A Knight Errant’s Apologia.
“The Creed of Kinship.” By Henry S. Salt. Published by Constable and Co., Ltd., 5s. (Obtainable from the London Vegetarian Society; by post, 5s. 3d.)
FOR long years Mr. Henry Salt has inspired us with his example Fas the true knight errant of the humanitarian cause. Ever in search of new fields to conquer, during more than half a century he has set a model of devotion and courage to his contemporaries, and not less (as he may rest assured) to those who come after. His latest book, published when its author is well past his eightieth year, lacks nothing of the forcefulness of its predecessors, and, withal, it has—if we may so say—that added quality of serenity, which is the crown of old age. “The Creed of Kinship” is its title, and in it the author contrives to bring together a number of reforms relating to human or sub-human welfare as the case may be, which usually are advocated separately, and in so doing he attempts to form a synthesis. Inevitably, in the eyes of some, the result must appear to be insufficient; nor, in our opinion, are such justly to be described as dogmatists should they feel impelled to such a conclusion. It might even be argued that the author himself is at variance with his own thinking, for on page one of his preface we find him saying: “The Creed of Kinship, I maintain, is itself a religion, and of all religions the greatest,” whilst we have but to turn the page to find it claimed: “In his [Shelley’s] conception of two contending Powers, one barbarous, one humane, we seem to have the only clue to a rational interpretation of the universe”—with the second of which two Powers, presumably, if we would live truly, it must be our bounden duty, through obedience, to ally ourselves. But enough here of cosmology, since that is not our province. We comment, rather, on the fine patience which lies behind such a remark as this:
I am well aware that not years, but ages, will be required to gain any serious consideration for the Faith of which I speak; yet, with limitless time before the world, I do not regard such work as being wasted.
Such patience and such knight-errantry combined: it is, perhaps, the ‘author’s most characteristic attitude, as it is certainly also one that is most attractive.
Explaining his position, Mr. Salt claims that he “felt flattered” by the remark of a hostile journalist who once described him as “a compendium of all the cranks”—by which, he continues, “he apparently meant that I advocated not this or that humane reform, but all of them.” For all that, he recognises the need, “at present, and possibly for a long time to come,” for separate humanitarian societies, each with its own programme and all working on independent lines. But the wide outlook, he yet maintains, is still capable of being established, the goal of a practical synthesis in which human welfare and that of the sub-human species shall no longer be separated (as so often happens) likewise being steadily kept in view at the same time. His main point is thus emphasised:
If anyone believes, as I do, that a kindly consideration for the rights of all our fellow-beings, human or sub-human, is the basis of any religion, any morality, worthy of the name, how can he consistently confine his interest to socialism alone, or to zoophilist doctrines? Where would be the sense of making protest against the ill-usage of the lower races, if the inhumanity with which some humans are treated were overlooked. And, conversely, are not the victims of hunting-field and slaughter-house as grievously exploited as any human workers? There is, of course, a worse and a better in these doings, but there is no ultimate difference in kind. In all cases the aggressor takes advantage of some neighbours’ weakness. Whether he cheats them, or eats them, is but a detail.
In like manner a harmony also of science and ethics must be found:
It is the habit of religionists [please, Mr. Salt, not all “religionists”] and of scientists alike, when referring to morality, to speak of it as something apart, something which will have to be brought into harmony and conjunction with science or religion. “One of the greatest tasks before the human race,” according to General Smuts, “will be to link up science with ethical values, and thus remove the grave dangers threatening our future.” That is most true; but might not the case be still more strongly stated? For how can any conduct which is not ethically just be either religious or scientific; and how can a science or a religion be worthy of the name, unless it assumes the fulfilment of all ethical duties?
Like “Hamlet,” Mr. Salt’s book is “full of quotations,” and if many of these have a familiar ring, it is because Mr. Salt himself, in his earlier writings, has already endowed them with that quality for ourselves. Familiar, or otherwise, it seems hardly possible that, for sheer appositeness, words like these could be improved upon:
“Man,” as Mr. E. P. Evans has said in his Evolutional Ethics, is “as truly a part and product of Nature as any other animal, and the attempt to set him up as an isolated point outside of it is philosophically false and morally pernicious.” The same moral was enforced in a letter addressed by Mr. Thomas Hardy to the Humanitarian League in 1910. “Few people,” he wrote, “seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical. . . . While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the ‘inferior’ races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable.”
Thereupon the author’s own comment comes as a direct challenge for it reads thus: “That the conclusion is a trying one, under present conditions, no thinker will deny; but it is one that has to be faced, and it is especially encumbent on humanitarians to face it. Perhaps, with complete candour, and a willingness to open the mind to all future possibilities the difficulty may appear less insurmountable as we proceed.”
As already hinted, the appeal of the book is wide—indeed it is its chief merit—though references to schemes for human betterment must needs, because of the political issues which they raise, lie outside our own capacity in this place to deal with them. A final criticism of the book, however, still suggests itself, and is here permissible. Far be it from us, here or elsewhere, consciously to indulge in any “special pleading” on behalf of the vegetarian cause! All the same, we think it can hardly be accidental that, whilst ninety-nine per cent. of vegetarians are supporters also—in sympathy if not in deed—of every other form of humanitarian enterprise, so far as the welfare of animals is concerned, yet the converse of this is by no means true; from which fact it might appear that the most practical means of achieving at least half of that great and comprehensive scheme of reform which Mr. Salt seeks to advocate must be to concentrate on the endeavour to persuade all the world to become vegetarians. Mr. Salt himself, of course—need it be said?—is under no illusions at all as to the sheer necessity of vegetarianism as part and parcel of that better order of things which he has for so long striven to establish. In this connection, Thoreau’s prophetic words are again quoted:
Whatever my own practice may be I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilised.
Not only so, but he says plainly, in regard to flesh-eating, that “his [i.e., man’s] relations with the sub-humans are ruined by a practice which lends a ready excuse and support to various other barbarities.” All the same, and taking the book as a whole, it seems that the unique aspect of vegetarianism—insisting, as it does on the reform of the individual lives of its devotees—might have been more strongly emphasised.
Thoreau and, last of all—of course, Shelley! There is justification, as well as pathos, in Mr. Salt’s choice of title for his final chapter, “One Who Understood.” Almost, we confess (but not quite) on reading this we want to take back what we have written in our last paragraph:
Perhaps no feature of his philosophy has been more often ridiculed than his vegetarianism; yet here, too, he gave proof not only of personal humaneness but of practical foresight for food-reform is now widely recognised as a necessary part of any well-considered scheme for humanising our relation toward the animals, and everyone who deals with the question of animals’ rights is compelled to take some note of it. Alone among the poets of his generation, he was unwilling to sentimentalise about the beauty of kindness to animals, and at the same time “to slay the lamb that looks him in the face,” or, what is no less immoral, to devolve that unpleasant process on another person.
Mr Salt cites with enthusiasm Shelley’s words, “To live as if to love and live were one,” as representing, for him, the conclusion of the whole matter. And verily it seems that there is nothing more than this to be said.
The Vegetarian News, 1935, pp. 168-170
Book Reviewed: The Creed of Kinship