clearly reveals the real nature of the interest that the friends of his happiness took in him: _diffugiunt cadis cum faece siccatis amici._ (When the casks are drained to the dregs, one's friends run away.)[4] On the other hand, the exultation of those who envied his prosperity, the mocking laugh of malicious satisfaction, which he feared more than adversity itself, and the contemplation of which he could not face, are things usually spared him. Jealousy is appeased, and disappears with its cause; while Compassion which takes its place is the parent of loving-kindness. Those who were envious of, and hostile to, a man in the full tide of success, after his downfall, have not seldom become his friends, ready to protect, comfort, and help. Who has not, at least in a small way, himself experienced something of the sort?
Where is the man, who, when overtaken by some calamity, of whatever nature, has not noticed with surprise how the persons that previously had displayed the greatest coldness, nay, ill-will towards him, then came forward with unfeigned sympathy? For misfortune is the condition of Compassion, and Compassion the source of loving-kindness. When our wrath is kindled against a person, nothing quenches it so quickly, even when it is righteous, as the words: "He is an unfortunate man." And the reason is obvious: Compassion is to anger as water to fire. Therefore, whoever would fain have nothing to repent of, let him listen to my advice. When he is inflamed with rage, and meditates doing some one a grievous injury, he should bring the thing vividly before his mind, as a _fait accompli_; he should clearly picture to himself this other fellow-being tormented with mental or bodily pain, or struggling with need and misery; so that he is forced to exclaim: "This is my work!"
Such thoughts as these, if anything, will avail to moderate his wrath.
For Compassion is the true antidote of anger; and by practising on oneself this artifice of the imagination, one awakes beforehand, while there is yet time, _la pitié, dont la voix,_ _Alors qu'on est vengé, fait entendre ses lois_.[5] And in general, the hatred we may cherish for others is overcome by nothing so easily as by our taking a point of view whence they can appeal to our Compassion. The reason indeed why parents, as a rule, specially love the sickly one of their children is because the sight of it perpetually stirs their Compassion.
(7) 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 aegis. 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, whose source is Judaism. In philosophy, however, it rests on the assumption, despite all evidence to the contrary, of the radical difference between man and beast,--a doctrine which, as is well known, was proclaimed with more trenchant emphasis by Descartes than by any one else: it was indeed the necessary consequence of his mistakes. When Leibnitz and Wolff, following out the Cartesian view, built up out of abstract ideas their Rational Psychology, and constructed a deathless _anima rationalis_ (rational soul); then the natural claims of the animal kingdom visibly rose up against this exclusive privilege, this human patent of immortality, and Nature, as always in such circumstances, entered her silent protest.
Our philosophers, owing to the qualms of their intellectual conscience, were soon forced to seek aid for their Rational Psychology from the empirical method; they accordingly tried to reveal the existence of a vast chasm, an immeasurable gulf between animals and men, in order to represent them, in the teeth of opposing testimony, as existences essentially different. These efforts did not escape the ridicule of Boileau; for we find him saying: _Voit-on fleurir chez eux des quatre facultés?_[6] Such a supposition would end in animals being pronounced incapable of distinguishing themselves from the external world, and of having any self-consciousness, any ego! As answer to such absurd tenets, it would only be necessary to point to the boundless Egoism innate in every animal, even the smallest and humblest; this amply proves how perfectly they are conscious of their self, as opposed to the world, which lies outside it. If any one of the Cartesian persuasion, with views like these in his head, should find himself in the claws of a tiger, he would be taught in the most forcible manner what a sharp distinction such a beast draws between his ego and the non-ego.
