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Title: The Logic of Vegetarianism - Essays and Dialogues
Author: Salt, Henry S.
Language: English
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THE
LOGIC OF VEGETARIANISM
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
LOGIC OF VEGETARIANISM
_ESSAYS AND DIALOGUES_
BY
HENRY S. SALT
AUTHOR OF
"ANIMALS' RIGHTS, CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS"
_SECOND EDITION, REVISED_
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET
1906
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MORALIST AT THE SHAMBLES.
Where slaughter'd beasts lie quivering, pile on pile,
And bare-armed fleshers, bathed in bloody dew,
Ply hard their ghastly trade, and hack and hew,
And mock sweet Mercy's name, yet loathe the while
The lot that chains them to this service vile,
Their hands in hideous carnage to imbrue:
Lo, there!—the preacher of the Good and True,
The Moral Man, with sanctimonious smile!
"Thrice happy beasts," he murmurs, "'tis our love,
Our thoughtful love that sends ye to the knife
(Nay, doubt not, as ye welter in your gore!);
For thus alone ye earned the boon of life,
And thus alone the Moralist may prove
His sympathetic soul—by eating more."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
In preparing this "Logic of Vegetarianism" for a new edition, I have
carefully re-read a sheaf of press opinions which greeted the first
appearance of the book some seven years ago, with the hope of profiting
by any adverse criticism which might point out arguments that I had
overlooked. In this, however, I have been disappointed, for, apart from
a few such objections as that raised in all seriousness by the
_Spectator_—that I had not done justice to the great problem of what
would become of the Esquimaux—the only definite complaint which I can
find is that the representatives of flesh-eating whom I have introduced
in the dialogues are deliberately made to talk nonsense. "It is easy,"
said one critic, "to confute an opponent if you have the selection of
the arguments and the framing of the replies."
I ought not, perhaps, to have expected that the assurance given in my
introductory chapter (p. 2) as to the authenticity of the
anti-vegetarian pleadings would shield me from this charge; indeed, the
_Vegetarian Messenger_, in a friendly review of the book, expressed
doubt as to the policy of using dialogue at all, because, as it
remarked, "the arguments against vegetarianism are often so silly that
it looks as if the author had set up a man of straw in order to demolish
him." Yet, as the _Messenger_ itself added, "there is not an argument
against vegetarianism quoted in this volume which we have not, time
after time, seen seriously brought forward by our opponents." Surely it
would be a strange thing if food reformers had to avoid any terse
presentment of their adversaries' reasoning for the very fact of its
imbecility!
And there is this further question. If I have failed to include in my
selection the effective arguments against vegetarianism, where and what
are they? Looking through those cited in the press notices, I can
discover none that seem to be formidable; but rather than again be
suspected of unfair suppression, let me frankly quote the following
specimens of the beef-eater's philosophy:
"The proof that man should eat meat is that he always has done
so, does now, and always will."
And again:
"Nobody will want to make out that he (the advocate of
vegetarianism) is wrong, but folk will just go on suiting
themselves as before. Shelley and Thoreau, Wagner and Edward
FitzGerald, were vegetarians, but, then, Wellington and
Gladstone partook of the roast beef of Old England, and were
none the worse."
There is a sublime simplicity about these statements which is most
impressive, but I cannot think that any wrong is done to the case
against vegetarianism by not including them in a discussion which
purports to be a logical one.
H. S. S.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTORY 1
WHY "VEGETARIAN"? 4
THE _RAISON D'ÊTRE_ OF VEGETARIANISM 9
THE PAST AND PRESENT OF VEGETARIANISM 13
STRUCTURAL EVIDENCE 18
THE APPEAL TO NATURE 24
THE HUMANITARIAN ARGUMENT 29
PALLIATIONS AND SOPHISTRIES 35
THE CONSISTENCY TRICK 41
THE DEGRADATION OF THE BUTCHER 47
THE ÆSTHETIC ARGUMENT 51
THE HYGIENIC ARGUMENT 57
DIGESTION 62
CONDITIONS OF CLIMATE 67
FLESH MEAT AND MORALS 71
THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT 77
DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES 83
BIBLE AND BEEF 89
THE FLESH-EATER'S KITH AND KIN 95
VEGETARIANISM AS RELATED TO OTHER 101
REFORMS
CONCLUSION 109
INDEX 115
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
LOGIC OF VEGETARIANISM
INTRODUCTORY
It is the special purpose of this book to set forth in a clear and
rational manner the logic of vegetarianism. To the ethical, the
scientific, and the economic aspects of the system much attention has
already been given by well-accredited writers, but there has not as yet
been any organised effort to present the _logical_ view—that is, the
dialectical scope of the arguments, offensive and defensive, on which
the case for vegetarianism is founded. I am aware that mere logic is not
in itself a matter of first-rate importance, and that a great humane
principal, based on true natural instinct, will in the long-run have
fulfilment, whatever wordy battles may rage around it for a time;
nevertheless, there is no better method of hastening that result than to
set the issues before the public in a plain and unmistakable light. I
wish, therefore, in this work, to show what vegetarianism is, and (a
scarcely less essential point) what vegetarianism is _not_.
For though, owing to the propaganda carried on for the last fifty years,
there has been an increasing talk of vegetarianism, and a considerable
discussion of its doctrines, there are still very numerous
misunderstandings of its real aims and meaning. In this, as in other
phases of the great progressive movement of which vegetarianism is a
part, to give expression to a new idea is to excite a host of blind and
angry prejudices. The champions of the old are too disdainful to take
counsel with the champions of the new; hence they commonly attribute to
them designs quite different from those which they really entertain, and
unconsciously set up a straw man for the pleasure of pummelling him with
criticism. Devoid always of a sense of sympathy, and mostly of a sense
of humour, they absurdly exaggerate the least vital points in their
adversaries' reasoning, while they often fail to note what is the very
core of the controversy. It is therefore of great concern to
vegetarianism that its case should be so stated as to preclude all
possibility of doubt as to the real issues involved. If agreement is
beyond our reach, let us at least ascertain the precise point of our
disagreement.
With a view to this result, it will be convenient to have recourse now
and then to the form of dialogue, so as to bring into sharper contrast
the _pros_ and _cons_ of the argument. Nor will these conversations be
altogether imaginary, for, to avoid any suspicion of burlesquing the
counter-case of our opponents by a fanciful presentment, I shall
introduce only such objections to vegetarianism as have actually been
insisted on—the stock-objections, in fact, which crop up again and again
in all colloquies on food reform—with sometimes the very words of the
flesh-eating disputant. It is not my fault if some of these objections
appear to be foolish. I have often marvelled at the reckless way in
which those who would combat new and unfamiliar notions step forth to
the encounter, unprovided with intellectual safeguards, and trusting
wholly to certain ancient generic fallacies, which, if we may judge from
their appearance in all ages and climates, are indigenous in the human
mind. Many of the difficulties which the flesh-eater to-day propounds to
the vegetarian are the same, _mutatis mutandis_, as those which have at
various times been cast in the teeth of the reformer by the apologists
of every cruel and iniquitous custom, from slave-holding to the suttee.
To show the unreality of these sophisms, by clearing away the
misconceptions upon which they rest, and to state the creed of
vegetarianism as preached and practised by its friends rather than as
misapprehended by its foes—such is the object of this work. To make
"conversions," in the ordinary sense, is not my concern. What we have to
do is to discover who are flesh-eaters by ingrained conviction, and who
by thoughtlessness and ignorance, and to bring over to our side from the
latter class those who are naturally allied to us, though by accident
ranged in opposition. And this, once more, can only be done by making
the issues unmistakable.
Incidentally, I hope these pages may suggest to our antagonists that
vegetarians, perhaps, are not the weak brainless sentimentalists that
they are so often depicted. It is, to say the least of it, entertaining
when a critic who has just been inquiring (for example) "what would
become of the animals" if mankind were to desist from eating them, goes
on to remark of vegetarians that "their hearts are better than their
heads." Alas, we cannot truthfully return the compliment by saying of
such a philosopher that his head is better than his heart! It cannot be
too strongly stated that the appeal of vegetarianism, as of all humane
systems, is not to heart alone, nor to brain alone, but to brain and
heart combined, and that if its claims fail to win this double judgment
they are necessarily void and invalid. The test of logic, no less than
the test of feeling, is deliberately challenged by us; for it is only by
those who can think as well as feel, and feel as well as think, that the
diet question, or indeed any great social question, can ever be brought
to its solution.
WHY "VEGETARIAN"?
The term "vegetarian," as applied to those who abstain from all flesh
food, but not necessarily from such animal products as eggs, milk, and
cheese, appears to have come into existence over fifty years ago, at the
time of the founding of the Vegetarian Society in 1847. Until that date
no special name had been appropriated for the reformed diet system,
which was usually known as the "Pythagorean" or "vegetable diet," as may
be seen by a reference to the writings of that period. Presumably, it
was felt that when the movement grew in volume, and was about to enter
on a new phase, with an organised propaganda, it was advisable to coin
for it an original and distinctive title. Whether, from this point of
view, the name "vegetarian" was wisely or unwisely chosen is a question
on which there has been some difference of opinion among food reformers
themselves, and it is possible that adverse criticism would have been
still more strongly expressed but for the fact that no better title has
been forthcoming.
On the whole, the name "vegetarian" seems to be fairly serviceable, its
disadvantage being that it gives occasion for sophistry on the part of
captious opponents. In all controversies such as that of which
vegetarianism is the subject there are verbalists who cannot see beyond
the outer shell of a word to the thing which the word signifies, and who
delight to chop logic and raise small obstacles, as thus:
VERBALIST: Why "vegetarian"?
VEGETARIAN: Why not "vegetarian"?
VERBALIST: How can it be consistent with vegetarianism to
consume, as you admit you do, milk, butter, cheese, and eggs,
all of which are choice foods from the animal kingdom?
VEGETARIAN: That entirely depends on what is meant by
"vegetarianism."
VERBALIST: Well, surely its meaning is obvious—a diet of
vegetables only, with no particle of animal substance.
VEGETARIAN: As a matter of fact, such is not, and has never
been, its accepted meaning. The question was often debated in
the early years of the Vegetarian Society, and it was always
held that the use of eggs and milk was _not_ prohibited. "To
induce habits of abstinence from the flesh of animals (fish,
flesh, fowl) as food" was the avowed aim of vegetarianism, as
officially stated on the title-page of its journal.
VERBALIST: But the word "vegetarian"—what other meaning can it
have than that which I have attributed to it?
VEGETARIAN: Presumably those who invented the word were the best
judges of its meaning, and what they meant by it is proved
beyond a doubt by the usage of the Society.
VERBALIST: But had they a right thus to twist the word from its
natural derivation?
VEGETARIAN: If you appeal to etymology, that raises another
question altogether, and here, too, you will find the
authorities against you. No one has a better right to speak on
this matter than Professor J. E. B. Mayor, the great Latin
scholar, and he states that, looking at the word etymologically,
"vegetarian" cannot mean "an eater of vegetables." It is derived
from _vegetus_, "vigorous," and means, strictly interpreted,
"one who aims at vigour." Mind, I am not saying that the
originators of the term "vegetarian" had this meaning in view,
but merely that the etymological sense of the word does not
favour your contention any more than the historical.
VERBALIST: Well, what _does_ "vegetarian" mean, then? How do you
explain it yourself?
VEGETARIAN: A "vegetarian" is one who abstains from eating the
flesh of animals, and whose food is _mainly_ derived from the
vegetable kingdom.
The above dialogue will show the absurdity and injustice of charging
vegetarians, as the late Sir Henry Thompson did, with "equivocal terms,
evasion—in short, untruthfulness," because they retain a title which was
originally invented for their case. The statement that vegetarians have
_changed_ the meaning of their name, owing to inability to find adequate
nourishment on purely vegetable diet, is founded on similar ignorance of
the facts. Here are two specimens of Sir Henry Thompson's inaccuracy. In
1885 he wrote:
"It is high time that we should be spared the obscure language,
or rather the inaccurate statement, to which milk and egg
consumers are committed, in assuming a title which has for
centuries belonged to that not inconsiderable body of persons
whose habits of life confer the right to use it."[1]
Footnote 1:
_Nineteenth Century_, May, 1885.
Observe that Sir Henry Thompson was then under the impression that the
name "vegetarian" (invented in 1847) was "centuries" old! Nor, names
apart, was he any more accurate as regards the practice itself, for it
can be proved on the authority of a long succession of writers, from the
time of Ovid to the time of Shelley, that the use of milk and its
products has been from the first regarded as compatible with the
Pythagorean or "vegetable" diet. The fact that some individual
abstainers from flesh have also abstained from all animal substances is
no justification of the attempt to impose such stricter abstinence on
all vegetarians on peril of being deprived of their name.
Thirteen years later Sir Henry Thompson's argument was entirely changed.
His assertion of the _antiquity_ of the name "vegetarian" was quietly
dropped; in fact, its _novelty_ was now rather insisted on.
"They (the "vegetarians") emphatically state that they no longer
rely for their diet on the produce of the vegetable kingdom,
differing from those who originally adopted the name at a date
by no means remote."[2]
Footnote 2:
_Ibid._, June, 1898.
But our critic was again absolutely mistaken. There is no
difference whatever between the diet of those who adopted the
name at the date by no means remote and that of those who bear
it now. Now, as then, there are some few vegetarians who abjure
all that is of the animal, but the rule of the Society now, as
then, is that the use of eggs and milk is permissible. At the
third annual meeting, held in 1850, it was stated by one of the
speakers that "the limits within which the dietary of the
Vegetarian Society was restricted excluded nothing but the flesh
and blood of animals."
To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me repeat that it is
no part of the case for vegetarianism to defend the _name_
"vegetarian" in itself; it may be a good name or a bad one. What
we defend is our right to the title, an indefeasible historical
claim which is not to be upset by any such unfounded and
self-contradictory assertions as those quoted.
But it may be said that even if the title is historically
genuine, it would be better to change it, as it evidently leads
to misunderstanding. We should be perfectly willing to do this,
but for two difficulties: first, that no other satisfactory
title has ever been suggested, and secondly that, as the word
"vegetarian" has now a recognised place in the language, it
would scarcely be possible to get rid of it; at any rate, the
substitute, to have the least chance of success, would have to
be very terse, popular, and expressive. Take, for example, the
name "flesh-abstainer," or "akreophagist," proposed by Sir Henry
Thompson. The obvious objection to such terms is that they are
merely _negative_, and give the notion that we are abstinents
and nothing more. We do not at all object to the use of the term
"flesh-abstainer" as explanatory of "vegetarian," but we do
object to it as a substitute, for as such it would give undue
prominence to our disuse of flesh food, which, after all, is
merely one particular result of a general habit of mind. Let us
state it in this way: Our view of life is such that flesh-eating
is abhorrent and impossible to us; but the mere fact that this
abstinence attracts the special attention of flesh-eaters, and
becomes the immediate subject of controversy, does not make it
the sum and substance of our creed. We hold that in a rational
and humanised society there could be no question at all about
such a practice as flesh-eating; the very idea of it would be
insufferable. Therefore we object to be labelled with a negative
term which only marks our divergence from other persons' diet;
we prefer something that is positive and indicative of our own.
And until we find some more appropriate title, we intend to make
the best of what we have got.
