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:—
“A right to the flesh of animals. This is a very different claim from the former [‘a right to the fruits or vegetable produce of the earth’]. Some excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss which we occasion to [other] animals by restraining them of their liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last, putting an end to their lives for our pleasure or convenience.
“The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the following—that the several species of animals being created to prey upon one another[187] affords a kind of analogy to prove that the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let alone, they would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from the occupation of it;[188] that they are requited for what they suffer at our hands by our care and protection.
“Upon which reasons I would observe that the analogy contended for is extremely lame, since [the carnivorous] animals have no power to support life by any other means, and since we have, for the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindus[189] actually do. The two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go, for, no doubt, if men had been supported entirely by vegetable food a great part of those animals who die to furnish our tables would never have lived[190] but they by no means justify our right over the lives of other animals to the extent to which we exercise it. What danger is there, e.g., of fish interfering with us in the occupation of their element, or what do we contribute to their support or preservation?
“It seems to me that it would be difficult to defend this right by any arguments which the light and order of Nature afford, and that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture (Gen. ix., 1, 2, 3). To Adam and his posterity had been granted, at the creation, ‘every green herb for meat,’ and nothing more. In the last clause of the passage now produced the old grant is recited and extended to the flesh of animals—‘even as the green herb, have I given you all things.’ But this was not until after the Flood. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world had therefore no such permission that we know of. Whether they actually refrained from the flesh of animals is another question. Abel, we read, was a keeper of sheep, and for what purpose he kept them, except for food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifice). Might not, however, some of the stricter sects among the antediluvians be scrupulous as to this point? And might not Noah and his family be of this description? For, it is not probable that God should publish a permission to authorise a practice which had never been disputed.”[191]
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:—
“The natives of Hindustan being confined, by the laws of their religion, to the use of vegetable food, and requiring little except rice, which the country produces in plentiful crops; and food, in warm climates, composing the only want of life, these countries are populous under all the injuries of a despotic, and the agitations of an unsettled, Government. If any revolution, or what would be called perhaps refinement of manners (!), should generate in these people a taste for the flesh of animals, similar to what prevails amongst the Arabian hordes—should introduce flocks and herds into grounds which are now covered with corn—should teach them to account a certain portion of this species of food amongst the necessaries of life—the population from this single change would suffer in a few years a great diminution, and this diminution would follow in spite of every effort of the laws, or even of any improvement that might take place in their civil condition. In Ireland the simplicity of living alone maintains a considerable degree of population under great defects of police, industry, and commerce.... Next to the mode of living, we are to consider ‘the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which is either raised in the country or imported into it,’ for this is the order in which we assigned the causes of population and undertook to treat of them. Now, if we measure the quantity of provision by the number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour, this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil from which it is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the kind. For instance, a piece of ground capable of supplying animal food sufficient for the subsistence of ten persons would sustain, at least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk.
“The first resource of savage life is in the flesh of wild animals. Hence the numbers amongst savage nations, compared with the tract of country which they occupy, are universally small, because this species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the slenderest proportion. The next step was the invention of pasturage, or the rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals. This alteration added to the stock of provision much. But the last and principal improvement was to follow, viz., tillage, or the artificial production of corn, esculent plants, and roots. This discovery, whilst it changed the quality of human food, augmented the quantity in a vast proportion.
“So far as the state of population is governed and limited by the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that affects it so powerfully as the kind and quality of food which chance or usage hath introduced into a country. In England, notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been of late considerably increased by the enclosure of wastes and the adoption, in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants, the reason of which appears to me to be the more general consumption of animal food amongst us. Many ranks of people whose ordinary diet was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk, roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion of the flesh of animals. Hence a great part of the richest lands of the country are converted to pasturage. Much also of the bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies, now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and oxen. The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished, and what is gained in the amelioration of the soil is lost in the quality of the produce.