Shuford (CS4445)
E 375 L Paper 2
The
Dissection of Animal Cruelty: Victorian Treatment Towards Animals
The Victorian age was characterized by the constant changing of the human condition, with rapid secularization and modernization. During the 19th century, human domination of the world- including animals, disease and nature seemed inevitable; the Victorian British empire was the largest, most powerful body in the world, but lacked certain morals associated with countries they controlled. This control of nature and society conjured several ideas of how animals should be treated in respect to their human superiors and their role in society. Morality, animal testing, and animal consumption encompassed the major issues concerning animals in the Victorian age. The convocation of the sympathetic imagination- the ability of a person to penetrate the barrier between him and his object, and, by actually entering into the object, so to speak, to secure a momentary but complete identification with it[1]- changed Victorian attitudes concerning the cruel treatment of animals thus starting a trend toward animal reform.
Sympathy and the sympathetic imagination played large roles in determining the proper treatment of animals. Several Victorians called attention to the fact that there was not a major difference between humans and animals: ÒLet us glance for a moment at the resemblances and diversities observable in all organisms. All have a common basis, all being constructed out of the fundamental elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.Ó [2] This quote directly correlates with the idea of sympathy, Òagreement in qualities, likeness, conformity, correspondence,Ó[3] because humans and animals were all composed of the same basic elements, which should allow them to have similar feelings, whether physical or emotional. The solicitation of the sympathetic imagination during the Victorian age called upon human morality and faith: ÒBefore we can explain or justify them, beliefs are held in faith; and we discover that, as a condition of their successful justification, they must first be credible to the imagination.Ó[4] Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty, told the animalÕs story from his (the horse named Black Beauty) point of view, which allowed the audience to engage themselves in the story. Human imagination and compassion could not be stressed enough, and authors began to write about animal conditions and their similarity to the human condition, especially with first person accounts of their lives.
=
Anatomically
similar, yet treated differently
While authors were writing about the similarities between animal and human life, proponents of the vegetarian lifestyle were promoting an anti-meat diet. Several scientists emphasized that there were no similarities between the human carnivorous diet and carnivorous animals, a key argument in the discussion of diets in the Victorian age. ÒComparative Anatomy teaches us that man resembles the frugivorous animals in everything, the carnivorous in nothing. He has neither claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living fibre.Ó [7] The image of carnivorous teeth and claws aroused the sympathetic imagination and transported the human mind to that of an innocent animal being torn apart by the claws of a tiger. The Victorian age brought about a feeling that promoted the treatment of animals as if they were human which, in a sense, could be accredited to Charles DarwinÕs theories concerning the similarities between humans and primates.
Are we really that similar?
Man from monkey—not particularly easy to fathom. The fact that man was a derivative of a primate was a concept that many Victorians had trouble accepting, and DarwinÕs ÒTheory of EvolutionÓ came as a shock to Victorians who rested comfortably on their civility. ÒCharles DarwinÕs pronouncement later in that century that Ôour ancestor was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habitationÕ was startling to those who saw man as the masterpiece of creation, from which he was distinct because he possessed a soul, and was endowed with reason.Ó [8] Victorians were at the height of their civilization, having influences throughout a majority of the world—no wonder they could not accept their similarity to an animal like a primate; but the likeness between the species was scientifically accurate according to Darwin.
From
Primate to Office Inmate
Morality was a key issue in Victorian treatment of animals. The moral issues of animal cruelty were tied directly to religion, suggesting that the abuse of animals was a direct misuse of God-given power: ÒIf there be one moral offence which more than another seems directly an offence against God, it is this wanton infliction of pain upon his creatures. He, the Good One, has made them to be happy, but leaves us our awful gift of freedom to use or to misuse towards them. In a word, He places them absolutely in our charge. If we break this trust, and torture them, what is our posture towards Him? Surely as sins of the flesh sink man below humanity, so sins of cruelty throw him into the very converse and antagonism of Deity; he becomes not a mere brute, but a fiend.Ó [9] The intentional cruelty toward animals was seen as a sin that was a direct defiance of God. The issue of morality goes hand-in-hand with our definition of compassion. If compassion means to take pity on something, then people who were cruel towards animals in the Victorian age (and still today) demonstrated obvious signs of compassion fatigue, which implied that they would have had Òindifference towards the suffering of others or to charitable causes acting on their behalf.Ó [10] The connection between the suffering of animals for research and the benefits of said research made it hard to justify the two: on one hand people were benefiting from animal testing, but on the other the animals were being mutilated, so ultimately Victorians against animal testing could have argued that torturing animals in such a way was a direct offense against God. Some considered a man morally superior if he did not eat meat because he was saving an animals life and was an exemplar of compassion.
Vivisection, the cutting up or dissection of living animals was another key issue in Victorian treatment of animals. Several laws were passed against vivisection, and though many professionals, namely doctors and scientists, believed that the practice of vivisection was useful for research, others dissented: ÒEven were the torture of animals proved—as it never yet has been—to subserve the advance of medical science, that would make it, if somewhat less odious, not less absolutely unlawful and immoral.Ó [11] Those who practiced vivisection were met with strong opinions from the opposition, and Victorians who had no moral problem with vivisection were encouraged to change their minds, ÒTo all whoÉhold vivisection to be in itself cruel, immoral, and demoralising to those engaged in itÉwe can only hope, as we may well believe, that the healthy growth of public opinion on the subject will inspire a future Convocation to undo the evil work now perpetrated.Ó [12] There was a Victorian ideal that questioned who gave man the authority and the right to slaughter innocent animals, and that the inhumane practice of mutilating animals should have been abandoned. Using animals for research was as equally abhorrent in the eyes of many Victorians as using animals for food. The idea of vivisection, as with a diet rich in meat were two aspects of animal treatment and abuse that still exist.
