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The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
- GenresNonfictionEssaysClassics
92 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1900
6 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Leo Tolstoy
7,877 books28.2k followersLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 10, 2018
این نوشته کوتاه چند صفحه ای را باید قاب کرد و به همه دولتها و ملتها تقدیم کرد. نوشته کوتاه I can’t be silent همین نویسنده مکمل فوق العاده ای برای این نوشته ست.
July 7, 2018
veganism/vegetarianism through Tolstoy's lens
June 7, 2016
The above essay was written as Preface to a Russian translation of Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet and can be read online at http://www.ivu.org/history/tolstoy/th...
It makes me sad to think the Tolstoy was trying to communicate to people in the 19th century his experiences of an abattoir and cure those around him of cognitive dissonance including that of his close family. He couldn't get them to see that eating an animal was the same thing as cruelty to animals. His essay contains a vivid description of business as usual in a slaughterhouse. With films such as Earthlings and many documentaries showing us how meat comes to be at our table maybe it is more possible for us to repair our disconnect. Talking to my friends and family though, I share his confusion and alienation from people we know to be good and kind but watch them willingly choose personal pleasure over the life of a sentient, feeling being. Tolstoy was aware we could live healthily without meat and knew it was an optional luxury over a century ago. He also recognises vegetarianism as the first step towards a more humane society in general.
It makes me sad to think the Tolstoy was trying to communicate to people in the 19th century his experiences of an abattoir and cure those around him of cognitive dissonance including that of his close family. He couldn't get them to see that eating an animal was the same thing as cruelty to animals. His essay contains a vivid description of business as usual in a slaughterhouse. With films such as Earthlings and many documentaries showing us how meat comes to be at our table maybe it is more possible for us to repair our disconnect. Talking to my friends and family though, I share his confusion and alienation from people we know to be good and kind but watch them willingly choose personal pleasure over the life of a sentient, feeling being. Tolstoy was aware we could live healthily without meat and knew it was an optional luxury over a century ago. He also recognises vegetarianism as the first step towards a more humane society in general.
September 21, 2024
You have likely heard the Tolstoy quote regarding the inevitability of battlefields for as long as there are slaughterhouses. In this essay he takes a deeper dive into the topic and assesses public attitudes and the brutal final moments that the farmed animals face. With a growing human population and increased demand for animal products in growing economies, his simple, rational arguments remain ever timely.
“I had wished to visit a slaughter house, in order to see with my own eyes the reality of the question raised when vegetarianism is discussed. But at first I felt ashamed to do so, as one is always ashamed of going to look at suffering which one knows is about to take place, but which one cannot avert; and so I kept putting off my visit.
But a little while ago I met on the road a butcher returning to Toula after a visit to his home. He is not yet an experienced butcher, and his duty is to stab with a knife. I asked him whether he did not feel sorry for the animals that he killed. He gave me the usual answer: "Why should I feel sorry? It is necessary." But when I told him that eating flesh is not necessary, but is only a luxury, he agreed; and then he admitted that he was sorry for the animals.
The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood. Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal; but the carter saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting its throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. "Do men really not have to answer for such things?" he said.
So strong is man's aversion to all killing. But by example, by encouraging greediness, by the assertion that God has allowed it, and, above all, by habit, people entirely lose this natural feeling.
These men were evidently all preoccupied with money matters and calculations, and any thought as to whether it was right or wrong to kill these animals was as far from their minds as were questions about the chemical composition of the blood that covered the floor of the chambers.
The ram quivered, and the little tail stiffened and ceased to wave. The fellow, while waiting for the blood to flow, began to relight his cigarette, which had gone out. The blood flowed and the ram began to writhe. The conversation continued without the slightest interruption. It was horribly revolting. […]
[A]nd how about those hens and chickens which daily, in thousands of kitchens, with heads cut off and streaming with blood, comically, dreadfully, flop about, jerking their wings?
And see, a kind, refined lady will devour the carcasses of these animals with full assurance that she is doing right.
And in fasting, if he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation of the passions caused by such food, its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling—killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food. […]
[W]e cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispensable, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful! But it is quite unnecessary.”
“I had wished to visit a slaughter house, in order to see with my own eyes the reality of the question raised when vegetarianism is discussed. But at first I felt ashamed to do so, as one is always ashamed of going to look at suffering which one knows is about to take place, but which one cannot avert; and so I kept putting off my visit.
