Why I Am a Vegetarian / An Address Delivered Before the Chicago Vegetarian Society

by J. Howard Moore

Now, this whole enterprise, this entire process of biological evolution, has been accomplished by the survival from age to age of the fittest to survive; that is, by the subjection and elimination of the weak and the simple by the more powerful and sophisticated, And the disposition to exploit manifested by every animal that breathes, from philosopher to fish, is a disposition which has been implanted in the natures of living beings by the necessities of evolution. The great task of reforming the universe, therefore, is the task of eliminating from the natures of its inhabitants the disposition to be inhospitable, egoistic and merciless, which has been everywhere developed by evolution.

In the ideal universe the life and happiness of no being are contingent upon the suffering and death of any other. And the fact that in this universe of ours life and happiness have been and are today so largely maintained by the infliction of indescribable misery and extinction, is the most pathetic, the most stupendous, and the most sickening contemplation that ever invaded human mind. It is encouraging to know, however, that life in its highest forms, that is, as represented by the most cultured aggregates of the human species, is evolving rapidly and irrepressibly toward the ideal, that is, toward a social state in which the interests and life of each individual being are more and more equally precious. What are civilization and morality? What do we mean by ethical progress? The growth of consideration for others—nothing more—simply cessation of, or abstinence from, exploitation. Courtesy, kindness, justice, altruism, humanity, what are they? They are the qualities which distinguish those who put themselves in the place of others, who recognize the existence and the preciousness of others, and who act upon others as they themselves would be pleased to have others act upon them. Otherism is the antithesis of laissez faire. The growth of civility in the earth is the growth of the principle or consciousness of solidarity among its inhabitants.

Vegetarianism, therefore, that is, abstinence from non-human exploitation or the recognition of universal solidarity, is related from this exalted standpoint to the logic of the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence and the modern movements of social reform. The sympathies of the consistent vegetarian go out naturally to the stricken and oppressed everywhere—to Cuba in her struggle for autonomy, to Ireland in her misery, to the helpless quadruped quivering under the pole-ax, and to the pitiable proletarian who goes up and down the monopolized universe seeking in vain for opportunities to earn honest nutrition. The vegetarian who is conscious enough to be consistent is in love with the universe, not simply with his wife or clan or species. He strives to be graceful to every being whose destinies he contacts, however humble or hopeless or eccentric that being may be.

I am a vegetarian because I believe that present-day ethics is founded on that puerile, pre-Darwinian delusion that all other kinds of creatures and all worlds were created explicitly for the hominine species. Vegetarianism is the ethical corollary of evolution. It is simply the expansion of ethics to suit the biological revelations of Charles Darwin. Evolution has taught us the kinship of all creatures. The ancient hiatus between man and the other animals has been effectually sewed up. Biology teaches us, if it teaches us anything, that there is a solidarity of the sentient world. Man is simply one of a series of sentients, differing in degree but not in kind from the creatures below and around him. The ox he enslaves and slays and the poor reptile that wriggles in his pathway are his brothers, partaking of his nature and sharing his destiny. Man is simply the adult of long evolution, and his qualities are, of course, found among the juveniles and infants of the sentient world. The industrious bee, the civilized ant, the devoted steed, the mischievous ape, the irascible serpent, the sagacious elephant, the beautiful gazelle and the great, honest ox have within them in embryo all the emotions that roll through the soul of man. Fear, love, fidelity, hate, jealousy, joy, selfishness, curiosity, remorse, are all found everywhere, and they are the same passions that heave your breast and mine. Chastity, sobriety, obedience, personal cleanliness, industry, sympathy, self-control, friendship, heroism, sagacity—many dogs and other semi-civilized animals have all these qualities, and in a greater degree even than whole races of men. And these faculties and capacities of the non-hominine world are the same identical faculties and capacities that you have and I have. Industry and ingenuity in the beaver are just as genuine and just as commendable as the same qualities in man. The faithful dog who stood over the lifeless body of his master grieving for recognition and starting at every flutter of his garments till he himself died of starvation, was just as noble as if he had all his days walked on his hind legs and worn a cane. The wild bird who takes her life in her wings to save her nestlings from the voracious serpent, and the mother bear away on the Arctic snows who allows herself to be murdered in order to save her child, have just as genuine mother love and love just as sacred as that which burns in the breast of woman. The ingenious ant, which tends its fields, gathers its harvests, keeps slaves and armies and goes to war, and performs about all the antics of civilized man except maltreating the females and drinking gin, is not less civilized, and its civilization is not less real, because it is miniature. And the Christian who goes to church on Sunday and wails long prayers and then goes home and stuffs his alimentary with the quivering vitals of his naive fellows, and through the week lashes the flanks of his overburdened horse till the strained tendons are ready to snap, is not less criminal because he is strategic, and his crimes are not less infernal because they have no penalty but his conscience and no judge but himself. Whether we realize it or not the doctrine that on mankind’s account all the rest of the animal world came into being and that all non-human beings are mere hunks devoid of all psychic qualities found in man, is a doctrine not one whit more sagacious than the old geocentric theory of the universe.