The whole "Why 'vegetarian'?" argument is, in fact, a
disingenuous one. The practical issue between "vegetarians" and
flesh-eaters has always been perfectly clear to those who wished
to understand it, and the attempt made by the verbalists to
distract attention from the _thing_ in order to fasten it on the
_name_ is nothing but sophistical. Of this main practical issue,
and of the further distinction between the "vegetarian" or
flesh-abstaining diet and the purely vegetable diet, I will
speak in the following chapter.
THE _RAISON D'ÊTRE_ OF VEGETARIANISM
Behind the mere name of the reformed diet, whatever name be
employed (and, as we have seen, "vegetarian" at present holds
the field), lies the far more important reality. What is the
_raison d'être_, the real purport of vegetarianism? Certainly
not any _a priori_ assumption that all animal substances, as
such, are unfit for human food; for though it is quite probable
that the movement will ultimately lead us to the disuse of
animal products, vegetarianism is not primarily based on any
such hard-and-fast formula, but on the conviction, suggested in
the first place by instinctive feeling, but confirmed by reason
and experience, that there are certain grave evils inseparable
from the practice of flesh-eating. The aversion to flesh food is
not chemical, but moral, social, hygienic. Believing as we do
that the grosser forms of diet not only cause a vast amount of
unnecessary suffering to the animals, but also react most
injuriously on the health and morals of mankind, we advocate
their gradual discontinuance; and so long as this protest is
successfully launched, the mere name by which it is called is a
matter of minor concern. But here on this practical issue, as
before on the nominal issue, we come into conflict with the
superior person who, with a smile of supercilious compassion,
cannot see _why_ we poor ascetics should thus afflict ourselves
without cause.
SUPERIOR PERSON: But why, my dear sir—why should you
refuse a slice of roast beef? What is the difference
between roasting an ox and boiling an egg? In the latter
case you are eating an animal in embryo—that is all.
VEGETARIAN: Do you not draw any distinction between the
lower and the higher organisation?
SUPERIOR PERSON: None whatever. They are chemically
identical in substance.
VEGETARIAN: Possibly; but we were talking, not of
chemistry, but of morals, and an egg is certainly not
morally identical with an ox.
SUPERIOR PERSON: How or where does the moral phase of
food-taking enter the science of dietetics?
VEGETARIAN: At a good many points, I think. One of them
is the question of cannibalism. Allow me to read you a
passage from the "Encyclopædia Britannica": "Man being
by nature {?} carnivorous as well as frugivorous, and
human flesh being not unfit for human food, the question
arises why mankind generally have not only avoided it,
but have looked with horror on exceptional individuals
and races addicted to cannibalism. It is evident on
consideration that both emotional and religious motives
must have contributed to bring about this prevailing
state of mind."
SUPERIOR PERSON: Of course. Why read me all that?
VEGETARIAN: To show you that what you call "the moral
phase of food-taking" has undoubtedly affected our diet.
The very thought of eating human flesh is revolting to
you. Yet human flesh is chemically identical with animal
flesh, and if it be true that to boil an egg is the same
thing as to roast an ox, it follows that to butcher
an ox is the same thing as to murder a man. Such is
the logical position in which you have placed yourself
by ignoring the fact that all life is not _equally_
valuable, but that the higher the life the greater the
responsibility incurred by those who destroy it.
Or it may be that the superior person, instead of denying that
morals affect dietetics, himself poses as so austere a moralist
as to scorn the wretched half-measure of merely abstaining from
flesh food while still using animal products. The result is in
either case the same. The all-or-nothing argument is sometimes
put forward in this fashion:
SUPERIOR PERSON: Well, as far as the right or wrong of
the question is concerned, I would not care to be a
vegetarian at all, unless I were a thorough one. What
can be the good of forswearing animal food in one form
if you take it in another?
VEGETARIAN: But surely it is rational to deal with the
worst abuses first. To insist on an all-or-nothing
policy would be fatal to any reform whatsoever.
Improvements never come in the mass, but always by
instalment; and it is only reactionists who deny that
half a loaf is better than no bread.
SUPERIOR PERSON: But in this case I understand that
it is quite possible to be consistent. There are
individuals, are there not, who live upon a purely
vegetable diet, without using milk or eggs? Now,
those are the people whose action one can at least
appreciate and respect.
VEGETARIAN: Quite so. We fully admit that they are in
advance of their fellows. We regard them as pioneers,
who are now anticipating a future phase of our movement.
SUPERIOR PERSON: You admit, then, that this extreme
vegetarianism is the more ideal diet?
VEGETARIAN: Yes. To do more than you have undertaken to
do is a mark of signal merit; but no discredit attaches
on that account to those who have done what they
undertook. We hold that "the first step," as Tolstoy has
expressed it, is to clear one's self of all complicity
in the horrible business of the slaughter-house.
SUPERIOR PERSON: Well, I must repeat that, were I to
practise any form of asceticism, I should incline to
that which does not do things by halves.
VEGETARIAN: Of course. That is invariably the sentiment
of those who do not do things at all.
Asceticism! such is the strange idea with which, in many minds,
our principles are associated. It would be impossible to take a
more erroneous view of modern vegetarianism; and it is only
through constitutional or deliberate blindness to the meaning of
the movement that such a misconception can arise. How can we
convey to our flesh-eating friends, in polite yet sufficiently
forcible language, that their diet is an abomination to us, and
that our "abstinence," far from being ascetic, is much more
nearly allied to the joy that never palls? Is the farmer an
ascetic because, looking over into his evil-smelling pigsty, he
has no inclination to swill himself from the same trough as the
swine? And why, then, should it be counted asceticism on our
part to refuse, on precisely the same grounds, to eat the swine
themselves? No; our opponents must clearly recognise, if they
wish to form any correct notion of vegetarianism, that it
is based, not on asceticism, but æstheticism; not on the
mortification, but the gratification of the higher pleasures.
We conclude, then, that the cause which vegetarians have at
heart is the outcome, not of some barren academic formula, but
of a practical reasoned conviction that flesh food, especially
butchers' meat, is a harmful and barbarous diet. Into the
details of this belief we need not at present enter; it has been
sufficient here to show that such belief exists, and that the
good people who can see in vegetarianism nothing but a whimsical
"fad" have altogether failed to grasp its true purport and
significance. The _raison d'être_ of vegetarianism is the
growing sense that flesh-eating is a cruel, disgusting,
unwholesome, and wasteful practice, and that it behoves humane
and rational persons, disregarding the common cant about
"consistency" and "all-or-nothing," to reform their diet to what
extent and with what speed they can.
THE PAST AND PRESENT OF
VEGETARIANISM
But, it may be said, before entering on a consideration of
this reformed diet, for which such great merits are claimed by
its exponents, the practical man is justified in asking for
certain solid assurances, since busy people cannot be expected
to give their time to speculations which, however beautiful in
themselves, may prove at the end to be in conflict with the
hard facts of life. And the first of these questions is, What
is the historic basis of vegetarianism? In what sense is it an
old movement, and in what sense a new one? Has it a past which
may serve in some measure to explain its present and guarantee
its future?
Such questions have been dealt with fully from time to time in
vegetarian literature.[3] I can here do no more than epitomise
the answers. Vegetarianism, regarded simply as a practice and
without relation to any principle, is of immemorial date; it
was, in fact, as physiology shows us, the original diet of
mankind, while, as history shows us, it has always been the diet
of the many, as flesh food has been the diet of the few, and
even to this day it is the main support of the greater part of
the world's inhabitants. Numberless instances might be quoted in
proof of these assertions; it is sufficient to refer to the
people of India, China, and Japan, the Egyptian fellah, the
Bedouin Arab, the peasantry of Russia and Turkey, the labourers
and miners of Chili and other South American States; and, to
come nearer home, the great bulk of the country folk in Western
Europe and Great Britain. The peasant, here and all the world
over, has been, and still is, in the main a vegetarian, and must
for the most part continue so; and the fact that this diet has
been the result, not of choice, but of necessity, does not
lessen the significance of its perfect sufficiency to maintain
those who do the hard work of the world. Side by side with the
tendency of the wealthier classes to indulge more and more in
flesh food has been the undisputed admission that for the
workers such luxuries were unneeded.
Footnote 3:
As in "The Perfect Way in Diet," by Dr. Anna Kingsford; and
"Strength and Diet," by the Hon. R. Russell.
During the last half-century, however, as we all know, the
unhealthy and crowded civilisation of great industrial centres
has produced among the urban populations of Europe a craving for
flesh food, which has resulted in their being fed largely on
cheap butchers' meat and offal; while there has grown up a
corresponding belief that we must look almost entirely to a
flesh diet for bodily and mental vigour. It is in protest
against this comparatively new demand for flesh as a necessity
of life that vegetarianism, as a modern organised movement, has
arisen.
Secondly, if we look back for examples of deliberate abstinence
from flesh—that is, of vegetarianism practised as a _principle_
before it was denoted by a name—we find no lack of them in the
history of religious and moral systems and individual lives.
Such abstinence was an essential feature in the teaching of
Buddha and Pythagoras and is still practised in the East on
religious and ceremonial grounds by Brahmins and Buddhists. It
was inculcated in the humanitarian writings of great "pagan"
philosophers, such as Plutarch and Porphyry, whose ethical
precepts, as far as the treatment of the lower animals is
concerned, are still far in advance of modern Christian
sentiment. Again, in the prescribed regimen of certain religious
Orders, such as Benedictines, Trappists, and Carthusians, we
have further unquestionable evidence of the disuse of flesh
food, though in such cases the reason for the abstinence is
ascetic rather than humane. When we turn to the biographies of
individuals, we learn that there have been numerous examples of
what is now called "vegetarianism"—not always consistent,
indeed, or continuous in practice, yet sufficiently so to prove
the entire possibility of the diet, and to remove it from the
category of generous aspiration into that of accomplished
fact.[4]
Footnote 4:
See the list of names cited in Mr. Howard Williams's "Ethics
of Diet," a biographical history of the literature of humane
dietetics from the earliest period to the present day.
But granting that there is historic basis for the vegetarian
system, the question is asked whether, on ethnological evidence,
it does not appear that the dominant races have been for the
most part carnivorous, and the subject races vegetarian—a line
of argument which always appeals strongly to the patriotic
Briton.
PATRIOT: Come, now; it is all very well to talk of
philosophers and poets, and I have no doubt you can
point to such names among the founders of your creed,
but what I ask is, Were the founders of the British
Empire vegetarians? Were any great empires ever founded
by vegetarians? Was Julius Cæsar a vegetarian? Was
Wellington a vegetarian? Can you give me any instance of
vegetarianism as a fighting force?
VEGETARIAN: As regards the rank and file of conquering
armies, there are many such instances, both in ancient
and modern history. The diet of the Roman soldier was
not that of a flesh-eater, and the Roman Empire was
assuredly not won by virtue of flesh-eating, but by
the hardihood which could subsist on simple rations of
wheat, oil, and wine. So, too, the armies which built
up the earlier empires of Egypt and Assyria were, for
the most part, vegetarian. That is to say, while the
rulers and wealthy classes of fighting nations have been
carnivorous, the bulk of the soldiery, drawn from the
frugal peasant class, has been unaccustomed to such
luxuries. The idea that the flesh-eating races have
everywhere subjugated the vegetarians is quite illusory.
PATRIOT: But surely in India the flesh-eating Mohammedan
has always conquered the vegetarian Hindu?
VEGETARIAN: Not by any means always. It took him
centuries of fierce fighting to do so, with all the
advantages of religious fanaticism on his side, as
against an enemy weakened by internal dissension and an
enervating climate. But that Mohammedanism does not
depend on flesh food for its fighting qualities may be
seen from the case of that special ally and favourite of
yours, the Turk. Let me read you what the _Standard_
said of him some twenty years back: "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. He can live and
fight when soldiers of any other nationality would
starve. 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 subsist on the scantiest and simplest
food." Have I said enough to show you that vegetarianism
_may_ be a fighting force?
It will be objected, perhaps, that when food reformers claim
these fighting qualities for their diet they are proving just a
little too much for their principles, as, for example, in the
reference to the sanguinary Turk as a practical vegetarian. If
the outcome of vegetarian diet is to be war and massacre, how is
the system any better than that which it fain would supersede?
This brings us back to the starting-point of the present
chapter, the distinction between what may be called the old and
the new vegetarianism. We have seen that, so far as the
common practice is concerned, abstinence from flesh food is
as old as history itself, and that rarer instances may be
cited of practice and principle combined; but when we regard
vegetarianism as a propagandist movement, a conscious endeavour
to benefit not merely the individual man, but human society
itself, we have to recognise that it is a _new_ movement.
From a mere habit of the many, or piety of the few, it has
become a reasoned principle, an organised system, with a name
and nomenclature of its own: in vulgar language, it is an
-_ism_, and, like other kindred -_isms_, a part of the great
humanitarian impulse of the past hundred years.
The significance of this distinction is considerable. Modern
"vegetarianism" is the same, yet not the same, as the "flesh
abstinence" that dates from earlier times—the same in so far as
the actual dietary is concerned, and in some fewer cases the
same in principle, but different altogether in the spirit by
which that principle is informed; and for this reason it would
be ridiculous to judge vegetarianism as a whole by the character
of those races who happen to have been abstainers from flesh,
and who are merely quoted as proving the physical sufficiency of
the diet. In a word, ethnical vegetarianism and ethical
vegetarianism are two very different things.
It has also to be remembered that the modern vegetarian
appeals not to humane instinct only, but to physiological
facts, and that the movement has now become to a very large
extent a scientific and hygienic one, thus again differing
widely from the merely empirical and unconscious vegetarianism
of earlier times. These several aspects of the system will be
reviewed in succeeding chapters; it is enough here to repeat
that vegetarianism as a practice is immemorial, as a precept
is of great antiquity, but as an organised cult is one of the
new revolutionary forces of modern times.
STRUCTURAL EVIDENCE
We have seen, then, that vegetarianism, though new as a
propagandist doctrine, has its historical record; but if we wish
thoroughly to understand its origin, we must go back beyond
history to the more ancient and more durable evidence of the
organic structure of Man. Here we come in conflict with what is,
perhaps, the strangest of the many strange prejudices that
oppose the humane diet—the superstition, so common among the
uneducated, and connived at, if not shared, by some of the
"scientific" themselves, that the verdict of comparative anatomy
is fatal to the vegetarian claims. So far is this from being the
case that the great naturalists, from Linnæus onward, give
implicit judgment to the contrary, by classing mankind with the
frugivorous family of the anthropoid apes. Thus Sir Richard Owen
says:
"The apes and monkeys, which man most nearly resembles
in his dentition, derive their staple food from fruits,
grain, the kernels of nuts, and other forms in which the
most sapid and nutritious tissues of the vegetable
kingdom are elaborated; and the close resemblance
between the quadrumanous and the human dentition shows
that man was, from the beginning more especially adapted
'to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.'"[5]
Footnote 5:
"Odontography," chap. x., p. 471, 1840-1845. This sentence is
quoted only for what it is worth—viz., as proving that, in
Owen's opinion, man was originally frugivorous. If the whole
passage in "Odontography" be studied, it will be seen that
Owen cannot fairly be cited as a vegetarian authority,
because, after alluding to the fact that the apes occasionally
eat insects, eggs, and young birds, he sums up in favour of
what he calls "the frugivorous and mixed regimen of the
quadrumana and man." This point I have dealt with later in the
chapter.
