Section 19
Original German
Bestätigungen des dargelegten Fundaments der Moral.
Die jetzt ausgesprochene Wahrheit, daß das Mitleid, als die einzige nicht egoistische, auch die alleinige ächt moralische Triebfeder sei, ist, seltsamer, ja, fast unbegreiflicher Weise, paradox. Ich will daher versuchen, sie den Ueberzeugungen des Lesers dadurch zu entfremden, daß ich sie als durch die Erfahrung und die Aussprüche des allgemeinen Menschengefühls bestätigt nachweise.
1) Zu diesem Zweck will ich zuvörderst einen beliebig erdachten Fall zum Beispiel nehmen, der in dieser Untersuchung als experimentum crucis gelten kann. Um mir aber nicht die Sache leicht zu machen, nehme ich keinen Fall der Menschenliebe, sondern eine Rechtsverletzung und zwar die stärkste. — Man setze zwei junge Leute, Kajus und Titus, beide leidenschaftlich verliebt, doch jeder in ein anderes Mädchen: und jedem stehe ein wegen äußerer Umstände bevorzugter Nebenbuhler durchaus im Wege. Beide seien entschlossen, jeder den seinigen aus der Welt zu schaffen, und Beide seien vor aller Entdeckung, sogar vor jedem Verdacht, vollkommen gesichert. Als jedoch Jeder seinerseits an die nähere Veranstaltung des Mordes geht, stehen Beide, nach einem Kampfe mit sich selbst, davon ab. Ueber die Gründe dieses Aufgebens ihres Entschlusses sollen sie uns aufrichtige und deutliche Rechenschaft ablegen. — Nun soll die Rechenschaft, welche Kajus giebt, ganz in die Wahl des Lesers gestellt seyn. Er mag etwan durch religiöse Gründe, wie den Willen Gottes, die dereinstige Vergeltung, das künftige Gericht u. dgl. abgehalten worden seyn. Oder aber er sage: „Ich bedachte, daß die Maxime meines Verfahrens in diesem Fall sich nicht geeignet haben würde, eine allgemein gültige Regel für alle möglichen vernünftigen Wesen abzugeben, indem ich ja meinen Nebenbuhler allein als Mittel und nicht zugleich als Zweck behandelt haben würde.“ — Oder er sage mit Fichte: „Jedes Menschenleben ist Mittel zur Realisation des Sittengesetzes: also kann ich nicht, ohne gegen die Realisation des Sittengesetzes gleichgültig zu seyn, Einen vernichten, der zu derselben beizutragen bestimmt ist.“ (Sittenlehre, S. 373.) — (Diesem Skrupel, beiläufig gesagt, könnte er dadurch begegnen, daß er, im Besitz seiner Geliebten, bald ein neues Instrument des Sittengesetzes zu produciren hofft.) — Oder er sage, nach Wollastone: „Ich habe überlegt, daß jene Handlung der Ausdruck eines unwahren Satzes seyn würde.“ — Oder er sage, nach Hutcheson: „Der moralische Sinn, dessen Empfindungen, wie die jedes andern Sinnes, nicht weiter erklärlich sind, hat mich bestimmt, es seyn zu lassen.“ — Oder er sage, nach Adam Smith: „Ich sah voraus, daß meine Handlung gar keine Sympathie mit mir in den Zuschauern derselben erregt haben würde.“ — Oder, nach Christian Wolff: „Ich erkannte, daß ich dadurch meiner eigenen Vervollkommnung entgegen arbeiten und auch keine fremde befördern würde.“ — Oder er sage, nach Spinoza: „Homini nihil utilius homine: ergo hominem interimere nolui.“ — Kurz, er sage, was man will. — Aber Titus, dessen Rechenschaft ich mir vorbehalte, der sage: „Wie es zu den Anstalten kam, und ich deshalb, für den Augenblick, mich nicht mit meiner Leidenschaft, sondern mit jenem Nebenbuhler zu beschäftigen hatte; da zuerst wurde mir recht deutlich, was jetzt mit ihm eigentlich vorgehen sollte. Aber nun ergriff mich Mitleid und Erbarmen, es jammerte mich seiner, ich konnte es nicht über’s Herz bringen: ich habe es nicht thun können.“ — Jetzt frage ich jeden redlichen und unbefangenen Leser: Welcher von Beiden ist der bessere Mensch? — Welchem von Beiden möchte er sein eigenes Schicksal lieber in die Hand geben? — Welcher von ihnen ist durch das reinere Motiv zurückgehalten worden? — Wo liegt demnach das Fundament der Moral?
2) Nichts empört so im tiefsten Grunde unser moralisches Gefühl, wie Grausamkeit. Jedes andere Verbrechen können wir verzeihen, nur Grausamkeit nicht. Der Grund hievon ist, daß Grausamkeit das gerade Gegentheil des Mitleids ist. Wenn wir von einer sehr grausamen That Kunde erhalten, wie z. B. die ist, welche eben jetzt die Zeitungen berichten, von einer Mutter, die ihren fünfjährigen Knaben dadurch gemordet hat, daß sie ihm siedendes Oel in den Schlund goß, und ihr jüngeres Kind dadurch, daß sie es lebendig begrub; — oder die, welche eben aus Algier gemeldet wird, daß nach einem zufälligen Streit und Kampf zwischen einem Spanier und einem Algierer, dieser, als der stärkere, jenem die ganze untere Kinnlade rein ausriß und als Trophäe davon trug, jenen lebend zurücklassend; — dann werden wir von Entsetzen ergriffen und rufen aus: „Wie ist es möglich, so etwas zu thun?“ — Was ist der Sinn dieser Frage? Ist er vielleicht: Wie ist es möglich, die Strafen des künftigen Lebens so wenig zu fürchten? — Schwerlich. — Oder: Wie ist es möglich, nach einer Maxime zu handeln, die so gar nicht geeignet ist, ein allgemeines Gesetz für alle vernünftigen Wesen zu werden? — Gewiß nicht. — Oder: Wie ist es möglich, seine eigene und die fremde Vollkommenheit so sehr zu vernachlässigen? — Eben so wenig. — Der Sinn jener Frage ist ganz gewiß bloß dieser: Wie ist es möglich, so ganz ohne Mitleid zu seyn? — Also ist es der größte Mangel an Mitleid, der einer That den Stämpel der tiefsten moralischen Verworfenheit und Abscheulichkeit aufdrückt. Folglich ist Mitleid die eigentliche moralische Triebfeder.
3) Ueberhaupt ist die von mir aufgestellte Grundlage der Moral und Triebfeder der Moralität die einzige, der sich eine reale, ja, ausgedehnte Wirksamkeit nachrühmen läßt. Denn von den übrigen Moralprincipien der Philosophen wird dies wohl Niemand behaupten wollen; da diese aus abstrakten, zum Theil selbst spitzfindigen Sätzen bestehen, ohne anderes Fundament, als eine künstliche Begriffskombination, so daß ihre Anwendung auf das wirkliche Handeln sogar oft eine lächerliche Seite haben würde. Eine gute That, bloß aus Rücksicht auf das Kantische Moralprincip vollbracht, würde im Grunde das Werk eines philosophischen Pedantismus seyn, oder aber auf Selbsttäuschung hinauslaufen, indem die Vernunft des Handelnden eine That, welche andere, vielleicht edlere Triebfedern hätte, als das Produkt des kategorischen Imperativs und des auf nichts gestützten Begriffs der Pflicht auslegte. Aber nicht nur von den philosophischen, auf bloße Theorie berechneten, sondern sogar auch von den ganz zum praktischen Behuf aufgestellten religiösen Moralprincipien läßt sich selten eine entschiedene Wirksamkeit nachweisen. Dies sehen wir zuvörderst daran, daß, trotz der großen Religionsverschiedenheit auf Erden, der Grad der Moralität, oder vielmehr Immoralität, durchaus keine jener entsprechende Verschiedenheit aufweist, sondern, im Wesentlichen, so ziemlich überall der selbe ist. Nur muß man nicht Rohheit und Verfeinerung mit Moralität und Immoralität verwechseln. Die Religion der Griechen hatte eine äußerst geringe, fast nur auf den Eid beschränkte moralische Tendenz; es wurde kein Dogma gelehrt und keine Moral öffentlich gepredigt: wir sehen aber nicht, daß deshalb die Griechen, Alles zusammengenommen, moralisch schlechter gewesen wären, als die Menschen der Christlichen Jahrhunderte. Die Moral des Christenthums ist viel höherer Art, als die der übrigen Religionen, die jemals in Europa aufgetreten sind: aber wer deshalb glauben wollte, daß die Europäische Moralität sich in eben dem Maaße verbessert hätte und jetzt wenigstens unter den gleichzeitigen excellirte, den würde man nicht nur bald überführen können, daß unter Mohammedanern, Gebern, Hindu und Buddhaisten mindestens eben so viel Redlichkeit, Treue, Toleranz, Sanftmuth, Wohlthätigkeit, Edelmuth und Selbstverleugnung gefunden wird, als unter den Christlichen Völkern; sondern sogar würde das lange Verzeichniß unmenschlicher Grausamkeiten, die das Christenthum begleitet haben, in den zahlreichen Religionskriegen, den unverantwortlichen Kreuzzügen, in der Ausrottung eines großen Theils der Ureinwohner Amerikas und Bevölkerung dieses Welttheils mit aus Afrika herangeschleppten, ohne Recht, ohne einen Schein des Rechts, ihren Familien, ihrem Vaterlande, ihrem Welttheil entrissenen und zu endloser Zuchthausarbeit verdammten Negersklaven22, in den unermüdlichen Ketzerverfolgungen und himmelschreienden Inquisitionsgerichten, in der Bartholomäusnacht, in der Hinrichtung von 18000 Niederländern durch Alba, u. s. w. u. s. w. — eher einen Ausschlag zu Ungunsten des Christenthums besorgen lassen. Ueberhaupt aber, wenn man die vortreffliche Moral, welche die Christliche und mehr oder weniger jede Religion predigt, vergleicht mit der Praxis ihrer Bekenner, und sich vorstellt, wohin es mit dieser kommen würde, wenn nicht der weltliche Arm die Verbrechen verhinderte, ja, was wir zu befürchten hätten, wenn auch nur auf Einen Tag alle Gesetze aufgehoben würden; so wird man bekennen müssen, daß die Wirkung aller Religionen auf die Moralität eigentlich sehr geringe ist. Hieran ist freilich die Glaubensschwäche Schuld. Theoretisch und so lange es bei der frommen Betrachtung bleibt, scheint Jedem sein Glaube fest. Allein die That ist der harte Probierstein aller unserer Ueberzeugungen: wenn es zu ihr kommt und nun der Glaube durch große Entsagungen und schwere Opfer bewährt werden soll; da zeigt sich die Schwäche desselben. Wenn ein Mensch ein Verbrechen ernstlich meditirt; so hat er die Schranke der ächten reinen Moralität bereits durchbrochen: danach aber ist das Erste, was ihn aufhält, alle Mal der Gedanke an Justiz und Polizei. Entschlägt er sich dessen, durch die Hoffnung diesen zu entgehen; so ist die zweite Schranke, die sich ihm entgegenstellt, die Rücksicht auf seine Ehre. Kommt er nun aber auch über diese Schutzwehr hinweg; so ist sehr viel dagegen zu wetten, daß, nach Ueberwindung dieser zwei mächtigen Widerstände, jetzt noch irgend ein Religionsdogma Macht genug über ihn haben werde, um ihn von der That zurückzuhalten. Denn wen nahe und gewisse Gefahren nicht abschrecken, den werden die entfernten und bloß auf Glauben beruhenden schwerlich in Zaum halten. Ueberdies läßt sich gegen jede ganz allein aus religiösen Ueberzeugungen hervorgegangene gute Handlung noch einwenden, daß sie nicht uneigennützig gewesen, sondern aus Rücksicht auf Lohn und Strafe geschehen sei, folglich keinen rein moralischen Werth habe. Diese Einsicht finden wir stark ausgedrückt in einem Briefe des berühmten Großherzogs Karl August von Weimar, wo es heißt: „Baron Weyhers fand selber, das müsse ein schlechter Kerl sein, der durch Religion gut, und nicht von Natur dazu geneigt sei. In vino veritas.“ (Briefe an J. H. Merck, Br. 229.) — Nun betrachte man dagegen die von mir aufgestellte moralische Triebfeder. Wer wagt es, einen Augenblick in Abrede zu stellen, daß sie zu allen Zeiten, unter allen Völkern, in allen Lagen des Lebens, auch im gesetzlosen Zustande, auch mitten unter den Gräueln der Revolutionen und Kriege, und im Großen wie im Kleinen, jeden Tag und jede Stunde, eine entschiedene und wahrhaft wundersame Wirksamkeit äußert, täglich vieles Unrecht verhindert, gar manche gute That, ohne alle Hoffnung auf Lohn und oft ganz unerwartet ins Daseyn ruft, und daß wo sie und nur sie allein wirksam gewesen, wir Alle mit Rührung und Hochachtung der That den ächten moralischen Werth unbedingt zugestehen.
