The ethics of diet : a catena of authorities deprecatory of the practice of flesh-eating / by Howard Williams.
- Q15442840
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The ethics of diet : a catena of authorities deprecatory of the practice of flesh-eating / by Howard Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
336/356 page 320
![show how far a man, supposed to have subsisted in a desert island, without any instruction, or so much as the sight of any other man, may, by the pure light of Nature, attain the knowledge of Philosophy and Virtue. One of the first things he makes him observe is the benevolence of Nature, in the protection and preservation of her creatures.* In imitation of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his self-taught philosopher would, of course, fall into, is to relieve and assist all the animals about them in their wants and distresses Perhaps that voice or cry, so nearly resembling the human, with which Nature has endowed so many different animals, might purposely be given them to move our Pity, and prevent those cruelties we are to apt to inflict upon our Fellow Creatures. Pope quotes, in part, the admirable verses of Ovid, Metam. XV., with Dryden's translation—and an apposite fable of the Persian Pilpai, which illustrates the base ingratitude of men who torture and slaughter their fellow labourers.—I know it (this common ingratitude) said the Cow, by woful experience; for I have served a man this long time with milk, butter, and cheese, and brought him, besides, a Calf every year—but now I am old, he turns me into this pasture with design to sell me to a butcher, who, shortly, will make an end of me.—The Guar- dian, LXI, May 21, 1713. With Pilpai or Bidpai's fable, compare that of La Fontaine on the same subject—L'Homme et la Couleuvre. XI. CHESTERFIELD. 1694—1773. To the expression of the opinion or feeling of Lord Chesterfield on butchering, given, in its place, in the body of this work (page 140), is here subjoined the remainder of his paper in The World. The value of such testimony may be deemed proportionate to the extreme rarity of any protests of this sort from those who, by their influential position, are the most bound to make them :— Although this reflection {the fact of the preying of the stronger upon the weaker throughout Nature] had force enough to dispythagorise me before my companions [in his college at the University of Oxford] had time to make observations upon my behaviour, which could by no means have turned to my advantage in the world, I for a great while retained so tender a regard for all my fellow-creatures, that I have several times brought myself into imminent peril by putting butcher-boys in mind, that their Sheep were going to die, and that they walked full as fast as could reasonably be expected, with- out the cruel blows they were so liberal in bestowing upon them. As I commonly came * So far, at least, as the natural and necessary wants of each species are concerned. —That Nature is regardless of suffering, is but too apparent in all parts of our globe. It is the opprobrium and shame of the human species that, placed at the head of the various races of beings, it has hitherto been the Tyrant, and not the Facificator.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21084324_0336.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
