Whenwe add this intellectual revolution to the growth of
humanitarianfeelingthatprecededit,wemightthinkthatall
willnowbewell.Yet,asIhopetheprecedingchaptershave
made plain, thehuman“hand of tyranny”is still clamped
downonotherspecies,andweprobablyinflictmorepainon
animals nowthanatany othertimein history. Whatwent
wrong?
Ifwelookatwhatrelativelyadvancedthinkerswroteabout
animalsfromthetimewhen,towardtheendoftheeighteenth
century,therightofanimalstosomedegreeofconsideration
wasbeginningtobeaccepted,wemaynoticeaninteresting
fact.Withveryrareexceptionsthesewriters,eventhebestof
them,stopshortofthepointatwhichtheirargumentswould
lead themto facethe choice betweenbreaking the deeply
ingrained habit of eating the flesh of other animals or
admittingthattheydonotliveuptotheconclusionsoftheir
own moral arguments. This is an often-repeated pattern.
Whenreadingamongsourcesfromthelateeighteenthcentury
onward,onefrequentlycomesacrosspassagesinwhichthe
authorurgesthewrongnessofourtreatmentofotheranimals
insuchstrongtermsthatonefeelssurethathere,atlast,is
someone whohas freed himself altogether from speciesist
ideas—and hence, has freed himself too from the most
widespreadofallspeciesistpractices,thepracticeofeating
otheranimals. With one ortwo notable exceptions (in the
nineteenthcenturyLewisGompertzandHenrySalt),^40 oneis
always disappointed. Suddenly a qualification is made, or
some new consideration introduced, and the author spares
himselfthequalmsover hisdietthat hisargument seemed
sure to create.Whenthe history ofthe Animal Liberation
movement comes to be written, the era that began with
Bentham will be known as the era of excuses.