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Essay 3: Albert Schweitzer's Affirmations of Reverence for Life |
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so that they were safe from my friend, and ran home. Ever
since then, when the bells of Passiontide ring out into the
sunshine and the naked trees, I remember, deeply moved and
grateful, how that day they rang into my heart the
commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ” Schweitzer told other
stories about an old horse being dragged to the slaughterhouse
in Colmar, about his own dog Phylax and his neighbor’s dog
Löscher, about the revolting experience of impaling worms
and hooking fish, and about the treatment extended to
Mausche the Jewish dealer when he passed through Günsbach.
Schweitzer observed
that the
commandment not to
kill and torture
impacted him in a
powerful way in his
childhood and
youth.
When reflecting on his childhood, Schweitzer observed that
the commandment not to kill and torture impacted him in a
powerful way in his childhood and youth, and such may well
be the case. It may well be that Schweitzer was predisposed
from childhood and influenced by childhood experiences to
feel a kinship with other living beings, a feeling that may
anticipate his later affirmations of Reverence for Life. Yet
Schweitzer’s reflections published in his Memoirs of
Childhood and Youth are
based upon his sessions, in
1922, with the psychologist
and pastor Oscar Pfister in
Zürich, when Schweitzer was
depressed and in need of
counsel. His reflections in
his Memoirs allowed him the
subsequent opportunity to
present his own
interpretation of the
experiences of his childhood
and youth, and while James
Bentley’s charges of
“emotional duplicity” seem
to me to put the matter too
strongly, I suggest that Schweitzer may in fact project his
values as an ethical thinker in his mid-forties back upon the
experiences of his childhood. In his Memoirs we may learn as
much about the values of the adult Schweitzer as we do about
young Albert in and around Günsbach.