vegetarianism:—

• M. Pouchet
• Baron Cuvier
• Linnæus
• Professor Laurence, F.R.S.
• Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S.
• Gassendi
• Flourens
• Sir John Owen
• Professor Howard Moore
• Sylvester Graham, M.D.
• John Ray, F.R.S.
• Professor H. Schaafhausen
• Sir Richard Owen, F.R.S.
• Charles Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S.
• Dr. John Wood, M.D.
• Professor Irving Fisher
• Professor A. Wynter Blyth, F.R.C.S.
• Edward Smith, M.B., F.R.S., LL.B.
• Adam Smith, F.R.S.
• Lord Playfair, M.D., C.B.
• Sir Henry Thompson, M.B., F.R.C.S.
• Dr. F. J. Sykes, B. Sc.
• Dr. Anna Kingsford
• Professor G. Sims Woodhead, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.
• Alexander Haig, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.
• Dr. W. B. Carpenter, C.B., F.R.S.
• Dr. Josiah Oldfield, D.C.L., M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
• Virchow
• Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, M.P., F.R.C.S.
• Dr. Robert Perks, M.D., F.R.C.S.
• Dr. Kellogg, M.D.
• Harry Campbell, M.D.
• Dr. Olsen
• etc., etc.

Before concluding this section it might be pointed out that the curious prejudice which is always manifested when men are asked to consider any new thing is as strongly in evidence against food reform as in other innovations. For example, flesh-eating is sometimes defended on the ground that vegetarians do not look hale and hearty, as healthy persons should do. People who speak in this way probably have in mind one or two acquaintances who, through having wrecked their health by wrong living, have had to abstain from the 'deadly decoctions of flesh' and adopt a simpler and purer dietary. It is not fair to judge meat abstainers by those who have had to take to a reformed diet solely as a curative measure; nor is it fair to lay the blame of a vegetarian's sickness on his diet, as if it were impossible to be sick from any other cause. The writer has known many vegetarians in various parts of the world, and he fails to understand how anyone moving about among vegetarians, either in this country or elsewhere, can deny that such people look as healthy and cheerful as those who live upon the conventional omnivorous diet.

If a vegetarian, owing to inherited susceptibilities, or incorrect rearing in childhood, or any other cause outside his power to prevent, is sickly and delicate, is it just to lay the blame on his present manner of life? It would, indeed, seem most reasonable to assume that the individual in question would be in a much worse condition had he not forsaken his original and mistaken diet when he did. The writer once heard an acquaintance ridicule vegetarianism on the ground that Thoreau died of pulmonary consumption at forty-five! One is reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes' witty saying:—'The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye: the more it sees the light, the more it contracts.'

In conclusion, there is, as we have seen in our review of typical vegetarian peoples and classes throughout the world, the strongest evidence that those who adopt a sensible non-flesh dietary, suited to their own constitution and environment, are almost invariably healthier, stronger, and longer-lived than those who rely chiefly upon flesh-meat for nutriment.

III

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The primary consideration in regard to the question of diet should be, as already stated, the hygienic. Having shown that the non-flesh diet is the more natural, and the more advantageous from the point of view of health, let us now consider which of the two—vegetarianism or omnivorism—is superior from the ethical point of view.

The science of ethics is the science of conduct. It is founded, primarily, upon philosophical postulates without which no code or system of morals could be formulated. Briefly, these postulates are, (a), every activity of man has as its deepest motive the end termed Happiness, (b) the Happiness of the individual is indissolubly bound up with the Happiness of all Creation. The truth of (a) will be evident to every person of normal intelligence: all arts and systems aim consciously, or unconsciously, at some good, and so far as names are concerned everyone will be willing to call the Chief Good by the term Happiness, although there may be unlimited diversity of opinion as to its nature, and the means to attain it. The truth of (b) also becomes apparent if the matter is carefully reflected upon. Everything that is en rapport with all other things: the pebble cast from the hand alters the centre of gravity in the Universe. As in the world of things and acts, so in the world of thought, from which all action springs. Nothing can happen to the part but the whole gains or suffers as a consequence. Every breeze that blows, every cry that is uttered, every thought that is born, affects through perpetual metamorphoses every part of the entire Cosmic Existence.[2]

We deduce from these postulates the following ethical precepts: a wise man will, firstly, so regulate his conduct that thereby he may experience the greatest happiness; secondly, he will endeavour to bestow happiness on others that by so doing he may receive, indirectly, being himself a part of the Cosmic Whole, the happiness he gives. Thus supreme selfishness is synonymous with supreme egoism, a truth that can only be stated paradoxically.

Applying this latter precept to the matter in hand, it is obvious that since we should so live as to give the greatest possible happiness to all beings capable of appreciating it, and as it is an indisputable fact that animals can suffer pain, and that men who slaughter animals needlessly suffer from atrophy of all finer feelings, we should therefore cause no unnecessary suffering in the animal world. Let us then consider whether, knowing flesh to be unnecessary as an article of diet, we are, in continuing to demand and eat flesh-food, acting morally or not. To answer this query is not difficult.

It is hardly necessary to say that we are causing a great deal of suffering among animals in breeding, raising, transporting, and killing them for food. It is sometimes said that animals do not suffer if they are handled humanely, and if they are slaughtered in abattoirs under proper superintendence. But we must not forget the branding and castrating operations; the journey to the slaughter-house, which when trans-continental and trans-oceanic must be a long drawn-out nightmare of horror and terror to the doomed beasts; we must not forget the insatiable cruelty of the average cowboy; we must not forget that the animal inevitably spends at least some minutes of instinctive dread and fear when he smells and sees the spilt blood of his forerunners, and that this terror is intensified when, as is frequently the case, he witnesses the dying struggles, and hears the heart-rending groans; we must not forget that the best contrivances sometimes fail to do good work, and that a certain percentage of victims have to suffer a prolonged death-agony owing to the miscalculation of a bad workman. Most people go through life without thinking of these things: they do not stop and consider from whence and by what means has come to their table the flesh-food that is served there. They drift along through a mundane existence without feeling a pang of remorse for, or even thought of, the pain they are accomplices in producing in the sub-human world. And