simplicity, and general hardihood has been discovered by many
thousands of persons since Dr. Cheyne recorded it, and has
had its latest illustration in the doings of vegetarian
athletes, whose remarkable achievements in cycling matches and
long-distance walks have shown once more that flesh-eating is
not by any means a necessary condition of physical prowess. It
cannot be mere accident that vegetarians are almost invariably
abstainers from alcohol and tobacco, that, man for man, they eat
more sparingly, dress more lightly, live more naturally, and
work harder than flesh-eaters, and are far less subject to
illnesses and ailments. It is notorious that in quite a number
of diseases, especially those of the gouty class, a vegetarian
diet is prescribed by medical men, who use for _cure_ what
they scorn to use for _prevention_. In the works of Dr.
Alexander Haig,[25] the most distinguished recent exponent of
reformed diet, a close study has been made of the comparative
wholesomeness and unwholesomeness of vegetable and animal foods,
and to these writings, together with those of the other
authorities above-mentioned, I would refer any of my readers who
may be under the idea that vegetarianism has no medical support.
The doctors, of course, or those of them who study the history
of their own profession, are well aware of the hollowness of
this common superstition, but they still continue to let an
ignorant public fondly hug the belief that vegetarianism is
a mere "fad," a mushroom growth born of the follies and
sentimentalities of a decadent and hypercivilised age.
Footnote 25:
"Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causation of Disease. Diet and
Foods Considered in Relation to Strength and Power of
Endurance."
It is impossible in the limit of these pages, which are
concerned with the logical, not the medical view of
vegetarianism, to discuss with any fulness the argument based on
hygiene; but it may be stated as a matter, not of opinion, but
of knowledge, that quite apart from all humane bias, there is a
strong case for the reformed regimen on the ground of its
healthfulness alone, and that a scientific statement of this
case may be found, by those who care to become acquainted with
the facts, in the published writings of a small, but not
inconsiderable succession of medical authorities. Humanity and
hygiene are the twin deities of food reform, and their paths,
though separate for the time, converge eventually to the same
vegetarian goal.
DIGESTION
We have seen that the scientific apologists of flesh-eating do not
seriously rely on the old bogey of "structural evidence," though
they have certainly not been over-anxious to dissociate their
cause from whatever support has accrued to it through this too
common misunderstanding. The same is true of that other widespread
superstition, that meat alone "gives strength"—_i.e._, that vegetarian
diet, as compared with a flesh diet, is deficient in flesh-forming
constituents—an error which the medical faculty, as a whole, has
secretly fostered and encouraged, though in face of the existence of
the elephant and rhinoceros and other mighty herbivora, its responsible
spokesmen have, of course, not committed themselves to any such
absurdity. Except for the fact that thousands of ignorant persons are
still under the delusion that no adequate nourishment is to be found in
the vegetable kingdom, it would not be necessary to point out that, by
the admission of all authorities, the albuminoids, carbohydrates, oils,
salts, and other chemical food-properties, exist in vegetable no less
than in animal substances, and therefore that a vegetarian diet, even
without the use of eggs and milk, has access to all the needed elements.
The professional, as distinct from the popular, objections to
vegetarianism, are based nowadays on quite other arguments, as
may be seen from the suggestive admissions and assertions made
in the following passage from the _British Medical Journal_:
"Man is undoubtedly in his anatomy most nearly allied to
the higher apes, and these animals, though they show
obvious tendencies to be omnivorous, are yet, in the
main, eaters of nuts and fruits. But man is not a higher
ape, and in the process of development to his present
high status he has become omnivorous. It is true that he
can obtain from vegetables the nutriment necessary for
his maintenance in health, but he has learnt that _he
can obtain what he wants at less cost of energy from
a mixed diet_, and he is not likely to unlearn this
lesson."[26]
Footnote 26:
_British Medical Journal_, June 4, 1898.
In the words that I have italicised we have the latest shibboleth of
carnivorous "science" in its changing treatment of the food question.
Vegetarianism is not "impossible" (as we used to be told it was)! Oh,
no! life, and even healthy life, can really be maintained on a diet of
vegetables (how many thousands of doctors have asserted the contrary!).
But the inferior _digestibility_ of vegetable food—that is the trouble!
