It is upon this theme that Schopenhauer becomes so eloquent, and with larger view even than that of Rousseau, as it seems, he brings the lower animals within the protection of his moral system.
“There is nothing that revolts our moral sense so much as cruelty. Every other offence we can pardon, but not cruelty. The reason is found in the fact that cruelty is the exact opposite of compassion—viz., the direct participation, independent of all ulterior considerations, in the sufferings of another, leading to sympathetic assistance in the effort to prevent or remove them; whereon, in the last resort, all satisfaction and all well-being and happiness depend. It is this compassion alone which is the real basis of all voluntary justice and all genuine loving-kindness.… There is another proof that the moral incentive disclosed by me is the true one. I mean the fact that animals also are included under its protecting ægis. In the other European systems of ethics no place is found for them, strange and inexcusable as this may appear. It is asserted that beasts have no rights; the illusion is harboured that our conduct, so far as they are concerned, has no moral significance; or, as it is put in the language of these codes, that there are no duties to be fulfilled towards animals. Such a view is one of revolting coarseness—a barbarism of the West.… Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to living creatures cannot be a good man.”[6]
So wrote a young German philosopher some seventy years ago; and all that has since happened in the world of thought has but served to strengthen his teaching as to our duty towards the lower animals. For since he wrote science and thought have become profoundly modified by one of those epoch-making inductions which, at very rare intervals, some great thinker is inspired to make. We have seen the establishment and the almost universal acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, involving as one of its corollaries the unity of life and the “universal kinship” of man with his humbler brethren—or cousins, if you will—of the animal world.
I venture, then, to offer this teaching for my readers’ consideration. In its light I would ask them to view these questions, and if they shall think that that light is the light of reason and truth, then to follow it wheresoever it may lead. I do not think it will lead them to offer fresh hecatombs upon the blood-stained altar of Sport.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] One of the strongest objections to fox-hunting consists in this, that each season must necessarily be preceded (so at least we are told) by the barbarities of “cub-hunting.” The slaughter of these poor little cubs is cruel and pitiful work. Sometimes, too, a vixen falls a victim to the hounds while her cubs are still dependent on her for their food. No doubt an early ride on a fine September or October morning is a pleasant thing, and the “sportsman” need not know much about what goes on in the coverts, or trouble himself to think about it! But the fact remains that this is a miserable and cruel form of “sport.” And what shall we say of the practice of “digging out” a wretched fox when, perhaps after a long run, he has sought refuge by “going to ground”? Can anything be conceived more callous or more cowardly? Yet educated, and, presumably, thinking men, and women too—Heaven save the mark!—stand by and enjoy the fun! Such is the debasing effect of “sport” upon the human mind and character!
[3] In the Westminster Gazette of August 15, 1908, a woman wrote on “The Enchantments of the New Forest,” and this is what she says: “Anyone with a drop of sport-love in them, given a nag of some kind, will not be a day in the forest before he finds himself chasing some animal, alive or dead.” The sentiment is surely even more deplorable than the grammar.
[4] It must in fairness be added that the article from which the above extract is made was subsequently repudiated by the editor as being “quite opposed to the line which The Field has always taken.” It seems that “by an oversight the article was inserted during the absence of the departmental editor.” I quote it, nevertheless, as showing that over twenty years ago the truth as to this matter had dawned upon the mind of at least one of the leader-writers of a great sporting paper.
[5] Moreover, there is a sport which, as the Rev. J. Stratton has pointed out, might well supersede rabbit-coursing—viz., whippet-racing. “It cannot be pleaded,” he says, “that if we were to stop the coursing of captured rabbits we should be unduly depriving workmen of recreation, for ‘whippets’ could be employed just as well in races as in chasing rabbits. Of the first of these sports I can speak as an eye-witness. In whippet-racing a course is formed, which is kept free for the dogs by ropes on either side. At one end, men have in hand the whippets that are about to compete, and here stands the starter, holding his pistol. ‘Runners-up’ now come on to the course, carrying in their hands a towel or scarf, and starting from the front of the dogs, and frantically waving the article they hold, and whistling, and calling to the animals, they begin to run towards the far end of the course, where the winning-line is marked out and the judge has taken up his post. When the right moment has arrived, the pistol is fired, and the whippets are liberated, and commence to travel the course with the speed of the wind, the ‘runners-up’ always getting well beyond the winning-point before the dogs overtake them, in order that the latter may pass it at their utmost pace. It is altogether a remarkable sight, and had I never seen the thing, I could not have believed that the little dogs would enter into the contest with the ardour they do.”
[6] My quotations are from Mr. A. B. Bullock’s translation of “The Basis of Morality,” see pp. 170, 208, 218.