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The Ethics of Diet. Howard Williams
Читать онлайн.Название The Ethics of Diet
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isbn 4057664648310
Автор произведения Howard Williams
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
“Amongst other reasons, Pythagoras,” says Iamblichus, “enjoined abstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to peace. For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of other animals, as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more unjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war.” Specially, he “exhorted those politicians who are legislators to abstain. For if they were willing to act justly in the highest degree, it was indubitably incumbent upon them not to injure any of the lower animals. Since how could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were proved to be indulging an insatiable avidity by devouring these animals that are allied to us. For through the communion of life and the same elements, and the sympathy thus existing, they are, as it were, conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance.”[9] Maxims how different from those in favour in the present “year of grace,” 1877! If the refined thinker of the sixth century B.C. were now living, what would be his indignation at the enormous slaughter of innocent life for the public banquets at which our statesmen and others are constantly fêted, and which are recorded in our journals with so much magniloquence and minuteness? His hopes for the regeneration of his fellow-men would surely be terribly shattered. We may apply the words of the great Latin satirist, Juvenal, who so frequently denounces in burning language the luxurious gluttony of his countrymen under the Empire—“What would not Pythagoras denounce, or whither would he not flee, could he see these monstrous sights—he who abstained from the flesh of all other animals as though they were human?” (Satire xv.)
How long the communistic society of Krotona remained undisturbed is uncertain. Inasmuch as its reputation and influence were widely spread, it may be supposed that the outbreak of the populace (the origin of which is obscure), by which the society was broken up and his disciples massacred, did not happen until many years after its establishment. At all events, it is commonly believed that Pythagoras lived to an advanced age, variously computed at eighty, ninety, or one hundred years.
It is not within our purpose to discuss minutely the scientific or theological theories of Pythagoras. In accordance with the abstruse speculative character of the Ionic school of science, which inclined to refer the origin of the universe to some one primordial principle, he was led by his mathematical predilections to discover the cosmic element in numbers, or proportion—a theory which savours of John Dalton’s philosophy, now accepted in chemistry, and a virtual enunciation of what we now call quantitative science. Pythagoras taught the Kopernican theory prematurely. He regarded the sun as more divine than the earth, and therefore set it in the centre of the earth and planets. The argument was surely a mark of genius, but it was too transcendental for his contemporaries, even for Plato and Aristotle. His elder contemporary, the celebrated Thales of Miletus, with whom in his early youth he may have been acquainted, may claim, indeed, to be the remote originator of the famous nebular hypothesis of Laplace and modern astronomy. Another cardinal doctrine of the Pythagorean school was the musical, from whence the idea, so popular with the poets, of the “music of the spheres.” To music was attributed the greatest influence in the control of the passions. In its larger sense, by the Greeks generally, the term “Music” (Musice—pertaining to the Muses) denoted, it is to be remembered, not alone the “concord of sweet sounds,” but also an artistic and æsthetic education in general—all humanising and refining instruction.
The famous doctrine of the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls also was, doubtless, a prominent feature in the Pythagorean system; but it is probable that we may presume that by it Pythagoras intended merely to convey to the “uninstructed,” by parable, the sublime idea that the soul is gradually purified by a severe course of discipline until finally it becomes fitted for a fleshless life of immortality.[10] We are chiefly concerned with his attitude in regard to flesh eating. There can be no question that abstinence was a fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics—little in sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life, or, indeed, with self-denial of any kind—have sometimes affected either to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence, thus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most important residuum of Pythagoreanism. In support of this scepticism the fact of the celebrated athlete Milo, whose prodigies of strength have become proverbial, has been quoted. Yet if these critics had been at the pains of inquiring somewhat further, they would have learned, on the contrary, that the non-flesh diet is exactly that which is most conducive to physical vigour; that in the East there are at this day non-flesh eaters, who in feats of strength might put even our strongest men to the blush. The extraordinary powers of the porters and boatmen of Constantinople have been remarked by many travellers; and the Chinese coolies and others are almost equally notorious for their marvellous powers of endurance. Yet their food is not only of the simplest—rice, dhourra (i.e., millet), onions, &c.—but of the scantiest possible. Moreover, the elder Greek athletes themselves, for the most part, trained on vegetarian diet. Not to multiply details, the fact that, upon a moderate calculation, two-thirds at least of the population of our globe—including the mass of the inhabitants of these islands—live, nolentes, volentes, on a dietary from which flesh is almost altogether necessarily excluded, is on the face of it sufficient proof in itself of the non-necessity of the diet of the rich.
While the general consent of antiquity and of later times has received as undoubted the obligation of strict abstinence on the part of the immediate followers of Pythagoras, it seems that as regards the uninitiated, or (to use the ecclesiastical term) catechumens, the obligation was not so strict. Indeed relaxation of the rules of the higher life was simply a sine quâ non of securing the attention of the mass of the community at all; and, like one still more eminent than himself in an after age, he found it a matter of necessity to present a teaching and a mode of living not too exalted and unattainable by the grossness and “hardness of heart” of the multitude. Hence, in all probability, the seeming contradictions in his teaching on this point found in the narratives of his followers.
If his critics had been more intent on discovering the excellence of his rules of abstinence than on discussing, with frivolous diligence, the probable or possible reasons of his alleged prohibition of beans, it would have redounded more to their credit for wisdom and love of truth. Assuming the fact of the prohibition, in place of collecting all the most absurd gossip of antiquity, they might perhaps have found a more rational and more solid reason in the hypothesis that the bean being, as used in the ballot, a symbol and outward and visible sign of political life, was employed by Pythagoras parabolically to dissuade his followers from participating in the idle strife of party faction, and to exhort them to concentrate their efforts upon an attempt to achieve the solid and lasting reformation of mankind.[11] But to be much concerned in a patient inquiry after truth unhappily has been not always the characteristic of professional commentators.
Blind hero-worship or idolatry of genius or intellect, even when directed to high moral aims, is no part of our creed; and it is sufficient to be assured that he was human, to be free to confess that the historical founder of akreophagy was not exempt from human infirmity, and that he could not wholly rise above the wonder-loving spirit of an uncritical age. Deducting all that has been imputed to him of the fanciful or fantastic, enough still remains to force us to recognise in the philosopher-prophet of Samos one of the master-spirits of the world.[12]
III.
PLATO. 428–347 B.C.
THE most renowned of all the prose writers of antiquity may be said to have been almost the lineal descendant, in philosophy, of the teacher of Samos. He belonged to the aristocratic families of Athens—“the eye of Greece”—then and for long afterwards the centre of art and science. His original name was Aristokles, which he might well have retained. Like another equally famous leader in literature, François Marie Arouet, he abandoned his birth-name, and he assumed or acquired the name by which he is immortalised, to characterise, as it is said, either the breadth of his brow or the extensiveness of his mental powers. In very early youth he seems to have displayed his literary aptitude