4) Denn gränzenloses Mitleid mit allen lebenden Wesen ist der festeste und sicherste Bürge für das sittliche Wohlverhalten und bedarf keiner Kasuistik. Wer davon erfüllt ist, wird zuverlässig Keinen verletzen, Keinen beeinträchtigen, Keinem wehe thun, vielmehr mit Jedem Nachsicht haben, Jedem verzeihen, Jedem helfen, so viel er vermag, und alle seine Handlungen werden das Gepräge der Gerechtigkeit und Menschenliebe tragen. Hingegen versuche man ein Mal zu sagen: „Dieser Mensch ist tugendhaft, aber er kennt kein Mitleid.“ Oder: „Es ist ein ungerechter und boshafter Mensch; jedoch ist er sehr mitleidig“; so wird der Widerspruch fühlbar. — Der Geschmack ist verschieden; aber ich weiß mir kein schöneres Gebet, als Das, womit die Alt-Indischen Schauspiele (wie in früheren Zeiten die Englischen mit dem für den König) schließen. Es lautet: „Mögen alle lebende Wesen von Schmerzen frei bleiben.“
5) Auch aus einzelnen Zügen läßt sich entnehmen, daß die wahre moralische Grundtriebfeder das Mitleid ist. Es ist, z. B., eben so unrecht, einen Reichen, wie einen Armen, durch gefahrlose legale Kniffe, um hundert Thaler zu bringen: aber die Vorwürfe des Gewissens und der Tadel der unbetheiligten Zeugen werden im zweiten Fall sehr viel lauter und heftiger ausfallen; daher auch schon Aristoteles sagt: δεινότερον δέ ἐστι τὸν ἀτυχοῦντα, ἢ τὸν εὐτυχοῦντα, ἀδικεῖν (iniquius autem est, injuriam homini infortunato, quam fortunato, intulisse), Probl., XXIX, 2. Hingegen werden die Vorwürfe noch leiser, als im ersten Falle seyn, wenn es eine Staatskasse ist, die man übervortheilt hat: denn diese kann kein Gegenstand des Mitleids seyn. Man sieht, daß nicht unmittelbar die Rechtsverletzung, sondern zunächst das dadurch auf den Andern gebrachte Leiden den Stoff des eigenen und fremden Tadels liefert. Die bloße Rechtsverletzung als solche, z. B. die obige gegen eine Staatskasse, wird zwar auch vom Gewissen und von Andern gemißbilligt werden, aber nur sofern die Maxime, jedes Recht zu achten, welche den wahrhaft ehrlichen Mann macht, dadurch gebrochen ist; also mittelbar und im geringern Grade. War es jedoch eine anvertraute Staatskasse, so ist der Fall ein ganz anderer, indem hier der oben festgestellte Begriff der doppelten Ungerechtigkeit, mit seinen specifischen Eigenschaften, eintritt. Auf dem hier Auseinandergesetzten beruht es, daß der schwerste Vorwurf, welcher habsüchtigen Erpressern und legalen Schurken überall gemacht wird, der ist, daß sie das Gut der Wittwen und Waisen an sich gerissen haben: eben weil diese, als ganz hülflos, mehr noch, als Andere, hätten das Mitleid erwecken sollen. Der gänzliche Mangel an diesem ist es also, welcher den Menschen der Ruchlosigkeit überführt.
6) Noch augenscheinlicher, als der Gerechtigkeit, liegt der Menschenliebe Mitleid zum Grunde. Keiner wird von Andern Beweise ächter Menschenliebe erhalten, so lange es ihm in jedem Betracht wohl geht. Der Glückliche kann zwar das Wohlwollen seiner Angehörigen und Freunde vielfach erfahren: aber die Aeußerungen jener reinen, uneigennützigen, objektiven Theilnahme am fremden Zustand und Schicksal, welche Wirkung der Menschenliebe sind, bleiben dem in irgend einem Betracht Leidenden aufbehalten. Denn an dem Glücklichen als solchem nehmen wir nicht Theil; vielmehr bleibt er als solcher unserm Herzen fremd: habeat sibi sua. Ja, er wird, wenn er Viel vor Andern voraus hat, leicht Neid erregen, welcher droht, bei seinem einstigen Sturz von der Höhe des Glücks, sich in Schadenfreude zu verwandeln. Jedoch bleibt diese Drohung meistens unerfüllt und es kommt nicht zu dem Sophokleischen γελῶσι δ’ ἐχθροί (rident inimici). Denn sobald der Glückliche stürzt, geht eine große Umgestaltung in den Herzen der Uebrigen vor, welche für unsere Betrachtung belehrend ist. Nämlich zuvörderst zeigt sich jetzt, welcher Art der Antheil war, den die Freunde seines Glücks an ihm nahmen: diffugiunt cadis cum faece siccatis amici. Aber andererseits, was er mehr fürchtete, als das Unglück selbst, und was zu denken ihm unerträglich fiel, das Frohlocken der Neider seines Glücks, das Hohngelächter der Schadenfreude, bleibt meistens aus: der Neid ist versöhnt, er ist mit seiner Ursache verschwunden, und das jetzt an seine Stelle tretende Mitleid gebiert die Menschenliebe. Oft haben die Neider und Feinde eines Glücklichen, bei seinem Sturz, sich in schonende, tröstende und helfende Freunde verwandelt. Wer hat nicht, wenigstens in schwächeren Graden, etwas der Art an sich selbst erlebt und, von irgend einem Unglücksfall betroffen, mit Ueberraschung gesehen, daß Die, welche bisher die größte Kälte, sogar Uebelwollen gegen ihn verriethen, jetzt mit ungeheuchelter Theilnahme an ihn herantraten. Denn Unglück ist die Bedingung des Mitleids und Mitleid die Quelle der Menschenliebe. — Dieser Betrachtung verwandt ist die Bemerkung, daß unsern Zorn, selbst wenn er gerecht ist, nichts so schnell besänftigt, wie hinsichtlich des Gegenstandes desselben die Rede: „es ist ein Unglücklicher“. Denn was für das Feuer der Regen, das ist für den Zorn das Mitleid. Dieserhalb rathe ich Dem, der nicht gern etwas zu bereuen haben möchte, daß, wenn er von Zorn gegen einen Andern entbrannt, diesem ein großes Leid zuzufügen gedenkt, er sich lebhaft vorstellen möge, er hätte es ihm bereits zugefügt, sähe ihn jetzt mit seinen geistigen, oder körperlichen Schmerzen, oder Noth und Elend, ringen, und müßte zu sich sagen: das ist mein Werk. Wenn irgend Etwas, so vermag dieses seinen Zorn zu dämpfen. Denn Mitleid ist das rechte Gegengift des Zorns, und durch jenen Kunstgriff gegen sich selbst anticipirt man, während es noch Zeit ist,
la pitié, dont la voix,Alors qu’on est vengé, fait entendre ses lois.Volt., „Sémiramis“, A. 5, Sc. 6.
Ueberhaupt wird unsere gehässige Stimmung gegen Andere durch nichts so leicht beseitigt, als wenn wir einen Gesichtspunkt fassen, von welchem aus sie unser Mitleid in Anspruch nehmen. — Sogar daß Eltern, in der Regel, das kränkliche Kind am meisten lieben, beruht darauf, daß es immerfort Mitleid erregt.
7) Die von mir aufgestellte moralische Triebfeder bewährt sich als die ächte ferner dadurch, daß sie auch die Thiere in ihren Schutz nimmt, für welche in den andern Europäischen Moralsystemen so unverantwortlich schlecht gesorgt ist. Die vermeinte Rechtlosigkeit der Thiere, der Wahn, daß unser Handeln gegen sie ohne moralische Bedeutung sei, oder, wie es in der Sprache jener Moral heißt, daß es gegen Thiere keine Pflichten gebe, ist geradezu eine empörende Rohheit und Barbarei des Occidents, deren Quelle im Judenthum liegt. In der Philosophie beruht sie auf der aller Evidenz zum Trotz angenommenen gänzlichen Verschiedenheit zwischen Mensch und Thier, welche bekanntlich am entschiedensten und grellsten von Kartesius ausgesprochen ward, als eine nothwendige Konsequenz seiner Irrthümer. Als nämlich die Kartesisch-Leibnitz-Wolffische Philosophie aus abstrakten Begriffen die rationale Psychologie aufbaute und eine unsterbliche anima rationalis konstruirte; da traten die natürlichen Ansprüche der Thierwelt diesem exklusiven Privilegio und Unsterblichkeits-Patent der Menschenspecies augenscheinlich entgegen, und die Natur legte, wie bei allen solchen Gelegenheiten, still ihren Protest ein. Nun mußten die von ihrem intellektuellen Gewissen geängstigten Philosophen suchen, die rationale Psychologie durch die empirische zu stützen und daher bemüht seyn, zwischen Mensch und Thier eine ungeheuere Kluft, einen unermeßlichen Abstand zu eröffnen, um, aller Evidenz zum Trotz, sie als von Grund aus verschieden darzustellen. Solcher Bemühungen spottet schon Boileau:
Les animaux ont-ils des universités?Voit-on fleurir chez eux des quatre facultés?
Da sollten am Ende gar die Thiere sich nicht von der Außenwelt zu unterscheiden wissen und kein Bewußtseyn ihrer selbst, kein Ich haben! Gegen solche abgeschmackte Behauptungen darf man nur auf den jedem Thiere, selbst dem kleinsten und letzten, inwohnenden gränzenlosen Egoismus hindeuten, der hinlänglich bezeugt, wie sehr die Thiere sich ihres Ichs, der Welt oder dem Nicht-Ich gegenüber, bewußt sind. Wenn so ein Kartesianer sich zwischen den Klauen eines Tigers befände, würde er auf das deutlichste inne werden, welchen scharfen Unterschied ein solcher zwischen seinem Ich und Nicht-Ich setzt. Solchen Sophistikationen der Philosophen entsprechend finden wir, auf dem populären Wege, die Eigenheit mancher Sprachen, namentlich der deutschen, daß sie für das Essen, Trinken, Schwangerseyn, Gebären, Sterben und den Leichnam der Thiere ganz eigene Worte haben, um nicht die gebrauchen zu müssen, welche jene Akte beim Menschen bezeichnen, und so unter der Diversität der Worte die vollkommene Identität der Sache zu verstecken. Da die alten Sprachen eine solche Duplicität der Ausdrücke nicht kennen, sondern unbefangen die selbe Sache mit dem selben Worte bezeichnen; so ist jener elende Kunstgriff ohne Zweifel das Werk Europäischer Pfaffenschaft, die, in ihrer Profanität, nicht glaubt weit genug gehen zu können im Verleugnen und Lästern des ewigen Wesens, welches in allen Thieren lebt; wodurch sie den Grund gelegt hat zu der in Europa üblichen Härte und Grausamkeit gegen Thiere, auf welche ein Hochasiate nur mit gerechtem Abscheu hinsehen kann. In der Englischen Sprache begegnen wir jenem nichtswürdigen Kunstgriff nicht; ohne Zweifel, weil die Sachsen, als sie England eroberten, noch keine Christen waren. Dagegen findet sich ein Analogon desselben in der Eigenthümlichkeit, daß im Englischen alle Thiere generis neutrius sind und daher durch das Pronomen it (es) vertreten werden, ganz wie leblose Dinge; welches, zumal bei den Primaten, wie Hunde, Affen u. s. w., ganz empörend ausfällt und unverkennbar ein Pfaffenkniff ist, um die Thiere zu Sachen herabzusetzen. Die alten Aegypter, deren ganzes Leben religiösen Zwecken geweiht war, setzten in den selben Grüften die Mumien der Menschen und die der Ibisse, Krokodile u. s. w. bei: aber in Europa ist es ein Gräuel und Verbrechen, wenn der treue Hund neben der Ruhestätte seines Herrn begraben wird, auf welcher er bisweilen, aus einer Treue und Anhänglichkeit, wie sie beim Menschengeschlechte nicht gefunden wird, seinen eigenen Tod abgewartet hat. — Auf die Erkenntniß der Identität des Wesentlichen in der Erscheinung des Thiers und der des Menschen leitet nichts entschiedener hin, als die Beschäftigung mit Zoologie und Anatomie: was soll man daher sagen, wenn heut zu Tage (1839) ein frömmelnder Zootom einen absoluten und radikalen Unterschied zwischen Mensch und Thier zu urgiren sich erdreistet und hierin so weit geht, die redlichen Zoologen, welche, fern von aller Pfäfferei, Augendienerei und Tartüffianismus, an der Hand der Natur und Wahrheit ihren Weg verfolgen, anzugreifen und zu verunglimpfen?