And here is the more recent verdict of Sir Benjamin Richardson:
"On the whole, I am bound to give judgment on the
evidence of the teeth rather in favour of the vegetarian
argument. It seems fairest of fair to read from nature
that the teeth of man were destined—or fitted, if the
word destined is objected to—for a plant or vegetable
diet, and that the modification due to animal food,
by which some change has been made, is practically an
accident or necessity, which would soon be rectified if
the conditions were rendered favourable to a return
to the primitive state.... By weighing the facts that
now lie before us, the inference is justified that, in
spite of the very long time during which man has been
subjected to an animal diet, he retains in preponderance
his original and natural taste for an innocent diet
derived from the first-fruits of the earth."[6]
Footnote 6:
"Foods for Man," _Longman's Magazine_, 1888.
Yet, in spite of such testimony, and more of an equally
authoritative kind, it is quite a common thing for some
flesh-eating "scientist" to allege against vegetarianism the
conformation of the human teeth or stomach.
SCIENTIST: But our teeth, my good friend, our teeth!
What can be the use of your talking about vegetarianism,
when we both of us carry in our mouths a proof of the
necessity of flesh-eating.
VEGETARIAN: But surely you do not hold the popular
fallacy that man's canine teeth class him among the
carnivora?
SCIENTIST: They prove at least that he is an eater of
flesh as well as of vegetables. Why else has he got such
teeth?
VEGETARIAN: Why has a gorilla got such teeth? "For the
purpose of combat and defence," Owen tells us, not of
food. And if a gorilla, with "canines" much more
developed than man's, is a frugivorous animal, why must
man with less developed "canines" be carnivorous?
SCIENTIST: Well, well; let us turn to the digestive
organs, then. Look at the immense difference between the
human stomach and that of the true herbivora. How can
mankind get the required nutriment from herbs, when we
have not the necessary apparatus for doing so?
VEGETARIAN: But it has never been argued by us, nor is
it in any way essential to our argument, that mankind is
_herbivorous_. What have the herbivora to do with the
question?
SCIENTIST: I have seen them quoted in your books as
instances of strength and endurance——
VEGETARIAN: To dispel the illusion that there is no
chemical nutriment in anything but flesh food; but that
is quite a different thing from asserting that man is
himself herbivorous. The point at issue is simple. You
charge vegetarians with flying in the face of Nature. We
show you, from your own authorities, that the structural
evidence, whatever that may be worth (it was you who
first appealed to it), pronounces man to have been
originally neither carnivorous, nor herbivorous, but
_frugivorous_. If you think otherwise, what do you make
of the apes?
The close similarity that exists between the structure of man
and that of the anthropoid apes is the hard fact that cannot be
evaded by the apologists of flesh-eating. In the conformation
alike of brain, of hands, of teeth, of salivary glands, of
stomach, we have indisputable proof of the frugivorous origin of
man—indeed, it is not seriously questioned by any recognised
authority, that man was a fruit-eater in the early stages of his
development. As far as comparative anatomy throws light on the
diet question, mankind and the apes are, so to speak, "in the
same box," and he who would disprove the frugivorous nature of
man, must also disprove the frugivorous nature of the anthropoid
apes, a predicament of which the more intelligent of our
opponents are keenly aware. And this brings us to the second
branch of the subject of this chapter.
Whatever his original structure, it is argued, man has extended his
resources in the matter of food, and has long been "omnivorous," while
his middle position between the carnivora and herbivora indicates that
he is naturally suited for a "mixed diet." _Omnivorous_, it will be
noted, is the blessed word that is to bring comfort to flesh-eaters,
and the inconvenient apes, whom the naturalists class as frugivorous,
have somehow to be dragged in under the category of "omnivorous." But,
first, a word about the meaning of this saving term.
Now, I wish to make it plain that vegetarians are not wedded to
any _a priori_ theory that the lines of dietetic development are
stringently limited by the original structure of man. If the
flesh-eater appeals, as he so often does, to physical structure,
with the intent of attributing carnivorous instincts to mankind,
we confront him with an array of scientific opinion which
quickly makes him wish he had let the subject alone; and if he
insists on the "evolutional" rather than the "natural" aspect
of the problem, we are equally ready to meet him on this
newer ground. But we decline to fall victims to the rather
disingenuous quibble that lurks in the specious application to
mankind of the term "omnivorous."
For what, in the present connection, does the word "omnivorous"
mean? It cannot, obviously, mean that man should, like the
hog, eat _everything_, for, if so, it would sanction not
only flesh-eating, but cannibalism, and we should have to
class mankind (so Professor Mayor has wittily remarked) as
_hominivorous_! It must mean, presumably, that man is fitted to
eat not _everything_, but _anything_—vegetable food or animal
food—implying that he is eclectic in his diet, free to choose
what is good and reject what is bad, without being bound by any
original law of nature.[7] To the name "omnivorous," used not
in the hoggish sense, but in this rational sense, and not
excluding, as the scientists would absurdly make it exclude, the
force of _moral_ and other considerations, the vegetarian need
raise no objection. Man is "omnivorous," is he? He may select
his own diet from the vegetable and animal kingdoms? Well and
good: that is just what we have always advised him to do, and we
are prepared to give reasons, moral and hygienic, why, in
making the selection, he should omit the use, not of all
animal products, but of flesh. The scientists cannot have
it _both_ ways. They cannot dogmatise on diet as a thing
settled by comparative anatomy, and _also_ assert that man is
"omnivorous"—_i.e._, free to choose what is best.
Footnote 7:
It has been well shown by Dr. J. Oldfield, in the _New Century
Review_, October 1898, that "omnivorism" in the hoggish sense,
is _not_ characteristic of progressive mankind. "The higher we
go in the scale of life, the more we find _selection_ taking
the place of omnivorism. The more complex the organism, the
greater its selective capacity. 'Selection,' then, rather than
'omnivorism,' should be the watch-cry of the human race
evolving upward."
But let us return to our monkeys.
SCIENTIST: You just now quoted the gorilla as a
frugivorous animal, but, on further consideration, I
cannot admit him to be so. He is omnivorous—like man. I
have Sir Richard Owen's authority for it.
VEGETARIAN: What! Does the ape rush upon the antelopes,
and rend them with those canine teeth of his? How
horrible!
SCIENTIST: Not exactly that; but it was stated by Sir
Henry Thompson that "Sally," the large chimpanzee once
so popular in the Zoological Gardens, was not
infrequently supplied with animal food.
VEGETARIAN: Well, and how does that prove that the
chimpanzee is not naturally frugivorous? I should
imagine that any one of us, if placed in a cage, and
stared at all the year round by a throng of gaping
visitors, might be liable to aberrations. Even a
vegetarian might do the same.
SCIENTIST: But in their wild state also the baboons are
known to prey on lizards, young birds, eggs, etc., when
they can get them. Perhaps you were not aware of this
when you called the apes frugivorous?
VEGETARIAN: I was quite aware of it, and in view of the
exceedingly small importance of these casual pilferings
as compared with their staple diet, I maintain that they
_are_, for all practical purposes, frugivorous. Indeed,
so far from this mischievous penchant of the apes being
an argument against vegetarianism, it is most suggestive
as explaining how the early savages may have passed,
almost by accident at first, from a frugivorous to a
mixed diet.
SCIENTIST: Well, at any rate, it indicates that apes
have a tendency to become omnivorous.
VEGETARIAN: Yes, if you like to express it so; and it
is still more evident that men have that tendency. But
the question is whether the tendency is rightly
interpreted as giving a sanction to _flesh-eating_. For
flesh-eating, as we use the term, means the breeding,
destroying, and devouring of highly-organised mammals,
and is a very different thing from the egg and lizard
hunting in which the monkeys sometimes indulge. If you
would confine your flesh-eating to a few insects and
nestlings, you would have a better right to quote the
example of the apes.
Has flesh-eating been a necessary step in man's progress?
Without access to the flesh-pots, it has been asked, would not
the race have remained in the groves with the orangs and the
gorillas? I do not see that vegetarians need concern themselves
to answer such speculations, which, interesting though they are,
do not bear closely on the present issue. For though, as we have
seen, the testimony of the past is in favour of a frugivorous
origin, the problem of the present is one which we are free to
solve without prejudice, and whether the past use of flesh food,
by a portion of the world's inhabitants, has helped or hindered
the true development of man is a matter for individual judgment.
We may have our own opinion about it. But what we are concerned
to prove is that flesh-eating can offer no advantages to us
_now_.
THE APPEAL TO NATURE
Of the many dense prejudices through which, as through a
snowdrift, vegetarianism has to plough its way before it can
emerge into the field of free discussion, there is none perhaps
more inveterate than the common appeal to "Nature." A typical
instance of the remarkable misuse of logic which characterises
such argument may be seen in the anecdote related by Benjamin
Franklin, in his "Autobiography," of the incident which induced
him to return, after years of abstinence, to a flesh diet. He
was watching some companions sea-fishing, and observing that
some of the fish caught by them had swallowed other fish, he
concluded that, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we may
not eat you"—a confusion of ichthyology and morals which is
ludicrous enough as narrated by Franklin, but not essentially
more foolish than the attempt so frequently made by flesh-eaters
to shuffle their personal responsibility on to some supposed
"natural law."
But let the carnivorous anthropologist speak for himself:
ANTHROPOLOGIST: Now, understand me! I think this
vegetarianism is well enough as a sentiment; I fully
appreciate your aspiration. But you have overlooked the
fact that it is contrary to the laws of Nature. It is
beautiful in theory, but impossible in practice.
VEGETARIAN: Indeed! That puts me in an awkward position,
as I have been practising it for twenty years.
ANTHROPOLOGIST: It is not the individual that I am
speaking of, but the race. A man may practise it
perhaps; but mankind cannot do so with impunity.
VEGETARIAN: And why?
ANTHROPOLOGIST: Because, as the poet says, "Nature is
one with rapine." It is natural to kill. Do you dare to
impugn Nature?
VEGETARIAN: Not at all. What I dare to impugn is your
incorrect description of Nature. There is a great deal
more in Nature than rapine and slaughter.
ANTHROPOLOGIST: What? Do not the beasts and birds prey
on one another? Do not the big fish eat the little fish?
Is it not all one universal struggle for existence, one
internecine strife?
VEGETARIAN: No; that is just what it is not. There are
_two_ principles at work in Nature—the law of
competition and the law of mutual aid. There are
carnivorous animals and non-carnivorous, predatory races
and sociable races; and the vital question is—to which
does man belong? You obscure the issue by these vague
and meaningless appeals to the "laws of Nature," when,
in the first place, you are quoting only part of
Nature's ordinance, and, secondly, have not yourself the
least intention of conforming even to that part.
ANTHROPOLOGIST: I beg your pardon. In what do I not
conform to Nature?
VEGETARIAN: Well, are you in favour of cannibalism, let
us say, or the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes?
ANTHROPOLOGIST: Good gracious, my dear sir! I must
entreat you——
VEGETARIAN: Exactly! You are horrified at the mere
mention of such things. Yet these habits are as easily
justified as flesh-eating, if you take "Nature" as your
model, without specifying _whose_ nature? The nature of
the conger and the dog-fish, or the nature of civilised
man? Pray tell me _that_, Mr. Anthropologist, and then
our conversation may not be wholly irrelevant.
The idea that the Darwinian doctrine of the "struggle of life"
justifies any barbarous treatment of inferior races is ridiculed
by so distinguished an authority as Prince Kropotkin, who points
out that Darwin does _not_ teach this. "He proves that there is
a struggle for existence in order to put a check on the
inordinate increase of species. But this struggle is not to be
understood in a crude and exclusive sense; there is a law of
competition, but there is also—what is still more important—a
law of mutual aid, and as soon as the scientist leaves his
laboratory, and comes out into the open woods and meadows, he
sees the importance of this law. Only those animals who are
mutually helpful are really fitted to survive; it is not the
strong, but the co-operative species that endure."[8] So, too,
with reference to the strange notion that a guide for human
conduct may be deduced from some particular animal instinct,
taken at haphazard from its surroundings, a timely warning is
addressed to such crude reasoners by Professor J. Arthur
Thomson: "What we must protest against is that one-sided
interpretation, according to which individualistic competition
is Nature's sole method of progress.... The precise nature
of the means employed and ends attained must be carefully
considered, when we seek from the records of animal evolution
support or justification for human conduct."[9]
Footnote 8:
_Humane Science Lectures_: Summary of address given by Prince
Kropotkin at Essex Hall, November 17, 1896.
Footnote 9:
"Study of Animal Life."
It may be said, however, that though man is fitted to co-operate
peacefully with his fellows, he is not bound by any such ties of
brotherhood to the lower animals, and that it is "natural" that
he should prey on the non-human races, even if it be not natural
that he should seek pleasure at the cost of his fellow-man. But,
in reality, Nature knows no such bridgeless gulf between the
human and the non-human intelligence; and it is impossible, in
the light of modern science, to draw any such absolute line of
demarcation between man and "the animals" as in the now
discredited theory of Descartes. We are learning to get rid of
these "anthropocentric" delusions, which, as has been pointed
out by Mr. E. P. Evans, "treat man as a being essentially
different and inseparably set apart from all other sentient
creatures, to which he is bound by no ties of mental affinity or
moral obligation"; whereas, in fact, "man is as truly a part and
product of Nature as any other animal, and this attempt to set
him up as an isolated point outside of it is philosophically
false and morally pernicious."[10]
Footnote 10:
"Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology."
The talk, then, about Nature being "one with rapine" is a mere
form of special pleading, which will not stand examination in
the full light of fact. If man is determined to play the part of
tiger among his less powerful fellow-beings, he will have to go
elsewhere than to Nature to obtain a warrant for his deeds, for
as far as the indications of Nature carry weight, they suggest
that man, by his physical structure and his compassionate
instincts, belongs unmistakably to the sociable, and not the
predatory tribes; and that by constituting himself a "beast of
prey" on a vast artificial scale, he is doing the greatest
possible wrong to nature (_i.e._, to _his own_ nature) instead
of conforming to it. Our innate horror of bloodshed—a horror
which only long custom can deaden, and which, in spite of past
centuries of violence, is so powerful at the present time—is
proof that we are not naturally adapted for a sanguinary diet;
and, as has often been pointed out, it is only by delegating to
others the detested work of slaughter, and by employing
cookery to conceal the uncongenial truth, that thoughtful
persons can tolerate the practice of flesh-eating. If Nature
pointed us to such a diet, we should feel the same instinctive
appetite for raw flesh as we now feel for ripe fruit, and a
slaughter-house would be more delightful to us than an orchard.
It is not Nature, but custom, that is the guardian deity of the
flesh-eater.
But we have not quite exhausted the appeal to Nature; we have
still to speak of the common objection to vegetarianism that "it
is necessary to take life."
ANTHROPOLOGIST: I have a most important argument to put
before you. Must you not face the fact that, in this
imperfect world, it is necessary to take life? How can
it be immoral to do what necessity imposes?
VEGETARIAN: We do not say that it is immoral to
"take life," but that it is immoral to take life
_unnecessarily_. It is not immoral, for instance, to
destroy rats and mice, because it is necessary to do
so. It _is_ immoral to kill animals for the table,
because it is _not_ necessary to do so. Did you ever
tread on a beetle?
ANTHROPOLOGIST: Yes, by accident. I could not help it. I
am a most humane man.
VEGETARIAN: Of course. But supposing that you wished to
murder someone, would you think yourself justified in
doing so because you had trodden on beetles—because, in
fact, sometimes it is "necessary to take life?"
ANTHROPOLOGIST: Certainly not. How can you suspect me of
being so immoral? There is a great difference between
taking the life of a beetle by accident and of a man by
design. There are _degrees_ of responsibility, you know.
