beinga“reasonablecreature”isthatonecanfindareasonfor
whatever one wants to do.^44
Itisalsopossibleforadeepthinkertoavoidconfrontingthe
troublesome issueof diet byregarding itas altogethertoo
profoundforthehumanmindtocomprehend.AsDr.Thomas
Arnold of Rugby wrote:
Thewholesubjectofthebrutecreationistomeoneofsuch
painful mystery that I dare not approach it.^45
This attitudewas sharedby theFrench historian Michelet;
being French, he expressed it less prosaically:
Animal Life,somber mystery!Immense world ofthoughts
and of dumb sufferings. All nature protests against the
barbarityofman,whomisapprehends,whohumiliates,who
tortureshisinferiorbrethren.Life,death!Thedailymurder
which feedinguponanimalsimplies—thosehard andbitter
problems sternly placed themselves before my mind.
Miserable contradiction. Let us hope that there may be
anothersphereinwhichthebase,thecruelfatalitiesofthis
may be spared to us.^46
Micheletseemstohavebelievedthatwecannotlivewithout
killing;if so, his anguish atthis “miserable contradiction”
musthavebeenininverseproportiontotheamountoftimehe
gave to examining it.
Anothertoacceptthecomfortableerrorthatwemustkillto
livewasArthurSchopenhauer.Schopenhauerwasinfluential
in introducing Eastern ideas to the West, and in several
passages he