An Address (1868)

AUTHOR: Bergh, Henry

KEYWORDS: animals, environmentalism, food, land usage

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

Bergh systematically explains why members of the Agricultural Society should treat their domestic animals well, including the economic argument as well as the moral (the mistreatment of animals makes humans hard-hearted), and religious/spiritual argument (animals are God’s creatures), and the sovereign value of animals’ lives to the animals themselves. In addition, Bergh cites the intelligence, rationality, language-capacity, and creativity of animals as being similar to humans, another reason why they should not be killed or mistreated. He recognizes nonhuman intelligence as equivalent to, but different from, human intelligence.

Bergh argues that because the Agricultural Society relies on the “labor of the toiling animals” and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) wants to “protect and preserve [the animals’] powers,” the two groups should be “the best of friends” (1). Animals, like the land itself, should not and cannot be overworked and remain profitable: “There is a universal law, affecting the material interests of living and inanimate things, and that is – ECONOMY” (1). To over-work animals is not only bad economically but also morally: “It is a stupid delusion to suppose that any of the laws of the Creator of all things, can be subverted or disobeyed by mankind with impunity” (1). Tallying the population of horses/mules, cattle, sheep, and swine in comparison to the cost of their work per day (50 cents), in addition to their meat, Bergh finds that domestic animals produce $2 billion a year, equivalent to the US national debt. To this economic valuation he adds, “This is the mere mercenary point of view; the moral is even more remarkable” (2). Bergh notes the (assumed) tendency throughout history for people who mistreat animals to mistreat humans also; for example, Domitian, Louis XIII, and Hogarth’s fictional child in “Four Phases of Cruelty” (3).

Among the routine cruelties practiced in animal husbandry, Bergh discusses the practice of tying the legs of sheep and calves while they are being transported to slaughter; he notes that this practice is not only cruel, but can cause toxins to build up in the blood and flesh and thereby poison the (soon-to-be) meat (3). He mentions that New Yorkers used frequently to see carts piled high with trussed sheep and calves (4), similar to Thoreau's report, two years earlier, in A Yankee in Canada (1866). Such practices are linked to diseases from meat-eating: “...every reflecting mind must perceive the direct influence which the meat of a panting, thirsting, fevered, agonized beast of fowl, must have on the system of those who feed on it” (4). Any killing of non-human animals must be fully justified: “We are unable to give life, therefore ought not wantonly to take it away from the meanest insect, without sufficient reason: they all receive it from the same benevolent hand as ourselves, and have an equal right to enjoy it” (5). While humanity has a divine right to use animals there is no entitlement to abuse animals:

It has been permitted by God, to take the lives of such animals as have been created for our food; and the necessities of civilization have demanded that many others should be sacrificed, to afford us clothing and other articles of usefulness. But this permission to kill is only granted to supply our absolute wants; and, to take the life of an innocent, unoffending animal, solely because we have the wish or power to do so, is an act of wanton wickedness, which, sooner or later, will bring upon us the punishment that inevitably awaits on sin (5).

Bergh argues that animals grieve, feel pain, suffer, and die, as humans do. Citing ancient philosophers, Bergh argues that animals have reason and language (6). He proposes that because animal reasoning is so similar to human reasoning, it is wrong to abuse them. It is their similarity to humanity which demands respect, as opposed to their difference or their lives unto themselves. Further, animals have helped humanity create new inventions: For example, "it is the spider which taught man to spin; of the sparrow he learnt architecture; of the goose swimming; of the fish navigation, and of the silk-worm sewing” (6). “Let it be remembered that the earth was first inhabited by the inferior animals, sent in advance, as it seems, to prepare the way for that paragon of creatures; man, and prompt his reason by their natural intelligence” (6).

In closing, Bergh argues that humans should be kind to animals because they give much, because it feels good to be kind to animals, because being unkind to animals leads to being unkind to humans (e.g. the fall of Rome), and it is a “humble, yet real imitation of the daily workings of the Sovereign of the Universe…” (8).