Produced by Feorag NicBhride, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
NO ANIMAL FOOD
AND
NUTRITION AND DIET
WITH
VEGETABLE RECIPES
BY
RUPERT H. WHELDON
HEALTH CULTURE CO.
NEW YORK--PASSAIC, N. J.
PREFACE
The title of this book is not ambiguous, but as it relates to a subject
rarely thought about by the generality of people, it may save some
misapprehension if at once it is plainly stated that the following pages
are in vindication of a dietary consisting wholly of products of the
vegetable kingdom, and which therefore excludes not only flesh, fish,
and fowl, but milk and eggs and products manufactured therefrom.
THE AUTHOR.
This work is reprinted from the English edition with changes better
adapting it to the American reader.
THE PUBLISHERS.
MAN'S FOOD
Health and happiness are within reach of those who provide themselves
with good food, clean water, fresh air, and exercise.
A ceaseless and relentless hand is laid on almost every animal to
provide food for human beings.
Nothing that lives or grows is missed by man in his search for food to
satisfy his appetite.
Natural appetite is satisfied with vegetable food, the basis for highest
and best health and development.
History of primitive man we know, but the possibilities of perfected and
complete man are not yet attained.
Adequate and pleasant food comes to us from the soil direct, favorable
for health, and a preventive against disease.
Plant food is man's natural diet; ample, suitable, and available;
obtainable with least labor and expense, and in pleasing form and
variety.
Animal food will be useful in emergency, also at other times; still,
plant substance is more favorable to health, endurance, and power of
mind.
Variety of food is desirable and natural; it is abundantly supplied by
the growth of the soil under cultivation.
Races of intelligence and strength are to be found subsisting and
thriving on an exclusive plant grown diet.
The health and patience of vegetarians meet the social, mental and
physical tests of life with less disease, and less risk of dependence in
old age.
Meat eaters have no advantages which do not belong also to those whose
food is vegetable.
Plant food, the principal diet of the world, has one serious drawback;
it is not always savory, or palatable.
Plant diet to be savory requires fat, or oil, to be added to it; nuts,
peanut, and olive oil, supply it to the best advantage.
Plant diet with butter, cream, milk, cheese, eggs, lard, fat, suet, or
tallow added to it, is not vegetarian; it is mixed diet; the same in
effect as if meat were used.--Elmer Lee, M.D., Editor, Health Culture
Magazine.
CONTENTS
PAGE
NO ANIMAL FOOD
I--THE URGENCY OF THE SUBJECT 9
II--PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS 17
III--ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 35
IV--THE AESTHETIC POINT OF VIEW 46
V--ECONOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS 52
VI--THE EXCLUSION OF DAIRY PRODUCE 58
VII--CONCLUSION 63
NUTRITION AND DIET
I--SCIENCE OF NUTRITION 70
II--WHAT TO EAT 82
III--WHEN TO EAT 97
IV--HOW TO EAT 103
FOOD TABLE 108
RECIPES 111
NO ANIMAL FOOD
I
URGENCY OF THE SUBJECT
Outside of those who have had the good fortune to be educated to an
understanding of a rational science of dietetics, very few people indeed
have any notion whatever of the fundamental principles of nutrition and
diet, and are therefore unable to form any sound opinion as to the
merits or demerits of any particular system of dietetic reform.
Unfortunately many of those who _do_ realise the intimate connection
between diet and both physical and mental health, are not, generally
speaking, sufficiently philosophical to base their views upon a secure
foundation and logically reason out the whole problem for themselves.
Briefly, the pleas usually advanced on behalf of the vegetable regimen
are as follows: It is claimed to be healthier than the customary flesh
diet; it is claimed for various reasons to be more pleasant; it is
claimed to be more economical; it is claimed to be less trouble; it is
claimed to be more humane. Many hold the opinion that a frugivorous
diet is more natural and better suited to the constitution of man, and
that he was never intended to be carnivorous; that the slaughtering of
animals for food, being entirely unnecessary is immoral; that in adding
our share towards supplying a vocation for the butcher we are helping to
nurture callousness, coarseness and brutality in those who are concerned
in the butchering business; that anyone of true refinement and delicacy
would find in the killing of highly-strung, nervous, sensitive
creatures, a task repulsive and disgusting, and that it is scarcely
fair, let alone Christian, to ask others to perform work which we
consider unnecessary and loathsome, and which we should be ashamed to do
ourselves.
Of all these various views there is one that should be regarded as of
primary importance, namely, the question of health. First and foremost
we have to consider the question of physical health. No system of
thought that poses as being concerned with man's welfare on earth can
ever make headway unless it recognises this. Physical well-being is a
moral consideration that should and must have our attention before aught
else, and that this is so needs no demonstrating; it is self-evident.
Now it is not to be denied when we look at the over-flowing hospitals;
when we see everywhere advertised patent medicines; when we realise
that a vast amount of work is done by the medical profession among all
classes; when we learn that one man out of twelve and one woman out of
eight die every year from that most terrible disease, cancer, and that
over 207,000 persons died from tuberculosis during the first seven years
of the present century; when we learn that there are over 1500 defined
diseases prevalent among us and that the list is being continually added
to, that the general health of the nation is far different from what we
have every reason to believe it ought to be. However much we may have
become accustomed to it, we cannot suppose ill-health to be a _normal_
condition. Granted, then, that the general health of the nation is far
from what it should be, and looking from effects to causes, may we not
pertinently enquire whether our diet is not largely responsible for this
state of things? May it not be that wrong feeding and mal-nutrition are
at the root of most disease? It needs no demonstrating that man's health
is directly dependent upon what he eats, yet how few possess even the
most elementary conception of the principles of nutrition in relation to
health? Is it not evident that it is because of this lamentable
ignorance so many people nowadays suffer from ill-health?
Further, not only does diet exert a definite influence upon physical
well-being, but it indirectly affects the entire intellectual and moral
evolution of mankind. Just as a man thinks so he becomes, and 'a
science which controls the building of brain-cell, and therefore of
mind-stuff, lies at the root of all the problems of life.' From the
point of view of food-science, mind and body are inseparable; one reacts
upon the other; and though a healthy body may not be essential to
happiness, good health goes a long way towards making life worth living.
Dr. Alexander Haig, who has done such excellent and valuable work in the
study of uric acid in relation to disease, speaks most emphatically on
this point: 'DIET is the greatest question for the human race, not only
does his ability to obtain food determine man's existence, but its
quality controls the circulation in the brain, and this decides the
trend of being and action, accounting for much of the indifference
between depravity and the self-control of wisdom.'
The human body is a machine, not an iron and steel machine, but a blood
and bone machine, and just as it is necessary to understand the
mechanism of the iron and steel machine in order to run it, so is it
necessary to understand the mechanism of the blood and bone machine in
order to run it. If a person understanding nothing of the business of a
_chauffeur_ undertook to run an automobile, doubtless he would soon come
to grief; and so likewise if a person understands nothing of the needs
of his body, or partly understanding them knows not how to satisfy them,
it is extremely unlikely that he will maintain it at its normal
standard of efficiency. Under certain conditions, of which we will speak
in a moment, the body-machine is run quite unconsciously, and run well;
that is to say, the body is kept in perfect health without the aid of
science. But, then, we do not now live under these conditions, and so
our reason has to play a certain part in encouraging, or, as the case
may be, in restricting the various desires that make themselves felt.
The reason so many people nowadays are suffering from all sorts of
ailments is simply that they are deplorably ignorant of their natural
bodily wants. How much does the ordinary individual know about
nutrition, or about obedience to an unperverted appetite? The doctors
seem to know little about health; they are not asked to keep us healthy,
but only to cure us of disease, and so their studies relate to disease,
not health; and dietetics, a science dealing with the very first
principles of health, is an optional course in the curriculum of the
medical student.
Food is the first necessary of life, and the right kind of food, eaten
in the right manner, is necessary to a right, that is, healthy life. No
doubt, pathological conditions are sometimes due to causes other than
wrong feeding, but in a very large percentage of cases there is little
doubt that errors in diet have been the cause of the trouble, either
directly, or indirectly by rendering the system susceptible to
pernicious influences.[1] A knowledge of what is the right food to eat,
and of the right way to eat it, does not, under existing conditions of
life, come instinctively. Under other conditions it might do so, but
under those in which we live, it certainly does not; and this is owing
to the fact that for many hundred generations back there has been a
pandering to sense, and a quelling and consequent atrophy of the
discriminating animal instinct. As our intelligence has developed we
have applied it to the service of the senses and at the expense of our
primitive intuition of right and wrong that guided us in the selection
of that which was suitable to our preservation and health. We excel the
animals in the possession of reason, but the animals excel us in the
exercise of instinct.
It has been said that animals do not study dietetics and yet live
healthily enough. This is true, but it is true only as far as concerns
those animals which live _in their natural surroundings and under
natural conditions_. Man would not need to study diet were he so
situated, but he is not. The wild animal of the woods is far removed
from the civilized human being. The animal's instinct guides him aright,
but man has lost his primitive instinct, and to trust to his
inclinations may result in disaster.
The first question about vegetarianism, then, is this:--Is it the best
diet from the hygienic point of view? Of course it will be granted that
diseased food, food containing pernicious germs or poisons, whether
animal or vegetable, is unfit to be eaten. It is not to be supposed that
anyone will defend the eating of such food, so that we are justified in
assuming that those who defend flesh-eating believe flesh to be free
from such germs and poisons; therefore let the following be noted. It is
affirmed that 50 per cent. of the bovine and other animals that are
slaughtered for human food are affected with Tuberculosis, or some of
the following diseases: Cancer, Anthrax, Pleuro-Pneumonia, Swine-Fever,
Sheep Scab, Foot and Mouth Disease, etc., etc., and that to exclude all
suspected or actually diseased carcasses would be practically to leave
the market without a supply. One has only to read the literature dealing
with this subject to be convinced that the meat-eating public must
consume a large amount of highly poisonous substances. That these
poisons may communicate disease to the person eating them has been
amply proved. Cooking does _not_ necessarily destroy all germs, for the
temperature at the interior of a large joint is below that necessary to
destroy the bacilli there present.
Although the remark is irrelevant to the subject in hand, one is tempted
to point out that, quite apart from the question of hygiene, the idea of
eating flesh containing sores and wounds, bruises and pus-polluted
tissues, is altogether repulsive to the imagination.
Let it be supposed, however, that meat can be, and from the meat-eater's
point of view, should be and will be under proper conditions,
uncontaminated, there yet remains the question whether such food is
physiologically necessary to man. Let us first consider what kind of
food is best suited to man's natural constitution.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: It seems reasonable to suppose that granting the organism
has such natural needs satisfied as sleep, warmth, pure air, sunshine,
and so forth, fundamentally all susceptibility to disease is due to
wrong feeding and mal-nutrition, either of the individual organism or of
its progenitors. The rationale of nutrition is a far more complicated
matter than medical science appears to realise, and until the intimate
relationship existing between nutrition and pathology has been
investigated, we shall not see much progress towards the extermination
of disease. Medical science by its curative methods is simply pruning
the evil, which, meanwhile, is sending its roots deeper into the
unstable organisms in which it grows.]
II
PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS
There are many eminent scientists who have given it as their opinion
that anatomically and physiologically man is to be classed as a
frugivorous animal. There are lacking in man all the characteristics
that distinguish the prominent organs of the carnivora, while he
possesses a most striking resemblance to the fruit-eating apes. Dr.
Kingsford writes: 'M. Pouchet observes that all the details of the
digestive apparatus in man, as well as his dentition, constitute "so
many proofs of his frugivorous origin"--an opinion shared by Professor
Owen, who remarks that the anthropoids and all the quadrumana derive
their alimentation from fruits, grains, and other succulent and
nutritive vegetable substances, and that the strict analogy which exists
between the structure of these animals and that of man clearly
demonstrates his frugivorous nature. This view is also taken by Cuvier,
Linnaeus, Professor Lawrence, Charles Bell, Gassendi, Flourens, and a
great number of other eminent writers.' (see _The Perfect Way in Diet_.)
Linnaeus is quoted by John Smith in _Fruits and Farinacea_ as speaking
of fruit as follows: 'This species of food is that which is most
suitable to man: which is evidenced by the series of quadrupeds,
analogy, wild men, apes, the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and
the hands.'
Sir Ray Lancaster, K.C.B., F.R.S., in an article in _The Daily
Telegraph_, December, 1909, wrote: 'It is very generally asserted by
those who advocate a purely vegetable diet that man's teeth are of the
shape and pattern which we find in the fruit-eating, or in the
root-eating, animals allied to him. This is true.... It is quite clear
that man's cheek teeth do not enable him to cut lumps of meat and bone
from raw carcasses and swallow them whole. They are broad,
square-surfaced teeth with four or fewer low rounded tubercles to crush
soft food, as are those of monkeys. And there can be no doubt that man
fed originally like monkeys, on easily crushed fruits, nuts, and roots.'
With regard to man's original non-carnivorous nature and omnivorism, it
is sometimes said that though man's system may not thrive on a raw flesh
diet, yet he can assimilate cooked flesh and his system is well adapted
to digest it. The answer to this is that were it demonstrable, and it is
_not_, that cooked flesh is as easily digested and contains as much
nutriment as grains and nuts, this does not prove it to be suitable for
human food; for man (leaving out of consideration the fact that the
eating of diseased animal flesh can communicate disease), since he was
originally formed by Nature to subsist exclusively on the products of
the vegetable kingdom, cannot depart from Nature's plan without
incurring penalty of some sort--unless, indeed, his natural original
constitution has changed; but _it has not changed_. The most learned and
world-renowned scientists affirm man's present anatomical and
physiological structure to be that of a frugivore. Disguising an
unnatural food by cooking it may make that food more assimilable, but it
by no means follows that such a food is suitable, let alone harmless, as
human food. That it is harmful, not only to man's physical health, but
to his mental and moral health, this book endeavours to demonstrate.
With regard to the fact that man has not changed constitutionally from
his original frugivorous nature Dr. Haig writes as follows: 'If man
imagines that a few centuries, or even a few hundred centuries, of
meat-eating in defiance of Nature have endowed him with any new powers,
except perhaps, that of bearing the resulting disease and degradation
with an ignorance and apathy which are appalling, he deceives himself;
for the record of the teeth shows that human structure has remained
unaltered over vast periods of time.'
According to Dr. Haig, human metabolism (the process by which food is
converted into living tissue) differs widely from that of the
carnivora. The carnivore is provided with the means to dispose of such
poisonous salts as are contained in and are produced by the ingestion of
animal flesh, while the human system is not so provided. In the human
body these poisons are not held in solution, but tend to form deposits
and consequently are the cause of diseases of the arthritic group,
conspicuously rheumatism.
There is sometimes some misconception as regards the distinction between
a frugivorous and herbivorous diet. The natural diet of man consists of
fruits, farinacea, perhaps certain roots, and the more esculent
vegetables, and is commonly known as vegetarian, or fruitarian
(frugivorous), but man's digestive organs by no means allow him to eat
grass as the herbivora--the horse, ox, sheep, etc.--although he is much
more nearly allied to these animals than to the carnivora.
We are forced to conclude, in the face of all the available evidence,
that the natural constitution of man closely resembles that of
fruit-eating animals, and widely differs from that of flesh-eating
animals, and that from analogy it is only reasonable to suppose that the
fruitarian, or vegetarian, as it is commonly called, is the diet best
suited to man. This conclusion has been arrived at by many distinguished
men of science, among whom are the above mentioned. But the proof of the
pudding is in the eating, and to prove that the vegetarian is the most
hygienic diet, we must examine the physical conditions of those nations
and individuals who have lived, and do live, upon this diet.
It might be mentioned, parenthetically, that among animals, the
herbivora are as strong physically as any species of carnivora. The most
laborious work of the world is performed by oxen, horses, mules, camels,
elephants, all vegetable-feeding animals. What animal possesses the
enormous strength of the herbivorous rhinoceros, who, travellers relate,
uproots trees and grinds whole trunks to powder? Again, the frugivorous
orang-outang is said to be more than a match for the African lion.
Comparing herbivora and carnivora from this point of view Dr. Kingsford
writes: 'The carnivora, indeed, possess one salient and terrible
quality, ferocity, allied to thirst for blood; but power, endurance,
courage, and intelligent capacity for toil belong to those animals who
alone, since the world has had a history, have been associated with the
fortunes, the conquests, and the achievements of men.'
Charles Darwin, reverenced by all educated people as a scientist of the
most keen and accurate observation, wrote in his _Voyage of the Beagle_,
the following with regard to the Chilian miners, who, he tells us, live
in the cold and high regions of the Andes: 'The labouring class work
very hard. They have little time allowed for their meals, and during
summer and winter, they begin when it is light and leave off at dusk.
They are paid L1 sterling a month and their food is given them: this,
for breakfast, consists of sixteen figs and two small loaves of bread;
for dinner, boiled beans; for supper, broken roasted wheat-grain. They
scarcely ever taste meat.' This is as good as saying that the strongest
men in the world, performing the most arduous work, and living in an
exhilarating climate, are practically strict vegetarians.
Dr. Jules Grand, President of the Vegetarian Society of France speaks of
'the Indian runners of Mexico, who offer instances of wonderful
endurance, and eat nothing but tortillas of maize, which they eat as
they run along; the street porters of Algiers, Smyrna, Constantinople
and Egypt, well known for their uncommon strength, and living on nothing
but maize, rice, dates, melons, beans, and lentils. The Piedmontese
workmen, thanks to whom the tunnelling of the Alps is due, feed on
polenta, (maize-broth). The peasants of the Asturias, like those of the
Auvergne, scarcely eat anything except chick-peas and chestnuts ...
statistics prove ... that the most numerous population of the globe is
vegetarian.'
The following miscellaneous excerpta are from Smith's _Fruits and
Farinacea_:--
'The peasantry of Norway, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Poland, Germany,
Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and of almost every
country in Europe subsist principally, and most of them entirely, on
vegetable food.... The Persians, Hindoos, Burmese, Chinese, Japanese,
the inhabitants of the East Indian Archipelago, and of the mountains of
the Himalaya, and, in fact, most of the Asiatics, live upon vegetable
productions.'
'The people of Russia, generally, subsist on coarse black rye-bread and
garlics. I have often hired men to labour for me. They would come on
board in the morning with a piece of black bread weighing about a pound,
and a bunch of garlics as big as one's fist. This was all their
nourishment for the day of sixteen or eighteen hours' labour. They were
astonishingly powerful and active, and endured severe and protracted
labour far beyond any of my men. Some of these Russians were eighty and
even ninety years old, and yet these old men would do more work than any
of the middle-aged men belonging to my ship. Captain C. S. Howland of
New Bedford, Mass.'
'The Chinese feed almost entirely on rice, confections and fruits; those
who are enabled to live well and spend a temperate life, are possessed
of great strength and agility.'
'The Egyptian cultivators of the soil, who live on coarse wheaten bread,
Indian corn, lentils, and other productions of the vegetable kingdom,
are among the finest people I have even seen. Latherwood.'
'The Greek boatmen are exceedingly abstemious. Their food consists of a
small quantity of black bread, made of unbolted rye or wheatmeal, and a
bunch of grapes, or raisins, or some figs. They are astonishingly
athletic and powerful; and the most nimble, active, graceful, cheerful,
and even merry people in the world. Judge Woodruff, of Connecticut.'
'From the day of his irruption into Europe the Turk has always proved
himself to be endowed with singularly strong vitality and energy. As a
member of a warlike race, he is without equal in Europe in health and
hardiness. His excellent physique, his simple habits, his abstinence
from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to
support the greatest hardships, and to exist on the scantiest and
simplest food.'
'The Spaniards of Rio Salada in South America,--who come down from the
interior, and are employed in transporting goods overland,--live wholly
on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and bear
prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too steep
for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the generality
of men can equal without incumbrance.'
'In the most heroic days of the Grecian army, their food was the plain
and simple produce of the soil. The immortal Spartans of Thermopylae
were, from infancy, nourished by the plainest and coarsest vegetable
aliment: and the Roman army, in the period of their greatest valour and
most gigantic achievements, subsisted on plain and coarse vegetable
food. When the public games of Ancient Greece--for the exercise of
muscular power and activity in wrestling, boxing, running, etc.,--were
first instituted, the athletae in accordance with the common dietetic
habits of the people, were trained entirely on vegetable food.'
Dr. Kellogg, an authority on dietetics, makes the following answer to
those who proclaim that those nations who eat a large amount of
flesh-food, such as the English, are the strongest and dominant nations:
"While it is true that the English nation makes large use of animal
food, and is at the same time one of the most powerful on the globe, it
is also true that the lowest, most miserable classes of human beings,
such as the natives of Australia, and the inhabitants of Terra del
Fuego, subsist almost wholly upon flesh. It should also be borne in mind
that it is only within a single generation that the common people of
England have become large consumers of flesh. In former times and when
England was laying the foundation of her greatness, her sturdy yeomen
ate less meat in a week, than the average Englishman of the present
consumes in a single day.... The Persians, the Grecians, and the Romans,
became ruling nations while vegetarians."
In _Fruits and Farinacea_, Professor Lawrence is quoted as follows:
'The inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, Samoiedes,
Ostiacs, Tangooses, Burats, Kamtschatdales, as well as the natives of
Terra del Fuego in the Southern extremity of America, are the smallest,
weakest, and least brave people on the globe; although they live almost
entirely on flesh, and that often raw.'
Many athletic achievements of recent date have been won by vegetarians
both in this country and abroad. The following successes are
noteworthy:--Walking: Karl Mann, Dresden to Berlin, Championship of
Germany; George Allen, Land's End to John-o'-Groats. Running: E. R.
Voigt, Olympic Championship, etc.: F. A. Knott, 5,000 metres Belgian
record. Cycling: G. A. Olley, Land's End to John-o'-Groats record.
Tennis: Eustace Miles, M.A., various championships, etc. Of especial
interest at the present moment are a series of tests and experiments
recently carried out at Yale University, U.S.A., under Professor Irving
Fisher, with the object of discovering the suitability of different
dietaries for athletes, and the effect upon the human system in general.
The results were surprising. 'One of the most severe tests,' remarks
Professor Fisher, 'was in deep knee-bending, or "squatting." Few of the
meat-eaters could "squat" more than three to four hundred times. On the
other hand a Yale student who had been a flesh-abstainer for two years,
did the deep knee-bending eighteen hundred times without exhaustion....
One remarkable difference between the two sets of men was the
comparative absence of soreness in the muscles of the meat-abstainers
after the tests.'
The question as to climate is often raised; many people labour under the
idea that a vegetable diet may be suitable in a hot climate, but not in
a cold. That this idea is false is shown by facts, some of which the
above quotations supply. That man can live healthily in arctic regions
on a vegetable diet has been amply demonstrated. In a cold climate the
body requires a considerable quantity of heat-producing food, that is,
food containing a good supply of hydrocarbons (fats), and carbohydrates
(starches and sugars). Many vegetable foods are rich in these
properties, as will be explained in the essay following dealing with
dietetics. Strong and enduring vegetable-feeding animals, such as the
musk-ox and the reindeer, flourish on the scantiest food in an arctic
climate, and there is no evidence to show that man could not equally
well subsist on vegetable food under similar conditions.
In an article entitled _Vegetarianism in Cold Climates_, by Captain
Walter Carey, R.N., the author describes his observations during a
winter spent in Manchuria. The weather, we are told, was exceedingly
cold, the thermometer falling as low as minus 22 deg. F. After speaking of
the various arduous labours the natives are engaged in, Captain Carey
describes the physique and diet of natives in the vicinity of
Niu-Chwang as follows: 'The men accompanying the carts were all very big
and of great strength, and it was obvious that none but exceptionally
strong and hardy men could withstand the hardships of their long march,
the intense cold, frequent blizzards, and the work of forcing their
queer team along in spite of everything. One could not help wondering
what these men lived on, and I found that the chief article was beans,
which, made into a coarse cake, supplied food for both men and animals.
I was told by English merchants who travelled in the interior, that
everywhere they found the same powerful race of men, living on beans and
rice--in fact, vegetarians. Apparently they obtain the needful proteid
and fat from the beans; while the coarse once-milled rice furnishes them
with starch, gluten, and mineral salts, etc. Spartan fare, indeed, but
proving how easy it is to sustain life without consuming flesh-food.'
So far, then, as the physical condition of those nations who are
practically vegetarian is concerned, we have to conclude that practice
tallies with theory. Science teaches that man should live on a non-flesh
diet, and when we come to consider the physique of those nations and men
who do so, we have to acknowledge that their bodily powers and their
health equal, if not excel, those of nations and men who, in part,
subsist upon flesh. But it is interesting to go yet further. It has
already been stated that mind and body are inseparable; that one reacts
upon the other: therefore it is not irrelevant, in passing, to observe
what mental powers are possessed by those races and individuals who
subsist entirely upon the products of the vegetable kingdom.
When we come to consider the mentality of the Oriental races we
certainly have to acknowledge that Oriental culture--ethical,
metaphysical, and poetical--has given birth to some of the grandest and
noblest thoughts that mankind possesses, and has devised philosophical
systems that have been the comfort and salvation of countless millions
of souls. Anyone who doubts the intellectual and ethical attainments of
that remarkable nation of which we in the West know so little--the
Chinese--should read the panegyric written by Sir Robert Hart, who, for
forty years, lived among them, and learnt to love and venerate them as
worthy of the highest admiration and respect. Others have written in
praise of the people of Burma. Speaking of the Burman, a traveller
writes: 'He will exercise a graceful charity unheard of in the West--he
has discovered how to make life happy without selfishness and to combine
an adequate power for hard work with a corresponding ability to enjoy
himself gracefully ... he is a philosopher and an artist.'
Speaking of the Indian peasant a writer in an English journal says: 'The
ryot lives in the face of Nature, on a simple diet easily procured, and
inherits a philosophy, which, without literary culture, lifts his spirit
into a higher plane of thought than other peasantries know of.
Abstinence from flesh food of any kind, not only gives him pure blood
exempt from civilized diseases but makes him the friend and not the
enemy, of the animal world around.'
Eastern literature is renowned for its subtle metaphysics. The higher
types of Orientals are endowed with an extremely subtle intelligence, so
subtle as to be wholly unintelligible to the ordinary Westerner. It is
said that Pythagoras and Plato travelled in the East and were initiated
into Eastern mysticism. The East possesses many scriptures, and the
greater part of the writings of Eastern scholars consist of commentaries
on the sacred writings. Among the best known monumental philosophical
and literary achievements maybe mentioned the _Tao Teh C'hing_; the
_Zend Avesta;_ the _Three Vedas_; the _Brahmanas_; the _Upanishads;_ and
the _Bhagavad-gita_, that most beautiful 'Song Celestial' which for
nearly two thousand years has moulded the thoughts and inspired the
aspirations of the teeming millions of India.
As to the testimony of individuals it is interesting to note that some
of the greatest philosophers, scientists, poets, moralists, and many men
of note, in different walks of life, in past and modern times, have, for
various reasons, been vegetarians, among whom have been named the
following:--
Manu
Zoroaster
Pythagoras
Zeno
Buddha
Isaiah
Daniel
Empedocles
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Porphyry
John Wesley
Franklin
Goldsmith
Ray
Paley
Isaac Newton
Jean Paul Richter
Schopenhauer
Byron
Gleizes
Hartley
Rousseau
Iamblichus
Hypatia
Diogenes
Quintus Sextus
Ovid
Plutarch
Seneca
Apollonius
The Apostles
Matthew
James
James the Less
Peter
The Christian Fathers
Clement
Tertullian
Origen
Chrysostom
St. Francis d'Assisi
Cornaro
Leonardo da Vinci
Milton
Locke
Spinoza
Voltaire
Pope
Gassendi
Swedenborg
Thackeray
Linnaeus
Shelley
Lamartine
Michelet
William Lambe
Sir Isaac Pitman
Thoreau
Fitzgerald
Herbert Burrows
Garibaldi
Wagner
Edison
Tesla
Marconi
Tolstoy
George Frederick Watts
Maeterlinck
Vivekananda
General Booth
Mrs. Besant
Bernard Shaw
Rev. Prof. John E. B. Mayor
Hon. E. Lyttelton
Rev. R. J. Campbell
Lord Charles Beresford
Gen. Sir Ed. Bulwer
etc., etc., etc.
The following is a list of the medical and scientific authorities who
have expressed opinions favouring vegetarianism:--
M. Pouchet
Baron Cuvier
Linnaeus
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 it
cannot be denied, hide it how we may, either from our eyes or our
conscience, that however skilfully the actual killing may usually be
carried out, there is much unavoidable suffering caused to the beasts
that have to be transported by sea and rail to the slaughter-house. The
animals suffer violently from sea-sickness, and horrible cruelty (such
as pouring boiling oil into their ears, and stuffing their ears with hay
which is then set on fire, tail-twisting, etc.,) has to be practised to
prevent them lying down lest they be trampled on by other beasts and
killed; for this means that they have to be thrown overboard, thus
reducing the profits of their owners, or of the insurance companies,
which, of course, would be a sad calamity. Judging by the way the men
act it does not seem to matter what cruelties and tortures are
perpetuated; what heinous offenses against every humane sentiment of the
human heart are committed; it does not matter to what depths of Satanic
callousness man stoops provided always that--this is the supreme
question--_there is money to be made by it_.