Man muß wahrlich an allen Sinnen blind, oder vom foetor Judaicus total chloroformirt seyn, um nicht zu erkennen, daß das Wesentliche und Hauptsächliche im Thiere und im Menschen das Selbe ist, und daß was Beide unterscheidet, nicht im Primären, im Princip, im Archäus, im innern Wesen, im Kern beider Erscheinungen liegt, als welcher in der einen wie in der andern der Wille des Individuums ist, sondern allein im Sekundären, im Intellekt, im Grad der Erkenntnißkraft, welcher beim Menschen, durch das hinzugekommene Vermögen abstrakter Erkenntniß, genannt Vernunft, ein ungleich höherer ist, jedoch erweislich nur vermöge einer größern cerebralen Entwickelung, also der somatischen Verschiedenheit eines einzigen Theiles, des Gehirns, und namentlich seiner Quantität nach. Hingegen ist des Gleichartigen zwischen Thier und Mensch, sowohl psychisch als somatisch, ohne allen Vergleich mehr. So einem occidentalischen, judaisirten Thierverächter und Vernunftidolater muß man in Erinnerung bringen, daß, wie Er von seiner Mutter, so auch der Hund von der seinigen gesäugt worden ist. Daß sogar Kant in jenen Fehler der Zeit- und Landesgenossen gefallen ist, habe ich oben gerügt. Daß die Moral des Christenthums die Thiere nicht berücksichtigt, ist ein Mangel derselben, den es besser ist einzugestehen, als zu perpetuiren, und über den man sich um so mehr wundern muß, als diese Moral im Uebrigen die größte Uebereinstimmung zeigt mit der des Brahmanismus und Buddhaismus, bloß weniger stark ausgedrückt und nicht bis zu den Extremen durchgeführt ist; daher man kaum zweifeln kann, daß sie, wie auch die Idee von einem Mensch gewordenen Gotte (Avatar), aus Indien stammt und über Aegypten nach Judäa gekommen seyn mag; so daß das Christenthum ein Abglanz Indischen Urlichtes von den Ruinen Aegyptens wäre, welcher aber leider auf Jüdischen Boden fiel. Als ein artiges Symbol des eben gerügten Mangels in der christlichen Moral, bei ihrer sonstigen großen Uebereinstimmung mit der Indischen, ließe sich der Umstand auffassen, daß Johannes der Täufer ganz in der Weise eines Indischen Saniassi’s auftritt, dabei aber — in Thierfelle gekleidet! welches bekanntlich jedem Hindu ein Gräuel seyn würde; da sogar die Königliche Societät zu Kalkutta ihr Exemplar der Veden nur unter dem Versprechen erhielt, daß sie es nicht, nach Europäischer Weise, in Leder binden lassen würde: daher es sich in ihrer Bibliothek in Seide gebunden vorfindet. Einen ähnlichen, charakteristischen Kontrast bietet die Evangelische Geschichte vom Fischzuge Petri, den der Heiland, durch ein Wunder, dermaaßen segnet, daß die Böte mit Fischen bis zum Sinken überfüllt werden (Luk. 5), mit der Geschichte von dem in Aegyptische Weisheit eingeweihten Pythagoras, welcher den Fischern ihren Zug, während das Netz noch unter dem Wasser liegt, abkauft, um sodann allen gefangenen Fischen ihre Freiheit zu schenken (Apul. de magia, p. 36. Bip.). — Mitleid mit Thieren hängt mit der Güte des Charakters so genau zusammen, daß man zuversichtlich behaupten darf, wer gegen Thiere grausam ist, könne kein guter Mensch seyn. Auch zeigt dieses Mitleid sich als aus der selben Quelle mit der gegen Menschen zu übenden Tugend entsprungen. So z. B. werden fein fühlende Personen, bei der Erinnerung, daß sie, in übler Laune, im Zorn, oder vom Wein erhitzt, ihren Hund, ihr Pferd, ihren Affen unverdienter oder unnöthiger Weise, oder über die Gebühr gemißhandelt haben, die selbe Reue, die selbe Unzufriedenheit mit sich selbst empfinden, welche bei der Erinnerung an gegen Menschen verübtes Unrecht empfunden wird, wo sie die Stimme des strafenden Gewissens heißt. Ich erinnere mich, gelesen zu haben, daß ein Engländer, der in Indien, auf der Jagd, einen Affen geschossen hatte, den Blick, welchen dieser im Sterben auf ihn warf, nicht vergessen gekonnt und seitdem nie mehr auf Affen geschossen hat. Eben so Wilhelm Harris, ein wahrer Nimrod, der, bloß um das Vergnügen der Jagd zu genießen, in den Jahren 1836 und 1837 tief in das innere Afrika reiste. In seiner 1838 zu Bombay erschienenen Reise erzählt er, daß, nachdem er den ersten Elephanten, welches ein weiblicher war, erlegt hatte und am folgenden Morgen das gefallene Thier aufsuchte, alle anderen Elephanten aus der Gegend entflohen waren: bloß das Junge des gefallenen hatte die Nacht bei der todten Mutter zugebracht, kam jetzt, alle Furcht vergessend, den Jägern mit den lebhaftesten und deutlichsten Bezeugungen seines trostlosen Jammers entgegen, und umschlang sie mit seinem kleinen Rüssel, um ihre Hülfe anzurufen. Da, sagt Harris, habe ihn eine wahre Reue über seine That ergriffen und sei ihm zu Muthe gewesen, als hätte er einen Mord begangen. Diese fein fühlende Englische Nation sehen wir, vor allen anderen, durch ein hervorstechendes Mitleid mit Thieren ausgezeichnet, welches sich bei jeder Gelegenheit kund giebt und die Macht gehabt hat, dieselbe, dem sie übrigens degradirenden „kalten Aberglauben“ zum Trotz, dahin zu bewegen, daß sie die in der Moral von der Religion gelassene Lücke durch die Gesetzgebung ausfüllte. Denn diese Lücke eben ist Ursache, daß man in Europa und Amerika der Thier-Schutz-Vereine bedarf, welche selbst nur mittelst Hülfe der Justiz und Polizei wirken können. In Asien gewähren die Religionen den Thieren hinlänglichen Schutz, daher dort kein Mensch an dergleichen Vereine denkt. Indessen erwacht auch in Europa mehr und mehr der Sinn für die Rechte der Thiere, in dem Maaße, als die seltsamen Begriffe von einer bloß zum Nutzen und Ergötzen der Menschen ins Daseyn gekommenen Thierwelt, in Folge welcher man die Thiere ganz als Sachen behandelt, allmälig verblassen und verschwinden. Denn diese sind die Quelle der rohen und ganz rücksichtslosen Behandlung der Thiere in Europa, und habe ich den Alttestamentlichen Ursprung derselben nachgewiesen im zweiten Bande der Parerga, §. 177. Zum Ruhme der Engländer also sei es gesagt, daß bei ihnen zuerst das Gesetz auch die Thiere ganz ernstlich gegen grausame Behandlung in Schutz genommen hat, und der Bösewicht es wirklich büßen muß, daß er gegen Thiere, selbst wenn sie ihm gehören, gefrevelt hat. Ja, hiemit noch nicht zufrieden, besteht in London eine zum Schutz der Thiere freiwillig zusammengetretene Gesellschaft, Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, welche, auf Privatwegen, mit bedeutendem Aufwande, sehr viel thut, um der Thierquälerei entgegen zu arbeiten. Ihre Emissarien passen heimlich auf, um nachher als Denunzianten der Quäler sprachloser, empfindender Wesen aufzutreten, und überall hat man deren Gegenwart zu befürchten.23 Bei steilen Brücken in London hält die Gesellschaft ein Gespann Pferde, welches jedem schwer beladenen Wagen unentgeltlich vorgelegt wird. Ist das nicht schön? Erzwingt es nicht unsern Beifall, so gut wie eine Wohlthat gegen Menschen? Auch die Philantropic Society zu London setzte ihrerseits im Jahre 1837 einen Preis von 30 Pfund aus, für die beste Darlegung moralischer Gründe gegen Thierquälerei, welche jedoch hauptsächlich aus dem Christenthum genommen seyn sollten, wodurch freilich die Aufgabe erschwert war: der Preis ist 1839 dem Herrn Macnamara zuerkannt worden. In Philadelphia besteht, zu ähnlichen Zwecken, eine Animals friends Society. Dem Präsidenten derselben hat T. Forster (ein Engländer) sein Buch Philozoia, moral reflections on the actual condition of animals and the means of improving the same (Brüssel 1839) dedicirt. Das Buch ist originell und gut geschrieben. Als Engländer sucht der Verfasser seine Ermahnungen zu menschlicher Behandlung der Thiere natürlich auch auf die Bibel zu stützen, gleitet jedoch
in der Procession sehr genirt ausgesehen haben. — Aber ein noch strengeres Exempel aus neuerer Zeit finden wir in den Times vom 6. April 1855, S. 6, und zwar eigentlich von dieser Zeitung selbst statuirt. Sie berichtet nämlich den gerichtlich gewordenen Fall der Tochter eines sehr begüterten Schottischen Baronets, welche ihr Pferd höchst grausam, mit Knüttel und Messer, gepeinigt hatte, wofür sie zu 5 Pfund Sterling Strafe verurtheilt worden war. Daraus nun aber macht so ein Mädchen sich nichts, und würde also eigentlich ungestraft davon gehüpft seyn, wenn nicht die Times mit der rechten und empfindlichen Züchtigung nachgekommen wären, indem sie, die Vor- und Zunamen des Mädchens zwei Mal, mit großen Buchstaben hinsetzend, fortfahren: „Wir können nicht umhin, zu sagen, daß ein Paar Monat Gefängnißstrafe, nebst einigen, privatim, aber vom handfestesten Weibe in Hampshire applicirten Auspeitschungen eine viel passendere Bestrafung der Miß N. N. gewesen seyn würde. Eine Elende dieser Art hat alle ihrem Geschlechte zustehenden Rücksichten und Vorrechte verwirkt: wir können sie nicht mehr als ein Weib betrachten.“ — Ich widme diese Zeitungsnachrichten besonders den jetzt in Deutschland errichteten Vereinen gegen Thierquälerei, damit sie sehen, wie man es angreifen muß, wenn es etwas werden soll; wiewohl ich dem preiswürdigen Eifer des Herrn Hofrath Perner in München, der sich diesem Zweige der Wohlthätigkeit gänzlich gewidmet hat und die Anregung dazu über ganz Deutschland verbreitet, meine volle Anerkennung zolle. überall ab; so daß er endlich zu dem Argument greift, Jesus Christus sei ja im Stalle bei Oechselein und Eselein geboren, wodurch symbolisch angedeutet wäre, daß wir die Thiere als unsere Brüder zu betrachten und demgemäß zu behandeln hätten. — Alles hier Angeführte bezeugt, daß die in Rede stehende moralische Seite nachgerade auch in der occidentalischen Welt anzuklingen beginnt. Daß übrigens das Mitleid mit Thieren nicht so weit führen muß, daß wir, wie die Brahmanen, uns der thierischen Nahrung zu enthalten hätten, beruht darauf, daß in der Natur die Fähigkeit zum Leiden gleichen Schritt hält mit der Intelligenz; weshalb der Mensch durch Entbehrung der thierischen Nahrung, zumal im Norden, mehr leiden würde, als das Thier durch einen schnellen und stets unvorhergesehenen Tod, welchen man jedoch mittelst Chloroform noch mehr erleichtern sollte. Ohne thierische Nahrung hingegen würde das Menschengeschlecht im Norden nicht ein Mal bestehen können. Nach dem selben Maaßstabe läßt der Mensch das Thier auch für sich arbeiten, und nur das Uebermaaß der aufgelegten Anstrengung wird zur Grausamkeit.
8) Sehen wir ein Mal ganz ab von aller, vielleicht möglichen, metaphysischen Erforschung des letzten Grundes jenes Mitleids, aus welchem allein die nicht-egoistischen Handlungen hervorgehen können, und betrachten wir dasselbe vom empirischen Standpunkt aus, bloß als Naturanstalt; so wird Jedem einleuchten, daß zu möglichster Linderung der zahllosen und vielgestalteten Leiden, denen unser Leben ausgesetzt ist und welchen Keiner ganz entgeht, wie zugleich als Gegengewicht des brennenden Egoismus, der alle Wesen erfüllt und oft in Bosheit übergeht, — die Natur nichts Wirksameres leisten konnte, als daß sie in das menschliche Herz jene wundersame Anlage pflanzte, vermöge welcher das Leiden des Einen vom Andern mitempfunden wird, und aus der die Stimme hervorgeht, welche, je nachdem der Anlaß ist, Diesem „Schone!“ Jenem „Hilf!“ stark und vernehmlich zuruft. Gewiß war von dem hieraus entspringenden gegenseitigen Beistande für die Wohlfahrt Aller mehr zu hoffen, als von einem allgemeinen und abstrakten, aus gewissen Vernunftbetrachtungen und Begriffskombinationen sich ergebenden, strengen Pflichtgebot, von welchem um so weniger Erfolg zu erwarten stände, als dem rohen Menschen allgemeine Sätze und abstrakte Wahrheiten ganz unverständlich sind, indem für ihn nur das Konkrete etwas ist, — die ganze Menschheit aber, mit Ausnahme eines äußerst kleinen Theils, stets roh war und bleiben muß, weil die viele, für das Ganze unumgänglich nöthige körperliche Arbeit die Ausbildung des Geistes nicht zuläßt. Hingegen zur Erweckung des als die alleinige Quelle uneigennütziger Handlungen und deshalb als die wahre Basis der Moralität nachgewiesenen Mitleids, bedarf es keiner abstrakten, sondern nur der anschauenden Erkenntniß, der bloßen Auffassung des konkreten Falles, auf welche dasselbe, ohne weitere Gedankenvermittlung, sogleich anspricht.
9) In völliger Uebereinstimmung mit dieser letzten Betrachtung werden wir folgenden Umstand finden. Die Begründung, welche ich der Ethik gegeben habe, läßt mich zwar unter den Schulphilosophen ohne Vorgänger, ja, sie ist, in Beziehung auf die Lehrmeinungen dieser, paradox, indem Manche von ihnen, z. B. die Stoiker (Sen., De clem., II, 5), Spinoza (Eth., IV, prop. 50), Kant (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, S. 213; — R., S. 257), das Mitleid geradezu verwerfen und tadeln. Dagegen aber hat meine Begründung die Autorität des größten Moralisten der ganzen neuern Zeit für sich: denn dies ist, ohne Zweifel, J. J. Rousseau, der tiefe Kenner des menschlichen Herzens, der seine Weisheit nicht aus Büchern, sondern aus dem Leben schöpfte, und seine Lehre nicht für das Katheder, sondern für die Menschheit bestimmte, er, der Feind der Vorurtheile, der Zögling der Natur, welchem allein sie die Gabe verliehen hatte, moralisiren zu können, ohne langweilig zu seyn, weil er die Wahrheit traf und das Herz rührte. Von ihm also will ich einige Stellen zur Bestätigung meiner Ansicht herzusetzen mir erlauben, nachdem ich im Bisherigen mit Anführungen so sparsam wie möglich gewesen bin.
