Leo Tolstoy Speaks
The following selection from Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) is
from his article "The First Step". This has recently been
reprinted in the book, "THE VIEW FROM THE VEGETARIAN
SIDE (published by Sant Bani Press). I came across it in
this month's issue of local rag called "Common Ground".
My first reading of Tolstoy occurred during my first year at
university where we were required to read War and Peace in
one week! Great novel and a challenging read to complete in
a mere week, but I never realized until much later that
Tolstoy was a vegetarian and was a strong voice for both
compassion for humans and non-human animals. I'm still
surprised by things like the following selection which
exemplifies just a little of how very perspicacious and
prescient Tolstoy happened to have been.
Certainly, Tolstoy was a great novelist, dramatist, essayist
and by far a very decent human being, one who had a lasting
influence upon such people like Mahatma Gandhi (the young
Gandhi corresponded with Tolstoy and was later to name of
his South African centers "Tolstoy Farm".)
Ted Altar
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No 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 cartman, 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 is growing 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.