Corresponding to these philosophical fallacies we notice a peculiar sophism in the speech of many peoples, especially the Germans. For the commonest matters connected with the processes of life,--for food, drink, conception, the bringing forth of young; for death, and the dead body; such languages have special words applicable only to animals, not to men. In this way the necessity of using the same terms for both is avoided, and the perfect identity of the thing concealed under verbal differences. Now, since the ancient tongues show no trace of such a dual mode of expression, but frankly denote the same things by the same words; it follows that this miserable artifice is beyond all doubt the work of European priestcraft, which, in its profanity, knows no limit to its disavowal of, and blasphemy against, the Eternal Reality that lives in every animal. Thus was laid the foundation of that harshness and cruelty towards beasts which is customary in Europe, and on which a native of the Asiatic uplands could not look without righteous horror. In English this infamous invention is not to be found; assuredly because the Saxons, when they conquered England, were not yet Christians. Nevertheless the English language shows something analogous in the strange fact that it makes all animals of the neuter gender, the pronoun "it" being employed for them, just as if they were lifeless things. This idiom has a very objectionable sound, especially in the case of dogs, monkeys, and other Primates, and is unmistakably a priestly trick, designed to reduce beasts to the level of inanimate objects. The ancient Egyptians, who dedicated all their days to religion, were accustomed to place in the same vault with a human mummy that of an ibis, a crocodile, etc.; in Europe it is a crime, an abomination to bury a faithful dog beside the resting-place of his master, though it is there perhaps that he, with a fidelity and attachment unknown to the sons of men, awaited his own end. To a recognition of the identity, in all essentials, of the phaenomena which we call "man" and "beast," nothing leads more surely than the study of zoology and anatomy. What shall we say then, when in these days (1839) a canting dissector has been found, who presumes to insist on an absolute and radical difference between human beings and animals, and who goes so far as to attack and calumniate honest zoologists that keep aloof from all priestly guile, eye-service, and hypocrisy, and dare to follow the leading of nature and of truth?
Those persons must indeed be totally blind, or else completely chloroformed by the _foetor Judaicus_ (Jewish stench), who do not discern that the truly essential and fundamental part in man and beast is identically the same thing. That which distinguishes the one from the other does not lie in the primary and original principle, in the inner nature, in the kernel of the two phaenomena (this kernel being in both alike the Will of the individual); it is found in what is secondary, in the intellect, in the degree of perceptive capacity. It is true that the latter is incomparably higher in man, by reason of his added faculty of abstract knowledge, called Reason; nevertheless this superiority is traceable solely to a greater cerebral development, in other words, to the corporeal difference, which is quantitative, not qualitative, of a single part, the brain. In all other respects the similarity between men and animals, both psychical and bodily, is sufficiently striking. So that we must remind our judaised friends in the West, who despise animals, and idolise Reason, that if they were suckled by their mothers, so also was the dog by his. Even Kant fell into this common mistake of his age, and of his country, and I have already administered the censure[7] which it is impossible to withhold. The fact that Christian morality takes no thought for beasts is a defect in the system which is better admitted than perpetuated.
One's astonishment is, however, all the greater, because, with this exception, it shows the closest agreement with the Ethics of Brahmanism and Buddhism, being only less strongly expressed, and not carried to the last consequences imposed by logic. On the whole, there seems little room for doubting that, in common with the idea of a god become man, or Avatar,[8] it has an Asiatic origin, and probably came to Judaea by way of Egypt; so that Christianity would be a secondary reflection of the primordial light that shone in India, which, falling first on Egypt, was unhappily refracted from its ruins upon Jewish soil. An apt symbol of the insensibility of Christian Ethics to animals, while in other points its similarity to the Indian is so great, may be found in the circumstance that John the Baptist comes before us in all respects like a Hindu Sannyasin,[9] except that he is clothed in skins: a thing which would be, as is well known, an abomination in the eyes of every follower of Brahmanism or Buddhism.
The Royal Society of Calcutta only received their copy of the Vedas on their distinctly promising that they would not have it bound in leather, after European fashion. In silken binding, therefore, it is now to be seen on the shelves of their library. Again: the Gospel story of Peter's draught of fishes, which the Saviour blesses so signally that the boats are overladen, and begin to sink (_Luke_ v. 1-10), forms a characteristic contrast to what is related of Pythagoras. It is said that the latter, initiated as he was in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, bought the draught from the fishermen, while the net was still under water, in order to at once set at liberty the captive denizens of the sea. (Apuleius: _De Magia_, p. 36: edit. Bipont.)[10] 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. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men. Thus, for instance, people of delicate sensitiveness, on realising that in a fit of ill-humour, or anger, or under the influence of wine, they punished their dog, their horse, their ape undeservedly, or unnecessarily, or excessively, are seized with the same remorse, feel the same dissatisfaction with themselves, as when they are conscious of having done some wrong to one of their fellows. The only difference--a purely nominal one--is that in the latter case this remorse, this dissatisfaction is called the voice of conscience rising in rebuke. I remember having read of an Englishman, who, when hunting in India, had killed a monkey, that he could not forget the dying look which the creature cast on him; so that he never fired at these animals again. Another sportsman, William Harris by name, a true Nimrod, has much the same story to tell. During the years 1836-7 he travelled far into the heart of Africa, merely to indulge his passion for the chase. A passage in his book, published at Bombay in 1838, describes how he shot his first elephant, a female.
