The very idea of eating the carcasses of slain animals is repulsive,
8. Who could have begun the practice, but from the direst necessity?
4. Men must have been driven to the deed of slaying animals for food,
because the supply of food from the vegetable world had utterly
failed, 4, 5. We have no such necessity, 5. Man is not by nature
a carnivorous animal, 7. Our conduct in slaying animals and then
preparing them for food is wholly against nature, 8. Animal food is
injurious: it clogs and confuses the mind and renders it stupid, 9.
It operates unfavorably on character, 9, 10. If we must eat flesh,
let it be with sorrow and pity; not tormenting and abusing the poor
animal before taking its life, 11. Passing the bounds of nature in
our feeding, intemperate appetites and shameful lusts are gratified,
12. Cruelty to mankind is induced, 12. Animals have senses; they
have faculties for seeing, hearing, understanding: is it right to
extinguish these faculties? 13. Who knows but the bodies of animals
may contain the souls of deceased men; of a father, brother, son, or
other friend? 14, 15.