"Not long ago I had a talk with a retired soldier," writes Tolstoy in Recollections and Essays, "and he was surprised at my assertion that it was a pity to kill animals for food, 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.'
"Such a situation, is dreadful. Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures - and by violating his own feelings, becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life. But by the assertion that God ordained the slaughter of animals, and above all as a result of habit, people entirely lose their natural feeling.
"Some time ago I decided to visit the slaughter-house at Tula, and meeting a meek, kind acquaintance of mine, I invited him to accompany rue. My friend refused; he could not, he told met bear to witness the slaughter of animals. It is worth remarking that this man is a sportsman and himself kills animals and birds"
And... a kind refined lady will devour the carcasses of these animals with full assurance that she is doing right, at the same time asserting two contradictory propositions :
"First that she is so delicate that she cannot be sustained by vegetable food alone ; and secondly, that she is so sensitive that she is unable. not only herself to inflict suffering on animals, but even to bear the sight of the suffering.
"Whereas the poor lady is weak precisely because she has been taught to live upon food unnatural to man ; and she cannot avoid causing suffering to animals - for she eats them."
The wrongfulness, the immorality of eating animal food has been recognized by all mankind during all the conscious life of humanity. Why, then have people generally not come to acknowledge this law? The answer is that the moral progress of humanity is always slow; but that the sign of true, not casual Progress, is in uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And one cannot doubt that vegetarianism has been progressing in this manner.
"The progress of the movement should cause especial 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, but because it is a sign that the aspiration of mankind towards moral perfection is serious and sincere.''
Peru, 17.03.2008
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