Next morning on going to look for his game, he found that all the elephants had fled from the neighbourhood, except a young one which had spent the night beside its dead mother. Seeing the huntsmen, it forgot all fear, and came to meet them, with the clearest and most lively signs of disconsolate grief, and put its tiny trunk about them, as if to beg for help. "Then," says Harris, "I was filled with real remorse for what I had done, and felt as if I had committed a murder."
The English nation, with its fine sensibility, is, in fact, distinguished above all others for extraordinary compassion towards animals, which appears at every opportunity, and is so strong that, despite the "cold superstition" which otherwise degrades them, these Anglo-Saxons have been led through its operation to fill up by legislation the _lacuna_ that their religion leaves in morality. For this gap is precisely the reason why in Europe and America there is need of societies for the protection of animals, which are entirely dependent on the law for their efficiency. In Asia the religions themselves suffice, consequently no one there ever thinks of such associations. Meanwhile Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view,[11] with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West. To the honour, then, of the English be it said that they are the first people who have, in downright earnest, extended the protecting arm of the law to animals: in England the miscreant, that commits an outrage on beasts, has to pay for it, equally whether they are his own or not. Nor is this all. There exists in London the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a corporate body voluntarily formed, which, without state assistance, and at great cost, is of no small service in lessening the tale of tortures inflicted on animals. Its emissaries are ubiquitous, and keep secret watch in order to inform against the tormentors of dumb, sensitive creatures; and such persons have therefore good reason to stand in fear of them.[12] At all the steep bridges in London this Society stations a pair of horses, which without any charge is attached to heavy freight-waggons. Is not this admirable? Does it not elicit our approval, as unfailingly as any beneficent action towards men? Also the Philanthropic Society of London has done its part. In 1837 it offered a prize of £30 for the best exposition of the moral reasons which exist to keep men from torturing animals. The line of argument, however, had to be taken almost exclusively from Christianity, whereby the difficulty of the task was, of course, increased; but two years later, in 1839, Mr. Macnamara was the successful competitor. At Philadelphia there is an Animals' Friends' Society, having the same aims; and it is to the President of the latter that a book called _Philozoia; or, Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of Animals, and the Means of Improving the Same_ (Brussels, 1839), has been dedicated by its author, T. Forster. It is original and well written. Mr. Forster earnestly commends to his readers the humane treatment of animals. As an Englishman he naturally tries to strengthen his position by the support of the Bible; but he is on slippery ground, and meets with such poor success that he ends by catching at the following ingenious position: Jesus Christ (he says) was born in a stable among oxen and asses; which was meant to indicate symbolically that we ought to regard the beasts as our brothers, and treat them accordingly. All that I have here adduced sufficiently proves that the moral chord, of which we are speaking, is now at length beginning to vibrate also in the West. For the rest, we may observe that compassion for sentient beings is not to carry us to the length of abstaining from flesh, like the Brahmans. This is because, by a natural law, capacity for pain keeps pace with the intelligence; consequently men, by going without animal food, especially in the North, would suffer more than beasts do through a quick death, which is always unforeseen; although the latter ought to be made still easier by means of chloroform. Indeed without meat nourishment mankind would be quite unable to withstand the rigours of the Northern climate. The same reasoning explains, too, why we are right in making animals work for us; it is only when they are subjected to an excessive amount of toil that cruelty begins.