Im Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité, S. 91 (edit. Bip.), sagt er: Il y a un autre principe, que Hobbes n’a point apperçu, et qui ayant été donné à l’homme pour adoucir, en certaines circonstances, la férocité de son amour-propre, tempère l’ardeur qu’il a pour son bien-être par une répugnance innée à voir souffrir son semblable. Je ne crois pas avoir aucune contradiction à craindre en accordant à l’homme la seule vertu naturelle qu’ait été forcé de reconnaitre le détracteur le plus outré des vertus humaines. Je parle de la pitié etc. — S. 92: Mandeville a bien senti qu’avec toute leur morale les hommes n’eussent jamais été que des monstres, si la nature ne leur eut donné la pitié à l’appui de la raison: mais il n’a pas vû, que de cette seule qualité découlent toutes les vertus sociales, qu’il veut disputer aux hommes. En effet qu’est-ce-que la générosité, la clémence, l’humanité, sinon la pitié appliquée aux faibles, aux coupables, ou à l’espèce humaine en général? La bienveillance et l’amitié même sont, à le bien prendre, des productions d’une pitié constante, fixée sur un objet particulier; car désirer que quelqu’un ne souffre point, qu’est-ce autre-chose, que désirer qu’il soit heureux? — — La commisération sera d’autant plus énergique, que l’animal spectateur s’identifiera plus intimément avec l’animal souffrant. — S. 94: Il est donc bien certain, que la pitié est un sentiment naturel, qui, modérant dans chaque individu l’amour de soi-même, concourt à la conservation mutuelle de toute l’espèce. C’est elle, qui dans l’état de nature, tient lieu de lois, de moeurs et de vertus, avec cet avantage, que nul ne sera tenté de désobéir à sa douce voix: c’est elle, qui détournera tout sauvage robuste d’enlever à un faible enfant, ou à un vieillard infirme sa subsistence acquise avec peine, si lui même espère pouvoir trouver la sienne ailleurs: c’est elle qui, au lieu de cette maxime sublime de justice raisonnée „fais à autrui comme tu veux qu’on te fasse“, inspire à tous les hommes cette autre maxime de bonté naturelle, bien moins parfaite, mais plus utile peut-être que la précédente „fais ton bien avec le moindre mal d’autrui qu’il est possible“. C’est, en un mot, dans ce sentiment naturel plutôt, que dans les argumens subtils, qu’il faut chercher la cause de la répugnance qu’éprouverait tout homme à mal faire, même indépendamment des maximes de l’éducation. — Hiemit vergleiche man, was er sagt im Emile, L. IV, p. 115—120 (ed. Bip.), wo es unter Anderm heißt: En effet, comment nous laissons nos émouvoir à la pitié, si ce n’est en nous transportant hors de nous et en nous identifiant avec l’animal souffrant; en quittant, pour ainsi dire, notre être, pour prendre le sien? Nous ne souffrons qu’autant que nous jugeons qu’il souffre: ce n’est pas dans nous, c’est dans lui, que nous souffrons. — — — offrir au jeune homme des objets, sur lesquels puisse agir la force expansive de son coeur, qui le dilatent, qui l’étendent sur les autres êtres, qui le fassent partout se retrouver hors de lui; écarter avec soin ceux, qui le resserrent, le concentrent, et tendent le ressort du moi humain etc. —
Von Autoritäten abseiten der Schulen, wie gesagt, entblößt, führe ich noch an, daß die Chinesen fünf Kardinaltugenden (Tschang) annehmen, unter welchen das Mitleid (Sin) obenansteht. Die übrigen vier sind: Gerechtigkeit, Höflichkeit, Weisheit und Aufrichtigkeit.24 Dem entsprechend sehen wir auch bei den Hindu, auf den zum Andenken verstorbener Fürsten errichteten Gedächtnißtafeln, unter den ihnen nachgerühmten Tugenden das Mitleid mit Menschen und Thieren die erste Stelle einnehmen. In Athen hatte das Mitleid einen Altar auf dem Forum: Ἀθηναίοις δὲ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ ἐστι Ἐλέου βωμός, ᾧ μάλιστα Θεῶν, ἐς ἀνθρώπινον βίον καὶ μεταβολὰς πραγμάτων ὅτι ὠφέλιμος, μόνοι τιμὰς Ἑλλήνων νέμουσιν Ἀθηναῖοι. Παυσ., I, 17. (Atheniensibus in foro commiserationis ara est, quippe cui, inter omnes Deos, vitam humanam et mutationem rerum maxime adjuvanti, soli inter Graecos, honores tribuunt Athenienses.) Diesen Altar erwähnt auch Lukianos im Timon, §. 99. — Ein von Stobäos uns aufbehaltener Ausspruch des Phokion stellt das Mitleid als das Allerheiligste im Menschen dar: οὔτε ἐξ ἱεροῦ βωμὸν, οὔτε ἐκ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως ἀφαιρετέον τὸν ἔλεον (nec aram e fano, nec commiserationem e vita humana tollendam esse). In der Sapientia Indorum, welches die Griechische Uebersetzung des Pantscha Tantra ist, heißt es (Sect. 3, p. 220): Λέγεται γὰρ, ὡς πρώτη τῶν ἀρετῶν ἡ ἐλεημοσύνη (princeps virtutum misericordia censetur). Man sieht, daß alle Zeiten und alle Länder sehr wohl die Quelle der Moralität erkannt haben; nur Europa nicht; woran allein der foetor Judaicus Schuld ist, der hier Alles und Alles durchzieht: da muß es dann schlechterdings ein Pflichtgebot, ein Sittengesetz, ein Imperativ, kurzum, eine Ordre und Kommando seyn, dem parirt wird: davon gehen sie nicht ab, und wollen nicht einsehen, daß Dergleichen immer nur den Egoismus zur Grundlage hat. Bei Einzelnen freilich und Ueberlegenen hat die gefühlte Wahrheit sich kund gegeben: so bei Rousseau, wie oben angeführt; und auch Lessing, in einem Briefe von 1756, sagt: „Der mitleidigste Mensch ist der beste Mensch, zu allen gesellschaftlichen Tugenden, zu allen Arten der Großmuth der aufgelegteste.“
22 Noch jetzt wird, nach Buxton, The African slavetrade, 1839, ihre Zahl jährlich durch ungefähr 150000 frische Afrikaner, vermehrt, bei deren Einfangung und Reise über 200000 andere jämmerlich umkommen.
23 Wie ernstlich die Sache genommen wird, zeigt das folgende ganz frische Beispiel, welches ich aus dem Birmingham-Journal vom December 1839 übersetze: „Gefangennehmung einer Gesellschaft von 84 Hundehetzern. — Da man erfahren hatte, daß gestern auf dem Plan in der Fuchsstraße zu Birmingham eine Hundehetze Statt finden sollte, ergriff die Gesellschaft der Thierfreunde Vorsichtsmaaßregeln, um sich der Hülfe der Polizei zu versichern, von welcher ein starkes Detachement nach dem Kampfplatze marschirte und, sobald es eingelassen worden, die gesammte gegenwärtige Gesellschaft arretirte. Diese Theilnehmer wurden nunmehr paarweise mit Handschlingen aneinandergebunden und dann das Ganze durch ein langes Seil in der Mitte vereinigt: so wurden sie nach dem Polizeiamt geführt, woselbst der Bürgermeister mit dem Magistrat Sitzung hielt. Die beiden Hauptpersonen wurden jede zu einer Strafe von 1 Pfund Sterling nebst 8½ Schilling Kosten und im Nichtzahlungsfall zu 14 Tage schwerer Arbeit im Zuchthause verurtheilt. Die übrigen wurden entlassen.“ — Die Stutzer, welche bei solchen noblen Pläsirs nie zu fehlen pflegen, werden
24 Journ. Asiatique, Vol. 9, p. 62, zu vergleichen mit Meng-Tseu, ed. Stan. Julien, 1824, L. I, §. 45; auch mit Meng-Tseu in den Livres sacrés de l’Orient par Pauthier, p. 281.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition, including its quotations, author’s notes, prize question and judgment. Source-language reviewed.
Confirmations of the Foundation of Morality Set Out Above.
The truth just stated—that compassion, as the only incentive free of egoism, is also the only genuinely moral one—is, strangely, indeed almost incomprehensibly, paradoxical. I will therefore try to make it less alien to the reader’s convictions by showing that it is confirmed by experience and by the testimony of universal human feeling.
1) To this end, I will first take an invented case as an example, one that may serve as a decisive experiment in this inquiry. But to avoid making things easy for myself, I will choose not an act of loving-kindness but a violation of rights, and the gravest one at that.—Imagine two young men, Caius and Titus, both passionately in love, though each with a different girl; each has a rival who, favored by outward circumstances, stands squarely in his way. Both resolve to rid the world of their respective rivals, and both are entirely safe from discovery, even from suspicion. Yet when each comes to make the actual preparations for murder, both, after a struggle with themselves, abandon it. They must give us an honest and clear account of their reasons for relinquishing their resolve.—Now the account Caius gives may be left entirely to the reader’s choice. Perhaps religious reasons held him back: the will of God, retribution in the world to come, the Last Judgment, and the like. Or he may say: “I considered that the maxim of my conduct in this case would not have been fit to serve as a universally valid rule for all possible rational beings, since I would have treated my rival merely as a means, and not at the same time as an end.”—Or he may say with Fichte: “Every human life is a means to the realization of the moral law; therefore, unless I am indifferent to the realization of the moral law, I cannot destroy someone destined to contribute to it.” (System of Ethics, S. 373.)—(He might, incidentally, meet this scruple by hoping that, once he possesses his beloved, he will soon produce a new instrument of the moral law.)—Or he may say, following Wollaston: “I reflected that such an action would express a false proposition.”—Or, following Hutcheson: “The moral sense, whose sensations, like those of any other sense, admit of no further explanation, determined me to leave it undone.”—Or, following Adam Smith: “I foresaw that my action would awaken no sympathy with me in those who witnessed it.”—Or, following Christian Wolff: “I recognized that I would thereby work against my own perfection and do nothing to advance anyone else’s.”—Or, following Spinoza: “Nothing is more useful to a human being than another human being; therefore I did not wish to kill one.”—In short, let him say whatever you please.—But Titus, whose account I reserve for myself, is to say: “When it came to making the preparations, and I therefore had to concern myself for the moment not with my passion but with my rival, I first saw clearly what was really about to happen to him. But now compassion and pity seized me; my heart ached for him; I could not bring myself to do it; I was not able to do it.”—Now I ask every honest and impartial reader: Which of the two is the better man?—To which would he rather entrust his own fate?—Which was held back by the purer motive?—Where, then, does the foundation of morality lie?
2) Nothing outrages our moral feeling to its very depths as cruelty does. We can forgive any other crime, but not cruelty. The reason is that cruelty is compassion’s direct opposite. When we hear of some act of extreme cruelty—for example, the one the newspapers are reporting just now, of a mother who murdered her five-year-old boy by pouring boiling oil down his throat, and her younger child by burying it alive; or the one just reported from Algiers, where, after a chance quarrel and fight between a Spaniard and an Algerian, the latter, being the stronger, tore the other’s entire lower jaw clean out and carried it off as a trophy, leaving him alive—we are seized with horror and cry: “How is it possible to do such a thing?”—What does this question mean? Does it perhaps mean: How is it possible to have so little fear of punishment in the life to come?—Hardly.—Or: How is it possible to act on a maxim so utterly unfit to become a universal law for all rational beings?—Certainly not.—Or: How is it possible to neglect one’s own perfection and that of others so grievously?—No more than the others.—The question quite certainly means only this: How is it possible to be so utterly without compassion?—Thus it is the greatest lack of compassion that stamps an act with the deepest moral depravity and abhorrence. Consequently, compassion is the true moral incentive.
