WHAT IS CULTURE?

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21423, 15 March 1935, Page 8

WHAT IS CULTURE?

' TO TilE EDITOR OF THE I'UISS. Sir, —I am grateful to Mr Richards ; for his letter, as it enables me to stress > one or two points which perhaps make : tlje idea of kindness to animals intellectually more acceptable. The first 1 point is that to-day one cannot separ- * ate the animals and plants from 5 human beings. To-day we must rc- ■ gard all three species of Jiving beings < as belonging to one family of life. All ■ Jiving beings are akin; if it is murder I to kill a man, it is likewise murder

man's attitude to man has so developed that human murder, whether in war or by way of the death pen- . alty, is eliminated; it is still better 1 when man no longer murders animals; t it will be better still in the days of t synthetic food, when man no longer £ murders the plant. Meanwhile, we s must all do the best we can. Personal experience has convinced me that it is quite possible to live at any rate on an entirely non-animal diet, excluding even milk, butter, and eggs. , The mental satisfaction resulting more ' than repays the apparent hardship. , Mr Richards obviously relies much on Biblical authority. He rightly , points out that the first food of man ' was to be "every plant that bears 1 seed . . . and every tree that bears 1 seed" (Genesis, 1, 29). In the second ] account of creation in Genesis 2, 19, it is said that the animals were made to be not the victims of man but his "helpers" or companions. But man rejected the gift of God and was plagued with Eve instead! The woman was made for the same purpose as the animals by Jahweh. This equating of the human and the animal is further illustrated by the concluding verses of Jonah, whexein Jahweh has pity not only on the men and women of Nineveh, but on the "much cattle" in that city. Further in Isaiah we read that in the great days to come "wolf and lion shall graze side by side, herded by a little child . . . the infant shall play at the hole of an asp and the baby's feet at the nest of a viper. None shall injure, none shall kill anywhere on my sacred hill." (Isaiah, 12, 6-9.) In spite of the Ingenuous interpretations of some vegetarians I think it remains obvious that Jesus ate animal food, as Mr Richards practically states. And this brings me to the next important point. The main lesson learnt from the whole Bible story from Genesis to Revelation is summed up in that monumental saying of the writer of the epistle of John: "God is Agape, i.e., pure Love." It is this love which, extending further than Jesus or the early Christian apparently thought it should, namely, from man, is now reaching out to all forms 6f life. Mr Richards as a Christian minister will recognise that this is not an un-Christian way of regarding things. He will readily regard it as the work of that Holy Spirit which was to guide Christians through the • ages into more and more truth. The truth of evolution was not as plain 2000 years ago as it seems to-day. And to t'h ink that during these 2000 years God, i.e. Agape, has made 1 no progress in winning an increasing hold over the hearts of men would seem rather surprising. No. When • men out of pure love for other forms 1 of life (there is no human law to comi pel obedience) refuse to be cruel to ' them, i.e., to exploit them, God Is • winning fresh victories; that is to say, (he quality of human life is improving. It is not the length of life that matters but its quality. In the last resort one drop of the divine Agape is worth more than a whole cosmosful of any other possession. Naturally, l'or it is the real essence of life, of our- - selves, so far as we can as yet grasp [ that mystery. I repeat, culture means, , first of ail. kindness.—Yours, etc.. N. M. BELL. March 12, 1935.