Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Leo Tolstoy on Vegetarianism
"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
- Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy:
Not
long ago I had a talk with a retired soldier, a butcher, and he was
surprised at my assertion that it was a pity to kill, and said the usual
things about it's being ordained. But afterwards he agreed with me:
`Especially when they are quiet, tame cattle. They come, poor things!
trusting you. It is very pitiful.'
This
is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that a man
suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity --
that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself -- and
by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in
the human heart is the injunction not to take life!
Once,
when walking from Moscow, I was offered a lift by some carters who were
going to Serpukhov to a neighbouring forest to fetch wood. It was
Thursday before Easter. I was seated in the first cart with a strong,
red, coarse cart man, who evidently drank. On entering a village we saw a
well-fed, naked, pink pig being dragged out of the first yard to be
slaughtered. It squealed in a dreadful voice, resembling the shriek of a
man. Just as we were passing they began to kill it. A man gashed its
throat with a knife. The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly,
broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood.
Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal, but the carter saw all the details and watched
closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting its
throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. `Do men
really not have to answer for such things?' he said.
So
strong is humanity's aversion to all killing. But by example, by
encouraging greediness, by the assertion that God has allowed it, and
above all by habit, people entirely lose this natural feeling.
I
only wish to say that for a good life a certain order of good actions
is indispensable; that if a man's aspirations toward right living be
serious they will inevitably follow one definite sequence; and that in
this sequence the first virtue a man will strive after will be
self-control, self-restraint. And in seeking for self-control a man will
inevitably follow one definite sequence, and it this sequence the first
thing will be self-control of food. And if he be really and seriously
seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain
will always be the use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the
excitation of the passions caused by such food, its use is simply
immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to
moral feeling -- killing.
"But
why, if the wrongfulness of animal food was known to humanity so long
ago, have people not yet come to acknowledge this law?" will be asked by
those who are accustomed to be led by public opinion rather by reason.
The answer to this question is that the moral progress of humanity --
which is the foundation of every other kind of progress -- is always
slow; but that the sign of true, not casual, progress is its
uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration.
And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress is expressed
in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is involuntarily
passing more and more from carnivorous habits to vegetable food, and is
also deliberately following the same path in a movement which shows
evident strength, and which isgrowing
larger and larger -- viz. vegetarianism. That movement has during the
last ten years advanced more and more rapidly. More and more books and
periodicals on this subject appear every year; one meets more and more
people who have given up meat; and abroad, especially Germany, England,
and America, the number of vegetarian hotels and restaurants increases year by year.
This
movement should cause special joy to those whose life lies in the
effort to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, not because
vegetarianism is in itself an important step towards that kingdom (all
true steps are both important and unimportant), but because it is a sign
that the aspiration of mankind towards moral perfection is serious and
sincere, for it has taken the one unalterable order of succession natural to it, beginning with the first step.
One
cannot fail to rejoice at this, as people could not fail to rejoice
who, after striving to reach the upper story of a house by trying vainly
and at random to climb the walls from different points, should at last
assemble at the first step of the staircase and crowd towards it,
convinced that there can be no way up except by mounting this first step
of stairs.
Source : http://www.vegfriend.com/profiles/blogs/leo-tolstoy-on-vegetarianism
No comments:
Post a Comment