3) In general, the foundation of morality and incentive to moral conduct that I have proposed is the only one that can claim a real, indeed an extensive, influence. Surely no one would wish to claim as much for the philosophers’ other moral principles. These consist of abstract and sometimes positively hairsplitting propositions, founded on nothing but an artificial combination of concepts, so that applying them to actual conduct would often even have a ridiculous side. A good deed done solely out of regard for Kant’s moral principle would, at bottom, be the work of philosophical pedantry; or else it would amount to self-deception, with the agent’s reason interpreting a deed prompted by other, perhaps nobler incentives as the product of the categorical imperative and of the wholly unsupported concept of duty. But not only the philosophical moral principles, designed for mere theory, but even the religious ones, framed entirely for practical purposes, can seldom be shown to have a decisive influence. We see this first in the fact that, despite the great diversity of religions on earth, the degree of morality—or rather immorality—shows no corresponding diversity whatever, but is essentially much the same everywhere. We must simply take care not to confuse coarseness and refinement with morality and immorality. Greek religion had an exceedingly slight moral tendency, almost confined to the oath; no dogma was taught, and no morality publicly preached. Yet we do not find that the Greeks were, on the whole, morally worse than the people of the Christian centuries. Christianity’s morality is of a far higher order than that of the other religions that have ever appeared in Europe. But anyone who inferred that European moral conduct had improved in the same proportion, and now at least excelled that of its contemporaries, could soon be shown not only that Muslims, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists display at least as much honesty, fidelity, tolerance, gentleness, charity, nobility of spirit, and self-denial as Christian peoples; indeed, the long catalogue of inhuman cruelties accompanying Christianity would rather make us fear that the scale tips against it: the countless religious wars; the indefensible Crusades; the extermination of a great part of America’s Indigenous inhabitants and the peopling of that continent with Black slaves dragged over from Africa, torn without right or any semblance of right from their families, their country, their continent, and condemned to endless penal labor22; the tireless persecutions of heretics and the Inquisition’s tribunals, crying out to heaven; the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre; Alba’s execution of 18000 Netherlanders; and so on, and so on.—In general, if we compare the excellent morality preached by Christianity, and more or less by every religion, with the practice of its adherents, and imagine what would become of that practice if the secular arm did not prevent crimes—indeed, what we would have to fear if all laws were suspended for even a single day—we must confess that the influence of all religions on moral conduct is really very slight. Weakness of faith is, of course, to blame. In theory, and as long as the matter rests in pious contemplation, everyone thinks his faith firm. But action is the hard touchstone of all our convictions. When the moment for it arrives, and faith must now prove itself through great renunciations and heavy sacrifices, its weakness becomes apparent. Once a person seriously contemplates a crime, he has already crossed the barrier of genuine, pure morality. After that, however, the first thing that holds him back is always the thought of the courts and the police. If he dismisses this in the hope of escaping them, the second barrier confronting him is concern for his honor. But if he passes this defense as well, the odds are heavily against any religious dogma still having enough power over him, after he has overcome those two mighty obstacles, to hold him back from the deed. For someone not deterred by dangers that are near and certain will hardly be restrained by dangers that are remote and rest on faith alone. Moreover, against every good action arising solely from religious convictions, one may still object that it was not disinterested but done with a view to reward and punishment, and therefore has no purely moral worth. We find this insight forcefully expressed in a letter from the celebrated Grand Duke Karl August of Weimar: “Baron Weyhers himself thought that a man must be a wretched fellow if religion made him good and he was not naturally inclined to be so. In wine there is truth.” (Letters to J. H. Merck, Br. 229.)—Now consider, by contrast, the moral incentive I have proposed. Who would dare deny for a moment that at all times, among all peoples, in every circumstance of life, even in a lawless state, even amid the horrors of revolutions and wars, in great matters and small, every day and every hour, it exerts a decisive and truly marvelous influence; that it daily prevents much wrongdoing and calls many a good deed into being, without any hope of reward and often quite unexpectedly; and that wherever it, and it alone, has been at work, we all, moved and full of respect, unreservedly acknowledge the deed’s genuine moral worth?
4) For boundless compassion for all living beings is the firmest and surest guarantee of moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Someone filled with it will assuredly injure no one, wrong no one, cause no one pain, but will instead show forbearance to everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as much as he can; and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. Try saying, by contrast: “This person is virtuous, but he knows no compassion.” Or: “He is an unjust and malicious person, yet he is very compassionate.” The contradiction will make itself felt.—Tastes differ; but I know no lovelier prayer than the one that closes the ancient Indian plays, as a prayer for the king once closed the English ones. It says: “May all living beings remain free from pain.”
5) Particular features, too, reveal compassion as the true basic moral incentive. For example, it is just as wrong to use risk-free legal tricks to cheat a rich person out of a hundred thalers as a poor one. Yet the reproaches of conscience and the censure of uninvolved witnesses will be far louder and fiercer in the second case. Hence Aristotle already says: “It is more terrible to wrong an unfortunate person than a fortunate one” (“It is more unjust to inflict an injury on an unfortunate person than a fortunate one”), Probl., XXIX, 2. On the other hand, the reproaches will be quieter still than in the first case if it is a public treasury one has defrauded, since this cannot be an object of compassion. We see that it is not directly the violation of a right, but first of all the suffering this brings upon another, that furnishes the substance of our own and others’ censure. Conscience and other people will indeed disapprove even of a mere violation of rights as such—for example, the one against a public treasury mentioned above—but only insofar as it breaches the maxim of respecting every right, the maxim that makes a person truly honest; hence indirectly and to a lesser degree. If, however, it was a treasury entrusted to one’s care, the case is quite different: the concept of double injustice established above, with its distinctive properties, now applies. What has been explained here is the reason that the gravest reproach everywhere leveled against greedy extortioners and legal scoundrels is that they have seized the property of widows and orphans: precisely because these, being utterly helpless, should have aroused compassion even more than others. It is, then, the complete absence of compassion that proves a person’s wickedness.
6) Compassion underlies loving-kindness even more plainly than it does justice. No one will receive evidence of genuine loving-kindness from others as long as everything is going well for him in every respect. A fortunate person may indeed experience the goodwill of his family and friends in many ways; but expressions of that pure, disinterested, objective concern for another’s condition and fate which spring from loving-kindness are reserved for those suffering in some respect. For we take no sympathetic interest in the fortunate person as such; rather, as such, he remains a stranger to our hearts: let him keep what is his. Indeed, if he enjoys great advantages over others, he will readily arouse envy, which threatens to turn into malicious joy should he one day fall from the heights of good fortune. Yet this threat generally goes unfulfilled, and Sophocles’ “the enemies laugh” (“the enemies laugh”) does not come to pass. For as soon as the fortunate person falls, a great transformation takes place in the hearts of the others, one instructive for our inquiry. First of all, the nature of the interest his fair-weather friends took in him now becomes clear: “Friends scatter when the casks are drained, dregs and all.” But on the other hand, what he feared more than misfortune itself, and could not bear to imagine—the exultation of those who envied his good fortune, the mocking laughter of malicious joy—generally fails to appear. Envy is appeased; it has vanished along with its cause, and the compassion now taking its place gives birth to loving-kindness. Often, when a fortunate person has fallen, those who envied and hated him have become considerate, comforting, helpful friends. Who has not experienced something of the kind himself, at least in a milder degree, and, when struck by some misfortune, seen with surprise how people who until then had shown the greatest coldness, even ill will toward him, now approached him with unfeigned sympathy? For misfortune is the condition of compassion, and compassion the source of loving-kindness.—Related to this reflection is the observation that nothing so quickly soothes our anger, even when it is justified, as hearing these words about its object: “He is an unfortunate man.” For compassion is to anger what rain is to fire. I therefore advise anyone who would rather have nothing to regret that, when ablaze with anger against another and intending to inflict great suffering on him, he should vividly imagine that he has already done so, that he now sees the other struggling with mental or bodily pain, or with want and misery, and must say to himself: “This is my work.” If anything can subdue his anger, this can. For compassion is the true antidote to anger, and by this stratagem against ourselves we anticipate, while there is still time,
compassion, whose voice,Once we have our revenge, makes its laws heard.Volt., “Semiramis”, A. 5, Sc. 6.
In general, nothing so readily dispels our hostile feelings toward others as finding a point of view from which they can lay claim to our compassion.—Even the fact that parents generally love a sickly child most rests on its continually awakening compassion.
7) The moral incentive I have proposed further proves itself genuine by extending its protection to animals, for which the other European moral systems make such inexcusably poor provision. The supposed absence of rights in animals, the delusion that our conduct toward them has no moral significance—or, in the language of that morality, that we have no duties toward animals—is nothing less than an outrageous coarseness and barbarity of the West, whose source lies in Judaism. In philosophy it rests on the complete difference between human beings and animals assumed in defiance of all evidence, a difference that, as is well known, Descartes proclaimed most emphatically and starkly, as a necessary consequence of his errors. For when the Cartesian-Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy built rational psychology out of abstract concepts and constructed an immortal rational soul, the natural claims of the animal world plainly stood against this exclusive privilege, this patent of immortality granted to the human species; and nature, as on all such occasions, silently entered its protest. The philosophers, troubled by their intellectual consciences, now had to seek support for rational psychology in empirical psychology, and therefore strive to open a monstrous gulf, an immeasurable distance, between human beings and animals, in order to represent them, despite all evidence, as fundamentally different. Boileau already mocks such efforts:
Do animals have universities?Do we see the four faculties flourishing among them?
In the end, animals were even supposed to be unable to distinguish themselves from the external world, to have no consciousness of themselves, no I! Against such absurd assertions, one need only point to the boundless egoism inherent in every animal, even the smallest and lowliest, which sufficiently attests how conscious animals are of their I in contrast to the world, or not-I. If one of these Cartesians found himself in a tiger’s claws, he would become most distinctly aware of the sharp distinction the tiger draws between its I and not-I. Corresponding to these sophistries of the philosophers, we find on the popular level a peculiarity of certain languages, especially German: they have entirely separate words for animals’ eating, drinking, pregnancy, giving birth, dying, and dead bodies, so as not to have to use the words denoting these acts in human beings, and thus to conceal under a diversity of words the complete identity of the thing itself. Since the ancient languages know no such duplication of expressions, but freely name the same thing with the same word, this wretched artifice is undoubtedly the work of the European priesthood, which in its profanity believes it can never go far enough in denying and reviling the eternal essence that lives in all animals. It has thereby laid the foundation for the harshness and cruelty toward animals customary in Europe, which an inhabitant of High Asia can view only with justified abhorrence. We do not encounter this despicable artifice in English, undoubtedly because the Saxons were not yet Christians when they conquered England. We do, however, find an equivalent in the peculiarity that in English all animals are of the neuter gender and are therefore represented by the pronoun “it,” just like lifeless things. This is especially outrageous in the case of primates, such as dogs, apes, and so on, and is unmistakably a priestly trick to reduce animals to things. The ancient Egyptians, whose entire life was consecrated to religious purposes, interred the mummies of human beings and those of ibises, crocodiles, and so on in the same tombs. But in Europe it is an abomination and a crime to bury a faithful dog beside its master’s resting place, where it has sometimes awaited its own death with a fidelity and devotion not found in the human race.—Nothing leads more decisively to the recognition that the essential being is identical in the appearance of animal and human than the study of zoology and anatomy. What, then, are we to say when, in our own day (1839), a sanctimonious animal anatomist presumes to insist on an absolute and radical difference between human beings and animals, going so far as to attack and malign honest zoologists who, far from all priestcraft, servility, and Tartuffian hypocrisy, follow their path under the guidance of nature and truth?
One must truly be blind in every sense, or wholly chloroformed by the Jewish stench, not to recognize that what is essential and fundamental in animals and in human beings is the same, and that what distinguishes them lies not in what is primary, in the principle, the life force, the inner essence, the core of the two appearances—which in both is the individual’s will—but solely in what is secondary: the intellect, the degree of cognitive power. In human beings this is incomparably higher through the added capacity for abstract knowledge, called reason, yet demonstrably only by virtue of a greater development of the brain, and thus a bodily difference in a single part, the brain, chiefly in its size. By contrast, what animal and human being have in common, both mentally and bodily, is incomparably greater. A Judaized Western despiser of animals and idolater of reason of this kind needs to be reminded that, just as he was suckled by his mother, so was the dog by its own. I have already censured even Kant for falling into this error of his contemporaries and countrymen. That Christian morality takes no account of animals is a defect better acknowledged than perpetuated. It is all the more astonishing because in other respects this morality shows the closest agreement with that of Brahmanism and Buddhism, only less forcefully expressed and not carried to its extremes. We can therefore scarcely doubt that it, like the idea of a God become human—an avatar—originated in India and may have reached Judea through Egypt; Christianity would thus be a reflection of India’s primal light from the ruins of Egypt, which unfortunately fell on Jewish soil. A neat symbol of the defect just censured in Christian morality, despite its otherwise close agreement with Indian morality, could be found in the circumstance that John the Baptist appears entirely in the manner of an Indian sannyasi, yet—clothed in animal skins! As everyone knows, this would be an abomination to any Hindu: even the Royal Society in Calcutta received its copy of the Vedas only on promising not to have it bound in leather in the European fashion. It is therefore found in its library bound in silk. A similarly characteristic contrast is offered by the Gospel account of Peter’s catch of fish, which the Savior blesses by a miracle so abundantly that the boats are filled with fish almost to the point of sinking (Luk. 5), when set against the story of Pythagoras, initiated into Egyptian wisdom, who buys the fishermen’s catch while the net is still underwater, so that he can then set all the captured fish free (Apul. On Magic, p. 36. Bip.).—Compassion for animals is so closely bound up with goodness of character that we may confidently assert that anyone cruel to animals cannot be a good person. This compassion also shows itself to spring from the same source as the virtue to be practiced toward human beings. Sensitive people, for example, recalling that in a bad mood, in anger, or heated by wine they mistreated their dog, their horse, or their monkey undeservedly, needlessly, or beyond all measure, will feel the same remorse, the same dissatisfaction with themselves, as at the recollection of an injustice committed against a human being, where it is called the voice of an accusing conscience. I remember reading that an Englishman who had shot a monkey while hunting in India could not forget the look it gave him as it died, and never shot at monkeys again. The same was true of William Harris, a veritable Nimrod, who traveled deep into the African interior in 1836 and 1837 simply for the pleasure of the hunt. In his account of the journey, published in Bombay in 1838, he relates that after killing his first elephant, a female, he went to find the fallen animal the following morning. All the other elephants had fled the area; only the dead elephant’s calf had spent the night beside its mother. Now, forgetting all fear, it came toward the hunters with the most vivid and unmistakable signs of inconsolable grief and wound its little trunk around them to appeal for help. Then, Harris says, he was seized by genuine remorse for his deed and felt as though he had committed murder. We see this sensitive English nation distinguished above all others by a striking compassion for animals, which makes itself known at every opportunity. It has had the power, despite the “cold superstition” that otherwise degrades the nation, to move it to fill through legislation the gap religion left in morality. For this very gap is the reason that Europe and America need societies for the protection of animals, which themselves can act only with the help of the courts and police. In Asia the religions give animals sufficient protection, so no one there thinks of such societies. Meanwhile, a sense of animals’ rights is awakening more and more in Europe too, as the strange notions of an animal world brought into existence solely for human use and amusement, in consequence of which animals are treated entirely as things, gradually fade and disappear. For these notions are the source of the brutal and utterly inconsiderate treatment of animals in Europe; I have demonstrated their Old Testament origin in the second volume of Parerga, §. 177. Let it be said, then, to the English people’s credit that among them the law first took animals under its protection in earnest against cruel treatment, and that a villain really must pay for wronging animals, even when they belong to him. Indeed, not content with this, a voluntary association for the protection of animals exists in London, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which privately and at considerable expense does a great deal to combat cruelty to animals. Its agents keep watch in secret, so that afterward they can come forward to denounce the tormentors of speechless, feeling beings; their presence must be feared everywhere.23 At steep bridges in London the society keeps a team of horses, which is harnessed free of charge in front of any heavily laden wagon. Is this not beautiful? Does it not command our approval just as a kindness to human beings does? The Philantropic Society in London, for its part, also offered a prize of 30 pounds in 1837 for the best presentation of moral reasons against cruelty to animals, though these were to be drawn chiefly from Christianity, which certainly made the task harder: the prize was awarded to Mr. Macnamara in 1839. In Philadelphia there is an Animals friends Society with similar aims. T. Forster, an Englishman, dedicated his book Philozoia, Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of Animals and the Means of Improving the Same (Brussels 1839) to its president. The book is original and well written. As an Englishman, the author naturally also seeks to ground his appeals for humane treatment of animals in the Bible, but slips
off at every turn, until he finally resorts to the argument that Jesus Christ was, after all, born in a stable beside the little ox and the little donkey, symbolically indicating that we should regard animals as our brothers and treat them accordingly.—Everything cited here attests that the moral concern under discussion is at last beginning to find an answering note in the Western world as well. That compassion for animals need not go so far as to require us, like the Brahmans, to abstain from animal food rests on the fact that in nature the capacity for suffering keeps pace with intelligence. Human beings would therefore suffer more by going without animal food, especially in the North, than an animal suffers through a swift and always unforeseen death, which should nevertheless be made easier still by means of chloroform. Without animal food, moreover, the human race could not even survive in the North. By the same standard, human beings also have animals work for them; only an excessive burden of exertion becomes cruelty.