(8) It is perhaps not impossible to investigate and explain metaphysically the ultimate cause of that Compassion in which alone all non-egoistic conduct can have its source; but let us for the moment put aside such inquiries, and consider the phaenomenon in question, from the empirical point of view, simply as a natural arrangement. Now if Nature's intention was to soften as much as possible the numberless sufferings of every sort, to which our life is exposed, and which no one altogether escapes; if she wished to provide some counterbalance for the burning Egoism, which fills all beings, and often develops into malice; it will at once strike every one as obvious that she could not have chosen any method more effectual than that of planting in the human heart the wonderful disposition, which inclines one man to share the pain of another, and from which proceeds the voice that bids us, in tones strong and unmistakable, take thought for our neighbour; calling, at one time, "Protect!" at another, "Help!" Assuredly, from the mutual succour thus arising, there was more to be hoped for, towards the attainment of universal well-being, than from a stern Command of duty, couched in general, abstract terms,--the product of certain reasoning processes, and of artificial combinations of conceptions. From such an Imperative, indeed, all the less result could be expected because to the rough human unit general propositions and abstract truths are unintelligible, the concrete only having some meaning for him. And it should be remembered that mankind in its entirety, a very small part alone excepted, has always been rude, and must remain so, since the large amount of bodily toil, which for the race as a whole is inevitable, leaves no time for mental culture. Whereas, in order to awaken that sense, which has been proved to be the sole source of disinterested action, and consequently the true basis of Morals, there is no need of abstract knowledge, but only of intuitive perception, of the simple comprehension of a concrete case. To this Compassion is at once responsive, without the mediation of other thoughts.
(9) The following circumstance will be found in complete accord with the last paragraph. The foundation, which I have given to Ethics, leaves me without a forerunner among the School Philosophers; indeed, my position is paradoxical, as far as their teaching goes, and many of them, for instance, the Stoics (Seneca, _De Clementia_, II., 5), Spinoza (_Ethica_, IV., prop. 50), and Kant (_Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft,_ p. 213; R. p. 257) only notice the motive of Compassion to utterly reject and contemn it. On the other hand, my basis is supported by the authority of the greatest moralist of modern times; for such, undoubtedly, J. J. Rousseau is,--that profound reader of the human heart, who drew his wisdom not from books, but from life, and intended his doctrine not for the professorial chair, but for humanity; he, the foe of all prejudice, the foster-child of nature, whom alone she endowed with the gift of being able to moralise without tediousness, because he hit the truth and stirred the heart. I shall therefore venture here to cite some passages from his works in support of my theory, observing that, so far, I have been as sparing as possible with regard to quotations.
In the _Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inégalité_, p. 91 (edit. Bipont.), he says: _Il y a un autre principe, que Hobbes n'a point aperçu, et qui ayant été donné à l'homme pour adoucir, en certaines circonstances, la férocité de son amour-propre, tempère l'ardeur qu'il a pour son bien-être par une RÉPUGNANCE INNÉE À VOIR SOUFFRIR SON SEMBLABLE. Je ne crois pas avoir aucune contradiction à craindre en accordant à l'homme la SEULE VERTU NATURELLE qu'ait été forcé de reconnaître le détracteur le plus outré des vertus humaines. Je parle DE LA PITIÉ_, etc.