“It is thus that many Europeans, whom their destiny conducts to the cannibal countries, after some months of sojourn with the natives, make no difficulty of seating themselves at their banquet, and of sharing their horrible repast, which at first had excited their horror and disgust. They begin with devouring a dog: from the dog to the man the space is soon cleared.
“Men believe themselves to be just, provided that they fulfil, in regard to their fellows, the duties which have been prescribed to them. But it is goodness which is the justice of man; and it is impossible, I repeat it, to be good towards one’s fellow without being so towards other existences. Let us not be the dupes of appearances. Seneca, who lived only on the herbs of his garden, to which he owed those last gleams of philosophy which enlightened, so to speak, the fall of the Roman Empire, also thinks that crime cannot be circumscribed: Nullum intrà se manet vitium. And if, as Ovid affirms, the sword struck men only after having been first dyed in the blood of the lower animals, what interest have we not in respecting such a barrier? Like Æolus, who held in his hands the bag in which the winds were confined, we may at our will, according as we live upon plants or upon animals, tranquillize the earth or excite terrible tempests upon it.
“I am too well aware that a subterfuge will be found in excusing the crime by necessity, and calumniating Providence. According to the pretended belief of the greatest number of people, if other animals were not put to death, they would deprive men of the empire of the earth. But it is easy to reply to this objection by the examples of people who, holding in horror the effusion of blood, and robbing no being of life—even the vilest or most hateful—are by no means disturbed in the exercise of their sovereignty.[228] And it would result from the examples of these people, if one had not other proofs besides, that man is absolutely master of the means of increasing or limiting the multiplication of the species which are more or less in dependence upon him. And it is not less evident that the earth, in this latter hypothesis, would support an infinitely greater number of the human species. Thus will the vegetable regimen be necessarily adopted one day over the whole earth, when the multiplication of our species shall have reached a certain number fixed and pre-established by that imperious and irrevocable law which is intimately connected, for the most part, with humanity, justice, and virtue—the number at which it is slowly arriving, arrested by the very causes which I am striving to destroy, and which, for that single reason, ought to arm against them all generous beings who appreciate the benefit of existence.”[229]
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:—
“The instinct of life among animals generally gives them a presentiment and fear of death—that is to say violent death; for as for natural death it inspires in them no alarm, for the simple reason that it is in the course of nature. And it is the same with man. He is not afflicted with the thought of dying when he knows his hour is come; he resigns himself to that fate as to any other imposed upon him by necessity. The sensations of other beings differ in no respect from those of men; and when the horse, for example, is condemned to death by the lion, that is to say, when he hears the confused roar of that terrible beast which fills space, while the precise spot from which it emanates cannot be determined, which takes from the victim all hope of escape by flight, the perspiration rolls down all his limbs, he falls to the earth as if he had just been struck by a thunderbolt, and would die of terror alone if the lion did not run up to terminate the tragedy.”[230]
“There exists so great an analogy, so strong a resemblance, between the life of man and that of other animals who surround him, that a simple return to himself—simple reflection—ought to suffice to make him respect the latter; and if he were condemned by Nature to rend it from them, he might justly curse the order of things which, on the one hand, should have implanted in his heart the source of feeling so gentle, and, on the other, should have imposed on him a necessity so cruel.... And if this man have children, if he bear in his heart objects which are so dear to him, how can he unceasingly surround himself with images of death—of that death which must deprive him one day of those whom he loves, or snatch himself away from their love? And if he be just, if he be good, how will he not have repugnance for acts which will continually recall to him ideas of ingratitude, of cruelty, and of violence? There exists in the East a tree which, by a mechanical movement, inclines its branches towards the traveller, whom it seems to invite to repose under its shade. This simple image of hospitality, which is revered in that part of the world, makes them regard it as sacred, and they would punish with death him who should dare to apply a hatchet to its trunk. Our humble fellow-beings, should they be less sacred because they represent, not by mechanical movements, but by actions resembling our own, feelings the dearest to our hearts? Ah! let us respect them, not alone because they aid us to bear the burdens of the world, which would overwhelm us without them but because they have the same right with ourselves to life.... A reason which is without reply, at least for generous souls, is the trust and confidence reposed in man by other animals. Nature has not taught them to distrust him. He is the only enemy whom she has not pointed out to them. Is it not evident proof that he was not intended to be so? For can one believe that Nature, who holds so just a balance, could have been willing to deceive all other beings in favour of man alone? It has been observed that birds of the gentle species express certain cries when they perceive the fox, the weasel, &c., although they have nothing to fear from them, without doubt, by reason of the analogy which they offer. They are the cries of hatred rather than of fear, whilst they utter these latter at sight of the eagle, of the hawk, &c. Now, it is certain that in all the islands on which man has landed, the native animals have not fled before them. They have been able to take even birds with the hand.”
Gleïzès rejects the common fallacy that, because men have acquired a lust for flesh, therefore it is natural or proper for them.
“It is a specious but very false reason to allege that, since man has acquired this taste, he ought to be permitted to indulge it—in the first place because Nature has not given him cooked flesh, and because several ages must have rolled away before fire was used. It is very well known that there are many countries in which it was not known at the period of their discovery. Nature, then, could have given man only raw or living flesh, and we know that it is repugnant to him over the whole extent of the earth. Now it is exactly this character which essentially distinguishes animals of prey from others. The former, those at least of the larger species, have generally an extreme repugnance, not only for cooked flesh, but even for that which has lost its freshness. Man, then, is not carnivorous but under certain abnormal conditions; and his senses, to which he appeals in support of his carnivorousness, are perverted to such a degree, that he would devour his fellow-man without perceiving it, if they served him up in place of veal, the flesh of which is said to have the same taste. Thus Harpagus ate, without knowing it, the corpse of his son.”