But a little while ago I met on the road a butcher returning to Toula after a visit to his home. He is not yet an experienced butcher, and his duty is to stab with a knife. I asked him whether he did not feel sorry for the animals that he killed. He gave me the usual answer: "Why should I feel sorry? It is necessary." But when I told him that eating flesh is not necessary, but is only a luxury, he agreed; and then he admitted that he was sorry for the animals.
The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood. Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal; but the carter saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting its throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. "Do men really not have to answer for such things?" he said.
So strong is man's aversion to all killing. But by example, by encouraging greediness, by the assertion that God has allowed it, and, above all, by habit, people entirely lose this natural feeling.
These men were evidently all preoccupied with money matters and calculations, and any thought as to whether it was right or wrong to kill these animals was as far from their minds as were questions about the chemical composition of the blood that covered the floor of the chambers.
The ram quivered, and the little tail stiffened and ceased to wave. The fellow, while waiting for the blood to flow, began to relight his cigarette, which had gone out. The blood flowed and the ram began to writhe. The conversation continued without the slightest interruption. It was horribly revolting. […]
[A]nd how about those hens and chickens which daily, in thousands of kitchens, with heads cut off and streaming with blood, comically, dreadfully, flop about, jerking their wings?
And see, a kind, refined lady will devour the carcasses of these animals with full assurance that she is doing right.
And in fasting, if he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation of the passions caused by such food, its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling—killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food. […]
[W]e cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispensable, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful! But it is quite unnecessary.”
November 21, 2025
Una perspectiva del vegetarianismo / veganismo que, desde luego, no me esperaba. Ha sido enriquecedor leerlo y gratificante ver que pensadores tan importantes han reflexionado sobre ello de una manera tan profunda :)
September 28, 2024
Tolstoy is absolutely right: renunciation is the beginning of all wisdom and morality. In many cases, the further we move away from the animal, the closer we are to God. I especially appreciate how he elucidates the difference between pagan and Christian approaches to morality as "final perfection" versus "infinite perfecting." Where things go off the rails is when Tolstoy contradicts the entirety of church history and all interpreters before a couple hundred years ago by claiming that Christianity isn't about salvation, but only about earthly paradise. I know Tolstoy goes out of his way to throw out all of the bible except the gospels, but even in those he didn't throw out, Christ makes it pretty clear that the Kingdom of Heaven isn't on earth ("my kingdom is not of this earth"). Tolstoy rightfully points out how hyperfixating on salvation and justification can give Christians an excuse to neglect sanctification and moral striving, especially protestants, but his own canonical tinkering is ever-present and convenient.
However, I do also agree with how Tolstoy incisively points out many luxuries which we now take for granted as necessities. Really the only difference between most of us and the rich of the 1800s is that they had servants to do these things, while we have most of the amenities sans the servants. Thus because of the spreading of wealth and cheap luxury goods, we are a deeply sick civilization. Taking one look at our popular music tells you all you need to know.
I was just thinking earlier today about how if the artifacts a culture leaves behind are what define it, our culture is a mass of trash, plastics and styrofoam which never will biodegrade, and endless hordes of broken minds. It is painful to realize this, but with out the painful realization we can't ever change anything. Strange creatures like Sotce on Instagram pretend to peddle spirituality and Buddhism but make no real renunciations. Celebrities, influencers, and rappers are probably the most pernicious trendsetters in our culture, because they enforce the capitalistic schizophrenia of binge-consumption and egotistical flaunting, all while being upheld as some sort of enviable ideals.
Real renunciation is hard, much harder than simply refusing to eat meat or something else that's arbitrary and trendy. That's where I think Tolstoy totally misses the boat. I say this because I know many people who fit Tolstoy's description of stifling one's conscience in order to continue leading a dissipated life; I immediately thought of one of my exes, who rests right at the nexus of vegetarian and dissipated liberal (non-)Christian. Her rejection of meat was basically identical to Tolstoy's: a revulsion at the less-than-perfect method of slaughtering animals, and thus a revulsion of the body itself. The problem is that my ex was actually more consistent than Tolstoy. The problem with pathos arguments against eating meat is that they undermine holding really any other moral positions. As Tolstoy established early on in this essay, the bedrock of a moral life is renunciation, or abstinence, as it's alternatively translated. This is something unique to humans which subverts our gut instincts and transcends the merely animal and habitual. I bolded the previous sentence because it's so important.
The contradiction comes into play when you try using "ew, gross" as an argument against eating meat. This gut reaction is really no different in kind than "mmm, sexy;" both are animalistic responses to gore or beauty (respectively), and if we would consistently apply Tolstoy's maxim about renunciation being foundational, you would have to be suspicious of both impulses, not just the second one. This is where my ex is at least consistent: she simply is a slave to her animalistic drives, and uses all sorts of post-hoc arguments to justify it (the meat industry is unethical, blah blah blah).