VEGETARIAN: Ah! you have got your answer, then.
How is it, we wonder, that rational beings can commit themselves
to such irrational arguments as this appeal to what is called
"Nature" but is in reality only an isolated section of Nature,
viewed apart from the rest? Let Benjamin Franklin himself supply
the answer. For in narrating that incident of the cod-fish to
which I have alluded, he humorously hints that his philosophical
conclusion, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we may not
eat you," was not uninfluenced by the fact that he had been "a
great lover of fish" in early life, and that the fish smelt
"admirably well" as it came out of the frying-pan; and he sagely
adds that one of the advantages to man of being a "reasonable
creature" is that he can find or make a "reason" for anything he
has a mind to do. Such is the logic of the flesh-eater, in which
the wish is father to the thought, and mixed thinking leads by a
convenient process to a mixed diet.
THE HUMANITARIAN ARGUMENT
It will have been noted that the anti-vegetarian arguments which
have so far come under review have been mainly such as are based
on purely _materialistic_ grounds, as if the question were
wholly one for doctors and scientists to decide; and it has been
shown that, even thus, there is no sort of warrant for the
supercilious dismissal of vegetarianism as a theory condemned in
advance by some superior tribunal. But the question is not one
for the _ipse dixit_ of the specialist. It is also a moral
question of very great moment, and this fact gives a new
significance to such unwilling admissions as that made by the
_British Medical Journal_, that "man can obtain from vegetables
the nutriment necessary for his maintenance in health"—_i.e._,
from vegetables only, much more, therefore, from a vegetable
diet with the addition of eggs and milk. The practicability of
vegetarianism being thus fully granted, it is impossible to
pretend that moral considerations are not relevant to the
controversy, and that in forming an opinion on the vexed problem
of diet we should not give due weight to the promptings of
humaneness.
People often talk as if the humanitarian plea were some fanciful
external sentiment that has been illogically thrust into the
discussion; whereas in truth it is one of the innermost facts of
the situation which no sophistry can escape. Our humane
instincts are unalterably implanted in us, and we cannot deny
them if we would; to be _human_ is to be _humane_. "There is
something in human nature," says an old writer,[11] "resulting
from our very make and constitution, which renders us obnoxious
to the pains of others, causes us to sympathise with them,
and almost comprehends us in their case. It is grievous to
see or hear (and almost to hear of) any man, or even any
animal whatever, in torture." And now that modern science has
demonstrated the close kinship that exists between human and
non-human, the greater is the repulsion that we feel at any
wanton ill-usage of animals.
Footnote 11:
Wollaston, "Religion of Nature," 1759.
This is now so generally admitted that the point in dispute
is not so much the duty of humaneness, as some particular
application of that duty, as in the present case to the
slaughter of animals for food. What have humane people to say to
the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted, in the
interests of the table, on highly-organised and sensitive
animals closely allied to mankind? By the unthinking, of course,
these sufferings, being invisible, are almost wholly overlooked,
while the deadening power of habit prevents many kindly persons
from exercising, where their daily "beef" and "mutton" are
concerned, the very sympathies which they so keenly manifest
elsewhere; yet it can hardly be doubted that, if the veil of
custom could be lifted, and if a clear knowledge of what is
involved in "butchery" could be brought home, with a sense of
personal responsibility, to everyone who eats flesh, the
attitude of society towards the vegetarian movement would be
very different from what it is now. If it be true that "hunger
is the best sauce," it may also be said that the _bon vivant's_
most indispensable sauce is _ignorance_—ignorance of the
horrible and revolting circumstances under which his juicy steak
or dainty cutlet has been prepared.
BON VIVANT: What is this? "Vegetarian" you call
yourself?
VEGETARIAN: And you? You are a _bon vivant_. You "live
well," I understand.
BON VIVANT: Not ashamed of enjoying a good dinner, but
not greedy, I hope.
VEGETARIAN: Nor cruel, I suppose?
BON VIVANT: Cruel! I subscribe regularly to the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
VEGETARIAN: And _eat_ them.
BON VIVANT: Why not? A speedy painless death is no
cruelty, is it?
VEGETARIAN: While you are finishing that choice beef
steak, I will tell you something of the speedy painless
death of steak-producing animals. It may serve as an aid
to digestion, like a musical accompaniment.
BON VIVANT: Oh, you won't spoil my digestion. Fire away!
VEGETARIAN: Let us suppose, then, that our friend (on
your plate there) hails from Ireland, and at one of
the fair grounds, of which there are several thousand
in that island paradise, he meets the first agent in
his euthanasia—the drover. "On such occasions," says
the Report of the late Departmental Committee on the
Inland Transit of Cattle, "animals already, perhaps,
exhausted and foot-sore from a walk of many miles, stand
for hours on the hard road, bewildered by the beating
they receive and their unaccustomed surroundings.... It
was repeatedly asserted by responsible witnesses that
many of the drovers are brutally harsh." So ferocious is
the treatment that in many cases, when the animals are
slaughtered, the hide, as butchers testify, simply falls
off the back, and is worthless even for use as leather.
I hope your steak is nice and tender?
BON VIVANT: But why are not the brutal drovers punished
for it?
VEGETARIAN: Perhaps because it is not for themselves
that they are driving. Then there is the journey in the
railway-trucks, and we learn on good authority (Report
of the Liverpool S.P.C.A.) that "the animals have
frequently gone twenty to twenty-four hours without food
at the time they are driven on the boats." As for the
delights of the sea-transit, you have read, I suppose,
of what happens in cattle-ships?
BON VIVANT: Well, of course, in stormy weather there may
be accidents——
VEGETARIAN: No, I am speaking of the ordinary scenes of
the cattle traffic, and say nothing of the occasions
(not so rare, either) when the boats come into port with
blood pouring from their scuppers——
BON VIVANT: Thank you, thank you! that is enough!
VEGETARIAN: We find it stated, in the Report of the
Committee of Inquiry into the Irish Cattle Transit, that
"the damage sustained by cattle is very serious, and
that the principal portion of that damage is due to
their treatment during shipment, while on shipboard, and
on debarkation." On landing there is more thrashing and
tail-twisting, another railway journey, and then—the
slaughterman. You have visited a slaughter-house, of
course?
BON VIVANT: No, really, I must protest——
VEGETARIAN: Ah, then it should interest you! The
drover's task accomplished, the butcher's begins.
Yard by yard and foot by foot, with chains fastened
to his horns and sharp goads applied to his flanks,
the struggling animal is dragged into the dark,
blood-stained shed, where he is lucky indeed if he
be killed by the first blow of the pole-axe——
BON VIVANT: Shameful! I do not believe you. It cannot
be.
VEGETARIAN: Then many well-known eye-witnesses must have
strangely perjured themselves. Dr. Dembo, for example,
says: "Cases in which several blows are required are
very frequent. On my first visit to the Deptford
slaughtering yards I found that the number of blows
struck was five and more," and he goes on to describe a
case which he saw in London, when _twelve minutes_
elapsed before the animal——
BON VIVANT: Stop! I will hear no more.
VEGETARIAN: You will hear no more—but will you _eat_
more? It is on _you_, not on the brutal drover or
slaughterman, that the responsibility falls. For this is
the "speedy and painless" way in which animals must be
slaughtered that _you_ may live well.
"I will hear no more." That, said or implied, is the most common
and the most insuperable argument by which the vegetarian is
confronted. It is the one great stronghold of flesh-eating which
remains from age to age impregnable. For how can even truth
convince the deaf and the blind? The horrors of the journey by
sea and journey by rail, of the savage drover's goad and the
clumsy butcher's pole-axe—if the ordinary man and woman,
unimaginative and unfeeling though they are, could see or
even hear of these things, the end of the controversy would
be nearer. By the few flesh-eaters who have made inquiry,
accidental or conscientious, into the facts of the cattle
traffic and butchering trade, it is not denied that fearful
cruelties are committed. Thus the _Meat Trades Journal_, which
is not a sentimental paper, remarks of the sea and land transit,
that "our cattle, sheep, and pigs are carried by sea and rail
with the minimum care and maximum cost; they are bundled and
shunted about as if they were iron."[12] Again, Dr. T. P. Smith,
writing in opposition to vegetarianism, allows that the
indictment of the slaughter-house "hits a grievous blot on our
much-vaunted civilization."[13] There is a mass of printed
testimony to the same effect, which can be confirmed, as often
as confirmation is needed, by a visit to the shambles. But that
is a visit which the ordinary man will neither undertake himself
nor hear of from the mouths of others.
Footnote 12:
December 29, 1898.
Footnote 13:
_Fortnightly Review_, November, 1895.
Much also might be said of certain special cruelties, such as
those involved in the supply of white veal or _pâté de foie
gras_, and other so-called delicacies; but it is unnecessary to
dwell on such refinements of torture, because it is the ordinary
every-day aspects of flesh-eating that are here under debate. It
is a terrible fact that the very prevalence of the habit serves,
more than anything else, to conceal its full import; and thus a
large number of people, who, in any other department of life,
would indignantly refuse to profit by the cruel usage of
animals, are (without knowing, or at least without recognising
it) dependent for their daily food on the continued and
systematic infliction of sufferings which, in their magnitude
and frequency, surpass all other cruelties whatsoever of which
animals are the victims.
These horrors, as I have said, are not realised by those who are
personally responsible for them. Or, rather, they are not
_directly_ realised; for indirectly it is evident enough that
the more sensitive conscience of mankind is far from easy about
the morality of butchering, and would show still greater
uneasiness but for the quieting assurance that flesh food is a
strict necessity of existence. This sense of compunction has
found at least partial expression in many non-vegetarian works,
as, for example, in Michelet's "Bible of Humanity." "Life—death!
The daily murder which feeding upon animals implies—those hard
and bitter problems sternly placed themselves before my mind.
Miserable contradiction! Let us hope that there may be another
globe in which the base, the cruel fatalities of this one may be
spared to us!"
Now, in view of these facts and these feelings, we have a right
to press the advocates of flesh-eating for some more explicit
and coherent statement than they have hitherto accorded us of
their attitude towards the ethics of the diet question. If, as
the scientists themselves admit, there is no such "cruel
fatality" as that which Michelet pictured, and if flesh-eating
is not to be regarded as necessary, but only as expedient, then
it is in the highest degree unreasonable to rule out _humane_
considerations from their due share in the settlement of this
many-sided problem. The _British Medical Journal_ has said that
"there is not a shadow of doubt that the use of animals for food
involves a vast amount of pain." The same paper has said that
"man can obtain from vegetables the nutriment necessary for his
maintenance in health." Can it be doubted, that if the average
Englishman were made aware of these two facts, he would at least
think vegetarianism worthy of a serious trial? To ask, as a
superior person of science has asked (not merely in these
dialogues, but in actual debate), "How or where does the moral
phase of food-taking enter the science of dietetics?" or to take
refuge in the common saying that "one man's food is another
man's poison," is simply irrelevant. For diet, like other social
questions, has its moral aspect, which claims no less and no
more than its due importance; and it is because the "scientific"
antagonists of vegetarianism have overlooked this fact that
their judgments have hitherto been so warped, illogical, and
unscientific.
PALLIATIONS AND SOPHISTRIES
It is instructive to note the desperate shifts and subterfuges to which
our antagonists have recourse when they find themselves face to face
with the humanitarian impeachment of the slaughter-house. If one-half
of the popular prejudices were true, it might be supposed that, in the
discussion of so "fanciful" and "Utopian" a theory as vegetarianism
it would be its supporters who would take refuge in metaphysical
quibblings and sophistries, while its opponents would hold sternly
to the hard facts of life. But no! for when butchery is the theme we
find the exact opposite to be the case, and it is the flesh-eaters,
those level-headed deriders of the sentimental, who suddenly became
enamoured of the imaginary _what-might-be_ and the hypothetical
_what-would-otherwise-have-been_, and are disposed to turn their
attention to anything rather than to the unpalatable _what-is_.
Now, when the apologists of any form of cruelty are reduced to the
plea that it is "no worse" than some _other_ barbarous habit, the
presumption is that they are in a very bad plight indeed. Yet we
frequently hear it said that the fate of animals slaughtered for the
table is "no worse" than that of other animals—those perhaps that are
used for purposes of draught or burden—a quite pointless comparison,
because, even if the statement be true, the one act of injustice can
obviously be no excuse for the other. Or it may be that the mortality
of man himself, and his liability to disease and accident, are alleged
in mysterious justification of his carnivorous habits, the suffering of
the animals being represented as brief and momentary in contrast with
the pathetic human death-bed—an argument which reached its culminating
point in Mr. W. T. Stead's delightful assertion that of all kinds
of death he would himself prefer "the mode in which pigs are killed
at Chicago," which mode, as he incautiously let out, he did _not_
go to see when he visited that city. I do not think we need further
discuss such remarkable preference; it will be time enough to do so
when we hear of Mr. Stead's lamented self-immolation in the Chicago
pig-shambles.
But it is said that domesticated animals owe a deep debt of
gratitude to mankind (only to be repaid in the form of beef and
mutton), because, by being brought within the peaceful fold of
civilisation, they have been spared all the harrowing fears and
anxieties of their wild natural life. This, however, is a
fallacy to which the great naturalists give no sort of sanction;
for it is obvious that, though the life of a wild animal is
liable to more sudden perils than that of our tame "livestock,"
it is not on that account a less happy one, but, on the
contrary, is spent throughout in a manner more conducive to the
highest health and happiness. Thus, Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace
says: "The poet's picture of nature red in tooth and claw, is a
picture the evil of which is read into it by our imagination,
the reality being made up of full and happy lives, usually
terminated by the quickest and least painful of deaths." And Mr.
W. H. Hudson: "I take it that in the lower animals misery can
result from two causes only—restraint and disease—consequently,
that animals in a state of nature are not miserable. They are
not hindered or held back.... As to disease, it is so rare in
wild animals, or in a large majority of cases so quickly proves
fatal, that, compared with what we call disease in our own
species, it is practically non-existent. The 'struggle for
existence,' in so far as animals in a state of nature are
concerned, is a metaphorical struggle; and the strife, short and
sharp, which is so common in nature, is not misery, although it
results in pain, since it is pain that kills or is soon
out-lived."
Let us proceed, then, to the great sophistical paradox that it
is better for the animals themselves to be bred and slaughtered
than not to be bred at all—that most comfortable doctrine which
of late years has been a veritable city of refuge, or grand old
umbrella, to the conscientious flesh-eater under stress of the
vegetarian bombardment. Hither flock the members of the learned
professions, academies, and ethical societies, and fortify their
souls anew with this subtle metaphysic of the larder.
SOPHIST: Of all the arguments for vegetarianism, none,
in my opinion, is so weak as the argument from humanity.
The pig has a stronger interest than anyone in the
demand for bacon.
VEGETARIAN: Indeed? And is that the view the pig himself
takes of it?
SOPHIST: It is the view _I_ take of it, speaking in the
interests of the pig. For where would the pig be if we
did not eat pork? He would be non-existent; he would be
no pig at all.
VEGETARIAN: And would he be any the _worse_ for that?
SOPHIST: Yes, for he would lose the joy of life. And not
the pig alone, but all animals that are bred for human
food. Their death is the little price they necessarily
pay for the inestimable boon of existence.
VEGETARIAN: Now, let me first point out to you that it
is not only flesh-eating that would be justified by
this argument. Vivisection, pigeon-shooting, slavery,
cannibalism, any treatment whatsoever of animals or of
mankind where they are specially bred for the purpose,
might be similarly shown to be a kindness. Do you really
mean that?
