Mandeville on Carnism
FROM THE FABLE OF THE BEES
I
have often thought, if it was not for this Tyranny which Custom usurps over us,
that Men of any tollerable good Nature could never be reconcil’d to the killing
of so many Animals for their daily Food, as long as the bountiful Earth so
plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable Dainties. I know that
Reason excites our Compassion but faintly, and therefore I would not wonder how
Men should so little commiserate such imperfect Creatures as Cray fish,
Oysters, Cockles, and indeed all Fish in general: As they are mute, and their
inward Formation, as well as outward Figure, vastly different from ours, they
express themselves unintelligibly to us, and therefore ’tis not strange that
their Grief should not affect our Understanding, which it cannot reach; for
nothing stirs us to Pity so effectually, as when the Symptoms of Misery strike
immediately upon our Senses, and I have seen People mov’d at the Noise a live
Lobster makes upon the Spit, that could have kill’d half a dozen Fowls with
Pleasure. But in such perfect Animals as Sheep and Oxen, in whom the Heart, the
Brain and Nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom the Separation of the Spirits
from the Blood, the Organs of Sense, and consequently Feeling itself, are the
same as they are in Human Creatures, I can’t imagine how a Man not hardned in
Blood and Massacre, is able to see a violent Death, and the Pangs of it,
without Concern.
In
answer to this, most People will think it sufficient to say, that all Things
being allow’d to be made for the Service of Man, there can be no Cruelty in
putting Creatures to the use they were design’d for; but I have heard Men make
this Reply, whilst their Nature within them has reproach’d them with the
Falshood of the Assertion. There is of all the Multitude not one Man in ten but
what will own, (if he was not brought up in a Slaughter-house) that of all
Trades he could never have been a Butcher ; and I question whether ever
any body so much as kill’d a Chicken without Reluctancy the first time. Some
People are not to be perswaded to taste of any Creatures they have daily seen
and been acquainted with, whilst they were alive; others extend their scruple
no further than to their own Poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took
care of themselves, yet all of them will feed heartily and without Remorse on
Beef, Mutton and Fowls, when they are bought in the Market. In this behaviour,
methinks, there appears something like a consciousness of Guilt, it looks as if
they endeavour’d to save themselves from the Imputation of a Crime (which they
know sticks somewhere) by removing the cause of it as far as they can from
themselves; and I can discover in it some strong remains of Primitive Pity and
Innocence, which all the arbitrary Power of Custom, and the violence of Luxury,
have not yet been able to conquer.
What
I build upon I shall be told is a Folly that Wise Men are not guilty of: I own
it; but whilst it proceeds from a real Passion inherent in our Nature, it is
sufficient to demonstrate that we are born with a Repugnancy to the killing,
and consequently the eating of Animals; for it is impossible that a natural
Appetite should ever prompt us to act, or desire others to do, what we have an
aversion to, be it as foolish as it will.
Every
body knows, that Surgeons in the Cure of dangerous Wounds and Fractures, the
extirpation of Limbs, and other dreadful Operations, are often compell’d to put
their Patients to extraordinary Torments, and that the more desperate and
calamitous Cases occur to them, the more the outcries and bodily Sufferings of
others must become familiar to them; for this Reason our English Law,
out of a most affectionate Regard to the Lives of the Subject, allows them not
to be of any Jury upon Life and Death, as supposing that their Practice it self
is sufficient to harden and extinguish in them that Tenderness, without which
no Man is capable of setting a true value upon the Lives of his fellow
Creatures. Now if we ought to have no Concern for what we do to Brute Beasts,
and there was not imagin’d to be any cruelty in killing them, why should of all
Callings Butchers, and only they jointly with Surgeons, be
excluded from being Jury men by the same Law?
I
shall urge nothing of what Pythagoras and many other Wise Men have said
concerning this Barbarity of eating Flesh; I have gone too much out of my way
already, and shall therefore beg the Reader, if he would have any more of this,
to run over the following Fable, or else, if he be tired, to let it alone, with
an assurance that in doing of either he shall equally oblige me.