[13] P. 92: _Mandeville a bien senti qu'avec toute leur morale les hommes n'eussent jamais été que des monstres, si la nature ne leur eut donné LA PITIÉ à l'appui de la raison: mais il n'a pas vu, que DE CETTE SEULE QUALITÉ DECOULENT TOUTES LES VERTUS SOCIALES, qu'il veut disputer aux hommes. En effet, qu'est-ce que la générosité, la clémence, l'humanité, sinon LA PITIÉ, appliquée aux faibles, aux coupables, ou a l'espèce humaine en général? La bienveillance et l'amitié même sont, à le bien prendre, des productions d'une pitié constante, fixée sur un objet particulier; car désirer que quelqu'un ne souffre point, qu'est-ce autre chose, que désirer qu'il soit heureux?...La commisération sera d'autant plus énergique, que L'ANIMAL SPECTATEUR S'IDENTIFIERA plus intimement avec L'ANIMAL SOUFFRANT._[14] P. 94: _Il est donc bien certain, que la pitié est un sentiment naturel, qui, modérant dans chaque individu l'amour de soi-même, concourt à la conservation mutuelle de toute l'espèce. C'est elle, qui dans l'état de nature, tient lieu de lois, de mœurs, et de vertus, avec cet avantage, que nul ne sera tenté de désobéir à sa douce voix: c'est elle, qui détournera tout sauvage robuste d'enlever à un faible enfant, ou à un vieillard infirme, sa subsistence acquise avec peine, si lui même espère pouvoir trouver la sienne ailleurs: c'est elle qui, au lieu de cette maxime sublime de justice raisonnée: "Fais à autrui comme tu veux qu'on te fasse;" inspire à tous les hommes cette autre maxime de bonté naturelle, bien moins parfaite, mais plus utile peut-être que la précédente: "Fais ton bien avec le moindre mal d'autrui qu'il est possible." C'est, en un mot, DANS CE SENTIMENT NATUREL PLUTÔT, QUE DANS LES ARGUMENTS SUBTILS, qu'il faut chercher la cause de la repugnance qu'éprouverait tout homme à mal faire, même indépendamment des maximes de l'éducation._[15] Let this be compared with what he says in _Émile,_ Bk. IV., pp. 115-120 (edit. Bipont.), where the following passage occurs among others:-- _En effet, comment nous laissons-nous émouvoir à la pitié, si ce n'est en nous transportant hors de nous et en nous IDENTIFIANT AVEC L'ANIMAL SOUFFRANT: EN QUITTANT, pour ainsi dire, NOTRE ÊTRE, POUR PRENDRE LE SIEN? Nous ne souffrons qu'autant que nous jugeons qu'il souffre: CE N'EST PAS DANS NOUS, C'EST DANS LUI, que nous souffrons...offrir au jeune homme des objets, sur lesquels puisse agir la force expansive de son cœur, qui le dilatent, qui l'étendent sur les autres êtres, qui le fassent partout SE RETROUVER HORS DE LUI: écarter avec soin ceux, qui le resserrent, le concentrent, et tendent le ressort DU MOI HUMAIN_, etc.[16] Inside the pale of the Schools, as above remarked, there is not a single authority in favour of my position; but outside, I have other testimony to cite, in addition to Rousseau's. The Chinese admit five cardinal virtues (Tschang), of which the chief is Compassion (*Sin).
The other four are: justice, courtesy, wisdom, and sincerity.[17] Similarly, among the Hindus, we find that on the tablets placed to the memory of dead chieftains, compassion for men and animals takes the first place in the record of their virtues. At Athens there was an altar to Compassion in the Agora, as we know from Pausanias, I.
17: _Άθηναίοις δὲ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ ἐστι Ἐλέου βωμός, ᾧ, μάλιστα θεῶν ἐς ἀνθρώπινον βίον καὶ μεταβολὰς πραγμάτων ὃτι ὠ-ϕέλιμος, μόνοι τιμὰς Ἑλλήνων νέμουσιν Ἀθηνᾱίοι_.[18] Lucian also mentions this altar in the Timon, § 99.[19] A phrase of Phocion, preserved by Stobaeus, describes Compassion as the most sacred thing in human life: _οὕτε ἐξ ἱεροn βωμόν, οὕτε ἐκ τῆς ἀνθρωπίυης ϕύσεως ἀϕαιρετέον τὸν ἔλεον._[20] In the _Sapientia Indorum,_ the Greek translation of the Paṅća-tantra, we read (Section 3, p. 220): _Δέγεται γάρ, ὡς πρώτη τῶν ἀρετῶν ἡ ἐλεημοσύνη_.[21] It is clear, then, that the real source of morality has been distinctly recognised at all times and in all countries; Europe alone excepted, owing to the _foetor Judaicus_ (Jewish stench), which here pervades everything, and is the reason why the Western races require for the object of their obedience a command of duty, a moral law, an imperative, in short, an order and decree.
