Chapter XIV: Gassendi. 1592-1655

Gassendi, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the purpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in the seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the first directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch and Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and Montaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate barbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction of the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to enlighten the world upon this fundamental truth.

He was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest years he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was professor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated “Essays against the Aristotleians” (_Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos_) was his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years earlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides with the _Novum Organon_ of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost contemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon the old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of Aristotle, during some three or four centuries of mediæval darkness had kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at once raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the old orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of falsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five of the Books of the _Exercitationes_, by the advice of his friends, who dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In the Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not the courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity of the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while the Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal recommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and Virtue are synonymous terms.

In the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted himself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy, as well as to literary studies. “As the result of his anatomical researches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to live upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human constitution, is baneful and unwholesome.”[117] He was the first to observe the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun’s disc (1631), previously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the opponent of Descartes in his _Disquisitiones Anticartesianæ_ (1643)--a work justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent German critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic world was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient to observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in other respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that the non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and perception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation for common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part of the world. Yet this “animated machine” theory, incredible as it may appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist of the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and experience--a theory about which it needs only to be said that it deserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the end _that they might not feel and reason_. It was not thus, as the same writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118]

In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners of all classes. His _Life and Morals of Epikurus_ (_De Vitâ et Moribus Epicuri_), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages. Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:--

“He had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home,
and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where
he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part
of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of
Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own
doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several
astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which
those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He
is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism,
the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an
eminent degree. Even in his _Syntagma Philosophicum_ he treats
every subject, at first historically from all points of view....
Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined
to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the
fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He
long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On
returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen
fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.”

Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:--

“The reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually
ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi.
Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his
Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes
which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a
result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of
hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences
resulting from them became completely interfused.”[119]

Although of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often happens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle, writing at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as “the greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar amongst philosophers;” and Newton conceived the same high esteem for the great vindicator of Epikurus.[120]

It is in his celebrated letter to his friend Van Helmont, that Gassendi deals with the irrational assertions of certain physiologists, apparently more devoted to the defence of the orthodox diet than to the discovery of unwelcome truth, as to the character of the human teeth:--

“I was contending,” he writes to his medical friend, “that from
the conformation of our teeth we do not appear to be adapted by
Nature to the use of a flesh diet, since all animals (I spoke of
terrestrials) which Nature has formed to feed on flesh have their
teeth long, conical, sharp, uneven, and with intervals between
them--of which kind are lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, cats, and
others. But those who are made to subsist only on herbs and fruits
have their teeth short, broad, blunt, close to one another, and
distributed in even rows. Of this sort are horses, cows, deer,
sheep, goats, and some others. And further--that men have received
from Nature teeth which are unlike those of the first class, and
resemble those of the second. It is therefore probable, since men
are land animals, that Nature intended them to follow, in the
selection of their food, not the carnivorous tribes, but those
races of animals which are contented with the simple productions
of the earth.... Wherefore, I here repeat that from the primæval
institution of our nature, the teeth were destined to the
mastication, not of flesh, but of fruits.

As for flesh, true, indeed, it is that man is sustained on flesh.
But _how many things_, let me ask, _does man do every day which are
contrary to, or beside, his nature_? So great, and so general, is
the perversion of his mode of life, which has, as it were, eaten
into his flesh by a sort of deadly contagion (_contagione veluti
quâdam jam inusta est_), that he appears to have put on another
disposition. Hence, the whole care and concern of philosophy and
moral instruction ought to consist in leading men back to the paths
of Nature.”

Helmont, it seems, had rested his principal argument for flesh-eating, not altogether in accordance with _Genesis_, and certainly not in accordance with Science, on the presumption that man was formed expressly for carnivorousness. To this Gassendi replied that, without ignoring theological argument, he still maintained comparative Anatomy to be a satisfactory and sufficient guide. He then applies himself to refute the physiological prejudice of Helmont about the teeth, &c. (as already quoted), and begins by warning his friend that he is not to wonder if the self-love of men is constantly viewed by him with suspicion.[121]

“For, in fact, we all, with tacit consent, conspire to extol our
own nature, and we do this commonly with so much arrogance that, if
people were to divest themselves of this traditional and inveterate
prejudice, and seriously reflect upon it, their faces must be
immediately suffused with burning shame.”

He repeats Plutarch’s unanswerable challenge:--

“Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this
food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as
furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from
seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and
lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. Well, but
if it were the intention of Nature that man should eat _cooked_
flesh, she would surely have provided him with ready-made cooks;
or, rather, she would have herself cooked it as she is wont to
do fruits, which are best and sweetest without the intervention
of fire. Nature, surely, does not fail in providing necessary
provision for her children, according to the common boast. But what
is more necessary than to make food pleasurable? And, as she does
in the case of sexual love by which she procures the preservation
of the _species_, so would she procure the preservation of the
_genus_.