I think the fatal assumption that knocks Tolstoy off of this clear correlation I established above is that he has inherited the classical categorization of "meat = luxurious," which back then was still partially true but now isn't really true. In most cases, meat is actually much cheaper than the vegan options, and about as expensive as the vegetarian options. So his argument from an assumption of luxury falls flat. I think that Tolstoy says some extremely important things in this essay (especially given our current political climate and certain groups in vogue today), such as:
The delusion that men, while addicting themselves to their desires and regarding this life of desire as good, can yet lead a good, useful, just, and loving life, is so astonishing that men of later generations will, I should think, simply fail to understand what the men of our time meant by the words "good life," when they said that the gluttons, the effeminate, the lustful sluggards of our wealthy classes led good lives.
To me, this Tolstoy what true leftism is, not the paltry idiocy of people who endlessly re-label and re-categorize things to fit their lazy morality. The problem is that everyone wants to think of themselves as a rebel, but no one wants to do anything that hasn't already been prescribed by one of the political movements in vogue. The real rebellion/revolution is extremely quiet: all these virtues that have been forgotten, such as patience, silence, longsuffering, renunciation, etc. As Tolstoy writes soon after the above:
A man cannot perform a single good action without disturbing the usual current of life. He can do a bad action without disturbing this current, but not a good one.
Nietzsche and Emerson point out this same thing: it's extremely lonely being a real rebel, and very few people are cut out to do that. I for one am always having to pick my battles, because it's extremely tiring and dangerous to be genuinely rebellious. Though our culture claims to idolize rebellion, it's an aestheticized rebellion which very quickly becomes its own comfortable conformity. I can't help but feel that Tolstoy himself fell into this as well. Yes, he made some genuine moral progress of his own, and he should be commended for that, but he also falls into his own comfortable ruts, his own superficial rebellions like vegetarianism and attacking the church. I guess the thing is that Tolstoy should have taken his own advice in the first half of this essay, rather than forgetting it by the end so that he could make his vegetarian friends happy. Oh well.
However, I do also agree with how Tolstoy incisively points out many luxuries which we now take for granted as necessities. Really the only difference between most of us and the rich of the 1800s is that they had servants to do these things, while we have most of the amenities sans the servants. Thus because of the spreading of wealth and cheap luxury goods, we are a deeply sick civilization. Taking one look at our popular music tells you all you need to know.
I was just thinking earlier today about how if the artifacts a culture leaves behind are what define it, our culture is a mass of trash, plastics and styrofoam which never will biodegrade, and endless hordes of broken minds. It is painful to realize this, but with out the painful realization we can't ever change anything. Strange creatures like Sotce on Instagram pretend to peddle spirituality and Buddhism but make no real renunciations. Celebrities, influencers, and rappers are probably the most pernicious trendsetters in our culture, because they enforce the capitalistic schizophrenia of binge-consumption and egotistical flaunting, all while being upheld as some sort of enviable ideals.
Real renunciation is hard, much harder than simply refusing to eat meat or something else that's arbitrary and trendy. That's where I think Tolstoy totally misses the boat. I say this because I know many people who fit Tolstoy's description of stifling one's conscience in order to continue leading a dissipated life; I immediately thought of one of my exes, who rests right at the nexus of vegetarian and dissipated liberal (non-)Christian. Her rejection of meat was basically identical to Tolstoy's: a revulsion at the less-than-perfect method of slaughtering animals, and thus a revulsion of the body itself. The problem is that my ex was actually more consistent than Tolstoy. The problem with pathos arguments against eating meat is that they undermine holding really any other moral positions. As Tolstoy established early on in this essay, the bedrock of a moral life is renunciation, or abstinence, as it's alternatively translated. This is something unique to humans which subverts our gut instincts and transcends the merely animal and habitual. I bolded the previous sentence because it's so important.
The contradiction comes into play when you try using "ew, gross" as an argument against eating meat. This gut reaction is really no different in kind than "mmm, sexy;" both are animalistic responses to gore or beauty (respectively), and if we would consistently apply Tolstoy's maxim about renunciation being foundational, you would have to be suspicious of both impulses, not just the second one. This is where my ex is at least consistent: she simply is a slave to her animalistic drives, and uses all sorts of post-hoc arguments to justify it (the meat industry is unethical, blah blah blah).