They remain wedded to this habit of thought, and refuse to open their eyes to the fact that such a view is, after all, based upon nothing but Egosim. Of course, now and then, isolated individuals of fine perception have felt the truth, and given it utterance: such a one was Rousseau; and such, Lessing. In a letter written by the latter in 1756 we read: "The best man, and the one most likely to excel in all social virtues, in all forms of magnanimity, is he who is most compassionate."
[1] This term appears to have been first used by Newton and Boyle.
The sense is undoubtedly derived from Bacon's phrase "_instantia crucis_," which is one of his "Prerogative Instances." _Vide, Novum Organum_: Lib. II., xxxvi., where it is explained as follows: _Inter Praerogativas Instantiarum ponemus loco decimo quarto_ INSTANTIAS CRUCIS; _translate vocabulo a Crucibus, quae erectae in Biviis, indicant et signant viarum separationes. Has etiam Instantias Decisorias et Judiciales, et in Casibus nonnullis Instantias Oraculi et Mandati, appellare consuevimus_, etc.--(_Translator_.)
[2] According to Buxton (_The African Slave-trade_, 1839), their number is even now yearly increased by about 150,000 freshly imported; and to these more than 200,000 must be added, who perish miserably at the time of their capture, or on the voyage.
[3] _I.e_., under the influence of wine one speaks the truth. Cf.
_vulgoque_ VERITAS _jam attributa_ VINO _est_. Gk. _οἶνος καὶ ἀλήθεια.
[5] Compassion, who with no uncertain tone, The work of vengeance done, her laws makes known.
[6] Have beasts, forsooth, their universities, Endowed, like ours, with all four faculties?
[7] _V_. Part II., Chapter VI.
[8] Avatāra (ava-tṛī to descend), descent of a deity from heaven; _e.g._, the ten incarnations of Vishṇu. _V_. Monier Williams' _Sanskrit [9] Sannyāsin (one who lays down, or resigns), an ascetic; a religious mendicant, or Brāhman of the fourth order. _V._ Monier Williams' [10] _V_. Apuleius: _Apologia sive De Magia Liber_ (Lipsiae, Teubner, 1900: page 41, chap, xxxi): _Pythagoram...memoriae prodiderunt, cum animaduertisset proxime Metapontum in litore Italiae suae, quam subsiciuam Graeciam fecerat, a quibusdam piscatoribus euerriculum trahi, fortunam iactus eius emisse et pretio dato iussisse, ilico piscis eos qui capti tenebantur solui retibus et reddi [11] In Vol. II. of my _Parerga_, § 177, I have shown that its origin can be traced to the Old Testament.
[12] How seriously the matter is being taken up may be seen from the following case which is quite recent. I quote from the _Birmingham Journal_ of December, 1839. "Arrest of a company of eighty-four abettors of dog-fights.--It had come to the knowledge of the Society of Animals' Friends that the Square in Fox Street, Birmingham, was yesterday to be the scene of a dog-fight. Measures were accordingly taken to secure the assistance of the police, and a strong detachment of constables was sent to the spot. At the right moment all the persons present were arrested. These precious conspirators were then handcuffed together in pairs, and the whole party was made fast by a long rope passing between each couple. In this fashion they were marched off to the Police Station, where mayor and magistrate were sitting in readiness for them. The two ringleaders were condemned to pay, each, a fine of £1, and 8s. _6d_. costs; in default, to undergo 14 days' hard labour." The coxcombs whose habit is never to miss noble sport of this sort, must have looked somewhat crestfallen in the midst of the procession. But the _Times_ of April 6, 1855, p. 6, supplies a still more striking instance from the present day; and here we find the paper itself assuming judicial functions, and imposing the right punishment.
It recounts the case of a very wealthy Scotch baronet's daughter. The matter had been brought before the law, and the evidence showed that the girl had used a cudgel and knife on her horse with the greatest cruelty; for which she was ordered to pay a fine of £5. But for one in her position such a sum means nothing, and she would practically have got off scot-free, had not the _Times_ intervened to inflict on her a proper correction, such as she would really feel. It twice mentions the young lady's name in full, printing it in large type, and concludes as follows: "We cannot help saying that a few months' imprisonment with the addition of an occasional whipping administered in private, but by the most muscular woman in Hampshire, would have been a much more suitable penalty for Miss M. N. A wretched being of this sort has forfeited all the consideration and the privileges that attach to her sex; we cannot regard her any longer as a woman." These newspaper paragraphs I would especially recommend to the notice of the associations now formed in Germany against cruelty to animals; for they show what lines should be adopted, in order to reach some solid result.
