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Title: On Vegetarianism
Author: Elisée Reclus
Date: 1901
Language: en
Topics: food, green, health
Source: Retrieved on March 3rd, 2009 from http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/blackchip/on_vegetarianism.htm
Notes: First printed in the Humane Review, January, 1901. Reprinted as pamphlet several times, most recently by CGH Services, c.1992 and Jura Media, 1996

Elisée Reclus

On Vegetarianism

Men of such high standing in hygiene and biology having made a profound

study of questions relating to normal food, I shall take good care not

to display my incompetence by expressing an opinion as to animal and

vegetable nourishment. Let the cobbler stick to his last. As I am

neither chemist nor doctor, I shall not mention either azote or albumen,

nor reproduce the formulas of analysts, but shall content myself simply

with giving my own personal impressions, which, at all events, coincide

with those of many vegetarians. I shall move within the circle of my own

experiences, stopping here and there to set down some observation

suggested by the petty incidents of life.

First of all I should say that the search for truth had nothing to do

with the early impressions which made me a potential vegetarian while

still a small boy wearing baby-frocks. I have a distinct remembrance of

horror at the sight of blood. One of the family had sent me, plate in

hand, to the village butcher, with the injunction to bring back some

gory fragment or other. In all innocence I set out cheerfully to do as I

was bid, and entered the yard where the slaughtermen were. I still

remember this gloomy yard where terrifying men went to and fro with

great knives, which they wiped on blood-besprinkled smocks. Hanging from

a porch an enormous carcase seemed to me to occupy an extraordinary

amount of space; from its white flesh a reddish liquid was trickling

into the gutters. Trembling and silent I stood in this blood-stained

yard incapable of going forward and too much terrified to run away. I do

not know what happened to me; it has passed from my memory. I seem to

have heard that I fainted, and that the kind-hearted butcher carried roe

into his own house; I did not weigh more than one of those lambs he

slaughtered every morning.

Other pictures cast their shadows over my childish years, and, like that

glimpse of the slaughter-house, mark so many epochs in my life. I can

see the sow belonging to some peasants, amateur butchers, and therefore

all the more cruel. I remember one of them bleeding the animal slowly,

so that the blood fell drop by drop; for, in order to make really good

black puddings, it appears essential that the victim should have

suffered proportionately. She cried without ceasing, now and then

uttering groans and sounds of despair almost human; it seemed like

listening to a child.

And in fact the domesticated pig is for a year or so a child of the

house; pampered that he may grow fat, and returning a sincere affection

for all the care lavished on him, which has but one aim — so many inches

of bacon. But when the affection is reciprocated by the good woman who

takes care of the pig, fondling him and speaking in terms of endearment

to him, is she not considered ridiculous — as if it were absurd, even

degrading, to love an animal that loves us?

One of the strongest impressions of my childhood is that of having

witnessed one of those rural dramas, the forcible killing of a pig by a

party of villagers in revolt against a dear old woman who would not

consent to the murder of her fat friend. The village crowd burst into

the pigstye and dragged the beast to the slaughter place where all the

apparatus for the deed stood waiting, whilst the unhappy dame sank down

upon a stool weeping quiet tears. I stood beside her and saw those tears

without knowing whether I should sympathise with her grief, or think

with the crowd that the killing of the pig was just, legitimate, decreed

by common sense as well as by destiny.

Each of us, especially those who have lived in a provincial spot, far

away from vulgar ordinary towns, where everything is methodically

classed and disguised — each of us has seen something of these barbarous

acts committed by flesh-eaters against the beasts they eat. There is no

need to go into some Porcopolis of North America, or into a saladero of

La Plata, to contemplate the horrors of the massacres which constitute

the primary condition of our daily food. But these impressions wear off

in time; they yield before the baneful influence of daily education,

which tends to drive the individual towards mediocrity, and takes out of

him anything that goes to the making of an original personality.

Parents, teachers, official or friendly, doctors, not to speak of the

powerful individual whom we call “everybody,” all work together to

harden the character of the child with respect to this “four-footed

food,” which, nevertheless, loves as we do, feels as we do, and, under

our influence, progresses or retrogresses as we do.

It is just one of the sorriest results of our flesh-eating habits that

the animals sacrificed to man’s appetite have been systematically and

methodically made hideous, shapeless, and debased in intelligence and

moral worth. The name even of the animal into which the boar has been

transformed is used as the grossest of insults; the mass of flesh we see

wallowing in noisome pools is so loathsome to look at that we agree to

avoid all similarity of name between the beast and the dishes we make

out of it. What a difference there is between the moufflon’s appearance

and habits as he skips about upon the mountain rocks, and that of the

sheep which has lost all individual initiative and becomes mere debased

flesh — so timid that it dares not leave the flock, running headlong

into the jaws of the dog that pursues it. A similar degradation has

befallen the ox, whom now-a-days we see moving with difficulty in the

pastures, transformed by stock-breeders into an enormous ambulating mass

of geometrical forms, as if designed beforehand for the knife of the

butcher. And it is to the production of such monstrosities we apply the

term “breeding”! This is how man fulfils his mission as educator with

respect to his brethren, the animals.