I think the fatal assumption that knocks Tolstoy off of this clear correlation I established above is that he has inherited the classical categorization of "meat = luxurious," which back then was still partially true but now isn't really true. In most cases, meat is actually much cheaper than the vegan options, and about as expensive as the vegetarian options. So his argument from an assumption of luxury falls flat. I think that Tolstoy says some extremely important things in this essay (especially given our current political climate and certain groups in vogue today), such as:
The delusion that men, while addicting themselves to their desires and regarding this life of desire as good, can yet lead a good, useful, just, and loving life, is so astonishing that men of later generations will, I should think, simply fail to understand what the men of our time meant by the words "good life," when they said that the gluttons, the effeminate, the lustful sluggards of our wealthy classes led good lives.
To me, this Tolstoy what true leftism is, not the paltry idiocy of people who endlessly re-label and re-categorize things to fit their lazy morality. The problem is that everyone wants to think of themselves as a rebel, but no one wants to do anything that hasn't already been prescribed by one of the political movements in vogue. The real rebellion/revolution is extremely quiet: all these virtues that have been forgotten, such as patience, silence, longsuffering, renunciation, etc. As Tolstoy writes soon after the above:
A man cannot perform a single good action without disturbing the usual current of life. He can do a bad action without disturbing this current, but not a good one.
Nietzsche and Emerson point out this same thing: it's extremely lonely being a real rebel, and very few people are cut out to do that. I for one am always having to pick my battles, because it's extremely tiring and dangerous to be genuinely rebellious. Though our culture claims to idolize rebellion, it's an aestheticized rebellion which very quickly becomes its own comfortable conformity. I can't help but feel that Tolstoy himself fell into this as well. Yes, he made some genuine moral progress of his own, and he should be commended for that, but he also falls into his own comfortable ruts, his own superficial rebellions like vegetarianism and attacking the church. I guess the thing is that Tolstoy should have taken his own advice in the first half of this essay, rather than forgetting it by the end so that he could make his vegetarian friends happy. Oh well.
July 9, 2020
Es interesante como documento histórico pero no como un libro "sobre vegetarianismo", ya que las ideas expuestas acá son de 1900, y si bien son muy adelantadas a su época, ahora quedan un poco obsoletas. Otro punto negativo es que es demasiado reiterativo y en la parte final se repiten exactamente las mismas notas. Como libro "sobre...", es malisimo, pero como dice en el prólogo es un prólogo extendido para otro libro. Las 120 páginas de este libro pudiesen haber sido perfectamente 30.
El apartado final del hijo de Tolstoi es interesante.
El apartado final del hijo de Tolstoi es interesante.
February 23, 2021
Expone unas ideas muy avanzadas para su época y contiene, entre otras cosas, un relato impecable sobre lo que transcurre dentro de un matadero.
El libro se convierte, no obstante, en algo dogmático y reiterativo. Los escritos están anclados en el concepto de "pirámide de moralidad", así como interpretaciones del cristianismo. Como la inmensa mayoría de corrientes ideológicas, intenta desbancar un credo a base de crear uno nuevo, no menos dudoso e impreciso que el anterior.
Pero, como vegetariana, me ha parecido una bonita curiosidad histórica.
El libro se convierte, no obstante, en algo dogmático y reiterativo. Los escritos están anclados en el concepto de "pirámide de moralidad", así como interpretaciones del cristianismo. Como la inmensa mayoría de corrientes ideológicas, intenta desbancar un credo a base de crear uno nuevo, no menos dudoso e impreciso que el anterior.
Pero, como vegetariana, me ha parecido una bonita curiosidad histórica.
October 27, 2021
Ahead of its time.
The essay is short. It will take less than 20 minutes to read. If you are reading reviews of the work, I suggest giving it read instead.
The documentary Dominion (free on YouTube) can be a good companion piece, if one is curious about the conditions of modern slaughterhouses today.
The essay is short. It will take less than 20 minutes to read. If you are reading reviews of the work, I suggest giving it read instead.
The documentary Dominion (free on YouTube) can be a good companion piece, if one is curious about the conditions of modern slaughterhouses today.
July 19, 2024
“This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity— that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself-- and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!”
May 29, 2017
Reflexión sobre vegetarianismo pero también sobre ser o no ser coherente en la vida.
October 15, 2019
In one sentence: Dear Christian meat eaters and gluttons, please reconsider your eating habits.
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May 4, 20257 pages 4/16
October 9, 2025
buena reflexión del tolstoi, te deja pensando sobre la moral de esos tiempos y como que a pesar de todo no se esta dispuesto a renunciar a ciertas cosas para ser mejor a pesar de creer en la religión
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews