A hundred years ago Romain Rolland wrote on animal rights:
Even in the days when he had been happy he had always loved the beasts : he had never been able to bear cruelty towards them : he had always had a detestation of sport, which he had never dared to express for fear of ridicule : perhaps even he had never dared to admit it to himself : but his feeling of repulsion had been the secret cause of the apparently inexplicable feeling of dislike he had had for certain men : he had never been able to admit to his friendship a man who could kill an animal for pleasure. It was not sentimentality : no one knew better than he that life is based on suffering and infinite cruelty : no man can live without making others suffer. It is no use closing our eyes and fobbing ourselves off with words. It is no use either coming to the conclusion that we must renounce life and sniveling like children. No. We must kill to live, if, at the time, there is no other means of living. But the man who kills for the sake of killing is a miscreant. An unconscious miscreant, I know. But, all the same, a miscreant. The continual endeavor of man should be to lessen the sum of suffering and cruelty : that is the first duty of humanity.
(Quoted from The Burning Bush, page 327 of Jean-Chirstophe, by Romain Rolland. Henry Holt and Company, 1913.)
For a brief biography of Romain Rolland, click here. For images of and relating to Romain Rolland, click here. For Romain Rolland’s sequence of novels published under the title Jean-Christophe, click here.
Even in the days when he had been happy he had always loved the beasts : he had never been able to bear cruelty towards them : he had always had a detestation of sport, which he had never dared to express for fear of ridicule : perhaps even he had never dared to admit it to himself : but his feeling of repulsion had been the secret cause of the apparently inexplicable feeling of dislike he had had for certain men : he had never been able to admit to his friendship a man who could kill an animal for pleasure. It was not sentimentality : no one knew better than he that life is based on suffering and infinite cruelty : no man can live without making others suffer. It is no use closing our eyes and fobbing ourselves off with words. It is no use either coming to the conclusion that we must renounce life and sniveling like children. No. We must kill to live, if, at the time, there is no other means of living. But the man who kills for the sake of killing is a miscreant. An unconscious miscreant, I know. But, all the same, a miscreant. The continual endeavor of man should be to lessen the sum of suffering and cruelty : that is the first duty of humanity.
(Quoted from The Burning Bush, page 327 of Jean-Chirstophe, by Romain Rolland. Henry Holt and Company, 1913.)
For a brief biography of Romain Rolland, click here. For images of and relating to Romain Rolland, click here. For Romain Rolland’s sequence of novels published under the title Jean-Christophe, click here.
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