Chapter XXIX: Buffon. 1707-1788

An eminent instance of perversity of logic--of which, by the way, the history of human thought supplies too many examples--is that of the well-known author of the _Histoire Naturelle_, a work which (highly interesting as it is, and always will be, by reason of the detailed and generally accurate delineation of the characters and habits of the various forms of animated nature, and by reason of the graces of style of that French classic) is, from a strictly scientific point of view, of not always the most reliable authority. Although Buffon has depicted as forcibly as well can be conceived the low position in Nature of the carnivorous tribes, and not a few of the evils arising from human addiction to carnivorousness, yet, by a strange perversion of the facts of comparative physiology, he has chosen to enlist himself amongst the apologists of that degenerate mode of living. But facts are stronger than prejudices, and his very candid _admissions_, which we shall here quote, speak sufficiently for themselves:--

“Man [says he] knows how to use, as a master, his power over
[other] animals. He has selected those whose flesh _flatters his
taste_. He has made domestic slaves of them. He has multiplied them
more than Nature could have done. He has formed innumerable flocks,
and by the cares which he takes in propagating them he _seems_[183]
to have acquired the right of sacrificing them for himself. But he
extends that right _much beyond_ his needs. For, independently of
those species which he has subjected, and of which he disposes at
his will, he makes war also upon wild animals, upon birds, upon
fishes. He does not even limit himself to those of the climate
he inhabits. He seeks at a distance, even in the remotest seas,
new meats, and entire Nature seems scarcely to suffice for his
intemperance and the inconsistent variety of his appetites.

“_Man alone consumes and engulfs more flesh than all other animals
put together. He is, then, the greatest destroyer, and he is
so more by abuse than by necessity._ Instead of enjoying with
moderation the resources offered him, in place of dispensing them
with equity, in place of repairing in proportion as he destroys,
of renewing in proportion as he annihilates, the rich man makes
all his boast and glory in _consuming_, all his splendour in
destroying, in one day, at his table, more material (_plus de
biens_) than would be necessary for the support of several
families. He abuses equally other animals and his own species, the
rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only
to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable
vanity of this human being who, _destroying others by want,
destroys himself by excess_.

“And yet Man might, like other animals, live upon vegetables.
_Flesh is not a better nourishment than grains or bread._ What
constitutes true nourishment, what contributes to the nutrition,
to the development, to the growth, and to the support of the body,
is not that brute matter which, to our eyes, composes the texture
of flesh or of vegetables, but it is those organic molecules which
both contain; since the ox, in feeding on grass, acquires as much
flesh as man or as animals who live upon flesh and blood.... The
essential source is the same; it is the same matter, it is the same
organic molecules which nourish the Ox, Man, and all animals....
It results from what we have just said that Man, whose stomach
and intestines are not of a very great capacity relatively to the
volume of his body, could not live simply upon grass. Nevertheless
_it is proved by facts that he could well live upon bread,
vegetables, and the grains of plants_, since we know entire nations
and classes of men to whom religion forbids to feed upon anything
that has life.”

To the ordinary apprehension all this might seem _primâ facie_ conclusive evidence of the non-necessariness of the food of the richer classes of the community. But, unhappily, Buffon seems to have considered himself as holding a brief to defend his clients, the flesh-eaters, in the last resort, and, accordingly, in spite of these admissions, which to an unbiassed mind might appear conclusive argument for the relinquishment of flesh as food, he proceeds to contradict himself by adding:--

“But these examples, supported even by the authority of Pythagoras
[and he might have added many later names of equal authority], and
recommended by some physicians too friendly to a reformed diet
(_trop amis de diète!_), appear to me not sufficient to convince us
that it would be for the advantage of human health (_qu’il y eût à
gagner pour la santè des hommes_) and for the multiplication of the
human species to live upon vegetables and bread only, for so much
the stronger reason, that the poor country people, whom the luxury
of the cities and towns and the extravagant waste of tables reduce
to this mode of living, languish and die off sooner than persons
of the middle class, to whom inanition and excess are equally
unknown!”[184]

In stigmatising, in the following sentence, the cruel rapacity of the lower carnivorous tribes, Buffon consciously or unconsciously stamps the same stigma upon the carnivorous human animal:--

“_After Man_, the animals who live only upon flesh are the greatest
destroyers. They are at once the enemies of Nature and the rivals
of Man.”[185]