has recorded the outcome of his most mature reflections. Next may be ranked the Phædo and the Phædrus—the former, it is well known, being a disquisition on the immortality of the soul. In spite of certain fantastic conceptions, it must always retain its interest, as well by reason of its speculations on a subject which is (or rather which ought to be) the most interesting that can engage the mind, as because it purports to be the last discourse of Sokrates, who was expecting in his prison the approaching sentence of death. The Phædrus derives its unusual merit from the beauty of the language and style, and from the fact of its being one of the few writings of antiquity in which the charms of rural nature are described with enthusiasm.

The Republic, with which we are here chiefly concerned, since it is in that important work that the author reproduces the dietetic principles of Pythagoras, may have been first published amongst his earlier writings, about the year 395; but that it was published in a larger and revised edition at a later period is sufficiently evident. It consists of ten Books. The question of Dietetics is touched upon in the second and third, in which Plato takes care to point out the essential importance to the well-being of his ideal state, that both the mass of the community and, in a special degree, the guardians or rulers, should be educated and trained in proper dietetic principles, which, if not so definitely insisted upon as we could wish them to have been, sufficiently reveal the bias of his mind towards Vegetarianism. In the second Book the discussion turns principally upon the nature of Justice; and there is one passage which, still more significant for the age in which it was written, is not without instruction for the present. While Sokrates is discussing the subject with his interlocutors, one of them is represented as objecting:

[Pg 16]

Very useful and necessary for those times, and not wholly inapplicable to less remote ages, is the incidental remark in the same book, that “there are quacks and soothsayers who flock to the rich man’s doors, and try to persuade him that they have a power at command which they procure from heaven, and which enables them, by sacrifices and incantations, performed amid feasting and indulgence, to make amends for any crime committed either by the individual himself or by his ancestors.... And in support of all these assertions they produce the evidence of poets—some, to exhibit the facilities of vice, quoting the words:—

It is the fifth Book, however, which has always excited the greatest interest and controversy, for therein he introduces his Communistic views. Our interest in it is increased by the fact that it is the original of the ideal Communisms of modern writers—the prototype of the Utopia of More, of the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon, the Oceanica of Harrington, and the Gaudentio of Berkeley, &c.

In maintaining the perfect natural equality of women to men,[15] and insisting upon an identity of education and training, he advances propositions which perhaps only the more advanced of the assertors of women’s rights might be prepared to entertain. Whatever may have been said by the various admirers of Plato, who have been anxious to present his political or social views in a light which might render them less in conflict with modern Conservatism, there can be no doubt for any candid reader of the Republic that the author published to the world his bonâ fide convictions. One of the dramatis personæ of the dialogue, while expressing his concurrence in the Communistic legislation of Sokrates, at the same time objects to the difficulty of realising it in actual life, and desires Sokrates to point out whether, and how, it could be really practicable. Whereupon Sokrates (who it is scarcely[Pg 17] necessary to remark, is the convenient mouthpiece of Plato) replies: “Do you think any the worse of an artist who has painted the beau idéal of human beauty, and has left nothing wanting in the picture, because he cannot prove that such a one as he has painted might possibly exist? Were not we, likewise, proposing to construct, in theory, the pattern of a perfect State? Will our theory suffer at all in your good opinion if we cannot prove that it is possible for a city to be organised in the manner proposed?”

As has been well paraphrased by the interpreters to whom we are indebted for the English version: “The possibilities of realising such a commonwealth in actual practice is quite a secondary consideration, which does not in the least affect the soundness of the method or the truth of the results. All that can fairly be demanded of him is to show how the imperfect politics at present existing may be brought most nearly into harmony with the perfect State which has just been described. To bring about this great result one fundamental change is necessary, and only one: the highest political power must, by some means or other, be vested in philosophers.” The next point to be determined is, What is, or ought to be, implied by the term philosopher, and what are the characteristics of the true philosophic disposition? “They are—(1) an eager desire for the knowledge of all real existence; (2) hatred of falsehood, and devoted love of truth; (3) contempt for the pleasures of the body; (4) indifference to money; (5) high-mindedness and liberality; (6) justice and gentleness; (7) a quick apprehension and a good memory; (8) a musical, regular, and harmonious disposition.” But how is this disposition to be secured? Under the present condition of things, and the corrupting influences of various kinds, where temptations abound to compromise truth and substitute expediency and self-interest, it would seem wellnigh impossible and Utopian to expect it.

“How is this evil to be remedied? The State itself must regulate the study of philosophy, and must take care that the students pursue it on right principles, and at a right age. And now, surely, we may expect to be believed when we assert that if a State is to prosper it must be governed by philosophers. If such a contingency should ever take place (and why should it not?), our ideal State will undoubtedly be realised. So that, upon the whole, we come to this conclusion: The constitution just described is the best, if it can be realised; and to realise it is difficult, but not impossible.” At this moment, when the question of compulsory education, under the immediate superintendence of the State, is being fought with so much fierceness—on one side, at least—to recur to Plato might not be without advantage.

In the most famous dialogue of Plato—the Republic, or, as it might[Pg 18] be termed On Justice—the principal interlocutors, besides Sokrates, are Glaukon, Polymachus, and Adeimantus; and the whole piece originates in the chance question which rose between them, “What is Justice?” In the second Book, from which the following passage is taken, the discussion turns upon the origin of society, which gives opportunity to Sokrates to develop his opinions upon the diet best adapted for the community—at all events, for the great majority:—

Justly holding that the best laws will be of little avail unless the administrators of them shall be just and virtuous, Sokrates, in the Third Book, proceeds to lay down rules for the education and diet of the magistrates or executive, whom he calls—in conformity with the Communistic system—guardians:—

Elsewhere, in a well-known passage (in The Laws), Plato pronounces that the springs of human conduct and moral worth depend principally on diet. “I observe,” says he, “that men’s thoughts and actions are intimately connected with the threefold need and desire (accordingly as they are properly used or abused, virtue or its opposite is the result) of eating, drinking, and sexual love.” He himself was remarkable for the extreme frugality of his living. Like most of his countrymen, he was a great eater of figs; and so much did he affect that frugal repast that he was called, par excellence, the “lover of figs” (φιλόσυκος).

The Greeks, in general, were noted among the Europeans for their abstemiousness; and Antiphanes, the comic poet (in Athenæus), terms them “leaf-eaters” (φυλλοτρῶγες). Amongst the Greeks, the Athenians and Spartans were specially noted for frugal living. That of the latter is proverbial. The comic poets frequently refer, in terms of ridicule, to what seemed to them so unaccountable an indifferentism to the “good things” of life on the part of the witty and refined people of Attica. See the Deipnosophists (dinner-philosophers) of Athenæus (the great repertory of the bon-vivantism of the time), and Plutarch’s Symposiacs.

[Pg 21]

It has been pointed out by Professor Mahaffy, in his recent work on old Greek life, that slaughter-houses and butchers are seldom, or never, mentioned in Greek literature. “The eating of [flesh] meat,” he observes, “must have been almost confined to sacrificial feasts; for, in ordinary language, butchers’ meat was called victim (ἱερεῖον). The most esteemed, or popular, dishes were madsa, a sort of porridge of wheat or barley; various kinds of bread (see Deipn. iii.); honey, beans, lupines, lettuce and salad, onions and leeks. Olives, dates, and figs formed the usual fruit portion of their meals. In regard to non-vegetable food, fish was the most sought after and preferred to anything else; and the well-known term opson, which so frequently recurs in Greek literature, was specially appropriated to it.

Contemporary with the great master of language was the great master of medicine, Hippokrates, (460–357) who is to his science what Homer is to poetry and Herodotus to history—the first historical founder of the art of healing. He was a native of Kōs, a small island of the S.W. coast of Lesser Asia, the traditional cradle and home of the disciples of Asklepios, or Æsculapius (as he was termed by the Latins), the semi-divine author and patron of medicine. And it may be remarked, in passing, that the College of Asklepiads of Kōs were careful to exercise a despotism as severe and exclusive as that which obtains, for the most part, with the modern orthodox schools.

Amongst a large number of writings of various kinds attributed to Hippokrates is the treatise On Regimen in Acute Diseases (περὶ Διαίτης Ὀξέων), which is generally received as genuine; and On the Healthful Regimen (περὶ Διαίτης Ὑγιεινῆς), which belongs to the same age, though not to the canonical writings of the founder of the school himself. He was the author, real or reputed, of some of the most valuable apophthegms of Greek antiquity. Ars longa—Vita brevis (education is slow; life is short) is the best known, and most often quoted. What is still more to our purpose is his maxim—“Over-drinking is almost as bad as over-eating.” Of all the productions of this most voluminous of writers, his Aphorisms (Ἀφορισμοί), in which these specimens of laconic wisdom are collected, and which consists of some four hundred short practical sentences, are the most popular.

About a century after the death of Plato appeared a popular exposition of the Pythagorean teaching, in hexameters, which is known by the title given to it by Iamblichus—the Golden Verses. “More than half of them,” says Professor Clifford, “consist of a sort of versified ‘Duty to God and my Neighbour,’ except that it is not designed by the rich to be obeyed by the poor; that it lays stress on the laws of health; and that it is just such sensible counsel for the good and right conduct of life as an Englishman might now-a-days give to his son.”

Hierokles, an eminent Neo-Platonist of the fifth century, A.D., gave a course of lectures upon them at Alexandria—which since the time of the Ptolemies had been one of the chief centres of Greek learning and science—and his commentary is sufficiently interesting. Suïdas, the lexicographer, speaks of his matter and style in the highest terms of praise. “He astonished his hearers everywhere,” he tells us, “by the calm, the magnificence, the width of his superlative intellect, and by the sweetness of his speech, full of the most beautiful words and things.” The Alexandrian lecturer quotes the old Pythagorean maxims:

[Pg 22]

The following extracts will serve as a specimen of the religious or moral character of the Golden Verses:—

Referring to these verses, which inculcate that the human race is itself responsible for the evils which men, for the most part, prefer to regret than to remedy, Professor Clifford, to whom we are indebted for the above version of the Golden Verses, remarks on the merits of this teaching, that it reminds us that “men suffer from preventible evils, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.”[20] Thus we find that the[Pg 23] principal obstructions, in all ages, to human progress and perfectibility may be ever found in IGNORANCE and SELFISHNESS.

THE school of Pythagoras and of Plato, although it was not the fashionable or popular religion of Rome, counted amongst its disciples some distinguished Italians, and the name of Cicero, who belonged to the “New Academy,” is sufficiently illustrious. The Italians, however, who borrowed their religion as well as their literature from the Greeks, were never distinguished, like their masters, for that refinement of thought which might have led them to attach themselves to the Pythagorean teaching. Under the bloody despotism of the Empire, the philosophy which was most affected by the literati and those who were driven to the consolations of philosophy was the stoical, which taught its disciples to consider apathy as the summum bonum of existence. This school of philosophy, whatever its other merits, was too much centred in self—paradoxical as the assertion may seem—to have much regard for the rest of mankind, much less for the non-human species. Nor, while they professed supreme contempt for the luxuries and even comforts of life, did the disciples of the “Porch,” in general, practice abstinence from any exalted motive, humanitarian or spiritual. They preached indifference for the “good things” of this life, not so much to elevate the spiritual and moral side of human nature as to show their contempt for human life altogether.

That the Italian was essentially of a more barbarous nature than the Greek is apparent in the national spectacles and amusements. The savage scenes of gladiatorial and non-human combat and internecine slaughter of the Latin amphitheatres, of which the famous Colosseum in the capital was the model of many others in the provinces, were abhorrent to the more refined Greek mind.[21] In view of scenes so sanguinary—the “Roman holiday”—it is scarcely necessary to observe that humanitarianism was a creed unknown to the Italians; and it was not likely that a people, addicted throughout their career as a dominant race to the most bloody wars, not only foreign but also internecine, with whom fighting and slaughter of their own kind was an almost daily occupation, should entertain any feeling of pity (to say nothing of justice)[Pg 24] towards their non-human dependants. Nevertheless, even they were not wholly inaccessible, on occasion, to the prompting of pity. Referring to a grand spectacle given by Pompeius at the dedication of his theatre (B.C. 55), in which a large number of elephants, amongst others, were forced to fight, the elder Pliny tells us:—

Cicero, who was himself present at the spectacle of the Circus, in a letter to a friend, Marcus Marius, writes:—

Testimonies which might induce one almost to think that, had not they been systematically and industriously accustomed to these horrible and gigantic butcheries by their rulers, even the Roman populace might have been susceptible of better feelings and desires than those inspired by their amphitheatres, though these savage exhibitions were perhaps hardly worse than the combats and slaughter in the bull-rings of Seville or Madrid, or at the courts of the Mohammedan princes of India recently sanctioned by the presence of English royalty. It is worth noting, in passing, that while the gladiatorial slaughters were discontinued some years after the triumph of Christianity, the other part of the entertainment—the indiscriminate combats and slaughter of the non-human victims—continued to be exhibited to a much later period.

If we reflect that the rise of the humanitarian spirit in Christian Europe, or rather in the better section of it, is of very recent origin, it might appear unreasonable to look for any distinct exhibition of so exalted a feeling in the younger age of the world. Yet, to the shame of more advanced civilisations, we find manifestations of it in the writings of a few of the more refined minds of Greece and Italy; and Plutarch[Pg 25] and Seneca—the former particularly—occupy a distinguished place amongst the first preachers of that sacred truth.[23]

Publius Ovidius Naso, the Latin versifier of the Pythagorean philosophy, was born B.C. 43. He belonged to the equestrian order, a position in the social scale which corresponds with the “higher middle class” of modern days. Like so many other names eminent in literature, he was in the first instance educated for the law, for which, also like many other literary celebrities, he soon showed his genius to be unfitted and uncongenial. He studied at the great University of that age—Athens—where he acquired a knowledge of the Greek language, and probably of its rich literature. The most memorable event in his life—which, in accordance with the fashion of his contemporaries of the same rank, was for the most part devoted to “gallantry” and the accustomed amatory licence—is his mysterious banishment from Rome to the inhospitable and savage shores of the Euxine, where he passed the last seven years of his existence, dying there in the sixtieth year of his age. The cause of his sudden exile from the Court of Augustus, where he had been in high favour, is one of those secrets of history which have exercised the ingenuity of his successive biographers. According to the terms of the imperial edict, the freedom of the poet’s Ars Amatoria was the offence. That this was a mere pretext is plain, as well from the long interval of time which had passed since the publication of the poem as from the character of the fashionable society of the capital. Ovid himself attributes his misfortune to the fact of his having become the involuntary witness of some secret of the palace, the nature of which is not divulged.

His most important poems are (1) The Metamorphoses, in fifteen books, so called from its being a collection of the numerous transformations of the popular theology. It is, perhaps, the most charming of Latin poems that have come down to us. Particular passages have a special beauty. (2) The Fasti, in twelve books, of which only six are extant, is the Roman Calendar in verse. Its interest, apart from the poetic genius of the author, is great, as being the grand repertory of the Latin feasts and their popular origin. Besides these two principal poems he was the author of the famous Loves, in three books; the Letters of the Heroines, The Remedies of Love, and The Tristia, or Sad Thoughts. He also wrote a tragedy—Medea—which, unfortunately has not come down to us. All his poems are characterised by elegance and a remark[Pg 26]able smoothness and regularity of versification, and in much of his productions there is an unusual beauty and picturesqueness of poetic ideas.

The following passage from the fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses has been justly said by Dryden, his translator, to be the finest part of the whole poem. It is almost impossible to believe but that, in spite of his misspent life, he must have felt, in his better moments at least, something of the truth and beauty of the Pythagorean principles which he so exquisitely versifies. In the touching words which he puts into the mouth of the jealous Medea—the murderess of her children—he might have exclaimed in his own case—

LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA, the greatest name in the stoic school of philosophy, and the first of Latin moralists, was born at Corduba (Cordova) almost contemporaneously with the beginning of the Christian era. His family, like that of Ovid, was of the equestrian order. He was of a weakly constitution; and bodily feebleness, as with many other great intellects, served to intensify if not originate, the activity of the mind. At Rome, with which he early made acquaintance, he soon gained great distinction at the bar; and the eloquence and fervour he displayed in the Senate before the Emperor Caligula excited the jealous hatred of that insane tyrant. Later in life he obtained a prætorship, and he was also appointed to the tutorship of the young Domitius, afterwards the Emperor Nero. On the accession of that prince, at the age of seventeen, to the imperial throne, Seneca became one of his chief advisers.

[Pg 28]

Unfortunately for his credit as a philosopher, while exerting his influence to restrain the vicious propensities of his old pupil, he seems to have been too anxious to acquire, not only a fair proportion of wealth, but even an enormous fortune, and his villas and gardens were of so splendid a kind as to provoke the jealousy and covetousness of Nero. This, added to his alleged disparagement of the prince’s talents, especially in singing and driving, for which Nero particularly desired to be famous, was the cause of his subsequent disgrace and death. The philosopher prudently attempted to anticipate the will of Nero by a voluntary surrender of all his accumulated possessions, and he sought to disarm the jealous suspicions of the tyrant by a retired and unostentatious life. These precautions were of no avail; his death was already decided. He was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso, and the only grace allowed him was to be his own executioner. The despair of his wife, Pompeia Paulina, he attempted to mitigate by the reflection that his life had been always directed by the standard of a higher morality. Nothing, however, could dissuade her from sharing her husband’s fate, and the two faithful friends laid open their veins by the same blow.

Advanced age and his extremely meagre diet had left little blood in Seneca’s veins, and it flowed with painful slowness. His tortures were excessive and, to avoid the intolerable grief of being witnesses of each other’s suffering, they shut themselves up in separate apartments. With that marvellous intrepid tranquillity which characterised some of the old sages, Seneca calmly dictated his last thoughts to his surrounding friends. These were afterwards published. His agonies being still prolonged, he took hemlock; and this also failing, he was carried into a vapour-stove, where he was suffocated, and thus at length ceased to suffer.

In estimating the character of Seneca, it is just that we should consider all the circumstances of the exceptional time in which his life was cast. Perhaps there has never been an age or people more utterly corrupt and abandoned than that of the period of the earlier Roman Cæsars and that of Rome and the large cities of the empire. Allowing the utmost that his detractors have brought against him, the moral character of the author of the Consolations and Letters stands out in bright relief as compared with that of the immense majority of his contemporaries of equal rank and position, who were sunk in the depths of licentiousness and of selfish indifference to the miseries of the surrounding world. That his public career was not of so exalted a character altogether as are his moral precepts, is only too patent to be denied and, in this shortcoming of a loftier ideal, he must share reproach with some of the most esteemed of the world’s luminaries. If, for instance, we compare him with Cicero or with Francis Bacon, the comparison would certainly[Pg 29] be not unfavourable to Seneca. The darkest stigma on the reputation of the great Latin moralist is his connivance at the death of the infamous Agrippina, the mother of his pupil Nero. Although not to be excused, we may fairly attribute this act to conscientious, if mistaken, motives. His best apology is to be found in the fact that, so long as he assisted to direct the counsels of Nero, he contrived to restrain that prince’s depraved disposition from those outbreaks which, after the death of the philosopher, have stigmatised the name of Nero with undying infamy.

The principal writings of Seneca are:—

1. On Anger. His earliest, and perhaps his best known, work.

2. On Consolation. Addressed to his mother, Helvia. An admirable philosophical exhortation.

3. On Providence; or, Why evils happen to good men though a divine Providence may exist.

4. On Tranquillity of Mind.

5. On Clemency. Addressed to Nero Cæsar. One of the most meritorious writings of all antiquity. It is not unworthy of being classed with the humanitarian protests of Beccaria and Voltaire. The stoical distinction between clemency and pity (misericordia), in book ii., is, as Seneca admits, merely a dispute about words.

6. On the Shortness of Life. In which the proper employment of time and the acquisition of wisdom are eloquently enforced as the best employment of a fleeting life.

7. On a Happy Life. In which he inculcates that there is no happiness without virtue. An excellent treatise.

8. On Kindnesses.

9. Epistles to Lucilius. 124 in number. They abound in lessons and precepts in morality and philosophy, and, excepting the De Irâ, have been the most read, perhaps, of all Seneca’s productions.

10. Questions on Natural History. In seven books.

Besides these moral and philosophic works, he composed several tragedies. They were not intended for the stage, but rather as moral lessons. As in all his works, there is much of earnest thought and feeling, although expressed in rhetorical and declamatory language.

What especially characterises Seneca’s writings is their remarkably humanitarian spirit. Altogether he is imbued with this, for the most part, very modern feeling in a greater degree than any other writer, Greek or Latin. Plutarch indeed, in his noble Essay on Flesh Eating, is more expressly denunciatory of the barbarism of the Slaughter House, and of the horrible cruelties inseparably connected with it, and evidently felt more deeply the importance of exposing its evils. The Latin moralist, however, deals with a wider range of ethical questions,[Pg 30] and on such subjects, as, e.g., the relations of master and slave, is far ahead of his contemporaries. His treatment of Dietetics, in common with that of most of the old-world moralists, is rather from the spiritual and ascetic than from the purely humanitarian point of view. “The judgments on Seneca’s writings,” says the author of the article on Seneca in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Latin Biography, “have been as various as the opinions about his character, and both in extremes. It has been said of him that he looks best in quotations; but this is an admission that there is something worth quoting, which cannot be said of all writers. That Seneca possessed great mental powers cannot be doubted. He had seen much of human life, and he knew well what man is. His philosophy, so far as he adopted a system, was the stoical; but it was rather an eclecticism of stoicism than pure stoicism. His style is antithetical, and apparently laboured; and where there is much labour there is generally affectation. Yet his language is clear and forcible—it is not mere words—there is thought always. It would not be easy to name any modern writer, who has treated on morality and has said so much that is practically good and true, or has treated the matter in so attractive a way.”

Jerome, in his Ecclesiastical Writers, hesitates to include him in the catalogue of his saints only because he is not certain of the genuineness of the alleged literary correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul. We may observe, in passing, on the remarkable coincidence of the presence of the two greatest teachers of the old and the new faiths in the capital of the Roman Empire at the same time; and it is possible, or rather highly probable, that St. Paul was acquainted with the writings of Seneca; while, from the total silence of the pagan philosopher, it seems that he knew nothing of the Pauline epistles or teaching. Amongst many testimonies to the superiority of Seneca, Tacitus, the great historian of the empire, speaks of the “splendour and celebrity of his philosophic writings,” as well as of his “amiable genius”—ingenium amœnum. (Annals, xii., xiii.) The elder Pliny writes of him as “at the very head of all the learned men of that time.” (xiv. 4.) Petrarch quotes the testimony of Plutarch, “that great man who, Greek though he was freely confesses ‘that there is no Greek writer who could be brought into comparison with him in the department of morals.’”

The following passage is to be found in a letter to Lucilius, in which, after expatiating on the sublimity of the teaching of the philosopher Attalus in inculcating moderation and self-control in corporeal pleasures, Seneca thus enunciates his dietetic opinions:—

Seneca here cautiously reveals the jealous suspicion with which the first Cæsars viewed all foreign, and especially quasi-religious, innovations, and his own public compliance, to some extent, with the orthodox dietetic practices. Yet that in private life he continued to practise, as well as to preach, a radical dietary reformation is sufficiently evident to all who are conversant with his various writings. The refinement and gentleness of his ethics are everywhere apparent, and exhibit him as a man of extraordinary sensibility and feeling.

As for dietetics, he makes it a matter of the first importance, on which he is never weary of insisting.[Pg 32] “We must so live, not as if we ought to live for, but as though we could not do without, the body.” He quotes Epikurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to conventionalism, you will never be rich. Nature demands little; fashion (opinio) superfluity.” In one of his letters he eloquently describes the riotous feasting of the period which corresponds to our festival of Christmas—another illustration of the proverb, “History repeats itself”:—

He contrasts with all this waste and gluttony the simplicity and frugality of Epikurus, who, in a letter to his friend Polyænus, declares that his own food does not cost him sixpence a day; while his friend Metrodorus, who had not advanced so far in frugality, expended the whole of that small sum:—

Again, Seneca writes:—

[Pg 33]

The extreme difficulty of abstinence is oftentimes alleged:—

On the occasion of a shipwreck, when his fellow-passengers found themselves forced to live upon the scantiest fare, he takes the opportunity to point out how extravagantly superfluous must be the ordinary living of the richer part of the community:—

Again:—

Again:—

[Pg 34]

We must be content with giving our readers only one more of Seneca’s exhortations to a reform in diet:—

If Seneca makes dietetics of the first importance, he at the same time by no means neglects the other departments of ethics, which, for the most part, ultimately depend upon that fundamental reformation; and he is equally excellent on them all. Space will not allow us to present our readers with all the admirable dicta of this great moralist. We cannot resist, however, the temptation to quote some of his unique teaching on certain branches of humanitarianism and philosophy little regarded either in his own time or in later ages. Slaves, both in pagan and Christian Europe, were regarded very much as the domesticated non-human species are at the present day, as born merely for the will and pleasure of their masters. Such seems to have been the universal estimate of their status. While often superior to their lords, nationally and individually, by birth, by mind, and by education, they were at the arbitrary disposal of too often cruel and capricious owners:—

[Pg 35]

He expressly denounces their cruel and contemptuous treatment, and demands in noble language (afterwards used by Epictetus, himself a slave):—

He denounces the haughty and insulting attitude of masters towards their helpless dependants, and lays down the precept: “So live with your dependant as you would wish your superior to live with you.” He laments the use of the term “slaves,” or “servants” (servi), in place of the old “domestics” (familiares). He declaims against the common prejudice which judges by the outward appearance:—

He is equally clear upon the ferocity and barbarity of the gladiatorial and other shows of the Circus, which were looked upon by his contemporaries as not only interesting spectacles, but as a useful school for war and endurance—much for the same reason as that on which the “sports” of the present day are defended. Cicero uses this argument, and only expresses the general sentiment. Not so Seneca. He speaks of a chance visit to the Circus (the gigantic Colosseum was not yet built), for the sake of mental relaxation, expecting to see, at the period of the day he had chosen, only innocent exercises. He indignantly narrates the horrid and bloody scenes of suffering, and demands, with only too much reason, whether it is not evident that such evil examples receive their righteous retribution in the deterioration of character of those who encourage them:—

[Pg 36]

In his treatise On Clemency, dedicated to his youthful pupil Nero, he anticipates the very modern theory—theory, for the prevalent practice is a very different thing—that prevention is better than punishment, and he denounces the cruel and selfish policy of princes and magistrates, who are, for the most part, concerned only to punish the criminals produced by unjust and unequal laws:—

Speaking of giving assistance to the needy, he says that the genuine philanthropist will give his money—

Next to the De Clementiâ and the De Irâ (“On Anger”), his treatise On the Happy Life is most admirable. In the abundance of what is unusually good and useful it is difficult to choose. His warning (so unheeded) against implicit confidence in authority and tradition cannot be too often repeated:—

Again:—

He repudiates the doctrines of Egoism for those of Altruism:—

Very admirable are his rebukes of unjust and insensate anger in regard to the non-human species:—

Again, of anger, as between human beings:—

Of the use of self-examination, he quotes the example of his excellent preceptor, Sextius, who strictly followed the Pythagorean precept to examine oneself each night before sleep:—

He adduces the feebleness and shortness of human life as one of the most forcible arguments against the indulgence of malevolence:—

[Pg 38]

Again, in dealing with the weak and defenceless:—

As to the conduct of life:—

Again:—

Excellent is his advice on the choice of books and of reading:—

[Pg 39]

In his 88th Letter Seneca well exposes the folly of a learning which begins and ends in mere words, which has no real bearing on the conduct of life and the instruction of the moral faculties:—

Elsewhere he indignantly demands:—

Anticipating the ultimate triumph of Truth, he well says:—

[Pg 40]

In his Questions on Nature, in which he often shows himself to have been much in advance of his contemporaries, and, indeed, of the whole mediæval ages, in scientific acumen, he takes occasion to reprobate the common practice of glorifying the lives and deeds of worthless princes and others, and exclaims in the modern spirit:—

It will be sufficiently apparent, from what we have presented to our readers, that Seneca, though nominally of the Stoic school, belonged in reality to no special sect or party. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. Bound to the words of no one master, he sought for truth everywhere. The authority whom he most frequently quotes with approval is Epicurus, the arch-enemy of Stoicism. Wiser and more candid than the great mass of sectaries, he scorns the tactics of partisanship. He justly recognises the fact that the “luxurious egoists have not derived their impulse or sanction from Epicurus; but, abandoned to their vices, they disguise their selfishness in the name of his philosophy.” He professes his own conviction to be “against the common prejudice of the popular writers of my own school, that the teaching of Epicurus was just and holy, and, on a close examination, essentially grave and sober.... I affirm this, that he is ill-understood, defamed, and depreciated.” (De Vitâ Beatâ, xii, xiii.)

It will also be sufficiently clear that the ethics of Seneca consist of no mere trials of skill in logomachy; in finely-drawn distinctions between words and names, as do so large a proportion both of modern and ancient dialectics. If so daring a heresy may possibly be forgiven us, we would venture to suggest that the authorities of our schools and universities might, with no inconsiderable advantage, substitute judicious excerpts from the Morals of Seneca for the Ethics of Aristotle; or, as Latin literature is now in question, even for the De Officiis of Cicero. This, however, is perhaps to indulge Utopian speculation too greatly. The mediæval spirit of scholasticism is not yet sufficiently out of favour at the ancient schools of Aquinas and Scotus.

THE years of the birth and death of the first of biographers and the most amiable of moralists are unknown. We learn from himself that he was studying philosophy at Athens under Ammonius, the Peripatetic, at the time when Nero was making his ridiculous progress through Greece. This was in 66 A.D., and the date of his birth may therefore be approximately placed somewhere about the year 40. He was thus a younger contemporary of Seneca. Chæronea, in Bœotia, claims the honour of giving him birth.

He lived several years at Rome and in other parts of Italy, where, according to the fashion of the age and the custom of the philosophic rhetoricians (of whom, probably, he was one of the very few whose prælections were of any real value), he gave public lectures, attended by the most eminent literary as well as social personages of the time, among whom were Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Quintilian, and perhaps Juvenal. These lectures may have formed the basis, if not the entire matter, of the miscellaneous essays which he afterwards published. When in Italy he neglected altogether the Latin language and literature, and the reason he gives proves the estimation in which he was held: “I had so many public commissions, and so many people came to me to receive instruction in philosophy.... it was, therefore, not till a late period in life that I began to read the Latin writers.” In fact, the very general indifference, or at least silence, of the Greek masters in regard to Latin literature is not a little remarkable.

It is asserted, on doubtful authority (Suidas), that he was preceptor of Trajan, in the beginning of whose reign he held the high post of Procurator of Greece; and he also filled the honourable office of Archon, or Chief Magistrate of his native city, as well as of priest of the Delphic Apollo. He passed the later and larger portion of his life in quiet retirement at Chæronea. The reason he assigns for clinging to that dull and decaying provincial town, although residence there was not a little inconvenient for him, is creditable to his citizen-feeling, since he believed that by quitting it he, as a person of influence, might contribute to its ruin. In all the relations of social life Plutarch appears to have been exemplary, and he was evidently held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens. As husband and father he was particularly admirable. The death of a young daughter, one of a numerous progeny, was the occasion of one of[Pg 42] his most affecting productions—the Consolation—addressed to his wife Timoxena. He himself died at an advanced age, in the reign of Hadrian.

Plutarch’s writings are sufficiently numerous. The Parallel Lives, forty-six in number, in which he brings together a Greek and a Roman celebrity by way of comparison, is perhaps the book of Greek and Latin literature which has been the most widely read in all languages. “The reason of its popularity,” justly observes a writer in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary, “is that Plutarch has rightly conceived the business of a biographer—his biography is true portraiture. Other biography is often a dull, tedious enumeration of facts in the order of time, with perhaps a summing up of character at the end. The reflections of Plutarch are neither impertinent nor trifling; his sound good sense is always there; his honest purpose is transparent; his love of humanity warms the whole. His work is and will remain, in spite of all the fault that can be found with it by plodding collectors of facts and small critics, the book of those who can nobly think and dare and do.”

His miscellaneous writings—indiscriminately classed under the title Moralia, or Morals, but including historical, antiquarian, literary, political, and religious disquisitions—are about eighty in number. As might be expected of so miscellaneous a collection, these essays are of various merit, and some of them are, doubtless, the product of other minds than Plutarch’s. Next to the Essay on Flesh Eating[38] may be distinguished as amongst the most important or interesting, That the Lower Animals Reason,[39] On the Sagacity of the Lower Animals—highly meritorious treatises, far beyond the ethical or intellectual standard of the mass of “educated” people even of our day—Rules for the Preservation of Health, A Discourse on the Training of Children, Marriage Precepts, or Advice to the Newly Married, On Justice, On the Soul, Symposiacs—in which he deals with a variety of interesting or curious questions—Isis and Osiris, a theological disquisition; On the Opinions of the Philosophers, On the Face that Appears in the Moon,[40] Political Precepts, Platonic Questions, and last, not least, his Consolation, addressed to Timoxena. Plutarch also wrote his autobiography. If it had come down to us it would have been one of the most interesting remains[Pg 43] of Antiquity, dealing, as we may well imagine it did deal, with some of the most important phenomena of the age. Possibly we might have had the expression of his feeling and attitude in regard to the new religion (established some 200 years later), which, strangely enough, is altogether overlooked or ignored as well by himself as by the other eminent writers of Greece and Italy.[41]

Plutarch was an especial admirer of Plato and his school, but he attached himself exclusively to no sect or system. He was essentially eclectic: he chose what his reason and conscience informed him to be the most good and useful from the various philosophies. As to the influence of his literary labours in instructing the world, it has been truly remarked by the author of the article in the Penny Cyclopædia that, “a kind, humane disposition, and a love of everything that is ennobling and excellent, pervades his writings, and gives the reader the same kind of pleasure that he has in the company of an esteemed friend, whose singleness of heart appears in everything that he says or does.” His personal character is, in fact, exactly reflected in his publications. That he was somewhat superstitious and of a conservative bias is sufficiently apparent;[42] but it is also equally clear, in his case, that the moral perceptions were not obscured by a selfishness which is too often the product of optimism, or self-complacent contentment with things as they are. In metaphysics, with all earnest minds oppressed by the terrible fact of the dominance of evil and error in the world, he vainly attempted to find a solution of the enigma in that prevalent Western Asiatic prejudice of a dualism of contending powers. He found consolation in the persuasion that the two antagonistic principles are not of equal power, and that the Good must eventually prevail over the Evil.

The Lives has gone through numerous editions in all languages. Of the Morals, the first translation in this country was made by Philemon Holland, M.D., London, 1603 and 1657. The next English version was published in 1684–1694, “by several hands.” The fifth edition, “revised and corrected from the many errors of the former edition,” appeared in 1718. The latest English version is that of Professor Goodwin, of Harvard University (1870), with an introduction by R. W. Emerson. It is, for the most part, a reprint of the revision of 1718, and consists of five octavo volumes. It is a matter equally for[Pg 44] surprise and regret that, in an age of so much literary, or at least publishing, enterprise, a judicious selection from the productions of so estimable a mind has never yet been attempted in a form accessible to ordinary readers.[43]

In his Symposiacs, discussing (Quest. ii.), “whether the sea or land affords the better food,” and summing up the arguments, he proceeds:—

We may infer that Plutarch advanced gradually to the perfect knowledge of the truth, and it is probable that his essay on Flesh-eating was published at a comparatively late period in his life, since in some of his miscellaneous writings, in alluding to the subject, he speaks in less decided and emphatic terms of its barbarism and inhumanity: e.g., in his Rules for the Preservation of Health, while recommending moderation in eating, and professing abstinence from flesh, he does not so expressly denounce the prevalent practice. Yet he is sufficiently pronounced even here in favour of the reformed diet on the score of health:—

That the non-Christian humanitarian of the first century was far ahead—we will not say of his contemporaries, but of the common crowd of writers and speakers of the present age in his estimate of the just rights and position of the innocent non-human races—will be sufficiently apparent from the following extract from his remarkable essay entitled, That the Lower Animals Reason, to which Montaigne seems to have been indebted. The essay is in the form of a dialogue between Odysseus (Ulysses) and Gryllus, who is one of the transformed captives of the sorceress Circe (see Odyssey ix.) Gryllus maintains the superiority[Pg 45] of the non-human races generally in very many qualities and in regard to many of their habits—e.g., in eating and drinking:—

Reprobating the harshness and inhumanity of Cato the Censor, who is usually regarded as the type of old Roman virtue, Plutarch, with his accustomed good feeling, declares:—

[Pg 46]

If we shall compare these sentiments of the pagan humanitarian with the every-day practices of modern christian society in the matter, e.g., of “knackers’ yards,” and other similar methods of getting rid of dumb dependants after a life-time of continuous hard labour—perhaps of bad usage, and even semi-starvation—the comparison scarcely will be in favour of christian ethics. From the essay On Flesh-Eating we extract the principal and most significant passages:—

PLUTARCH—ESSAY ON FLESH-EATING.

[Pg 50]

Among the illustrious earlier contemporaries of Plutarch who practised no less than preached rigid abstinence, Apollonius of Tyana, the Pythagorean, one of the most extraordinary men of any age, deserves particular notice. He came into the world in the same year with the founder of Christianity, B.C. 4. The facts and fictions of his life we owe to Philostratus, who wrote his memoirs at the express desire of the Empress Julia Domna, the wife of Severus.

Apollonius, according to his biographer, came of noble ancestry. He early applied himself to severe study at the ever memorable Tarsus, where he may have known the great persecutor, and afterwards second founder, of Christianity. Disgusted with the luxury of the people, he soon exiled himself to a more congenial atmosphere, and applied himself to the examination of the various schools of philosophy—the Epicurean, the Stoic, the Peripatetic, &c.—finally giving the preference to the Pythagorean. He embraced the strictest ascetic life, and travelled extensively, visiting, in the first instance, Nineveh, Babylon, and, it is said, India, and afterwards Greece, Italy, Spain, and Roman Africa and Ethiopia. At the accession of Domitian, he narrowly escaped from the hands of that tyrant, after having voluntarily given himself up to his tribunal, by an exertion of his reputed supernatural power. He passed the last years of his life at Ephesus, where, according to the well-known story, he is said to have announced the death of Domitian at the very moment of the event at Rome. His alleged miracles were so celebrated, and so curiously resemble the Christian miracles, that they have excited an unusual amount of attention.[52]

[Pg 51]

Unfortunately, the life by Philostratus, in accordance with the taste of a necessarily uncritical age, is so full of the preternatural and marvellous that the real fact that the pythagorean philosopher had acquired and possessed extraordinary mental as well as moral faculties, which might well be deemed supernatural at that period, is too apt to be discredited. The Life was composed long after the death of the hero, and thus a considerable amount of inventive license was possible to the biographer; but that it rested upon an undoubted substratum of actual occurrences will scarcely be disputed. There is one passage which deserves to be transcribed as of wider application. The people of a town in Pamphylia (in the Lesser Asia), where the great Thaumaturgist chanced to be staying, were starving in the midst of plenty by the selfish policy of the monopolists of grain, and, driven to desperation, were on the point of attacking the responsible authorities. Apollonius, at this crisis, wrote the following address, and gave it to the magistrates to read aloud:—

Philostratus assures us that “intimidated by these indignant words they filled the market with grain, and the city recovered from its distress.”

THE earliest of the Latin Fathers extant is, also, one of the most esteemed by the Church,[54] notwithstanding the well-known heterodoxy of his later life, as the first Apologist of Christianity in the Western and Latin world. He was a native of Carthage, the son of an officer holding an important post under the imperial government. The facts of his life known to us are very few, nor is it ascertained at what period he became a convert to the new religion, or when he was ordained as presbyter. The ill-treatment to which he was subjected by his clerical brethren at Rome induced him, it seems, to throw in his lot with the Montanist sect, in whose defence he wrote several books. He lived to an advanced age.