Man has defined himself as the “paragon of the universe.” I do not say that he is not. I simply say that if he is, the universe has no cause for dry eyes. Man’s treatment of his own kind especially his conduct toward the forms of life differing from him have been such as to brand him as a most ill-mannered and immodel organism. Human beings have been sufficiently clever and sufficiently devoted to each other to evolve into the masters of the earth, but instead of converting themselves into preceptors for the conquered races, they have become the butchers of the universe. Instead of becoming the models and school-masters of the world in which they have outstripped, and striving to repair the clumsy natures and regulate the straying feet of those by means of whom they have been hoisted into distinction, they have become colossal pedants and assassins, proclaiming themselves the pets and gods of creation and teaching each other that other races are mere fixtures to furnish food and amusement for themselves. They inculcate as a rule of conduct—and they preach it valiantly—that each should act upon others as he himself would choose to be acted upon. This ideal of social rectitude has been promulgated by the sages of the species for more than 2,000 years. But with miserable pusillanimity they confine its application to the members of their own species. No non-human is too innocent or too interesting or too wonderful to escape the most frightful humiliations, if by those humiliations human comfort or human amusement or human whim is in any way whatever garnished.

Look at the horse! No nobler and more beautiful creature is found in all the animal realm. A marvel of strength, speed and splendor. The most useful and most consummate associate of man. What wonderful possibilities of reciprocity! Man takes the horse from the plains, where he is exposed to the inclemencies of weather, the contingencies of food and the blunders of his own childlike nature. He gives him regular meals, pleasant shelter, intellectual surroundings, and a home. The horse in return gives man the benefit of his superior strength and speed, bearing man and his burdens and supplementing in a thousand ways the inadequate energies of his mentor. These are the possibilities, the ideal—gigantic strength supplementing superior wisdom. Beautiful reciprocity! What are the actualities? Sad, indeed! The horse is not an associate but a slave. He has no rights, and is seldom suspected of being entitled to feelings or vanities at all. He is treated as if he had merely existence and usefulness. He is neglected, overburdened and overworked, beaten, insulted, starved, maimed, misunderstood, deprived of leisure and liberty, unconsidered—doomed to an environment out of which has been drained every element calculated to promote his happiness and intelligence and perpetuate his nobility and beauty. He is a mere suggestion of the might-have-been. His regal neck has wilted; the splendid flanks are lean and drawn; the ambitious face is sad. The proud galloper of the plains, the companion of the winds, bearing fire in his nostrils and thunder in his hoofs, has become a soured, impoverished, broken-hearted but faithful wreck. The stars of heaven never looked down on a more pitiful sight than that of a horse, after having drudged all his days in the service of his lord, cast out in his helpless old age to wander and perish.