SOPHIST: I assume, of course, that the life is a happy
one, and the death as painless as possible.
VEGETARIAN: Neither of which conditions is in reality
fulfilled! For the wretched creatures that are bred
and fed for the shambles have none of the true joys of
life, but from the first are mere animated beef, pork,
and mutton, while their death is nothing better than a
prolonged and clumsy massacre.
SOPHIST: But it need not be so. It is a mere question of
police and proper supervision. It should be imperative
on all those who confer life on animals to ensure
absolute painlessness for the last moment.
VEGETARIAN: It "_should_ be"! So it seems that this
remarkable kindness of yours is, by your own showing,
not an actual but a hypothetical benefit. The animals
fulfil their part of the compact by being killed and
eaten, and you _might_ fulfil your part by killing them
painlessly—only you _don't_! Are you serious in talking
this stuff?
SOPHIST: This "stuff"? Let me remind you, sir, that
I have the authority of such eminent philosophers as
Sir Henry Thompson, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Professor D.
G. Ritchie, and Dr. Stanton Coit. Do you call their
academical reasoning "stuff"?
VEGETARIAN: What else can it be called? For, as a matter
of fact, quite apart from the conditions, good or bad,
under which the animals live and die, it is a pure
fallacy to say that it is a _kindness_ to bring them
into existence.
SOPHIST: How so, if life is pleasant?
VEGETARIAN: Because it is impossible to compare
existence with non-existence. Existence may, or may not,
be pleasant; but non-existence is neither pleasant nor
unpleasant—it is nothing at all. It cannot, therefore,
be an _advantage_ to be born, though, when once you
_are_ born, the good and the evil are comparable. The
whole question is a post-natal, not a prenatal one; it
begins at birth.
SOPHIST: Well, but supposing you were an animal, would
you not prefer——
VEGETARIAN: Oh, that is a very old question. You will
find it all in Hansard. It was asked by Sir Herbert
Maxwell when he defended the sport of pigeon-shooting in
the Debates of 1883. "He wanted to ask the hon. member
whether, if he were a blue-rock, he would rather accept
life under the condition of his life being a short and
happy one, and violently terminated, or whether he would
reject life at all upon such terms."
SOPHIST: Hear, hear! That is just what I say.
VEGETARIAN: Then you had better think over Mr. W. E.
Forster's reply, which puts the case in a nut-shell. He
said that Sir Herbert Maxwell "made one very amusing
appeal, by asking him [the member who introduced the
Bill] to put himself in the position of a blue-rock. But
this would be difficult, for the position was not a
blue-rock in existence, but a blue-rock before it was
born." Whereat the House laughed, and sophistry was for
the moment disconcerted.
But for the moment only; for there have since sprung up many
other professors of this metaphysic of the larder, though none
of them, with the exception of Dr. Stanton Coit, have had the
hardihood to expound their theory in detail—a wise reticence,
perhaps, when it is seen how Dr. Coit fared in his conscientious
but humourless essay on "The Bringing of Sentient Beings into
Existence."
"If the motive," he opined, "that might produce the
greatest number of the happiest cattle would be the
eating of beef, then beef-eating, so far, must be
commended. And while, heretofore, the motive has not
been for the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that,
if vegetarian convictions should spread much further,
love for cattle would (if it be not psychologically
incompatible) blend with the love of beef in the minds
of the opponents of vegetarianism. With deeper insight,
new and higher motives may replace or supplement old
ones, and perpetuate but ennoble ancient practices."[14]
Footnote 14:
The _Ethical World_, May 7, 1898.
The "Ox in a Tea-cup," be it observed, may henceforth become the
emblem of the concentrated humanity of the ethical societies!
"But we frankly admit," continues Dr. Coit, "that it
is a question whether the love of cattle, intensified
to the imaginative point of individual affection for
each separate beast, would not destroy the pleasure
of eating beef, and render this time-honoured custom
psychologically impossible. _We surmise that bereaved
affection at the death of a dear creature would destroy
the flavour._"[15]
Footnote 15:
_Ibid._
What a picture is conjured up by the sentence I have italicised—the
bereaved moralist, knife and fork in hand, swayed in different
directions by the call of duty and the scruples of affection! And
then Dr. Coit goes on to express a fear that mankind, if they adopted
vegetarianism, might become "less powerful in thought"! I respectfully
submit that, in view of the arguments quoted, there is not the smallest
possibility of _that_.
The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very
common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out
that _what-might-be_ can afford no exemption from moral
responsibility for _what-is_. By all means let us reform the
system of butchery as far as it can be reformed—that is, by the
total abolition of those foul dens of torture known as "private
slaughter-houses," and by the substitution of municipal
abattoirs, equipped with the best modern appliances, and under
efficient supervision; for there is no doubt that the sum of
animal suffering may thus be greatly lessened. There will be no
opposition from the vegetarian side to such reform as this;
indeed, it is in a large measure through the personal efforts of
vegetarians that the subject has attracted attention, whereas
the very people who make this prospective improvement an excuse
for their present flesh diet are seldom observed to be doing
anything practical to carry it into effect. But when all is said
and done, it remains true that the reform of the slaughter-house
is at best a palliative, a temporary measure which will
mitigate, but cannot possibly amend, the horrors of butchery;
for it is but too evident that, under our complex civilisation,
when the town is so far aloof from the country, and pastoralism
can only be carried on in districts remote from the busy crowded
centres, it is impossible to transport and slaughter vast
numbers of large and highly-sensitive animals in a really humane
manner. More barbarous, or less barbarous, such slaughtering may
undoubtedly be, according to the methods employed, but the
"humane" slaughtering, so much bepraised of the sophist, is an
impossibility in fact and a contradiction in terms.
THE CONSISTENCY TRICK
It is certain, then, that the practice of flesh-eating involves
a vast amount of cruelty—a fact which cannot be lessened or
evaded by any quibbling subterfuges. But, before we pass on to
another phase of the food question, we must deal more fully with
that very common method of argument (alluded to in an earlier
chapter) which may be called the Consistency Trick—akin to that
known in common parlance as the _tu quoque_, or "you're
another"—the device of setting up an arbitrary standard of
"consistency," and then demonstrating that the vegetarian
himself, judged by that standard, is as "inconsistent" as other
persons. Whether we plead guilty or not guilty to this ingenious
indictment depends altogether on the meaning assigned to the
term "consistency."
For, as anyone who tries to do practical work in the world will rapidly
discover, there is a true and there is a false ideal of consistency.
To pretend that in our complex modern society, where responsibilities
are so closely interwoven, it is possible for any individual to
cultivate "a perfect character," and stand like a Sir Galahad above his
fellows—this is the false ideal of consistency which it is the first
business of a genuine reformer to put aside; for no human being can do
any solid work without frequently convicting himself of inconsistencies
when consistency is stereotyped into a formula. On the other hand,
there is a true duty of consistency, which regards the spirit rather
than the letter, and prompts us not to grasp foolishly at the ideal,
like a child crying for the moon, but to push steadily _towards_ the
ideal by a faithful adherence to the right line of reform, and by
ever keeping in view the just proportion and relative value of all
moral actions. Let it be remembered that it is this latter consistency
alone that has any interest for the vegetarian. His purpose is not to
exhibit himself as a spotless Sir Galahad of food reformers, but to
take certain practical steps towards the humanising of our barbarous
diet system.
Herein will be found the answer to a class of questions frequently
put to vegetarians, as to how they find it "consistent with their
principles" to use this or that form of food or animal substance. It
depends entirely on what their principles are. If their aspirations
were of the Sir Galahad order, some of the "posers" would indeed be
formidable; but as they do _not_ aim at moral perfection, but merely
at rational progress, the charge of inconsistency hurtles somewhat
harmlessly over their heads. But here let the consistency man have his
say:
CONSISTENCY MAN: But what I want to know is this—how you
can think it consistent to use milk and eggs?
VEGETARIAN: Consistent with what?
CONSISTENCY MAN: Why, with your own principles, of
course.
VEGETARIAN: Or do you mean with your idea of my
principles? The two things are not always identical, you
know.
CONSISTENCY MAN: You condemn flesh-eating because of the
suffering it causes, but it seems to have escaped your
notice that the use of milk and eggs is also responsible
for much. It is strange that it has never occurred to
you——
VEGETARIAN: My good sir, it has occurred to us years
and years ago. The question is as old as the movement
itself. The cock-and-bull argument, I presume?
CONSISTENCY MAN: I ask, what would become of the
cockerels and bull-calves under a vegetarian _régime_?
At present your supply of milk and eggs is easy enough,
because the young males are killed and eaten by us
carnivorous sinners. But are you not, to a certain
extent, participators in the deed?
VEGETARIAN: Yes, frankly, to a certain extent (a very
limited extent) I think we are. We are content to get
rid of the worst evils first.
CONSISTENCY MAN: But is one sort of killing worse than
another?
VEGETARIAN: Immeasurably worse. Even if it were
necessary under the vegetarian system, to destroy some
of the calves at birth, as the superfluous young of
domestic animals are now destroyed, it would be
ridiculous to compare such restricted killing of
new-born creatures with the present wholesale butchery
of full-grown and highly-sentient animals in the
slaughter-house.
CONSISTENCY MAN: You say "if" it were necessary, but is
there any doubt of it?
VEGETARIAN: It is not by any means so certain as you
suppose that the slaughter of calves would be
unavoidable. Vegetarians use milk sparingly—far more so
than flesh-eaters—and a limited amount of milk is
obtainable without killing the calf. Nor is there any
reason, as Professor Newman has pointed out, why a
number of oxen should not be employed as formerly in
working the land. But I do not wish to take refuge in
future possibilities. I prefer to take the bull-calf
argument "by the horns," and admit that, under present
conditions, we are indirectly responsible. Call it
inconsistency, if you like. If it be inconsistency not
to postpone the abolition of the greater cruelties until
we also abolish the minor ones, we are willing to be
called inconsistent.
It may be noted, in passing, that the zeal with which
flesh-eaters urge this counter-charge of "inconsistency"
is designed, unconsciously perhaps, to hide an important
admission—viz., that where eggs and milk are used there
is no necessity for butchers' meat, or, in other words,
that vegetarianism is a perfectly feasible diet. "Eggs and
milk," says Dr. T. P. Smith, when objecting to their use by
vegetarians, "contain a much larger quantity of nutritive
material than an equal amount of meat, for which, therefore,
they may easily serve as substitutes."[16] If this be granted,
the rest is a mere battle of words.
Footnote 16:
_Fortnightly Review_, November, 1895.
But the cock-and-bull argument, with which may be linked the
objection to the use of leather, is only one of many departments
of the consistency trick. Another favourite method of convicting
vegetarians of inconsistency is to start from the false
assumption that vegetarianism is the same thing as Brahminism,
and that any destruction of even the lowliest forms of life is
therefore reprehensible. "As for the argument based on the
cruelty of slaughter-houses," says Mr. W. T. Stead, "I don't see
that it bears upon the question, unless you take the extreme
Hindoo doctrine as to the wickedness of taking sentient life,
even in the shape of lice and adders." That is to say, the
terrible and quite unnecessary cruelties inflicted on the most
highly-organised and harmless animals in the cattle-ship and
slaughter-house do not even "bear upon" the morality of diet,
unless we also abstain from killing the most noxious and
lowly-organised forms! Of the same nature is the foolish
"when-you-drink-a-glass-of-water" fallacy, which argues that, as
we necessarily swallow minute organisms in drinking, we need
have no scruples as to the needless butchery of a cow or a
sheep. The savages who in the good old times used to eat their
grandfathers and grandmothers might have justified their
dietetic habits on precisely similar grounds.
Nor is it only insects and "vermin" on whose behalf the
consistency man is concerned, for plants also have life, and
therefore if the vegetarian holds that "it is immoral to take
life" (which he does _not_), he must be inconsistent in
eating vegetables. As an instance of a common but strange
misunderstanding of the vegetarian principle on this subject, I
must here quote a passage from the "Science Jottings" of Dr.
Andrew Wilson. Note the triumphant tone of the unscientific
scientist as he rushes to his absurd conclusion:
"I have not yet finished with the food faddist. Suppose
I find a vegetarian who, more consistent than the run of
his fellows, will not touch, taste, nor handle milk,
eggs, cheese, or any animal product whatever. I think it
is still possible to show him that he is infringing the
code he lives by, in so far as its pretensions with the
sacredness of life are concerned. Plants, no less than
animals, are living things. Their tissues contain living
protoplasm, which is the essential physical basis of
life everywhere.... I am afraid that the consistent
vegetarian must no longer kill a cabbage if he is to
live up to the standard of morals he sets up as a kind
of fetish in his diet regulations; and to lay low the
lettuce, or pluck the apple from its bough, is really a
direct infringement of the code which maintains that
you have no right to kill any living thing for food.
Really this is a monstrous doctrine when all is said and
done."[17]
Footnote 17:
_Illustrated London News_, May 14, 1898.
It _is_ a monstrous doctrine; and what are we to think of a man
of science who attributes such absurdities to vegetarians, and
thereupon holds them up to public contempt as inconsistent, when
by making inquiry he might at once have learnt that the blunder
was on his own side? Once more, then, be it stated that it
is not the mere "taking of life," but the taking of life
_unnecessarily_ that the vegetarian deprecates, and that no
criticism of vegetarianism can be of any relevance if it ignores
the fact that all forms of life are not of equal value, but that
the higher the sensibility of the animal, and the closer his
affinity to ourselves, the stronger his claim on our humaneness.
Before leaving this question of "consistency," as affected by
the _gradations_ of our duty of humaneness to animals, a few
words may be said on the practice of fish-eating. It was
humorously suggested by Sir Henry Thompson, who, as I have
proved in the second chapter of this work, wrote in complete
ignorance of the facts and dates of the vegetarian movement,
that, as vegetarians have "added" milk and eggs to their diet
since their society was founded (a statement quite devoid of
truth), they may perhaps still further enlarge their dietary so
as to include fish. Here, again, Sir H. Thompson only showed his
unfamiliarity with the subject, for his novel proposition was in
fact an old one, which has been debated and rejected by the
Vegetarian Society in its adherence to its original rule of
excluding fish, flesh, and fowl, and nothing else, from its
dietary. So far, then, as organised vegetarianism is concerned,
those who eat fish are not within the pale of membership;
but looked at from the purely _humane_ standpoint, it must
be admitted that there is an immense difference between
flesh-eating and fish-eating, and that those unattached food
reformers, not few in number, who for humane reasons abstain
from flesh, but feel justified in eating fish, hold a perfectly
intelligible position. And I would further note that the very
fact of there having been some disposition, wise or unwise,
within the vegetarian ranks to recognise the comparative
harmlessness of fish-eating, corroborates what I have asserted
throughout—that the _raison d'être_ of vegetarianism has
not been a pedantic hard-and-fast crusade against "animal"
substances, but a practical desire to abolish the horrors of the
slaughter-house.
This, then, is our parting word to the professors of the
Consistency Trick. If they had charged us with the _real_
inconsistency—that is, with sacrificing the spirit to the
letter by overlooking graver cruelties while denouncing minor
ones—we should have been fully prepared to meet so serious an
accusation. But as they have not done this, but have merely
twitted us with not attempting everything at once, and with
allowing the subordinate evil to wait until the central evil has
been grappled with, we cheerfully admit the impeachment—coming
as it does (such is the humour of the situation) from those who
are themselves desirous of perpetuating _both_ kinds of
suffering, the greater and the smaller alike! We beg to assure
them that we would much rather be inconsistently humane than
consistently cruel.