8) Let us set aside any perhaps possible metaphysical inquiry into the ultimate ground of that compassion from which alone nonegoistic actions can arise, and consider it from the empirical standpoint, simply as an arrangement of nature. Everyone will then see that, to alleviate as far as possible the countless and manifold sufferings to which our life is exposed and which no one wholly escapes, and at the same time to counterbalance the burning egoism that fills all beings and often passes into malice, nature could have done nothing more effective than plant in the human heart that wondrous disposition by which one person shares the suffering of another. From it comes the voice that, as the occasion demands, calls strongly and unmistakably to one person, “Spare!” and to another, “Help!” Surely the mutual assistance arising from this offered more hope for everyone’s welfare than a general and abstract, stern command of duty resulting from certain rational considerations and combinations of concepts. All the less could success be expected from such a command because general propositions and abstract truths are wholly unintelligible to the uncultivated person, for whom only the concrete is anything—and all humanity, with the exception of an extremely small part, has always been uncultivated and must remain so, because the great amount of bodily labor indispensable to the whole does not permit the cultivation of the mind. To awaken compassion, by contrast, which has been demonstrated to be the sole source of unselfish actions and therefore the true basis of morality, requires no abstract knowledge, but only intuitive knowledge, the mere apprehension of the concrete case, to which it responds at once without any further mediation of thought.
9) We will find the following circumstance in complete agreement with this last reflection. The foundation I have given ethics does, to be sure, leave me without a predecessor among the academic philosophers; indeed, in relation to their doctrines it is paradoxical, since some of them—for example, the Stoics (Sen., De clem., II, 5), Spinoza (Eth., IV, prop. 50), and Kant (Critique of Practical Reason, S. 213;—R., S. 257)—outright reject and censure compassion. Yet my foundation has on its side the authority of the greatest moralist of the entire modern age: undoubtedly J. J. Rousseau, the profound knower of the human heart, who drew his wisdom not from books but from life, and intended his teaching not for the lecture hall but for humanity. An enemy of prejudice, a pupil of nature, he alone was granted by her the gift of moralizing without being dull, because he struck the truth and moved the heart. I will therefore allow myself to add a few passages from him to confirm my view, having until now been as sparing as possible with quotations.
In the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, S. 91 (edit. Bip.), he says: “There is another principle that Hobbes did not perceive, which, having been given to man to soften in certain circumstances the ferocity of his self-love, tempers his ardor for his own well-being with an innate aversion to seeing his fellow creature suffer. I do not believe I need fear any contradiction in granting man the sole natural virtue that even the most extreme detractor of human virtues has been forced to acknowledge. I am speaking of compassion, etc.”—S. 92: “Mandeville clearly saw that, for all their morality, human beings would never have been anything but monsters had nature not given them compassion to support reason. But he did not see that from this one quality flow all the social virtues he wishes to deny them. For what are generosity, clemency, humanity, if not compassion applied to the weak, the guilty, or the human race in general? Benevolence and even friendship, rightly understood, are the products of a constant compassion fixed on a particular object; for to wish that someone should not suffer—what else is that but to wish him happy?——Commiseration will be all the more energetic as the observing animal identifies itself more intimately with the suffering animal.”—S. 94: “It is therefore quite certain that compassion is a natural feeling which, by moderating each individual’s self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. In the state of nature it takes the place of laws, morals, and virtues, with this advantage: no one will be tempted to disobey its gentle voice. It is compassion that will keep any strong savage from taking from a weak child or an infirm old man the sustenance they have acquired with difficulty, if he himself hopes to find his own elsewhere. It is compassion that, instead of that sublime maxim of reasoned justice, ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you,’ inspires all people with this other maxim of natural goodness, far less perfect but perhaps more useful than the first: ‘Pursue your own good with as little harm to others as possible.’ In a word, it is in this natural feeling, rather than in subtle arguments, that we must seek the cause of the aversion everyone would feel to doing wrong, even independently of the maxims of education.”—Compare with this what he says in Emile, L. IV, p. 115–120 (ed. Bip.), where among other things we read: “Indeed, how do we let ourselves be moved to compassion, except by transporting ourselves outside ourselves and identifying with the suffering animal; by leaving our own being, so to speak, to take on its own? We suffer only insofar as we judge that it suffers: it is not in ourselves, but in it, that we suffer.———Offer the young man objects on which the expansive force of his heart can act, which enlarge it, extend it to other beings, and make him everywhere find himself again outside himself; carefully remove those that constrict it, draw it inward, and tighten the spring of the human ego, etc.”—
Lacking, as I have said, authorities from the schools, I will add that the Chinese recognize five cardinal virtues (Tschang), among which compassion (Sin) stands first. The other four are justice, courtesy, wisdom, and sincerity.24 Correspondingly, among the Hindus too, on the memorial tablets erected in remembrance of deceased princes, we see compassion for human beings and animals take first place among the virtues praised in them. In Athens compassion had an altar in the forum: “The Athenians have in their marketplace an altar to Compassion, to whom, as the divinity most helpful to human life and the changes of fortune, they alone among the Greeks pay honor.” Paus., I, 17. (“The Athenians have an altar to Compassion in the forum, for to her, who among all the gods most assists human life and its changing circumstances, the Athenians alone among the Greeks pay honor.”) Lucian also mentions this altar in Timon, §. 99.—A saying of Phocion, preserved for us by Stobaeus, presents compassion as the holiest thing in a human being: “Neither an altar from a sanctuary nor compassion from human nature should be removed” (“Neither an altar from a temple nor compassion from human life should be taken away”). In the Wisdom of the Indians, which is the Greek translation of the Panchatantra, we read (Sect. 3, p. 220): “For compassion is said to be the first of the virtues” (“Compassion is reckoned the foremost virtue”). We see that all ages and all countries have known the source of morality very well; only Europe has not. For this the Jewish stench alone is to blame, pervading everything here, everything: there must absolutely be a command of duty, a moral law, an imperative—in short, an order and a command to be obeyed. They will not budge from this, and refuse to see that anything of the kind always rests on egoism alone. In individuals, admittedly, and superior ones, the felt truth has made itself known: in Rousseau, as quoted above; and Lessing too, in a letter of 1756, says: “The most compassionate person is the best person, the most disposed to all social virtues, to every kind of generosity.”
22 Even now, according to Buxton, The African Slave Trade, 1839, their number is increased each year by approximately 150000 newly captured Africans, while more than 200000 others perish miserably during their capture and the voyage.
23 How seriously the matter is taken is shown by the following very recent example, which I translate from the Birmingham Journal of December 1839: “Arrest of a Party of 84 Dogfighters.—On learning that a dogfight was to take place yesterday on the ground in Fox Street, Birmingham, the Society of Friends of Animals took precautions to secure the assistance of the police. A strong detachment marched to the fighting ground and, as soon as it had been admitted, arrested the entire company present. These participants were then tied together in pairs with hand restraints, and the whole group joined by a long rope running through the middle. In this way they were led to the police office, where the mayor and magistrates were sitting. The two ringleaders were each sentenced to a fine of 1 pound sterling, together with 8½ shillings in costs, and, in default of payment, to 14 days’ hard labor in prison. The others were released.”—The dandies, who never fail to attend such noble pleasures, must have looked very embarrassed in the procession.—But we find an even sterner example from more recent times in the Times of April 6, 1855, S. 6, and in fact it was the newspaper itself that made the example. It reports a case brought before the courts involving the daughter of a very wealthy Scottish baronet, who had tormented her horse most cruelly with a cudgel and a knife, for which she had been fined 5 pounds sterling. But such a girl thinks nothing of that, and so would really have skipped away unpunished had the Times not followed it with the proper and telling chastisement. Printing the girl’s first and last names twice in large letters, it continues: “We cannot help saying that a couple of months in prison, together with a few floggings, administered in private but by the strongest-armed woman in Hampshire, would have been a much more fitting punishment for Miss N. N. A wretch of this sort has forfeited all the considerations and privileges due to her sex: we can no longer regard her as a woman.”—I commend these newspaper reports particularly to the societies against cruelty to animals now established in Germany, so that they may see how the matter must be tackled if anything is to come of it; though I give my full recognition to the praiseworthy zeal of Court Councilor Perner in Munich, who has devoted himself entirely to this branch of charity and is spreading the impetus for it throughout Germany.
24 Journ. Asiatique, Vol. 9, p. 62, to be compared with Mencius, ed. Stan. Julien, 1824, L. I, §. 45; also with Mencius in the Sacred Books of the Orient by Pauthier, p. 281.
Plain English translation
Independent, machine-assisted Plain English translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition and its embedded passages. Source-language reviewed.
Evidence supporting the basis of morality presented here.
The truth just stated—that compassion, as the only motive not based on self-interest, is also the only genuinely moral motive—strikes people as a paradox. This is strange, indeed almost impossible to understand. So I will try to make it less foreign to the reader's convictions by showing that experience and the expressions of common human feeling confirm it.
1) For this purpose, I will first take an invented case that can serve as a decisive test in this investigation. But to avoid making things easy for myself, I will not choose a case of love for humanity. Instead I will take a violation of someone's rights, and the most serious kind at that.—Suppose there are two young men, Caius and Titus, both passionately in love, but each with a different girl. Each has a rival who has an advantage because of outside circumstances and stands completely in his way. Both decide to get rid of their respective rivals. Both are completely safe from discovery, and even from any suspicion. But when each begins making the actual arrangements for the murder, both struggle with themselves and give it up. They must give us an honest, clear account of why they abandoned their plans.—I will leave the account Caius gives entirely up to the reader. Perhaps religious reasons held him back: God's will, eventual reward or punishment, the Last Judgment, or something similar. Or he might say: “I considered that the principle behind my action in this case would not have been fit to serve as a universally valid rule for all possible rational beings. After all, I would have treated my rival only as a means and not also as an end.”—Or, with Fichte, he might say: “Every human life is a means of putting the moral law into practice. So I cannot destroy someone who is meant to contribute to putting it into practice without being indifferent to whether the moral law is put into practice.” (The Science of Ethics, S. 373.)—(In passing, he could get past this scruple by hoping that, once he had his beloved, he would soon produce a new instrument of the moral law.)—Or, following Wollaston, he might say: “I considered that this action would express an untrue statement.”—Or, following Hutcheson: “The moral sense, whose feelings cannot be explained any further than those of any other sense, led me to leave it undone.”—Or, following Adam Smith: “I foresaw that my action would not arouse any sympathy with me in those who witnessed it.”—Or, following Christian Wolff: “I realized that this would work against my own perfection and would not promote anyone else's either.”—Or, following Spinoza: “Nothing is more useful to a human being than another human being; therefore I did not want to kill a human being.”—In short, let him say whatever you like.—But I reserve the right to give Titus's account. He should say: “When it came to making the arrangements, I had to think for the moment not about my passion but about that rival. Only then did I fully understand what was actually about to happen to him. But then compassion and pity took hold of me. I felt sorry for him. I couldn't bring myself to do it: I wasn't able to do it.”—Now I ask every honest and unbiased reader: Which of the two is the better person?—Which of the two would the reader rather trust with his own fate?—Which of them was held back by the purer motive?—Where, then, does the basis of morality lie?
