So strong is humanity's aversion to all killing

[Guest guest]

Leo Tolstoy:

 

Not 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.

 

 

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