THE DEGRADATION OF THE BUTCHER
But this question of butchery is not merely one of kindness or
unkindness to animals, for by the very facts of the case it is a
_human_ question of no slight importance, affecting as it does
the social and moral welfare of those more immediately concerned
in it. Of all recognised occupations by which in civilised
countries a livelihood is sought and obtained, the work which is
looked upon with the greatest loathing (next to the hangman's)
is that of the butcher—as witness the opprobrious sense which
the word "butcher" has acquired. Owing to the instinctive horror
of bloodshed, which is characteristic of all normal civilised
beings, the trade of doing to death countless numbers of
inoffensive and highly-organised creatures amid scenes of
indescribable filth and ferocity is delegated—in the large
towns, at any rate—to a pariah class of "slaughtermen," who are
thus themselves made the victims of a grievous social wrong.
"I'm only doing your dirty work. It's such as _you_ makes such
as _us_," is said to have been the remark of a Whitechapel
butcher to a flesh-eating gentleman who remonstrated with him
for his brutality; and the remark was a perfectly just one. To
demand a product which can only be procured at the cost of the
intense suffering of the animal and the deep degradation of the
butcher, and by a process which not one flesh-eater in a hundred
would himself under any circumstances perform or even witness,
is conduct as callous, selfish, and unsocial as could well be
imagined.
For butchery, as Sir Benjamin Richardson used to point out,
is essentially a "dangerous trade." It not only deadens
and destroys the moral sympathies, but it has the physical
effect of straining the nerves and weakening the heart of the
slaughterman, and thus naturally induces a tendency to have
recourse to drink. How often, too, in reading of some murderous
crime, has one seen it stated that the criminal was a butcher;
as, for instance, in the Austrian "ripper" case, when, as the
papers stated, a woman of the "unfortunate" class was killed by
a young butcher of herculean frame, by whom it is supposed a
previous victim had also been slaughtered. To have accustomed
one's self to a total disregard for the pleading terror of
sensitive animals and to a murderous use of the knife is a
terrible power for society to put into the hands of its lowest
and least responsible members.
The blame must ultimately fall on society itself, and not on the
individual slaughterman. No one had a better knowledge of this
subject than the late Mr. H. F. Lester, and this is his opinion:
"We must take into consideration the fact that the ranks
of slaughtermen are habitually made up from persons
in whom one could hardly expect to find the sentiment
of pity strongly developed; yet, even among these, there
is a certain air of dissatisfaction with the work they
are compelled to do, and a mixture of insolence and
shamefacedness, of swagger and evident dislike of
inspection, which makes one think they know their trade
is a nasty one, only bearable from lack of other
employment and from the good wages earned. But there are
plenty of men engaged in this work of killing animals
for food who are much too good for the business. These
will tell you openly that they dislike the job, but
'people will have meat,' and if they were to give it up,
someone else would step into the work."[18]
Footnote 18:
"Behind the Scenes in Slaughter-houses."
Again, subordinate to the actual butchery, there are certain
disgusting, if not dangerous, occupations, such as that of the
women who work in or near the cattle markets at the malodorous
task of "preparing animal entrails for commercial uses," of
which process the following account has been given:[19] "The
women's share in the ugly business begins when the greasy, slimy
intestinal skins come to them for the scraping off of all fat
and substance still attaching to them. They are washed, twisted
up, dressed with salt, and are ready for the sausage-makers, on
whose behalf they have been thus prepared." The journalistic
comment is, that "in an ideal world men would not permit women
to do work from which every instinct of refinement and even
decency shrinks," but that all is over-ruled by "the demands of
present-day cheapness." This, as things go, is undeniable; but
it would be well that conscientious flesh-eaters should at least
realise what their diet imposes on other people.
Footnote 19:
_Daily Telegraph_, July 19, 1897.
That, however, is just what they are mostly determined _not_ to
realise, doubtless from a subconscious apprehension that, if
once they begin to look into this unsavoury subject, they
may be pushed to the verge of certain awkward conclusions.
Nothing is more significant than the extreme unwillingness of
philanthropists and members of ethical societies, who debate
almost every problem under the sun, to give serious attention to
the question of butchery—a reluctance which may be taken as one
of the strongest possible tributes to the pertinence of
vegetarianism. This is said to be especially true of the
philanthropists of Chicago—that great centre of the killing
trade. "No one who goes to Chicago," says an eye-witness,
"should fail to see the shambles. They are the most wicked
things in creation. They are sickening beyond description. The
men in them are more brutes than the animals they slaughter.
Missions and institutes have been built in the respectable parts
of the city from the profits, and the employees of the shambles
have been left to go straight down to the devil.... It is the
duty of everyone interested in social questions, of everyone
whose demands necessitate this kind of labour, to wade through
this filth to see these poor wretches at work."[20]
Footnote 20:
_New Age_, November 25, 1897.
And so they go their ways, the philanthropist to build "homes,"
the ethical folk to talk learnedly, and the social reformer to
concoct schemes for the amelioration of the human race. Yet,
meantime, these very persons are themselves perpetuating, by
their mode of living, the evil conditions which they profess to
be anxious to remove, and condemning the pariah slaughterman to
a life of sheer bestiality. "The meat-eater," says Mr. Lester,
"accepts the results of this man's demoralisation of character.
Pious and professed Christians are content to allow the deep
degradation of the nature of a whole class of men, set apart to
do the nation's dirty work of slaughtering, without an apparent
thought of the baseness of their conduct."
Here, as I said at the outset, is a distinctively _human_
question, and one which cannot be evaded, even by those slippery
reasoners who would shuffle out of the duty of humaneness to
animals by pretending (in the face of evolutionary science) that
there is no bond of consanguinity between the animals and
mankind. By no possible sophistry can "educated" people be
justified in placing this heavy burden of butchery on the hands
of their social "inferiors." The vivisector and the sportsman
have at least the courage to do their own devilries; and the
work even of the hardened agents of "murderous millinery" and
the fur-trade is diversified to some extent by travel and
adventure. But the slaughterman's task is one of unrelieved,
unmitigated brutality, involving the constant and systematic
doing of deeds that are inhuman in themselves, degrading to the
rough men who do them, and trebly disgraceful to the polite
ladies and gentlemen at whose behest they are done.
THE ÆSTHETIC ARGUMENT
Closely connected with the humane argument is the æsthetic
argument, the two being, in fact, twin branches of the same
stem. For "humane," as the Latin shows, has the double meaning
of "gentle" and "refined"; so that "humanity," in the original
conception of the term, implies not only a moral regard for the
rights of our fellow-beings, but also an æsthetic appreciation
of what is beautiful and pure. Culture and good-breeding,
together with justice and compassion, are the characteristics of
humane man; and the fact that this twofold sense of the word has
been well-nigh forgotten in the education of the modern
"gentleman" may serve to explain why there is often such a
grievious lack of gentleness in persons who claim to be
refined. Our _literæ humaniores_ are a mere academic course of
book-learning, the _humane_ element being altogether left out of
account; and to such bathos has this divorce of gentleness and
refinement carried us that, in some quarters, a "professor of
humanity" is—a teacher of Latin grammar.
We are prepared, then, to find that the æsthetic or artistic
faculty of the present day is deplorably narrow in its scope,
and is so ignorant of the true relationship of humanity and
art that it actually prides itself on omitting from its ken
all humane considerations, while it diligently searches for
the beautiful and the picturesque, as if beauty were a thing
detached from the realities of every-day life! The bare idea
that there is an æsthetic side to the diet question, beyond
the mere delicacies of cookery and embellishments of the
dining-table, would be scouted as ridiculous by ninety-nine
out of a hundred of our artists or literary men; for the very
force of habit which has made them so quick to resent the
least technical flaw in their special departments of work, has
left them blindly indifferent to the hideous and revolting
aspects of flesh-eating. To these æsthetes, so-called, the
sight of an ugly house, for example, is a sore trouble and
grievance, but the slaughter-house, with all its gruesome
doings, is a matter of supreme unconcern—nay, rather a thing
to be indirectly patronised and defended. I have known a case
where an æsthetic lady, of great personal culture, and the
centre of a polished circle, stained the floor of her charming
suburban villa with bullock's blood brought from the shambles
in a bucket.
Yet the æsthete does not usually vindicate his carnivorous diet
and its appurtenances with the old unhesitating heartiness of
the barbarian; he is somewhat ashamed of himself—unconsciously,
perhaps—in these latter days, even as the cannibal is ashamed
when the discussion turns upon "long pig." Like all the
apologists of flesh-eating, in their respective spheres, he is
shifty and evasive in his defences, and is not too proud, in his
moment of extremity, to have recourse to the "consistency
trick," and to try to trip up his vegetarian persecutor with the
retort of "You're another." From which signs of grace it may be
surmised that the æsthete, in spite of his brave exterior, is
not quite at ease in his dietetic philosophy, and that the
products of butchery are, in a very real sense, the "skeleton in
the cupboard" (the larder cupboard) of literature and art.
ÆSTHETE: Pray, why do you address yourself to _me_ in
that significant manner?
VEGETARIAN: Because I understand that you cultivate
the artistic sense. You love to have beautiful things
about you, do you not? So you must needs wish to be a
vegetarian.
ÆSTHETE: I love beautiful things, certainly. Art is my
vocation. But what has vegetarianism to do with it?
VEGETARIAN: Have the arrangements of the dinner-table
nothing to do with it—the cloth, the silver, the
glasses, the dessert, the flowers?
ÆSTHETE: A great deal, obviously. There is much art in
dining well.
VEGETARIAN: Yet the meats that are served at the
table have nothing to do with it! Is not that rather
contradictory?
ÆSTHETE: I did not say that. The cookery is an essential
point, of course.
VEGETARIAN: But what of the meat—the thing cooked? What
_is_ it? What _was_ it? And how did it come to be on
your plate?
ÆSTHETE: I never think of such questions. So long as it
is nice, I am content. It must satisfy my taste, that is
all.
VEGETARIAN: But are you sure that it _does_ satisfy your
taste in the same way that other things do? I think not,
for you have never put it to the trial. In no other
branch of art do you take things wholly on trust, but
you try them by the standard of an independent and
educated intelligence. In diet, and in diet only, you
"shut your eyes and open your mouth," as the children
say, and never distinguish between a real innate liking
and the liking that is merely traditional.
ÆSTHETE: _De gustibus non est disputandum._
VEGETARIAN: About genuine tastes, I admit, disputation
is idle. But the proverb is not true of the sham tastes
to which I refer. There is a great deal to be discussed
about _them_.
ÆSTHETE: But I assure you my liking for a ham-sandwich
is a genuine taste.
VEGETARIAN: With full knowledge of the pig-sty and the
pig-sticker. Do not the antecedents of your ham-sandwich
cause you a feeling of disgust?
ÆSTHETE: Oh, well, if you persist in thinking about it,
_all_ feeding causes disgust. Don't you think there is
something gross in the whole process of ingestion?
VEGETARIAN: Then why not gorge on carrion at once? The
moment you adopt the "in for a penny, in for a pound"
attitude, you sacrifice the whole art of living.
ÆSTHETE: But what of the processes on which
vegetarianism itself depends? You talk of the filth of
the slaughter-house; but how about the filth of market
gardening? To watch the soil being manured, if we let
our thoughts dwell upon it, is enough to spoil all
appetite for the produce of the garden. The more
delicious the asparagus or the strawberries, the more we
ought to loathe them.
VEGETARIAN: There I disagree with you entirely. There
is nothing in the least disgusting, to me, at any rate
(and I speak from personal experience), in the manuring
of the soil or in any agricultural process—on the
contrary, there is much that is wholesome and cheering
in this chemistry of nature. The healthy mind takes a
delight in gardening, just as it regards slaughtering
with abhorrence. If you want to see the contrast between
the effects of the two professions on those who practise
them, compare the face of the typical slaughterman with
that of the typical gardener. It is as remarkable as the
contrast between a butcher's and a fruiterer's shop.
ÆSTHETE: Well, it is no use talking about it; our views
of life are different. You are a social reformer and
agitator, and agitation is fatal to the tranquility of
art. I am an artist, and do not care a straw for social
reform. My creed is expressed in Keats's couplet:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
VEGETARIAN: Yes, but it is possible that Keats's meaning
is somewhat deeper than you imagine. It is not your
creed that I quarrel with, but your own misunderstanding
and misuse of it. That the oneness of truth and beauty
is knowledge sufficient, I admit; but my complaint is
that you do _not_ really know it, and therefore I regard
your æstheticism—the æstheticism that makes clean the
outside of the cup and the platter, and the outside
only—as mere vandalism in masquerade.
Nor is even the outside of the æsthetic platter free from
offence, for there is nothing more hideous to the eye (not to
mention the mind) than the "scorched corpses," as Bernard Shaw
calls them, that are displayed on polite dinner-tables when the
dish-covers are removed. "Among the customs at table that
deserve to be abolished," wrote Leigh Hunt, "is that of serving
up dishes that retain a look of life in death—codfish with their
staring eyes, hares with their hollow countenances, etc. It is
in bad taste, an incongruity, an anomaly; to say nothing of its
effect on morbid imaginations." Perhaps, however, the most
morbid imagination, or lack of imagination, is that of the
persons who are _not_ disgusted by these ugly sights.
Art and humanity, then, are but two branches of the same stock:
the true humanist and the true artist are own brethren. To the
artistic temperament, in particular, vegetarianism has the
surest right of appeal; for the æstheticism which can prate of
truth and beauty, while it battens like a ghoul on bloodshed and
suffering, has abnegated its own principles, and has ceased to
be artistic. How would it be possible for the scenes that are
hourly enacted in slaughter-houses to be tolerated for a moment
in a community which had any real artistic consciousness? Yet
what "æsthetic" protest, except from vegetarians, is ever raised
against them? Take, for example, the following extract from some
notes descriptive of the Chicago meat factories:
"Slithered over bloody floor. Nearly broke neck in gore
of old porker. Saw few hundred men slicing pigs, making
hams, sausages, and pork chops. Whole sight not
edifying; indeed, rather beastly. Next went to
cattle-killing house. Cattle driven along gangway and
banged over head with iron hammer. Fell stunned; then
swung up by legs, and man cuts throats. Small army of
men with buckets catching blood; it gushed over them in
torrents—a bit sickening. Next to sheep slaughter-house.
More throat-cutting—ten thousand sheep killed a day—more
blood. Place reeks with blood; walls and floor splashed
with it; air thick, warm, offensive. 'Yes,' said guide,
'Armour's biggest slaughter-house in the world. There's
no waste; we utilise everything—everything except the
squeak of the pigs. We can't can that.' Went and drank
brandy."[21]
Footnote 21:
From a series of letters contributed to the _Nottingham
Guardian_ by Mr. J. F. Fraser, author of "America at Work."
It is much to be regretted that it is not found possible, in
this enterprising establishment, to "can" the squeak, as well as
the flesh, of the pig; for such a phonographic effect might
suggest certain novel thoughts to the refined ladies and
gentlemen who contentedly regale themselves on ham-sandwiches at
polite supper-tables. For imagine what the result would be, in
studio and boudoir, dining-room and drawing-room, if the
death-cries of the slaughter-house could be but once uncanned
and brought to hearing. "The groans and screams of this poor
persecuted race," as De Quincey said of cats, "if gathered into
some great echoing hall of horrors, would melt the heart of the
stoniest." But far vaster and more impressive would be the
world-wide hall of horrors which should contain the bitter cry
of the victims of the butcher. Would that it were possible thus
to compel the æsthetic flesh-eater to "face the music" of his
misdeeds!