2) Nothing outrages our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason is that cruelty is the exact opposite of compassion. Suppose we hear of a very cruel act. For example, the newspapers are reporting just now that a mother murdered her five-year-old boy by pouring boiling oil down his throat, and her younger child by burying it alive. Or take the report just received from Algiers: after a chance quarrel and fight between a Spaniard and an Algerian, the Algerian, being stronger, tore the Spaniard's entire lower jaw clean off and carried it away as a trophy, leaving him alive. We are horrified and cry out: “How is it possible to do something like that?”—What does this question mean? Does it perhaps mean: How is it possible to have so little fear of punishment in the life to come?—Hardly.—Or: How is it possible to act on a principle so completely unfit to become a universal law for all rational beings?—Certainly not.—Or: How is it possible to neglect one's own perfection and other people's so badly?—No more than the others.—The meaning of that question is certainly just this: How is it possible to have no compassion at all?—So it is the greatest lack of compassion that marks an act as morally depraved and disgusting in the deepest sense. It follows that compassion is the true moral motive.
3) In general, the basis of morality and motive for moral conduct that I have put forward is the only one that can claim real, indeed widespread, effectiveness. Surely no one would want to claim this for the other moral principles offered by philosophers. These consist of abstract statements, some of them positively hair-splitting, with no foundation beyond an artificial combination of concepts. Applying them to actual behavior would often even have a ridiculous side. A good deed done solely out of regard for Kant's moral principle would really be a product of philosophical pedantry. Otherwise it would amount to self-deception: the person acting would use his reason to interpret a deed arising from other, perhaps nobler motives as a product of the categorical imperative and the unsupported concept of duty. But it is seldom possible to show a definite effect not only from philosophical moral principles, which are designed for theory alone, but even from religious moral principles, which are set up entirely for practical use. The first evidence of this is that, despite the great differences between religions around the world, the level of morality—or rather immorality—shows no corresponding difference at all. In essence, it is much the same everywhere. We must simply avoid confusing roughness and refinement with morality and immorality. The Greeks' religion had very little moral tendency, almost entirely limited to oaths. No dogma was taught and no morality publicly preached. Yet we do not see that the Greeks, taken as a whole, were morally worse than the people of the Christian centuries. Christianity's moral teaching is of a much higher kind than that of the other religions that have ever appeared in Europe. But suppose someone therefore believed that European morality had improved to the same extent and now at least stood above that of its contemporaries. It would soon be possible to show him that Muslims, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists display at least as much honesty, faithfulness, tolerance, gentleness, charity, generosity, and self-denial as Christian peoples do. More than that, the long list of inhuman cruelties that have accompanied Christianity would make us fear that the balance might tip against it. These include the many religious wars; the indefensible Crusades; the extermination of a large part of America's native inhabitants and the peopling of that continent with Black slaves dragged over from Africa, torn from their families, their homeland, their continent, without any right or any semblance of right, and condemned to endless prison labor22; the tireless persecution of heretics and the outrageous tribunals of the Inquisition; the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre; Alba's execution of 18000 people in the Netherlands; etc., etc.—But more generally, compare the excellent morality preached by Christianity, and more or less by every religion, with the actual behavior of their followers. Imagine what that behavior would become if the secular authorities did not prevent crimes. Indeed, imagine what we would have to fear if all laws were suspended for even a single day. We will then have to admit that all religions actually have very little effect on morality. Admittedly, weakness of faith is to blame for this. In theory, and as long as it remains a matter of pious reflection, everyone's faith seems firm to him. But action is the hard test of all our convictions. When the moment for it comes, and faith has to prove itself through great acts of renunciation and difficult sacrifices, its weakness becomes clear. When someone seriously plans a crime, he has already broken through the barrier of genuine, pure morality. After that, the first thing that stops him is always the thought of the courts and the police. If he puts this aside because he hopes to escape them, the second barrier in his way is concern for his honor. But if he gets past this defense too, the odds are heavily against any religious dogma still having enough power over him to keep him from acting, once he has overcome those two powerful obstacles. Anyone not frightened off by immediate and certain dangers will hardly be kept in check by distant dangers based only on faith. Besides, against every good action that comes entirely from religious convictions, one can still object that it was not unselfish. It was done with an eye to reward and punishment, and therefore has no purely moral worth. We find this insight forcefully expressed in a letter by the famous Grand Duke Karl August of Weimar: “Baron Weyhers himself thought that a man must be a bad fellow if religion made him good, rather than his being naturally inclined that way. Wine brings out the truth.” (Letters to J. H. Merck, Br. 229.)—Now consider, by contrast, the moral motive I have put forward. Who would dare deny for a moment that it has a definite and truly wonderful effect at all times, among all peoples, in every situation in life, even in a lawless state, even amid the horrors of revolutions and wars, in great matters and small, every day and every hour? Who would deny that it prevents much wrongdoing every day and brings about many good deeds, without any hope of reward and often quite unexpectedly? And when it alone has been at work, who would deny that we all, moved and respectful, recognize the deed's genuine moral worth without reservation?
4) Boundless compassion for all living beings is the firmest and most reliable guarantee of morally good behavior. It needs no detailed rules for particular cases. Anyone filled with it will certainly not injure anyone, infringe on anyone's rights, or cause anyone pain. Instead he will be patient with everyone, forgive everyone, and help everyone as much as he can. All his actions will show justice and love for humanity. By contrast, try saying: “This person is virtuous, but he has no compassion.” Or: “He is an unjust and malicious person; yet he is very compassionate.” The contradiction becomes obvious.—Tastes differ, but I know no more beautiful prayer than the one that closes the ancient Indian plays, just as English plays in earlier times closed with a prayer for the king. It says: “May all living beings remain free from pain.”
5) Particular details also show that compassion is the true basic moral motive. For example, it is equally wrong to use risk-free legal tricks to cheat a rich person or a poor person out of a hundred thalers. But the reproaches of conscience and the blame expressed by uninvolved witnesses will be much louder and stronger in the second case. That is why even Aristotle says: “It is worse to wrong someone unfortunate than someone fortunate” (“It is more unjust to have wronged an unfortunate person than a fortunate one”), Probl., XXIX, 2. By contrast, the reproaches will be even quieter than in the first case if it is a state treasury that has been cheated, because it cannot be an object of compassion. We can see that what directly gives rise to our own and other people's blame is not the violation of someone's rights, but first of all the suffering it causes that person. Certainly, conscience and other people will also condemn a violation of rights simply as such, like the one against a state treasury mentioned above. But they do so only because it breaks the principle of respecting every right, which is what makes someone truly honest. So their condemnation is indirect and less severe. But if the state treasury had been entrusted to the person, the case would be entirely different. The concept of double injustice established above, with its special characteristics, would then apply. What I have explained here accounts for the gravest accusation everywhere made against greedy extortionists and scoundrels who keep within the law: that they have seized the property of widows and orphans. Being completely helpless, these people should have aroused their compassion even more than others. So it is the complete absence of compassion that proves someone's wickedness.
6) Compassion is even more obviously the basis of love for humanity than it is of justice. No one will receive proof of genuine love for humanity from others as long as he is doing well in every respect. A fortunate person can certainly experience the goodwill of his relatives and friends in many ways. But the expressions of pure, unselfish concern focused on another person's situation and fate, which result from love for humanity, are reserved for someone who is suffering in some respect. We do not take an interest in a fortunate person simply because he is fortunate. He remains a stranger to our hearts in that respect: let him keep what he has. Indeed, if he has a great advantage over others, he will easily arouse envy. This threatens to turn into pleasure at his misfortune if he ever falls from his high position of good fortune. But this threat usually goes unfulfilled. It does not come to Sophocles' “the enemies laugh” (“the enemies laugh”). For as soon as the fortunate person falls, a great change takes place in other people's hearts, and it has something to teach us here. First, it now becomes clear what kind of interest the friends of his fortunate days took in him: “Friends scatter when the wine jars have been drained to the dregs.” But on the other side, what he feared more than misfortune itself, and found unbearable to think about, usually does not happen: the rejoicing of those who envied his good fortune, the mocking laughter of people enjoying his suffering. Envy has been appeased. It has vanished with its cause, and the compassion that now takes its place produces love for humanity. When a fortunate person has fallen, those who envied him and his enemies have often turned into considerate friends who comfort and help him. Who has not experienced something like this personally, at least to a lesser degree? After suffering some misfortune, who has not been surprised to see people who had previously shown the greatest coldness, even ill will, now approach with genuine concern? Misfortune is the condition for compassion, and compassion is the source of love for humanity.—A related observation is that nothing calms our anger so quickly, even when it is justified, as hearing someone say of its target: “He is an unfortunate person.” Compassion does to anger what rain does to fire. So I advise anyone who does not want to have something to regret: if you are burning with anger against someone else and intend to make him suffer greatly, vividly imagine that you have already done it. Imagine seeing him struggle with his mental or physical pain, or with hardship and misery, and having to tell yourself: I did this. If anything can calm your anger, this can. For compassion is the true antidote to anger. By using this trick on ourselves, we bring on in advance, while there is still time,
compassion, whose voice,once we have had revenge, makes its laws heard.Volt., “Semiramis”, A. 5, Sc. 6.
In general, nothing removes our hostile feelings toward others so easily as finding a point of view from which they call on our compassion.—Even the fact that parents usually love a sickly child the most rests on its constantly arousing compassion.
7) The moral motive I have put forward also proves itself genuine by extending its protection to animals, for which other European moral systems make such inexcusably poor provision. The supposed absence of rights for animals, the delusion that our actions toward them have no moral significance—or, in the language of those moral systems, that we have no duties toward animals—is simply an outrageous crudity and barbarism of the West, whose source lies in Judaism. In philosophy it rests on the assumption, against all the evidence, that humans and animals are entirely different. As everyone knows, Descartes expressed this most firmly and starkly, as a necessary consequence of his errors. When Cartesian-Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy built rational psychology out of abstract concepts and constructed an immortal rational soul, the natural claims of the animal world plainly stood in the way of this exclusive privilege and patent of immortality for the human species. Nature, as on all such occasions, lodged its silent protest. Troubled by their intellectual consciences, the philosophers now had to try to support rational psychology with empirical psychology. They therefore worked to open an enormous gulf, an immeasurable distance, between humans and animals, so as to present them as fundamentally different despite all the evidence. Boileau already mocks such efforts:
Do animals have universities?Do we see all four faculties flourishing among them?
In the end, animals supposedly could not even distinguish themselves from the outside world and had no awareness of themselves, no self! Against such absurd claims, we need only point to the boundless selfishness present in every animal, even the smallest and lowest. This is sufficient evidence of how clearly animals are aware of their own self as opposed to the world, or the not-self. If a Cartesian of this kind found himself in a tiger's claws, he would understand very clearly how sharply such an animal distinguishes its self from its not-self. Alongside these philosophical sophistries, we find something similar in ordinary speech. Some languages, especially German, have entirely separate words for animals' eating, drinking, being pregnant, giving birth, dying, and dead bodies. The aim is to avoid using the words that describe those acts in humans and to hide the complete identity of the thing under different words. Ancient languages do not have this double set of expressions. Without any qualms, they name the same thing with the same word. So that wretched trick is undoubtedly the work of the European priesthood. In its irreverence, it thinks it cannot go far enough in denying and insulting the eternal being that lives in all animals. In this way it laid the foundation for the harshness and cruelty toward animals customary in Europe, which someone from High Asia can view only with justified disgust. We do not find this contemptible trick in English, undoubtedly because the Saxons were not yet Christians when they conquered England. But something similar appears in the peculiar fact that in English all animals are neuter in gender. They are therefore represented by the pronoun “it,” just like lifeless things. This is quite outrageous, especially with primates, such as dogs, apes, etc., and is unmistakably a priestly trick for reducing animals to things. The ancient Egyptians, whose whole lives were devoted to religious purposes, placed the mummies of humans and those of ibises, crocodiles, etc., in the same tombs. But in Europe it is an abomination and a crime to bury a faithful dog beside its master's resting place. Sometimes the dog has waited there for its own death, out of a faithfulness and attachment not found among the human race.—Nothing leads more decisively to recognizing that the same essential nature appears in animals and humans than studying zoology and anatomy. What, then, should we say when today (1839) a sanctimonious animal anatomist dares to insist on an absolute and fundamental difference between humans and animals? What should we say when he goes so far as to attack and slander honest zoologists who, free from all priestcraft, currying of favor, and religious hypocrisy, follow the guidance of nature and truth?