The poor vegetarians must put their digestive organs to so great a
strain, and must eat so large a bulk of food in order to get the
requisite nourishment. Why, then, says the chemist, should they thus
over-tax their systems, when they could digest a few slices from a dead
body at so much less cost of energy?
Now, if the chemist were a man of action, and not merely a man
of study, the practical aspects of this question might at
the outset give him pause. Had he known vegetarians, lived
among vegetarians, and talked with vegetarians, instead of
regarding them theoretically, he would be aware that the
average vegetarian eats decidedly _less_ in bulk than the
average flesh-eater, and is seldom or never troubled with the
indigestion that the flesh-eater dreads. So far from being
compelled to consume a greater bulk of food, it is the general
experience of those who have adopted vegetarianism that they eat
much less under the new system than they did under the old, and
it is a frequent marvel to them, when they dine with their
former messmates, to see the huge amounts that they devour.
There is the further consideration, entirely overlooked in the argument
of the _British Medical Journal_, that "vegetarianism," in the current
sense of the word, is not a diet of vegetables only, but includes the
use of eggs, butter, cheese, and milk. For all which reasons the talk
about "less cost of energy" seems to have little practical bearing on
the subject under discussion, and it may be suspected that the chemical
chimera is quite as fabulous as the phantom difficulties that have
preceded it.
CHEMIST: Now listen! I am a chemist, and I have no
time to think or talk of anything sentimental. To
all your views about vegetarian diet I have but one
answer—"Hofmann's experiments."
VEGETARIAN: So Hofmann's figures have settled this diet
problem for all time?
CHEMIST: Undoubtedly. For they prove that the human
stomach can assimilate a greater percentage of animal
than of vegetable substances; in other words, that it
requires a greater exercise of digestive power to get an
equal amount of nourishment from vegetables. What have
you to say to that?
VEGETARIAN: Obviously this—that it is quite devoid
of value unless we know _who_ were the persons
experimented on. No statistics of the comparative
digestibility of foods can be of practical use
unless the habits and conditions of those who digest
the foods are also noted. Custom and the personal
element are all-important factors in the result.
Many vegetable foods, nuts for example, are readily
digested by vegetarians accustomed to their use,
though almost universally found indigestible by
flesh-eaters.
CHEMIST: I cannot follow you into that. Let us keep
clear of all such sentiment, if you please, and bear in
mind the great precept which Dr. Andrew Wilson, in his
application of Hofmann's figures, has laid down for our
guidance, that "animal matter, being likest to our own
composition, is most easily and readily converted into
ourselves."
VEGETARIAN: With all due deference to the Andrew Wilson
formula, may I ask what matter _is_ likest to our own?
CHEMIST: Why, _animal_ matter, of course.
VEGETARIAN: Yes, but _what_ animal matter?
CHEMIST: Oh, we don't go into that.
VEGETARIAN: But I do; and I beg you to observe that the
"matter likest to our own composition" is _human_ flesh,
so that according to the Andrew Wilson formula, we all
ought to be cannibals, because for human beings human
flesh must be the most digestible of foods.
CHEMIST: Very likely it is so, though I do not approve
of cannibalism.
VEGETARIAN: Then allow me to read you a sentence
from C. F. Gordon Cumming's book, "At Home in Fiji."
"At every cannibal feast there was served a certain
vegetable, also commonly used by the cannibal Maoris
of New Zealand, which was considered as essential an
adjunct as mint-sauce is to lamb or sage to goose.
Its use, however, was prudential, as human flesh
_was found to be highly indigestible_, and this herb
acted as a corrective." Now I ask you if that does
not logically dispose of the Andrew Wilson formula?
CHEMIST: Nonsense, sir! I will not discuss cannibalism.
You fail to see that some things, though logical enough,
may not be expedient.
VEGETARIAN: I am delighted to hear you say that. I beg
you to remember it when you next talk of "Hofmann's
experiments." It is possible that flesh-eating, like
cannibalism, is "not expedient," when it is regarded
from a wider standpoint than that of the chemical
doctrinaire.
Nothing, indeed, could be more _un_scientific than the attitude
taken on this question by "scientists" of the Andrew Wilson
type. For, in the first place, as pointed out above, it is
impossible to arrive at any scientific conclusion as to the
comparative digestibility of vegetable and animal foods
unless the conditions are equal—that is, unless the persons
experimented on are equally accustomed to the food-stuffs they
are invited to digest; and, secondly, there is the question of
the quality of the foods supplied, for as Dr. Oldfield has
remarked, "it is quite as unfair to judge of the digestibility
of the proteid of the vegetable kingdom from one example of
the legumens as it would be to class all forms of flesh as
indigestible because veal or lobster happens to be so." Against
the academic testimony of the Hofmann school of specialists we
may confidently set that of so distinguished a practical chemist
as Sir B. W. Richardson, who, by his personal knowledge of
vegetarians and vegetarianism, was peculiarly qualified to
judge. "From experimental observations which I have made, I am
of opinion that the vegetable flesh-forming substances may be as
easily digested, when they are presented to the stomach in
proper form, as are the animal substances of like feeding
quality."[27]
Footnote 27:
"Foods of Man."
The true function of the chemist in his general relation to the
diet question is to help the coming dietary by transferring to
the vegetarian system some of the scientific attention that has
hitherto been solely devoted to flesh meats. "Men of practical
science," says Sir B. W. Richardson, "ought to be at work
assisting with their skill in bringing about that mighty
reformation. We now know to a nicety the relation of the various
parts of food needed for the construction of the living body,
and there should be no difficulty, except the labour of
research, in so modifying food from its prime source as to make
it applicable to every necessity without the assistance of any
intermediate animal at all." Why should not the chemist, instead
of maintaining, like Mrs. Partington, a pettifogging and quite
futile opposition to the flowing tide, put himself in the
current of progress, and try to turn his special knowledge to
the furtherance of a noble end?
CONDITIONS OF CLIMATE
To try to "change the venue" is sometimes the policy of
defendants in an action at law, and a similar device is adopted
by those who would stave off the hearing of the vegetarian case.
"The tropics" are the convenient limbo to which this uncongenial
subject is most frequently consigned; and it is with a proud
sense of humour and self-assurance that the British Islander,
who objects to alien immigration and all foreign frivolities,
warns the vegetarian heresy to keep clear of his inhospitable
clime. Such diet may be all very well, he thinks, for passive
Hindoos, but not for the hard-working inhabitants of this
temperate zone.
BRITISH ISLANDER: Vegetarianism? No thank you; not
_here_! All very nice in Africa and India, I dare say,
where you can sit all day under a palm-tree and eat
dates.
VEGETARIAN: But I have not observed that when you
visit Africa or India you practise vegetarianism.
On the contrary, you take your flesh-pots with you
everywhere—even to the very places where you admit
you don't need them, and where, as in India, they
give the greatest offence to the inhabitants.
BRITISH ISLANDER: Oh, well, it's no affair of theirs, is
it, if I take my roast beef?
VEGETARIAN: Yet you think it your affair to interfere
with the cannibals when they take their roast man. And
have you observed that it is in the tropical zone, not
the temperate zone, that cannibalism is most rife?
BRITISH ISLANDER: Why do you remind me of that?
VEGETARIAN: To show you that all this talk about
vegetarianism being "a matter of climate" is pure
humbug. The use of flesh is a vicious habit everywhere,
and nowhere a necessity, except where other food is not
procurable.
BRITISH ISLANDER: But do we not need more oil and fat in
northern climates?
VEGETARIAN: Undoubtedly; but these can be readily
obtained without recourse to flesh.
BRITISH ISLANDER: Then how do you account for the fact
that northern races have been, to so great an extent,
carnivorous?
VEGETARIAN: Perhaps because in primitive times hunting
and pasturage were less toilsome than agriculture. But I
am not called on to "account" for such a fact. Their
past addiction to flesh food no more proves the present
utility of flesh-eating than their gross drinking habits
prove the utility of alcohol.
BRITISH ISLANDER: Can you quote any scientific authority
for your contention?
VEGETARIAN: There is one which is all the more valuable
because it is an admission made by an opponent. Sir
William Lawrence wrote: "That men can be perfectly
nourished, and that their physical and intellectual
capabilities can be fully developed in any climate by a
diet purely vegetable, has been proved by such abundant
experience that it will not be necessary to adduce any
formal arguments on the subject."[28] "In any climate,"
mark! And a diet "purely vegetable"; whereas all _you_
are asked to do is to forego the actual flesh foods, and
not the animal products. But come now! Ask me the great
question!
Footnote 28:
Rees's "Encyclopædia," Article, "Man."
