More Cabbage-Talk

“I ONCE asked Mr. Shaw why he ate cabbages if he would not eat flesh, since no line can be logically drawn between a vegetable (merely a dumb creature) and an animal.” Thus Mr. J. S. Collis, in an interesting little book which he has written about Mr. Bernard Shaw, and which has the distinction of being annotated by G. B. S. himself.*

Mr. Shaw’s reply was: “Stop talking logic to me: you cannot apply logic to everything.” That is very true. No amount of logic, or of what passes as logic, can justify a cruel practice. But I think Mr. Shaw must have wished to let down his critic very gently; else he would have pointed out to him that as no line can logically be drawn between the flesh of ‘‘animals” and that of the human animal called “man,” the ultimate logic of the matter is this: Why do so many persons eat the pig, though they would not eat the pork-butcher? Mr. Shaw is not a carnivore for the same reason as that which prevents Mr. Collis from being a cannibal. Mr. Collis decides that G. B. S. is “no logician.” He seems to be unaware that his own reassertion of the ancient sophistry about cabbages is less logical than archæological.

A much more debatable point arises from Mr. Shaw’s footnote to the sentence I have quoted. It runs thus:

“Vegetarian diet is for poets and philosophers, meat for the rest if you like. Moreover we must get rid of our dependence upon animals. We are valets to the cow, the goat, and the sheep. Go into a place where dogs are kept and look at the faces of the animals’ servants, and you will find them more dog-like than the dogs themselves. And by the way, don’t stick simply a dish of cabbages in front of the vegetarian,—for that is not the only vegetarian dish.”

Some readers will remember that Thomas Hood, in his poem “The Butcher,” has expressed the same thought about the likeness that results from our excessive dependence upon animals:

“Look at his sleek round skull!
How bright his cheek, how rubicund his nose is!
. . . . . .
In fact, fulfilling the metempsychosis,
The Butcher is already half a Bull.”

But what of Mr. Shaw’s remark that while vegetarian diet is for the poets and the philosophers, meat is for the rest—‘‘if you like?” There is a sort of gay abandon in his ‘‘if you like,” which is pleasant enough in itself but leaves things a little vague. If who likes? He appears to refer to Mr. Collis; but much as I admire that gentleman’s exposition of the Shavian religion and philosophy, I should demur to leaving to his sole arbitrament the question whether animals are to continue to be eaten by all except the philosophers and the poets. Personally I do not like that arrangement; and if we may judge from the behaviour of the animals themselves when about to be slaughtered, we must assume that they would have a very strong distaste for it.

But with regard to the poets and philosophers: I think it was Dr. Oldfield who coined the word aristophagist, and a very good word it is, signifying that the vegetarian has the nobler diet and he higher, as contrasted with the products of the slaughter-house. “That certainly is the diet which poets and philosophers ought to adopt; but the formation of a caste, in an ethical question of this sort, would be altogether a misfortune, and clearly Mr. Shaw cannot have meant to suggest it. Nor, indeed, as a matter of fact, is the recognition of spiritual truths and of humane aspirations confined to the ‘‘intellectuals,” but often shows itself in quarters where the hard work of the world has allowed little time for culture. The vegetarian movement is not a cult for the few, but part of a great democratic awakening of conscience which appeals to all classes and all intellects alike. Mr. Shaw of course knows this as well or better than I do; I only mention it here because those words of his may be liable to misunderstanding, and we are aware what readiness there is to evade or misunderstand that part of a great writer’s message which indicates any practical or personal reform.

Let me quote, to illustrate what I mean, some other words used by Mr. Collis: “It is a tragic fact,” he says, “that Shaw, our most humane man, has always had less influence in suppressing inhumanity than any other public man.” Incidentally I would express my belief that Mr. Collis is mistaken in this statement, and that Shaw’s influence, invariably used as it has been, in the cause of humanity, has by no means failed of its effect. If it seems to have failed, that is due to the fact that whereas it is possible at times to get rid of a cruel institution, the suppression of a cruel habit is a far more difficult task, and one which no individual, however gifted, can expect to accomplish in a lifetime. But it is doubtless true that the frequent evasion of Shaw’s ethical teaching, under the pretence that it is an amiable eccentricity, has lessened, as it was intended to do, the effect of his writings; a result to which Mr. Collis himself unintentionally contributes, by devoting only a page or two to humanitarian subjects, and by the way in which he has caricatured vegetarianism in his single reference to it. This is to be regretted: for his book in most respects is extremely suggestive and well written, and is likely to be widely read.

* “Shaw,” by J. S. Collins. Jonathan Cape Ltd. 1925.