[Pg 52]

Of his numerous works the best known (by name at least) is his Apologeticus (“An Apology for Christianity”). Amongst his other treatises we may enumerate De Spectaculis (“On Shows”), On Idolatry, On the Soldier’s Crown (in which Tertullian raises the question of the lawfulness of the “violent and sanguinary occupation” of the soldier, but rather, however, for the reason of the circumstances of the pagan ceremonial), On Monogamy, On the Dress of Women (upon the extravagance of which the “Old Fathers” were eloquently denunciative), Address to his Wife. The treatise which here concerns us is his De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos.[55]

Tertullian sets himself to expose the subterfuge of a large proportion of the professing Christians in his day who appealed to the pretended authority of Christ and his Apostles for the lawfulness of flesh-eating. Especially does he refute the (supposed) defence of kreophagy in I. Tim. iv., 3.[56] As to the celebrated verse in Genesis which solemnly enjoins the vegetable diet, the opponents of abstinence allege the permission afterwards given to the “post-diluvians.”

[Pg 53]

He quotes the various passages in the Jewish Scriptures, in which the causes of the idolatrous proclivities and the crimes of the earlier Jews are connected by Jehovah and his prophets with flesh-eating and gross living:—

He instances Daniel and his countrymen, “who preferred vegetable food and water to the royal dishes and goblets, and so became more comely than the rest, in order that no one might fear for his personal appearance; while, at the same time, they were still more improved in understanding.” As to the priesthood:—

[Pg 54]

In regard to St. Paul’s well-known sentences (Rom. xiv., 1, &c.), Tertullian maintains that he refers to certain teachers of abstinence who acted from pride, not from a sense of right:—

THE attitude of the first great Christian writers and apologists in regard to total abstinence was somewhat peculiar. Trained in the school of Plato, in the later development of neo-platonism, their strongest convictions and their personal sympathies were, naturally, anti-kreophagistic. The traditions, too, of the earliest period in the history of Christianity coincided with their pre-Christian convictions, since the immediate and accredited representatives of the Founder of the new religion, who presided over the first Christian society, were commonly held to have been, equally with their predecessors and contemporaries the Essenes, strict abstinents from flesh-eating.[63]

Moreover, the very numerous party in the Church—the most diametrically opposed in other respects to the Jewish or Ebionite Christians—the Gnostics or philosophical Christians, “the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name,” for the most part agreed with their rivals for orthodox supremacy in aversion from flesh, and, as it seems, for nearly the same reason—a belief in the essential and inherent evil of matter, a persuasion, it may be said, however unscientific, not unnatural, perhaps, in any age, and certainly not surprising in an age especially characterised by the grossest materialism,[Pg 57] selfishness, and cruelty. But the creed of the Christian church, which eventually became the prevailing and ruling dogma, like that of the English Church at the Revolution of the sixteenth century, was a compromise—a compromise between the two opposite parties of those who received and those who rejected the old Jewish revelation.

On the one hand Christianity, in its later and more developed form, had insensibly cast off the rigid formalism and exclusiveness of Mosaism, and, on the other, had stamped with the brand of heresy the Greek infusion of philosophy and liberalism. Unfortunately, unable clearly to distinguish between the true and the false—between the accidental and fanciful and the permanent and real—timidly cautious of approving anything which seemed connected with heresy—the leaders of the dominant body were prone to seek refuge in a middle course, in regard to the question of flesh-eating, scarcely consistent with strict logic or strict reason. While advocating abstinence as the highest spiritual exercise or aspiration, they seem to have been unduly anxious to disclaim any motives other than ascetic—to disclaim, in fine, humanitarian or “secular” reason, such as that of the Pythagoreans.

Such was the feeling, apparently, of the later orthodox church, at least in the West. While, however, we thus find, occasionally, a certain constraint and even contradiction in the theory of the first great teachers of the Church, the practice was much more consistent. That, in fact, during the first three or four centuries the most esteemed of the Christian heroes and saints were not only non-flesh-eaters but Vegetarians of the extremest kind (far surpassing, if we give any credit to the accounts we have of them, the most frugal of modern abstainers) is well known to everyone at all acquainted with ecclesiastical and, especially, eremitical history—and it is unnecessary to further insist upon a notorious fact.[64]

Titus Flavius Clemens, the founder of the famous Alexandrian school of Christian theology, and at once the most learned and most philosophic of all the Christian Fathers, is generally supposed to have been a native of Athens. His Latin name suggests some connexion with the family of Clemens, cousin of the emperor Domitian, who is said to have been put to death for the crime of atheism, as the new religion was commonly termed by the orthodox pagans.

[Pg 58]

He travelled and studied the various philosophies in the East and West. On accepting the Christian faith he sought information in the schools of its most reputed teachers, of whom the name of Pantænus is the only one known to us. At the death of Pantænus, in 190, Clement succeeded to the chair of theology in Alexandria, and at the same time, perhaps, he became a presbyter. He continued to lecture with great reputation till the year 202, when the persecution under Severus forced him to retire from the Egyptian capital. He then took refuge in Palestine, and appears not to have returned to Alexandria. The time and manner of his death are alike unknown. He is supposed to have died in the year 220. Amongst his pupils by far the most famous, hardly second to himself in learning and ability, was Origen, his successor in the Alexandrian professorship.

His three great works are: A Hortatory Discourse Addressed to the Greeks (Λόγος Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἓλληνας), The Instructor (Paidagogos—strictly, Tutor, or Conductor to school), and the Miscellanies (Stromateis, or Stromata—lit. “Patch-work”).[65] The three works were intended to form a graduated and complete initiation and instruction in Christian theology and ethics. The first is addressed to the pagan Greek world, the second to the recent convert, and in the last he conducts the initiated to the higher gnosis, or knowledge. The Miscellanies originally consisted of eight books, the last of which is lost. The whole series is of unusual value, not only as the record of the opinions of the ablest and most philosophical of the mediators between Greek philosophy and the Christian creed, but also as containing an immense amount of information on Greek life and literature. Eloquence, earnestness, and erudition equally characterise the writings of Clement.

He assumes the name and character of a Gnostic,[66] or philosophic Christian, not in the historical but in his own sense of the word, and professes himself an eclectic—as far as a liberal interpretation of his religion admitted. “By philosophy,” he says,[Pg 59] “I do not mean the Stoic, the Platonic, the Epicurean, or the Aristotelian, but all that has been well said in each of those sects teaching righteousness with religious science—all this selected truth (τοῦτο σύμπαν τὸ ἐκλεκτικὸν) I call philosophy.” Again, he echoes the sentiments of Seneca in lamenting that “we incline more to beliefs that are in repute (τὰ ἔνδοξα), even when they are contradictory, than to the truth” (Miscellanies, i. and vii.). “It would have been well for Christianity if the principles, which he set forth with such an array of profound scholarship and ingenious reasoning, had been adopted more generally by those who came after him.... If anyone, even in a Protestant community, were to assert the liberal and comprehensive principles of the great Father of Alexandria, he would be told that he wished to compromise the distinctive claims of theology, and that he was little better than a heathen and a publican.”[67]

It is in his second treatise, the Instructor or Tutor, that Clement displays his opinions on the subject of flesh-eating:—

Referring to the injunction of Jesus, “When thou makest an entertainment, call the poor,” for “whose sake chiefly a supper ought to be made,” Clement says of the rich:—

[Pg 60]

As to the Jewish laws: “The Jews,” says Clement, “had frugality enjoined on them by the Law in the most systematic manner. For the Instructor, by Moses, deprived them of the use of innumerable things, adding reasons—the spiritual ones hidden, the carnal ones apparent—to which latter, indeed, they have trusted”:—

[Pg 61]

In treating of the subject of sacrifices, upon which he uses a good deal of sarcasm (in regard to the pagan sacrifices at least), Clement incidentally allows us to see, still further, his opinion respecting gross feeding. He quotes several of the Greek poets who ridicule the practice and pretence of sacrificial propitiation, e.g., Menander:—

“If, in fact,” remarks Clement, “the savour is the special desire of the Gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the cooks, and worship the Chimney itself which is still closer to the much-prized savour?”

The only innocent altar he asserts to be the one allowed by Pythagoras:—

[Pg 62]

He next glances at the popular reason for the Pythagorean abstinence, and declares:—

In a chapter in his Miscellanies, discussing the comparative merits of the Pagan and of the Jewish code of ethics, he displays much eloquence in attempting to prove the superiority of the latter. In the course of his argument he is led to make some acknowledgment of the claims of the lower animals which, however incomplete, is remarkable as being almost unique in Christian theology. He quotes certain of the “Proverbs,” e.g., ‘The merciful man is long-suffering, and in every one who shows solicitude there is wisdom,’ and proceeds (assuming the indebtedness of the Greeks to the Jews):—

Reverting to the Jewish religion, he asserts:—

ONE of the most erudite, as well as one of the most spiritual, of the literati of any age or people, and certainly the most estimable of all the extant Greek philosophers after the days of Plutarch, was born either at Tyre or at some neighbouring town. His original name, Malchus, the Greek form of the Syrian Melech (king), and the name by which he is known to us, Porphyrius (purple-robed), we may well take deservedly to mark his philosophic superiority. He was exceptionally fortunate in his preceptors—Longinus, the most eloquent and elegant of the later Greek critics, under whom he studied at Athens; Origen, the most independent and learned of the Christian Fathers, from whom, probably, he derived his vast knowledge of theological literature; and, finally, Plotinus, the famous founder of New-Platonism, who had established his school at Rome in the year 244.

Upon first joining the school of Plotinus, he had ventured to contest some of the characteristic doctrines of his new teacher, and he even wrote a book to refute them. Amerius, his fellow-disciple,[Pg 64] was chosen to reply to this attack. After a second trial of strength by each antagonist, Amerius, by weight of argument induced Porphyry to confess his errors, and to read his recantation before the assembled Platonists. Porphyry ever after remained an attached and enthusiastic follower of the beloved master, with the final revision and edition of whose voluminous works he was entrusted. He had lived with him six years when, becoming so far unsettled in his mind as even to contemplate suicide in order to free himself from the shackles of the flesh, by the persuasion of his preceptor he made a voyage to Sicily for the restoration of his health and serenity of mind. This was in 270, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Returning to the capital upon the death of his master, he continued the amiable but vain work of attempting the reform of the established religion, which had then sunk to its lowest degradation, and to this labour of love he may be said to have devoted his whole life. At an advanced age he married Marcella, the widow of one of his friends, who was a Christian and the mother of a rather numerous progeny, with the view, as he tells us, of superintending the education of her children.

About sixty separate works of Porphyry are enumerated by Fabricius, published, unpublished, or lost; the last numbering some forty-three distinct productions. The most important of his writings are—

(1) On Abstinence from the Flesh of Living Beings,[76] in four books, addressed to a certain Firmus Castricius, a Pythagorean, who for some reason or other had become a renegade to the principles, or at least to the practice, of his old faith. Next to the inculcation of abstinence as a spiritual or moral obligation, Porphyry’s “chief object seems to have been to recommend a more spiritual worship in the place of the sacrificial system of the pagan world, with all its false notions and practical abuses. This work,” adds Dr. Donaldson, “is valuable on many accounts, and full of information.”

(2) His criticism on Christianity, which he entitled a Treatise against the Christians—his most celebrated production. It was divided into fifteen books. All our knowledge of it is derived from Eusebius, Jerome, and other ecclesiastical writers. Several years after its appearance the courtly Bishop of Cæsarea, the well-known historian of the first ages of Christianity, replied to it in a work extending to twenty-five books. More than a century later, Theodosius II. caused the obnoxious volume to be publicly burned, and Porphyry’s criticism shared the fate of those[Pg 65] “many elaborate treatises which have since been committed to the flames” by the theological or political zeal of orthodox emperors and princes.[77]

(3) The Life of Pythagoras—a fragment, but, as far as it goes, the most interesting of the Pythagorean biographies.

(4) On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of his Works. It is to this biography we are indebted for our knowledge of the estimable elaborator of New-Platonism. We learn that he was the pupil of Ammonius, who disputes with Numenius the fame of having originated the principles of the new school of thought of which Plotinus, however, was the St. Paul—the actual founder. Of a naturally feeble constitution, he had early betaken himself to the consolations of divine philosophy. After vainly seeking rest for his truth-loving and aspiring spirit in other systems, he at last found in Ammonius the teacher and teaching which his intellectual and spiritual sympathies demanded. His great ambition was to visit the country of Buddha and of Zerdusht or Zoroaster, and, for that purpose, he joined the expedition of the Emperor Gordian against the Persians. The defeat and death of that prince frustrated his plans. He then settled at Rome, where he established his school, and he remained in Italy until his death in 270. By the earnest solicitations of his disciples, Porphyry and Amerius, he was induced with much reluctance to publish his oral discourses, and eventually they appeared in fifty-four books, edited by Porphyry, who gave them the name of the Enneads, as being arranged in six groups of nine treatises. Perhaps no teacher ever engaged to so unbounded an extent the admiration and affection of his followers.

[Pg 66]

The “practical common sense” (which usually may be interpreted to mean cynical indifferentism), of the statesmen and politicians of the day interposed to prevent this attempt at a realisation of Plato’s great ideal; and, considering the prematurity of such ideas in the then condition of the world—and, it must be added, the extravagance of some of them—we can, perhaps, hardly regret that his “Republic” was never instituted. As to the essence and spirit of the teaching of Plotinus,

The personal humility of this sublime teacher, we may add, seems to have equalled the loftiness of his inspiration.

Of the other writings of Porphyry, space allows us to refer only to his Epistle to Anebo—a critical refutation of some of the popular prejudices of Pagan theology, such as the grosser dæmonism, necromancy, and incantation,[78] and, above all, animal sacrifice, to which his keen spiritual sense was essentially antagonistic. It is known only by fragments preserved in Eusebius. As to the theological or metaphysical opinions of Porphyry, “it is clear,” remarks Dr. Donaldson,[Pg 67] “that he had but little faith in the old polytheism of the Greeks. He expressly tells his wife (Letter to Marcella) that outward worship does neither good nor harm.” In truth, as regards the better parts of Christianity, he was nearer to the religion of Jesus than of Jupiter, although he found himself in opposition to what he considered the evils or errors of dogmatic Christian theology. In common with most of the principal expounders of Neo-Platonism,[79] his sympathies were with much that was contained in the Christian Scriptures, and, in particular, with the fourth Gospel, the sublime beginning of which, we are assured, the disciples of Plato regarded as “an exact transcript of their own opinions,” and which, as St. Augustin informs us (De Civ. Dei x., 29), they declared to be worthy to be written in letters of gold, and inscribed in the most conspicuous place in every Christian church.

As for the learning, as well as lofty ideas, of the author of the treatise On Abstinence, there has been a general consensus of opinion even from his theological opponents. Augustin, himself among the most learned of the Latin Fathers, styles him doctissimus philosophorum (“the most learned of the philosophers”), and, again, philosophus nobilis (“a noble philosopher”), “a man of no common mind” (De Civit. Dei); and elsewhere he calls him “the great philosopher of the heathen.” Even Eusebius, his immediate antagonist, concedes to him the titles of “the noble philosopher,” “the wonderful theologian,” “the great prophet of ineffable doctrines” (ὁ τῶν ἀποῤῥητων μύστης). Donaldson, endorsing the common admiration of the moderns, describes his learning and erudition as “stupendous.”

Amongst modern testimonies to the merits of Porphyry’s treatise, On Abstinence, the sympathising remarks of Voltaire are worth transcribing:—

Of this famous treatise there is, it appears, only one English translation, that of Taylor (1851), long out of print; and there is a German version by Herr Ed. Baltzer, President of the Vegetarian Society of Germany; thus we have to lament for Porphyry, no less than for Plutarch, the indifferentism of the publishers, or rather of the public, which allows a production, of an inspiration far above that of the common herd of writers, to continue to be a sealed book for the community in general.

It has been already stated that it consists of four Divisions. The first treats of Abstinence from the point of view of Temperance and Reason. In the second is considered the lawfulness or otherwise of animal sacrifice. In the third Porphyry treats the subject from the side of Justice. In the fourth he reviews the practice of some of the nations of antiquity and of the East—of the Egyptians, Hindus, and others. This last Book, by its abrupt termination, is evidently unfinished.

[Pg 69]

Porphyry begins with an expression of surprise and regret at the apostasy of the Pythagorean renegade:—

He expresses his hope, or rather his belief, that, at least, the lapse was not due in this case to natural intemperance, or regret for the gluttonous habits (λαιμαργίας) of flesh-eating.

He then proceeds to quote and refute the fallacies of the ordinary systems and sects, and, in particular, the objections of one Clodius, a Neapolitan, who had published a treatise against Pythagoreanism. He professes that he does not hope to influence those who are engaged in sordid and selfish, or in sanguinary, pursuits. Rather he addresses himself to the man

In condemning animal sacrifice, he declares that “it is by means of an exalted and purified intellect alone that we can approximate to the Supreme Being, to whom nothing material should be offered.” He distinguishes four degrees of virtue, the lowest being that of the man who attempts to moderate his passions; the highest, the life of pure reason, by which man becomes one with the Supreme Existence.

In the third book, maintaining that other animals are endowed with high degrees of reasoning and of mental faculties, and, in some measure,[Pg 70] even with moral perception, Porphyry proceeds logically to insist that they are, therefore, the proper objects of Justice:—

Porphyry, it is scarcely necessary to remark, by these arguments proves himself to have been, in moral as well as mental perception, as far ahead of the average thinkers of the present day as he was of his own times. He justly maintains that

To the objection of Chrysippus (the second founder of the school of the Porch) that the gods made us for themselves and for the sake of each other, and that they made the non-human species for us—a convenient subterfuge by no means unknown to writers and talkers of our own times—Porphyry unanswerably replies:—

Porphyry unanswerably and eloquently concludes this division of his subject with the à fortiori argument:—

In fine, according to Porphyry, he who extends his sympathies to all innocent life is nearest to the Divine nature. Well would it have been for all the after-ages had this, the only sure foundation of any code of ethics worthy of the name, found favour with the constituted instructors and rulers of the western world. The fourth and final Book reviews the dietetic habits of some of the leading peoples of antiquity, and of certain of the philosophic societies which practised abstinence more or less rigidly. As for the Essenes, Porphyry describes their code of morals and manner of living in terms of high praise. We can here give only an abstract of his eloquent eulogium:—

The testimony of the national historian of the Jews, it is interesting to observe, is equally favourable to those pioneers of the modern communisms. “The Essenes, as we call a sect of ours,” writes Josephus,[Pg 73] “pursue the same kind of life as those whom the Greeks call Pythagoreans. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them exist above a hundred years by means of their simplicity of diet and the regular course of their lives” (Antiquities of the Jews.). Upon entering the society and partaking of the common meal (which, with baptism, was the outward and visible sign of initiation) three solemn oaths were administered to each aspirant:—

As for their food, while they seem not to have been bound to total abstinence from every kind of flesh, they may be considered to have been almost Vegetarian in practice. To kill any innocent individual of the non-human species that had sought refuge or an asylum amongst them was a breach of the most sacred laws: to spare the domesticated races, or fellow-workers with man, even in an enemy’s country, was a solemn duty. For, says Porphyry, their founder had no groundless fear that there could be any overabundance of life productive of famine to ourselves, inasmuch as he knew, first, that those animals who bring forth many young at a time are short lived, and, secondly, that their too rapid increase is kept down by other hostile animals. “A proof of which is,” he continues, “that though we abstain from eating very many, such as dogs, wild beasts, rats, lizards, and others, there is yet no fear that we should ever suffer from famine in consequence of their excessive multiplication; and, again, it is one thing to have to kill, and another to eat, since we have to kill many ferocious animals whom we do not also eat.”

He quotes the historians of Syria who allege that, in the earlier period, the inhabitants of that part of the world abstained from all flesh, and, therefore, from sacrifice; and that when, afterwards, to avert some impending misfortune they were induced to offer up propitiatory victims, the practice of flesh-eating was by no means general. And Asklepiades says, in his History of Cyprus and Phœnicia, that “no living being was sacrificed to heaven, nor was there even any express law on the subject, since it was forbidden by the law of Nature (νομῷ φυσικῷ):” that, in course of time, they took to occasional propitiatory sacrifice: and that, at one of these times, the sacrificing priest happened to place his blood-smeared finger on his mouth, was tempted to repeat the action, and thus[Pg 74] introduced the habit of flesh-eating, whence the general practice. As for the Persian Magi (the successors of Zerdusht), we are informed that the principal and most esteemed of their order neither eat nor kill any living being, while those of the second class eat the flesh of some, but not of domesticated, animals; nor do even the third order eat indiscriminately. Instances are adduced of certain peoples who, being compelled by necessity to live upon flesh, have evidently deteriorated and been rendered savage and ferocious, “from which examples it is clearly unbecoming men of good disposition to belie their human nature (τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης καταψεύδεσθαι φύσεως).”

Amongst individuals he instances the example of the traditionary Athenian legislator Triptolemus—

Somewhat later than Porphyry, the name of Julian (331–363), the Roman emperor, may here be fitly introduced. During his brief reign of sixteen months he proved himself, if not always a judicious, yet a sincere and earnest reformer of abuses of various kinds, and he may claim to be one of the very few virtuous princes, pagan or christian. Unfortunately the just blame attaching to his ill-judged attempt to suppress the religion of Constantine, from whose family his relatives and himself had suffered the greatest injury and insult, has enabled the lovers of party rather than of truth successfully to conceal from view his undoubted merits.

In his manner of living, with which alone we are now concerned, he seems to have almost rivalled the most ascetic of the Platonists or of the Christian anchorets. One of his most intimate friends, the celebrated[Pg 75] orator, Libanius, who had often shared the frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked that his “light and sparing diet, which was usually of the vegetable kind, left his mind and body always free and active for the various and important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince.” That his frugal diet had not impaired his powers, either physical or mental, may sufficiently appear from the fact that—

Following the principles of Platonism,[Pg 76] “he justly concluded that the man who presumes to reign should aspire to the perfection of the divine nature—that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial part—that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild beast which, according to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot.” With all these virtues, unfortunately for his credit as a philosopher and humanitarian, the imperial Stoic allowed his natural goodness of heart to be corrupted by superstition and fanaticism. Conceiving himself to be the special and chosen instrument of the Deity for the restoration of the fallen religion, which he regarded as the true faith, he made it the foremost object of his pious but misdirected ambition to re-establish its sumptuous temples, priesthoods, and sacrificial altars with all their imposing ritual, and “he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could render each individual richer than Midas and every city greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of mankind, unless at the same time he could reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods.”[90] Inspired by this religious zeal, he forgot the maxims of his master, Plato, so far as to rival, if not surpass, the ancient Jewish or Pagan ritual in the number of the sacrificial victims offered up in the name of religion and of the Deity. Happily for the future of the world, the fanatical piety of this youthful champion of the religion of Homer proved ineffectual to turn back the slow onward march of the Western mind, through fearful mazes of evil and error indeed, towards that “diviner day” which is yet to dawn for the Earth.

THE most eloquent, and one of the most estimable, of the “Fathers” was born at Antioch, the Christian city par excellence. His family held a distinguished position, and his father was in high command in the Syrian division of the imperial army. He studied for the law, and was instructed in oratory by the famous rhetorician Libanius (the intimate friend and counsellor of the young Emperor Julian), who pronounced his pupil worthy to succeed to his chair, if he had not adopted the Christian faith. He soon gave up the law for theology, and retired to a monastery, near Antioch, where he passed four years, rigidly abstaining from flesh-meat and, like the Essenes, abandoning the rights of private property and living a life of the strictest asceticism.

[Pg 77]

Having submitted himself in solitude to the severest austerities during a considerable length of time, he entered the Church, and soon gained the highest reputation for his extraordinary eloquence and zeal. On the death of the Archbishop of Constantinople, he was unanimously elected to fill the vacant Primacy. The nolo me episcopari seems, in his case, to have been no unmeaning formula. His beneficence and charity in the new position attracted general admiration. From the revenues of his See he founded a hospital for the sick—one of the very first of those rather modern institutions. The fame of the “Golden-mouthed” drew to his cathedral immense crowds of people, who before had frequented the theatre and the circus rather than the churches, and the building constantly resounded with their enthusiastic plaudits. He was, however, no mere popular preacher; he fearlessly exposed the corrupt and selfish life of the large body of the clergy. At one time he deposed, it is said, no less than thirteen bishops, in Lesser Asia, from their Sees; and in one of his Homilies he does not hesitate to charge “the whole ecclesiastical body with avarice and licentiousness, asserting that the number of bishops who could be saved bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned.”[91]

At length, his repeated denunciations of the too notorious scandals of the Court and the Church excited the bitter enmity of his brother-prelates, and, by their intrigues at the Imperial Court of Constantinople, he was deposed from his See and exiled to the wildest parts of the Euxine coasts, where, exposed to every sort of privation, he caught a violent fever and died. So far did the hostility of the Episcopacy extend, that one of his rivals, a bishop, named Theophilus, in a book expressly written against him, amongst other vituperative epithets had proceeded to the length of styling him “a filthy demon,” and of solemnly consigning his soul to Satan. With the poor, however, Chrysostom enjoyed unbounded popularity and esteem. His greatest fault was his theological intolerance—a fault, it is just to add, of the age rather than of the man.

The writings of Chrysostom are exceedingly voluminous—700 homilies, orations, doctrinal treatises, and 242 epistles. Their “chief value consists in the illustrations they furnish of the manners of the fourth and fifth centuries—of the moral and social state of the period. The circus, spectacles, theatres, baths, houses, domestic economy, banquets, dresses, fashions, pictures, processions, tight-rope dancing, funerals—in fine, everything has a place in the picture of licentious luxury which it is the object of Chrysostom to denounce.” Next to his profession of[Pg 78] faith in the efficacy and virtues of a non-flesh diet, amongst the most interesting of his productions is his Golden Book on the education of the young. He recommends that children should be inured to habits of temperance, by abstaining, at least, twice a week from the ordinary grosser food with which they are supplied. As might be expected from the age, and from his order, the practice of Chrysostom, and of the numerous other ecclesiastical abstinents from the gross diet of the richer part of the community, reposed upon ascetic and traditionary principles, rather than on the more secular and modern motives of justice, humanity, and general social improvement. So, in fact, Origen, one of the most learned of the Fathers, expressly says (Contra Celsum, v.): “We [the Christian leaders] practise abstinence from the flesh of animals to buffet our bodies and treat them as slaves (ὑπωπιάζομεν καί δουλαγωγοῦμεν), and we wish to mortify our members upon earth,” &c.

Accordingly, the Apostolical Canons distinguished, as Bingham (Antiquities of the Christian Church) reports them, between abstinents, διὰ τὴν ἀσκησιν and διὰ τὴν βδελυπίαν, i.e., between those who abstained to exercise self-control, and those who did so from disgust and abhorrence of what, in ordinary and orthodox language, are too complacently and confidently termed “the good creatures of God.” This distinction, it must be added, holds only of the prevailing sentiment of the Orthodox Church as finally established. During several centuries—even so late as the Paulicians in the seventh, or even as the Albigeois of the thirteenth, century—Manicheism, as it is called, or a belief in the inherent evil of all matter, was widely spread in large and influential sections of the Christian Church—nor, indeed, were some of its most famous Fathers without suspicion of this heretical taint. According to the Clementine Homilies, “the unnatural eating of flesh-meat is of demoniacal origin, and was introduced by those giants who, from their bastard nature, took no pleasure in pure nourishment, and only lusted after blood. Therefore the eating of flesh is as polluting as the heathen worship of demons, with its sacrifices and its impure feasts; through participation in which, a man becomes a fellow-dietist (ὁμοδίαιτος) with demons.”[92] That superstition was often, in the minds of the followers both of Plato and of St. Paul, mixed up with, and, indeed, usually dominated over, the reasonable motives of the more philosophic advocates of the higher life, there can be no sort of doubt; nor can we claim a monopoly of rational motives for the mass of the adherents of either Christian or Pythagorean abstinence. Yet an impartial judgment must allow almost equal credit to the earnestness of mind and purity of motive[Pg 79] which, mingled though they undoubtedly were with (in the pre-scientific ages) a necessary infusion of superstition, urged the followers of the better way—Christian and non-Christian—to discard the “social lies” of the dead world around them. At all events, it is not for the selfish egoists to sneer at the sublime—if error-infected—efforts of the earlier pioneers of moral progress for their own and the world’s redemption from the bonds of the prevailing vile materialism in life and dietary habits.

We have already shown that the earliest Jewish-Christian communities, both in Palestine and elsewhere—the immediate disciples of the original Twelve—enjoined abstinence as one of the primary obligations of the New Faith; and that the earliest traditions represent the foremost of them as the strictest sort of Vegetarians.[93] If then we impartially review the history of the practice, the teaching, and the traditions of the first Christian authorities, it cannot but appear surprising that the Orthodox Church, ignoring the practice and highest ideal of the most sacred period of its annals, has, even within its own Order, deemed it consistent with its claim of being representative of the Apostolic period to substitute partial and periodic for total and constant abstinence.

The following passages in the Homilies, or Congregational Discourses, of Chrysostom will serve as specimens of his feeling on the propriety of dietary reform. The eloquent but diffusive style of the Greek Bossuet, it must be noted, is necessarily but feebly represented in the literal English version:—

[Pg 80]

Again he protests:—

Denouncing the grossness of the ordinary mode of living, he eloquently descants on the evil results, physical as well as mental:—

From this period—the fifth century A.D. down to the sixteenth—Christian and Western literature contains little or nothing which comes within the purpose of this work. The merits of monastic asceticism were more or less preached during all those ages, although constant abstinence from flesh was by no means the general practice even with[Pg 82] the inmates of the stricter monastic or conventual establishments—at all events in the Latin Church. But we look in vain for traces of anything like the humanitarian feeling of Plutarch or Porphyry. The mental intelligence as well as capacities for physical suffering of the non-human races—necessarily resulting from an organisation in all essential points like to our own—was apparently wholly ignored; their just rights and claims upon human justice were disregarded and trampled under foot. Consistently with the universal estimate, they were treated as beings destitute of all feeling—as if, in fine, they are the “automatic machines” they are alleged to be by the Cartesians of the present day. In those terrible ages of gross ignorance, of superstition, of violence, and of injustice—in which human rights were seldom regarded—it would have been surprising indeed if any sort of regard had been displayed for the non-human slaves. And yet an underlying and latent consciousness of the falseness of the general estimate sometimes made itself apparent in certain extraordinary and perverse fancies.[98] To Montaigne, the first to revive the humanitarianism of Plutarch, belongs the great merit of reasserting the natural rights of the helpless slaves of human tyranny.

While Chrysostom seems to have been one of the last of Christian writers who manifested any sort of consciousness of the inhuman, as well as unspiritual nature of the ordinary gross foods, Platonism continued to bear aloft the flickering torch of a truer spiritualism; and “the golden chain” of the prophets of the dietary reformation reached down even so late as to the end of the sixth century. Hierokles, author of the commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, to which reference has already been made, and who lectured upon them with great success at Alexandria; Hypatia, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Theon the great mathematician, who publicly taught the philosophy of Plato at the same great centre of Greek science and learning, and was barbarously murdered by the jealousy of her Christian rival Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria; Proklus, surnamed the Successor, as having been considered the most illustrious disciple of Plato in the latter times, who left several treatises upon the Pythagorean system, and “whose sagacious mind explored the deepest questions of morals and metaphysics”;[99] Olympiodorus, who wrote a life of Plato and commentaries on several of his dialogues, still extant, and lived in the reign of Justinian,[Pg 83] by whose edict the illustrious school of Athens was finally closed, and with it the last vestiges of a sublime, if imperfect, attempt at the purification of human life—such are some of the most illustrious names which adorned the days of expiring Greek philosophy. Olympiodorus and six other Pythagoreans determined, if possible, to maintain their doctrines elsewhere; and they sought refuge with the Persian Magi, with whose tenets, or, at least, manner of living, they believed themselves to be most in accord. The Persian customs were distasteful to the purer ideal of the Platonists, and, disappointed in other respects, they reluctantly relinquished their fond hopes of transplanting the doctrines of Plato into a foreign soil, and returned home. The Persian prince, Chosroes, we may add, acquired honour by his stipulation with the bigoted Justinian, that the seven sages should be allowed to live unmolested during the rest of their days. “Simplicius and his companions ended their lives in peace and obscurity; and, as they left no disciples, they terminated the long list of Grecian philosophers who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of the times, but his moral interpretation of Epiktetus is preserved in the library of nations as a classical book excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God and Man.”[100]

AFTER the extinction of Greek and Latin philosophy in the fifth century, a mental torpor seized upon and, during some thousand years, with rare exceptions, dominated the whole Western world. When this torpor was dispelled by the influence of returning knowledge and[Pg 84] reason evoked by the various simultaneous discoveries in science and literature—in particular by the achievements of Gutenberg, Vasco da Gama, Christopher Colon, and, above all, Copernik—the moral sense then first, too, began to show signs of life. The renascence of the sixteenth century, however, with all the vigour of thought and action which accompanied it, proved to be rather a revival of mere verbal learning than of the higher moral feeling of the best minds of old Greece and Italy. Men, fettered as they were in the trammels of theological controversy and metaphysical subtleties, for the most part expended their energies and their intellect in the vain pursuit of phantoms. With the very few splendid exceptions of the more enlightened and earnest thinkers, Ethics, in the real and comprehensive meaning of the word, was an unknown science; and a long period of time was yet to pass away before a perception of the universal obligations of Justice and of Right dawned upon the minds of men. In truth, it could not have been otherwise. Before the moral instincts can be developed, reason and knowledge must have sufficiently prepared the way. When attention to the importance of the neglected science of Dietetics had been in some degree aroused, the interest evoked was little connected with the higher sentiments of humanity.

Of all dietary reformers who have treated the subject from an exclusively sanitarian point of view, the most widely known and most popular name, perhaps, has been that of Luigi Cornaro; and it is as a vehement protester against the follies, rather than against the barbarism, of the prevailing dietetic habits that he claims a place in this work. He belonged to one of the leading families of Venice, then at the height of its political power. Even in an age and in a city noted for luxuriousness and grossness of living of the rich and dominant classes, he had in his youth distinguished himself by his licentious habits in eating and drinking, as well as by other excesses. His constitution had been so impaired, and he had brought upon himself so many disorders by this course of living, that existence became a burden to him. He informs us that from his thirty-fifth to his fortieth year he passed his nights and days in continuous suffering. Every sort of known remedy was exhausted before his new medical adviser, superior to the prejudices of his profession and of the public, had the courage and the good sense to prescribe a total change of diet. At first Cornaro found his enforced regimen almost intolerable, and, as he tells us, he occasionally relapsed.

These relapses brought back his old sufferings, and, to save his life, he was driven at length to practise entire and uniform abstinence, the yolk of an egg often furnishing him the whole of his meal. In this way he assures us that he came to relish dry bread more than formerly he[Pg 85] had enjoyed the most exquisite dishes of the ordinary table. At the end of the first year he found himself entirely freed from all his multiform maladies. In his eighty-third year he wrote and published his first exhortation to a radical change of diet under the title of A Treatise on a Sober Life,[101] in which he eloquently narrates his own case, and exhorts all who value health and immunity from physical or mental sufferings to follow his example. And his exordium, in which he takes occasion to denounce the waste and gluttony of the dinners of the rich, might be applied with little, or without any, modification of its language to the public and private tables of the present day:—

He tells us that he had undertaken his arduous task of proselytising with the more anxiety and zeal that he had been encouraged to it by many of his friends, men of “the finest intellect” (di bellissimo intelletto), who lamented the premature deaths of parents and relatives, and who observed so manifest a proof of the advantages of abstinence in the robust and vigorous frame of the dietetic missionary at the age of eighty. Cornaro was a thorough-going hygeist, and he followed a reformed diet in the widest meaning of the term, attending to the various requirements of a healthy condition of mind and body:—

At the age of seventy a serious accident befel him, which to the vast majority of men so far advanced in life would probably have been fatal. His coach was overturned, and he was dragged a considerable distance along the road before the horses could be stopped. He was taken up insensible, covered with severe wounds and bruises and with an arm and leg dislocated, and altogether he was in so dangerous a state that his physicians gave him only three days to live. As a matter of course they prescribed bleeding and purging as the only proper and effectual remedies:—

[Pg 87]

It is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that “The Faculty” will endorse the opinions of Cornaro, that any person by attending strictly to his regimen “could never be sick again, as it removes every cause of illness; and so, for the future, would never want either physician or physic”:—

Cornaro’s second publication appeared three years later than his first, under the title of A Compendium of a Sober Life and the third, An Earnest Exhortation to a Sober and Regular Life,[103] in the ninety-third year of his age. In these little treatises he repeats and enforces in the most earnest manner his previous exhortations and warnings. He also takes the opportunity of exposing some of the plausible sophisms employed in defence of luxurious living:—

Amongst others:—

Cornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the genius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to express his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous change effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered from the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which moreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before, the beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as develope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:—

The fourth and last of his appearances in print was a “Letter to Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia,” written at the age of ninety-five. It describes in a very lively manner the health, vigour, and use of all his faculties of mind and body, of which he had the perfect enjoyment. He was far advanced in life when his daughter, his only child, was born, and[Pg 89] he lived to see her an old woman. He informs us, at the age of ninety-one, with much eloquence and enthusiasm of the active interest and pleasure he experienced in all that concerned the prosperity of his native city: of his plans for improving its port; for draining, recovering, and fertilizing the extensive marshes and barren sands in its neighbourhood. He died, having passed his one hundredth year, calmly and easily in his arm-chair at Padua in the year 1566.[104] His treatises, forming a small volume, have been “very frequently published in Italy, both in the vernacular Italian and in Latin. It has been translated into all the civilised languages of Europe, and was once a most popular book. There are several English translations of it, the best being one that bears the date 1779. Cornaro’s system,” says the writer in the English Cyclopædia whom we are quoting, “has had many followers.” Recounting his many dignities and honours, and the distinguished part he took in the improvement of his native city, by which he acquired a great reputation amongst his fellow-citizens, the Italian editor of his writings justly adds:—

Addison (Spectator 195) thus refers to him:—

[Pg 90]

In fact he has exposed himself, it must be confessed, to the taunts of the “devotees of the Table” often cast at the abstinents, that they are too much given to parading their health and vigour, and certainly if any one can be justly obnoxious to them it is Luigi Cornaro.

DURING part of the period covered by the long life of Cornaro there is one distinguished man, all reference to whose opinions—intimately though indirectly connected as they are with dietary reform—it would be improper to omit—Sir Thomas More. His eloquent denunciation of the grasping avarice and the ruinous policy which were rapidly converting the best part of the country into grazing lands, as well as his condemnation of the slaughter of innocent life, commonly euphemised by the name of “sport,” are as instructive and almost as necessary for the present age as for the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Son of Sir John More, a judge of the King’s Bench, he was brought up in the palace of the Cardinal Lord Chancellor Morton, an ecclesiastic who stands out in favourable contrast with the great majority of his order, and, indeed, of his contemporaries in general. In his twenty-first year he was returned to the House of Commons, where he distinguished himself by opposing a grant of a subsidy to the king (Henry VII.). In 1516 he published (in Latin) his world-famed Utopia—the most meritorious production in sociological literature since the days of Plutarch. In 1523 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, and again he displayed his courage and integrity in resisting an illegal and oppressive subsidy bill, by which he was not in the way to advance his interests with Henry VIII. and his principal minister, Wolsey. Seven years later, however, upon the disgrace of the latter personage, Sir Thomas More succeeded to the vacant Chancellorship, in which office he maintained his reputation for integrity and laborious diligence. When the amorous and despotic king had determined upon the momentous divorce from Catherine, he resigned the Seals rather than sanction that[Pg 91] equivocal proceeding; and soon afterwards he was sent to the Tower for refusing the Oath of Supremacy. After the interval of a year he was brought to trial before the King’s Bench, and sentenced to the block (1535). In private life and in his domestic relations he exhibits a pleasing contrast to the ordinary harsh severity of his contemporaries. In learning and ability he occupies a foremost place in the annals of the period.

Unfortunately for his reputation with after ages, as Lord Chancellor he seems to have forgotten the maxims of toleration (political and theological) of his earlier career, so well set forth in his Utopia; and he supplies a notable instance, not too rare, of retrogression with advancing years and dignities, and of “a head grown grey in vain.” In fact, he belonged, ecclesiastically, to the school of conservative sceptics, of whom his intimate friend Erasmus was the most conspicuous representative, rather than to the party of practical reform. Yet, in spite of so lamentable a failure in practical philosophy, More may claim a high degree of merit both for his courage and for his sagacity in propounding views far in advance of his time.