For the matter of that, do we not act in like manner towards all Nature?

Turn loose a pack of engineers into a charming valley, in the midst of

fields and trees, or on the banks of some beautiful river, and you will

soon see what they would do. They would do everything in their power to

put their own work in evidence, and to mask Nature under their heaps of

broken stones and coal. All of them would be proud, at least, to see

their locomotives streaking the sky with a network of dirty yellow or

black smoke. Sometimes these engineers even take it upon themselves to

improve Nature. Thus, when the Belgian artists protested recently to the

Minister of Railroads against his desecration of the most beautiful

parts of the Meuse by blowing up the picturesque rocks along its banks,

the Minister hastened to assure them that henceforth they should have

nothing to complain about, as he would pledge himself to build all the

new workshops with Gothic turrets!

In a similar spirit the butchers display before the eyes of the public,

even in the most frequented streets, disjointed carcasses, gory lumps of

meat, and think to conciliate our æstheticism by boldly decorating the

flesh they hang out with garlands of roses!

When reading the papers, one wonders if all the atrocities of the war in

China are not a bad dream instead of a lamentable reality. How can it be

that men having had the happiness of being caressed by their mother, and

taught in school the words “justice” and “kindness,” how can it be that

these wild beasts with human faces take pleasure in tying Chinese

together by their garments and their pigtails before throwing them into

a river? How is it that they kill off the wounded, and make the

prisoners dig their own graves before shooting them? And who are these

frightful assassins? They are men like ourselves, who study and read as

we do, who have brothers, friends, a wife or a sweetheart; sooner or

later we run the chance of meeting them, of taking them by the hand

without seeing any traces of blood there.

But is there not some direct relation of cause and effect between the

food of these executioners, who call themselves “agents of

civilisation,” and their ferocious deeds? They, too, are in the habit of

praising the bleeding flesh as a generator of health, strength, and

intelligence. They, too, enter without repugnance the slaughter house,

where the pavement is red and slippery, and where one breathes the

sickly sweet odour of blood. Is there then so much difference between

the dead body of a bullock and that of a man? The dissevered limbs, the

entrails mingling one with the other, are very much alike : the

slaughter of the first makes easy the murder of the second, especially

when a leader’s order rings out, or from afar comes the word of the

crowned master, “Be pitiless.”

A French proverb says that “every bad case can be defended.” This saying

had a certain amount of truth in it so long as the soldiers of each

nation committed their barbarities separately, for the atrocities

attributed to them could afterwards be put down to jealousy and national

hatred. But in China, now, the Russians, French, English, and Germans

have not the modesty to attempt to screen each other. Eyewitnesses, and

even the authors themselves, have sent us information in every language,

some cynically, and others with reserve. The truth is no longer denied,

but a new morality has been created to explain it. This morality says

there are two laws for mankind, one applies to the yellow races and the

other is the privilege of the white. To assassinate or torture the first

named is, it seems, henceforth permissible, whilst it is wrong to do so

to the second.

Is not our morality, as applied to animals, equally elastic? Harking on

dogs to tear a fox to pieces teaches a gentleman how to make his men

pursue the fugitive Chinese. The two kinds of hunt belong to one and the

same “sport”; only, when the victim is a man, the excitement and

pleasure are probably all the keener. Need we ask the opinion of him who

recently invoked the name of Attila, quoting this monster as a model for

his soldiers?

It is not a digression to mention the horrors of war in connection with

the massacre of cattle and carnivorous banquets. The diet of individuals

corresponds closely to their manners. Blood demands blood. On this point

any one who searches among his recollections of the people whom he has

known will find there can be no possible doubt as to the contrast which

exists between vegetarians and coarse eaters of flesh, greedy drinkers

of blood, in amenity of manner, gentleness of disposition and regularity

of life.

It is true these are qualities not highly esteemed by those “superior

persons,” who, without being in any way better than other mortals, are

always more arrogant, and imagine they add to their own importance by

depreciating the humble and exalting the strong. According to them,

mildness signifies feebleness : the sick are only in the way, and it

would be a charity to get rid of them. If they are not killed, they

should at least be allowed to die. But it is just these delicate people

who resist disease better than the robust. Full-blooded and

high-coloured men are not always those who live longest : the really

strong are not necessarily those who carry their strength on the

surface, in a ruddy complexion, distended muscle, or a sleek and oily

stoutness. Statistics could give us positive information on this point,

and would have done so already, but for the numerous interested persons

who devote so much time to grouping, in battle array, figures, whether

true or false, to defend their respective theories.

But, however this may be, we say simply that, for the great majority of

vegetarians, the question is not whether their biceps and triceps are

more solid than those of the flesh-eaters, nor whether their organism is

better able to resist the risks of life and the chances of death, which

is even more important : for them the important point is the recognition

of the bond of affection and goodwill that links man to the so-called

lower animals, and the extension to these our brothers of the sentiment

which has already put a stop to cannibalism among men. The reasons which

might be pleaded by anthropophagists against the disuse of human flesh

in their customary diet would be as well-founded as those urged by

ordinary flesh-eaters today. The arguments that were opposed to that

monstrous habit are precisely those we vegetarians employ now. The horse

and the cow, the rabbit and the cat, the deer and the hare, the pheasant

and the lark, please us better as friends than as meat. We wish to

preserve them either as respected fellow-workers, or simply as

companions in the joy of life and friendship.