At the same time I desire to express my cordial appreciation of the praiseworthy zeal shown by Herrn Hofrath Perner, of Munich, who has entirely devoted himself to this branch of well-doing, and succeeded in arousing interest in it all over the country. [It should be observed that the first portion of this note belongs to the earliest edition of the work, published September, 1840; the latter part was written for the second edition, which appeared in August, 1860. This explains why Schopenhauer says that the first instance, dated 1839, is "quite recent," and that the second, dated 1855, is taken "from the present [13] There is another principle which Hobbes did not perceive at all. It was implanted in man in order to soften, in certain circumstances, the fierceness of his self-love, and it moderates the ardour, which he feels for his own well-being, by producing a certain _innate aversion to the sight of a fellow-creature's suffering_. In attributing to man _the only natural virtue,_ which even the most advanced scepticism has been forced to recognise, I stand, assuredly, in no fear of any contradiction. I allude to _compassion_, etc.
[14] Mandeville was right in thinking that with all their systems of morality, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them _compassion_ to support their reason; but he failed to see that _from this one quality spring all the social virtues_, which he was unwilling to credit mankind with. In reality, what is generosity, clemency, humanity, if not _compassion_, applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human race, as a whole? Even benevolence and friendship, if we look at the matter rightly, are seen to result from a constant compassion, directed upon a particular object; for to desire that some one should not suffer is nothing else than to desire that he should be happy...The more closely _the living spectator identifies himself with the living sufferer,_ the more active does pity become.
[15] It is, then, quite certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which checking, as it does, the love of self in each individual, helps by a reciprocal process to preserve the whole race.
This it is, which in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, customs, and virtues, with the added advantage that no one will be tempted to disobey its gentle voice; this it is, which will restrain every able-bodied savage, provided he hope to find his own livelihood elsewhere, from robbing a weak child, or depriving an infirm old man of the subsistence won by hard toil; this it is, which inspires all men, not indeed with that sublime maxim of reasoned justice: "Do to others as you would they should do unto you;" but with another rule of natural goodness, no doubt less perfect, but perhaps more useful, namely: "Do what is good for yourself with the least possible harm to others." In a word, it is _in this natural feeling rather than in subtle arguments_ that we must look for the reason of the repugnance with which every one is accustomed to view bad conduct, quite independently of the principles laid down by education.
[16] In fact, how is it that we let ourselves be moved to pity, if not by getting out of our own consciousness, and _becoming identified with the living sufferer; by leaving_, so to say, _our own being, and entering into his?_ We do not suffer, except as we suppose he suffers; _it is not in us, it is in him_, that we suffer...offer a young man objects, on which the expansive force of his heart can act; objects such as may enlarge his nature, and incline it to go out to _other beings_, in whom he may everywhere _find himself again_.
Keep carefully away those things which narrow his view, and make him self-centred, and which tighten the strings of the _human ego_.
(_Tendent le ressort_ (stretch the spring) _du moi humain: i.e._, stimulate the _egoistic tendency_.)--(_Translator_.)
(otherwise called Mencius), edited by Stanislas Julien, 1824, Bk. I, § 45; also Meng-Tseu in the _Livres Sacrés de l'Orient_, by Panthier p.
281.
_V. Dictionnaire Français--Latin--Chinois_, par Paul Perny (Didot Frères, Paris, 1869); where the five cardinal virtues (image) are transliterated] ou châng. _V_. also: _A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language_; by S. Wells Williams, LL.B. (Shanghai: 1874); where Sin (Sin), _i.e._, humanity, love of one's neighbour, is written Sin'.--(_Translator._) [18] The Athenians have an altar in their Agora to Compassion; for this deity, they believe, is of all the gods the most helpful in human life, and its vicissitudes. They are the only Greeks who have instituted this cultus.--(_Translator_.)