BRITISH ISLANDER: What is that? There is only one other
I had in mind. What would become of the Esquimaux?
VEGETARIAN: Of course! I have always been profoundly
touched by the disinterested concern of the Englishman
(when vegetarianism looms ahead) for the future of that
Arctic people. Well, perhaps the question of what
ice-bound savages might do, or might not do, need
scarcely delay the decision of civilised mankind. For
that matter, what would become of the polar bears? If
you cannot dissociate your habits from those of the
Esquimaux, why don't you eat blubber? At least they have
a better reason for eating blubber than some people have
for eating beef—they can get nothing else.
The dishonesty of the excuse that vegetarianism "may be all very
well in the tropics" is shown by the fact that Englishmen, when
living in the tropics, make precisely the contrary statement.
"You would be surprised," writes Mr. B. K. Adams, from Ceylon,
"if you knew how much prejudice and opposition there is
here. The most amusing part is that nearly everyone says, it
is all very well being a vegetarian in England, in a cool
climate like that, but out here in this hot, depressing, and
enervating climate, you must have meat, and some add alcoholic
stimulant."[29]
Footnote 29:
_Vegetarian Messenger_, January, 1899.
Twenty years ago, just the same "climatic" argument used to be
put forward by the opponents of the temperance movement; it was
impossible _here_ to abstain from alcoholic drink, whatever it
might be elsewhere. We do not often meet with that argument now;
on the contrary, it is generally admitted that a disuse of
alcohol brings with it an increased power of hardihood and
endurance. As in drink, so in food. Those who fly to stimulants
obtain a temporary sense of comfort at the cost of permanent
vigour.
But granting that it is possible to support life on vegetarian
diet in northern climates, is it also possible, asks the
conscientious doubter, to live at one's highest energy under
such conditions? Look at the carnivorous Mr. Dash's career, it
is said, as compared with that of the vegetarian Mr. So-and-So!
Was not the greater public activity of the former attributable
to his mixed diet? To which it may be replied that any such
personal comparison is necessarily useless, from lack of
sufficient data as to the relative powers and opportunities of
the persons compared. It is obvious that a man whose convictions
are unpopular will have far less opportunity of carrying his
principles into action than one who is the mouthpiece of widely
current opinions, to the propagation of which he devotes,
perhaps, an equal amount of ability. For this reason it is
absurd to suggest that vegetarians, or any other class of
unpopular reformers, are living on a less active plane because
their activities are not of the kind that commend themselves to
the man in the street—or to that equally fallible person, the
man in the study.
The whole notion that vegetarians are less able than
flesh-eaters to endure a severe climate is a delusion; it is not
only untrue, but the contrary of the truth. "No one surely
suggests," says Dr. Oldfield, "that the English climate is too
cold for a vegetarian dietary, when there is the experience of
the stalwart, hardy Scotch peasantry, in a climate far more
rigorous, developing brain and muscle superior to the average
Englishman, and this upon a dietary which for generations has
been so largely vegetarian that no one would dream of saying
that the small amount of flesh eaten by them could have had
anything to do with the matter."[30]
Footnote 30:
_Nineteenth Century_, August, 1898.
Anyone who is intimately acquainted with the vegetarian movement
in this country will bear me out when I say that the average
vegetarian is much less susceptible than the average flesh-eater
to extremes of cold and heat, and can get through an English
winter in comparative comfort, without any of the "wrapping up"
to which the mixed dietists are reduced. It is amusing, indeed,
after being asked that common question, "Don't you feel the cold
very much, as you eat no meat?" to observe one's questioner
attired perhaps to face a moderate London winter like a German
student for a duel—a moving mass of scarves and furs and
overcoats, stoked up internally with plates of beef and cups of
bovril, and shivering withal. "Poor fellow!" one thinks, "it
looks as if _you_ were the person whose diet might be all very
well for those who live in the tropics, but not for the
hard-working inhabitants of this northern clime."
FLESH MEAT AND MORALS
"Man is what he eats," says the materialist in the German
proverb. The body is built up of the food-stuffs which it
assimilates, and it is reasonable to suppose that diet has thus
a determining influence on character. If this be true, the
reflection is not a pleasant one for the flesh-eater. "Animal
food," it has been said, "containing as it does highly-wrought
organic forces, may liberate within our system powers which we
may find it difficult or even impossible to dominate—lethargic
monsters, foul harpies, and sad-visaged lemurs—which may insist
on having their own way, building up an animal body not truly
human."[31]
Footnote 31:
Edward Carpenter, "The Art of Creation," "Health a Conquest."