The
ethics of a meat rich diet were also called into question. The sympathetic
imagination was undoubtedly provoked; some considered meat eaters heathens and
slave drivers, but these Òdemonic carnivoresÓ could redeem themselves
economically, socially, and politically by changing their diet: ÒThe
monopolising [sic] eater of flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by
devouring an acre at a meal; and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute
to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter or a dram of
gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working peasantÕs
hungry babies.Ó [13]
Other extremists suggested that meat-eaters should Òforce himself to a decisive
experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with
his teeth and, plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the
streaming bloodÓ [14]
and then explain his previous actions. Most likely he would say, ÒNature formed
me for such work as thisÓ [15]
but intellects like P. B. Shelley, graduate of Oxford, rejected the idea that
it was manÕs inherent nature to eat animals—he united human nature with
compassion, which we define as an inclination of an animal to take pity on
another suffering animal. Some extremist Victorians viewed meat eaters as
people who lacked self-control with their consumption of animals. ÒMany very
intelligent men have, at different times of their lives, abstained wholly from
flesh; and this, too, with very considerable advantage to their health.Ó The
fact that carnivorous diets were not the normal diet was stressed by many, ÒThe
most attentive researches, which I have been able to make into the health of
all these persons, induce me to believe that vegetable food is the natural diet
of man. I tried it once with very considerable advantage. My strength became
greater, my intellect clearer, my power of continued exertion protracted, and
my spirits much higher than they were when I lived on a mixed diet.Ó [16]
These Victorians (who were proponents of sparing animals lives) would agree
today with the Vegan diet.
The
Recommendations for Vegans
Animal testing was widely protested in the Victorian age, and the decline of animal abuse characterized much of the late 1800Õs. Mark Twain, in his short story, A DogÕs Tale wrote a first person (dog) account of a mother and her puppy that lived with a scientist; and an excerpt of the story follows in which the scientists performed optic tests on the motherÕs puppy, and she described the experience firsthand.
ÒThen they discussed optics, as the called it, and whether a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not agree about it, and said they must test it by experimentÉ. And one day those men cam again, and said now for the test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted! ÔThere, IÕve won—confess it! HeÕs as blind as a bat!Õ And they all said, ÔItÕs so—youÕve proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a great debt henceforth.Õ But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart that it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its motherÕs touch, though it could not see me. Then it drooped down, presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move anymore.Ó [18]
A mother comforts her puppies just like the mother in the
story.
Stories like that were meant to promote better treatment of animals and to decrease animal testing by connecting the reader to the mother dog. She had the same reaction that a human has with her child, which connected the sympathetic imagination to the feelings of the mother. The chemical composition of animals and humans was not their only similarity; maternal instinct was and never has been owned by a single species.
Compassion is what led many Victorians to engage in the
process of improving animal life, and led them to questions about the
relationships between animal life and human life. ÒHow can the advantages of
intellect and civilisation [sic] be reconciled with the liberty and pleasures
of natural life? How can we take the benefits and reject the evils of the
system which is now interwoven with the fibre [sic] of our being?Ó [19]
The realization that the two, animals and humans, were so similar summoned the
Victorians to change their behavior, by enacting laws and changing their
lifestyles. The SPCA was assembled in 1824 and began what they called a
Òrevolution in morals.Ó[20]
A bill was passed in 1821 that prevented Òcruel and improper treatment of
CattleÓ[21]
and was immediately circulated around London and protecting animal welfare
became the new societal pastime. ÒBy 1900 the RSPCA epitomized respectable
philanthropy; it had become Ôone of the standard charities remembered by
British maiden ladies and others when making their wills.ÕÓ[22]
Victorians identified people who advocated animal protection as people who had
the right morals and attitudes. Kindness to animals and the abstention of
consuming meat put people higher on the self-control scale: ÒThe need to be
kind to animals provided continual occasions to exercise self-controlÉThe
connection between cruelty to animals and bad behavior to humans proved
compelling and durable.Ó[23]
There was a sudden connection between compassion, sympathy and the treatment of
animals that moved people up in the social system: being humane became a Godly
trait worshiped by the Victorians.
High society meant
less animal cruelty[24]
The treatment of animals as research, food and creatures
similar to humans was a key issue in Victorian society. Through the use of
first person accounts as animals, the justification of a meat-free diet, and
the arguments against animal cruelty and labor, Victorian ideas of animal
treatment became more progressive and their disposition towards animals as
their ÒpeersÓ became more prominent. As increasing numbers of Victorians
embraced the idea of a sympathetic imagination, conditions for non-human
species steadily improved.
https://webspace.utexas.edu/cs4445/FINAL%20P2/revised.htm?uniq=g4fm8z
Word count: 2302
Without quotes:
1424