And, remember, it is not only at the big slaughtering centres
that these ugly trades are carried on, nor are they there,
perhaps, at their ugliest; but every town and every village has
its private torture-dens where the same carnage is performed the
year round on a smaller scale and in a clumsier manner, and
everywhere the butcher's shop presents the same ghastly
spectacle of quartered carcases hanging a-row, and gloated over
by "shopping" women. One would think it incredible that any
lover of the beautiful could doubt that the national sense of
beauty must be seriously impaired by these disgusting and
degrading sights. But enough of the subject! Were we to dwell
too long on it, we should be tempted to exclaim, as was said of
another kind of iniquity, "While these things are being done,
beauty stands veiled, and music is a screeching lie."
THE HYGIENIC ARGUMENT
The humane and the æsthetic aspects of vegetarianism are constantly
described by the advocates of flesh-eating as "sentimental," and if it
be sentimental to have regard for the sufferings of animals and the
beauty of our own surroundings, the charge will be gladly admitted;
but there is also, independent of all considerations of humanity, a
distinctly hygienic movement towards the disuse of flesh food, on the
ground that such diet is not only barbarous but unwholesome. It is
held that flesh food is in itself a stimulant, and that incidentally
it is very liable to transmit disease, while vegetarianism, on the
contrary, is a simple, natural, less inflammatory diet, which from the
earliest times has been known and practised by a few wise persons as
containing the secret of health. In Germany, especially, the system of
"natural living" has attracted much attention, and the propaganda of
food reform is there mainly on those lines; in England less so, but
here, too, there are a number of vegetarians who are hygienists first
and humanitarians afterwards, and all humanitarians are to some extent
hygienists, so that it is ridiculous, in any serious criticism of
vegetarianism, to leave out of sight, as some of our opponents do, this
essential part of the system.
There is, in fact, a considerable scientific literature on the
subject, a train of thought and experience handed down from
Cornaro and Gassendi, through their successors Cheyne, Hartley,
Lambe, Abernethy, and others, to such modern authorities as Sir
Benjamin Richardson and Dr. Alexander Haig; yet so little known
is this testimony that it might be imagined, from the nervous
apprehension with which the abandonment of flesh flood is
regarded, that vegetarianism were some new and hazardous
experiment, whereon he who enters carries his life in his hands.
This ignorance of the long-standing claims of vegetarianism to a
scientific basis is the result of the indifference and prejudice
that have always made dietetics the most unpopular of studies,
those who are in health not caring to give more than a passing
thought to the hygienic quality of their food, while those who
are sick are naturally suspicious of change or over-ruled by
medical advisers.
Yet the moment impartial inquiry is made into the comparative
benefits and perils of the two modes of living, certain
undeniable facts begin to appear, of which the first and most
obvious, though not the most important, perhaps, are the
_incidental_ dangers of flesh-eating. Many, indeed, and
unsuspected by the ordinary man who takes a "good meat dinner,"
are the ills that flesh is heir to, especially in the diet of
the poor; for, as Professor F. W. Newman pointed out, "where the
population is dense, the poorer classes, if they eat flesh-meat
at all, are sure to get a sensible portion of their supply in
an unwholesome state." This assertion is no mere piece of
vegetarian polemics; it rests on the authority of more than
one Royal Commission, the latest of which has insisted, in
the Tuberculosis Report of 1898, that "so long as private
slaughter-houses are permitted to exist, so long must inspection
be carried out under conditions incompatible with efficiency."
There is, in fact, no genuine inspection of the meat killed in
private slaughter-houses, nor is the case (at present) much
better in public ones, and it is notorious that a large amount
of tuberculous flesh, examined and rejected under their more
careful scrutiny by the Jews, is thought good enough to be sold
for the use of the "Gentiles." It would be easy to quote
official figures to show the prevalence of the mischief, but it
is not necessary here to do so, because the facts are not
denied.[22] The cause of the disease thus prevalent among cattle
must be sought partly in the excessive demand for flesh food,
and the consequent high price of meat, which is a great
temptation to graziers to breed from immature stock; partly,
too, in the unhealthy system of stall-feeding and cramming, and
last, but not least, in the rough treatment to which animals are
exposed during their transit by sea and rail—an evil which is
recognised by butchers no less than by humanitarians.
Footnote 22:
See the official facts and figures cited in "Tuberculosis," by
Dr. J. Oldfield, 1892.
Moreover, in addition to the dangers which flesh-eaters incur of
diseases contagious and parasitic, there is the risk of eating
decomposed meat under the title of "table delicacies." Here, as
one instance out of many, is an extract from a London daily
paper.
Some exemplary fines were inflicted when summonses
connected with the seizure of 13 tons of rotten pigs'
livers came on for hearing. A company promoter, trading
as manufacturer of table delicacies, was fined £100,
including costs, for the possession of forty-four
barrels of the livers, which were deposited for the
purpose of being converted into human food in the shape
of meat-extracts, soups, and other table delicacies.
The magistrate characterised the condemned goods as
"absolute filth."
The bearing of such facts on the public health is obvious. "The
shocking revelations," it has been said, "as to the potted meat
trade of London, clearly give us the key-note to the terrible
weekly statistics of fevers and other diseases in the poorer
districts of London and big towns generally. Putrid sheep's
hearts—putrid meat of unknown origin—anything from horse to pug
dog—slimy livers, reeking lights that would poison even a Fleet
Street cat, and moribund hams from diseased pigs are the
foundation of our table delicacies. Ugh! it is enough to make a
man forswear anything 'potted' for ever."[23]
Footnote 23:
_Reynolds's Newspaper_, March 19, 1899.
But, though these and similar facts are indisputable, and though
so great an authority as Sir B. W. Richardson has stated that,
"in respect to the propagation of disease, it seems just to
declare that the danger is much less and much more easily
preventable on the vegetarian than on the animal diet," the
flesh-eaters, strong or weak as they may happen to be, even to
the sickliest valetudinarian that ever sipped his Liebig, are
much more afraid of being infected with vegetarian principles
than with the poisons of the murdered ox, and would venture on
every drug in the Pharmacopœia rather than on a pure and simple
diet. Yet more than a hundred and fifty years ago so eminent a
physician as Dr. George Cheyne, then in a hale old age, had
written as follows:
"My regimen at present is milk, with tea, coffee,
bread-and-butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds
of all kinds, with tender roots (as potatoes, turnips,
carrots), and, in short, everything that has not life,
dressed or not, as I like, in which there is as much or
a greater variety than in animal foods, so that the
stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any
fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food
being liquid, moist, or juicy. Only after dinner I drink
either coffee or green tea, but seldom both in the same
day, and sometimes a glass of soft small cider. The
thinner my diet, the easier, more cheerful and lightsome
I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder, though
perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full
animal diet; but, then, I am more alive than ever I
was."[24]
Footnote 24:
The "Author's Case."
The close connection of vegetarianism with temperance,
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:
It is a curious fact that the Greek word _psychic_ had the
double sense of _spiritual_ and _carnal_. See Tertullian's
treatise, "Against the Carnal-Minded" (Psychicos).
It will be objected, no doubt, that the injurious effect of
flesh food on morals has never been scientifically proved,[34]
nor indeed is it possible that absolute proof should be
forthcoming until vegetarianism is widely enough practised to
furnish data for comparison; there are, however, certain very
marked indications that can hardly be overlooked. In the first
place, as already stated, there is the immemorial belief,
especially prominent in the usage of monastic orders, but
scarcely less so in all systems of hygienic or spiritual
exercise—amounting, in short, to a practical consensus of
mankind—that a stimulating or excessive diet is harmful to
sobriety and self-control; as evidenced by the far greater
amount of crime rife among luxurious town-dwellers than
among frugal peasants. Secondly, there is the fact, too well
attested to be challenged, that flesh-eating and alcoholism are
closely allied, and that the drink-crave dies a natural death
when a stimulating diet is withdrawn; from which it may be
further realised that the excitation caused by flesh food must
necessarily, in many cases, act injuriously on the nerve-system
and contribute powerfully to the vicious habits which moralists
deplore.
Footnote 34:
Even cannibalism—such is the complexity of the human
character—is not always _directly_ demoralising. "This
unnatural practice," says Captain Burrows in his "Land of the
Pigmies," 1899, "stands by itself, seeming not in any way to
affect or retard the development of the better emotions."
"The deepest, truest, and most general causes of prostitution in
all great cities," says Dr. Kingsford, "must be looked for in
the luxurious and intemperate habits of eating and drinking
prevalent among the rich and well-to-do. The chief element of
this luxury is the use of flesh and alcohol, which mistaken
notions of hygiene and therapeutics tend to press more and more
upon all classes of men and women. Abolish kreophagy and its
companion vice, alcoholism, and more, a thousandfold, will be
done to abolish prostitution than can be achieved by any other
means soever as long as these two evil influences flourish. The
young man of the present day, accustomed from childhood to
frequent and copious meals of flesh, and from early youth to
the use of all manner of fermented beverages and liqueurs,
carries about with him and fosters an increasingly disordered
appetite, which not infrequently assumes the character of true
disease."[35]
Footnote 35:
"The Perfect Way in Diet."
The evils of stimulating diet in the case of the young have been
emphasized by such well-known authorities as Dr. George Keith
and Sir B. W. Richardson. Here is a significant passage from the
writings of the former:
"I have done much for many years privately, whenever I
had the opportunity, to impress on fathers and mothers
the danger to their sons and daughters from exciting
prematurely their natural desires and passions; but
custom and fashion have so powerful a hold, especially
in the higher circles of society, that I have frequently
had to feel that my efforts were in vain.... The
existence of bad habits at schools is well known to the
masters, and they take what measures they can for their
prevention. Even when they know the truth, the strength
of custom and habit so imperatively demands a full diet
for the growing youth that they are obliged to fall in
with the customs of the day. But few of them are aware
of the main cause of the evil, and the last thing most
would dream of as a remedy is a simpler diet."[36]
Footnote 36:
"Fads of an Old Physician," chap. xiv.
So, too, Sir B. W. Richardson:
"In all my long medical career, extending over forty
years, I have rarely known a case in which a child has
not preferred fruit to animal food. I say it without the
least prejudice, as a lesson learnt from simple
experience, that the most natural diet for the young,
after the natural milk diet, is fruit and wholemeal
bread, with milk and water for drink. The desire for
this same mode of sustenance is often continued into
after years, as if the resort to flesh were a forced and
artificial feeding, which required long and persistent
habit to establish its permanency as a part of the
system of every-day life."[37]
Footnote 37:
"Foods for Man."
Contrast with this wise and weighty advice the dietetic habits
actually prevalent among the youth of our well-to-do classes,
where we see not only a strong tendency to over-eating, but a
rooted and active conviction that flesh is the _summum bonum_ of
food. The fatted calf is rivalled by the fatted schoolboy; the
cramming of Strasburg geese itself is not more disgusting than
the cramming which makes _pâté de foie gras_ of the moral fibre
of the young. When we find even the _Eton College Chronicle_
raising a protest against the diet of boyish athletes, we may be
sure the evil is a crying one:
"He [the boy in training] takes a lot of exercise, and
finds he has a good appetite. For breakfast he has a
chop every morning; we have known some who had two. He
also has heard porridge is nourishing, and that this is
why Scotchmen are so hardy and brawny. He acts upon this
information. For dinner he makes a point of having two
good helpings of meat 'to get his weight up,' while
for tea, besides having a plate of eggs and chicken,
or something of that kind, he winds up with a large
allowance of marmalade."
Nor is it only among schoolboys that over-eating is rampant, for
the tables of the wealthy are everywhere loaded with flesh meat,
and the example thus set is naturally followed, first in the
servants' hall, and then, as far as may be, in the homes of the
working classes. To consume much flesh is regarded as the sign
and symbol of well-being—witness the popular English manner of
keeping the festival of Christmas. "We interknit ourselves with
every part of the English-speaking world," said the journal
of the Cosme colony, in Paraguay, describing a Christmas
celebration, "by the most sacred ceremony of over-eating."
A nice moral bond of union, truly, between colonies and
motherland! What is likely to be the effect on the national
character of such patriotic gorging?
We come back, then, to the point that though it is not
absolutely true that "man is what he eats," there is,
nevertheless, a large element of truth in the saying, and the
vegetarian has just ground for suspecting that beefy meals are
not infrequently the precursors of beefy morals. Carnalities of
one kind are apt to lead to carnalities of another, and fleshly
modes of diet to fleshly modes of thought. "Good living,"
unfortunately, is a somewhat equivocal term.
THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT
"The oftener we go to the vegetable world for our food," says
Sir B. W. Richardson, "the oftener we go to the first, and
therefore the _cheapest_ source of supply." The case for
vegetarianism would by no means be complete without a statement
of the economic view, though precedence is necessarily given
to the motives of humanity and healthfulness, the higher
considerations to which the idea of economy must be subservient.
If it were proved that flesh food is essential to the real
interests of the race, and that there is no moral objection to
the use of it, the greater outlay would be justified by the
value of the result; but if such proof is not forthcoming (and
it has been the object of the preceding chapters to show that it
is not), it is obvious that the comparative cost of a flesh diet
and a vegetarian diet becomes a question of high importance to
mankind. What, then, are the facts?
They are so plain as to be positively beyond dispute, and it
is a cause for marvel what Dr. J. Burney Yeo can have meant
in describing vegetarianism as "a scheme of diet which we
believe to be utterly impracticable on an extensive scale,
and irreconcilable with the existing state of civilised man,
not so much on strictly physiological grounds as _on general
economical considerations_."[38] If it be in accordance with
"general economical considerations" to pay threepence for
what can be procured for a penny, then only does Dr. Yeo's
statement become intelligible.
Footnote 38:
"Food in Health and Disease."
For the very first fact that demands notice in this comparison
of foods, is that not only does butchers' meat, pound for pound,
cost about three times the price of the cereals and pulses, but
that it is under the further disadvantage of containing a much
larger percentage of water—that is to say, in purchasing flesh,
you have to buy the water, and buy it dirty, while in purchasing
seeds and grains you do not buy the water, but add it clean. The
following passage from Sir B. W. Richardson's "Foods for Man"
puts the case succinctly:
"If we make an analysis of the primest joints of animal
food, legs of mutton, sirloin of beef, rump steak, veal
cutlet, pork chop, we find as much as 70 to 75 per cent.
of water.... Oatmeal contains 5 or 6 per cent.; good
wheaten flour, barley meal, beans and peas, 14; rice,
15; and good bread, 40 to 45 of water. Taking, then,
the value of foods as estimated by their solid value,
there are, it will be observed, a great many kinds of
vegetable foods which are incomparably superior to
animal."
We find accordingly, when we turn from this analysis to the
actual charges at restaurants, that, whereas a good vegetarian
dinner may be got for a shilling, it is necessary to pay fully
three times that sum for an equivalent in flesh food. It would
be waste of time to argue further that vegetarianism, whatever
its other advantages and disadvantages to the individual, is
much more _economical_ than flesh-eating.[39]
Footnote 39:
See the chapter on "Values of Foods," pp. 93, 94, in "Strength
and Diet," by the Hon. R. Russell.