You would have to be truly blind in every sense, or completely chloroformed by the Jewish stench, not to see that what is essential and chief in an animal and in a human being is the same. What separates the two does not lie in what is primary: the principle, the vital force, the inner being, the core of both appearances. In the one as in the other, that core is the will of the individual. The difference lies only in what is secondary: the intellect, the degree of the power of knowing. In humans this degree is incomparably higher, because of the added ability of abstract knowledge, which is called reason. Yet it can be shown to be higher only because of a greater development of the brain. That is a bodily difference in one single part, the brain, and specifically in how much of it there is. What animals and humans have in common, however, both in mind and in body, is beyond all comparison greater. A Western, Judaized despiser of animals and idolater of reason has to be reminded that, as he was nursed by his mother, so the dog was nursed by its mother. I have criticized above the fact that even Kant fell into this mistake of his contemporaries and countrymen. Christian morality takes no account of animals. This is a defect in it, and it is better to admit it than to keep it going. It is all the more surprising because in other respects this morality agrees very closely with that of Brahmanism and Buddhism. It is only expressed less strongly and is not carried through to the extremes. So one can hardly doubt that it comes from India, as the idea of a god who became a human being (Avatar) does too, and that it may have reached Judea by way of Egypt. Christianity would then be a reflection of the original Indian light from the ruins of Egypt, which unfortunately fell on Jewish ground. One could take the following fact as a neat symbol of the defect I have just criticized in Christian morality, which otherwise agrees so closely with the Indian. John the Baptist appears quite in the manner of an Indian sannyasi. But he is—dressed in animal skins! As everyone knows, this would be an abomination to any Hindu. The Royal Society at Calcutta even received its copy of the Vedas only on the promise that it would not have it bound in leather, in the European way. That is why it is found in their library bound in silk. The Gospel story of Peter's catch of fish offers a similar, characteristic contrast. The Savior blesses that catch by a miracle, in such a way that the boats are overfilled with fish to the point of sinking (Luke 5). Set against it is the story of Pythagoras, who was initiated into Egyptian wisdom. He buys the fishermen's catch from them while the net is still under the water, and then gives all the caught fish their freedom (Apul., On Magic, p. 36. Bip.).—Compassion for animals is so closely connected with goodness of character that one may say with confidence: whoever is cruel to animals cannot be a good person. This compassion also shows itself to spring from the same source as the virtue we are to practice toward people. For example, sensitive people may remember that they once mistreated their dog, their horse or their monkey, in a bad mood, in anger, or heated by wine. They did it undeservedly or needlessly, or beyond what was right. They then feel the same remorse and the same dissatisfaction with themselves that they feel when they remember wrong done to people. In that case it is called the voice of the punishing conscience. I remember reading that an Englishman in India shot a monkey while hunting. He could not forget the look the monkey gave him as it died, and from then on he never shot at a monkey again. It was the same with William Harris, a true Nimrod, who traveled deep into the interior of Africa in 1836 and 1837 only to enjoy the pleasure of hunting. In his travel account, published at Bombay in 1838, he tells the following story. He had killed the first elephant, a female. The next morning he went to look for the fallen animal. All the other elephants of the area had fled. Only the fallen one's young had spent the night with its dead mother. Now, forgetting all fear, it came toward the hunters. It showed its inconsolable grief in the liveliest and clearest ways, and it wound its small trunk around them to call for their help. At that moment, Harris says, true remorse for his deed seized him, and he felt as if he had committed a murder. We see this sensitive English nation stand out, above all others, for a striking compassion for animals. It shows itself on every occasion. It has had the power to move the nation, in spite of the “cold superstition” that otherwise degrades it, to fill the gap that religion left in morality by means of legislation. For this very gap is the reason that in Europe and America animal-protection societies are needed. Even these can work only with the help of the courts and the police. In Asia the religions give animals enough protection, so no one there thinks of such societies. Meanwhile, in Europe too, the sense of animals' rights is waking more and more. It grows to the degree that the strange notions slowly fade and vanish. These notions say that the animal world came into existence merely for the use and amusement of humans. Because of them, animals are treated entirely as things. For these notions are the source of the crude and completely thoughtless treatment of animals in Europe, and I have shown their Old Testament origin in the second volume of the Parerga, section 177. So let it be said to the credit of the English that among them the law was the first to take animals under its protection, quite seriously, against cruel treatment. The wrongdoer really has to pay for having committed an outrage against animals, even when they belong to him. Indeed, they are not satisfied even with that. In London there is a society, formed of its members' own free will for the protection of animals: the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. By private means, and at considerable expense, it does a great deal to work against the torturing of animals. Its emissaries watch in secret, so that afterward they can come forward as informers against the tormentors of speechless, feeling beings. People have to fear their presence everywhere.23 At steep bridges in London the society keeps a team of horses. It is hitched, free of charge, in front of every heavily loaded wagon. Is that not fine? Does it not win our applause just as much as a kind deed toward people? The Philantropic Society in London, for its part, also offered a prize of 30 pounds in 1837. It was for the best statement of moral reasons against cruelty to animals. The reasons, however, were to be taken mainly from Christianity, which of course made the task harder. In 1839 the prize was awarded to Mr. Macnamara. In Philadelphia there is an Animals friends Society for similar purposes. T. Forster (an Englishman) dedicated his book Philozoia, moral reflections on the actual condition of animals and the means of improving the same (Brussels 1839) to its president. The book is original and well written. As an Englishman, the author naturally tries to support his appeals for humane treatment of animals with the Bible too, but he slides
off everywhere. So in the end he reaches for the argument that Jesus Christ was, after all, born in a stable among the little ox and the little donkey. This, he says, would hint symbolically that we should regard animals as our brothers and treat them accordingly.—All that has been cited here shows that the moral side we are discussing is by now beginning to find an echo in the Western world too. Besides, compassion for animals does not have to go so far that we should give up animal food, as the Brahmans do. The reason is that in nature the capacity for suffering keeps pace with intelligence. So a human being would suffer more by doing without animal food, especially in the north, than the animal suffers from a quick death that always comes unforeseen. Still, this death should be made even easier with chloroform. Without animal food, in fact, the human race could not even survive in the north. By the same standard, humans also let animals work for them. Only excess in the effort laid on them turns into cruelty.
8) Let us for once set aside any metaphysical investigation of the final ground of that compassion, though such an investigation may be possible. Only from this compassion can non-egoistic actions come. Let us look at it from the empirical standpoint, simply as a device of nature. Then it will be clear to everyone that nature could do nothing more effective for two purposes. One is to ease as much as possible the countless and many-sided sufferings to which our life is exposed and which no one entirely escapes. The other is to balance the burning egoism that fills all beings and often turns into malice. What nature did was to plant in the human heart that wonderful disposition by which one person feels the suffering of another along with them. From it comes the voice that, depending on the occasion, calls out strongly and clearly to one person “Spare!” and to another “Help!” Surely the mutual help that springs from this offered more hope for the welfare of all than a general, abstract, strict command of duty could. Such a command would come out of certain reflections of reason and combinations of concepts. Even less success could be expected from it, because general propositions and abstract truths are quite incomprehensible to the unrefined person. For him only the concrete counts for anything. And all of humanity, except an extremely small part, has always been unrefined and must remain so. The reason is that the great amount of physical labor, which the whole of society absolutely needs, does not allow the mind to be trained. To awaken compassion, by contrast, no abstract knowledge is needed. Compassion has been shown to be the only source of unselfish actions and therefore the true basis of morality. It needs only intuitive knowledge, the mere grasp of the concrete case. Compassion responds to that at once, without any further mediation by thought.
9) We will find the following fact in complete agreement with this last consideration. The foundation I have given to ethics leaves me, it is true, without a predecessor among the academic philosophers. In fact, in relation to their doctrines it is paradoxical, since some of them flatly reject and condemn compassion. Examples are the Stoics (Sen., De clem., II, 5), Spinoza (Eth., IV, prop. 50), and Kant (Critique of Practical Reason, p. 213;—R., p. 257). On the other hand, my foundation has on its side the authority of the greatest moralist of all modern times. That is, without doubt, J. J. Rousseau. He knew the human heart deeply. He drew his wisdom not from books but from life, and he meant his teaching not for the lecture desk but for humanity. He was an enemy of prejudices and a pupil of nature. Nature had given him alone the gift of being able to moralize without being boring, because he hit the truth and touched the heart. So I will allow myself to set down a few passages from him in confirmation of my view. Up to now I have been as sparing with quotations as I could.
In the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 91 (edit. Bip.), he says: There is another principle, which Hobbes did not perceive at all. It was given to human beings to soften, in certain circumstances, the ferocity of their self-love, and it tempers the ardor they have for their own well-being by an innate repugnance at seeing their fellow creature suffer. I do not believe I have any contradiction to fear in granting to human beings the only natural virtue that the most extreme detractor of human virtues was forced to recognize. I am speaking of compassion, etc.—p. 92: Mandeville sensed very well that, with all their morality, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them compassion in support of reason. But he did not see that from this single quality flow all the social virtues, which he wants to deny to human beings. In fact, what are generosity, clemency, humanity, if not compassion applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human race in general? Goodwill and even friendship are, rightly understood, products of a constant compassion fixed on one particular object. For to wish that someone not suffer at all, what is that other than to wish that he be happy?——Sympathy will be all the more energetic as the animal looking on will identify itself more intimately with the suffering animal.—p. 94: It is therefore quite certain that compassion is a natural feeling. In each individual it moderates self-love, and it contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is compassion that, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, customs and virtues, with this advantage: nobody will be tempted to disobey its gentle voice. It is compassion that will keep any robust savage from taking from a weak child, or from an infirm old man, the livelihood he has gained with difficulty, if he himself hopes to find his own elsewhere. It is compassion that, in place of that sublime maxim of reasoned justice, “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” inspires in all human beings this other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect but perhaps more useful than the former: “Do your own good with the least possible harm to others.” In a word, it is in this natural feeling, rather than in subtle arguments, that one must seek the cause of the repugnance that every person would feel at doing wrong, even independently of the maxims of education.—Compare with this what he says in Emile, Book IV, pp. 115–120 (ed. Bip.), where it says, among other things: In fact, how do we let ourselves be moved to compassion, if not by transporting ourselves outside ourselves and identifying ourselves with the suffering animal; by leaving our own being, so to speak, to take on its being? We suffer only so far as we judge that it suffers. It is not in ourselves, it is in it, that we suffer. ———to offer the young man objects on which the expansive force of his heart can act, which widen it, which extend it over other beings, which make him everywhere find himself again outside himself; to keep away with care those that constrict it, concentrate it, and tighten the spring of the human self, etc.—
Since I have, as I said, no authorities on the side of the schools, I add further that the Chinese recognize five cardinal virtues (Tschang), and that compassion (Sin) stands at the top of them. The other four are: justice, politeness, wisdom and sincerity.24 In agreement with this, we see among the Hindus too, on the memorial tablets set up in memory of dead princes, that compassion for humans and animals takes first place among the virtues praised in them. In Athens, compassion had an altar in the forum: “The Athenians have an altar of Compassion in their marketplace. They alone among the Greeks honor this god, who is more helpful than any other god to human life and to the reversals of fortune.” Paus., I, 17. (“The Athenians have an altar of compassion in the forum. Because this god helps human life and the changes in affairs more than any other god, the Athenians alone among the Greeks give it honors.”) Lucian also mentions this altar in the Timon, section 99.—A saying of Phocion, preserved for us by Stobaeus, presents compassion as the holiest thing in human beings: “One should remove neither the altar from a sanctuary nor compassion from human nature” (“One should remove neither the altar from the temple nor compassion from human life”). In the Wisdom of the Indians, which is the Greek translation of the Panchatantra, it says (Sect. 3, p. 220): “For it is said that compassion comes first among the virtues” (“Compassion is counted as the chief of the virtues”). One sees that all times and all countries have recognized the source of morality very well. Only Europe has not. The only one to blame is the Jewish stench, which runs through everything here. So morality absolutely has to be a command of duty, a moral law, an imperative—in short, an order and a command that is obeyed. They do not give this up. They refuse to see that anything of this kind always has only egoism as its basis. Among individuals, to be sure, and superior ones, the truth as something felt has made itself known. So it did with Rousseau, as cited above. And Lessing too says, in a letter of 1756: “The most compassionate person is the best person, the one most disposed to all social virtues and to every kind of generosity.”
22 Even now, according to Buxton, The African slavetrade, 1839, their number is increased every year by about 150000 newly captured Africans. In capturing them and on their journey, over 200000 others die miserably.
23 How seriously the matter is taken is shown by the following quite recent example, which I translate from the Birmingham Journal of December 1839: “Arrest of a company of 84 dogfighters.—Word had come that a dogfight was to take place yesterday on the open ground in Fox Street in Birmingham. So the Society of Friends of Animals took precautions to make sure of the help of the police. A strong detachment of police marched to the place of combat, and as soon as it was let in, it arrested the entire company present. These participants were then tied together in pairs with loops around their hands, and the whole group was joined by a long rope in the middle. In this way they were led to the police office, where the mayor sat in session with the magistrate. The two main persons were each sentenced to a fine of 1 pound sterling plus 8½ shillings costs and, if they failed to pay, to 14 days of hard labor in the house of correction. The rest were released.”—The dandies, who are never missing from such noble pleasures, will have looked very embarrassed in the procession.—But we find a still sterner example from more recent times in the Times of April 6, 1855, p. 6, and in fact it was set by that newspaper itself. It reports a case that came before a court. The daughter of a very wealthy Scottish baronet had tortured her horse in a most cruel way, with a club and a knife. For this she had been sentenced to a fine of 5 pounds sterling. But a girl like that cares nothing about this, and so she would really have skipped off unpunished if the Times had not followed with the right and painful punishment. The paper printed the girl's first and last names twice, in large letters, and went on: “We cannot help saying that a couple of months in prison, together with some whippings, given in private but by the sturdiest woman in Hampshire, would have been a much more fitting punishment for Miss N. N. A wretch of this kind has forfeited all the consideration and privileges due to her sex. We can no longer regard her as a woman.”—I dedicate these newspaper reports especially to the societies against cruelty to animals that have now been founded in Germany, so that they see how one has to go about it if anything is to come of it. Still, I give my full recognition to the praiseworthy zeal of Court Councilor Perner in Munich, who has devoted himself entirely to this branch of charity and is spreading the stimulus for it all over Germany.
24 Journ. Asiatique, Vol. 9, p. 62, to be compared with Mencius, ed. Stan. Julien, 1824, Book I, section 45; also with Mencius in the Sacred Books of the Orient by Pauthier, p. 281.
About this section
Section 19 is part of On the Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 20 of 24 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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