A Roman Merchant in one of the Carthaginian
Wars was cast away upon the Coast of Africk : Himself and his Slave with great
difficulty got safe ashoar; but going in quest of Relief, were met by a Lyon of
a mighty size. It happened to be one of the Breed that ranged in Æsop’s
Days, and one that could not only speak several Languages, but seem’d moreover
very well acquainted with Human Affairs. The Slave got upon a Tree, but his
Master not thinking himself safe there, and having heard much of the generosity
of Lyons, fell down prostrate before him, with all the signs of Fear and
Submission. The Lyon, who had lately fill’d his Belly, bids him rise and for a
while lay by his Fears, assuring him withal, that he should not be touch’d, if
he could give him any tollerable Reasons why he should not be devour’d. The
Merchant obey’d, and having now receiv’d some glimmering hopes of safety, gave
a dismal account of the Shipwrack he had suffer’d, and endeavouring from thence
to raise the Lyon’s Pity pleaded his Cause with abundance of good Rhethorick;
but observing by the countenance of the Beast that Flattery and fine Words made
very little Impression, he betook himself to Arguments of greater Solidity, and
reasoning from the excellency of Man’s Nature and Abilities, remonstrated how
improbable it was that the Gods should not have design’d him for a better use
than to be eat by Savage Beasts. Upon this the Lyon became more attentive, and
vouchsaved now and then a reply, till at last the following Dialogue ensued
between them.
Oh Vain and Covetous Animal, (said the
Lyon) whose Pride and Avarice can make him leave his Native Soil, where his
natural Wants might be plentifully supply’d, and try rough Seas and dangerous
Mountains to find out Superfluities, why should you esteem your Species above
ours? And if the Gods have given you a Superiority over all Creatures, then why
beg you of an Inferior? Our Superiority (answer’d the Merchant) consists
not in bodily force but strength of Understanding; the Gods have endued us with
a Rational Soul, which, tho’ invisible, is much the better part of us. I
desire to touch nothing of you but what is good to eat, but why do you value
your self so much upon that part which is invisible? Because it is Immortal,
and shall meet with Rewards after Death for the Actions of this Life, and the
Just shall enjoy eternal Bliss and Tranquility with the Heroes and Demi-Gods in
the Elysian Fields. What Life have you led? I have honoured the Gods,
and study’d to be beneficial to Man. Then why do you fear Death, if you
think the Gods as just as you have been? I have a Wife and five small
Children that must come to want if they lose me. I have two Whelps that are
not big enough to shift for themselves, that are in want now, and must actually
be starv’d if I can provide nothing for them: Your Children will be provided
for one way or other, at least as well when I have eat you as if you had been
drown’d.
As to the Excellency of either Species,
the value of things among you has ever encreas’d with the scarcity of them, and
to a Million of Men there is hardly one Lyon; besides that, in the great
Veneration Man pretends to have for his kind, there is little Sincerity farther
than it concerns the share which every ones Pride has in it for himself; ’tis a
folly to boast of the Tenderness shewn and Attendance given to your young ones,
or the excessive and lasting trouble bestow’d in the Education of ’em: Man
being born the most necessitous and most helpless Animal, this is only an
instinct of Nature, which in all Creatures has ever proportion’d the care of
the Parents to the Wants and Imbecilities of the Offspring. But if Man had a
real value for his kind, how is it possible that often Ten Thousand of them,
and sometimes Ten times as many, should be destroy’d in few hours for the
Caprice of two. All degrees of Men despise those that are inferior to them, and
if you could enter into the Hearts of Kings and Princes, you would hardly find
any but what have less value for the greatest part of the Multitudes they rule
over, than those have for the Cattle that belong to them. Why should so many
pretend to derive their Race, tho’ but spuriously, from the immortal Gods; why
should all of them suffer others to kneel down before them, and more or less
take delight in having Divine Honours pay’d them, but to insinuate that
themselves are of a more exalted Nature, and a Species superior to that of
their Subjects?