Our own happiness and that of our species are believed to be so much more important than that of others that we sacrifice without scruple the most sacred prerogatives of others in order that our own may be fastidiously trimmed. Even for a tooth or a feather to wear on our vanity marauders are sent through the forests of the earth to ravage and depopulate them. Beautiful beings which fill the woods with song and juvenility are compelled to sprawl lifeless and disheveled on the skulls of unconscionable sillies. Criminal and inconvenient races are exterminated with eager and superfluous violence. Thousands of innocent and helpless souls are caught up and carried by unfeeling emissaries into foul dungeons and there doomed by ghoulish clowns of science to the most protracted, useless, and damning victimizations. It is enough almost to make villains weep—the cold-blooded manner in which human beings cut the throats, dash out the brains, and discuss the flavor of their victims at their cannibalistic feasts.

Look at the scenes to be met with in all our streets and stockyards! An army of butchers standing in blood ankle deep and working themselves to exhaustion carving the throats of their helpless fellows—unsuspecting oxen with limpid eyes looking up at the deadly pole-ax and a moment later lying a-quiver under its relentless thud—struggling swine swinging by their hinders with their life leaping from their gashed jugulars—an atmosphere in perpetual churn with the groans and yells of the massacred—streets thronged with unprocessioned funerals—everywhere corpses dangling from sale-hooks or sprawling on chopping blocks—men and women kneeling nightly by their pillow sides and congratulating themselves on their whiteness and rising and leaping on the bloody remains of some slaughtered fellow—such are the spectacles in all our streets and stockyards, and such are the enormities perpetrated day after day by Christian cannibals on the defenseless dumb ones of this world.

Holy days, days above all others when it seems men’s minds would be bent on compassion, are farces of gluttony and ferocity. Unfeeling ruffians cowardly shoot down defenceless birds or prowl the country in rival squads massacring every living creature that is not able to escape them—and for no higher or humaner purpose than just to see who can kill the most! This is egoism unparalleled on the face of the earth. No species of animal except man plunges to such depths of atrocity. It is bad enough in all conscience for one being to suppress another in order to tear it to pieces and swallow it, but when such outrages are perpetrated by organized packs just for pastime it becomes an enormity beyond characterization. The insectivora, the carnivora, and the reptilia are cruel. It is horrible to contemplate the enormous wickedness perpetrated on the less offensive races by these relentless brutes. But the crimes committed by the hominine species are the most insolent and extravagant in the universe. Non-human murderers are ruthless, but even serpents and hyenas do not exterminate for sport. A universe is, indeed, to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so unconscious, so irresponsible, and so ethically repulsive that they make life a commodity, mercy a disease, and systematic massacre a pastime and profession.

I am a vegetarian because I believe in the golden rule. Act toward others as you would that others would act toward you, has been the basic precept of the morals of the generations. This wonderful rule has been mouthed and mouthed since the days of Confucius, 2,400 years ago. But it never has been lived. Do as you would be done by. Certainly. But to whom? Each class or clan has been its own little clique to whom it after a fashion observed this rule. Slavery and slaughter have been the rule toward everyone else. The Troglodytes hunted the Ethiopians in four-horse chariots with as little compunction as Americans hunt the wood-deer today. A Roman could take the life of his Gallic slave with as perfect impunity as an American can slay his bovine servant today. Yet to kill a Gaul was as really murder as to kill a Roman. It hasn’t been very long since all the Christian nations hunted their dusky brethren in Africa and sold and loaned and lashed them as we do the horse today. All these crimes are now matters of course to us. It is the same old story. We can see behind us but not around us. After so many centuries the solidarity of our species has dimly dawned on us, but we can not discern the solidarity of all the animal world. We go on daily committing crimes as horrible as those we execrate. And we do it for the very same reason our long line of ancestors have done it, because the human mind is too feeble to be conscious of all the complicated relations which it is called upon to be conscious of.