In the Utopia his ideas in regard to labour and to crime exhibit him, indeed, as in advance of the received dogmas even of the present day. As to the former he held that the labourer, as the actual basis and support of the whole social system, was justly entitled to some consideration, and to a more rational existence than usually allowed him by the policy of the ruling classes; and, in limiting the daily period of labour to nine hours, he anticipated by 350 years the tardy legislation on that important matter. In exposing the equal absurdity and iniquity of the criminal code he preached the despised doctrine of prevention rather than punishment, and denounced the monstrous inequality of penalties by which thieving was placed in the same category with murder and crimes of violence:—

What we are immediately concerned with here is his feeling in regard to slaughter. The Utopians condemn—

[Pg 92]

In telling us that his model people “permit not their free citizens to accustom themselves to the killing of ‘beasts’ through the use whereof they think clemency, gentlest affection of our nature, by little and little to decay and perish,”[107] More for ever condemns the immorality of the Slaughter-House, whether he intended to do so in toto or no. In relegating the business of slaughter to their bondsmen (criminals who had been degraded from the rights of citizenship), the Utopians, we may observe, exhibit less of justice than of refinement. To devolve the trade of slaughter upon a pariah-class is not the least immoral of the necessary concomitants of the shambles. That the author of Utopia should feel an instinctive aversion from the coarseness and cruelty of the shambles is not surprising; that he should have failed to banish it entirely from his ideal commonwealth is less to be wondered at[Pg 93] than to be lamented. That he had at least a latent consciousness of the indefensibility of slaughter for food appears sufficiently clear from his remark upon the Utopian religion that “they kill no living animal in sacrifice, nor do they think that God has delight in blood and slaughter, Who has given life to animals to the intent they should live.”

Wiser than ourselves, the ideal people do not waste their corn in the manufacture of alcoholic drinks:—

The selfish policy of converting arable into grazing land is emphatically denounced by More:—

These sagacious and just reflections upon the evil social consequences of carnivorousness may be fitly commended to the earnest attention of our public writers and speakers of to-day. The periodical cattle plagues and foot-and-mouth diseases, which, in theological language, are vaguely assigned to national sins, might be more ingenuously and truthfully attributed to the one sufficient cause—to the general indulgence of selfish instincts, which closes the ear to all the promptings at once of humanity and of reason, and is, in truth, a national sin of the most serious character.[108]

[Pg 94]

The “wisdom of our ancestors,” which has been so often invoked, both before and since the days of More, and which Bentham has so mercilessly exposed, apparently did not subdue the reason of the author of Utopia; yet, with no little amount of applause it has been made to serve as a very conclusive argument against dietetic reformation, as against many other changes:—

THE modern Plutarch and the first of essayists deserves his place in this work, if not so much for express and explicit denunciation, totidem verbis, of the barbarism of the Slaughter-House, at least for a sort of argument which logically and necessarily arrives at the same conclusion. In truth, if he had not “seen and approved the better way” (even though, with too many others, he may not have had the courage of his convictions), he would be no true disciple of the great humanitarian. It is necessary to remember that the “perfect day” was not yet come; that a few rays only here and there enlightened the thick darkness of barbarism; that, in fine, not even yet, with the light of truth shining full upon us, have reason and conscience triumphed, as regards the mass of the community, either in this country or elsewhere.

Michel de Montaigne descended from an old and influential house in Périgord (modern Périgeaux, in the department of the Dordogne). His youth was carefully trained, and his early inclination to learning fostered under his father’s diligent superintendence. He became a member of the provincial parliament, and, by the universal suffrage of his fellow-citizens, was elected chief magistrate of Bordeaux, from the official routine of whose duties he soon retired to the more congenial atmosphere[Pg 95] of study and philosophic reflection. In his château, at Montaigne, his studious tranquillity was violently interrupted by the savage contests then raging between the opposing factions of Catholics and Huguenots, from both of whom he received ill-treatment and loss. To add to his troubles, the plague, which appeared in Guienne in 1586, broke up his household and compelled him, with his family, to abandon his home. Together they wandered through the country, exposed to the various dangers of a civil war; and he afterwards for some time settled in Paris. He had also travelled in Italy. Montaigne returned to his home when the disturbances and atrocities had somewhat subsided, and there he died with the philosophic calmness with which he had lived.

The Essais—that book of “good faith,” “without study and artifice,” as its author justly calls it—appeared in the year 1580. It is a book unique in modern literature, and the only other production to which it may be compared is the Moralia of Plutarch. “It is not a book we are reading, but a conversation to which we are listening.” “It is,” as another French critic observes, “less a book than a journal divided into chapters, which follow one another without connexion, which bear each a title without much regard to the fulfilment of their promise.”

Montaigne treats of almost every phase of human thought and action; and upon every subject he has something original and worth saying. Living in a savagely sectarian and persecuting age, he kept himself aloof and independent of either of the two contending theological sections, and contents himself with the rôle of a sceptical spectator. It must be admitted that he is not always satisfactory in this character, since he sometimes seems to give forth an “uncertain sound.” Considering the age, however, his assertion of the proper authority of Reason deserves our respectful admiration, and is in pleasing contrast with the attitude of most of his contemporaries. A few, like his friend De Thou, or the Italian Giordano Bruno—the latter of whom, indeed, had more of the martyr-spirit than Montaigne—contributed to keep alight the torch of Truth and Reason. But we have only to recollect that it was the age par excellence of Diabolism in Catholic and Protestant theology alike, and of all the horrible superstitions and frightful tortures, both bodily and mental, of which the universal belief in the Devil’s actual reign on earth was the fruitful cause. About the very time of the appearance of the Essais, one of the most learned men of the period, the lawyer Jean Bodin published a work which he called the Démonomanie des Sorciers (the “Diabolic Inspiration of Witches”), in which he protested his unwavering faith in the most monstrous beliefs of the creed, and vehemently called upon the judges, ecclesiastical and civil, to punish the[Pg 96] reputed criminals (accused of an impossible crime) with the severest tortures. We have only to recognise this fact alone (the most astounding of all the astounding facts and phases in the history of Superstition) to do full justice to the reason and courage of this small band of protesters.

As for the influence of Montaigne on the modes of thought of after times, and especially of his countrymen, it can scarcely be over estimated. He is the literary progenitor of the most famous French writers of the humanitarian eighteenth century. The most eminent of them, Voltaire, perhaps, most resembles him, but naturally the style of the eighteenth century philosopher is more concise and incisive, and his opinions are more pronounced. “Both,” says a French critic, “laugh at the human species; but the laughter of Voltaire is more bitter; his railleries are more terrible. Both, nevertheless, breathe the love of humanity. That of Voltaire is more ardent, more courageous, more unwearied. The hatred of both of them for charlatanism and hypocrisy is well known. Their morality has for its first principle benevolence towards others, without distinction of country, of manners, or of religious beliefs; warning us not to think that we alone hold the deposit of justice and of truth. It transports our soul, by contempt of mortal things and by enthusiasm for great truths.” It is to be lamented that the countrymen of Montaigne and of Voltaire have not profited to a larger extent by their humanitarian teaching and tendencies. In reference to the almost incredible atrocities of war, and especially of civil war, Montaigne protests:—

Quoting instances of the extreme respect in which some of the non-human races were held by people in Antiquity,[113] and Plutarch’s interpretation of the meaning of the divine honours sometimes paid to them—that they adored certain qualities in them as types of divine faculties—Montaigne declares for himself that:—

Wiser than the majority in later times, Montaigne well rebukes the arrogant presumption of the human animal who affects to hold all other life to be brought into being for his sole use and pleasure:—

Montaigne quotes the example of his master, the just and benevolent Plutarch, who made it a matter of justice and conscience not to sell or send to the slaughter-house (according to the common selfish ingratitude) a Cow who had served him faithfully and profitably for so many years. With Plutarch and Porphyry he never wearies of denouncing the unreasoning opinions, or rather prejudices, prevalent amongst men as to the mental qualities of many of the non-human races, and, as we have already seen, insists that the difference between them and us is of degree and not of kind:—

Rejecting the still received prejudice which will not allow our humble fellow-beings the privilege of reason, but invents an imaginary faculty called “instinct,” he repeats that—

GASSENDI, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the purpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in the seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the first directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch and Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and Montaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate barbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction of the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to enlighten the world upon this fundamental truth.

He was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest years he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was professor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated “Essays against the Aristotleians” (Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos) was his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years earlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides with the Novum Organon of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost contemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon the old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of Aristotle, during some three or four centuries of mediæval darkness had kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at once raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the old orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of falsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five of the Books of the Exercitationes, by the advice of his friends, who dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In the Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not the courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity of the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while the Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal recommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and Virtue are synonymous terms.

In the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted himself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy, as well as to literary studies.[Pg 101] “As the result of his anatomical researches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to live upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human constitution, is baneful and unwholesome.”[117] He was the first to observe the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun’s disc (1631), previously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the opponent of Descartes in his Disquisitiones Anticartesianæ (1643)—a work justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent German critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic world was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient to observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in other respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that the non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and perception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation for common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part of the world. Yet this “animated machine” theory, incredible as it may appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist of the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and experience—a theory about which it needs only to be said that it deserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the end that they might not feel and reason. It was not thus, as the same writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118]

In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners of all classes. His Life and Morals of Epikurus (De Vitâ et Moribus Epicuri), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages. Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted[Pg 102] by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:—

Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:—

Although of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often happens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle, writing at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as “the greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar amongst philosophers;” and Newton conceived the same high esteem for the great vindicator of Epikurus.[120]

It is in his celebrated letter to his friend Van Helmont, that Gassendi deals with the irrational assertions of certain physiologists, apparently more devoted to the defence of the orthodox diet than to the discovery of unwelcome truth, as to the character of the human teeth:—

[Pg 103]

Helmont, it seems, had rested his principal argument for flesh-eating, not altogether in accordance with Genesis, and certainly not in accordance with Science, on the presumption that man was formed expressly for carnivorousness. To this Gassendi replied that, without ignoring theological argument, he still maintained comparative Anatomy to be a satisfactory and sufficient guide. He then applies himself to refute the physiological prejudice of Helmont about the teeth, &c. (as already quoted), and begins by warning his friend that he is not to wonder if the self-love of men is constantly viewed by him with suspicion.[121]

He repeats Plutarch’s unanswerable challenge:—

He, finally, refutes the popular objection about the strength-giving properties of flesh-meat, and instances Horses, Bulls, and others.[122]

In his Ethics (affixed to his Books on Physics) he quotes and endorses the opinions of Epikurus on the slaughter of innocent life:—

With that Great Master he thus rebukes the fashionable “hospitality”:—

[Pg 105]

THERE is one name which, in reputation, occupies a pre-eminent position in philosophy, belonging to this period—Francis Bacon. But, for ourselves, for whom true ethical and humanitarian principles have a much deeper significance than mere mental force undirected to the highest aims of truth and of justice, the name of the modern assertor of the truths of Vegetarianism will challenge greater reverence than even that of the author of the New Instrument.

That Bacon should exhibit himself in the character of an advocate of the rights of the lower races is hardly to be expected from the selfish and unscrupulous promoter of his own private interests at the expense at once of common gratitude and common feeling. His remarks on Vivisection (where he questions whether experiments on human beings are defensible, and suggests the limitation of scientific torture to the non-human races)[125] are, in fact, sufficient evidence of his indifferentism to so unselfish an object as the advocacy of the claims of our defenceless dependants. When we consider his unusual sagacity in exposing the absurd quasi-scientific methods of his predecessors, and of the prevailing (so-called) philosophical system and the many profound remarks to be found in his writings, it must be added that we are reluctantly compelled to believe that the opinions elsewhere which he publishes inconsistent with those principles were inspired by that notorious servility and courtiership by which he flattered the absurd and pedantic dogmatism of one of the most contemptible of kings.

One passage there is, however, in his writings which seems to give us hope that this eminent compromiser was not altogether insensible to higher and better feeling:—

[Pg 106]

If Bacon had lived longer (he died in 1626) we may entertain the hope that the powerful arguments of his illustrious contemporary might have inspired him with more sound and satisfactory ideas on Dietetics than the somewhat crude ones which he published in his De Augmentis (iv., 2). As for Medicine, he had, reasonably enough, not conceived a high opinion of the methods of its ordinary professors. He says:—

JOHN RAY, the founder of Botanical and, only in little less degree, of Zoological Science, was an alumnus of the University of Cambridge. He was elected Fellow of Trinity College in 1649, and Lecturer in Greek in the following year. While at Cambridge he formed a collection of plants growing in the neighbourhood, a catalogue of which he published in 1660. Three years later, with his friend Francis Willoughby, he travelled over a large part of Europe, as during his academical life he had traversed the greater part of these islands, in pursuit of botanical and zoological science—an account of which tour he published in 1673.

He had been one of the first Fellows of the recently founded Royal Society. In 1682 appeared his New Method of Plants, which formed a new era in botany, or rather, which was the first attempt at making it a real science. It is the basis of the subsequent classification of Jussieu, which is still received; and its author was the first to propose the division of plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

His principal work is the Historia Plantarum, 1686–1704.[Pg 107] “In it he collected and arranged all the species of plants which had been described by botanists. He enumerated 18,625 species. Haller, Sprengel, Adamson, and others speak of this work as being the produce of immense labour, and as containing much acute criticism.”

What, however, is more interesting to us is the fact that “in zoology Ray ranks almost as high as in botany, and his works on this subject are even more important, as they still, in great measure, preserve their utility. Cuvier says that ‘they may be considered as the foundation of modern zoology, for naturalists are obliged to consult them every instant for the purpose of clearing up the difficulties which they meet with in the works of Linnæus and his copyists.’”

Between 1676–1686 appeared Ornithologia and Historia Piscium, the materials of which had been left him by his friend Willoughby. To his extraordinary erudition and industry the world was indebted for A Methodical Synopsis of Quadrupeds as well as a very valuable history of Insects. Conspicuous amongst his merits are his accuracy of observation and his philosophical method of classification. With others, Buffon is largely indebted to the most meritorious of the pioneers of zoological knowledge.

Ray has delivered his profession of faith in the superiority and excellence of the non-flesh diet in the following eloquent passage which has been quoted with approval by his friend John Evelyn:—

JOHN EVELYN, the representative of the more estimable part of the higher middle life of his time, who has so eloquently set forth the praises of the vegetable diet, also claims with Ray the honour of having first excited, amongst the opulent classes of his countrymen, a rational taste for botanical knowledge. Especially meritorious and truly patriotic was his appeal to the owners of land, by growing trees to provide the country with useful as well as ornamental timber for the benefit of posterity. He was one of the first to treat gardening and planting in a scientific manner; and his own cultivation of exotic and other valuable plants was a most useful example too tardily followed by ignorant or selfish land[Pg 108]lords of those and succeeding times. It would have been well indeed for the mass of the people of these islands, had the owners of landed property cared to develope the teaching of Evelyn by stocking the country with various fruit trees, and so supplied at once an easy and wholesome food. O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint, Agricolas!... Fundit humo facilem victum justissima Tellus.[128]

The family of Evelyn was settled at Wooton, in Surrey. During the struggle between the Parliament and the Court he went abroad, and travelled for some years in France and in Italy, where he seems to have employed his leisure in a more refined and useful way than is the wont of most of his travelling countrymen. He returned home in 1651. At the foundation of the Royal Society, some ten years later, Evelyn became one of its earliest Fellows. His first work was published in 1664, Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber. Its immediate cause was the application of the Naval Commissioners to the Royal Society for advice in view of the growing scarcity of timber, especially of oak, in England. A large quantity of the more valuable wood now existing is the practical outcome of his timely publication.

In 1675, appeared his Terra: a Discourse of the Earth Relating to the Culture and the Improvement of it, to Vegetation and the Propagation of Plants. The book by which he is most popularly known is his Diary and Correspondence, one of the most interesting productions of the kind. Besides its value as giving an insight into the manner of life in the fashionable society of the greater part of the seventeenth century, it is of importance as an independent chronicle of the public events of the day. The work which has the most interest and value for us is his Acetaria (Salads, or Herbs eaten with vinegar), in which the author professes his faith in the truth and excellence of the Vegetarian diet. Unfortunately, according to the usual perversity of literary enterprise, it is one of those few books which, representing some profounder truth, are nevertheless the most neglected by those who undertake to supply the mental and moral needs of the reading public.

Evelyn held many high posts under the varying Governments of the day; and being, by tradition and connexion, attached to the monarchical party, he attracted (contrary to the general experience) the grateful recognition of the restored dynasty.

[Pg 109]

Having adduced other arguments for abstinence from flesh, Evelyn continues:—

Cardan—the pseudo-savant of the sixteenth century—had written, it seems, in favour of flesh-meat. Evelyn informs us that:—

He appeals to the biblical reverence of his readers, and tells them:—

[Pg 110]

He then quotes the profession of faith of the father of English botany and zoology; and goes on eloquently to expatiate on the varied pleasures of a non-flesh and fruit diet:—

Evelyn produces an imposing array of the “Old Fathers”:—

He is “persuaded that more blood has been shed between Christians” through addiction to the sanguinary food than by any other cause:—

IT is opportune here to refer to the sentiments of Evelyn’s contemporary and political and ecclesiastical opposite—the great Puritan poet and patriot—one of the very greatest names in all literature. Milton’s feeling, so far as he had occasion to express it, is quite in unison with the principles of dietetic reform, and in sympathy with aspirations after the more spiritual life.

In one of his earliest writings, on the eve of the production of one of the finest poems of its kind in the English language—the Ode to Chris[Pg 111]t’s Nativity, composed at the age of twenty-one—he thus writes in Latin verse to his friend Charles Deodati, recommending the purer diet at all events to those who aspired to the nobler creations of poetry:—

To readers of his master-piece the Paradise Lost, it is perhaps a work of supererogation to point out the charming passages in which he sympathetically describes the food of the Age of Innocence:—

In Raphael’s discourse with his terrestrial entertainers, the ethereal messenger utters a prophecy (as we may take it) of the future general adoption by our race of “fruit, man’s nourishment,” and we may interpret his intimation:—

as a picture of the true earthly paradise to be—“the Paradise of Peace.”

With these exquisite pictures of the life of bloodless feasts and ambrosial food we may compare the fearful picture of the Court of Death, displayed in prospective vision before the terror-stricken gaze of the traditional progenitor of our species, where, amongst the occupants, the largest number are the victims of “intemperance in meats and drinks, which on the earth shall bring diseases dire.” In this universal lazar-house might be seen—

Very different, in other respects, from those of the author of the History of the Reformation in England the sentiments of his celebrated contemporary Bossuet, whose eloquence gained for him the distinguishing title of the “Eagle of Méaux,” as to the degrading character of the prevalent human nourishment in the Western world, are sufficiently remarkable to deserve some notice. The Oraisons Funêbres and, particularly, his Discours sur L’Histoire Universelle have entitled him to a high rank in French literature. But a single passage in the last work, we shall readily admit, does more credit to his heart than his most eloquent efforts in oratory or literature do to his intellect. That, in common with other theologians, Catholic and Protestant, he has thought it necessary to assume the intervention of the Deity to sanction the sustenance of human life by the destruction of other innocent life, does not affect the weight of intrinsic evidence derivable from the natural feeling as to the debasing influence of the Slaughter-House. It is thus that he, impliedly at least, condemns the barbarous practice:—

Bossuet, a few pages later, arrives at the necessary and natural consequence of the murder of other animals, when he records that “the brutalised human race could no longer rise to the true contemplation of intellectual things.”[134]

THE most paradoxical of moralists, born at Dort, in Holland. He was brought up to the profession of medicine, and took the degree of M.D. He afterwards settled and practised in London.

It was in 1714 that he published his short poem called The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turned Honest, to which he afterwards added long explanatory notes, and then republished the whole under the new and celebrated title of The Fable of the Bees. This work “which, however erroneous may be its views of morals and of society, is written in a proper style, and bears all the marks of an honest and sincere inquiry on an important subject, exposed its author to much obloquy, and met with answers and attacks.... It would appear that some of the hostility against this work, and against Mandeville generally, is to be traced to another publication, recommending the public licensing of ‘stews,’ the matter and manner of which are certainly exceptionable, though, at the same time, it must be stated that Mandeville earnestly and with seeming sincerity commends his plan as a means of diminishing immorality, and that he endeavoured, so far as lay in his power, by affixing a high price and in other ways, to prevent the work from having a general circulation.” In fact, Mandeville is one of those injudicious but well-meaning reformers who, by their propensity to perverse paradox, have injured at once their reputation and their usefulness for after times.

A second part of The Fable appeared at a later period. Amongst other numerous writings were two entitled, Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness, and An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War. He appears to have been enabled to pursue his literary career in great measure by the liberality of his Dutch friends, and he was a constant guest of the first Earl of Macclesfield. “The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices Public Benefits may be received in two ways,” says the writer in the Penny Cyclopædia, whom we have already quoted,[Pg 114] “as a satire on men, and as a theory of society and national prosperity. So far as it is a satire, it is sufficiently just and pleasant, but received in its more ambitious character of a theory of society, it is altogether worthless. It is Mandeville’s object to show that national greatness depends on the prevalence of fraud and luxury; and for this purpose he supposes ‘a vast hive of bees’ possessing in all respects institutions similar to those of men; he details the various frauds, similar to those among men, practised by bees one upon another in various professions.... His hive of bees having thus become wealthy and great, he afterwards supposes a mutual jealousy of frauds to arise, and Fraud to be, by common consent, dismissed; and he again assumes that wealth and luxury immediately disappear, and that the greatness of the society is gone.” For our part, in place of “greatness,” we should have rather written misery, as far as concerns the mass of communities.

Strange, as it may appear, that views of this kind should be seriously put forth, “it is yet more so that they should come from one whose object always was, however strange the way in which he set about it, to promote good morals, for there is nothing in Mandeville’s writings to warrant the belief that he sought to encourage vice.”[135]

Mandeville, like Swift, in the piece entitled An Argument against Abolishing Christianity; or like De Foe, in his Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which were taken au sérieux almost universally at the time of their appearance, may have used the style of grave irony, so far as the larger portion of his Fable is concerned, for the purpose of making a stronger impression on the public conscience. If such were his purpose, the irony is so profound that it has missed its aim. Yet that his purpose was true and earnest is sufficiently evident in his opinion of the practice of slaughtering for food:—

THE intimate friend of Pope and Swift is best known by his charming and instructive Fables. He was born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, and belonged to the old family of the Le Gays of that county. His father, reduced in means, apprenticed him to a silk mercer in the Strand, London, in whose employment he did not long remain. The first of his poems, Rural Sports, appeared in 1711. In the following year he became secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and he served for a short time as secretary to the English embassy in Hanover. His next work was his Shepherd’s Week, in Six Pastorals, in which he ridicules the sentimentality of the “pastorals” of his own and preceding age. It contains much naturalness as well as humour, and it was the precursor of Crabbe’s rural sketches. In 1726 he published the most successful of his works, the Beggars’ Opera—the idea of which had been suggested to him by[Pg 116] the Dean of St. Patrick’s. It was received with unbounded applause, and it originated the (so-called) English opera, which for a time supplanted the Italian.

The Fables first appeared in 1726. They were supplemented afterwards by others, and the volume was dedicated to the young Duke of Cumberland, famous in after years by his suppression of the Highland rising of 1745. Gay’s death, which happened suddenly, called forth the sincere laments of his devoted friends Swift and Pope. The former, in his letters, frequently refers to his loss with deep feeling; and Pope has characterised him as—

Of his Fables—the best in the language—one of the most interesting is the well-known Hare and Many Friends, in which he seems to record some of his own experiences. The Court of Death, suggested probably by Milton’s fine passage in the Paradise Lost, is one of his most forcible. When the principal Diseases have severally advanced their claims to pre-eminence, Death calls upon Intemperance:—

It is in the following fable that Gay especially satirises the sanguinary diet:—

[Pg 118]

This is not the only apologue in which the rhyming moralist exposes at once the inconsistency and the injustice of the human animal who, himself choosing to live by slaughter, yet hypocritically stigmatises with the epithets “cruel” and “bloodthirsty” those animals whom Nature has evidently designed to be predaceous. In The Shepherd’s Dog and the Wolf he represents the former upbraiding the ravisher of the sheepfolds for attacking “a weak, defenceless kind”:—

In The Philosopher and the Pheasants the same truth is conveyed with equal force:—

In another parable Gay, in some sort, gives the victims of the Shambles their revenge:—

ONE of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first medical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of the reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied medicine at Edinburgh—then and still a principal school of medicine and surgery—where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of thirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis.

The manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of the last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not only personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually led him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of “good living;” for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the foundation of his practice. Cheyne’s early habits of temperance thus gave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he contracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous weight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy combined to enfeeble and depress him.

His first appearance in literature was the publication of his New Theory of Fevers, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old master Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of epidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained, though in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall into oblivion. The Mechanical or Iatro-Mathematical Theory, as it was called, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished expounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to vital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical School. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent authority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The natural desire to discover some definite and simple formulæ of medical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses. Cheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all vital processes can be explained on mechanical principles.

In 1705 he published his Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since it was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in literature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the penalty of his old[Pg 121] habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches, and depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point in his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of his kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation in the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable manners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which, improved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his scientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now, however—not too soon—determined to abandon his bon-vivantism, and speedily “even those who had shared the best part of my profusions,” he tells us, “who, in their necessities had been relieved by my false generosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now entirely relinquish and abandon me.” He retired into solitude in the country and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life, set himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices of ordinary living.

At this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to the smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished flesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the most temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to have regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases of nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and which were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year 1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly re-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen which he had previously adopted.

His next publication was An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters (1720), which passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the vegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings. His relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former maladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or twelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last reached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his condition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for London, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably renewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of living. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the milk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he afterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors.

In the preceding year had appeared his first important and original[Pg 122] work—his well-known Essay of Health and a Long Life. In the preface he declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly persons who

It is generally acknowledged to be one of the best books on the subject. Haller pronounced it to be “the best of all the works bearing upon the health of sedentary persons and invalids.” It went through several editions in the space of two years, and in 1726 was enlarged by the author and translated by his friend and pupil John Robertson M.A. into Latin, and three or four editions were quickly exhausted in France and Germany. In this book, while reducing flesh-meat to a minimum, and insisting upon the necessity of abstinence from grosser food and of the use of vegetables only, at the morning and evening meals, he had not advanced as yet so far as to preach the truth in its entirety. He arrived at it only by slow and gradual conviction. Expatiating on the follies and miseries of bon-vivantism, he proceeds to affirm that—

While the Essay of Health added greatly to his reputation with all thinking people, it also exposed him (as was to be expected) to a storm of small wit, ridicule, and misrepresentation:—

His next publication was his English Malady: or, a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds, which was also well received, going[Pg 123] through four editions in two years. The incessant ridicule with which the gourmands had assailed his last work seems to have made him cautious in his next attempt to revolutionise dietetics; and he is careful to advertise the public that his milk and vegetable system was for those in weak health only. Denouncing the use of sauces and provocatives of unnatural appetite, “contrived not only to rouse a sickly stomach to receive the unnatural load, but to render a naturally good one incapable of knowing when it has enough,” he asks, “Is it any wonder then that the diseases which proceed from idleness and fulness of meat should increase in proportion?” He is bold enough by this time to affirm that, for the cure of many diseases, an entire abstinence from flesh is indisputably necessary:—

Six years later, in 1740, appeared his Essay on Regimen: together with Five Discourses Medical Moral and Philosophical, &c. Since his last exhortation to the world Cheyne had evidently convinced himself, by long experience as well as reflection, of the great superiority of the vegetable diet for all—sound as well as sick; and, accordingly, he speaks in strong and clear language of the importance of a general reform. As a consequence of this plain speaking, his new book met with a comparatively cold reception. Perhaps, too, its mathematical and somewhat abstruse tone may have affected its popularity. As regards its moral tone it was a new revelation, doubtless, for the vast majority of his readers. He boldly asserts:—

[Pg 124]

Noble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member of a profession—which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical, in opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr. Cheyne’s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger than in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of his health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through his writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen years to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation and success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by whom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst his intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like himself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the bedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot and Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence in favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his Author’s Case, written towards the end of his life:—

As for the effect of this regimen, he tells us that “since that time [his last lapse] I thank God I have gone on in one constant tenor of diet, and enjoy as good health as, at my time of life (being now sixty), I or any man can reasonably expect.” When we remember the complicity of maladies of which he had been the victim during his adhesion to the orthodox mode of living, such experience is sufficiently significant. Some ten years later he records his experiences as follows:—

[Pg 125]

The last production of Dr. Cheyne was his “Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body. In three parts. Part I.—General Reflections on the Economy of Nature in Animal Life. Part II.—The Means and Methods for Preserving Life and Faculties; and also Concerning the Nature and Cure of Acute, Contagious, and Cephalic Disorders. Part III.—Reflections on the Nature and Cure of Particular Chronic Distempers. 8vo. Strahan, London, 1742.” It is dedicated to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who records his grateful recognition of the benefits he had experienced from his methods. He writes: “I read with great pleasure your book, which your bookseller sent me according to your direction. The physical part is extremely good, and the metaphysical part may be so too, for what I know, and I believe it is, for as I look upon all metaphysics to be guess work of imagination, I know no imagination likelier to hit upon the right than yours, and I will take your guess against any other metaphysician’s whatsoever. That part which is founded upon knowledge and experience I look upon as a work of public utility, and for which the present age and their posterity may be obliged to you, if they will be pleased to follow it.” Lord Chesterfield, it will be seen below, was one of those more refined minds whose better conscience revolted from, even if they had not the courage or self-control to renounce, the Slaughter House.

The Natural Method its author considers as a kind of supplement to his last book, containing “the practical inferences, and the conclusions drawn from [its principles], in particular cases and diseases, confirmed by forty years’ experience and observation.” It is the most practical of all his works, and is full of valuable observations. Very just and useful is his rebuke of that sort of John-Bullism which affects to hold “good living” not only as harmless but even as a sort of merit—

[Pg 126]

Denouncing the general practice of the Profession of encouraging their patients in indulging vitiated habits and tastes, he reminds them:—

Not the least useful and instructive portions of his treatise are his references to the proper regimen for mental diseases and disordered brains, which, he reasonably infers, are best treated by the adoption of a light and pure dietary. He despairs, however, of the general recognition, or at least adoption, of so rational a method by the “faculty” or the public at large,

[Pg 127]

In regard to all nervous and brain diseases, he insists that the reformed diet would

This benevolent and beneficent dietetic reformer, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, exemplified by his death the value of his principles—relinquishing his last breath easily and tranquilly, while his senses remained entire to the end. During his last illness he was attended by the famous David Hartley, noticed below. He was buried at Weston, near Bath. His character is sufficiently seen in his writings which, if they contain some metaphysical or other ideas which our reason cannot always endorse, in their practical teaching prove him to have been actuated by a true and earnest desire for the best interests of his fellow-men. One of the merits of Cheyne’s writings is his discarding the common orthodox esoteric style of his profession, who seem jealously to exclude all but the “initiated” from their sacred mysteries. One of his biographers has remarked upon this point that “there is another peculiarity about most of Dr. Cheyne’s writings which is worthy of notice. Although there are many passages that are quite unintelligible to the reader unless he possesses a considerable knowledge, not only of medicine but also of mathematics, yet there is no doubt but that the greater part of his works were intended for popular perusal, and in this undertaking he is one of the few medical writers who have been completely successful. His productions, which were much read and had an extensive influence in their day, procured him a considerable degree of reputation, not only with the public, but also with the members of his own profession. If they present to the reader no great discoveries (?) they possess the merit of putting more prominently forward some useful but neglected truths; and though now, probably, but little read, they contain much matter that is well worth studying, and have obtained for their author a respectable place in the history of medical literature.”[143]

Our notice of the author of the Essay on Regimen, &c., would scarcely be[Pg 128] complete without some reference to his friendship with two distinguished characters—John Wesley and Samuel Richardson,[144] the author of Pamela. It was to Dr. Cheyne that Wesley, as he tells us in his journals, was indebted for his conversion to those dietetic principles to which he attributes, in great measure, the invigoration of his naturally feeble constitution, and which enabled him to undergo an amount of fatigue and toil, both mentally and bodily, seldom or never surpassed. Of Cheyne’s friendship for Richardson there are several memorials preserved in his familiar letters to that popular writer; and his free and naïve criticisms of his novels are not a little amusing. The novelist, it seems, was one of his patients, and that he was not always a satisfactory one, under the abstemious regimen, appears occasionally from the remonstrances of his adviser.

THE most epigrammatic, and one of the most elegant, of poets. He was also one of the most precocious. His first production of importance was his Essay on Criticism, written at the age of twenty-one, although not published until two years later. But he had composed, we are assured, several verses of an Epic at the age of twelve; and his Pastorals was given to the world by a youth of sixteen. Its division into the Four Seasons is said to have suggested to Thomson the title of his great poem. The MS. passed through the hands of some distinguished persons, who loudly proclaimed the merits of the boy-poet.

In the same year with his fine mock-heroic Rape of the Lock (1712) appeared The Messiah, in imitation of Isaiah and of Virgil (in his well-known Eclogue IV.), both of whom celebrate, in similar strains, the advent of a “golden age” to be. The “Sybilline” prophecy, which Pope supposes the Latin poet to have read, existed, it need scarcely be added, only in the imagination of himself and of the authorities on whom he relied. Windsor Forest (1713) deserves special notice as one of the earliest of that class of poems which derive their inspiration directly from Nature. It was the precursor of The Seasons, although the anti-barbarous feeling is less pronounced in the former. We find, however, the germs of that higher feeling which appears more developed in[Pg 129] the Essay on Man; and the following verses, descriptive of the usual “sporting” scenes, are significant:—

His Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard (a romantic version of a very realistic story), Temple of Fame, Imitations of Chaucer, translation of the Iliad (1713–1720)—characterised by Gibbon as having “every merit but that of likeness to its original”—an edition of Shakspere, The Dunciad (1728), translation of the Odyssey, are some of the works which attest his genius and industry. But it is with his Moral Essays—and in particular the Essay on Man (1732–1735), the most important of his productions—that we are especially concerned.

As is pretty well known, these Essays owe their conception, in great part, to his intimate friend St. John Bolingbroke. Although the author by birth and, perhaps, still more from a feeling of pride which might make him reluctant to abandon an unfashionable sect (such it was at that time), belonged nominally to the Old Church, the theology and metaphysics of the work display little of ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The pervading principles of the Essay on Man are natural theology or, as Warburton styles it, “Naturalism” (i.e., the putting aside human assertion for the study of the attributes of Deity through its visible manifestations) and Optimism.[145]

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The merits of the Essay, it must be added, consist not so much in the philosophy of the poem as a whole as in the many fine and true thoughts scattered throughout it, which the author’s epigrammatic terseness indelibly fixes in the mind. Of the whole poem the most valuable part, undoubtedly, is its ridicule of the common arrogant (pretended) belief that all other species on the earth have been brought into being for the benefit of the human race—an egregious fallacy, by the way, which, ably exposed as it has been over and over again, still frequently reappears in our popular theology and morals. To the writers and talkers of this too numerous class may be commended the rebukes of Pope:—

He then paints the picture of the “Times of Innocence” of the Past, or rather (as we must take it) of the Future:—

Again, depicting the growth of despotism and superstition, and speculating as to—

he traces the gradual horrors of sacrifice beginning with other, and culminating in that of the human, species:—

Whenever occasion arises, Pope fails not to stigmatise the barbarity of slaughtering for food; and the sæva indignatio urges him to upbraid his fellows with the slaughter of—

And, again, he expresses his detestation of the selfishness of our species who—

That all this was no mere affectation of feeling appears from his correspondence and contributions to the periodicals of the time:—

[Pg 132]

Consistently with the expression of this true philosophy, he declares elsewhere that—

The personal character of Pope, we may add, has of late been subjected to minute and searching criticism. Some meannesses, springing from an extreme anxiety for fame with after ages, have undoubtedly tarnished his reputation for candour. His excessive animosity towards his public or private enemies may be palliated in part, if not excused, by his well-known feebleness of health and consequent mental irritability. For the rest, he was capable of the most sincere and disinterested attachments; and not his least merit, in literature, is that in an age of servile authorship he cultivated literature not for place or pay, but for its own sake.

Amongst Pope’s intimate friends were Dr. Arbuthnot, Dean Swift, and Gay. The first of these, best known as the joint author with Pope and Swift of Martinus Scriblerus, a satire on the useless pedantry prevalent in education and letters, and especially as the author of the History of John Bull (the original of that immortal personification of beef, beer, and prejudice), published his Essay Concerning Aliments, in which the vegetable diet is commended as a preventive or cure of certain diseases, about the year 1730. Not the least meritorious of his works was an epitaph on the notorious Colonel Chartres—one of[Pg 133] the few epitaphs which are attentive less to custom than to truth, and, we may add, in marked contrast with that typical one on his unhistorical contemporary Captain Blifil.

In the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver the reader will find the sæva indignatio of Swift—or, at all events, of the Houyhnhnms—amongst other things, launched against the indiscriminating diet of his countrymen:—

Among the infinite variety of remedies and prescriptions, in the human Materia Medica, the astounded Houyhnhnm learns, are reckoned “serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men’s flesh and bones, birds, beasts, fishes”—no mere travellers’ tales (it is perhaps necessary to explain), but sober fact, as any one may discover for himself by an examination of some of the received and popular medical treatises of the seventeenth century, in which the most absurd “prescriptions,” involving the most frightful cruelty, are recorded with all seriousness:—

Although unaccustomed to the better living, and finding it “insipid at first,” the human slave of the Houyhnhnm (a word which, by the way, in that language, means “the perfection of nature”) records as the result of his experience, in the first place, how little will sustain human life; and, in the second place, the fact of the superior healthfulness of the vegetable food.[148]

About this period or a little earlier, Philippe Hecquet, a French physician, published his Traité des Dispenses du Carême (“Treatise on Dispensations in Lent”), 1709, in which he gave in his adhesion to the principles of Vegetarianism—at all events, so far as health is concerned. He is mentioned by Voltaire, and is supposed to be the original of the doctor Sangrado of Le Sage.[149] If this conjecture have[Pg 134] any truth, the author of Gil Blas is open to the grave charge of misrepresentation, of sacrificing truth to effect, or (what is still worse and still more common) of pandering to popular prejudices.[150]

IN the long and terrible series of the Ages the distinguishing glory of the eighteenth century is its Humanitarianism—not visible, indeed, in legislation or in the teaching of the ordinarily-accredited guides of the public faith and morals, but proclaimed, nevertheless, by the great prophets of that era. As far as ordinary life was concerned, the last age is only too obnoxious to the charge of selfishness and heartlessness. Callousness to suffering, as regards the non-human species in particular, is sufficiently apparent in the common amusements and “pastimes” of the various grades of the community.

Yet, if we compare the tone of even the common-place class of writers with that of the authors of quasi-scientific treatises of the preceding century—in which the most cold-blooded atrocities on the helpless victims of human ignorance and barbarity are prescribed for the composition of their medical nostrums, &c., with the most unconscious audacity and ignoring of every sort of feeling—considerable advance is apparent in the slow onward march of the human race towards the goal of a true morality and religion.

To the author of The Seasons belongs the everlasting honour of being the first amongst modern poets earnestly to denounce the manifold wrongs inflicted upon the subject species, and, in particular, the savagery inseparable from the Slaughter-House—for Pope did not publish his Essay on Man until four years after the appearance of Spring.

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James Thomson, of Scottish parentage, came to London to seek his fortune in literature, at the age of 25. For some time he experienced the poverty and troubles which so generally have been the lot of young aspirants to literary, especially poetic, fame. Winter—which inaugurated a new school of poetry—appeared in March, 1726. That the publisher considered himself liberal in offering three guineas for the poem speaks little for the taste of the time; but that a better taste was coming into existence is also plain from the fact of its favourable reception, notwithstanding the obscurity of the author. Three editions appeared in the same year. Summer, his next venture, was published in 1727, and the (Four) Seasons in 1730, by subscription—387 subscribers enrolling their names for copies at a guinea each.