Savage I am, but no Creature can be call’d
cruel but what either by Malice or Insensibility extinguishes his natural Pity:
The Lyon was born without Compassion; we follow the instinct of our Nature; the
Gods have appointed us to live upon the waste and spoil of other Animals, and
as long as we can meet with dead ones, we never hunt after the Living. ’Tis
only Man, mischievous Man, that can make Death a sport, Nature taught your
Stomach to crave nothing but Vegetables; but your violent fondness to change,
and greater eagerness after Novelties, have prompted you to the Destruction of
Animals without Justice or necessity, perverted your Nature and warp’d your
Appetites which way soever your Pride or Luxury have call’d them. The Lyon has
a ferment within him that consumes the toughest Skin and hardest Bones as well
as the Flesh of all Animals with out exception: Your squeamish Stomach, in
which the Digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable, won’t so much as admit of
the most tender Parts of them, unless above half the Concoction has been
perform’d by artificial Fire before hand; and yet what Animal have you spared
to satisfy the Caprices of a languid Appetite? Languid I say; for what is Man’s
Hunger if compair’d to the Lyon’s: Yours, when it is at the worst, makes you
Faint, mine makes me Mad: Oft have I tried with Roots and Herbs to allay the
violence of it, but in vain; nothing but large quantities of Flesh can any ways
appease it.
Yet the fierceness of our Hunger,
notwithstanding Lyons have often requited Benefits received; but ungrateful and
perfidious Man feeds on the Sheep that Cloaths him, and spares not her innocent
young ones, whom he has taken into his care and custody. If you tell me the
Gods made Man Master over all other Creatures, what Tyranny was it then to
destroy them out of wantonness? No, fickle timerous Animal, the Gods have made
you for Society, and design’d that Millions of you, when well joyn’d together,
should compose the strong Leviathan. A single Lyon bears some sway in
the Creation, but what is single Man? A small and inconsiderable part, a
trifling Atom of one great Beast. What Nature designs she executes, and ’tis
not safe to judge of what she purpos’d, but from the effects she shews: If she
had intended that Man, as Man from a superiority of Species, should lord it
over all other Animals, the Tiger, nay the Whale and Eagle would have obey’d
his Voice.
But if your Wit and Understanding exceeds
ours, ought not the Lyon in deference to that Superiority to follow the Maxims
of Men, with whom nothing is more sacred than that the Reason of the strongest
is ever the most prevalent? Whole Multitudes of you have conspired and
compass’d the Destruction of one, after they had own’d the Gods had made him
their Superior, and one has often ruin’d and cut off whole Multitudes, whom by
the same Gods he had sworn to defend and maintain. Man never acknowledg’d
Superiority without Power, and why should I? The Excellence I boast of is
visible, all Animals tremble at the sight of the Lyon, not out of Panick Fear.
The Gods have given me Swiftness to overtake, and Strength to conquer what ever
comes near me. Where is there a Creature that has Teeth and Claws like mine;
behold the thickness of these massy Jaw bones; consider the width of them, and
feel the firmness of this brawny Neck. The nimblest Deer, the wildest Boar, the
stoutest Horse, and strongest Bull are my Prey wherever I meet them. Thus spoke
the Lyon, and the Merchant fainted away.
The Lyon, in my Opinion, has stretch’d the
Point too far; yet when to soften the Flesh of Male Animals, we have by
Castration prevented the firmness their Tendons and every Fibre would have come
to without it, I confess I think it ought to move a human Creature when he
reflects upon the cruel care with which they are fatned for Destruction. When a
large and gentle Bullock, after having resisted a ten times greater force of
Blows than would have kill’d his Murderer, falls stun’d at last, and his arm’d
Head is fasten’d to the Ground with Cords; as soon as the wide Wound is made,
and the Jugulars are cut asunder, what Mortal can without Compassion hear the
painful Bellowings intercepted by his Blood, the bitter Sighs that speak the
sharpness of his Anguish, and the deep sounding Groans with loud anxiety
fetch’d from the bottom of his strong and palpitating Heart? Look on the
trembling and violent Convulsions of his Limbs; see, whilst his reeking Gore
streams from him, his Eyes Lecome dim and languid, and behold his Struglings,
Gasps and last efforts for Life, the certain Signs of his approaching Fate?
When a Creature has given such convincing and undeniable Proofs of the Terrors
upon him, and the Pains and Agonies he feels, is there a follower of Descartes
so inur’d to Blood, as not to refute, by his Commiseration, the Philosophy of
that vain Reasoner?
Mandeville,
Bernard, Harth, Phillip. The Fable of the Bees (Classics) (p. 191-198 under
Remark P). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle-Version.