BLOODLESS REVOLUTION EB

Tristram Stuart

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780007128921
• eBook ISBN: 9780007404926
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

In the 1600s, European travellers discovered Indian vegetarianism. Western culture was changed forever…

When early travellers returned from India with news of the country's vegetarians, they triggered a crisis in the European conscience. This panoramic tale recounts the explosive results of an enduring cultural exchange between East and West and tells of puritanical insurgents, Hinduphiles, scientists and philosophers who embraced a radical agenda of reform. These visionaries dissented from the entrenched custom of meat-eating, and sought to overthrow a rapacious consumer society. Their legacy is apparent even today.

'The Bloodless Revolution' is a grand history made up by interlocking biographies of extraordinary figures, from the English Civil War to the era of Romanticism and beyond. It is filled with stories of spectacular adventure in India and subversive scientific controversies carved out in a Europe at the dawn of the modern age. Accounts of Thomas Tryon's Hindu vegetarian society in 17th-century London are echoed by later 'British Brahmins' such as John Zephaniah Holwell, once Governor of Calcutta, who concocted his own half-Hindu, half-Christian religion. Whilst Revolution raged in France, East India Company men John Stewart and John Oswald returned home armed to the teeth with the animal-friendly tenets of Hinduism. Dr George Cheyne, situated at the heart of Enlightenment medicine, brought scientific clout to the movement, converting some of London's leading lights to his 'milk and seed' diet. From divergent perspectives, Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire and Shelley all questioned whether it was right to eat meat. Society's foremost thinkers engaged in the debate and their challenge to mainstream assumptions sowed the seeds of modern ecological consciousness.

This stunning debut is a rich cornucopia of 17th- and 18th-century travel, adventure, radical politics, literature and philosophy. Reaching forward into the 20th-century with the vegetarian ideologies of Hitler and Gandhi, it sheds surprising light on values still central to modern society.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 Mandeville (1924), I.173–81 (Remark P); ([Mandeville] (1714), Remark O, pp.146–57).

2 Passmore (1974), pp.13–14; Harrison, P. (1999); Schama (1995), pp.14, 18–19; Burkert (1983), pp.7–11, 17–22, 38; Burkert (1972), pp.180–1.

3 See especially the overviews in Mercerus (1598), pp.34–5, 195–7; Evelyn (1996), pp.80–1; Edwards (1699), I.91–9, 113–18; Almond (1999), pp.23–6, 118–22, 199; Prest (1981), pp.71–14 (the ‘Vertumnus’ poem Prest repeatedly quotes is by Abel Evans); Milton, J. (1667), X.185–9.

CHAPTER 1

1 This is John Aubrey’s version which he claims to have received from Thomas Hobbes. Jardine and Stewart (Jardine & Stewart (1998), pp.502–5) say that Bacon’s reference to his experiment on the ‘conservation and induration of bodies’ refers to living bodies which they take to be Bacon’s own body; however it could apply to dead bodies (such as the chicken) and would therefore corroborate Aubrey’s version rather than contradicting it. Jardine and Stewart suggest, rather, that the experiment in question was Bacon inhaling nitre (salt-petre) or opium to preserve his own life. They do not explain why Bacon would go to Highgate to inhale opium or nitre, whereas Highate Hill is where one would go to fetch snow in March. If Aubrey’s version is a fabrication, it is an odd coincidence that it corroborates a legitimate reading of Bacon’s private comments. It would also be odd if Bacon said that his attempt to preserve his life went ‘excellently well’ when it was followed by a coughing fit so fierce that he was forced to take refuge in Arundel’s house.

2 Bacon (1996), I.i.58; IV.247–8; Webster (1982), pp.48–9, 65–9; Webster (1975), pp.1, 4–5, 12, 15–16, 21–7 and passim; Almond (1999), p.23; Popkin (1998), p.395; Markku Peltonen, ‘Bacon, Francis, Viscount St Alban (1561–1626)’, ODNB.

3 Gruman (1966), pp.80–2.

4 Celsus (1935–8), I.43 (I.i.2); Venner (1660), p.230; Boerhaave (1742–6b), I.98–101n.6, VI.241; Boerhaave (1742–6a), I.65–7; Mead (1751), pp.207–8; Sinclair (1807), III.483; cp. Cheyne (1733), pp.152–3, 159–60. Aubrey (1669–96); Nicholson (1999), p.87. cf. Webster (1975), pp.246–323; Shapin (2000), p.134; Shapin (1998), pp.35–6, which treats Bacon’s comments as a novel ‘twist’; Bacon was siding with Celsus as he often did; cf. Bacon (1854), III.343–71 (Aphorism 73); Celsus (1935–8), ‘Proem’.

5 See n.8 below.

6 Jardine and Stewart (1998), pp.464–5.

7 Bushell (1628), ‘Epistle Dedicatory’, pp.58–61 [mispaginated 54–5], and passim; cf. Bacon (1650), p.18ff.; [Vaughan, W.] (1633), p.62.

8 Bacon (1650), pp.7, 13–26, 32, 35–6, 40–3, 46, 51. Compare, for example, Bacon (1623), pp.103–4, 146 (where ‘solum’ is not translated). cf. Bacon (1651), p.156; Bacon (1638), p.209; Lessius, Cornaro and Anon. (1634), sig.5v; and ms. marginalia in Bacon (1638) [British Library: 535.a.6], pp.214–5.