But here the idealist steps in with a different theory. Man is
not what he eats, but what he thinks and feels; it is not _what_
we eat, but _how_ we eat, that most vitally affects us. This is
well expressed in one of Thoreau's daring paradoxes: "There is a
certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions
as if I think I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike
at the root of the matter at once—for the root is faith—I am
accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board-nails. If
they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I
have to say."
There is, however, no real antagonism between these two
theories, for both may be to a great extent true, though neither
wholly so. If mind affects matter, matter also affects mind; if
spirit acts on food, food in its turn reacts on spirit. The one
truth that stands out clearly from a consideration of this
subject, and from the witness of common experience, is that a
gross animal diet is inimical to the finer instincts, and that,
as Thoreau says, "every man who has ever been earnest to
preserve his higher or more poetic faculties in the best
condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal
food."[32] Plain living and high thinking are indissolubly
connected. Vegetarianism, as I have already shown, is not
asceticism, but if it offer the moral advantages of asceticism
without the drawbacks, is not that in its favour?
Footnote 32:
Walden, "Higher Laws."
But there is a tendency among certain "psychical" authorities of
the present day to eschew the vegetarian doctrine as itself
"materialistic," and as attributing too much importance to the
mere bodily functions of eating and digesting. "What does it
matter about our diet," they say, "whether it be animal or
vegetable, flesh or fruit, so long as the spirit in which we
seek it be a fit and proper one? The question of food is one for
doctors to decide; 'tis they who are concerned with the body,
while we are concerned with the soul." I wish to show that this
reasoning is nothing but a piece of charlatanry, and rests upon
a perversion of the philosophy that it claims to represent.
For though it is true, in a sense, that spirit can sanctify
diet, it is not true that a general sanction is thereby given to
any diet whatsoever, no matter what cruelties may be caused by
it, or who it be that causes them. We may grant that so long as
no scruple has arisen concerning the morality of flesh-eating,
or any other barbarous usage, such practices may be carried on
in innocence and good faith, and therefore without personal
demoralisation to those who indulge in them. But from the moment
when discussion begins, and an unconscious act becomes a
conscious or semi-conscious one, the case is wholly different,
and it is then impossible to plead that "it does not matter"
about one's food. On the contrary, it is a matter of vital
import if injustice be deliberately practised. To use flesh food
unwittingly, by savage instinct, as the carnivora do, or, like
barbarous mankind, in the ignorance of age-long habit, is one
thing; but it is quite another thing for a rational person to
make a sophistical defence of such habits when their iniquity
has been displayed, and _then_ to claim that he is absolved from
guilt by the spirit in which he acted. The spirit that absolves
is one of unquestioning faith, not of far-fetched sophistry. The
wolf devours the lamb, and is no worse a wolf for it; but if he
seek, as in the fable, to give quibbling excuses for his
wolfishness, he becomes a byword for hypocrisy.
PSYCHIC PHILOSOPHER: Why all this fuss about
vegetarianism and what we eat? With the best intention,
no doubt, you regard the matter from too low a plane.
Has not the greatest of teachers himself told us that
"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but
that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a
man"?
VEGETARIAN: You know well the text has not the meaning
you put on it. It could as logically be made to excuse
any swinishness whatsoever. Flesh-eating is not a mere
ceremonial question of eating "with unwashed hands," as
that referred to in the text, but one that involves the
gravest issues of right-doing and wrong-doing.
PSYCHIC PHILOSOPHER: But to the pure all things are
pure.
VEGETARIAN: Possibly—if we know who _are_ the pure.
But the mere eating of impurities is scarcely proof
sufficient.
PSYCHIC PHILOSOPHER: I cannot take your view of the
importance of this question. To me, as to the Indian
yogis, the choice of food is a matter of indifference.
VEGETARIAN: I doubt if your butcher's bill would bear
out that assertion. If food is one of the "indifferent"
things, why do you hold fast to your flesh meat, like a
snarling dog to his bone?
Our psychic philosopher, in truth, is a wolf in sheep's
clothing—a carnalist in psychical disguise.[33]
Footnote 33: