surroundings that imagination can picture. But of the retired London shopkeeper who blows tame pheasants to pieces at the end of his gun, of the vulgar profiteer whose aim is only a record bag, or of the cockney 'sportsman' who hunts the captive stag, nothing too insulting can be said. Those who inflict torture upon animals for money are not more despicable than those who do so to gratify personal vanity. The general attitude of most Europeans to animals is one of colossal selfishness. We are willing to consider the prohibition of alcohol for the selfish reason that some men are so weak that they cannot resist over-indulgence, but to consider the prohibition of meat because it entails untold suffering to creatures who differ little physiologically from ourselves will seem to many people to be bordering upon lunacy. And yet any person who thinks at all must feel far less of a beast when he drinks half a bottle of burgundy than when he eats the piece of a sheep's leg. In the former case he is not, in any sense of the word, a drunkard; in the latter case he is virtually handing the slaughterman the pole-axe with the first mouthful, and is as much an accomplice in the agonies of the slaughter-house as is his paid assassin. This is neither sentimentality nor sophism; it is a cold, hard fact which he must face honestly and justify to himself before he can conscientiously continue to eat meat. If he can genuinely convince himself that he is doing rightly, he need fear no blame. He is as much entitled to his meat as is the man who sees no harm in his half-bottle of burgundy. At There has been a tendency in the past to confuse morals with ethics, a tendency which we still have not outgrown. The two things are distinct, although they often converge and appear one. Ethically we feel instinctively that it is wrong to take life. the same time we have a moral code that forbids us to murder, but this is purely an affaire des convenances, affording the greatest good to the greatest number. In an ordinary way we sleep comfortably at night because we believe that most people prefer not to risk the consequences of killing us in our sleep for some trumpery reason. The law has done everything possible to discourage private murder. But in time of war we are exhorted to kill as many of the enemy as possible, and if any man succeeds in killing an abnormally large number of other men, he is publicly honoured and becomes a hero. In this case the ethical principle has been subordinated to what seems to be the common good, and murder becomes a moral act. The ethical principle is not considered, or only argued by the few. The killing of animals for food follows the same lines. The average man would feel an instinctive revulsion if a knife and a sheep were put into his hand and he were told to prepare his dinner. But there is a popular belief that meat is a necessary article of diet, and so the ethics of killing are again waived in procuring the greatest good for the greatest number, with the additional help that someone else does the unpleasant work, and so the morality of animal slaughter is seldom questioned. For the same reason the prohibition of alcohol becomes moral' if drunkenness threatens to endanger the nation's health, but the ethics of temperance are placed a very bad second. The result of it all is that morals are a collective and practical institution, whereas ethics are essentially individual and more abstract. So long as morals are thus exalted over ethics we shall have war, cruelty, and excess. Morals are the easier course, for they can be applied by the mere passing of an Act of Parliament, but ethics are far more of a nuisance, for they imply individual effort and the thinking of things out for oneself. They are based upon education in its truest and widest sense, but if we can learn to understand them and make them our own, then, and then only, will dawn the new age of love and gentleness upon the earth. We shall not say, 'We will not go to war because it is immoral to kill,' but rather' How can we kill men who have so much in common with ourselves—the same bodies, the same hopes and fears, the same principles?' Similarly we shall not refrain from inflicting pain upon animals because it is 'wicked,' but because something will have grown up within us that causes us to be unhappy if we are in any way responsible for causing them suffering, and greater understanding will have kindled our imagination into realising what agonies our appetites and our vanity have brought to the brute creation. We may find the thought of meat revolting, or it may seem right that we should eat it, but in any case we shall find it impossible to countenance any method of slaughter that inflicts pain or misery upon the victims. Spiritus intus alit'; from within the change must come; and perhaps the reason why we hear so much of the prohibition of drink and so little of the prohibition of meat is because prohibition is an external affair of morals and national convenience, and scarcely touches the deeper Christian principles of love, wonder and imagination. L. F. EASTERBROOK. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. MAR 1: Public Education in Northern Ireland: the New System LONDONDERRY, K.G. (Minister of Education, Northern Ireland) By the Right Hon. H. A. L. FISHER, M.P. By THE REV. C. J. CADOUX, D.D. LONDON: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD., ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.2 PARIS: MESSAGERIES HACHETTE, 111, Rue Reaumur. Registered for Canadian Magazine Post NEW YORK: LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION Co. All rights reserved PRICE THREE SHILLINGS |