9 Bushell (1659), ‘Letter to … Fairfax’, p.3; ‘Minerall Overtures’, pp.3–4; ‘Condemned men’, pp.2–3; ‘Fellow-Prisoners’, p.7; ‘[Bacon’s] New Atlantis’, pp.5, 29, 31–2; ‘Post-Script’, pp.4–21, espec. pp.6–8 for Bushell’s continued vegetarianism in Oxford; Bushell (1660), pp.14–18, 34–7; Bushell (1628), ‘Epistle Dedicatory’, pp.13, 20, 30, 58, 70, 74, 84, 99, 109, 111, 138; Blundell (1877), pp.34–5; Pryme (1880), vol.30, pp.8, 11–17+n.; Gough (1932), pp.4–18, 27–30, 34; Thomas, K. (1983), pp.289–90; George C. Boon, ‘Bushell, Thomas (b. before 1600, d. 1674)’, ODNB; Rostvig (1954).

10 Jerome (2005a), Bk II, ch.15, Bk I, ch.18; cf. Pseudo-Clement (2005b), Hom. viii, ch. 15–17; Boas (1948), pp.25–6, 32, 84, 114–6; Bynum (1988), pp.35, 44, 109, 320n.5.

11 Pettus (1674), pp.146–7; cit. Sherman (2002), pp.88–9.

12 John Calvin (1999), vol.I, Genesis I.xxix and 9.iii; cf. Evelyn (1996), pp.80–1; Almond (1999), pp.118, 199; Browne (1672), Bk III, ch.xxv, pp.189–94; Edwards (1699), I.91–9, 113–8.

13 Bushell (1660), ‘Post Script’, pp.20–1, 34–7; cf. Bushell (1659), ‘[Bacon’s] New Atlantis’, p.29.

14 Ovid (1632), Bk I. cp. the ‘lothsome bramble berries’ of Golding’s translation, Ovid (1567), Bk I, ll.115–21. Dryden’s later translation is still more enthusiastic than Sandys’ (Ovid (1717), p.5). However, even Golding’s translation expanded Ovid’s list of five fruits to twelve, Lyne (2001), pp.75–7. For the variant traditions of idealised and despised primitivism, cf. Boas (1948), pp.140n., 150.

15 Ovid (1632), Sandys’ commentary, Bk I and Bk XV.

16 Bushell (1659), ‘To the reader’, sig.A3r.

17 Bushell (1659), ‘Post-Script’, pp.4–8; cf. Hill (1991), p.27. For Rosicrucian vegetarianism, cf. e.g. Heydon (1662), Bk I.14, Bk III.1, 26–32, 106.

18 cf. e.g. Dornavius (1619); Volckerstorff (1721), I.i.

19 Bacon does not explicitly state this view, but see Bacon (1650), pp.15ff, 21.

20 Culpeper (1656), p.21; cf. Parkinson (1629) and especially Tryon (1691a), p.217.

21 Coudert (1999), p.74.

22 Passmore (1974), pp.18–20; Webster (1975), pp.25–7; Garber and Ayers eds (1998), p.395.

23 Bacon (1640), p.382; Turner (1980), p.3n; Proverbs 12:10; Almond (1999), pp.124–5; Ray (1717), pp.55–6. Bacon’s subsequent comments on the kindness of Turks to animals could have come from George Sandys (1610–11) repr. in Purchas ed., (1905–7), VIII.135–6. For Bacon’s other comments on Pythagoras and the Brahmins, cf. e.g. Bacon (1996), II.640–1; V.422 and especially IV.377.

24 Powicke ed., (1926), p.197; cit. Almond (1999), p.119.

CHAPTER 2

1 Garment (1651), p.4; Anon. (1651a), pp.3, 7–9, 12–13; H[all?], G. (1651), pp.2–3; PA (1651) no. 21, p.166; Taylor (1651), p.2; Reeve [and Muggleton?] (1711), pp.6, 9–13; Muggleton (1699), pp.20–2, 45–6; Hill (1983), p.67; Ariel Hessayon, ‘John Robins’, ODNB; Greaves and Zaller eds, (1982–4), III.100–1; Hopton, ed. (1992). Jacob Böhme and George Fox similarly tried to speak the Adamic language; cf. Thune (1948), pp.63–4, 159–60.

2 Katz (1982), p.120.

3 Hill, Reay and Lamont (1983), pp.18–19, 68–70; Hill (1990), pp.160–73; H[all?]., G. (1651); Berckendal (1661); Muggleton (1699), p.47.

4 Reeve [and Muggleton?] (1711), p.12; H[all?]., G. (1651), p.2; cf. Muggleton (1699), p.22.

5 Reeve [and Muggleton?] (1711), p.11; cf. Muggleton (1699), p.45.

6 Muggleton (1699), pp.46–7; H[all?]., G. (1651), p.4; Katz (1982), pp.114–5; Thomas Tany was also accused of witchcraft, (Hill, Reay and Lamont (1983), p.69), as was Roger Crab.

7 Reeve [and Muggleton?] (1711), p.13.

8 Hopton, ed. (1992), p.12; PA (1651) no.21, p.166; Reeve [and Muggleton?] (1711), p.12.

9 Hill, Reay and Lamont (1983), pp.18–19; cf. Thune (1948), p.146. The Robins sect were compared to the Adamites and Familists in Taylor (1651), pp.2–4. For the Adamites and other radical nudists, see Cohn (1970), pp.180–1, 210, 218–21. The frontispiece woodcut in H[all?]., G. (1651) sho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• I: Grass Roots
• II: Meatless Medicine
• III: Romantic Dinners
• Epilogue
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Copyright
• About the Publisher