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).
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
extract from 'The First Step' (1892):
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
its 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; and
is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food
"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.