Natural enthusiasm, sympathy, and love for all that is really beautiful on Earth (a sort of feeling not to be appreciated by vulgar minds) forms his chief characteristic. But, above all, his sympathy with suffering in all its forms (see, particularly, his reflections after the description of the snowstorm in Winter), not limited by the narrow bounds of nationality or of species but extended to all innocent life—his indignation against oppression and injustice, are what most honourably distinguish him from almost all of his predecessors and, indeed, from most of his successors. The Seasons is the forerunner of The Task and the humanitarian school of poetry. The Castle of Indolence in the stanza of Spenser, has claims of a kind different from those of The Seasons; and the admirers of The Faerie Queen cannot fail to appreciate the merits of the modern romance. Besides these chefs-d’œuvre Thomson wrote two tragedies, Sophonisba and Liberty, the former of which, at the time, had considerable success upon the stage. In the number of his friends he reckoned Pope and Samuel Johnson, both of whom are said to have had some share in the frequent revisions which he made of his principal production.

It is with his Spring that we are chiefly concerned, since it is in that division of his great poem that he eloquently contrasts the two very opposite diets. Singing the glories of the annual birth-time and general resurrection of Nature, he first celebrates

And then goes on to picture the feast of blood:—

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And again in denouncing the amateur slaughtering (euphemised by the mocking term of Sport) unblushingly perpetrated in the broad light of day:—

We conclude these extracts from The Seasons with the poet’s indignant reflection upon the selfish greed of Commerce, which barbarously sacrifices by thousands (as it does also the innocent mammalia of the seas) the noblest and most sagacious of the terrestrial races for the sake of a superfluous luxury:—

CELEBRATED as the earliest writer of the utilitarian school of morals. At the age of fifteen he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, of which he was afterwards elected a Fellow. Scruples of conscience about the “Thirty-nine Articles” would not allow him to subscribe them and take orders, and he turned to the medical profession, in which he reached considerable eminence.

His Observations on Man: his Frame, his Duties, and his Expectations, appeared in 1748. The principal interest in the book consists in the fact of its containing the germs of that school of moral philosophy of which Paley, Bentham, and Mill have been the most able expositors. He had imbibed the teaching of Locke upon the origin of ideas, which that first of English metaphysicians founded in Sensation and Reflection or Association, in contradiction to the old theory of Innateness. Although now universally received, it is hardly necessary to remark that at its first promulgation it met with as great opposition as all rational ideas experience long after their first introduction; and Locke’s controversy with the Bishop of Worcester is matter of history.

It has already been stated that David Hartley was the friend of Dr. Cheyne, whom he attended in his last illness, and he numbered amongst his acquaintances some of the most eminent personages of the day. His character appears to have been singularly amiable and disinterested. His theology is, for the most part, of unsuspected orthodoxy. The following sentences reveal the bias of his mind in the matter of kreophagy:—

Dr. Hartley is not the only theologian who has suggested the possibility or probability of a future life for all or some of the non-human races. This question we must leave to the theologians. All that we here remark is, that Hartley is one of the very few amongst his brethren who have had the consistency and the courage of their opinions to deduce the inevitable inference.

NOTWITHSTANDING his strange self-deception as to the “general order of nature,” by which he attempted (sincerely we presume) to silence the better promptings of conscience, the remarkably strong feeling expressed by Lord Chesterfield gives him some right to notice here. His early instinctive aversion for the food which is the product of torture and murder is much better founded, we shall be apt to believe, than the fallacious sophism by which he seems eventually to have succeeded in stifling the voices of Nature and Reason in seeking refuge under the shelter of a superficial philosophy. At all events his example is a forcible illustration of Seneca’s observation that the better feelings of the young need only to be evoked by a proper education to conduct them to a true morality and religion.[155]

As it is we have to lament that he had not the greater light (of[Pg 140] science) of the present time, if, indeed, the “deceitfulness of riches” would not have been for him, as for the mass of the rich or fashionable world, the shipwreck of just and rational feeling.

Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, succeeded to the family title in 1726. High in favour with the new king—George II.—he received the appointment of Ambassador-extraordinary to the Court of Holland in 1728, and amongst other honours that of the knighthood of the Garter. In 1745 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in which post, during his brief rule, he seemed to have governed with more success than some of his predecessors or successors. He was soon afterwards a Secretary of State: ill-health obliged him to relinquish this office after a short tenure. He wrote papers for The World—the popular periodical of the time—besides some poetical pieces, but he is chiefly known as an author by his celebrated Letters to his Son, which long served as the text-book of polite society. It contains some remarks in regard to the relations of the sexes scarcely consonant with the custom, or at least with the outward code of sexual morals of the present day. His sentiments upon the subject in question are as follow:—

The writer might have instanced still more frightful results of this insensibility on the part of the influential classes of the community: nor indeed, the better few always excepted, were he living now could he present a much more favourable picture of the morals (in this the most important department of them) of the ruling sections of society.

Ritson supplements the virtual adhesion of Lord Chesterfield to the principles of Humanity, with some remarks of Sir W. Jones, the eminent Orientalist, who (protesting against the selfish callousness of “Sportsmen” and even of “Naturalists” in the infliction of pain) writes: “I shall never forget the couplet of Ferdusi[159] for which Sadi,[160] who cites it with applause, pours blessings on his departed spirit:—

To which creditable expression of feeling we would append a word of astonishment at that very common inconsistency, and failure in elementary logic, which permits men—while easily and hyperbolically commiserating the fate of an emmet, a beetle, or a worm—to ignore the necessarily infinitely greater sufferings of the highly-organised victims of the Table.”

OF the life and literary productions of the most remarkable name in the whole history of literature—if at least we regard the extent and variety of his astonishing genius, as well as the immense influence, contemporary and future, of his writings—only a brief outline can be given here. Yet, as the most eminent humanitarian prophet of the eighteenth century, the principal facts of his life deserve somewhat larger notice than within the general scope of this work.

François Marie Arouet—commonly known by his assumed name of Voltaire—on his mother’s side of a family of position recently ennobled, was born at Chatenay, near Paris. He was educated at the Jesuits’ College of Louis XIV., where, it is said, the fathers already foretold his[Pg 142] future eminence. Like many other illustrious writers he was originally destined for the “Law,” which was little adapted to his genius, and, like his great prototype, Lucian, and others, he soon abandoned all thought of that profession for letters and philosophy. He had the good fortune, at an early age, to gain the favour of the celebrated Ninon de Lenclos, who left him a legacy of 2,000 livres for the purchase of a library—an important event which was doubtless the means of confirming his intellectual bias.

Voltaire’s first literary conceptions were formed in the Bastile, that infamous representative of despotic caprice, to which some verses of which he was the reputed author, satirising the licentious extravagance of the Court of the late king, Louis XIV., had consigned him at the age of twenty. Soon afterwards appeared the tragedy of Ædipe (founded upon the well-known dramas of Sophocles), the first modern drama in which the universal and traditional love scenes were discarded. This contempt for the conventionalities, however, excited the indignation of the play-goers, and the Ædipe was, at its first representation, hissed off the stage. The author found himself forced to sacrifice to the popular tastes, and his tragedy was received with applause. Two memorable verses indicated the bias of the future antagonist of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and naturally provoked the hostility of the profession which he had dared so openly to assail:—

It was during this imprisonment, too, that he formed the first idea of the Henriade (or The League, as it was originally called), the only epic poem worthy of the name in the French language. A chance quarrel with an insolent courtier was the cause of Voltaire’s second incarceration in the Bastile with, at the end of six months, a peremptory order to absent himself from the capital. These experiences of despotic caprice and of sophisticated society he long afterwards embodied in two of his best romances, L’Ingénu and Micro-mégas (the “Little-Big Man”), one of the most exquisite productions of Satire.

The youthful victim of these malicious persecutions determined upon seeking refuge in England, whose freer air had already inspired Newton, Locke, Shaftesbury, and other eminent leaders of Thought. A flattering welcome awaited him—and subscriptions to the Henriade, better received here than in France, gratified his pride and filled his purse. During his sojourn of three years in this country, he made the most of his time in studying its best literature, and cultivating the acquaintance of its most eminent living writers. His tragedy of Brutus was followed by La Mort de César which, from its taint of liberalism, was not allowed to be printed[Pg 143] in France. Upon his return to Paris he published his Zaïre—finished in eighteen days—the first tragedy in which, deserting the footsteps of Corneille and Racine, he ventured to follow the bent of his own genius. The plan of Zaïre has been pronounced to be one of the most perfect ever contrived for the stage.

More important, by its influence upon contemporary thought, was his famous Letters on the English—a work designed to inform his countrymen generally of the literature, thought, and political and theological parties of the rival nation, and, more especially, of the discoveries of Newton and Locke. Descartes, at this moment supreme in France, had succeeded to the vacant throne of the so-called Aristotelian Schoolmen. His system, a great advance upon the old, broached some errors in physics, amongst others the theory of “Vortices” to explain the planetary movements. A much more pernicious and reprehensible error was his absurd denial of conscious feeling and intelligence to the lower races, which was admirably exposed by Voltaire in his Elémens de Newton and elsewhere. In England, Newton’s extraordinary discoveries had already made Descartes obsolete, as far as the savans were concerned at least, but the French scientific world still clung, for the most part, to the Cartesian principles. As for Locke, he had overturned the orthodox creed of “innate ideas,” supplying instead sensation and reflection. This advocacy of the new philosophy, added to the success of his tragedies for the theatre,

Amongst other subjects the Lettres (a masterpiece of criticism and sort of essays, since often imitated but seldom or never, perhaps, equalled in their kind) contains an admirable essay upon the Quakers, to whom he did justice. He introduces one of them in conversation with him, thus apologising for his eccentricities:

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About this period, frequenting less the fashionable and trifling society of the capital, and contenting himself with the company of a few congenial minds, he formed amongst others a sympathetic friendship with the Marquise de Châtelet, a lady of extraordinary talents.

The lady was the equal of Madame Dacier in knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and she was familiar with all the best modern writers. She wrote a commentary on Leibnitz. She also translated the Principia. Her favourite pursuits, however, were mathematics and metaphysics.

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Voltaire had already (1741) given to the world his Elémens de Newton—a work which, in conjunction with other parts of his writings, proves that had he chosen to apply himself wholly to natural philosophy or to mathematics he might have reached the highest fame in those departments of science. It is in the Elémens that Voltaire records his noble protest at the same time against the monstrous hypothesis of Descartes, to which we have already referred, and against the selfish cruelty of our species.

At Cirey some of his best tragedies were composed—Alzire, Mérope, and Mehemet; the Discours sur l’Homme, a moral poem in the style of Pope’s Essays, pronounced to be one of the finest monuments of French poetry; an Essay on Universal History, (for his friend’s use, to correct as well as supplement Bossuet’s splendid but little philosophic history), the foundation of perhaps his most admirable production the Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations, and many lesser pieces, including a large correspondence. Besides these literary works, he engaged in mathematical and scientific studies, which resulted in some brochures of considerable value.

About this time (1740) news arrived of the death of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. Most readers know the extraordinary character of this strange personage, who caned the women and his clergy in the streets of his capital, and who was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering his son’s execution. Narrowly escaping with his life the prince had devoted[Pg 146] himself to literary pursuits, and had kept up a correspondence with the leading men of letters of France, and above all with the author of Zaïre whom he regarded as little less than divine. The new king set about inspecting his territories, and proceeded incognito to Brussels, where the first interview between the two future most eminent persons in Europe took place. Repairing to his majesty’s quarters—

Voltaire received a pressing invitation to Berlin.

The French court wished to secure the alliance of Friedrich. No one seemed a more fitting mediator than his early counsellor, who was induced to accept the mission, and to set out for Berlin, where an enthusiastic welcome awaited him, apartments in the palace being placed at his disposal. Yet, in spite of the success of this and other public services, his enemies in Paris remained in full possession of the field. For the second time Voltaire sought admission into the Académie—an empty honour, the granting or refusal of which could neither add to nor detract from his fame. The prestige of that society, however, he seemed to consider essential to his safety against the increasing violence and formidable array of his enemies, who were bent on crushing him, by[Pg 147] whatever means. It was only by submitting to the mortification of qualifying some of his opinions that he at length succeeded in his object. Notwithstanding the address with which he manages his language, it were better, as his biographer—the Marquis de Condorcet—justly remarks, he had renounced the Académie than have had the weakness to submit to so evident a farce.

On succeeding to a vacant chair it was customary, besides a eulogy upon the deceased member, to speak in set terms of praise of Richelieu and Louis XIV. This traditional and servile practice the new Academician was the first to break through. Philosophy and literature were treated of in unaccustomed strains of freedom, and his good example has been influential on after generations.

A sort of experience he has finely illustrated in his romance of Zadig.

Stanislaus, the ex-king of Poland, was keeping his Court at Luneville, not far from Cirey, where he divided his time between his mistress and his confessor. To this royal retreat the friends of Cirey were invited, and the whole of the year 1749 was passed there. Meanwhile Madame de Châtelet died, and Voltaire, much affected by his loss, returned to Paris. Friedrich redoubled his solicitation with new hope.

The philosopher at length set out for Berlin, and his reception must have reached his highest expectations. We have no intention to repeat the account of this singular episode in his life, which has been so often narrated. Evenings of the most agreeable kind, abundance of wit, unrestrained conversation, the society of some of the most distinguished men of science of the time, the unbounded adoration of a royal host, eager, above all things, to retain so brilliant a guest—such were the pleasures of this palace of Alcina, as he calls it. But the imperious tempers of the two unequal friends soon proved the impossibility of a lasting entente, and rivalries amongst the literary courtiers hastened, if they did not effect, the final rupture.

After his escape from Berlin Voltaire passed a few weeks with the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha,[Pg 148] “the best of princesses, full of gentleness, discretion, and equanimity, and who, God be thanked, did not make verses” (alluding to his late host’s proclivities), and some days with the Landgrave of Hesse on his way to Frankfort. Literature had not suffered during the life at Berlin. Finishing touches were put to many of the tragedies—the Âge de Louis XIV. was completed, part of the Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations written, La Pucelle (the least worthy of all his productions) corrected, and a poem, Sur la Loi Naturelle, composed (a work of a far better inspiration than the poem just mentioned, but which was publicly burned at Paris by the misdirected zeal of the bigots). In a later poem on the destruction of Lisbon, as well as in the romance of Candide, fired with indignation at the hypocrisies and mischiefs of the easy-going creed of Optimism (as generally understood), so welcome to self-complacent orthodoxy, he displayed all his vast powers of sarcasm in exposing its fatal absurdities. Leibnitz had been one of its most strenuous apologists. In the person of the wretched Pangloss the theory of “the best of all possible worlds,” and of the “eternal fitness of things,” is overwhelmed, indeed, with an excess of ridicule. It is to be lamented that the satirist allowed his sæva indignatio to overpower a proper sense of the proprieties of language and expression.

Voltaire was now become a potentate more dreaded than a sovereign-prince on his throne, an object of hatred and terror to political and other oppressors. After some hesitation he had chosen for his retreat the ever-memorable Ferney—a place within French territory, on the borders of Switzerland—and also a spot near Geneva, where he alternately resided, escaping at pleasure either from Catholic intolerance or from Puritanic rigour, with his niece—Madame Denis, who had anxiously attended him during a recent illness. From these retreats he made himself heard over all Europe in defence of reason and humanity. It was about this time (1756) that he employed his eloquence to save Admiral Byng, a victim to ministerial necessities, who was nevertheless condemned, as his advocate expresses it in Candide, “pour encourager les autres.” A like philanthropic effort, equally vain, was made on behalf of the still more unfortunate Comte de Lally.

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The year 1757 is memorable in literature as that in which he gave to the world an accurate edition of his already published works, enriched by one of his most meritorious productions, the Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations, which now appeared in its complete form. History, the author justly complained, had hitherto been but a uniform chronicle of kings, courts, and court intrigues. The history of legislation, arts, sciences, commerce, morals, had been always, or almost always, neglected.

If the best historical works of the present day are a considerable improvement upon those which were in fashion before Voltaire’s critiques, the remarks of Condorcet are not altogether inapplicable to the popular and school manuals still in vogue. At all events this style of composing “history,” ridiculed by the wit of Lucian sixteen centuries before, was the universal method down to the appearance of the celebrated Essai.

Beginning with Charlemagne, it presents, in a rapid, concise, and philosophic style, the most important and interesting features, not only of European but of the world’s history, adorned with all the grace and ease of which he was always so consummate a master. Many there always are who conceive of philosophy and erudition only as enveloped in verbosity and obscurity. Dulness and learning in the common mind are convertible terms. The very transparency and clearness of his style were reproached to him as a sign of superficiality and want of exactness—the last faults which could be justly imputed to him. However, the influence of Voltaire became apparent in the productions of the English historical school, till then unknown, which soon afterwards arose. The Italian Vico, and Beaufort, in France, in the particular branch of Roman antiquity, and Bayle in general, had already contributed in some degree towards the founding of a critical school; but these attempts were partial only. To Voltaire belongs the honour of having applied the principles of criticism at once universally and popularly.

In reviewing the history and manners of the Hindus he repeatedly expresses his sympathy, more or less directly, with their aversion from the coarser living of the West:—

In noticing the comparative progress of the various foreign religions in India, Voltaire observes that—

This—one of the chief obstacles to the spread of Christian civilisation in the East, and especially in India, viz., the eating of flesh and the drinking of alcohol, its legitimate attendant—has been acknowledged by Christian missionaries themselves of late years.

Employed as he was in various literary undertakings he had been watching with great interest, not, perhaps, without a secret wish for vengeance, the important political and military complications of Europe. After some brilliant successes the Prussian king had been reduced to the last extremity. At this juncture the former friends agreed to forget, as far as possible, their old quarrel, and Voltaire enjoyed the satisfaction of having succeeded in dissuading Friedrich from suicide. The victories of Rosbach and Breslau not long afterwards changed the condition of things once again. From this time the prince and the philosopher resumed the[Pg 151] name, if not the cordiality, of friends. A curious accident put the arbitrament of peace and war for some weeks into the hands of Voltaire. The Prussian king, while inactive in his fortified camp, wrote, as his custom was, a quantity of verse and sent the packet to Ferney. Amongst the mass—good, bad, and indifferent—was a satire on Louis and his mistress. The packet had been opened before reaching its destination.

Several letters passed between the three before the danger was averted.

The limited space at our disposal will allow us only rapidly to notice some of the remaining chefs-d’œuvre of Voltaire. The celebrated Encyclopédie, under the auspices of D’Alembert and Diderot, had been lately commenced. To this great work, to which he looked with some hope as promising a severe assault on ignorance and prejudice, Voltaire contributed a few articles. It is not the place here to narrate the history of the fierce war of words to which the Encyclopédie gave birth. It was completed in about fifteen years, in 1775—a memorable year in literature.

The article which was particularly selected by the prosecution was that on the Soul, “one of the worst in the work, written by a poor doctor of the Sorbonne, who killed himself with declaiming, rightly or wrongly, against materialism.” The writers, as “encyclopédistes” and “philosophers” were long marked by those titles for the public opprobrium. This general persecution had the effect of uniting that party for common defence. For Voltaire himself an important advantage was[Pg 152] secured. Most of the principal men of letters and science, up to this time either avowed enemies or coldly-distant friends, henceforward enrolled themselves under his undisputed leadership.

About the same period he published a number of pieces, prose and verse, directed against his enemies of various kinds, theatrical as well as theological. Amongst the latter, conspicuous by their attacks, but still more so by their punishment, were Fréron and Desfontaines, whose chastisement was such that, according to Macaulay’s hyperbolic expression, “scourging, branding, pillorying would have been a trifle to it.” It is more pleasing, however, to turn from this fierce war of retaliation, in which neither party was free from blame, to proofs of the real benevolence of his disposition. We can merely note the strenuous efforts he made, unsolicited, on behalf of Admiral Byng and the Comte de Lally, and the still more meritorious labours in the less well-known histories of Calas and Serven. Not by these public acts alone did the man, who has been accused of malignity, discover the humanity of his character: to whose ready assistance in money, as well as in counsel, the unfortunate of the literary tribe and others acknowledged their obligations.

His Philosophie de l’Histoire, the prototype of its successors in name at least, was designed to expose that long-established and prevailing idolatry of Antiquity, which received everything bequeathed by it with astounding credulity. The Philosophie called forth a numerous host of small critics, to which men who knew, or ought to have known better, allied themselves. Their curious way of maintaining the credit of Antiquity afforded, as may be imagined, the author of the Defence of my Uncle, under which title Voltaire chose to defend himself, full scope for the exercise of his unrivalled powers of irony. Warburton, the pedant Bishop of Gloucester, with his odd theories about the “Divine Legation,” comes in for a share of this Dunciad sort of immortalisation.

A work of equal merit with the Philosophie are the Questions, addressed to the lovers of science, upon the Encyclopædia, wherein, in the form of a dictionary, he treats, as the Marquis de Condorcet eloquently describes,

[Pg 153]

It is with his romances that we are here chiefly concerned, since it is in those lighter productions of his genius that he has most especially allowed us to see his opinions upon flesh-eating. In the charming tale of The Princess of Babylon, her attendant Phœnix thus accounts to his mistress for the silence of his brethren of the inferior races:—

A certain king had the temerity to attack this innocent people:—

Her admirable instructor caused the princess to enter

[Pg 154]

Having occasion to visit the land par excellence of flesh-eaters, and being entertained at the house of a certain English lord, the hero, the amiable lover of the princess, is questioned by his host

Amabed, a young Hindu, writes from Europe to his affianced mistress his impressions of the Christian sacred books and, in particular, of Christian carnivorousness:—

In another letter to his old Hindu teacher from Rome, whither he had been induced to go by the missionaries, speaking of the feasts in that “citadel of the faith,” he writes:—

[Pg 155]

That one who hated and denounced injustice of all kinds, and who sympathised with the suffering of all innocent life, should thus characterise the cruelty of the Slaughter-House is what we might naturally look for; as also that he should denounce the kindred and even worse atrocity of the physiological Laboratory. And it is a strange and unaccountable fact that, amongst the humanitarians of his time, he stands apparently alone in condemnation of the secret tortures of the vivisectionists and pathologists—although, perhaps, the almost universal silence may be attributable, in part, to the very secresy of the experiments which only recent vigilance has fully detected. Exposing the equally absurd and arrogant denial of reason and intelligence to other animals, and instancing the dog, he proceeds:—

To the final triumph which in Paris awaited this champion of the weak, at the advanced age of 84, and the unexampled enthusiasm of the people, and the closing act of his eventful life, we can here merely refer. In Berlin, Friedrich ordered a solemn mass in the cathedral church in commemoration of his genius and virtues. A more enduring monument than any conventional mark of human vanity is the legacy which he left to posterity, which will last as long as the French language, and, still more, the humanity embodied in one of his later verses:—

The faults of his character and writings which, for the most part, lie on the surface (one of the most regretable of which was his sometimes servile flattery of men in power, and the only excuse for which was his eagerness to gain them over to moderation and justice) will be deemed by impartial criticism to have been more than counterbalanced by his real and substantial merits. That he allowed his ardent indignation to overmaster the sense of propriety in too many instances, in dealing with subjects which ought to be dealt with in a judicial and serious manner, is that fault in his writings which must always cause the greatest regret. In his discourse at his reception by the French Academy he remarks that[Pg 156] “the art of instruction, when it is perfect, in the long run, succeeds better than the art of sarcasm, because Satire dies with those who are the victims of it; while Reason and Virtue are eternal.” It would have been well, in many instances, had he practised this principle. But, however objectionably his convictions were sometimes expressed, his ardent love of truth and hatred of injustice have secured for him an imperishable fame; while Göthe’s estimate of his intellectual pre-eminence—that he has the greatest name in all Literature—is not likely soon to be disputed by Posterity.

THE founder of Modern Physiology was born at Berne. In 1723 he went to Tübingen to study medicine, afterwards to Leyden, where the famous Boerhaave was at the height of his reputation. Twelve years later he received the appointment of physician to the hospital at Berne; but soon afterwards he was invited by George II., as Elector of Hanover, to accept the professorship of anatomy and surgery at the University of Göttingen.

His scientific writings are extraordinarily numerous. From 1727 to 1777 he published nearly 200 treatises. His great work is his Elements of the Physiology of the Human Body (in Latin), 1757–1766—the most important treatise on medical science—or at least on anatomy and surgery—up to that time produced. The Icones Anatomicæ (“Anatomical Figures”) is “a marvellously accurate, well-engraved representation of the principal organs of the human body.” His writings are marked by unusual clearness of meaning, as well as by accurate and deep research.

We wish that we could here stop; but the force of truth compels us to affirm that, for us at least, his reputation, great as it is in science, has been for ever tarnished by his sacrifices—with frightful torture—of innocent victims on the altars of a selfish and sanguinary science.

One plea in extenuation of this callousness in regard to the suffering of other animals, and only one, can be offered in his defence. At this very moment, after all the humanitarian doctrine that has been preached during the century since the death of Haller, tortures of the[Pg 157] most cold-blooded kind are being inflicted on tens of thousands of horses, deer, dogs, rabbits, and others, in all the “laboratories” of Europe; while he had neither the prolonged experience of the uselessness of all such unnatural experimentation, of which the vivisectors and pathologists of our day are in possession, nor the same indoctrination of a higher morality, which has been the heritage of these latter days. The scientific barbarity of Haller does not affect the nature of his physiological testimony, which, it might be presumed, ought to be of some weight with his disciples and representatives of the present day. He asserts:—

IT might justly provoke expression of feeling stronger than that of astonishment, when we have to record that in South Europe (where climate and soil unite to recommend and render a humane manner of living[169] still more easy than in our colder regions) the followers, or, at all events, the prophets of the Reformed Diet have been conspicuously few. Since, by the à fortiori argument, if abundant experience and teaching have proved it to be more conducive to health in higher latitudes, much more is it evident that it must be fitting for the people of those parts of the globe nearer to the Equator.

Italy, which has produced Seneca, Cornaro, and Cocchi, is less obnoxious to the reproach of indifferentism in this most vitally-important branch of ethics than the western peninsula. But the “paradise of Europe” has yet to deserve the more glorious title of “the paradise of Peace,” and to atone (if, indeed, it be possible) for the cruel shedding of innocent, and in an especial degree superfluous, blood.

An eminent professor of medicine and of surgery, Antonio Cocchi distinguished himself also as a philologist. He was born at Benevento. Before giving himself up to the practice of medicine he devoted several years to the study of the old and the modern languages of Europe. His knowledge of English helped to bring him into contact with many[Pg 158] men of science in England, some of whom he met on his visit to London. Returning to Italy he was named Professor of Medicine at Pisa. He soon left that University for Florence, where he held the chair of Anatomy as well as of Philosophy. To him Florence was indebted for its Botanical Society, with which, in conjunction with Micheli, he endowed it.

He was a voluminous writer.[170] His Greek Surgical Books[171] contain valuable extracts from the Greek writers on medicine and surgery not before published. Amongst other writings may be distinguished his Treatise on the Use of Cold Baths by the Ancients.[172] The treatise which gives him a place in this work was published at Florence under the title of The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty.[173]

Dr. Cocchi begins his little treatise with a eulogy and defence of the great reformer of Samos, and of his radical revolution in food. He cites the Greek and Latin writers, and especially the earlier Roman Laws, the Fannian and the Licinian. He proceeds:—

Cocchi cites the examples of the Greeks and of the Romans as proof that the non-flesh diet does not diminish courage or strength:—

[Pg 159]

His special motive to the publication of his treatise, however, was to vindicate the claims of the reformer of Samos upon the gratitude of men:—

FEW lives of writers of equal reputation have been exposed to our examination with the fulness and minuteness of the life of this the most eloquent name in French literature. With the exception of the great Latin father, St. Augustine, no other leader of thought, in fact, has so entirely revealed to us his inner life, his faults and weaknesses (often sufficiently startling), no less than the estimable parts of his character, and we remain in doubt whether more to lament the infirmities or to admire the candour of the autobiographer.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, son of a Genevan tradesman, had the misfortune to lose his mother at a very early age. It is to this want of maternal solicitude and fostering care that some of the errors in his after career may perhaps be traced. After a short experience of school discipline he was apprenticed to an engraver, whose coarse violence must injuriously have affected the nervous temperament of the sensitive child. Ill-treatment forced him to run away, and he found refuge with Mde. de Warens, a Swiss lady, a convert to Catholicism, who occupies a prominent place in the first period of his Confessions. Influenced by her kindness, and by the skilful arguments of his preceptors at the college at Turin, where she had placed him, the young Rousseau (like Bayle and Gibbon, before and after him, though from a different motive) abjured Protestantism, and, for the moment, accepted, or at least professed, the tenets of the old Orthodoxy. Dismissed from the college because he refused to take orders, he engaged himself as a domestic servant or valet.[Pg 160] He did not long remain in this position, and he resought the protection of his friend Mde. de Warens at Chambéry. His connexion with his too indulgent patroness terminated in the year 1740. For some years after this his life was of a most erratic, and not always edifying, kind. We find him employed in teaching at Lyons, and at another time acting as secretary to the French Embassy at Venice. In 1745 he came to Paris. There he earned a living by copying music. About this time he met with Therèse Levasseur, the daughter of his hostess, with whom he formed a lasting but unhappy connexion.

It was in 1748, at the age of 36, that he made the acquaintance, at the house of Mde. d’Epinay, of the editors of the Encyclopédie, D’Alembert and Diderot, who engaged him to write articles on music and upon other subjects in that first of comprehensive dictionaries. His first independent appearance in literature was in his essay on the question, “Whether the progress of science and of the arts has been favourable to the morals of mankind,” in which paradoxically he maintains the negative. It was the eloquence, we must suppose, rather than the reasoning, which gained him the prize awarded by the Académie of Dijon. His next production—a more important one—was his Discours sur l’Inegalité parmi les Hommes (“Discourse upon Inequality amongst Men”). In this treatise—the prelude to his more developed Contrat Social—Rousseau affirms the paradox of the natural school, as it may be termed, which alleged the state of nature—the life of the uncivilised man—to be the ideal condition of the species. His thesis that all men are born with equal rights takes a much more defensible position. In this Discours diet is assigned its due importance in relation to the welfare of communities.

The romance of Julie: ou la Nouvelle Héloise, which excited an unusual amount of interest, appeared in 1759. Emile: ou de l’Education, was given to the world three years later. It is the most important of his writings. In the education of Emile, or Emilius, he propounds his ideas upon one of the most interesting subjects which can engage attention—the right training of the young. The earlier part of the book is almost altogether admirable and useful. The later portion is more open to criticism, although not upon the grounds upon which was founded the hostility of the authorities of the day who unjustly condemned the book as irreligious and immoral. Rousseau begins with laying down the principles of a new and more rational method of rearing infants, agreeing, in many particulars, with the system of his predecessor, Locke. At least some of his protests against the unnatural treatment of children were not altogether in vain. Mothers in fashionable ranks of life began to recognise the mischief arising from[Pg 161] the common practice of putting their infants out to nurse in place of suckling them themselves. They began also to abandon the absurd custom of confining their limbs in mummy-like bandages. Nor, though long in bearing adequate fruit, were his denunciations of the barbarous severity of parents and schoolmasters without some result. He insists upon the incalculable evils of inoculating the young, according to the almost universal custom, with superstitious beliefs and fancies which grow with the growth of the recipient until they become radically fixed in the mind as by a natural development. Most important of all his innovations in education, and certainly the most heretical, is his recommendation of a pure dietary.

The publication of his treatise on education brought down a storm of persecution and opprobrium upon the author. The Contrat Social (in which he seemed to aim at subverting the political and social traditions, as he had in Emile the educational prejudices of the venerated Past) appearing soon afterwards added fuel to the flames. Rousseau found himself forced to flee from Paris, and he sought shelter in the territory of Geneva. But the authorities, unmindful of the old reputation of the land of freedom, refusing him an asylum, he proceeded to Neuchâtel, then under Prussian rule, where he was well received. From this retreat he replied to the attacks of the Archbishop of Paris, and addressed a letter to the magistrates of Geneva renouncing his citizenship. He also published Letters Written from the Mountain, severely criticising the civil and church government of his native canton. These acts did not tend to conciliate the goodwill of the rulers of the people with whom he had taken refuge. At this moment an object of dislike to all the Continental sovereign powers, he gladly embraced the offer of David Hume to find him an asylum in England. The social and political revolutionist arrived in London in 1766, and took up his residence in a village in Derbyshire. He did not remain long in this country, his irritable temperament inducing him too hastily to suspect the sincerity of the friendship of his host.

The next eight years of his life were passed in comparative obscurity, and in migrating from one place to another in the neighbourhood of Paris. In his solitude gardening and botanising occupied a large part of his leisure hours. It was at this period he made the acquaintance of Bernardin St. Pierre, his enthusiastic disciple, and immortalised as the author of Paul et Virginie. His end came suddenly. He had been settled only a few months in a cottage given him by one of his numerous aristocratic friends and admirers, when one morning, feeling unwell, he requested his wife to open the window that he[Pg 162] “might once more look on the lovely verdure of the fields,” and as he was expressing his delight at the exquisite beauty of the scene and of the skies he fell forward and instantly breathed his last. At his special request his place of burial was chosen on an island in a lake in the Park of Ermondville, a fitting resting-place for one of the most eloquent of the high priests of Nature.

His character (as we have already remarked) is revealed in his Confessions—which was written, in part, during his brief exile in England. It, as well as his other productions, shews him to us as a man of extraordinary sensibility, which, in regard to himself, occasionally degenerated into a sort of disease or, in popular language, morbidness (a word, by the way, constantly abused by the many who seem to excuse their own insensibility to surrounding evils by stigmatising with that vague expression the acuter feeling of the few), which sometimes assumed the appearance of partial unsoundness of mind. This it was that caused him to suspect and quarrel with his best friends, and which, we may suppose, led him, in his minute dissection of himself, to exaggerate his real moral infirmities.

In summing up his personal character we shall perhaps impartially judge him to have been, on the whole, amiable rather than admirable, of good impulses, and of a naturally humane disposition, cultivated by reading and reflection, but to have been wanting in firmness of mind and in that virtue so much esteemed in the school of Pythagoras—self control. His philosophy is distinguished rather by refinement than by vigour or depth of thought.

It is in the education of the young that Rousseau exerts his eloquence to enforce the importance of a non-flesh diet:—

[Pg 163]

Rousseau, in a free translation, here quotes a considerable part of Plutarch’s Essay. He insists, especially, that children should be early accustomed to the pure diet:—

[Pg 164]

In the Julie: ou la Nouvelle Heloise he describes his heroine as preferring the innocent feast:—

Although he was not a thorough or consistent abstainer, Rousseau speaks with enthusiasm of the pleasures of his frugal repasts, in which, it seems, when he was not seduced by the sumptuous dinners of his fashionable admirers, flesh, as a rule, had no part:—

KARL VON LINNÉ, or (according to the antiquated fashion of Latinising eminent names still retained) Linnæus, the distinguished Swedish naturalist, and the most eminent name in botanical literature, in a notable manner arrived at his destined immortality in spite of friends and fortune. Prophecies do not always fulfil themselves, and the estimate of his teachers that he was a hopeless “blockhead,” and the prediction that he would be of no intellectual worth in the world (they had advised his parents to apprentice him to a handicraft trade), are a conspicuous instance of the falsification of prophecy. After one year’s course of study at the University of Lund—where he had access to a good library and collections of natural history—he proceeded to the University of Upsala. There, upon an allowance by his father of £8 a year to meet all his expenses of living, he struggled desperately against the almost insuperable obstacles of extreme poverty, which forced him often to reduce his diet to one meal during the day. He was then at the age of 20. At length, by the hospitable friendship of the professor of botany, and a small income derived from a few pupils, Linné found himself free to devote himself to the great labour of his life. It was in the house of his host (Rudbeck) that he sketched the subject-matter of the important works he afterwards published. In 1731 he was[Pg 165] commissioned by his university to explore the vegetable life of Lapland. Within the space of five months he traversed alone, and with slender provision, some 4,000 miles. The result of this laborious expedition was his Flora Laponica.

Three years later, with the sum of fifteen pounds, which he had with great difficulty gathered together, he set out in search of some university where he might obtain the necessary degree of doctor in medicine at the least outlay, in order to gain a living by the practice of physic. He found the object of his search in Holland. In that country he met with a hospitable reception. During his residence in Holland he came over to England, and visited the botanical collections at Oxford and Eltham, with which the Swedish savant, it seems, had not much reason to be satisfied. Returning to Sweden, he began practice as a physician at the age of 31, and he lectured, by Government appointment, upon botany and mineralogy at Stockholm. His fame had now become European. He was in correspondence with some of the most eminent scientific men throughout the world. Books and collections were sent to him from every quarter, and his pupils supplied him with the results of their explorations in the three continents. He was elected to the Professorship of Medicine at Upsala, and (a vain addition to his real titles) he was soon afterwards “ennobled.”

The productions of his genius and industry during the twenty years from 1740 were astonishingly numerous. Besides his Systema Naturæ and Species Plantarum, his two most considerable works, he wrote a large number of dissertations, afterwards collected under the title of Amœnitates Academicæ—“Academic Delights.” Everything he wrote was received with the greatest respect by the scientific world. Upon his death the whole University of Upsala united in showing respect to his memory; sixteen doctors of medicine, old pupils, bearing the “pall,” and a general mourning was ordered throughout the land of his birth.

The scientific merits of Linné are his exactness and conciseness in classification. He reduced to something like order the chaotic and pedantic systems of his predecessors, which were prolix and overladen with names and classes. If the science still labours under the stigma of needless pedantry, the fault lies not with himself, but with his successors. Linné’s evidence to the scientific truth of Vegetarianism is brief but pregnant:—

AN eminent instance of perversity of logic—of which, by the way, the history of human thought supplies too many examples—is that of the well-known author of the Histoire Naturelle, a work which (highly interesting as it is, and always will be, by reason of the detailed and generally accurate delineation of the characters and habits of the various forms of animated nature, and by reason of the graces of style of that French classic) is, from a strictly scientific point of view, of not always the most reliable authority. Although Buffon has depicted as forcibly as well can be conceived the low position in Nature of the carnivorous tribes, and not a few of the evils arising from human addiction to carnivorousness, yet, by a strange perversion of the facts of comparative physiology, he has chosen to enlist himself amongst the apologists of that degenerate mode of living. But facts are stronger than prejudices, and his very candid admissions, which we shall here quote, speak sufficiently for themselves:—

To the ordinary apprehension all this might seem primâ facie conclusive evidence of the non-necessariness of the food of the richer classes of the community. But, unhappily, Buffon seems to have considered himself as holding a brief to defend his clients, the flesh-eaters, in the last resort, and, accordingly, in spite of these admissions, which to an unbiassed mind might appear conclusive argument for the relinquishment of flesh as food, he proceeds to contradict himself by adding:—

In stigmatising, in the following sentence, the cruel rapacity of the lower carnivorous tribes, Buffon consciously or unconsciously stamps the same stigma upon the carnivorous human animal:—

BEST known as the editor of The Adventurer—a periodical in imitation of the Spectator, Rambler, &c.—which appeared twice a week during the years 1752–54. Johnson, Warton, and others assisted him in this undertaking, which has the honour of being one of the first periodicals which have ventured to denounce the cruel barbarism of “Sport,” and the papers by Hawkesworth upon that subject are in striking contrast with the usual tone and practice of his contemporaries and, indeed, of our own times.

In 1761 he published an edition of Swift’s writings, with a life which received the praise of Samuel Johnson (in his Lives of the Poets), and it is a passage in that book which entitles him to a place here. In 1773 he was entrusted by the Government of the day with the task of compiling a history of the recent voyages of Captain Cook. He also translated the Aventures de Télémaque of Fénélon. The coarseness and repulsiveness of the dishes of the common diet seldom have been stigmatised with greater force than by Dr. Hawkesworth. His expressions of abhorrence are conceived quite in the spirit of Plutarch:—

WITH the exception of Joseph Butler, perhaps the ablest and most interesting of English orthodox theologians. As one of the very few of this numerous class of writers who seem seriously to be impressed with the difficulty of reconciling orthodox dietetics with the higher moral and religious instincts, Paley has for social reformers a title to remembrance, and it is as a moral philosopher that he has a claim upon our attention.

The son of a country curate, Paley began his career as tutor in an academy in Greenwich. He had entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, as “sizar.” Being senior wrangler of his year, he was afterwards elected a Fellow of his college. His lectures on moral philosophy at the University contained the germs of his most useful writing. After the usual previous stages, finally he received the preferment of the Archdeaconry of Carlisle. The failure of the most eminent of the modern apologists of dogmatic Christianity to attain the highest rewards of ecclesiastical ambition, and the refusal of George III. to promote “pigeon” Paley when it was proposed to that reactionary prince to make so skilful a controversialist a bishop—a refusal founded on the famous apology for monarchy in the Moral and Political Philosophy—is well known.