“Nor let anyone say that Nature in this is corrected, since, to
pass over other things, that is tantamount to convicting her of
a blunder. Consider how much more benevolent she would be proved
to be, in that case, towards the savage beasts than towards us.
Again, since our teeth are not sufficient for eating flesh, even
when prepared by fire, the invention of knives seems to me to be
a strong proof. Because, in fact, we have no teeth given us for
rending flesh, and we are therefore forced to have recourse to
those _non-natural_ organs, in order to accomplish our purpose. As
if, forsooth, Nature would have left us destitute in so essential
things! I divine at once your ready reply: ‘think that Nature
has given man reason to supply defects of this kind.’ But this,
I affirm, is always to accuse Nature, _in order to_ defend our
unnatural luxury. So it is about dress--so it is about other things.

“What is clearer [he sums up] than that man is not furnished for
hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem
to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for
other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other
animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry
ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then,
behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make
weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of
Nature? Can a use so noxious be called _natural_? Faculty is given
by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of
it.”

He, finally, refutes the popular objection about the strength-giving properties of flesh-meat, and instances Horses, Bulls, and others.[122]

In his _Ethics_ (affixed to his Books on _Physics_) he quotes and endorses the opinions of Epikurus on the slaughter of innocent life:--

“There is no pretence,” he asserts, “for saying that any right has
been granted us by law to kill any of those animals which are not
destructive or pernicious to the human race, for there is no reason
why the innocent species should be allowed to increase to so great
a number as to be inconvenient to us. They may be restrained within
that number which would be harmless, and useful to ourselves.”[123]

With that Great Master he thus rebukes the fashionable “hospitality”:--

“I, for my part, to speak modestly of myself, lived contented
with the plants of my little garden, and have pleasure in that
diet, and I wish inscribed on my doors: ‘Guest, here you shall
have good cheer! here the _summum bonum_ is Pleasure. The guardian
of this house, _humanely_ hospitable, is ready to entertain you
with pearl-barley (_polenta_), and will furnish you abundantly
with water. These little gardens do not increase hunger, but
extinguish it; nor do they make thirst greater by the very
potations themselves, but satisfy it by a natural and gratuitous
remedy.’”[124]

There is one name which, in reputation, occupies a pre-eminent position in philosophy, belonging to this period--Francis Bacon. But, for ourselves, for whom true ethical and humanitarian principles have a much deeper significance than mere mental force undirected to the highest aims of truth and of justice, the name of the modern assertor of the truths of Vegetarianism will challenge greater reverence than even that of the author of the _New Instrument_.

That Bacon should exhibit himself in the character of an advocate of the rights of the lower races is hardly to be expected from the selfish and unscrupulous promoter of his own private interests at the expense at once of common gratitude and common feeling. His remarks on Vivisection (where he questions whether experiments on human beings are defensible, and suggests the limitation of scientific torture to the non-human races)[125] are, in fact, sufficient evidence of his indifferentism to so unselfish an object as the advocacy of the claims of our defenceless dependants. When we consider his unusual sagacity in exposing the absurd quasi-scientific methods of his predecessors, and of the prevailing (so-called) philosophical system and the many profound remarks to be found in his writings, it must be added that we are reluctantly compelled to believe that the opinions elsewhere which he publishes inconsistent with those principles were inspired by that notorious servility and courtiership by which he flattered the absurd and pedantic dogmatism of one of the most contemptible of kings.

One passage there is, however, in his writings which seems to give us hope that this eminent compromiser was not altogether insensible to higher and better feeling:--

“Nature has endowed man with a noble and excellent principle of
compassion, which extends [? ought to extend] itself also to the
dumb animals--whence this compassion has some resemblance to
that of a prince towards his subjects. And it is certain that the
noblest souls are the most extensively compassionate, for narrow
and degenerate minds think that compassion belongs not to them; but
a great soul, the noblest part of creation, is ever compassionate.
Thus, under the old laws, there were numerous precepts (not merely
ceremonial) enjoining mercy--for example, the not eating of
flesh with the blood, &c. So, also, the sects of the Essenes and
Pythagoreans totally abstained from flesh, as they do also to this
day, with an inviolate religion, in some parts of the empire of the
Mogul [Hindustan]. Nay, the Turks, though a savage nation, both in
their descent and discipline, give alms to the dumb animals, and
suffer them not to be tortured.”[126]

If Bacon had lived longer (he died in 1626) we may entertain the hope that the powerful arguments of his illustrious contemporary might have inspired him with more sound and satisfactory ideas on Dietetics than the somewhat crude ones which he published in his _De Augmentis_ (iv., 2). As for Medicine, he had, reasonably enough, not conceived a high opinion of the methods of its ordinary professors. He says:--

“Medicine has been more professed than laboured, and more laboured
than advanced; rather circular than progressive; for I find great
repetition, and but little new matter in the writers of Physic.”