A writer has thus graphically described the scene in a cattle-boat in
rough weather: 'Helpless cattle dashed from one side of the ship to the
other, amid a ruin of smashed pens, with limbs broken from contact with
hatchway combings or winches--dishorned, gored, and some of them smashed
to mere bleeding masses of hide-covered flesh. Add to this the shrieking
of the tempest, and the frenzied moanings of the wounded beasts, and the
reader will have some faint idea of the fearful scenes of danger and
carnage ... the dead beasts, advanced, perhaps, in decomposition before
death ended their sufferings, are often removed literally in pieces.'
And on the railway journey, though perhaps the animals do not experience
so much physical pain as travelling by sea, yet they are often deprived
of food, and water, and rest, for long periods, and mercilessly knocked
about and bruised. They are often so injured that the cattle-men are
surprised they have not succumbed to their injuries. And all this
happens in order that the demand for _unnecessary_ flesh-food may be
satisfied.
Those who defend flesh-eating often talk of humane methods of
slaughtering; but it is significant that there is considerable
difference of opinion as to what _is_ the most humane method. In England
the pole-axe is used; in Germany the mallet; the Jews cut the throat;
the Italians stab. It is obvious that each of these methods cannot be
better than the others, yet the advocates of each method consider the
others cruel. As Lieut. Powell remarks, this 'goes far to show that a
great deal of cruelty and suffering is inseparable from all methods.'
It is hard to imagine how anyone believing he could live healthily on
vegetable food alone, could, having once considered these things,
continue a meat-eater. At least to do so he could not live his life in
conformity with the precept that we should cause no unnecessary pain.
How unholy a custom, how easy a way to murder he makes for himself
Who cuts the innocent throat of the calf, and hears unmoved its
mournful plaint!
And slaughters the little kid, whose cry is like the cry of a child,
Or devours the birds of the air which his own hands have fed!
Ah, how little is wanting to fill the cup of his wickedness!
What unrighteous deed is he not ready to commit.
* * * * *
Make war on noxious creatures, and kill them only,
But let your mouths be empty of blood, and satisfied with pure
and natural repasts.
OVID. _Metam._, _lib._ xv.
That we cannot find any justification for destroying animal life for
food does not imply we should never destroy animal life. Such a cult
would be pure fanaticism. If we are to consider physical well-being as
of primary importance, it follows that we shall act in
self-preservation 'making war on noxious creatures.' But this again is
no justification for 'blood-sports.'
He who inflicts pain needlessly, whether by his own hand or by that of
an accomplice, not only injures his victim, but injures himself. He
stifles what nobleness of character he may have and he cultivates
depravity and barbarism. He destroys in himself the spirit of true
religion and isolates himself from those whose lives are made beautiful
by sympathy. No one need hope for a spiritual Heaven while helping to
make the earth a bloody Hell. No one who asks others to do wrong for him
need imagine he escapes the punishment meted out to wrong-doers. That he
procures the service of one whose sensibilities are less keen than his
own to procure flesh-food for him that he may gratify his depraved taste
and love of conformity does not make him less guilty of crime. Were he
to kill with his own hand, and himself dress and prepare the obscene
food, the evil would be less, for then he would not be an accomplice in
retarding the spiritual growth of a fellow being. There is no shame in
any _necessary_ labour, but that which is unnecessary is unmoral, and
slaughtering animals to eat their flesh is not only unnecessary and
unmoral; it is also cruel and immoral. Philosophers and
transcendentalists who believe in the Buddhist law of Karma, Westernized
by Emerson and Carlyle into the great doctrine of Compensation, realize
that every act of unkindness, every deed that is contrary to the
dictates of our nobler instincts and reason, reacts upon us, and we
shall truly reap that which we have sown. An act of brutality
brutalizes, and the more we become brutalized the more we attract
natures similarly brutal and get treated by them brutally. Thus does
Nature sternly deal justice.
'Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.'
It is appropriate in this place to point out that some very pointed
things are said in the Bible against the killing and eating of animals.
It has been said that it is possible by judiciously selecting quotations
to find the Bible support almost anything. However this may be, the
following excerpta are of interest:--
'And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, and
every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it
shall be for meat.'--Gen. i., 29.
'But flesh with life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not
eat.'--Gen. ix., 4.
'It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your
dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood.'--Lev. iii., 17.
'Ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl, or
beast.'--Lev. vii., 26.
'Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh
is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.'--Lev.
xvii., 14.