The most important, by far, of his writings, is the Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). He founds moral obligation upon principles of utility. In politics he asserts the grounds of the duties of rulers and ruled to be based upon the same far-reaching consideration, and upon this principle he maintains that as soon as any Government has proved itself corrupt or negligent of the public good, whatever may have been the alleged legitimacy of its original authority, the right of the governed to put an end to it is established. “The final view of all national politics,” he affirms, “is [ought to be] to produce the greatest quantity of happiness.” The comparative boldness, indeed, of certain of his disquisitions on Government alarmed not a little the political and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the time. His adhesion to the programme of Clarkson and the anti-slavery “fanatics” (as that numerically insignificant band of reformers was styled) did not tend, it may be presumed, to counteract the damaging effects of his political philosophy.

In his Natural Theology (1802), his best theological production, he labours to establish the fact of benevolent design from observation of the various phenomena of nature and life. Whatever estimate may be formed of the success of this undertaking, there can be no question of the ability and eloquence of the accomplished pleader; and the book[Pg 170] proves him, at least, to have acquired a surprising amount of physiological and anatomical knowledge. It is justly described by Sir J. Mackintosh as “the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it.” Of the Evidences (1790–94)—the most popularly known of his writings—the considerable literary merit is in somewhat striking contrast, in regard to clearness and simplicity of style, with the ordinary productions of the evidential school.

We are concerned now with the Moral and Political Philosophy. It has been already stated that it is based upon the principles of utilitarianism. As for personal moral conduct, he justly considered it to be vastly influenced by early custom; or, as he expresses it, the art of life consists in the right “setting of our habits.”

On the subjoined examination of the question of the lawfulness or otherwise of flesh-eating, his ultimate refuge in an alleged biblical authority (forced upon him, apparently, by the necessity of his position rather than by personal inclination) confirms rather than weakens his preceding candid admissions, which sufficiently establish our position:—

Thus far as regards the moral aspect of the subject. Dealing with the social and economical view, Paley, untrammelled by professional views, is more decided. In his chapter, Of Population and Provision, &c., he writes:—

Elsewhere Paley asserts that “luxury in dress or furniture is universally preferable to luxury in eating, because the articles which constitute the one are more the production of human art and industry than those which supply the other.”

PRINCIPALLY known as the author of the most charming of all idyllic romances—Paul et Virginie. Beginning his career as civil engineer he afterwards entered the French army. A quarrel with his official superiors forced him to seek employment elsewhere, and he found it in the Russian service, where his scientific ability received due recognition.

Encouraged by the esteem in which he was held, he formed the project of establishing a colony on the Caspian shores, which should be under just and equal laws. St. Pierre submitted the scheme to the Russian Minister, who, as we should be apt to presume, did not receive it too favourably. He then went to Poland in the vain expectation of aiding the people of that hopelessly distracted country in throwing off the foreigners’ yoke. Failing in this undertaking, and despairing, for the time, of the cause of freedom, we next find him in Berlin and in Vienna. He had also previously visited Holland, in which great refuge of freedom he had been received with hospitality. In Paris, upon his return to France, his project of a free colony found better reception than in St. Petersburg—owing, perhaps, to the not altogether disinterested sympathy of the Government with the recently revolted American colonies. To further his plans he accepted an official post in the Ile de France, intending eventually to proceed to Madagascar, where was to be realised his long-cherished idea. On the voyage he discovered that his associates had formed a very different design from his own—to engage in the slave traffic. Separating from these nefarious speculators, he landed in the Ile de France, where he remained two years. It is to the experiences of this part of his life that we owe his Paul et Virginie, the scenes of which are laid in that tropical island.

Returning home once again, he made the acquaintance of D’Alembert and of other leading men of letters in Paris, and, particularly, of Rousseau, his philosophical master. At the period of the Great Revolution of 1789, St. Pierre lost his post as superintendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens under the old Bourbon Government, and he found himself reduced to poverty; and although his sympathies were with the party of constitutional, though not of radical, reform, the supremacy of the extreme revolutionists (1792–1794) exposed him to some hazard by reason of his known deistic convictions. Upon the establishment of the reactionary revolution of the Empire, St. Pierre recovered his former post, and, with the empty honour of the Imperial Cross, he received the more solid benefit of a pension and other emoluments.

[Pg 174]

His writings have been collected and published in two quarto volumes (Paris, 1836). Of these, after his celebrated romance, perhaps the most popular is La Chaumière Indienne (“The Indian or Hindu Cottage”). His principal productions are Etudes de la Nature (“Studies of Nature”), Vœux d’un Solitaire (“Aspirations of a Recluse”), Voyage à L’Ile de France (“Voyage to Mauritius”), and L’Arcadie (“Arcadia”). His merits consist in a certain refinement of feeling, in charming eloquence in description of natural beauty, and in the humane spirit which breathes in his writings. Of the Paul et Virginie he tells us—

He assures us that the principal characters and events he describes are by no means only the imaginings of romance. In truth, it seems difficult to believe that the genius of the author alone could have impressed so wonderful an air of reality upon merely fictitious scenes. The popularity of the story was secured at once in the author’s own country, and it rapidly spread throughout Europe. Paul et Virginie was successively translated into English, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. It became the fashion for mothers to give to their children the names of its hero and heroine, and well would it have been had they also adopted for them that method of innocent living which is the real, if too generally unrecognised, secret of the fascinating power of the book.

It is thus that he eloquently calls to remembrance the natural feasts of his young heroine and hero:—

The humaneness of their manners had attracted to the charming arbour, which they had formed for themselves, all kinds of beautiful birds, who sought there their daily meals and the caresses of their human protectors. Our readers will not be displeased to be reminded of this charming scene:—

[Pg 175]

In his views upon national education, St. Pierre invites the serious attention of legislators and educators to the importance of accustoming the young to the nourishment prescribed by Nature:—

Of the many practical witnesses of this period, more or less interesting, for the sufficiency, or rather superiority, of the reformed regimen, four names stand out in prominent relief—Franklin, Howard, Swedenborg, Wesley—prominent either for scientific ability or for philanthropic zeal. To his early resolution to betake himself to frugal living, Benjamin Franklin, then in a printer’s office in Boston, attributes mainly his future success in life.[195]

It was to his pure dietary that the great Prison Reformer assigns his immunity, during so many years, from the deadly jail-fever, to the infection of which he fearlessly exposed himself in visiting those hotbeds of malaria—the filthy prisons of this country and of continental Europe. (See the correspondence of John Howard—passim.) Equally significant is the testimony of the eminent founder of Methodism whose almost unexampled energy and endurance, both of mind and body, during some fifty years of continuous persecution, both legal and popular, were supported (as he informs us in his Journals) mainly by abstinence from gross foods; while, in regard to Emanuel Swedenborg, if abstinence does not assume so prominent a place in his theological or other various writings as might have been expected from his special opinions, the cause of such silence must be referred not to personal addiction to an anti-spiritualistic nourishment (for he himself was notably frugal) but to preoccupation of mental faculties which seem to have been absorbed in the elaboration of his well-known spiritualistic system.

[Pg 177]

The limits of this work do not permit us to quote all the many writers of the eighteenth century whom philosophy, science, or profounder feeling urged incidentally to question the necessity or to suspect the barbarism of the Slaughter-House. But there are two names, amongst the highest in the whole range of English philosophic literature, whose expression of opinion may seem to be peculiarly noteworthy—the author of the Wealth of Nations and the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

As for the reflections of the first of historians, who seems always carefully to guard himself from the expression of any sort of emotion not in keeping with the character of an impartial judge and unprejudiced spectator, but who, on the subject in question, cannot wholly repress the natural feeling of disgust, they are sufficiently significant. Gibbon is describing the manners of the Tartar tribes:—

To the poets, who claim to be the interpreters and priests of Nature, we might, with justness, look for celebration of the anti-materialist living. Unhappily we too generally look in vain. The prophet-poets—Hesiod, Kalidâsa, Milton, Thomson, Shelley, Lamartine—form a band more noble than numerous. Of those who, not having entered the very sanctuary of the temple of humanitarianism, have been content to officiate in its outer courts, Burns and Cowper occupy a prominent place. That the latter, who felt so keenly

and who has denounced with so eloquent indignation the pitiless wars “waged with defenceless innocence,” and the protean shapes of human selfishness, should yet have stopped short of the final cause of them all, would be inexplicable but for the blinding influence of habit and authority. Nevertheless, his picture of the savagery of the Slaughter-House, and of some of its associated cruelties, is too forcible to be omitted:

AMONGST the less known prophets of the new Reformation the author of the Cry of Nature—one of the most eloquent appeals to justice and right feeling ever addressed to the conscience of men—deserves an honourable place. Of the facts of his life we have scanty record. He was a native of Edinburgh. At an early age he entered the English army as a private soldier, but his friends soon obtained for him an officer’s commission. He went to the East Indies, where he distinguished himself by his remarkable courage and ability. He did not long remain in the military life; and, having sold out, he travelled through Hindustan to inform himself of the principles of the Brahmin and Buddhist religions of the peninsula, whose dress as well as milder manners he assumed upon his return to England.

During his stay in this country he uniformly abstained from all flesh meats, and so great, we are told, was his abhorrence of the Slaughter-House, that, to avoid it or the butcher’s shop, he was accustomed to make a long détour. His children were brought up in the same way.[Pg 180] In 1790, like some others of the more enthusiastic class of his countrymen, he espoused the cause of the Revolution, and went to Paris. By introducing some useful military reforms he gained distinction amongst the Republicans, and he received an important post. He seems to have fallen, with his sons, fighting in La Vendée for the National Cause.

The author, in his preface, tells us that—

A noble and true inspiration nobly and eloquently used! The arguments, by which he attempts to reach the better feeling of his readers, are drawn from the deepest source of morality. Having given a beautiful picture of the tempting and alluring character of Fruits, he exclaims in his poetic-prose:—

He repeats Porphyry’s appeal to the consideration of human interests themselves—

[Pg 181]

This eloquent vindicator of the rights of the oppressed of the non-human races here addresses a scathing rebuke to the torturers of the vivisection-halls, as well as to those who abuse Science by attempting to enlist it in the defence of slaughter.

Amid the dark scenes of barbarism and cold-blooded indifferentism to suffering innocence, there are yet the glimmers of a better nature, which need but the life-giving impulse of a true religion and philosophy:—

The whole of the little book of which the above extracts are properly representative, breathes the spirit of a true religion. We shall only add that it exhibits almost as much learning and valuable research as it exhibits justness of thought and sensibility—enriched, as it is, by copious illustrative notes.[202]

NOT entitled to rank among the greater prophets who have had the penetration to recognise the essential barbarism, no less than the unnaturalness, of Kreophagy (disguised, as it is, by the arts of civilisation), this most popular of all German physicians, with the Cornaros and Abernethys, may yet claim considerable merit as having, in some degree, sought to stem the tide of unnatural living, which, under less gross forms indeed than those of the darker ages of dietetics, and partially concealed in the refinements of Art, is more difficult to be resisted by reason of its very disguise. If the renaissance of Pythagorean dietetics had already dawned for the deeper thinkers, the age of science and of reason, as regards the mass of accredited teachers, was yet a long way off; and to all pioneers, even though they failed to clear the way entirely, some measure of our gratitude is due.

Christian Wilhelm Hufeland is one of the most prolific of medical writers. Having studied medicine at Jena and at Gottingen he took the degree of doctor in 1783. At Jena he occupied a professorial chair (1793), and came to Berlin five years later, where he was entrusted with the superintendence of the Medical College. Both as practical physician and as professor, Hufeland attained a European reputation. The French Academy of Sciences elected him one of its members. His numerous writings have been often reprinted in Germany. Among the most useful are: (1) Popular Dissertations upon Health (Leipsig, 1794); (2) Makrobiotik: oder die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern (Jena, 1796), a celebrated work which has been translated into all the languages of Europe[203]; (3) Good Advice to Mothers upon the most Important Points of the Physical Education of Children in the First Years (Berlin, 1799); (4) History of Health, and Physical Characteristics of our Epoch (Berlin, 1812)[204]. Of Hufeland’s witness to the general superiority of the Naturgemässe Lebensweise the following sentences are sufficiently representative:

KNOWN to the world generally as an eminent antiquarian and, in particular, as one of the earliest and most acute investigators of the sources of English romantic poetry, for future times his best and enduring fame will rest upon his at present almost forgotten Moral Essay upon Abstinence—one of the most able and philosophical of the ethical expositions of anti-kreophagy ever published.

His birthplace was Stockton in the county of Durham. By profession a conveyancer, he enjoyed leisure for literary pursuits by his income from an official appointment. During the twenty years from 1782 to 1802 his time and talents were incessantly employed in the publication of his various works, antiquarian and critical. His first notable critique was his Observations on Warton’s History of English Poetry, in the shape of a letter to the author (1782), in which his critical zeal seems to have been in excess of his literary amenity. Of other literary productions may be enumerated his Remarks on the Commentators of Shakspere; A Select Collection of English Songs, with a Historical Essay on the Origin and Progress of National Songs (1783); Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution (1790), reprinted in 1829—perhaps the most valuable of his archæological labours; The English Anthology (1793); Ancient English Metrical Romances, and Bibliographia Poetica, a catalogue of English poets from the 12th to the 16th century, inclusive, with short notices of their works. These are only some of the productions of his industry and genius.

We give the origin of his adhesion to the Humanitarian Creed as recorded by himself in one of the chapters of his Essay, in which, also, he introduces the name of an ardent and well-known humanitarian reformer:—

[Pg 186]

Ritson begins his Essay with a brief review of the opinions of some of the old Greek and Italian philosophers upon the origin and constitution of the world, and with a sketch of the position of man in Nature relatively to other animals. Amongst others he cites Rousseau’s Essay Upon Inequality Amongst Men. He then demonstrates the unnaturalness of flesh-eating by considerations derived from Physiology and Anatomy, and from the writings of various authorities; the fallacy of the prejudice that flesh-meats are necessary or conducive to strength of body, a fallacy manifest as well from the examples of whole nations living entirely, or almost entirely, upon non-flesh food, as from those of numerous individuals whose cases are detailed at length. He quotes Arbuthnot, Sir Hans Sloane, Cheyne, Adam Smith, Volney, Paley, and others. Next he insists upon the ferocity or coarseness of mind directly or indirectly engendered by the diet of blood:—

[Pg 187]

[Pg 188]

Ritson enforces his observations upon this head by citing Plutarch, Cowper, and Pope (in the Guardian, No. 61—a most forcible and eloquent protest against the cruelties of “sport” and of gluttony).[212] In his fifth chapter he traces the origin of human sacrifices to the practice of flesh eating:—

He supports this probable thesis by reference to Porphyry, the most erudite of the later Greeks, who repeats the accounts of earlier writers upon this matter, and by a comparison of the religious rites of various nations, past and present. Equally natural and easy was the step from the use of non-human to that of human bodies:—

In the two following chapters Ritson traces a large proportion of human diseases and suffering, physical and mental, to indulgence in unnatural living. He cites Drs. Buchan, Goldsmith, Cheyne, Stubbes (Anatomy of Abuses, 1583), and Sparrman the well-known pupil of Linné (Voyages).

In his ninth chapter, he gives a copious catalogue of “nations and of individuals, past and contemporary, subsisting entirely upon vegetable foods”—not the least interesting part of his work. Some of the most eminent of the old Greek and Latin philosophers and historians are quoted, as well as various modern travellers, such as Volney and Sparrman. Especially valuable are the enquiries of Sir F. M. Eden (State of the Poor), who, in a comparison of the dietary of the poor, in different parts of these islands, proves that flesh has, or at all events had, scarcely any share in it—a fact which is still true of the agricultural districts, manifest not only by the commonest observation, but also by scientific and official enquiries of late years.

Of individual cases, two of the most interesting are those of John Williamson of Moffat, the discoverer of the famous chalybeate spring, who lived almost to the age of one hundred years, having abstained from all flesh-food during the last fifty years of his life,[213] and of John Oswald,[Pg 190] the author of The Cry of Nature. It is in this part of his work that Ritson narrates the history of his own conversion and dietetic experiences, and of his well-known publisher, Mr. R. Phillips.

AMONG the least known, but none the less among the most estimable, of the advocates of the rights of the oppressed species and the heralds of the dawn of a better day, the humble Yorkshire printer, who undertook the unpopular and unremunerative work of publishing to the world the sorrows and sufferings of the non-human races, claims our high respect and admiration. He has also another title (second only to his humanitarian merit) to the gratitude of posterity as having been the originator of cheap literature of the best class, and of the most instructive sort, which, alike by the price and form, was adapted for wide circulation.

George Nicholson was born at Bradford. He early set up a printing press, and began the publication of his Literary Miscellany, “which is not, as the name might lead one to suppose, a magazine, but a series of choice anthologies, varied by some of the gems of English literature. The size is a small 18mo., scarcely too large for the waistcoat pocket. The printing was a beautiful specimen of the typographic art, and for the illustrations he sought the aid of the best artists. He was one of the patrons of Thomas Bewick, some of whose choicest work is to be found in the pamphlets issued by Nicholson. He also issued 125 cards, on which were printed favourite pieces, afterwards included in the Literary Miscellany. This ‘assemblage of classical beauties for the parlour, the closet, the carriage, or the shade,’ became very popular, and extended to twenty volumes. The plan of issuing them in separate numbers enabled individuals to make their own selection, and they are found bound up in every possible variety. Complete sets are now rare, and highly prized by collectors.”

Of his many useful publications may be enumerated—Stenography: The Mental Friend and Rational Companion, consisting of Maxims and Reflections relating to the Conduct of Life. 12mo. The Advocate and Friend of Woman. 12mo. Directions for the Improvement of the Mind. 12mo. Juvenile Preceptor. Three vols., 12mo. The books which[Pg 191] concern us now are—On the Conduct of Man to Inferior Animals (Manchester, 1797: this was adorned by a woodcut from the hand of Bewick). And his magnum opus, which appeared in the year 1801, under the title of The Primeval Diet of Man: Arguments in Favour of Vegetable Food; with Remarks on Man’s Conduct to [other] Animals (Poughnill, near Ludlow).

The value of The Primeval Diet was enhanced by the addition, in a later issue, of a tract On Food (1803), in which are given recipes for the preparation of “one hundred perfectly palatable and nutritious substances, which may easily be procured at an expense much below the price of the limbs of our fellow animals.... Some of the recipes, on account of their simple form, will not be adopted even by those in the middle rank of life. Yet they may be valuable to many of scanty incomes, who desire to avoid the evils of want, or to make a reserve for the purchasing of books and other mental pleasures.” He also published a tract On Clothing, which contains much sensible and practical advice on an important subject.

Nicholson resided successively in Manchester, Poughnill, and Stourport, and died at the last-named place in the year 1825. “He possessed,” says a writer in The Gentleman’s Magazine (xcv.), “in an eminent degree, strength of intellect, with universal benevolence and undeviating uprightness of conduct.” The learned bibliographer, to whom we are indebted for this brief notice, thus sums up the character of his labours: “In all his writings the purity and benevolence of his intentions are strikingly manifest. Each subject he took in hand was thought out in an independent manner, and without reference to current views or prejudices.”[214]

In his brief preface the author thus expresses his sad conviction of the probable futility of his protests:—

In the whole literature of humanitarianism, nothing can be more impressive for the sympathising reader than this putting on record by these nobler spirits their profound consciousness of the moral torpor of the world around them, and their sad conviction of the prematureness[Pg 192] of their attempt to regenerate it. In both his principal works, he judiciously chooses, for the most part, the method of compilation, and of presenting in a concise and comprehensive form the opinions of his humane predecessors, of various minds and times, rather than the presentation of his own individual sentiments. He justly believed that the large majority of men are influenced more by the authority of great names than by arguments addressed simply to their conscience and reason. He intersperses, however, philosophic reflections of his own, whenever the occasion for them arises. Thus, under the head of “Remarks on Defences of Flesh-eating,” he well disposes of the common excuses:—

In another section of his book Nicholson undertakes to expose the inconsistencies of flesh-eaters, and the strange illogicalness of the position of many protestors against various forms of cruelty, who condone the greatest cruelty of all—the (necessary) savagery of the butchers:—

We can allow ourselves space only for one or two further quotations from this excellent writer. The remarks upon the common usage of language, by which it is vainly thought to conceal the true nature of the dishes served up upon the tables of the rich, are particularly noteworthy, because the inaccurate expression condemned is almost universal, and that even, from force of habit, amongst reformed dietists themselves:—

[Pg 195]

His reflections upon the essential injustice (to use no stronger term) of delegating the work of butchering to a particular class of men (to which frequent reference has already been made in these pages) are equally admirable:—

In his previous essay, On the Conduct of Men to Inferior Animals, Nicholson has collected from various writers, both humane and inhumane,[Pg 196] a fearful catalogue of atrocities of different kinds perpetrated upon his helpless dependants by the being who delights to boast himself (at least in civilised countries) to be made “in the image and likeness of God.” Among these the hellish tortures of the vivisectionists and “pathologists” hold, perhaps, the bad pre-eminence, but the cruel tortures of the Slaughter-House come very near to them in wanton atrocity.

DISTINGUISHED as a practical surgeon and as a physiologist, Abernethy has earned his lasting reputation as having been one of the first to attack the old prejudice of the profession as to the origin of diseases, and as having sought for such origin, not in mere local and accidental but, in general causes—in the constitution and habits of the body.

A pupil of John Hunter, in 1786 he became assistant surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and shortly afterwards he lectured on anatomy and surgery at that institution, which to his ability and genius owes the fame which it acquired as a school of surgery. As a lecturer he had a reputation and popularity seldom or perhaps never before so well earned in the medical schools—founded, as they were, upon a rare penetration and logical method, united with clearness and perspicuity in communicating his convictions. In honesty, integrity, and in the domestic virtues his character was unimpeachable, but the gentleness of deportment for which he was noted in his home he was far from exhibiting in public and towards his patients. His roughness and even coarseness of manner in dealing with capricious valetudinarians, indeed, became notorious.

The Constitutional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases—his principal work—in comparison with the vast mass of medical literature up to that time put forth, stands out in favourable relief. In it two great principles are laid down—that “local diseases are symptoms of a disordered constitution, not primary and independent maladies, and that they are to be cured by remedies calculated to make a salutary impression on the general frame, not by local treatment, nor by any mere manipulations of surgery.” This single principle changed the aspect of the entire field of surgery, and elevated it from a manual art into the rank of a science. And to this first principle he added a second, the range of which is, perhaps, less extensive, but the practical importance of which is scarcely inferior to that of the first—namely, that[Pg 197] “this disordered state of the constitution either originates from, or is rigorously allied with, derangement of the stomach and bowels, and that it can only be reached by remedies which first exercise a curative influence upon these organs.” It will not detract from the merit of Abernethy to add to this account that his predecessor, Dr. Cheyne, and his contemporary, Dr. Lambe, have most satisfactorily and radically carried out into practice these just principles; or to remark that great public reputations ought not to be allowed, as too often is the fact, to overwhelm less known but not therefore less meritorious labours.

As to dietetics, the theory of Abernethy seems to have been better than his practice. When reproached with the inconsistency that the reformed diet which he so forcibly commended to others he himself failed to follow, he is related to have used the well-known simile of the sign-post with his usual readiness of repartee.

It was while Dr. Lambe was at the Aldersgate Street Dispensary that Abernethy formed the acquaintance of that unostentatious but true reformer—an acquaintance which was destined to have no unimportant influence upon the medical theories of the great surgeon. Abernethy was at that time writing his Observations on Tumours, and he had intrusted to his friend one of his cancer patients to be treated by the non-flesh and distilled water regimen. He carefully watched the effects, and he has thus given us the results of his observations:—

“The above opinion of Mr. Abernethy,” remarks an experienced authority upon the subject, “is most valuable, for he watched the case for three and a half years under Dr. Lambe’s regimen, which is directly opposed to the system of diet which he had advocated, before he met Dr. Lambe, in the first volume of his work on Constitutional Diseases, and from his rough honesty there is no doubt that had Dr. Abernethy lived to publish a second edition he would have corrected his mistake.” As it is, the candour by which so distinguished an authority was impelled to alter or modify opinions already put forth to the world, claims our respect as much as the too general want of it deserves censure.

ONE of the most distinguished of the hygeistic and scientific promoters of the reformed regimen, Dr. Lambe, occupies an eminent position in the medical literature of vegetarianism, and he divides with his predecessor, Dr. Cheyne, the honour of being the founder of scientific dietetics in this country.

His family had been settled some two hundred years in the county of Hereford, in which they possessed an estate that descended to Dr. William Lambe, and is now held by his grandson. He early gave promise of his future mental eminence. Head boy of the Hereford Grammar School, he proceeded, in due course, to St. John’s College,[Pg 199] Cambridge. In 1786, being then in the twenty-first year of his age, he graduated as fourth wrangler of his year. As a matter of course, he soon was elected a Fellow of his college, where he continued to reside until his marriage in 1794. During this period of learned leisure he devoted his time to the study of medicine, and the MS. notes in the possession of his biographer, Mr. Hare, “prove the diligence with which he studied his profession, and there we see the origin of his enlarged views of the causes of disease, so much insisted on by these fathers of medicine, and so much neglected by modern physicians in their search for chemical remedies.” After his marriage he went to reside and practise in Warwick, where he was the intimate friend of Parr, the well-known Greek critic, and of Walter Savage Landor, who writes of him as “very communicative and good humoured. I had enough talk with Lambe to assure myself that he is no ordinary man.” It was to the discoveries of Dr. Lambe, and to his publications reporting the curative value of its mineral waters, that Leamington owed its fame and popularity; and Dr. Jefferson, in his address to the British Medical Association a few years ago, thus eulogises him:—

Like many other seceders from orthodox dietetics both before and after him, Dr. Lambe found himself impelled to experiment in the non-flesh diet by ill-health. His bodily disorders, indeed, were so complicated and of such a nature, as to excite astonishment that not only he greatly mitigated their violence, but that also he survived to an advanced age. In an exceedingly minute and conscientious narrative of his own case in his Additional Reports (writing in the third person), he informs us, that having during several years—from his eighteenth year—suffered greatly and with constantly aggravated symptoms:—

[Pg 200]

With extreme candour as well as carefulness, this patient and philosophic experimentalist details every particular circumstance of his own diagnosis. After a minute report of the various symptoms of his maladies and his gradual subjugation of them, he deduces the only just inference:—

[Pg 201]

The author then goes on to record further gradual diminution of painful symptoms. From long and careful observation of himself, amongst other important deductions, Dr. Lambe infers that:—

For all brain disease abandonment of the gross and stimulating flesh-meats is shown to be of the first importance. At the same time, that it involves any loss of actual bodily strength is a fallacy:—

His personal experience of satisfaction derivable from vegetables and fruits as affording, for the most part, sufficient liquids in themselves, without use of extraneous drinks, is of importance:—

Whatever may be thought of the theory of the possibility of entire abstinence from all extraneous liquids, there is not the least doubt that a judicious use of vegetable foods reduces to a minimum the feeling of thirst and craving for artificial drinks, an experience, we imagine, almost universal with abstinents from flesh-dishes.

Dr. Lambe concludes the first part of his valuable diagnosis with the assurance,[Pg 202] “that if those for whose service these labours are principally designed, I mean persons suffering under habitual and chronic illness, are able to go along with me in my argument to form a general correct notion of what they are to expect from [a reformed] regimen, and, above all, to arm their minds with firmness, patience, and perseverance, I shall not readily be induced to think that I have written one superfluous line.”[219]

In 1805, at the age of forty, we find him established in practice in London. Five years later he was physician to the General Dispensary, Aldersgate Street. He was also elected Fellow and Censor of the College of Physicians, whose meetings he regularly attended. His peculiar opinions did not tend to secure popularity for him, and the adhesion of such men as Dr. Abernethy, Dr. Pitcairn, Lord Erskine, and of Mr. Brotherton, M.P. (one of the earliest members of the Vegetarian Society), served only to make the indifference of the mass of the community more conspicuous.

Not the least interesting fact in his life is his share in the conversion of Shelley, and his friendship with J. F. Newton and his interesting family, at whose house these earlier pioneers of the New Reformation were accustomed to meet, and celebrate their charming réunions with vegetarian feasts. A cardinal part of the dietetic system of Dr. Lambe was his insistance upon the use of distilled water. In his Reports on Regimen he writes of the Newton family: “I am well acquainted with a family of young children who have scarcely ever touched animal food, and who now for three years have drunk only distilled water. For clearness and beauty of complexion, muscular strength, fulness of habit free from grossness, hardiness, healthiness, and ripeness of intellect these children are unparalleled.”[220]

We have already mentioned Lord Erskine as one of the many eminent friends of Dr. Lambe. That more humane and distinguished lawyer, in a letter to his friend acknowledging the receipt of the Reports, writes as follows: “I am of opinion that both this work and the other referred to in it are deserving of the highest consideration. I read them both with more interest and attention from the abuse of the British Critic [one of the periodicals of the day] mentioned in the preface, as no periodical criticism ever published in this country is so uniformly unjust, ignorant, and impudent.” Dr. Abernethy’s testimony to the[Pg 203] efficacy of abstinence in cases of cancer will be found in the notice of that eminent practitioner. Amongst the most interesting correspondence of his later years is his interchange of ideas with Sylvester Graham—the first of the American prophets of the reformed regimen. The letter to the celebrated American vegetarian is, as Dr. Lambe’s latest biographer justly observes, “a most valuable relic, because it continues the result of Dr. Lambe’s diet up to September, 1837—twenty-three years after the last notice of his health in the account of his own case, which he published in November, 1814. It is, besides, an admirable proof of his truthful and philosophic mind, which was slow to arrive at conclusions, and willing rather to exaggerate than otherwise the traces of disease which he still felt.” He proves, also, in this letter, how slow and yet sure are the effects of diet, and it supplies an answer to those objectors who complain that they have tried the diet (perhaps for a few weeks only) without any good result. After complimenting his transatlantic fellow-worker in the cause of truth upon his zeal and industry, Dr. Lambe proceeds:—

He devoted his great medical knowledge and experience particularly to the cure or mitigation of cancer. In the letter, from which we have already quoted, he informs his correspondent of this interesting fact:—

If the experience of the benefits of a reasonable living in the cases of his patients was thus satisfactory, he himself afforded, in his own person, perhaps the best testimony to its revivifying and invigorating qualities. One of his visitors gives his impressions of the now famous doctor (a title, in the present instance, of real meaning) as follow: “Agreeably to your request, I submit to your perusal a short account of the friendly interview I had with Dr. Lambe in London. I first called on him in February. I found him to be very gentlemanly in manners and venerable in appearance. He is rather taller than the middle height. His hair is perfectly white, for he is now seventy-two years of age. He told me he had been on the vegetable diet thirty-one years, and that his health was better now than at forty, when he commenced his present system of living. He considers himself as likely to live thirty years longer as to have lived to his present age.... Although he is seventy-two years of age he walks into town, a distance of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night. Dr. Lambe, I am told, has spent large sums of money in making experiments and publishing their results to the world.” In his earlier life he had been conspicuously thin and attenuated. In later years he seems to have acquired even a certain amount of robustness, and he is described as[Pg 205] being active and strong at an advanced age. Some instances of extraordinary energy and endurance have been put on record by his family; and his feats of pedestrianism, when he was verging on his eightieth year, are, we imagine, rarely to be paralleled.

His hope of attaining the age of one hundred years, unhappily, was not to be fulfilled. “Our bodies,” his biographer justly remarks, “are but machines adapted to perform a definite amount of work, and Dr. Lambe’s originally weak constitution had been severely tried by sickness and wrong diet during the first forty years of his life. At the age of eighty his strength began to fail, but his grandson writes, ‘up to a very short time before his death there were no outward signs of ill-health, only the marks of old age.’”[221] Existence had its enjoyment for him up to almost the last days, and his intellectual powers remained to the end. He calmly expired in his eighty-third year.

Of contemporary and posthumous eulogies of his personal, as well as scientific, worth, the following may suffice: “A man of learning, a man of science, a man of genius, a man of distinguished integrity and honour.” Such is the testimony of his friend Dr. Parr, as quoted by Samuel Johnson. In the Anniversary Harveian Oration before the College of Physicians, by Dr. Francis Hawkins, in the year 1848, the representative of the Faculty thus recalls his memory: “Nor can I pass over in silence the loss we have sustained in Dr. William Lambe—an excellent chemist, a learned man, and a skilful physician. His manners were simple, unreserved, and most modest. His life was pure. Farewell, therefore, gentle spirit, than whom no one more pure and innocent has passed away!”

JOHN FRANK NEWTON, the friend and associate of Dr. Lambe, Shelley, and the little band who met at the house of the former to share his vegetarian repasts, appears to have been one of the earliest converts of Dr. Lambe, to whom he dedicated his Return to Nature, in gratitude for the recovery of his health through the adoption of the reformed regimen.

He published his little work, as he informs us in his preface, to impart to others the benefits which he himself had experienced; and[Pg 206] especially to make known to the heads of households the fact that his whole family of himself, wife, and four children under nine years of age, with their nurse, had been living, at the date of his publication, for two years upon a non-flesh diet, during which time the apothecary’s bill, he tells us, had amounted to the sum of sixpence; and that charge had been incurred by himself.

The ever-memorable meetings of the reformers at the house of Newton, where Shelley was a constant guest, have been thus recorded by one of the biographers of the great poet:—“Shelley was intimate with the Newton family, and was converted by them in 1813, and he began then a strict vegetable diet. His intimate association with the amiable and accomplished votaries of a Return to Nature was perhaps the most pleasing portion of his poetical, philosophical, and lovely life.... For some years I was in the thick of it; for I lived much with a select and most estimable society of persons (the Newtons), who had ‘returned to Nature,’ and I heard much discussion on the topic of vegetable diet. Certainly their vegetable dinners were delightful, elegant, and excellent repasts; flesh, fowl, fish, and ‘game’ never appeared—nor eggs nor butter bodily, but the two latter were admitted into cookery, but as sparingly as possible, and under protest, as not approved of and soon to be dispensed with. We had soups in great variety, that seemed the more delicate from the absence of flesh-meat.

“There were vegetables of every kind, plainly stewed or scientifically disguised. Puddings, tarts, confections and sweets abounded. Cheese was excluded. Milk and cream might not be taken unreservedly, but they were allowed in puddings, and sparingly in tea. Fruits of every kind were welcomed. We luxuriated in tea and coffee, and sought variety occasionally in cocoa and chocolate. Bread and butter, and buttered toast were eschewed; but bread, cakes, and plain seed-cakes were liberally divided among the faithful.”[222]

The cause of the publication of his book Newton thus states:—

The use of distilled water was a cardinal article in the dietary creed of his friend Dr. Lambe, and upon this point Newton particularly insists. He appeals with much fervour, as we have just stated, to parents to have recourse to the natural means of prevention and cure, in place of vainly trying every available artificial method by medicine and drugs. He instances, with minute particularity, the regimen of his children, whom he asserts to have been, up to the moment of his writing, perfectly free from any sort of malady or disorder, and to be—

He presents an alluring picture of the health-producing results for the young of the natural regimen. He promises that

[Pg 208]

As to another well-known pretext, that the propensity to flesh-eating, and the relish with which it is evidently enjoyed by the majority of flesh eaters, is proof of its fitness, Newton justly objects the various unnatural and disgusting foods of many savage peoples which are eaten with equal relish, so that “the argument of the agreeable flavour proves nothing, I apprehend, by proving too much.” He exhorts the medical faculty generally, and those members of it who are in charge of hospitals, infirmaries, or workhouses, to try the effect of the pure regimen on the sufferers and patients—in particular, in the cases of the victims of cancer. Amongst others of his personal acquaintance who had derived the greatest benefit from the regimen, he instances Dr. Adam Ferguson, the historian of the Roman Republic, who lived strictly on a vegetable diet. He was in the habit of accompanying Mr. Newton, in the year 1794, in rides through the environs of Rome. He was still living in 1811, and he died, in fact, at the age of ninety, holding a professorship in the University of Edinburgh.

OF all the enlightened and humane spirits to which the philosophic eighteenth century gave birth, and who were quickened into activity by the great movement which originated in France in its last quarter, not one, assuredly, was actuated by a purer and more exalted feeling than Jean Antoine Gleïzès—the most enthusiastic, perhaps, of all the apostles of humanity and of refinement. He was born at Dourgne, in the (present)[Pg 209] department of the Tarn. His father was advocate to the old provincial parliament. His mother’s name was Anna Francos. After attending preliminary schools, he applied himself to the study of medicine—urged, says his biographer, more by love of his species than by predilection for the profession. His intense horror of the vivisectional experiments in the physiological torture-dens soon compelled him to abandon his intended career: the experience, however, gained during his brief medical course he was able to utilize more than once in his after life for the benefit of his neighbours.

The earlier period of the Revolution had been hailed by him, still very young as he then was, as the hopeful beginning of a new era; when its direction, unhappily, fell into the hands of fanatical leaders, who, following too much the examples of the old régimes, thought, by wholesale executions, to clear the way for the establishment of a universal republic and of lasting peace. The youthful enthusiast, whose whole soul revolted from the very idea of bloodshed and of suffering, withdrew despairing into solitude, and devoted himself to scientific and literary studies, and to calm contemplation of Nature.

In 1794, at the age of 21, Gleïzès married Aglae de Baumelle, daughter of a writer of some repute. At this time he seems to have entertained the hope of instructing his countrymen, by engaging in public teaching; but, disappointed in a scheme for the inauguration of a course of historical lectures in the central school of his department, he retired altogether from the active business of the world, and settled down in a happy and peaceful home, in a small château belonging to his wife, at the foot of the Pyrenees near Mezières. It was here, amidst the magnificent solitudes of Nature, that in 1798, in his twenty fifth year, he determined upon abandoning for ever the diet of blood and slaughter. Until the moment of his death, forty-five years later, his diet consisted solely of milk, fruits, and vegetables.

So great was his scrupulousness, that there might be no possibility or mistake Gleïzès prepared his own food; and he always ate alone (his wife being unable or unwilling to follow his loftier aims), since he could not endure either the smell or the sight of the ordinary dishes. And this intense aversion it was, indeed, that compelled him to forego in great measure his intercourse with the world, or, at all events, to shun the ordinary celebrations of social “festivity.”

Full of enthusiastic belief that the transparent truth and sublimity of his creed could not fail to commend themselves to the better spirits of the age amongst his countrymen, Gleïzès addressed himself to some of the more thoughtful of his contemporaries; amongst others to Lamartine,[Pg 210] Lamennais, and Chateâubriand. Lamartine—the author of the Fall of an Angel, in which he gives expression to his akreophagistic sympathies—responded, if not with the enthusiasm that might justly have been expected from the author of that poem, at least in a friendly spirit. The others kept silence. This indifferentism of those who should have been the first to lend the support of their names naturally affected him; and made much more sensible the intellectual and moral isolation of his existence. He was not left quite alone, however. There were found three or four minds of a loftier reach who had the courage of their convictions, and followed them out to their logical conclusion. These were Anquetil (the author of Recherches sur les Indes), Charles Nodier, Girod de Chantrans, and Cabantous, dean of the Faculty of Letters at Toulouse. His brother, Colonel Gleïzès, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the same university, also declared for the reformation. It is superflous to say that these converts were all men of superior moral calibre to their contemporaries, however high they might be exalted by popular estimates of worth.

Deeply sensible as he was of the profound selfishness and indifferentism of the world surrounding him upon the subject which to him had all the interest and importance of a new religion, he yet constantly displayed the benevolence of his disposition, and the beneficence of his morality, in his efforts for the good of all with whom he came in contact, and particularly in respect to his domestics and his tenants, amongst whom his memory was long held in reverence. “His exalted nature,” states his brother, “glowed with enthusiasm for everything true and good.” His “life-sorrow” seems to have been the want of sympathy on the part of his wife, to whom, nevertheless, he proved an indulgent husband.

His first book, Les Mélancolies d’un Solitaire, appeared in the year 1794, in 1800 his Nuits Elysiennes, and four years later his Agrestes; all more or less advocating the truth. A long interval elapsed before he again essayed an appeal to the world. His Christianisme Expliqué: ou l’Unité de Croyance pour tous les Chrétiens (Christianity Explained: or, Unity of Belief for all Christians) was published in 1830. Seven years later it appeared under the title of “Christianity Explained: or, the True Spirit of that Religion Misinterpreted up to the Present Day.” In this work, says his estimable editor and translator Herr Springer,[Pg 211] “he sought to prove, from the standing-point of a protestant christian, that Christ’s mission had for its end the abolition of the murder of animals (Thiermord), and that the whole significance of his teaching lay in the words spoken at the institution of the ‘Supper,’ that is to say, the substitution of bread instead of flesh, and wine instead of blood.” This undertaking, it is needless to remark, admirable as was its motive, could hardly, from the nature of the case, be successful.

His last work was his Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence, the first part of which was published at Paris in 1840, the second in 1842. He survived this his final appeal to the world on behalf of the new reformation but a few months. He had reached the proverbial limit of human existence; but that his life was shortened by disappointment and the bitter weariness of hope deferred, “by that sorrow which perpetually gnaws at the heart of the unrecognised reformer” (as his biographer well expresses it), we have too much reason to believe. The Thalysie—his magnum opus—excited, it appears, little interest, or even notice, upon its first appearance. It found one sympathising critic in M. Cabantous, to whom reference has been already made, who delivered a course of lectures upon it from his professorial chair. A few years later a Parisian advocate, M. Blot-Lequène, wrote a treatise in terms of strong recommendation of its principles; and Eugène Stourm, editor of The Phalanx, also eloquently advocated its claims upon the public notice. At length it was criticised in the Révue des Deux Mondes by Alphonse Esquiros, known to English readers by his contributions to that Review on English life and manners. We are hardly surprised that the criticism was conceived in the usual supercilious and prejudiced spirit.

No attempt appears to have been made to re-publish the New Existence until Herr Springer undertook the task for his countrymen. His German version, with an interesting notice of the life and labours of Gleïzès, was published at Berlin in 1872. Criticising a flippant article in The Food Journal in the same year, Herr Springer eloquently rebukes the easy and arrogant tone—so successful in appealing to popular prejudices—and observes:[Pg 212] “Gleïzès at last published his eminent work, which, as Weilhaüser says, he has written with the blood of his own heart. If it be eccentric, as Mr. Jerrold asserts, it has only the eccentricity of a gospel of humanity. Gleïzès was so eccentric as to write the following lines, which were found amongst his posthumous papers: ‘God, pure Source of Light, in order to obey thy commands I wrote this book. Be gracious to protect and to support my efforts; for the humble creature which raises its voice from its grain of sand may, perhaps, be speechless to-morrow, and deep silence reign in the desert.’ Yes; Mr. Jerrold is right: that theory was to its author a religion. In the Thalysie we are instructed in the highest questions concerning the health and happiness of mankind. Surpassing all naturalists and philosophers, he explained to us the great mystery of Nature—that robbery and murder [in its full meaning] arose only by corruption, and by alienation from the original laws of creation, and that man, instead of favouring the corruption, as he has done till now, would be able to abolish it. In this way, and in contradiction to the hollow phrases of optimism and the depressing contemplation of pessimism, Gleïzès restores the peace of our mind, and bestows upon us the hope for a future reign of Wisdom and Love.”[223]

In the preface to the Thalysie Gleïzès thus expresses his convictions, his hopes, and the general purpose of his labours:—

We know that the greatest intellects amongst the Greeks[224] had taught the better way; but they failed, says Gleïzès, inasmuch as their doctrine was too exclusive and esoteric.

Gleïzès divides his great work into twelve Discourses, in two volumes, supplemented by a third volume which he entitles Moral Proofs. It is an almost exhaustive, as well as eloquent, résumé of the history and ethics of the subject. The only fault of this, perhaps, most heartfelt appeal to the reason and conscience of mankind ever published is its too great discursiveness. The manifest anxiety of the author to meet, or to anticipate, every possible objection or subterfuge on the part of the hostile or the indifferent, may well excuse this apparent blemish; and the slightest acquaintance with his New Existence can hardly fail to extort, even from the most prejudiced reader, a tribute of admiration to a spirit so noble and so pure, devoting all its energies to the furtherance of an exalted and refined morality.

In the earlier portion of his book he reviews the dietetic habits and practices of the various peoples of the younger world, and notices the various philosophic and other writers who have left any record of their opinions upon flesh-eating. He next treats of modern authorities, and, after quoting a large number of anti-kreophagistic testimonies, in his[Pg 214] fifth Discourse he applies himself to answer the sophisms of the chief opponents, and particularly of its arch-enemy—his countryman, Buffon, in his well-known Histoire Naturelle—and he may be said effectually to have disposed of his astonishing fallacies.[226]

Amongst other pretexts by which men seek to excuse selfishness, is the assertion that its victims have little or no consciousness of suffering, and that their death is so unexpected that it cannot excite their terror. This monstrous fiction is eloquently exposed by Gleïzès, as it is, indeed, by the commonest everyday experience:—

[Pg 216]

Gleïzès rejects the common fallacy that, because men have acquired a lust for flesh, therefore it is natural or proper for them.

[Pg 217]

Gleïzès instances the case of Cows and of Reindeer who, in Norway, have been denaturalised so far as to feed on fish, and readily to take to that unnatural food.

We have reason once again to lament the perversity of literary or publishing enterprise which will produce and reproduce, ad infinitum, books of no real and permanent value to the world, and altogether neglect its true luminaries. This is, in an especial manner, the case with Gleïzès. The Nouvelle Existence has never been republished, we believe, in the author’s own country; while it has never found a translator, perhaps scarcely a reader, in this country outside the Vegetarian ranks. Germany, as we have already noticed, alone has the honour of attempting to preserve from oblivion one of the few who have deserved immortality.

THAT a principle of profound significance for the welfare of our own species in particular, and for the peaceful harmony of the world in general—that a true spiritualism, of which some of the most admirable of the poets of the pre-Christian ages proved themselves not unconscious, has been, for the most part, altogether overlooked or ignored by modern aspirants to poetic fame is matter for our gravest lament. Thomson, Pope, Shelley, Lamartine—to whom Milton, perhaps, may be added—these form the small band who almost alone represent, and have developed the earlier inspiration of a Hesiod, Ovid, or Virgil, the prophet-poets who, faithful to their proper calling,[232] have sought to unbarbarise and elevate human life by arousing, in various degree, feelings of horror and aversion from the prevailing materialism of living.

Of this illustrious band, and, indeed, of all the great intellectual and moral luminaries who have shed a humanising influence upon our planet—who have left behind them “thoughts that breathe and words that burn”—none can claim more reverence from humanitarians than the poet of poets—the influence of whose life and writings, considerable even now, and gradually increasing, doubtless in a not remote future is destined to be equal to that of the very foremost of the world’s teachers, and of whom our sketch, necessarily limited though it is, will be extended beyond the usual allotted space.

[Pg 219]

Percy Bysshe Shelley descended from an old and wealthy family long settled in Sussex. At the age of 13 he was sent to Eton, where (such was the spirit of the public and other schools at that time, and, indeed, of long afterwards) he was subjected to severe trials of endurance by the rough and rude manners of the ordinary schoolboy, and the harsh and unequal violence of the schoolmaster. Of an exceptionally refined and sensitive temperament, he was none the less determined in resistance to injustice and oppression, and his refusal to submit tamely to their petty tyrannies seems to have brought upon him more than the common amount of harsh treatment. It penetrated into his inmost soul, and inspired the opening stanzas of “The Revolt of Islam,” in intensity of feeling seldom equalled. Some alleviation of these sufferings of childhood he found in his own mental resources. For his amusement he translated, we are assured, several books of the Natural History of Pliny. Of Greek writers he even then (in an English version) read Plato, who afterwards, in his own language, always remained one of his chief literary companions, and he applied himself also to the study of French and of German. In natural science, Chemistry seems to have been his especial pursuit.

In 1810, at the age of seventeen, he entered University College, Oxford. There he studied and wrote unceasingly. With a strong predilection for metaphysics, he devoted himself in particular to the great masters of dialectics, Locke and Hume, and to their chief representatives in French philosophy. Ardent and enthusiastic in the pursuit of truth, he sought to enlarge his knowledge and ideas from every possible quarter, and he engaged in correspondence with distinguished persons, suggested to him by choice or chance, with whom he discussed the most interesting philosophical questions. Like all truly fruitful minds, the youthful inquirer was not satisfied with the dicta of mere authority, or with the consensus, however general, of past ages, and he hesitated not, in matters of opinion in which every well-instructed intelligence is capable of judging for itself, to bring to the test of right reason the most widely-received dogmas of Antiquity. Actuated by this spirit, rather than by any matured convictions, and wishing to elicit sincere as well as exhaustive argument on the deepest of all metaphysical inquiries, in an unfortunate moment for himself, he caused to be printed an abstract of anti-theistic speculations, drawn from David Hume and other authorities, presented in a series of mathematically-expressed propositions. Copies of this modest thesis of two pages were sent either by the author, or by some other hand, to the heads of his College. The clerical dignitaries, listening to the dictates of outraged[Pg 220] authority, rather than influenced by calm reflection, which would have, perhaps, shewn them the useless injustice of so extreme a measure, proceeded at once to expel him from the University.[233]

That in spite of this impetuous attack upon the stereotyped presentations of Theism, Shelley had an eminently religious temperament has been well insisted upon by a recent biographer:—

So thorough was his contempt for mere received and routine thought, that even Aristotle, the great idol of the mediæval schoolmen, and still an object of extraordinary veneration in the elder University, became for him a kind of synonym for despotic authority—

and was, accordingly, treated with undue neglect. As for politics, as represented in the parliament and public Press of his day, he was indignantly impatient of the too usual trifling and unreality of public life. He seldom read the newspapers; nor could he ever bring himself to mix with the “rabble of the House.”

Thus, forced into antipathy to the ordinary and orthodox business of life around him, the poet withdrew himself more and more from it into his own thoughts, and hopes, and aspirations, which he communicated to his familiar friends. Some of those, however, into whose society he chanced to be thrown, were not of a sort of mind most congenial to his own. Yet they all bear witness to his surpassing moral[Pg 221] no less than mental, constitution. “In no individual, perhaps, was the moral sense ever more completely developed than in Shelley,” says one of his most intimate acquaintances; “in no being was the perception of right and wrong more acute.”

“As his love of intellectual pursuits was vehement, and the vigour of his genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of his life most conspicuous.... I have had the happiness to associate with some of the best specimens of gentleness; but (may my candour and preference be pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the only example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in the most minute particular, of the infinite and various observances of pure, entire, and perfect gentility.” This is the voluntary testimony of a friend who was not inclined to excess of praise.[235]

The sudden end of his career at Oxford had estranged him from his father, who was of a temperament the very opposite to that of the enthusiastic reformer—harsh, intolerant, and bigoted in his prejudices; and the young Shelley’s marriage, shortly afterwards, to Harriet Westbrook, a young girl of much beauty, but of little cultivation of mind, and in a position of life different from his own, incensed him still further. The marriage, happy enough in the beginning, proved to be an ill-assorted one, and various causes contributed to the inevitable dénouement. After a union of some three years, the marriage, by mutual consent, was dissolved. Two years later—not, it seems, in consequence of the divorce, as sometimes has been suggested—the young wife put an end to her existence—a terrible and tragic termination of an ill-considered attachment, which must have caused him the deepest pangs of grief, and which seems always, and justly, to have cast a gloomy shadow upon his future life.

Brief as his career was, we can refer only to the most interesting events in it. Of these, his enthusiastic effort to arouse a bloodless revolution in Ireland, such as, if effected, might have prevented the continued miseries of that especially neglected portion of the three kingdoms, is not the least noteworthy. With his lately-married wife and her sister he was living at Keswick, when, by a sudden inspiration, he resolved to cross the Channel, and engage in the work of propagating his principles of political and social reform. This was in the early part of 1812. In Dublin, where they established their head-quarters, he printed an Address to the Irish People, which, by his own hands, as well as by other agency, was distributed far and wide. In this wonderfully well-considered and reasonable manifesto, the principles laid down as necessary[Pg 222] to success in attempting deliverance from ages of bad laws and misgovernment, are as sound as the ardour and sincerity of his hopeless undertaking are unmistakeable. The cosmopolitan scope of the Address appears in such passages as these:—

Truer in his perception of the radical causes and cure of national evils than most party politicians, he urged the essential need of ethical and social change, without which mere political change of parties, or increase in material wealth of some sections in the community, must be valueless in any true estimate of a nation’s prosperity. Shelley also issued, in pamphlet form, Proposals for an Association—a plan for the formation of a vast society of Irish Catholics, to enforce their “emancipation”—a measure which was not brought about until twenty years later after long and vehement opposition.

Two months were devoted to this generous but futile work; the people of Ireland did not move, and the young reformer returned to England, but without abandoning his propaganda of the principles of liberty and justice. While residing in Somersetshire he published a paper entitled a Declaration of Rights, to circulate which recourse was had to ingenious methods. Four years later, in 1817, he published A Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throughout the Kingdom. “He saw that the House of Commons did not represent the country; and acting upon his principle that Government is the servant of the Governed, he sought means for ascertaining the real will of the nation with regard to its Parliament, and for bringing the collective opinions of the population to bear upon its rulers. The plan proposed was that a large network of committees should be formed, and that by their means every individual man should be canvassed. We find here the same method of advancing reform by peaceable associations as in Ireland.” At the same time, in presence of the incalculable amount of ignorance, destitution, and consequent venality of the great mass of the community—the necessary outcome of long ages of bad and selfish legislation—Universal Suffrage for the present appeared to him to be not a safe experiment. Evidence of controversial power, is his “grave and lofty” Letter to Lord Ellenborough, who had recently sentenced to imprisonment the printers of the Age of Reason,[Pg 223] “an eloquent argument in favour of toleration and the freedom of the intellect, carrying the matter beyond the instance of legal tyranny, which occasioned its composition, and treating it with philosophical if impassioned, seriousness.”[236] Before his visit to Ireland, he had been engaged (as he tells his correspondent, William Godwin) in writing An Inquiry into the Causes of the Failure of the French Revolution to Benefit Mankind. We have to lament that this Essay seems never to have been completed, since it is hardly doubtful that it would have been of unusual interest. Such was the force and activity of Shelley’s intellect, as displayed in the regions of practical philosophy, at the age of twenty, and before he had given to the world his first productions in poetry.

Queen Mab, written in part two years before, was finished and printed in 1813. Although it may have some of the defects of immaturity of genius, it has the charm of a genuine poetic inspiration. Intense hatred of selfish injustice and untruth in all their shapes, equally intense sympathy with all suffering, sublime faith in the ultimate triumph of Good, clothed in the language of entrancing eloquence and sublimity, are the characteristics of this unique poem. The author’s depreciation of his earliest poetic attempt in after years, in a letter addressed to the Examiner, only a month before his death, strikes us as scarcely sincere, and as having been a sort of necessary sacrifice on the altar of Expediency.

In this exquisitely beautiful prophecy of a “Golden Age” to be, the fairy Queen Mab, the unembodied being who acts as his instructress and guide through the Universe, displays to his affrighted vision, in one vast panorama, the horrors of the Past and the Present. She afterwards, in a glorious apocalypse, relieves his despair by revealing to him the “new heavens and the new earth,” which eventually will displace the present evil constitution of things on our planet. On the redeemed and regenerated Globe:—

In rapt vision the prophet-poet apostrophises the “New Earth”:

From the Essay, in the form of a note, which he subjoined to the passage we have quoted, we extract the principal arguments:—

Shelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet economically, socially, and politically:—

He concludes this philosophic discourse with an earnest appeal to the various classes of society:—

[Pg 229]

Some time after the melancholy death of his first wife, Shelley married Mary Wolstoncroft, the daughter of William Godwin, author of Political Justice—perhaps the most revolutionary of all pleas for a change in the constitution of society that has ever proceeded from a prosaic tradesman, such as, in the ordinary intercourse of life and interchange of ideas, his biography and correspondence (lately published) prove him to have been. Her mother was the celebrated and earliest advocate of the rights of women. Previously, the lovers had travelled through France and part of Germany, and an account of their six weeks’ tour was afterwards printed by Mrs. Shelley.

In 1815 appeared his Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude. In 1817 he again left England for Geneva. While in Switzerland he made the acquaintance of Byron, which was renewed during his stay in Italy. In the same year he returned to this country and, after a short sojourn with Leigh Hunt, he settled at Great Marlow, one of the most picturesque parts of the Thames. There, in spite of his own ill-health, he showed the active benevolence of his character, not only in the easier form of alms-giving but also in frequent visits to the sick and destitute, at the risk of aggravating symptoms of consumption now alarmingly apparent. There, too, he composed the Revolt of Islam, or, as it was originally more fitly entitled, Laon and Cythna. In this poem, by the mouth of Laone, he again expresses his humanitarian convictions and sympathies. She calls upon the enfranchised nations:—

While he was yet residing in Marlow, the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.,) died; and, since her character had been in strong contrast with her father’s and with royal persons’ in general, her early death seems to have caused, not only ceremonial mourning, but also genuine regret amongst all in the community having any knowledge of her exceptional amiability. The poet seized the opportunity of so public an event, and published An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. By the Hermit of Marlow, in which he inscribed the motto—“We pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.” In this pamphlet, while paying due tribute of regret for the death of an amiable girl, and fully appreciating the sorrow caused by death as well among the destitute and obscure (with whom, indeed, the too usual absence of the care and sympathy of friends intensifies the sorrow) as among the rich and powerful, he invited, in studiously moderate language, attention to the many just reasons for national mourning in the interests of the poor no less than of princes; and, in particular, invited the nation to express its indignant grief for the fate of the Lancashire mechanics who, missing the happier fate of their brethren slaughtered at Peterloo, were subjected to an ignominious death by a government which had, by its neglect, encouraged the growth of a just discontent.

In 1818 Shelley left England never to return. At this time was composed the principal part of his masterpiece—Prometheus Unbound, the most finished and carefully executed of all his poems. While in Rome (1819) he published The Cenci, which had been suggested to him by the famous picture of Guido, until lately supposed to be that of Beatrice Cenci, and by the traditions, current even in the poet’s time,[Pg 231] of the cruel fate of his heroine. Shakspere’s four great dramas excepted, The Cenci must take rank as the finest tragic drama since the days of the Greek masters. It is worked up to a degree of pathos unsurpassed by anything of the kind in literature. “The Fifth Act,” remarks Mrs. Shelley, his editor and commentator, “is a masterpiece. Every character has a voice that echoes truth in its tones.” The Cenci was followed in quick succession by the Witch of Atlas, Adonais (an elegy on the death of Keats), the most exquisite “In Memoriam”—not excepting Milton’s or Tennyson’s—ever written; and Hellas, which was inspired by his strong sympathy with the Greeks, who were then engaged in the war of independence.

Of his lesser productions, the Ode to the Skylark is of an inspiration seldom equalled in its kind. With the “blythe spirit,” whom he apostrophises, the poet rises in rapt ecstasy “higher still and higher.” For the rest of his productions (the Letters from Italy and criticisms or rather eulogies on Greek art have an especial interest) and for the other events in his brief remaining existence we must refer our readers to the complete edition of his works.[241] The last work upon which he was engaged was his Triumph of Life, a poem in the terza rima of the Divine Comedy. It breaks off abruptly—it is peculiarly interesting to note—with the significant words, “Then what is Life, I cried?”

The manner of his death is well known. While engaged in his usual recreation of boating he was drowned in the bay of Spezia. His body was washed on to the shore and, according to regulations then in force by the Italian governments of the day, in guarding against possible infection from the plague, it was burned where it lay, in presence of his friends Byron and Trelawney, and the ashes were entombed in the Protestant cemetery in Rome—a not unfitting disposal of the remains of one the most spiritualised of human beings.

The following just estimate of the character of his genius and writings, by a thoughtful critic, is worth reproduction here:—[Pg 232]“No man was more essentially a poet—‘glancing from earth to heaven.’ He was, indeed, ‘of imagination all compact.’ ... In all his poems he uniformly denounces vice and immorality in every form; and his descriptions of love, which are numerous, are always refined and delicate, with even less of sensuousness than in many of our most admired writers. It is true that he decried marriage, but not in favour of libertinism; and the evils he depicts, or laments, are those arising from the indissolubility of the bond, or from the opinions of society as to its necessity—opinions to which he himself submitted by marrying the woman to whom he was attached.... His reputation as a poet has gradually widened since his death, and has not yet reached its culminating point. He was the poet of the future—of an ideal futurity—and hence it was that his own age could not entirely sympathise with him. He has been called the ‘poet of poets,’ a proud title, and, in some respects, deserved.”[242]

Of his creed, the article which he most firmly held, and which, perhaps, most distinguishes him from ordinary thinkers, was the Perfectibility of his species, and his firm faith in the ultimate triumph of Good. “He believed,” says the one authority who had the best means of knowing his thought and feeling, “that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none. It is not my part in these notes to criticise the arguments that have been urged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he entertained it, and was, indeed, attached to it with fervent enthusiasm. That man could be so perfectionised as to be able to expel Evil from his own nature, and from the greater part of the world, was the cardinal point of his system. And the subject he liked best to dwell upon was the image of One warring with an evil principle, oppressed not only by it but by all, even the good, who were deluded into considering evil a necessary portion of humanity—a victim full of gratitude and of hope and of the spirit of triumph emanating from a reliance in the ultimate omnipotence of Good.” Such was the conviction which inspired his greatest poem The Prometheus Unbound.

A principal charm of his poetry is that which repels the common class of readers: “He loved to idealise reality, and this is a task shared by few. We are willing to have our passing whims exalted into passions, for this gratifies our vanity. But few of us understand or sympathise with the endeavour to ally the love of abstract beauty and adoration of abstract Good with sympathies with our own kind.”[243] Of so rare a spirit it is peculiarly interesting to know something of the outward form:—

As to his voice, impressions varied:—

If the physical characteristics of a great Teacher or of a sublime Genius excite a natural curiosity, it is the principal moral characteristics which most reasonably and profoundly interest us. To the supremely amiable disposition of the creator of The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound brief reference has been made; and we shall fitly supplement this imperfect sketch of his humanitarian career with the vivid impressions left on the mind of the friend who best knew him. Love of truth and hatred of falsehood and injustice were not, in his case, limited to the pages of a book, and forgotten in the too often deadening influence of intercourse with the world—they permeated his whole life and conversation.

WITH the name of Shelley is usually connected that of his more popular contemporary, Byron (1788–1824). The brother poets, it already has been noted, met in Switzerland; and, afterwards, they had some intercourse in Italy during Shelley’s last years. Excepting surpassing genius, and equal impatience of conventional laws and usages they had little in common. The one was first and above all a reformer, the other a satirist. To assert, however, the author of Childe Harold to have been inspired solely by cynical contempt for his species is unjust. A large part of his poems is pervaded apparently with an intense conviction of the evils of life as produced by human selfishness and folly. But what distinguishes the author of Prometheus Unbound from his great rival (if he may be so called) is the sure and certain hope of a future of happiness for the world. Thus, that belief in the all-importance of humane dietetics, as a principal factor in the production of weal or woe on earth, is far less apparent in Byron is matter of course.

Yet, that in moments of better feeling, Byron revolted from the gross materialism of the banquets, of which, as he expresses it, England

[Pg 235]

and that, had he not been seduced by the dinner-giving propensity of English society, he would have retained his early preference for the refined diet, we are glad to believe. In a letter to his mother, written in his early youth, he announces that he had determined upon relinquishment of flesh-eating, and his clearer mental perceptions in consequence of his reformed living;[247] and he seems even to have advanced to the extreme frugality of living, at times, upon biscuits and water only.

It would have been well for him had he, like Shelley, abstained from gross eating and drinking upon principle; and had he uniformly adhered to the resolution formed in his earlier years, we should, in that case, not have to lament his too notorious sexual intemperance.

IT is an obvious truth—in vain demonstrated seventeen centuries since by the best moral teachers of non-Christian antiquity—that abolition of the slaughter-house, with all the cruel barbarism directly or indirectly associated with it, by a necessary and logical corollary, involves abolition of every form of injustice and cruelty. Of this truth the subject of the present article is a conspicuous witness. During his long and active career, in social and political as well as in literary life, Sir Richard Phillips was a consistent philanthropist; and few, in his position of influence, have surpassed him in real beneficence. In the face of rancorous obloquy and opposition from that too numerous proportion of communities which systematically resist all “innovation” and deviation from the “ancient paths,” he fearlessly maintained the cause of the oppressed; and, as a prison reformer, he claims a place second only to that of Howard.

Of his life we have fuller record than we have of some others of the prophets of dietetic reformation. Yet there is uncertainty as to his birthplace. One account represents him to have been born in London, and to have been the son of a brewer. Another statement, which appears to[Pg 236] be more authentic, reports his place of birth to have been in the neighbourhood of Leicester, and his father to have been a farmer. What is of more permanent interest is the account preserved of the reason of his first revolt from the practice of kreophagy. Disliking the business of farming, it seems, while yet quite young, not without the acquiescence of his parents, he had adventurously sought his living, on his own account, in the metropolis. What, if any, plans had been formed by him is not known; but it is certain that he soon found himself in imminent danger of starvation, and, after brief trial, he gladly re-sought his home. Upon his return to the farm, he found awaiting him the welcome of the “Prodigal Son”—although, happily, he had no just claim to the title of that well-known character. A “fatted calf” was killed, and the boy shared in the dish with the rest of the family. It was not until after the feast that he learned that the slaughtered calf had been his especial favourite and playmate. So revolting to his keener sensibility was the consciousness of this fact, that he registered a vow never again to live upon the products of slaughter. To this determination he adhered during the remainder of his long life.[248]

His next venture, and first choice of a profession, while he was still quite young, led him to engage in teaching. As an advertisement he placed a flag at the door of a house in which he rented a room, where he gave elementary instruction to such children as were entrusted to his tuition by the townspeople of Leicester. The experiment proved not very successful, and at the end of a twelvemonth he tried his fortune elsewhere. He next turned to commerce—at first in a humble fashion. His business prospered, and his next important undertaking was the establishment of a newspaper—the Leicester Herald. This journal was what is now called a “Liberal” paper. Yet by those who affected to identify the welfare of England with the continued existence of rotten boroughs and other corruptions, it was held up to opprobrium as revolutionary and “incendiary.” Phillips himself had the reputation of an able political writer; but the chief support of the journal was the celebrated Dr. Priestley, whose name and contributions gave it a reputation it otherwise might not have gained. The responsible editor did not escape the perils that then environed the denouncers of legal or social iniquity, and Phillips, convicted of a “misdemeanour,” was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Leicester jail. During his imprisonment he displayed the beneficence of his disposition in relieving the miseries of some of his more wretched companions. Upon his release, he sold his interest in the Leicester Herald, and for some time confined himself altogether to his business.

[Pg 237]

Leaving Leicester he migrated to London and set up a hosiery establishment, which, however, he soon converted into the more congenial bookshop. It was the success of the Leicester Herald that, probably, led him to think of starting a new periodical. Upon consultation with Priestley and other friends he was encouraged to proceed, and the Monthly Magazine was the result. It commenced in July 1795 and proved to be a most decided success. At first conducted by Priestley, it was afterwards partly under the editorship of Dr. Aikin, author of the Country Around Manchester. The proprietors shared in the management of the magazine, but to what extent it is difficult to ascertain. Amongst the contributors was “Peter Pindar,” so well known as the author, amongst other satirical rhymes, of the verses upon George III., perplexed by the celebrated “apple dumpling.” The monthly receipts from the sale amounted to £1,500. A quarrel with Aikin was followed by the resignation of the editor. Increase of business soon led to a removal of the publishing-house from St. Paul’s Churchyard to a much larger establishment in Blackfriars. His home was at Hampstead where, in a beautiful neighbourhood and in an elegant villa, the opulent publisher enjoyed the refined pleasures which his humaneness of living, as well as beneficent industry, had justly deserved. At this time he began a correspondence with C. J. Fox, on the subject of the History of James II., upon which the famous Whig statesman was then engaged. Four letters addressed to him by Fox have been printed, but they have no special importance. He was already married, and the story of his courtship has more than the mere gossiping interest of ordinary biography. Upon his first arrival in London, he had taken lodgings in the house of a milliner. One of her assistants was a Miss Griffiths, a beautiful young Welsh girl, who, learning the unconquerable aversion of their guest from the common culinary barbarism, had amiably volunteered to prepare his dishes on strictly anti-kreophagist principles. This incident induced a sympathy and friendship which speedily resulted in a proposal of marriage. They were a handsome pair; and a somewhat precipitate matrimonial alliance was followed by many years of unmixed happiness for both.

In 1807 the “Livery” of London elected him to the office of High Sheriff of the City and County of Middlesex for the ensuing year. This responsible post put to the proof the sincerity of his professions as a reformer. Nor did he fail in the trial. During his term of power he effected many improvements in the treatment of the real or pretended criminals who, as occupants of the jails, came under his jurisdiction. No one who has read Howard’s State of the Prisons, published thirty years before Phillips’ entrance upon his office, or even general accounts[Pg 238] of them, needs to be told that they were the very nurseries of disease, vice, misery, and crime of all kinds—one of the many everlasting disgraces of the governments and civilisation of the day. Nor had they been appreciably improved during the interval of thirty years.

The new Sheriff daily visited Newgate and the Fleet prisons and, by personal inquiry, made himself acquainted with the actual state of the occupants, and in many ways was able to ameliorate their condition. By his direction several collecting boxes were conspicuously displayed, and the alms collected were applied to the relief of the families of destitute debtors. He further insisted that persons, whose indictments had been ignored by the grand jury, should not be detained in the foul and pestilential atmosphere, as was then the case, but should be immediately released.

In his admirable Letter to the Livery of London, he begins with an appeal to the common sentiments of humanity which ought to have some influence with those in authority. He reminds his readers that:—

In a note to this passage he adds:—

After this preliminary exhortation, he presents to their contemplation an appalling revelation of the stupid cruelties of the criminal law and its administration. He gives a graphic account of the jail of Newgate—both of the felons’ and the debtors’ division. The dimensions of the entire building were 105 yards by 40 yards, of which only one-fourth part was used by the prisoners. Into this space were crowded sometimes seven or eight hundred, never less than four or five hundred, human beings of both sexes and of all ages. “Felons” and debtors seem to have fared pretty much the same, and filth, fever, and starvation prevailed in all parts of the jail alike. The women prisoners he describes[Pg 239] as pressed together so closely as, upon lying down, to leave no atom of space between their bodies. As for the results of this neglect on the part of the State, he finds it impossible to draw an adequate picture of them, and is at a loss to imagine how the whole city is not carried off by a plague. By persevering energy he obtained some reformation, although he failed in his proposal for a new building.

As to the individual occupants of these pest-houses, he found a large number whose offences were comparatively of an innocent kind, but who were herded with the most savage criminals. He espoused the cause of several of these prisoners—especially of the women—who, after some years of incarceration, were frequently drifted off to Botany Bay, which, besides its other terrors, was for almost all of them a perpetual separation from their homes, their husbands, and families. Twice he vainly addressed a memorial to the Secretary of State (Lord Hawkesbury) on their behalf. The traditions and routine of office were too powerful even for his persistent energy.

Romilly had lately introduced his measure for amendment of the barbarous and bloody penal code of this country. Sir Richard Phillips addressed to him also a thoughtful letter, in which were pointed out some of the more glaring abuses in the administration of the laws, with which his official experience as High Sheriff had made him familiar. When Mansfield was Lord Chief Justice, and Thurlow Lord Chancellor, the hangings were so numerous that, as he informs us, on one “hanging holiday” he saw nineteen persons on the gallows, the eldest of whom was not twenty-two years of age. The larger number, probably, had been sentenced to this barbarous death for theft of various kinds. Three hundred years had passed away since the animadversions of More (before his accession to office) in the Utopia, and some half-century since Beccaria and Voltaire had protested against this monstrous iniquity of criminal legislation, without effect, in England, at least. As far as their contemporaries and their successors for long afterwards were concerned these philanthropists had written wholly in vain.

In the letter to Romilly Phillips insists particularly upon the following reforms: (1) No prisoner to be placed in irons before trial. (2) None to be denied free access of friends or legal advisers. (3) None to be deprived of adequate means of subsistence—14 ounces of bread then being the maximum of allowance of food. (4) Every prisoner to be discharged as soon as the grand jury shall have thrown out the bill of indictment. (5) Abolition of payment to jailors by exactions forced from the most destitute prisoners, and of various other exorbitant or illegal fines and extortions. (6) Separation of lunatic from other occupants of the jails. (7) That counsel be provided for those too poor to pay for themselves.

[Pg 240]

In 1811 Phillips published his Treatise on the Powers and Duties of Juries, and on the Criminal Laws of England. Three years later Golden Rules for Jurymen, which he afterwards expanded into a book entitled Golden Rules of Social Philosophy (1826), in which he lays down rules of conduct for the ordinary business of life—lawyers, clergymen, schoolmasters, and others being the objects of his admonitions. It is in this work that the civic dignitary—so “splendidly false” to the habits of his class—sets forth at length the principles upon which his unalterable faith in the truth of humanitarian dietetics was founded. The reasons of this “true confession” are fully and perspicuously specified, and the first forms the key-note of the rest:—[249]

Perhaps his most entertaining book is his Morning Walk from London to Kew (1817). In it he avails himself of the various objects on his road for instructive moralising—as, for example, when he meets with a mutilated soldier, on the frightful waste and cruelty of war; or with a horse struggling up a precipitous hill in agony of suffering from the torture of the bearing-rein, on the common forms of selfish cruelty; or again, when he deplores the incalculable waste of food resources, by the[Pg 242] careless indifferentism of owners of land and of the State in allowing the country to remain encumbered with useless, or comparatively useless, timber, in place of planting it with valuable fruit trees of various sorts according to the nature of the soil.

His next publication of importance was his Million of Facts and Correct Data and Elementary Constants in the entire Circle of the Sciences, and on all Subjects of Speculation and Practice (1832) 8vo. It is this work by which, perhaps, Phillips is now most known—an immense collection and, although many of the “Constants” may be open to criticism or have already become obsolete, it may still be examined with interest. The plan of the work is that of a classified collection of scraps of information on all the arts and sciences. It was so popular that five large editions were published in seven years. His preface to the stereotyped edition is dated 1839. He remarks that “his pretensions for such a task are a prolonged and uninterrupted intercourse with books and men of letters. He has, for forty-nine years, been occupied as the literary conductor of various public journals of reputation; he has superintended the press in the printing of many hundred books in every branch of human pursuit, and he has been intimately associated with men celebrated for their attainments in each of them.” In the facts concerning anatomy and physiology will be found references to scientific and other authorities upon the subject of flesh-eating.

Occasionally we meet with biographical facts of special interest. Thus, he says that, early in 1825, he suggested the first idea of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to Dr. Birkbeck and then, by his advice, to Lord Brougham. His idea was the establishment of a fund for selling or giving away books and tracts, after the manner of the Religious Tract Society. As regards his astronomic paradoxes, his theory, in opposition to the Newtonian, that the phenomena attributed to gravitation are, in reality, the “proximate effects of the orbicular and rotatory motions of the earth” (for which he was severely criticised by Professor De Morgan), exhibits at least the various activity, if not the invariable infallibility, of his mental powers.

A work of equal interest with a Million of Facts is his next compilation—A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation (1833). Under the article Diet he well remarks:—

Under the article “Farming,” he observes that “a man who eats 1lb. of flesh eats the exact equivalent of 6lbs. of wheat, and 128lbs. of potatoes.” That is, that he, in such proportion, wastes the national resources of a country.

The High Sheriff, on the occasion of some petition to the King, had been knighted, (to the affected scandal of his political enemies, who, apparently, wished to reserve all titular or other recognition for their own party), and the conspicuous beneficence of his career, while in office, had gained for him an honourable popularity. But fortune, so long favourable, now for a time showed itself adverse. In 1809 his affairs became embarrassed, and recourse to the bankruptcy court inevitable. Happily his friends aided him in saving from the general wreck the copyright of the Monthly Magazine. Its management was a chief occupation of his remaining years; and his own contributions, under the signature of “Common Sense,” attracted marked attention. In his publishing career, the most curious incident was the refusal of the MSS. of Waverley. The author’s demands seem to have been in excess of the value placed upon the novel by the publisher. It had been advertised in the first instance (he tells us) as the production of Mr. W. Scott. The name was then withdrawn, and the famous novel came before the world anonymously.

[Pg 244]

Besides the writings already noticed, Phillips compiled or edited a large number of school books. He tells us that all the elementary books, published under the names of Goldsmith, Blair and others, were his own productions—between the years 1798 and 1815. Nor was his mental activity confined to literary work; mechanical and scientific inventions largely occupied his attention. To prevent the enormous expenses of railway viaducts, embankments, and removals of streets, he proposed suspension roads, ten feet above the housetops, with inclined planes of 20° or 30°, and stationary engines to assist the rise and fall at each end. Cities, he maintained, might be traversed in this way on right lines, with intermediate points for ascent and descent. This bold and ingenious idea seems to be very like an anticipation of the elevated railways of New York, although even these have not yet reached the height Phillips thought to be desirable.

He interested himself, also, in steam navigation. When Fulton was in England he was in frequent communication with his English friend, to whom he despatched a triumphant letter on the evening of his first voyage on the Hudson. This letter, having been shown to Earl Stanhope and some eminent engineers, was treated by them with derision as describing an impossibility. Sir R. Phillips then advertised for a company, to repeat on the Thames what had become an accomplished fact on the American rivers. After expenditure of a large sum of money in advertising he obtained only two ten-pound conditional subscribers. He then printed, with commendation, Fulton’s letters in the Monthly Magazine, and his credulity was almost universally reprobated. It is worth recording that, in the first steam voyage from the Clyde to the Thames, Phillips, three of his family, and five or six others, were the only passengers who had the courage to test the experiment. To allay the public alarms he published a letter in the newspapers, and before the end of that summer he saw the same packet set out on its voyage with 350 passengers.[252]

In 1840, the year following the final edition of his most popular book, he died at Brighton in the seventy-third year of his age. During his busy life if, by his reforming energy, he had raised up some bitter enemies and detractors, he had made, on the other hand, some valuable friendships. Amongst these—not the least noteworthy—is his intimate friendship with that most humane-minded lawyer, Lord Erskine, one of those who have best adorned the legal profession in this country.

OF aristocratic descent, and educated at the college of the “Fathers of the Faith” (Pères de la Foi), Du Prat—such was the name of his family—imbibed in his youth principles very different from those of his great literary contemporary Michelet. Happily, Nature seems to have endowed his mother with a rare refinement and humaneness of feeling; and from her example and instruction he derived, apparently, the germs of those loftier ideas which, in maturer age, characterise a great part of his writings. While the first Napoléon was still emperor, he entered the army, from which he soon retired to employ his leisure in the more congenial amusement of travel.

In 1820 he first came before the world as the author of Méditations Poétiques, of which, within four years, 45,000 copies were sold, and the new poet was eagerly welcomed by the party of Reaction, who thought to find in him a future successor to the brilliant author of the Génie du Christianisme, the literary hope of their party, and the champion of the Church and royalty—the political counterbalance to Béranger, the poet of the Revolution—for Hugo had not yet raised the standard of revolt. Yet this remarkable volume with the greatest difficulty found its way into print. “A young man, [writes one of his biographers] his health scarcely re-established from a cruel malady, his face pale with suffering and covered with a veil of sadness, through which could be read the recent loss of an adored being, went about from publisher to publisher, carrying a small packet of verses dyed with tears. Everywhere the poetry and the poet were politely bowed out. At length, a bookseller, better advised, or seduced by the infinite grace of the young poet, decided to accept the manuscript so often rejected.” It was published without a name and without recommendation. The melancholy beauty of the style, and the melody of the rhythm, could not fail to attract sympathy from readers of taste and feeling, even from those opposed to his political prejudices—“A rhythm of a celestial melody, verse supple, cadenced, and sonorous, which softly vibrates as an Æolian harp sighing in the evening breeze.”

Its political, rather than its poetical, recommendations, we may presume, gained for the writer from the Government of Louis XVIII. a diplomatic post at Florence, which he held until the dynastic revolution of 1830. For some short time he acted as secretary to the French[Pg 246] Embassy in London, and during his stay in England he made the acquaintance of a rich Englishwoman, whom he afterwards married at Florence. A legacy of valuable property from an uncle, upon the condition of his assuming the name of Lamartine, still further enriched him.

In 1829 appeared the collection of Harmonies Poétiques et Réligieuses, in which, as in all his poetry up to this time, one of the most characteristic features is his devotion to Legitimacy and the Church. The renversement of 1830 considerably modified his political and ecclesiastical ideas. “I wish,” he declared at this turning-point in his career, “to enter the ranks of the people; to think, speak, act, and struggle with them.” One of the first proofs of his advanced opinions was his pamphlet advocating abolition of “capital” punishment. He failed to obtain a seat in the Chambre des Députés of Louis Philippe, whether in consequence of this advocacy or by reason of his antecedent politics. His enforced leisure he employed in travelling, and in 1832, with his English wife and their young daughter Juliette (whose death at Beyrout caused him inconsolable grief), he set sail for the East in a vessel equipped and armed at his own expense. A narrative of these travels he published in his Voyage en Orient (1835). In the following year appeared his Jocelyn, a poem of charming tenderness and eloquence, and, in 1838, La Chute d’un Ange (“The Fall of an Angel”), in which he, for the first time, gives expression to his feeling of revolt from the barbarisms of the Slaughter-House. In this strikingly original poem, one of the most remarkable of its kind in any language, Lamartine discovers to us that he no longer views human institutions, the customs of society, and the consecrated usages of nations through the rose-coloured medium of traditional prejudice. It is penetrated with a deep consciousness of the injustice and falseness of a large proportion of those things which are tolerated, and even approved, under the sanction of religious or social law, and with ardent indignation against cruelty and selfishness. In the frightful representation of the practices of the early tyrants of the world saved from the “universal deluge,” he allows us to see his own feeling. One of more humane race thus addresses his charming heroine Daïdha:—

From the pages of the “Primitive Book,” which he imagines to have been originally delivered to men, their hermit-host reads to Daïdha and her celestial, but incarnate, lover the true divine revelation, which is thus sublimely prefaced:—

In pronouncing the following code of morality, the voice of conscience and of reason coincides with the divine voice in our hearts:—

[Pg 248]

Not only is the human animal sternly forbidden to imbrue his hands in the blood of his innocent earth-mates: it is also enjoined upon him to respect and cultivate their undeveloped intelligence and reason:—

From such more rational estimate should follow, necessarily, just treatment:—

Consistently with, and consequently from, such just human relations with the lower species are the admonitions to break down the walls of partition between the various human races, and to the proper cultivation of the Earth, the common mother of all:—

It is hardly necessary to record that The Fall of an Angel was far from receiving, from the world of fashion, the applause of his earlier and more conventional productions.

Lamartine was still in the East (we refer to an earlier period), when news of his election to the Chambre des Deputés by a Legitimist constituency brought him back to Paris. Among the prominent political leaders of the day he figured “as a progressive Conservative, strongly blending reverence for the antique with a kind of philosophical democracy. He spoke frequently on social and philanthropic questions.” In 1838 he became deputy for Macon, his native town. During the Orleanist régime he refused to hold office, professing aversion for the “vulgar utility” of the government of Guizot and the Bourgeois King, and in 1845 he openly joined the Liberal opposition. His Histoire des Girondins (1847) probably contributed to the expulsion of the Orleanist dynasty in the next year.

In the scenes of the Revolution of February, 1848, he occupied a prominent position as mediator between the two opposite parties; and[Pg 250] the retention of the tricolour, in place of the Red flag, is attributed to his intervention. Elected a member of the Provisional Government, Lamartine served as Foreign Minister of the Republic. In this capacity he published his well-known Manifesto à l’Europe. But, in spite of the fact that ten departments had elected him as representative in the Assemblée Constituante, and that he was also made one of the five members of the Executive Commission, his popularity was short-lived. With all his, apparently, sincere sympathy with the cause of the Oppressed, traditionary associations and strong family attachments (sufficiently manifest in his Mémoirs) impeded him in his political course; and his compromising attitude provoked the distrust of more advanced political reformers. In competition with Louis Napoléon and Cavaignac, he was nominated for the presidency; but he received the support of few votes. From this period he withdrew into private life and devoted himself entirely to literature. His Histoire de la Révolution (1849), Histoire de la Restauration, Histoire de la Russie, Histoire de la Turquie, Raphael (a narrative of his childhood and youth) Confidences (1849–1851), a further autobiography—one of the most interesting of all his prose productions—and various other writings, most of them appearing, in the first instance, in the periodicals of the day, attested the activity and versatility of his genius. He also for some time conducted a journal—Conseiller du Peuple. In 1860 he collected his entire writings into forty-one volumes. Of them his Histoire des Girondins is, probably, the most widely known. But, next to The Fall of an Angel, it is his own Memoirs which will always have most interest and instruction for those who know how to appreciate true refinement of soul, and, making due deductions from political or traditionary prejudice, can discern essential worth of mind. In Les Confidences he allows us to see the natural sensibility and superiority of his disposition in his deep repugnance to the orthodox table—none the less real because he seems, unhappily, to have deemed himself forced to comply with the universal or, rather, fashionable barbarism. Writing of his early education, he tells us:—

Some years before the publication of his Fall of an Angel, Lamartine, from the height of the National Tribune, had given significant expression to the feeling of all the more thoughtful minds, vague though it was, of the urgent need of some new and better principle to inspire and govern human actions than any hitherto tried:—

[Pg 252]

But a few years earlier, in the same place, a still more positive protest—not the less noteworthy because futile—was heard upon the occasion of a discussion as to the introduction into France of foreign “Cattle,” when one of the Deputies, Alexandre de Laborde, maintained that flesh-meat is but an object of luxury; and was supported, at least, by one or two other thoughtful deputies who had the courage of their better convictions. It deserves to be noted that while the Left seemed not unfavourable to the humaner feeling, the Centre apathetic, and the Right derisively antagonistic, the minister of the King (Charles X.) threw all the weight of his position into the materialistic side of the scales. Thus this feeble and last public attempt in France to stop the torrent of Materialism proved abortive.[255]

THE early life of this most original and eloquent of French historians passed amidst much hardship and difficulty. His father, who was a printer, had been employed by the government of the Revolution period (1790–1794), and at the political reaction, a few years later, he found himself reduced to poverty. From the experiences of his earlier life Jules Michelet doubtless derived his contempt for the common rich and luxuriant manner of living. Until his sixteenth year, flesh-meat formed no part of his food; and his diet was of the scantiest as well as simplest kind.

Naturally sensitive and contemplative, and averse from the rough manners and petty tyranny of his schoolfellows, the young student found companionship in a few choice books, of which A’Kempis’ Imitation of Christ seems to have been at that time one of the most read. At the Sorbonne Michelet carried away some of the most valued prizes, which were conferred with all the éclat of the public awards of the Académie. At the age of 24, having graduated as doctor in philosophy, he obtained[Pg 253] the chair of History in the Rollin College. His manner, original and full of enthusiasm, though wanting often in method and accuracy, possessed an irresistible fascination for his readers; and all, who had the privilege of listening to him, were charmed by his earnest eloquence.

His first principal work was his Synopsis of Modern History (1827). His version of the celebrated Scienza Nuova of Vico, of whom he regarded himself as the especial disciple, appeared soon after. Upon the revolution of July, Michelet received the important post of Keeper of the Archives, by which appointment he was enabled to prosecute his researches in preparation for his magnum opus in history, L’Histoire de la France, the successive volumes of which appeared at long intervals. It contains some of the finest passages in French prose, the episode of La Pucelle d’Orleans being, perhaps, the finest of all. Having previously held a professorship in the Sorbonne (of which he was deprived by Guizot, then minister), he was afterwards invited to fill the chair of History in the Collège de France.

In 1847 his advanced political views deprived him once more of his professorial post and income, in which the Revolution of the next year, however, reinstated him. The coup d’état of 1851 finally banished him from public life—at least as far as teaching was concerned—for being too conscientious to subscribe the oath of allegiance to the new Empire. Michelet, like an eminent writer of the present day, upon principle, elected to be his own publisher; a fact which, in conjunction with the unpopularity of his opinions, considerably lessened the sale and circulation of his books; and, by this independency of action, the historian was a pecuniary loser to a great extent.

Deprived of the means of subsistence by his conscientiousness, he left Paris almost penniless, and sought an asylum successively in the Pyrenees and on the Normandy coast. In 1856 appeared the book with which the name of Michelet will hereafter be most worthily associated—the one which may be said to have been written with his heart’s blood. That the taste of the reading world was not entirely corrupt, was proved by the rapid sale of this the most popular of all his productions. A new edition of L’Oiseau came from the press each year for a long period of time, and it has been translated into various European languages. How far the attractiveness of the book, through the illustrative genius of Giacomelli, influenced the buying public; how far the surpassing merits of the style and matter of the work—we will not stay to determine; but it is certain that The Bird at once established his popularity as a writer, and relieved his pecuniary needs. L’Oiseau was followed by several[Pg 254] other eloquent interpretations of Nature. But the first—there can be no question with persons of taste—remains the masterpiece. It is, indeed, unique in its kind in literature—by the intense sympathy and love for the subject which inspired the writer. It is the only book which treats the Bird as something more than an object of interest to the mere classifier, to the natural-history collector, or to the “sportsman.” It considers the winged tribes—those of the non-raptorial kinds—as possessed of a high intelligence, of a certain moral faculty, of devoted maternal affection—of a soul, in fine.

Of his remaining writings, La Bible de l’Humanité (1863) is one of the most notable, characteristic as it is of the author’s method of treatment of historical and ethnographical subjects.

The calamities of his native land he so greatly loved, through the corrupt government which had brought upon it the devastations of a terrible war, ending, by a natural sequence, in the fearful struggle of the suffering proletariat, deeply affected the aged champion of the rights of humanity. Almost broken-hearted, he withdrew from his accustomed haunts and went to Switzerland, and afterwards to Italy. He died at Hyères, in 1874, in the 77th year of his age. A public funeral, attended by great numbers of the working classes, awaited him in the capital.

In the following passage Michelet virtually subscribes to the creed of Vegetarianism. The saving clause, in which he seems to suppose the diet of blood to be imposed upon our species by the “cruel fatalities” of life, it is pretty certain he would have been the first to wish to cancel, had he enjoyed the opportunity of investigating the scientific basis of dietetic reform:—

Extolling the greater respect of the Hindus for other life, as exhibited in their sacred scriptures, Michelet vindicates the pre-eminently beneficent character of the Cow, in Europe so ungratefully treated by the recipients of her bounty:—

In his Bird he constantly preaches the faith that can remove mountains—the faith that regards the regeneration and pacification of earth as the proper destiny of our species:—

This Michelet never wearies of repeating, and he returns again and again to a truth which is scorned by the modern self-seeking and money-getting, as it was by the fighting, wholly barbarous, world:—

Like Shelley, he firmly believed in the indefinite amelioration of our world by the ultimate triumph of principles of humaneness, so that the “sting of death” and of pain might almost, if not entirely, be removed:—

He upbraids the sportsman no less than he does the scientist, and finds sufficient cause for the too general sterility of the intellect in the habituation to slaughter, and in disregard for the subject species:—

Although, as has already been indicated, Michelet evidently had not examined the scientific basis of akreophagy, yet all his aspirations and all his sympathies, it is also equally evident, were for the bloodless diet. With Locke and Rousseau, and many others before him, he presses upon mothers the vital import of not perverting the early preferences of their children for the foods prescribed by unsophisticated nature and their own truer instincts. In one of his books, the most often republished, in laying down rules for the education of young girls, he thus writes:—

IN any history of Vegetarianism it is impossible to omit record of the lives and labours of the institutors of a religious community who, in establishing humane dietetics as an essential condition of membership, may well claim the honourable title of religious reformers, and to whom belongs the singular merit of being the first and only founders of a Christian church who have inculcated a true religion of life as the basis of their teaching.

William Cowherd, the first founder of this new conception of the Christian religion, which assumed the name of the “Bible Christian Church,” was born at Carnforth, near Lonsdale, in 1763. His first appearance in public was as teacher of philology in a theological college at Beverley. Afterwards, coming to Manchester, he acted as curate to the Rev. J. Clowes, who, while remaining a member of the Established Church, had adopted the theological system of Swedenborg. Cowherd attached himself to the same mystic creed, and he is said to be one of the few students of him who have ever read through all the Latin writings of the Swedish theologian. He soon resigned his curacy, and for a short time he preached in the Swedenborgian temple in Peter Street. There he seems not to have found the freedom of opinion and breadth in teaching he had expected, and he determined to propagate his own convictions, independently of other authority. In the year 1800 he built, at his own expense, Christ Church, in King Street, Salford—the first meeting-place of the reformed church.[261] His extraordinary eloquence and ability, as well as earnestness of purpose, quickly attracted a large audience, and may well have brought to recollection the style and matter of the great orator of Constantinople of the fourth century. One characteristic of his Church—perhaps unique at that time—was the non-appropriation of[Pg 259] sittings. Another unfashionable opinion held by him was the Pauline one of the obligation upon Christian preachers to maintain themselves by some “secular” labour, and he therefore kept a boarding school, which attained extensive proportions. In this college some zealous and able men, who afterwards were ordained by him to carry on a truly beneficent ministry, assisted in the work of teaching, of whom the names of Metcalfe, Clark, and Schofield are particularly noteworthy. Following out the principles of their Master, two of them took degrees in medicine, and gained their living by that profession. The Principal himself built an institute, connected with his church in Hulme, where, more recently, the late Mr. James Gaskill presided, who, at his death, left an endowment for its perpetuation as an educational establishment.

It was in the year 1809 that Cowherd formally promulgated, as cardinal doctrines of his system, the principle of abstinence from flesh-eating, which, in the first instance, he seems to have derived from “the medical arguments of Dr. Cheyne and the humanitarian sentiments of St. Pierre.” He died not many years after this formal declaration of faith and practice, not without the satisfaction of knowing that able and earnest disciples would carry on the great work of renovating the religious sentiment for the humanisation of the world.

Of those followers not the least eminent was Joseph Brotherton, the first M.P. for Salford, than which borough none has been more truly honoured by the choice of its legislative representative. A printing press had been set up at the Institution, and, after the death of the Master, his Facts Authentic in Science and Religion towards a New Foundation of the Bible, under which title he had collected the most various matter illustrative of passages in the Bible, and in defence of his own interpretation of them, was there printed. It is, as his biographer has well described it, “a lasting memorial of his wide reading and research—travellers, lawyers, poets, physicians, all are pressed into his service—the whole work forming a large quarto common-place book filled with reading as delightful as it is discursive. Some of his minor writings have also been printed. He was, besides his theological erudition, a practical chemist and astronomer, and he caused the dome of the church in King Street to be fitted up for the joint purposes of an observatory and a laboratory. His microscope is still preserved in the Peel Park Museum. His valuable library, which at one time was accessible to the public on easy terms, is now deposited in the new Bible Christian Church in Cross[Pg 260] Lane. The books collected exhibit the strong mind which brought them together for its own uses. This library is the workshop in which he wrought out a new mode of life and a new theory of doctrine—with these instruments he moulded minds like that of Brotherton, and so his influence has worked in many unseen channels.” He died in 1816, and is buried in front of his chapel, in King Street, Salford.[262]

AMONGST the immediate disciples of the founder of the new community, the most active apostle of the principles of Vegetarianism, William Metcalfe, to whom reference has been already made, claims particular notice. Born at Orton in Westmoreland, after instruction in a classical school kept by a philologist of some repute, he began life as an accountant at Keighley, in Yorkshire. His leisure hours were devoted to mental culture, both in reading and in poetic composition. Converted by Cowherd in 1809, in the twenty-first year of his age, he abandoned the flesh diet, and remained to the end a firm believer in the truths of “The Perfect Way.” In the year following he married the daughter of the Rev. J. Wright who was at the head of the “New Church” at Keighley, and whom he assisted as curate. His wife, of highly-cultured mind, equally with himself was a persistent follower of the reformed mode of living. Sharing the experiences of many other dietary reformers, the young converts encountered much opposition from their family and friends, who attempted at one moment ridicule, at another dissuasion, by appealing to medical authority. Unmoved from their purpose, they continued unshaken in their convictions.

These experiences, it is scarcely necessary to remark, in the lives of followers of reformed dietetics, have been not seldom repeated.

In the Academy of Sciences, instituted by Dr. Cowherd, Metcalfe was invited to assume the direction of the “classical” department (1811). In the same year he took “Orders,” and, at the solicitation of the secessionists from the Swedenborgian Communion (which, with some inconsistency, seems to have looked with indifference, or even dislike, upon the principles of akreophagy), he officiated at Adingham, in Yorkshire. By the voluntary aid of one of his admirers a church was built, to which was added a commodious school-room. He then resigned his position under Dr. Cowherd, and opened a grammar school in Adingham, where he was well supported by his friends.

The United States of America, however, was the field to which he had long been looking as the most promising for the mission work to which he had devoted himself; and in this hope he had been sustained by his Master. In the spring of 1817 a company of forty-one persons, members of the Bible Christian community, embarked at Liverpool for Philadelphia, They comprised two clerics—W. Metcalfe and Jas. Clark—twenty other adults, and nineteen children. Of this band only a part were able to resist the numerous temptations to conformity with the prevalent social practices; and the vast distances which separated the leaders from their[Pg 262] followers were almost an insuperable bar to sympathy and union. Settling in Philadelphia—for them at least a name of real significance—Metcalfe supported his family by teaching, while performing the duties of his position as head of the faithful few who formed his church. His day-school, which was attended by the sons of some of the leading people of the city, proved to be pecuniarily successful until the appearance of yellow fever in Philadelphia, which broke up his establishment and involved him in great difficulties; for upon his school he depended entirely for his living. He had many influential friends, who tempted him, at this crisis of his fortunes, with magnificent promises of support, if only he would desert the cause he had at heart—the propagandism of a religion based upon principles of true temperance and active goodness. Both moral and physical superiority pointed him out as one who could not fail to bring honour to any undertaking, and, had he sacrificed conviction to interest, he might have greatly advanced his material prospects. All such seductions he firmly resisted.

Meanwhile, through the pulpit, the schoolroom, and, more widely, through the newspapers, he scattered the seeds of the gospel of Humanity. But the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of self-seeking religionism, and of rancorous prejudice, was by no means extinct even in the great republic, and the (so-called) “religious” press united to denounce his humane teaching as well as his more liberal theology. Nor did some of his more unscrupulous opponents hesitate, in the last resort, to raise the war-cry of “infidel” and “sceptic.” These assailants he treated with contemptuous silence; but the principle of moral dietetics he defended in the newspapers with ability and vigour. In 1821 he published an essay on Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals, which was freely and extensively circulated. For several years his missionary labours appear to have been unproductive. In the year 1830 he made two notable converts—Dr. Sylvester Graham, who was at that time engaged as a “temperance” lecturer, and was deep in the study of human physiology; and Dr. W. Alcott. Five years later, the Moral Reformer was started as a monthly periodical, which afterwards appeared under the title of the Library of Health. In 1838–9 the Graham Journal was also published in Boston, and scientific societies were organised in many of the New England towns. The Bible was largely appealed to in the controversy, and a sermon of Metcalfe’s had an extensive circulation through the United States. With all this controversy upon his hands, he was far from neglecting his private duties, and, in fact, his health was over-taxed in the close and constant work in the schoolrooms, overcrowded and ill-ventilated as they were. In the day and night school he was[Pg 263] constantly employed, during one half of the year, from eight in the morning until ten at night; and Sunday brought him no remission of labour.

In the propagandism of his principles through the press he was not idle. The Independent Democrat, and, in 1838, the Morning Star, was printed and published at his own office—by which latter journal, in spite of the promise of support from political friends, he was a pecuniary loser to a large amount. The Temperance Advocate, also issued from his office, had no better success. Several years earlier, about 1820, it is interesting to note, he had published a tract on The Duty of Abstinence from all Intoxicating Drinks; and the founder of the Bible Christian Church in America can claim the merit of having been the first systematically to inculcate this social reform.

In the year 1847 the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain had been founded, of which Mr. James Simpson had been elected the first president. Metcalfe immediately proposed the formation of a like society in the United States. He corresponded with Drs. Graham, Alcott, and others; and finally an American Vegetarian Convention assembled in New York, May 15, 1850. Several promoters of the cause, previously unknown to each other (except through correspondence), here met. Metcalfe was elected president of the Convention; addresses were delivered, and the constitution of the society determined upon. The Society was organised by the election of Dr. William Alcott as president, Rev. W. Metcalfe as corresponding secretary, and Dr. Trall as recording secretary. An organ of the society was started in November, 1850, under the title of The American Vegetarian and Health Journal, and under the editorship of Metcalfe. Its regular monthly publication, however, did not begin until 1851. In that year he was selected as delegate to the English Vegetarian Society, as well as delegate from the Pennsylvania Peace Society to the “World’s Peace Convention,” which was fondly supposed to be about to be inaugurated by the Universal Exhibition of that year. The proceedings at the annual meeting of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, and the eloquent address, amongst others, of the American representative, are fully recorded in the Vegetarian Messenger for 1852. On this occasion Joseph Brotherton, M.P. presided.

Two years later he suffered the irreparable loss of the sympathising sharer in his hopes for the regeneration of the world. Mrs. Metcalfe died in the seventy-fourth year of her age, having been, during forty-four years, a strict abstinent. Her loss was mourned by the entire Vegetarian community. By far the larger part of the matter, as well as the expenses[Pg 264] of publication, of the American Vegetarian, was supplied by the editor, and, being inadequately supported by the rest of the community, the managers were forced to abandon its further publication. The last volume appeared in 1854. It has been succeeded in later times, under happier circumstances, by the Health Reformer which is still in existence.

In 1855 Metcalfe received an invitation to undertake the duties attached to the mother church at Salford. Leaving his brother-in-law in charge of the church in Philadelphia, he embarked for England once more, and the most memorable event, during his stay in this country, was the deeply and sincerely lamented death of Joseph Brotherton, who for twenty years had represented Salford in the Legislature, and whose true benevolence had endeared him to the whole community. Metcalfe was chosen to preach the funeral eulogy, which was listened to by a large number of Members of Parliament and municipal officers, and by an immense concourse of private citizens. Returning to America soon afterwards, at the urgent request of his friends in Philadelphia, he was, in 1859, elected to fill the place of President vacated by Dr. Alcott, whose virtues and labours in the cause he commemorated in a just eulogy. His own death took place in the year 1862, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, caused by hemorrhage of the lungs, doubtless the effect of excessive work. His end, like his whole interior if not exterior life, was, in the best meaning of a too conventional expression, full of peace and of hope. His best panegyric is to be found in his life-work; and, as the first who systematically taught the truths of reformed dietetics in the “New World,” he has deserved the unceasing gratitude of all sincere reformers in the United States, and, indeed, throughout the globe. By all who knew him personally he was as much loved as he was esteemed, and the newspapers of the day bore witness to the general lamentation for his loss.[264]

AS an exponent of the physiological basis of the Vegetarian theory of diet, in the most elaborate minuteness, the author of Lectures on the Science of Human Life has always had great repute amongst food reformers both in the United States and in this country. Collaterally connected with the ducal house of Montrose, his father, a graduate of Oxford, emigrated to Boston, U.S., in the year 1718. He must have[Pg 265] attained an advanced age when his seventeenth child, Sylvester, was born at Suffield, in Connecticut. Yet he seems to have been of a naturally dyspeptic and somewhat feeble constitution, which was inherited by his son, whose life, in fact, was preserved only by the method recommended by Locke—free exposure in the open air. During several years he lived with an uncle, on whose farm he was made to work with the labourers. In his twelfth year he was sent to a school in New York, and at fourteen he was set for a short time to learn the trade of paper-making. “He is described as handsome, clever, and imaginative. ‘I had heard,’ he says, ‘of noble deeds, and longed to follow in the field of fame.’ Ill health soon obliged his return to the country, and at sixteen symptoms of consumption appeared. Various occupations were tried until the time, when about twenty years of age, he commenced as a teacher of youth, proving highly successful with his pupils. Again ill-health obliged the abandonment of this pursuit.”[265]

At the age of thirty-two he married, and soon after became a preacher in the Presbyterian Church. Deeply interested in the question of “Temperance,” he was invited to lecture for that cause by the Pennsylvania Society (1830). He now began the study of physiology and comparative anatomy, in which his interest was unremitting. These important sciences were used to good effect in his future dietetic crusade. At this time he came in contact with Metcalfe, by whom he was confirmed in, if not in the first instance converted to, the principles of radical dietary reform. “He was soon led to believe that no permanent cure for intemperance could be found, except in such change of personal and social customs as would relieve the human being from all desire for stimulants. This idea he soon applied to medicine, so that the prevention and cure of disease, as well as the remedy for intemperance, were seen to consist mainly in the adoption of correct habits of living, and the judicious adaptation of hygienic agencies. These ideas were elaborated in an Essay on the Cholera (1832), and a course of lectures which were delivered in various parts of the country, and subsequently published under the title of Lectures on the Science of Human Life (2 vols., Boston, 1839). This has been the leading text-book of all the dietetic and nearly all the health reformers since.”[266]

[Pg 266]

The Science of Human Life is one of the most comprehensive as well as minute text books on scientific dietetics ever put forth. If it errs at all, it errs on the side of redundancy—a feature which it owes to the fact that it was published to the world as it was orally given. It therefore well bears condensation, and this has been judiciously done by Mr. Baker, whose useful edition is probably in the hands of most of our readers. Graham was also the author of a treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, and “Graham bread” is now universally known as one of the most wholesome kinds of the “staff of life.” Besides these more practical writings, for some time before his death he occupied his leisure in the production of a Philosophy of Sacred History, the characteristic idea of which seems to have been to harmonise the dogmas of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures with his published views on physiology and dietetics. He lived to complete one volume only (12mo.), which appeared after his death.

Tracing the history of Medicine from the earlier times, and its more or less of empiricism in all its stages, Graham discovers the cause of a vast proportion of all the egregious failure of its professors in the blind prejudice which induces them to apply to the temporary cure, rather than to the prevention, of disease. As it was in its first barbarous beginning, so it has continued, with little really essential change, to the present moment:—

By the opponents of dietetic reform it has been pretended that climate, or individual constitution, must determine the food proper for nations or individuals:—

With Hufeland, Flourens, and other scientific authorities, he maintains that:—

As for the omnivorousness of the human animal:—

[Pg 269]

The stimulating, or alcoholic, property of flesh produces the delusion that it is, therefore, the most nourishing:—

That the human species, taken in its entirety, is no more carnivorous de facto than it could be de jure, is apparent on the plain evidence of facts. In all countries of our Globe, with the exception of the most barbarous tribes, it is, in reality, only the ruling and rich classes who are kreophagist. The Poor have, almost everywhere, but the barest sufficiency even of vegetable foods:—

That the sanguinary diet and savagery go hand in hand, and that in proportion to the degree of carnivorousness is the barbarous or militant character of the people, all History, past and present, too clearly testifies. Nor are the carnivorous tribes conspicuous by their cruel habits only:—

With Flourens he adduces a number of instances both of individuals and of communities who have attained to protracted ages by reason of a pure diet. He afterwards proceeds to prove from comparative physiology and anatomy, and, in particular, from the conformation of the human teeth and stomach (which, by an astounding perversion of fact, are sometimes alleged to be formed carnivorously, in spite of[Pg 271] often-repeated scientific authority, as well as of common observation), the natural frugivorous character of the human species, and he quotes Linné, Cuvier, Lawrence, Bell, and many others in support of this truth.[270]

GERMANY, at the present day able to boast so many earnest apostles of humanitarianism, until the nineteenth century was some way advanced, had contributed little, definitely, to the literature of Humane Dietetics. A Haller or a Hufeland, indeed, had, with more or less boldness, raised the banner of partial revolt from orthodox medicine and orthodox living, but their heterodoxy was rather hygienic than humane. In the history of humanitarianism in Germany the honour of the first place, in order of time, belongs to the author of Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung, and of Mandaras’ Wanderungen, whose life, political as well as literary, was one continuous combat on behalf of justice, freedom, and true progress.

Gustav von Struve was born at München (Munich), October 11, 1805, from whence his father, who was residing there as Russian Minister, shortly afterwards removed to Stuttgart. The foundation of his education was laid in the gymnasium of that capital, where he remained until his twelfth year. From 1817 to 1822 he was a scholar in the Lyceum in Karlsruhe. Having finished his preparatory studies in those schools, he proceeded to the University of Göttingen, which, after a course of nearly two years, he exchanged for Heidelberg. Four years of arduous study enabled him to pass his first examination, and, as the result of his brilliant attainments and success, he received the appointment of Attaché to the Bundestag Embassy at Oldenberg.

With such an opening, a splendid career in the service of courts and kings seemed to be reserved for him. His family connexions, his great abilities, and his unusual acquirements at so early an age guaranteed to him quick promotion, with reward and worldly honour. But to figure in the service of the oppressors of the people—to waste in luxurious[Pg 272] trifling the resources of a peasantry, supplied by them only at the cost of a life-time of painful destitution, to support the selfish greed and vain ostentation of the Jew—such was not the career which could stimulate the ambition of Struve. The conviction that this was not his proper destiny grew stronger in him, and he soon abandoned his diplomatic position and Oldenberg at the same time. Without wealth or friends, at variance with his relatives, who could not appreciate his higher aims, he settled himself in Göttingen (1831), and in the following year in Jena. His attempts to obtain fixed employment as professor or teacher, or as editor of a newspaper, long proved unsuccessful, for independent and honest thought, never anywhere greatly in esteem, at that time in Germany was in especial disfavour with all who, directly or indirectly, were under court influences. Yet the three years which he lived in Göttingen and Jena supplied him with varied and useful experiences.

In 1833 he went to Karlsruhe. After years of long patience and effort, he at length effected his object (to gain a position which should make it possible for him to carry out his schemes of usefulness for his fellow-beings), and, at the end of 1836, he obtained the office of Obergerichts-Advocat in Mannheim. This position gave leisure and opportunity for the prosecution of his various scientific and philosophic pursuits, and to engage in literary undertakings. He founded periodicals and delivered lectures, the constant aim of which was the improvement of the world around him. At this period he wrote his philosophic romance, Mandaras’ Wanderungen (“The Wanderings of Mandaras”), through which he conveys distasteful truths in accordance with the principles of Tasso.[271]

Struve’s active political life began in 1845. In that year were published Briefwechsel zwischen einen ehemaligen and einen jetzigen Diplomaten,(“Correspondence between an Old and a Modern Diplomatist”), which was soon followed by his Oeffentliches Recht des Deutschen Bundes (“Public Rights of the German Federation”) and his Kritische Geschichte des Allgemeinen Staats-Rechts (“Critical History of the Common Law of Nations”). In the same year he undertook the editorship of the Mannheimer Journal, in which he boldly fought the battles of political and social reform. He was several times condemned to imprisonment, as well[Pg 273] as to payment of fines; but, undeterred by such persecution, the champion of the oppressed succeeded in worsting most of his powerful enemies.

In the beginning of 1847 he founded a weekly periodical, the Deutscher Zuschauer (“The German Spectator”), in which, without actually adopting the invidious names, he maintained in their fullest extent the principles of Freedom and Fraternity; and it was chiefly by the efforts of Struve that the great popular demonstration at Oldenberg of September 12, 1847, took place, which formulated what was afterwards known as the “Demands of the People.” The public meeting, assembled at the same town March 9, 1848, which was attended by 25,000 persons, and which, without committing itself to the adoption of the term “republican,” yet proclaimed the inherent Rights of the People, was also mainly the work of the indefatigable Struve. He took part, too, in the opening of the Parliament at Frankfurt. His principal production at this time was Grundzüge der Staats-Wischenschaft (“Outlines of Political Science”). This book, inspired by the movement for freedom which was then agitating, but, as it proved, for the most part ineffectually, a large part of Europe, is not without significance in the education of the community for higher political conceptions. Struve and F. Hecker took a leading part in the democratic movements in Baden. These attempts failing, after a short residence in Paris, he settled near Basel (Basle). There he published his Grundrechte des Deutschen Volkes (“Fundamental Rights of the German People”), and, in association with Heinzen, a Plan für Revolutionierung und Republikanisierung Deutschlands. The earnest and noble convictions apparent in all the writings of the author, and the unmistakable purity of his aims, forced from the more candid of the opponents of his political creed recognition and high respect. Nevertheless, he narrowly escaped legal assassination and the fusillades of the Kriegsgericht or Military Tribunal.

Later the unsuccessful lover of his country sought refuge in England, and from thence proceeded to the United States (1850). Upon the breaking out of the desperate struggle between the North and South, he threw in his lot with the former, and took part in several battles. In America he wrote his historical work Weltgeschichte (12 vols.) and, amongst others, Abeilard und Heloise. In 1861 he returned to Europe, and, at different periods, wrote two of his most important books, Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung (“Vegetable Diet, the Foundation of a New World-View”), and Das Seelenleben, oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen (“The Spiritual Life, or the Natural History of Man”), in both of which he earnestly insists, not only upon[Pg 274] the vast and incalculable suffering inflicted, in the most barbarous manner, upon the victims of the Table, but, further, upon the demoralising influence of living by pain and slaughter:—

The last period of his life was passed in Wien (Vienna), and in that city his beneficently-active career closed in August, 1870. His last broken words to his wife, some hours before his end, were, “I must leave the world ... this war ... this conflict!” With the life of Gustav Struve was extinguished that of one of the noblest soldiers of the Cross of Humanity. His memory will always be held in high honour wherever justice, philanthropy, and humane feeling are in esteem.

In Mandaras’ Wanderungen, of a different inspiration from that of ordinary fiction, and which is full of refinement of thought and feeling, are vividly represented the repugnance of a cultivated Hindu when brought, for the first time, into contact with the barbarisms of European civilisation. To few of our English readers, it is presumable, is this charming story known; and an outline of its principal incidents will not be supererogatory here.

The hero, a young Hindu, whose home is in one of the secluded valleys of the Himalaya, urged by the solicitude of the father of his betrothed, who wishes to prove him by contact with so different a world, sets out on a course of travel in Europe. The story opens with the arrival of his ship at Leftheim (Livorno) on the Italian coast. Mandaras has no sooner landed than he is accosted by two clerics (ordensgeistliche), who wish to acquire the honour and glory of making a convert. But, unhappily for their success, like his predecessor Amabed, he had already[Pg 275] on his voyage discovered that the religion of the people, among whom he was destined to reside, did not exclude certain horrible barbarisms hitherto unknown to him in his own unchristian land:—

In fact the Hindu traveller had been but a brief space of time in Christian lands when he finds himself, almost unconsciously, in the position of a catechist rather than of a catechumen. One day, for example, he finds himself in the midst of a vast crowd, of all classes, hurrying to some spectacle. Inquiring the cause of so vast an assemblage, he learns that some persons are to be put to death with all the frightful circumstances of public executions. After travelling through a great part of Germany, he fixes his residence, for the purpose of study, in the University of Lindenberg. In the society of that place he meets with a young girl, Leonora, the daughter of a Secretary of Legation, who engages his admiration by her exceptional culture and refinement of mind. On the occasion of an excursion of a party of her father’s visitors, of some days, to an island on the neighbouring coast, the first discussion on humane dietetics takes place, when, being asked the reason of his eccentricity, he appeals to the ladies of the party, believing that he shall have at least their sympathy with the principles he lays down:—

This exhortation, to his surprise, was received by all “the softer sex” with coldness, and even with signs of impatience, excepting Leonora, who[Pg 276] acknowledged the force of his appeal and promised to the best of her power to follow his example. Pleased and encouraged by her approval, he proceeds:—

Leonora, however, was a rare exception in his experience; and the more he saw of Christian customs, the less did he feel disposed to change his religion, which, by the way, was of an unexceptionable kind. Some time before his leaving Lindenberg, the secretary’s wife gave a dinner in his honour, which, in compliment to her guest, was without any flesh-dish. As a matter of course, the conversation soon turned upon Dietetics; and one of the guests, a cleric, challenged the Hindu to defend his principles. Mandaras had scarcely laid down the cardinal article of his creed as a fundamental principle in Ethics—that it is unjust to inflict suffering upon a living and sensitive being, which (as he insists) cannot be called in question without shaking the very foundations of Morality (welcher nicht die Sittenlehre in ihren Fundamenten erschüttern will)—when opponents arise on all sides of him. A doctor of medicine led the opposition, confidently affirming that the human frame itself proved men to be intended for flesh-eating. Mandaras replied that:—

To this the Hindu philosopher in vain replies, that the sphere of man, is wider, and ought therefore to be higher than that of other animals, for the larger the circle in which a being can freely move, the greater is the possible degree of his perfection; that, if we are to place ourselves on the plane of the carnivora in one point, why not in all, and recognise also treachery, fierceness, and murder in general, as proper to man[Pg 277] that the different character of the Tiger, the Hyæna, the Wolf on the one side, and of the Elephant, the Camel, the Horse on the other, instruct us as to the mighty influence of food upon the disposition, and certainly not to the advantage of the flesh-eaters; that man is to strive not after the lower but the higher character, &c., &c. To this the hostess replies: “This may be all very beautiful and good, but how is the housekeeper to be so skilful as to provide for all her guests, if she is to withhold from them flesh dishes?” “Exactly as our housekeepers do in the Himalayan valley—exactly as our hostess does to-day,” rejoins Mandaras. He alleges many other arguments, and in particular the high degree of reasoning faculty, and even of moral feeling, exhibited by the miserable slaves of human tyranny. Various are the objections raised, which, it is needless to say, are successfully overthrown by the champion of Innocence, and the company disperse after a prolonged discussion.

The second division of the story takes us to the Valley of Suty, the Himalayan home of Mandaras, and introduces us to his amiable family. A young German, travelling in that region, chances to meet with the father of Urwasi (Mandaras’s betrothed), whom he finds bowed down with grief for the double loss of his daughter, who had pined away in the protracted absence of her lover and succumbed to the sickness of hope deferred, and of his destined son-in-law, who, upon his return to claim his mistress, had fallen (as it appeared) into a death-swoon at the shock of the terrible news awaiting him. The old man conducts the stranger to the scene of mourning, where Damajanti, the sister of Mandaras, with her friend Sunanda, is engaged in weaving garlands of flowers to deck the bier of her beloved brother. An interesting conversation follows between the European stranger and the Hindu ladies, who are worthy representatives of their countrywoman, Sakuntalà.[273] Accidentally they discover that he is a flesh-eater.

This eloquent discourse takes place while the three friends are watching, during the night, at the bier of the supposed dead. At the moment when the last funeral rites are to be performed, equally with the spectators we are surprised and pleased at the unexpected resuscitation of Mandaras, who, it appeared, had been in a trance, from which at the critical moment he awoke. With what transports he is welcomed back from the confines of the shadow-land, may easily be divined. For some time they live together in uninterrupted happiness; the young German, who had adopted their simple mode of living, remaining with them. In the intervals of pleasing labours in the field and[Pg 279] the garden, they pass their hours of recreation in refined intellectual discourse and speculation, the younger ones deriving instruction from the experienced wisdom of the venerable sage. The conversation often turns upon the relations between the human and non-human races; and, in the course of one of his philosophical prelections, the old man, with profound insight, declares that “so long as other animals continue to be excluded from the circle of Moral Existence, in which Rights and Duties are recognised, so long is there no step forward in Morality to be expected. So long as men continue to support their lives upon bodies essentially like to their own, without misgiving and without remorse, so long will they be fast bound by blood-stained fetters (mit blutgetränkten Fesseln) to the lower planes of existence.”

At length the sorrowful day of separation arrives. It is decided that Mandaras should return to Germany, a wider sphere of useful action than the Himalayan valleys presented; and an additional reason is found in the discovery that his mother herself had been German. With much painful reluctance in parting from beloved friends, he recognises the force of their arguments, and once more leaves his peaceful home for the turmoil of European cities. After suffering shipwreck, in which he rescues a mother and child—at the expense of what he had held as his most precious possession, a casket of relics of his beloved Urwasi—Mandaras lands once again at Livorno. He finds his old friends as eager as ever for proselytising “the heathen,” and quite unconscious of the need of conversion for themselves. At the death of the aged father of Damajanti, she, with her friend Sunanda and Theobald, who still remains with them, and (as may have been divined) is the devoted lover of the charming Sunanda, determines to leave her ancestral abode and join her brother in his adopted German home. When they arrive at the appointed place of meeting they are overwhelmed with grief to find that he, for whose sake so long a pilgrimage had been undertaken, had been taken from them for ever. Having lost his passport he had been arrested on suspicion and imprisoned. In confinement he had shrunk from the European flesh-dishes, and, unsupplied with proper nourishment or a sufficiency of it, had died (in the true sense of the word) a martyr, to the last, to his moral principles. With great difficulty his final words in writing are discovered, and these, in the form of letters to his sister, declare his unshaken faith and hopes for the future of the World. There are, also, found short poems, which are published at the end of his Memoirs, and are fully worthy of the refined mind of the author of Mandaras. Thus ends a romance which, for beauty of idea and sentiment, may[Pg 280] be classed with the Aventures de Télémaque of Fénélon and, still more fitly, with the Paul et Virginie of St. Pierre.[274]

The space we have been tempted to give to Mandaras’s Wanderings precludes more than one or two further extracts from Struve’s admirable writings. His Pflanzenkost, perhaps the best known, as it is his most complete, exposition of his views on Humane Dietetics, appeared in the year 1869. In it he examines Vegetarianism in all its varied aspects—in regard to Sociology, Education, Justice, Theology, Art and Science, Natural Economy, Health, War and Peace, the practical and real Materialism of the Age, Health, Refinement of Life, &c. From the section which considers the Vegetable Diet in its relations to National Economy we quote the following just reflections:—

Struve’s Seelenleben,[276] published in the same year with the Pflanzenkost, and his last important work, forms a sort of résumé of his opinions already given to the world, and is, therefore, a more comprehensive exposition of his opinions on Sociology and Ethics than is found in his[Pg 281] earlier writings. It is full of the truest philosophy on the Natural History of Man, inspired by the truest refinement of soul. In the section entitled Moral he well exposes the futility of hap-hazard speeches, meaning nothing, which, vaguely and in an indefinite manner addressed to the child, are allowed to do duty for practical moral teaching:—

In the chapter devoted especially to Food and Drinks (Speise und Trank) Struve warns those whom it most concerns that:—

Weighty words coming from a student of Science and of Human Life. Still weightier coming from one who had devoted so large a part of his existence to assist, and had taken so active a part in, the struggles of the people for Justice and Freedom.

ONE of the earliest pioneers of the New Reformation in Germany, chiefly from what may be termed the religious-philosophical standpoint, and one whose useful learning was equalled only by his true conception of the significance of the religious sentiment, was born at Nürnberg, in the last year of the eighteenth century.

Of a naturally feeble constitution, unable to mix in the ordinary amusements of school-life, he found ample leisure for literature and for music, to which especially he was devoted. Much of his time, also, was given to theological, and, in particular, biblical reading, so that his mother unhesitatingly fixed upon the clerical profession as his future career. He attended the Gymnasium of his native town, at that time under the direction of Hegel, who exercised a permanent influence upon his mental development. In the eighteenth year of his age he proceeded to the University of Erlangen for the study of theology. Doubts, however, began to disturb his contentment with orthodoxy; and, more and more dissatisfied with its systems, the young student relinquished the course of life for which he had believed himself destined; and, after attending the lectures of Schelling, he went to Leipsic to apply himself wholly to philology. Having completed the usual course of study, he was appointed teacher, and afterwards Professor of Latin in the Nürnberg Gymnasium (1827). Unpleasant relations with the Rector of the schools (whose orthodoxy seems to have been less questionable than his amiability), and also, in part, his feeble health, obliged him to resign this post, and from that time he gave himself up exclusively to literary occupations, which were, for the most part, in the domain of philosophic theology.

During his professoriate Daumer had written his Urgeschichte des Menschengeistes (“Primitive History of the Human Mind”), which was succeeded, at an interval of some years, by his Andeutungen eines Systems Speculativer Philosophie (“Intimations of a System of Speculative Philosophy”), in which he attempted to found and formulate a philosophic Theism. The unreality of the professions and trifling of those who had most reputation in the “religious” world, estranged him more and more from the prevalent interpretations of Christianity.

His Philosophie, Religion, und Alterthum appeared in 1833. Two years later his Züge zu einer neuen Philosophie der Religion and Religionsgeschichte [Pg 283](“Indications for a New Philosophy of Religion and History of Religion”). In 1842 was published Der Feuer-und-Moloch-Dienst der Hebräer (“The Fire and Moloch-Worship of the Hebrews”), and (1847) Die Geheimnisse des Christlichen Alterthums (“The Mysteries of Christian Antiquity”), in which he pointed out that human sacrifice, and even cannibalism, were connected with the old Baal-worship of the Jews, and maintained the newer religion to be, in one important respect, not so much a purification of Judaism, as an apparently retrograde movement to the still older religionism. Besides these and other philosophic writings, Daumer published a free translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. Hafiz was followed by Mahomed und seine Werke: eine Sammlung Orientalischer Geschichte (“Mahommed and his Actions: a Résumé of Oriental History”) 1848; and in 1855 by Polydora: ein Weltpoetisches Liederbuch (“Polydora: A Book of Lays from the World’s Poetry”).

In his Anthropologismus und Kriticismus (“Anthropology and Criticism”), 1844, are many assaults upon the orthodox dietetic practices; and in Enthüllungen über Kaspar Hauser (“Revelations in regard to Kaspar Hauser”) he displays the noxious influences of flesh-eating upon a “wild boy of the woods,” who had been deserted or lost by his parents in his childhood, and who had lived an entirely natural life in the forests, eating only wild fruits. When he had been reclaimed from the savage state, his guardians, it seems, thought that the most effectual method of “civilising” their charge was to force him to discard fruits for flesh. The result, as shown by Professor Daumer, who watched the case with the greatest interest, was not reassuring for the orthodox believers. The inveteracy of the practice of kreophagy, which blinds men to its essential barbarism, as well as its anti-ethical, anti-humanising influences, is eloquently insisted upon:—

Of the rest of the little band of the propagators of the truer Philosophy in Germany no longer living—who resolutely bore aloft the standard of the Humanitarian Creed, at a time when it was yet more scouted and scorned by the infidels than even at the present day—deserving as they are of everlasting gratitude and remembrance at the hands of their more fortunate successors, the limits of this book compel us to be content with recording here the witness of one or two more only; while for acquaintance with the numerous able and eloquent expositions of their living representatives—of such earnest humanitarian and social reformers as Ed. Baltzer, Emil Weilshäuser, Theodor Hahn, Dr. Aderholdt, A. von Seefeld, R. Springer, and others—[Pg 285] we must refer our readers, who wish to form an adequate idea of contemporary German anti-kreophagistic literature (as also in regard to the equally extensive contemporary English literature of the subject), to the original works themselves.

From Der Weg zum Paradiese (“The Way to Paradise”) the following extract sufficiently represents the inspiration of the writer, Dr. W. Zimmermann:—

Of a like inspiration is the indignant protest of another of the apostles of Humanitarianism in Germany:—

[Pg 286]

THE chief interpreter of Buddhistic ideas in Europe, and whose bias in this direction is exercising so remarkable an influence upon contemporaneous thought, in Germany in particular, was born at Dantzig, the son of a wealthy merchant of that city. His mother, herself distinguished in literature, was often the centre of the most eminent persons of the day at Weimar. At a very early age devoted to the philosophies of Plato and of Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer studied at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. His course of studies, both scientific and literary, was, even for a German, unusually severe and searching; and his acquirements were encyclopædic in their range. Unlike most German students, it is worth noting, he was addicted neither to beer-drinking nor to duelling.

His most important writings are: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (“The World as Will and Representation”), 2 vols; Die Grund[Pg 287]probleme der Ethik (“The Ground-Problems of Ethics”); Parerga und Paralipomena (“Incidental and Neglected Subjects”), 2 vols; Das Fundament der Moral (“The Foundation of Morality”), 1840.

The peculiar characteristics of his philosophy are uncompromising opposition to the hollow doctrines of easy-going Optimism—an antagonism which, indeed, assumes the form of an exaggerated Pessimism—and (what especially distinguishes him from most systematisers and formularisers of morals) his making Compassion the principal, and, indeed, the exclusive source of moral action; and it is his vindication of the rights of the subject species, in marked contrast with the silence, or even positive depreciation and contempt for them, on the part of ordinary moralists, which will always entitle him to take exceptionally high rank among reformers of Ethical systems, in spite of his exaggerations and short-comings in other respects. Dr. David Strauss (Der Alte und der Neue Glaube) thus writes of his claims on these grounds:—

This, it is necessary to add, plainly is written in ignorance of the numerous writings of earlier and contemporaneous humanitarian dietists, to whom, of course, is due a higher, because more consistent and more logical, position than even Schopenhauer can claim, who, from ignorance of the physical and moral arguments of anti-kreophagy (it reasonably may be presumed), at the same time that he established the rights of the subject species on the firmest basis, and included them as an essential part of any moral code, yet, with a strange, but too common, inconsistency, did not perceive that to hand over the Cow, the Ox, or the Sheep, &c., to the butcher, is in most flagrant violation of his own ethical standard. While, then, the author of the Foundation of Morality cannot claim the highest place, absolutely; outside the ranks of anti-kreophagistic writers, a high rank may properly be conceded to him as one of the most eminent moralists who, short of entire emancipation, have done most to vindicate the position of the innocent non-human races.[280][Pg 288] Especially has he denounced the horrible outrage upon the commonest principles of justice by the pseudo-scientific torturers of the physiological laboratory.[281] It is thus that he lays the foundations of morality:—

Enforcing his teaching that the principles and mainspring of all moral action must be justice and love, Schopenhauer maintains that the real influence of these first of virtues is tested, especially, by the conduct of men to other animals:—

OF the many eminent scientists who, in recent times, indirectly have affirmed the wantonness of slaughtering for human food, the most famous of European Chemists, Justus von Liebig, may seem to demand especial notice. The founder of the science of Organic Chemistry and the method of Organic Analysis (1803–1873), educated at the Universities of Bonn and Erlangen, received his diploma of Doctor in Philosophy (physical[Pg 291] and mathematical sciences) at the age of nineteen. Two years later, chiefly by the influence of Humboldt, he was named Professor Extraordinary of Chemistry at Giessen, whither a crowd of disciples flocked from all parts of Germany and from England. In 1832 he accepted a Chair at Munich. All the Scientific Societies of Europe were eager in offering him honorary distinctions.

It is his application of his Special Science to the advancement of Agriculture, and his more philosophic, though (it must be added) occasionally contradictory views upon the comparative values of Foods, which give him his best title to remembrance with posterity. We can enumerate only a few of his numerous works: Ueber Theorie und Praxis der Landwirthschaft (“Upon the Theory and Practice of Agricultural Economy),” Brunswick, 1824, translated into English; Anleitung zur Analyse Organische Körper (“Introduction to the Organic Analysis of Bodies”), 1837; Die Organische Chemie in ihren Anwendung auf Physiologie und Pathologie (“Organic Chemistry in its Relationship to Physiology and Pathology”), 1839; “Researches upon Alimentary Chemistry,” 1849; Chemische Briefe (“Letters upon Chemistry considered in Relation with Industry, Agriculture, and Physiology”), 1852.

Whatever opinions this eminent German Chemist may have published elsewhere inconsistent with the statements below, such inconsistency, no more than in the case of Buffon, can weaken the force of his more reasonable utterance. Upon the essential ultimate identity of the nutritive properties of animal and vegetable substance he thus clearly pronounces:—

Liebig’s views as to the mischievous effects of the propensity of farmers, and of so-called agriculturists, to convert arable into pasture land are sufficiently well known.[284]

I.
HESIOD.

THE original of the English version, given in the beginning of this work, is as follows:—

Extracts from “The Golden Verses” (Χρυσᾶ Ἔπη). An Exposition of Pythagorean Doctrine, of the Third Century, B.C., in Hexameters. (See pages 21, 22.)

IN Texts from the Buddhist Canon, Love or Compassion for all living beings is thus inculcated by Buddha, in a sermon addressed to a number of women (belonging to a class of hunters) whose husbands were then engaged on one of their predatory excursions:—

When he had uttered these words, both men and women were admitted into the company of his disciples, and obtained rest.

There was, in times gone by, a certain mighty King, called Ho-meh (love-darkness), who ruled in a certain district where no tidings of Buddha or his merciful doctrine had yet been heard; but the religious practices were the usual ones of sacrifice and prayer to the gods for protection. Now it happened that the King’s mother, being sick, the physicians having vainly tried their medicine, all the wise men were called to consult as to the best means of restoring her health.... On the King asking them [the Brahman priests] what should be done, they replied ... sacrifices of a hundred beasts of different kinds should be offered on the four hills (or to the four quarters), with a young child, as a crowning oblation to Heaven. [Here follows a description of the King ordering a hundred head of Elephants, Horses, Oxen, and Sheep to be driven along the road from the Eastern Gate towards the place of sacrifice, and how their piteous cries rang through heaven and earth.—Editor’s Note.] On this Buddha, moved with compassion, came to the spot, and preached a sermon on “Love to all that Live,” and added these words:—

See Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada—with accompanying Narratives—Translated from the Chinese, by Samuel[Pg 296] Beal, Professor of Chinese, University College, London—Trübner, 1878: and the similar scene in The Light of Asia, where Buddha interposes at the moment of a religious sacrifice:—

See also the annexed extracts from the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, written probably about the third century B.C.:—

As for the older (sacerdotal) religionism of the Peninsula—that of Brahma—the force of Truth obliges us here to remark that, while the great mass of the Hindus continue to shrink with disgust and abhorrence from the Slaughter-house and from the sanguinary diet of their conquerors and rulers, Mohammedan and Christian, the richer classes, and even many of the Brahmins and priests have long conformed, in great measure at least, to Western dietetic practices; and (the flesh of the Cow or Ox excepted), no more than other religionists do they scruple to violate the laws of their Sacred Books—the Vedas—which, however, are not so humane as the teaching of the great Founder of Buddhism, as preserved in the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, the Tripataka, being more essentially ritual and ceremonial than its popular off-shoot. Yet there are traces in the sacred writings of Hinduism of a strong consciousness of the irreligionism of feeding upon slaughtered animals, as in the Laws of Manu, their Sacred Legislator, where it is laid down that:—

It is superfluous to insist upon the fact that inhabitants of the hotter and, in particular, of the tropical regions of the globe have, as a matter of course, even less valid pretexts for resorting to butchering than have the natives of colder climates; and that proportionally, therefore, is the[Pg 299] reprobation to which they are obnoxious. (See, among other recent testimony, that of Shib Chunder Bose in his interesting book—The Hindus as they Are. London: Ed. Stanford, 1881). The writer has usefully exposed the yearly-increasing evils to India from the example of English dietetic habits.

THE original (the peculiar beauties of which cannot easily be represented in a modern idiom) of the English version already given in this work, with the concluding verses omitted in that translation, is here subjoined:—

Nor is this the only passage in his writings in which the Pagan poet proves himself to have been not without that humaneness and feeling so rare alike in non-Christian and in Christian poetry. In the charming story of the visit of the disguised and incarnate Celestials to the cottage of the pious peasants, Philemon and Baucis, Ovid takes the opportunity to present an alluring picture of the innocent fruits which were placed before the divine guests—a picture which, probably, was present to Milton in recording the similar hospitality of Eve.

Among the fragrant dishes—“savoury fruits, of taste to please true appetite”—appear Figs, Nuts, Dates, Plums, Grapes, Apples, Olives, Radishes, Onions, and Endive, with Honey, Eggs, and Milk:—

We are not surprised, however, that, notwithstanding all this variety of sufficient foods, ignorant peasants, imitating the vicious examples of[Pg 302] their rich neighbours, thought it due to “hospitality” to sacrifice life; and they were on the point of slaughtering the only non-human being belonging to them—a Goose, the “guardian of the cottage”—when the heavenly visitants intervene, and forbid the unnecessary barbarism:—

When the rest of the inhabitants of Phrygia, were, for their wickedness, destroyed by indignant Heaven, the two old peasants, we may add, found safety from the general Deluge. (Metam. viii. 664–688).[291]

It may be noted in this place that the great “Epicurean” poet, Horace (Ovid’s contemporary), bon-vivant though he was, and apparently uninspired by humanitarian feeling, yet now and again expresses his conviction of the superiority of the Fruit to the Flesh banquet, and of the greater compatibility of the former with the poetic genius. E.g. Carmina I., 31. Ad Apollinem:—

Satire II. 2. “Frugality.:”—

His arraignment of the rich glutton, who obliges and allows the poor man to starve in the midst of plenty, is worthy of the morality of Seneca:—

A STOIC writer of great repute with his contemporaries, son of a Roman Eques, was born at Volsinii (Bolsena), in Etruria, at the end of the reign of Augustus. He was banished by Nero, who especially hated the professors of the Porch; but by Vespasian he was held in extraordinary honour when the rest of the philosophers were expelled from Rome. The time of his death is uncertain. He was the author of various philosophical works which are characterised by Suïdas as “distinguished writings of a highly philosophic nature,” who also attributes to him (but on uncertain evidence) letters to Apollonius of Tyana. We are indebted for knowledge of his opinions to a work (of unknown authorship) entitled Memoirs of Musonius the Philosopher. It is from this work that Stobæus (Anthologion), Aulus Gellius, Arrian, and others seem to have borrowed, in quoting the dicta of the great Stoic teacher. All the extant fragments of his writings are carefully collected by Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1822). (See also Herr Ed. Baltzer’s valuable monograph, Musonius: Charakterbild aus Der Römischen Kaiserzeit. Nordhausen, 1871):—

BORN at Brechten, a town in Brabant, of influential family, this noted Hygeist, at a very early age, exhibited so exceptional a disposition as to be known among his school-fellows as the “prophet.” His ardour for learning was so intense as to cause him to forget the hours of meals, and to reduce his time for sleep to the shortest period possible. Having obtained a scholarship at the Arras College in Louvain, Lessio pursued the course of studies there with the greatest success, and by his fellow-students was proclaimed “prince of philologers.” At the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. Two years later he was elected to the Chair of Philosophy at Douai. In 1585 he accepted the Professorship of Theology at Louvain.

So extraordinary were the respect and veneration which he had attracted in his Order and from all who had access to him, that not only did his death cause the greatest regret, but (as we are assured) his friends contended among themselves for possession of every possible relic and memento “of one who had composed so admirable works.” He was interred before the high altar of the church of his college in Louvain. Held in high honour during life, after his death so rare an ornament of his Church was signally eulogised by the Pope, Urbano VIII.; and he was even believed to have worked miracles. His praises are especially recorded in a book entitled De Vitâ et Moribus R. P. Leonardi Lessii—reprinted at Paris, 1644.

Principal Writings: De Justitiâ et de Jure Actionum, Humanarum, &c. (reprinted seven times). Many of the propositions, it seems, eventually came under the censure of the Theological Faculty, the Bishops, and the Pontiffs.

[Pg 306]

Quæ Fides et Religio sit Capessenda, Consultatio. Anvers, 1610. In the estimation of S. François de Sales, a work “not so much that of Lessio as of an Angel of the Judgment (Ange du Grand Conseil).”

Hygiasticon (Anvers, 1613–14, 8vo); it is superfluous to remark, his really valuable work. It was translated from the Latin into French by Sebastian Hardy, with the title of Le Vrai Régime de Vivre pour la Conservation du Corps et de l’Ame. Paris, 1646. Another editor, La Bonnodière, added notes, republishing it under the title of De la Sobriété et de Ses Avantages. Paris, 1701.

“Lessio,” writes the author of the article in the Biographie Universelle, “having been condemned by the physicians to have no more than two years longer to live, himself studied the principles of Hygiene, was struck by the example of Cornaro, resolved to imitate him, and found himself so well from such imitation that he translated his book (Della Vita Sobria), joining to it the results of his own experience, to which he owed the prolongation of his life by forty years.” For the rest, he was a man of extensive erudition; and Justus Lipsius celebrates, in some fine verse, the variety of his talents. (See Biog. Universelle Ancienne et Moderne. À Paris, chez Michaud, 1819.)

The Hygiasticon is prefaced by testimonials from three eminent physicians, setting forth their concurrence in the principles of the author. The English translation (1634) has prefixed to it addresses, in verse, to him; one of which is by Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, and a Dialogue between Glutton and Echo, also in verse. Affixed to this edition are an English version of Cornaro, by George Herbert, and a translation of an anonymous treatise by another Italian writer—That a Spare Diet is better than a Splendid and Sumptuous One: A Paradox.

In his chap. v. “Of the Advantages which a Sober Diet brings to the Body, and first, That it freeth almost from all Diseases”—Lessio promises the adherents of it, that in the first place:—

Lessio proceeds to descant upon the other benefits of the reformed regimen—such as that it prolongs life (other things being equal) to extreme old age, produces cheerfulness, activity, memory, and the like.[293]

Moffet, another hygienic writer of the sixteenth century, demands indignantly:—

THE author of the Anatomy of Abuses, a writer of the same period, denouncing the unnatural and luxurious living of his time, compares the two diets with equal force and truth:—

AMONG the poets of the age second only to Milton and to Dryden. The Garden, from which we extract the following just sentiments, is prefixed by way of dedication to the Kalendarium Hortense of John Evelyn, his personal and political friend. The Gardener’s Almanac, it is worthy of note, is one of the earliest prototypes of the numerous more modern treatises of the kind. It had reached a tenth edition in 1706.

ONE of the best known of the seventeenth century humane Hygeists, was born at Bibury, a village in Gloucestershire. His father was a tiler and plasterer, who by stress of poverty was forced to remove his son, when no more than six years of age, from the village school, and to set him at the work of spinning and carding, (the woollen manufacture being then extensively carried on in Gloucestershire). At eight years of age he became so expert, he tells us, as to be able to spin four pounds a day, earning two shillings a week. At the age of twelve he was made to work at his father’s employment. At this period he first learned to read. He next took to keeping sheep. With the sum of three pounds, realised by the sale of his four sheep, he went to London to seek his fortune, when seventeen years old, and bound himself apprentice to a “castor-maker,” in Fleet Street. His master was an Anabaptist—“an honest and sober man;” and, after two years’ apprenticeship, Tryon adopted the same religious creed. All his spare time was now devoted entirely to study; and, with the usual ardour of scholars who depend upon their own talents and exertions, he scarcely gave any time to food or sleep. The holiday period, too, spent by his fellow-apprentices in eating and drinking, and gross amusements, was utilised in the same way. Science, and Physiology in particular, attracted his attention.

At the age of twenty-three he first adopted the reformed diet, “my drink being only water, and food only bread and some fruit, and that but once a day for some time; but afterwards I had more liberty given me by my guide, Wisdom, to eat butter and cheese; my clothing being mean and thin; for, in all things, self-denial was now become my real business.” This strict life he maintained for more than a year, when he relapsed, at intervals, during the next two years. At the end of this period he had become confirmed in his reform, and he remained to the end strictly akreophagist, and, indeed, strictly frugal, “contenting myself with herbs, fruits, grains, eggs, butter and cheese for food, and pure water for drink.” About two years after his marriage he made[Pg 310] voyages to Barbadoes and to Holland in the way of trade—“making beavers.” He finally settled himself in England, and at the age of forty-eight he published his first book on Dietetics.

His brief autobiography, from which the above facts are drawn, ends at this period. His editor adds, as to his appearance and character: “his aspect easily discovered something extraordinary; his air was cheerful, lively, and brisk; but grave with something of authority, though he was of the easiest access. Notwithstanding he was of no strong make, yet, through his great temperance, regularity, and by the strength of his spirits and vigour of his mind, he was capable of any fatigue, even to his last illness, equally with any of the best constitutions of men half his years. Through all his lifetime he had been a man of unwearied application, and so indefatigable that it may be as truly said of him as it can be of any man that he was never idle; but of such despatch that, though fortune had allotted him as great multiplicity of business as, perhaps, to any one of his contemporaries, yet, without any neglect thereof, he found leisure to make such a search into Nature, that perhaps few of this age equalled him therein: and not only into Nature, but also into almost all arts and sciences, of some whereof he was an improver, and of all innocent and useful ones an encourager and promoter.”[295]

In spite of that penetration of mind and justness of thought which influenced him to abandon the cruelty and coarseness of the orthodox diet, the author of The Way to Health could not free himself from certain of the credulous fancies of his age; and, it must be admitted, his writings are by no means exempt from such prejudices. It is as a moral reformer that he has deserved our respect, and of his numerous books the following are noteworthy:—

[Pg 311]

Nothing can be more just or forcible than these expostulations:—

As to the unsuspected cause of the various diseases so abundant:—

In his xiv chapter, “Of Flesh and its Operation on the Body and Mind,” Tryon employs all his eloquence in proving that the practice of[Pg 312] slaughtering for food is not only cruel and barbarous in itself, but originates, or, at all events, intensifies the worst passions of men.

Eulogising the milder manners of the followers of Pythagoras, and of the Hindus generally, he tells his countrymen that:—

Whatever may be thought of the zealous attempt of the pious author to meet the assertions of the (practical) materialists, who draw their arguments from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures, or elsewhere, his replies to the common subterfuges or prejudices of the orthodox dietists are able and conclusive. His humane arguments, indeed, are worthy of the most advanced thinkers of the present day; and those who are versed in the anti-kreophagist literature of the last thirty years—in the controversy in the press, and on the platform—will, perhaps, be surprised to find that the ordinary prejudices or subterfuges of this year “of Grace” are identical with those current in the year 1683. We wish that we could transcribe some of these replies. We cannot forbear, however, to quote his representation of the changed condition of things under the imagined humanitarian régime:—

[Pg 314]

His chapter, in which he deals with the relations between the sexes and the married state, shews him to have been as much in advance of his time, in a sound knowledge and apprehension of Physiology, and of the laws of Health, in that important part of hygienic science, as he was in the special branch of Diet.[299]

Affixed to this work is a very remarkable Essay, in the shape of A Dialogue between an East-Indian Brachman and a French Gentleman, concerning the Present Affairs of Europe. In this admirable piece, the author ably exposes the folly no less than the horrors of war—and, in particular, religious war—all which he ultimately traces to the first source—the iniquities and barbarism of the Shambles. The Dialogue is worthy of the most trenchant of the humanitarian writers of the next century. It was by meeting with The Way to Health that Benjamin Franklin, in his youth, was induced to abandon the flesh-diet, to which revolutionary measure he ascribes his success, as well as health in after life.

THIS meritorious medical reformer, at first intended for the Church, happily (in the event) adopted the profession which he has so truly adorned, by his virtues, as well as by his enlightened labours. After a long and severe course of Anatomy and Physiology, in 1684 he was admitted as “Doctor” at Reims, and as Fellow (Agrégé) in the College of Physicians in his native town. He then returned to Paris to perfect himself in physiological science. Disgusted with the tricasseries which were excited against him by the members of his profession, he withdrew (in 1688) to Port-Royal-des-Champs, where he succeeded Hamon, who had just died, as physician. Here he practised the reforms he taught, while he devoted himself to the most laborious works of charity, giving all his time and attention to the poor for several leagues round, and travelling the distances, great as they were, on foot.

[Pg 315]

His health enfeebled by excessive labour in this way, he was induced to retire from his post at Port-Royal, and he went back to the capital where, having gone through the necessary formalities, he was regularly enrolled as Doctor of the Paris University, receiving the official hat after an examination of “rare success” (1697).

Soon afterwards the Faculty named him Docteur-Régent, and appointed him to the post of Professor of Materia Medica. “Hecquet had soon numerous and illustrious patients, and his services were eagerly sought for, particularly in religious communities and in hospitals. He attached himself to that of Charity.” In 1712 he was named Dean of the Faculty. In the midst of so much work, he found time to publish several medical books.

“He exercised his art with a noble disinterestedness. The poor were his favourite patients. He presented himself at the houses of the rich only when absolutely obliged, or when courtesy required it. He had much studied his art, and contributed with all his power, to advance it, as well by his writings as by his guidance and encouragement of young physicians.... He was in correspondence with the most famous savants and physicians of his age. His style in Latin is correct, and does not want eloquence; in French he is more negligent, and a little unpolished. He was animated (vif) in debate, and strongly attached to his opinions; but he sought Truth in good faith.”

Amongst his numerous works are:—

De l’Indécence aux Hommes d’Accoucher les Femmes, et de l’Obligation, de Celles-ci de nourrir leurs enfants. (On the Indecency of Male Physicians Attending Women in Child-Birth) 1708. Traité des Dispenses du Carême, 1709—his most celebrated book. De la Digestion et des Maladies de l’Estomac, 1712. Novus Medicinæ Conspectus cum Appendice De Peste, 1722. “He there combats the various systems upon the origin of diseases, which he attributes to the disorders which supervene, in accordance with the laws which direct the movement of the blood:” the Plague, upon which he writes, was desolating the south of France at that time. Also, at this period, various brochures upon the Small-Pox.

La Médecine, la Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie des Pauvres (1740–2), his most popular book—La Brigandage de la Médecine (1755), which he supplemented with Brigandage de la Chirurgie, et de la Pharmacie—will sufficiently mark his attitude towards the orthodox Schools of Medicine of his day. Le Naturalisme des Convulsions dans les Maladies (1755), with several other books upon the same subject. The history of the Convulsionnaires occupies a curious episode in the religious history of the period, as it has occupied, and, in some measure still, in fact, occupies[Pg 316] the attention of physiologists and psychologists of our own age. Hecquet, with the physiologists of the present time, attributes the phenomena to physical and natural causes. La Médecine Naturelle: “in this work the author alleges that it is not in the blood only that is to be sought the causes of maladies, but also in the nervous fluid.”[300]

The books in which he treats of reform in Dietetics are the Traité des Dispenses and La Médecine des Pauvres.

However dietetically heterodox and heretical, the author of The Treatise on Dispensations was of unsuspected ecclesiastical as well as theological orthodoxy; yet he takes occasion, at the outset of his book, to reproach his Church with its indifferentism towards so essentially important a matter as Dietetics—scientific or moral:—

In Chap. VI., Que les Fruits, les Grains, les Legumes sont les Alimens les plus Naturels à l’Homme, after appealing to Gen. i. and “the Garden of Eden,” Hecquet proceeds to insist that our foods should be analogous and consistent with the juices which maintain our life; and these are Fruits, Grains, Seeds, and Roots. But prejudice, of long standing, opposes itself to this truth. The false ideas attached to certain traditional terms have warped the minds of the majority of the world, and they have succeeded in persuading themselves that it is upon stimulating foods that depend the strength and health of men. From thence has come the love of wine, of spirituous liquors, and of gross meats. The ambiguity (équivoque) comes from confounding the idea of Remedy with that of Food.

[Pg 317]

In Chap. VII., Que l’Usage de la Viande n’est pas le plus naturel à l’Homme, ni absolument Nécessaire, he remarks:—

“It is incredible how much Prejudice has been allowed to operate in favour of [flesh] meat, while so many facts are opposed to the pretended necessity of its use.”

Having entered into the physiological argument, now so well-worn, among other reasons he adduces the fact that “the soundest part of the world, or the most enlightened, have believed in the obligation to abstain from flesh,” and “the very nature of flesh, which is digested with difficulty, and which furnishes the worst juices.”

Nature being uniform in her method of procedure, is anything else necessary to determine whether Man is intended to live upon flesh-meats than to compare the organs which have to prepare them for his nourishment, with those of animals whom Nature manifestly has destined for carnage? And herein it may be clearly recognised, since men have neither fangs nor talons to tear flesh, that it is very far from being the food most natural to them.

He quotes numerous examples of eminent persons, as well as of nations in all times, and adds, as an argument not easy to be answered, that:— “It is proved it would not be difficult to nourish animals who live on flesh with non-flesh substances, while it is almost impossible to nourish with flesh those who live ordinarily upon vegetable substances.”

Hecquet devotes several chapters to a description of various Fruits and Herbs, and also of various kinds of Fish, which he holds to be much less objectionable and more innocent food than flesh. Comparing the two diets, we must acknowledge:—

[Pg 318]

Hecquet’s Traité des Dispenses received the formal approval and commendation of several “doctors regent” of the Faculty of Medicine of the Paris University, which testimonies are prefixed to the second edition of 1710. With his English contemporary, Dr. Cheyne, and other medical reformers, however, he experienced much insult and ridicule from anonymous professional critics.

Pope quotes, in part, the admirable verses of Ovid, Metam. XV., with Dryden’s translation—and an apposite fable of the Persian Pilpai, which illustrates the base ingratitude of men who torture and slaughter their fellow labourers.—“I know it” (this common ingratitude) said the Cow, “by woful experience; for I have served a man this long time with milk, butter, and cheese, and brought him, besides, a Calf every year—but now I am old, he turns me into this pasture with design to sell me to a butcher, who, shortly, will make an end of me.”—The Guardian, LXI, May 21, 1713.

With Pilpai or Bidpai’s fable, compare that of La Fontaine on the same subject—L’Homme et la Couleuvre.

TO the expression of the opinion or feeling of Lord Chesterfield on butchering, given, in its place, in the body of this work (page 140), is here subjoined the remainder of his paper in The World. The value of such testimony may be deemed proportionate to the extreme rarity of any protests of this sort from those who, by their influential position, are the most bound to make them:—

A SUPPORTER of the Walpole Administration, he represented the county of Cambridge, and during twenty-five years held the office of Commissioner of the Board of Trade. He wrote papers in The World and other periodicals, and published two volumes of Poems. His principal book is the Free Enquiry into the Origin of Evil, in which he seeks to reconcile the obvious evils in the constitution of things with his optimistic creed. Johnson, who, with all his orthodoxy, was pessimistic, severely criticised this apology for Theism. In striking contrast with the indifferentism of the vast majority of his class, his just and humane feeling is sufficiently remarkable. The line of reasoning, in his comprehensive arraignment of the various atrocities perpetrated, sanctioned, or condoned by English Society or English Law in the last century, and which, for the most part, still continue (it is scarcely necessary to add), logically leads to the abolition of the Slaughter-House—the fountain and origin of the evil:—

AN eminent Surgeon of Lyon, in the Medical and Surgical College of which city he held a professorship, and where he collected an extensive Anatomical Museum. At the Revolution of 1789 he embraced its principles with ardour, and filled the posts of Municipal Officer and of Procureur de la Commune. On the day of the Lyon executions, under the direction of the revolutionary tribunals, Sept. 9, 1792, Pressavin intervened, and attempted to save several of the condemned. In the Convention Nationale, to which he had been elected deputy, he voted for the execution of the King; in other respects he was opposed to the extreme measures of the violent revolutionists, and in Sept., 1793, he was expelled from the Society of the Jacobins. In 1798 he was named Member of the Council of Five Hundred, for two years, by the department of the Rhone. The date of his death seems to be uncertain.

His chief writings are:—

Traité des Maladies des Nerfs, 1769. Traité des Maladies Vénériennes, où l’on indique un Nouveau Remède, 8vo., 1773. Last, and most important, L’Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la Santé, 8vo. Paris, 1786. It was translated into Spanish, Madrid, 8vo., 1799.

Pressavin thus expresses his convictions as to the fatal effects of Kreophagy:—

He admits that there may be some constitutions, whose organs of digestion have been so corrupted by the long use of flesh, that a sudden change may be unadvisable; but a gradual reform cannot but be always beneficial:—

Pressavin devotes a considerable proportion of his Treatise to the arguments from Comparative Physiology.—While firmly persuaded both[Pg 326] of the unnaturalness, and of the fatal mischiefs, of the diet of blood,[311] he expresses his despair of an early triumph of Reason and Humanity by means of a general dietetic reformation.[312]

AFTER Goethe the greatest of German Poets, began life as a surgeon in the army. In his twenty-second year he produced his first drama, Die Räuber (“The Robbers”). Some passages in it betrayed the “cloven hoof” of revolutionary, or at least democratic, bias, and he brought upon himself the displeasure of the sovereign Duke of Würtemberg, in consequence of which he was forced to leave Stuttgart. His principal dramas are Wallenstein, Wilhelm Tell, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Maria Stuart, and Don Carlos, of which Wallenstein is, usually, placed first in merit. Even greater than the dramatic power of Schiller is the genius of his ballad poetry, and in lyrical inspiration he is the equal of Goethe. Das Lied von der Glocke (“The Lay of the Bell”), one of his most widely-known ballads, is also one of the most beautiful in its kind.

In prose literature, his Briefe Philosophische (“Philosophical Letters”), and his correspondence with his great poetical rival, are the most interesting of his writings.

In Das Eleusische Fest (“The Eleusinian Feast”) and Der Alpenjäger (“The Hunter of the Alps”) are to be found the humanitarian sentiments as follow:—

THIS great legal reformer was educated at Westminster, and at the age of thirteen proceeded to Queen’s College, Oxford. At the age of sixteen he took his first degree in Arts. The mental uneasiness with which he signed the obligatory test of the “Thirty-nine Articles” he vividly recorded in after years. At the Bar, which he soon afterwards entered, his prospects were unusually promising; but unable to reconcile his standard of ethics with the recognised morality of the Profession, he soon withdrew from it. His first publication,—A Fragment on Government, 1776—which appeared without his name, was assigned to some of the most distinguished men of the day. His next, and principal work, was his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780), not published until 1789. At this period he travelled extensively in the East of Europe. Panopticon: or the Inspection-House (on prison discipline), appeared in 1791. The Book of Fallacies (reviewed by Sidney Smith, in[Pg 328] the Edinburgh), in which the “wisdom of our ancestors” delusion was, mercilessly exposed (1824), is the best known, and is the most lively of all his writings. Rationale of Judicial Procedure, and the Constitutional Code, are those which have had most influence in effecting legislative and judicial reform.

Bentham stands in the front rank of legal reformers; and as a fearless and consistent opponent of the iniquities of the English Criminal Law, in particular, he has deserved the gratitude and respect of all thoughtful minds. Yet, during some sixty years, he was constantly held up to obloquy and ridicule by the enemies of Reform, in the Press and on the Platform; and his name was a sort of synonym for utopianism, and revolutionary doctrine. In his own country his writings were long in little esteem; but elsewhere, and in France especially, by the interpretation of Dumont, his opinions had a wider dissemination. In Morals, the foundation of his teaching is the principle of the greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number; that other things are good or evil in proportion as they advance or oppose the general Happiness, which ought to be the end of all morals and legislation.

Not the least of his merits as a moralist is his assertion of the rights of other animals than man to the protection of Law, and his protest against the culpable selfishness of the lawmakers in wholly abandoning them to the capricious cruelty of their human tyrants. The most eminent of the disciples of Bentham, John Stuart Mill (who found himself forced to defend the teaching of his master, in this respect, against the sneers of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, and others), repeats this protest, and declares that—

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The observations both of Bentham and of Mill upon this subject, slighted though they are, are pregnant with consequences. It is thus that the former authority expresses his opinion:—

THIS celebrated Agricultural Reformer and active promoter of various beneficent enterprises was a most voluminous writer. During sixty years he was almost constantly employed in producing more or less useful books. He was born at Thurso Castle, in Caithness, and received[Pg 330] his education at the Edinburgh High School, and at the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford. In 1775 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and afterwards was called to the English Bar. Five years later he was elected to represent his county in the Legislature; and for more than half a century Sir John Sinclair occupied a prominent position in the world of politics, as well as of science and literature. His reputation as an Agriculturist extended far and wide throughout Europe and America; and statesmen and political economists, if they did not aid them as they ought to have done, professed for his labours the highest esteem.

His principal writings are: (1) A History of the Revenue of Great Britain, 3 vols.; (2) A Statistical Account of Scotland, a most laborious work; (3) Considerations on Militias and Standing Armies; (4) Essays on Agriculture; (5) Not the least important, The Code of Health and Longevity, in which the sagacious and indefatigable author has collected a large number of interesting particulars in regard to the diet of various peoples. Comparing the two diets, he asserts:—

Sir John Sinclair elsewhere quotes the following sufficiently condemnatory remarks from the Encyclopédie Methodique, vol. vii., part 1:—

In these Memorials of Byron, reference to his aversion from all “butcher’s meat” is frequent; and for the greater part of his life, he seems to have observed, in fact, an extreme abstinence as regards eating; although he had by no means the same repugnance for fish as for flesh-eating. That this abstinence from flesh-meats was founded upon physical or mental, rather than upon moral, reasons, has already been pointed out. Nor, unhappily, was he as abstinent in drinking as in eating; to which fact, in great measure, must be attributed the failure of his purer eating to effect all the good which, otherwise, it would have produced.

THE observations of the author of a book entitled Philozoa, published in 1839, and noticed with approval by Schopenhauer, are sufficiently worthy of note, and may fitly conclude this work:—

JOHN HEYWOOD, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works, Hulme Hall Road, Manchester.