ABSTRACT
Oswald served in the army, in the Royal Highland Regiment, and was influenced by his exposure to Hindu culture when on duty in India, as is very apparent in this extract. Nevertheless, Oswald’s reasoning goes beyond the anthropocentric human utilitarianism that came to frame early moves towards animal protection led by liberals in Britain. He asserts that hunting is simply morally wrong, killing animals for food is unnecessary and that animals have feelings and rights. The peasantry of Turkey, France, Spain, Germany, and even of England, that most carnivorous of all countries, can seldom afford to eat flesh. The barbarous tribes of North-America, who subsist almost entirely by hunting, can scarce find, in a vast extent of country, a scanty subsistence for a handful of inhabitants. Animal food overpowers the faculties of the stomach, clogs the functions of the soul, and renders the mind material and gross.
