Every Living Creature (1899)

AUTHOR: Trine, Ralph Waldo

KEYWORDS: animals, food and diet, morality

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

The book promotes  animal welfare and vegetarianism on ethical grounds and in the context of a general “spirit of gentleness, kindliness, and care for the animal world” (1). Trine is convinced that cruelty, or even just thoughtlessness, towards animals and sometimes even inanimate things translates to cruelty and thoughtlessness towards fellow humans. Trine remarks:

The child is put upon the hobby-horse, a whip is put into his little hand, and he is told: "Now whip the old horse and make him go." With this initial lesson, continued in various ways, we find the eager desire the child has for whipping, when he gets the whip into his hands in a waggon behind a real horse. Or even when younger, the child stumbles over a chair, receives a knock, and bursts into crying. The mother, in some cases merely thoughtless, in others caring only for her own comfort and ease, in order to call the attention of the child away from the little hurt and greater rage and fright, says: "Did the mean chair hurt mamma's little boy? Go and kick the old chair—kick it hard." The next day when the child falls over or bumps against the dog, the dog in turn is the one to receive the kick; and still later, when anything of the kind occurs in connection with a little playmate, the playmate receives the same treatment. And, so far as his relations with his fellow-men, when he is grown to manhood, are concerned, each one can trace them for himself. (3)

Thus, for Trine, everything reduces to education and training. Thoughtlessness and cruelty need to be countered or, better yet, preempted, by explicit education and training towards compassion (6). This is best accomplished “'by teaching kindness towards God's lower creatures”:

Let them be taught that the lower animals are God's creatures, as they themselves are, put here by a common Heavenly Father, each for its own special purpose, and that they have the same right to life and protection. Let them be taught that principle recognised by all noble-hearted men, that it is only a depraved, debased, and cowardly nature that will injure an inferior, defenceless creature, simply because it is in its power to do so, and that there is no better, no grander test of true bravery and nobility of character than one's treatment of the lower animals (7).

While Trine thus acknowledges that animals have a right to life, the ultimate goal in teaching children to acknowledge that right and act accordingly, is to educate them to become compassionate and kind citizens.

Trine disapproves of hunting for sport. Rather than instruct children in the handling of guns to shoot birds, we should show and explain to them their beauty and usefulness, for example, “the great service [birds] are continually doing for us in the destruction of various worms and insects and small rodents which, if left to themselves, would so multiply as literally to destroy practically all fruit and plant life” (9). Instead of killing animals, one should “observe and study their characteristics, their habits”(14). Related is his opposition to vivisection, because “practically nothing of any real value has come to us through this channel that could not and would not have come in other ways without this great torture and sacrifice of life” (14-15). Trine strongly opposes the use of vivisection in schools. There is also nothing that redeems the practice of docking: the “torture that is inflicted upon the animal during the process of the sawing and the burning of the tail” (16) is simply an act of senseless cruelty. Animal husbandry often resorts to cruel methods, including “cattle-starving” in winter, as “it is cheaper for [the farmers] to lose a certain portion of the herd each winter than it is to furnish them suitable food and shelter” (18). Trine is also appalled by “the careless, cruel, mercenary methods of transporting cattle, sheep, and horses from the West to  the East, or to England and other countries, on the cattle ships, where sometimes as many as a quarter or even a third of the animals are found dead on their arrival, and numbers of others so mangled and crippled that they have to be killed as soon as they are taken from the vessel” (19). Trine deplores “the thoughtless, cruel, and inexcusable practice of wearing the skins and plumage of birds for millinery and other decorative purposes” (19). The sacrifice of animals in the interests of fashion is inexcusable for Trine, not least because the killing of one animal often “means the starving to death [...] of its young” (21). He also speaks out against the “almost unspeakable cruelty and torture that attends the procuring of [...] sealskin and other fur or fur-trimmed or lined garments” (24). For Trine, such use of animals is a “relic-of-barbarism mode of adornment” (23).

The longest section of the book is concerned with the practice of meat eating. Trine begins with the point that “the flesh of animals is not necessary as an article of food” (25-26) but is actually detrimental to health. He observes that meat eating correlates with alcohol abuse and likewise blunts the senses. Meat is often diseased or poisonous and more than half the world population, Trine notes, desist from eating meat. Accordingly, “many peoples, whom large numbers in America and in England, for example, refer to as the heathen, and send missionaries to Christianise, are far ahead of us, and hence more Christian in this matter” (28). Throughout the book, Trine particularly privileges India, claiming that “we have much to learn in our relations with the animal world from the Hindu people” (70). Not eating meat by no means entails a weak physical condition. There is but one conclusion to draw: “The only really consistent humanitarian is the one who is not a flesh-eater” (30). Trine also thinks that “the highest mental, physical, and spiritual excellence will come to a person only when, among other things, he refrains from a flesh and blood diet” (34). He also points to the moral and social repercussions for those professionally engaged in the slaughter of animals, particularly butchers. Trine here draws on a number of detailed reports of the cruelties perpetrated in slaughter-houses. All in all, “[i]t is our thoughts and our acts, or our complicity in the acts of others, that determine whether at any given time we are nearest akin to the brute or the human” (44).

Trine then turns his attention to sport and war, proposing that there is “a direct connection between 'pig-sticking' and man-bayoneting” (47). In short, for Trine, cruelty towards animals for sport translates to cruelty towards humans and thus contributes to human violence and war. It fosters an un-Christian character (48). Trine expresses his hope that a Christian, peaceful, anti-militaristic, and humane stance will characterize “the future grandeur of the American nation” (53).

Trine continues with his thoughts on prison reform and the prevention of crime, as the “methods” employed “deal too much with punishment, and not enough with unfoldment, and thereby prevention” (56). This is consistent with the book's primary aim to promote kind, compassionate behavior and a proper “Christian civilisation” (58). He then advocates for the implementation of “Homes and Rescue Leagues and Clinics and Hospitals” for animals (65). He ends by insisting once more on the importance of education in general and early education in particular.