“But,” you will say, “if you abstain from the flesh of animals, other

flesh-eaters, men or beasts, will eat them instead of you, or else

hunger and the elements will combine to destroy them.” Without doubt the

balance of the species will be maintained, as formerly, in conformity

with the chances of life and the inter-struggle of appetites; but at

least in the conflict of the races the profession of destroyer shall not

be ours. We will so deal with the part of the earth which belongs to us

as to make it as pleasant as possible, not only for ourselves, but also

for the beasts of our household. We shall take up seriously the

educational rôle which has been claimed by man since prehistoric times.

Our share of responsibility in the transformation of the existing order

of things does not extend beyond ourselves and our immediate

neighbourhood. If we do but little, this little will at least be our

work.

One thing is certain, that if we held the chimerical idea of pushing the

practice of our theory to its ultimate and logical consequences, without

caring for considerations of another kind, we should fall into simple

absurdity. In this respect the principle of vegetarianism does not

differ from any other principle; it must be suited to the ordinary

conditions of life. It is clear that we have no intention of

subordinating all our practices and actions, of every hour and every

minute, to a respect for the life of the infinitely little; we shall not

let ourselves die of hunger and thirst, like some Buddhist, when the

microscope has shown us a drop of water swarming with animalculæ. We

shall not hesitate now and then to cut ourselves a stick in the forest,

or to pick a flower in a garden; we shall even go so far as to take a

lettuce, or cut cabbages and asparagus for our food, although we fully

recognise the life in the plant as well as in animals. But it is not for

us to found a new religion, and to hamper ourselves with a sectarian

dogma; it is a question of making our existence as beautiful as

possible, and in harmony, so far as in us lies, with the æsthetic

conditions of our surroundings.

Just as our ancestors, becoming disgusted with eating their

fellow-creatures, one fine day left off serving them up to their tables;

just as now, among flesh-eaters, there are many who refuse to eat the

flesh of man’s noble companion, the horse, or of our fireside pets, the

dog and cat — so is it distasteful to us to drink the blood and chew the

muscle of the ox, whose labour helps to grow our corn. We no longer want

to hear the bleating of sheep, the bellowing of bullocks, the groans and

piercing shrieks of the pigs, as they are led to the slaughter. We

aspire to the time when we shall not have to walk swiftly to shorten

that hideous minute of passing the haunts of butchery with their

rivulets of blood and rows of sharp hooks, whereon carcasses are hung up

by blood-stained men, armed with horrible knives. We want some day to

live in a city where we shall no longer see butchers’ shops full of dead

bodies side by side with drapers’ or jewellers’, and facing a

druggist’s, or hard by a window filled with choice fruits, or with

beautiful books, engravings or statuettes, and works of art. We want an

environment pleasant to the eye and in harmony with beauty.

And since physiologists, or better still, since our own experience tells

us that these ugly joints of meat are not a form of nutrition necessary

for our existence, we put aside all these hideous foods which our

ancestors found agreeable, and the majority of our contemporaries still

enjoy. We hope before long that flesh-eaters will at least have the

politeness to hide their food. Slaughter houses are relegated to distant

suburbs; let the butchers’ shops be placed there too, where, like

stables, they shall be concealed in obscure corners.

It is on account of the ugliness of it that we also abhor vivisection

and all dangerous experiments, except when they are practised by the man

of science on his own person. It is the ugliness of the deed which fills

us with disgust when we see a naturalist pinning live butterflies into

his box, or destroying an ant-hill in order to count the ants. We turn

with dislike from the engineer who robs Nature of her beauty by

imprisoning a cascade in conduit-pipes, and from the Californian

woodsman who cuts down a tree, four thousand years old and three hundred

feet high, to show its rings at fairs and exhibitions. Ugliness in

persons, in deeds, in life, in surrounding Nature — this is our worst

foe. Let us become beautiful ourselves, and let our life be beautiful!

What then are the foods which seem to correspond better with our ideal

of beauty both in their nature and in their needful methods of

preparation? They are precisely those which from all time have been

appreciated by men of simple life; the foods which can do best without

the lying artifices of the kitchen. They are eggs, grains, fruits; that

is to say, the products of animal and vegetable life which represent in

their organisms both the temporary arrest of vitality and the

concentration of the elements necessary to the formation of new lives.

The egg of the animal, the seed of the plant, the fruits of the tree,

are the end of an organism which is no more, and the beginning of an

organism which does not yet exist. Man gets them for his food without

killing the being that provides them, since they are formed at the point

of contact between two generations. Do not our men of science who study

organic chemistry tell us, too, that the egg of the animal or plant is

the best storehouse of every vital element? Omne vivum ex ovo.