34^ Abdu on Dumb Animals [1900 



And so do my best to emancipate man. 



Some good yet we may see when there comes to the front 



The excellent doctrine of Lawson and Blunt. 



a 



28th Jan. (Sunday). — A long talk with Mohammed Abdu on the 

 whole subject of mankind and the dealings of the strong with the weak. 

 I find he is as pessimistic as myself. He has been reading the Tozvra, 

 the Old Testament Pentateuch, lately, and attributes the brutalities of 

 Christianity largely to its connecion with Judaism. As to the treatment 

 of dumb animals he quoted to me several of the Hawadith enjoining 

 kindness, and it is certain that wanton destruction of these is contrary 

 to the sentiment of Moslems. Wanton destruction is indeed peculiar 

 to Christendom. Abdu believes in no good future for the human race, 

 and 1 fear he has as little faith in Islam, Grand Mufti though he be, as 

 I have in the Catholic Church. 



" Buller has had another reverse before Ladysmith at Spion Kop. 

 This time it is General Warren who has suffered defeat. I am glad of 

 it. It was he that hanged the Bedouins for the Palmer affair after 

 Tel-el-Kebir. I have written to Leonard Courtney to say I will join 

 the ' Stop the War Committee,' and am sending £50. This though with 

 some qualms of conscience, for if the war goes on another six months 

 it really may smash up the British Empire. 



' My once dearest friend Lothian is dead. What a grief this would 

 have been to me five-and-thirty years ago ! He was the lightest of all 

 light-hearted companions, yet serious too. We made our storm and 

 stress together at Frankfort when Darwinism was a novelty, and solved 

 the riddle of the universe together gazing at the stars. We have gone 

 different roads since then. He to lead an uneventful life of hisrh and 

 various dignities in Scotland, I to adventure in what devious ways. It 

 is only casually that we have met for years. 



"29th Jan. — I have written the following in answer to one who had 

 criticized my ' Satan Absolved ' on the ground that though splendid if 

 intended as a rcductio ad absurdum of Christianity, it stopped short of 

 accepting Nietsche's doctrine of Force. ' Of course the poem was a 

 rcductio ad absurdum. The thing that seemed to me supremely in 

 need of being shown ridiculous was the worship of humanity in any 

 form. I am not a disciple of Tolstoy. He believes in the possibility 

 of improvement, in moral progress, and in a far away Christian civiliza- 

 tion. I do not. At the same time I do not mock at Christian ideals. 

 If Man were not the ludicrous, vicious ape he is, but were capable of 

 being converted to a quiet, harmless life without thought for the morrow 

 — or ambition or desire more than to praise God and enjoy himself in 

 the sun like the lilies of the field, the world would be a very happy place, 

 as it was before Man came to disturb it. But of course this will never 