But here we are met by the difficulty that the well-to-do, on
the one hand, are not easily influenced by the motive of
economy, while the poor, on the other hand, are naturally
suspicious of the gospel of "thrift," so often preached to them
by the predatory classes who do not practise it themselves;
and it must be admitted that it is perfectly useless for
philanthropical persons to preach food-thrift to the poor,
unless by their own method of living they are testifying to the
truth of what they preach.
It is sometimes said that vegetarianism is an "inconvenient"
diet, which means no more than that the adoption of any new
system gives trouble at first, though it may save trouble
afterwards. When once adopted, vegetarianism is, of course,
a far more convenient, because a simpler and cleaner diet
than the ordinary one, as is testified by those who have had
personal experience of both. "Having been my own butcher and
scullion," says Thoreau, "as well as the gentleman from whom
the dishes were served up, I can speak from an unusually
complete experience. The practical objection to animal food
in my case was its uncleanness, and besides, when I had
caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed
not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and
unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread
or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble
and filth."[40]
Footnote 40:
Walden, "Higher Laws."
The assertion that the cheapening of food would cause the
lowering of wages is true only as an answer to the exaggerated
claims sometimes made by vegetarians, that their system would
of itself solve the whole problem of employment. It would not
do so; and if there were no force but vegetarianism in the
field it is doubtful whether the adoption of the cheaper diet
would in the long run bring any economical advantage to the
workers, though it would still benefit them morally and
physically. This, however, does not detract from the real
strength of the vegetarian argument; for with labour now
organised and resolute, and yearly growing in power and
intelligence, there is no likelihood that the workers' thrift
would become the capitalists' profit; on the contrary, it
would clearly add to the resources of labour. To assert that
the working classes should maintain the cruel and wasteful
practice of flesh-eating merely to "keep up wages" is pure
nonsense, for the same reasoning would justify the maintenance
of drink, or any other extravagant and useless habit.
What is true for the individual and the class is true also for
the community, and unless flesh food can be shown to be
necessary for human progress, the continuance of pastoralism,
to the detriment and neglect of agriculture, is a criminal
waste of the national resources. In this Malthusian age of
over-population scares and emigration schemes it is well to
recollect that a remedy lies close to hand if we would but use
it. "Not only is the earth not yet a quarter peopled," says
Mr. W. R. Greg, "but even the inhabited portion is scarcely
yet a quarter cultivated. In many countries the soil is barely
scratched. Even in England it is not made to yield, on the
average, more than one-half its capacity."[41] And in the same
work he points out that "the amount of human life sustainable
on a given area, and therefore throughout the chief portion of
the habitable globe, may be almost indefinitely increased by a
substitution _pro tanto_ of vegetable for animal food.... A
given acreage of wheat will feed at least _ten_ times as many
men as the same acreage employed in growing mutton."
Footnote 41:
Appendix to "Enigmas of Life."
In view of the great complexity of the land question, the
variety of the causes that have led to the depression of
agriculture, and the difficulty of forecasting accurately what
would be the result of the adoption of any particular reform by
any one nation, considered apart from the rest, vegetarians will
do wisely in not claiming too much for the system they advocate.
But at least it must be admitted that vegetarianism would tend
to bring about, in some form or other, that much-desired _return
to the land_, which, in the present congested state of our
cities and busy centres, is felt to be the best hope of
stanching a dangerous wound. The town is at present draining the
life of the country, and the tide of emigration is still further
sapping the national strength; but if men's thoughts could be
turned back from commerce to agriculture, if a healthy love of
the soil, of fruit-growing, of market-gardening, could be
substituted for the insane thirst for the feverish atmosphere of
the town, it is evident that a great step would have been taken
towards the cure of the disease. "If the towns renounced
flesh-eating," says Professor Newman, "we should see in a single
generation, even without improved land-tenure, a tide of
migration set the other way—from towns into the country. Rustic
industry would be immensely developed. All motive for the
expatriation of our robustest youth would, for a long time yet,
be removed, and the country might be enormously enriched, not in
an upper stratum of great fortunes, but down to the bottom of
the community."[42]
Footnote 42:
"Essays on Diet," p. 55.
So, too, Max Nordau, in some notable passages of his
_Conventional Lies of our Civilisation_:
"If the soil of Europe were cultivated like that of
Belgium, it could support a population of 1,950 millions
much more completely and abundantly than the 360
millions it now supports so poorly.... Cultivation of
the soil is the despised child of our civilisation.
It hardly takes one forward stride where manufacture
takes a hundred.... Experience teaches us that man's
labour as a general thing can nowhere be employed in a
more lucrative way than in agriculture. If a man should
work over his field with the shovel and spade instead
of the plough, he would find that a plot of ground of
incredibly small size would be sufficient to support
him."
There is yet another peril that would be lessened in proportion
to the increase of vegetarianism—the dependence of this country
on the importation of food from abroad. "At present," says Mr.
W. E. A. Axon, "probably one-half of the population is dependent
upon a foreign supply. That England should be, and is, the
last country in the world to desire a Chinese wall for the
exclusion of foreign commodities, need not blind us to the fact
that there may be grave national dangers in the soil of
the country providing food for about half its people. A
nation of vegetarians would create such a demand that rural
England would be, if not a cornfield, yet a vast orchard and
market-garden."[43]
Footnote 43:
_Manchester Vegetarian Lectures_, "Vegetarianism and National
Economy." For a clear statement of the present shocking
neglect of agriculture in this country, see "Fields,
Factories, and Workshops," by P. Kropotkin, 1899, where it is
shown that _two-thirds_ of our food-supply is now imported
from abroad.
Enough has now been said to show that the habit of flesh-eating,
involving as it does the sacrifice of vast tracts of land to the
grazing of cattle, and the consequent starving of agriculture,
is far too costly to be justified, in the face of an extending
civilisation, unless by a much clearer proof of its necessity
than any which its advocates have essayed; in fact, it only
remains possible, on its present large scale, through the
temporary use of huge pasture-grounds in remote semi-civilised
regions which will not always be available. For pastoralism
belongs rightly to another and earlier phase of the world's
economics, and as civilisation spreads it becomes more and more
an anachronism, as surely as flesh-eating, by a corresponding
change, becomes an anachronism in morals.[44] It seems,
generally speaking, that the foods which are the costliest in
suffering are also the costliest in price, whereas the wholesome
and harmless diet to which Nature points us is at once the
cheapest and most humane.
Footnote 44:
Against the sea fisheries, it may be noted, the same objection
cannot be raised, as they do not diminish, but supplement the
produce of the soil.
DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES
We have next to deal with a special class of irregular foemen,
the guerillas and Bashi-Bazouks of the flesh-eater's army, whose
game it is to waylay and harass the vegetarian movement by a
small fire of doubts and difficulties as to what the future has
in store. The alarmists they are, whose apprehensive minds are
concerned not so much with the rightness or wrongness of the
system, as with the anxieties of "what would happen" if the
triumph of vegetarianism should be won; and so gloomy are their
forebodings as to suggest a probable collapse of the whole
fabric of society, if once that great prop and mainstay of
civilisation—the habit of eating dead animals—should be
disloyally undermined.
Now, at the outset, it should be said that the well-worn method
of trying to discredit new principles by "wanting to know"
beforehand exactly how everything will happen, is in many cases
a foolish and fraudulent device. There are, of course, certain
quite legitimate questions, as to the general scope and
practicability of any proposed reform, to which reformers must
be prepared to make answer before they can expect to prevail,
and to such questions vegetarians have a convincing reply; but
when the inquisition takes the form of asking for a present
explanation of future developments, and for a foreknowledge of
details which, in the very nature of things, are unknowable,
then it is well to make it clear from the beginning that we will
be no parties to any such waste of time. Reasonable foresight is
one thing, the gift of prophecy is another; and it is in no wise
the duty of those who are working towards a more or less distant
goal, to give a precise geometrical survey of their Promised
Land.
In the case of vegetarianism the answerable doubts and
difficulties fall mostly under two heads, relating first to the
alarming discomforts which the loss of flesh-food would entail
upon mankind, and secondly to the not less grievous straits to
which the animals themselves would be reduced under so misguided
a régime. Let us take the selfish view first, as containing,
perhaps, a modicum of real feeling, which can scarcely be found
in that suspicious concern for the animals. There are some folk,
it seems, over whose troubled minds there really _does_ hang,
like a nightmare, the alarmist's vision of a world impoverished
and dismantled by vegetarianism—a world _sans_ leather, _sans_
bone, _sans_ soap, _sans_ candles, _sans_ manure, _sans_
everything.
ALARMIST: But this is mere trifling. It is idle to
talk of the humanity, the wholesomeness, the economy
of a vegetarian diet, while you are overlooking the
disastrous consequences that stare you in the face. We
may perhaps be able, as you say, to exist without
meat, but what could we do without leather and the
other animal substances on which civilisation depends?
VEGETARIAN: Well, I suppose we should take care _not_ to
be without them, or something just as good.
ALARMIST: How could we do that, if there were no
carcases to supply us with hides, bone, and tallow?
In your devotion to an ideal you seem to forget that
if your principles prevailed, we might wake up some
fine morning to find ourselves confronted by the
dislocation of the boot trade, the bookbinding trade,
the harness trade, and a hundred others. Thousands of
men and women would be thrown out of work, and we should
soon have no boots, no portmanteaus, no soap, no
candles, no knife-handles. It would be a downright
relapse into barbarism.
VEGETARIAN: But, happily, your lurid picture is based on
the false assumption that vegetarianism would come about
by a sudden and instantaneous conversion. That is not
the way in which great changes are accomplished. They
are a matter of years and centuries, not of days and
weeks; and the "fine morning" you spoke of will be a
gradual morning of very extensive duration.
ALARMIST: Well, but that is only putting off the evil
day—it would come at last.
VEGETARIAN: But would not something else have also been
coming meantime? Would not the demand, in this as in all
other usages of life, have produced the corresponding
supply? There is no need, however, to speculate as to
what _would_ happen, because it is happening already.
ALARMIST: What is happening?
VEGETARIAN: The articles which you named are being
supplied in substitutes from the vegetable kingdom.
Slowly and tentatively at first, as is inevitable while
vegetarians are so few in numbers; but vegetarian boots,
vegetarian soap, and vegetarian candles are now in the
market, and as the movement spreads, the demand will be
proportionately greater. So pray do not alarm yourself
about the dislocation of trade, for the whole change,
great as it is, will come to pass imperceptibly, and
will never bring a moment's inconvenience to anyone.
Mankind, as it happens, is not so helpless, so
uninventive, so literally "hidebound," as to let its
progress be dependent on skins, bones, and guts.
There is a good deal of unintended humour, too, in some of the
difficulties that are alleged. Thus, vegetarians are often asked
how the land could be fertilised without the use of animal
manure, it being apparently forgotten that _ex nihilo nihil
fit_, and that animals can only return to the land in manure
what they have previously taken from it in food; also that by
our absurdly wasteful drainage system we are all the time
poisoning our seas and rivers with a mass of sewage which would
be amply sufficient for the soil. "Let the land," says Mr.
William Hoyle, "only receive, in the shape of manure, the sewage
and refuse from the teeming population of our towns and
villages, in addition to the other means which are applied to
it, and let it be properly drained and cultivated, and there is
hardly any limit to its power of production."[45]
Footnote 45:
"Our National Resources," 1889.
But it is superfluous to spend time in answering such questions,
for their silliness is far in excess of their honesty. For years
the opponents of vegetarianism in the press had been asking,
"What should we do without leather?" etc.; yet as soon as the
substitutes for these articles began to be exhibited at the
annual Vegetarian Congress, the note was changed, and the
reporters remarked that the exhibition was "not of much
interest," until we found the London correspondent of a big
provincial paper actually complaining that "the crusade against
meat of every kind, _and even against leather_ (at this
exhibition they have boots and shoes made of imitation leather),
is carrying the reform a little too far." Our critics are hard
to satisfy. We are going "a little too far" if we produce a
substitute for leather; if we do not produce one, we are not
going far enough.
And now, with all becoming gravity, we turn to the second branch
of our subject—the disinterested inquiry as to "what would
become of the animals" if we ceased to kill them for food. "If
the life of animals," says Dr. Paul Carus, "had to be regarded
as sacred as human life, there can be no doubt about it that
whole industries would be destroyed, and human civilisation
would at once drop down to a very primitive condition. Many
millions would starve, and large cities would disappear from the
face of the earth. But the brute creation would suffer too.
There might be a temporary increase of brute life, but certainly
not of happiness. Cattle would only be raised for draught-oxen
and milk-kine, and they would not die the sudden death at the
hands of the butcher, but slowly of old age or by disease."[46]
Footnote 46:
"The Open Court," 1898.
A pathetic picture, indeed! It does not for a moment occur
to this sapient prophet of disaster that the adoption of
vegetarianism will necessarily be gradual, and further that
vegetarians do _not_ hold the life of animals to be "as sacred
as human life." To critics who do not even ascertain what
the system means before they reject it, and who ignore all
consideration of the degrees and relative sacredness of the
various forms of life, vegetarianism must naturally seem to be a
confused jumble of thought—the confusion, in reality, being
altogether on their own side.
ALARMIST: There is another aspect of this question, and
a very grave one. If flesh-eating were abolished, what
would become of the animals?
VEGETARIAN: Yes, let us talk about that fearful
contingency. You think they would be thrown out of
employment, so to speak—would find their careers cut
short, or rather left long?
ALARMIST: It is no joking matter. Would they not run
wild in ever-increasing numbers, and perhaps overrun the
land, or, if food failed them, lie dead and dying about
our roadways and suburbs?
VEGETARIAN: Before I relieve your anxiety on this point,
may I just remark that this second difficulty seems
to counterbalance the former one? If every suburban
householder is likely to have a dead ox against his
garden-gate, we evidently need not fear the failure
of the leather and tallow trade. But once again you
are mistaken. You have overlooked the fact that the
breeding of animals is not free and unrestricted, but
is kept within certain limits, and carefully regulated
by man; so that if the demand for butchers' meat should
gradually decline, there would be no more alarming
result than a corresponding gradual decline in the
supply from the breeder.
ALARMIST: Well, I don't know. I sadly doubt whether
things would balance themselves so comfortably.
VEGETARIAN: Ah, you think that some neglected old
porker, like Scott's "Last Minstrel," would be left out
in the cold.
"For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Longed to be with them and at rest."
But no; for look at the case of the donkey. We do
not (knowingly) eat donkeys, yet a dead donkey is
proverbially a rare sight. Nor are we overrun with
donkeys—at least, not in the sense referred to.
ALARMIST: Yet I understand that in India, where there is
a reluctance to kill animals, they are often in wretched
plight.
_Vegetarian_: True; but we were talking not of _killing_
animals but of _eating_ them. Vegetarianism is not
Brahminism; we would kill when necessary, whether for
our own sake or the animals', but we would not breed
them in vast numbers in order to kill, nor kill them in
order to eat. Surely the distinction is a clear one?
The attitude of vegetarians towards this subject is indeed plain
enough for those who wish to understand it. Regarding the
slaughter of animals for food as cruel and unnecessary, they
advocate its discontinuance (a process which, if it comes about
at all, will, as I have shown, be a gradual one, and will at no
point cause any sudden disruption of existing conditions), but
this does not commit them to the absurd belief that animal life,
in all its various grades, is absolutely sacred and inviolable.
Must we not suspect that the apologists of flesh-eating who make
these childish alarums and excursions are fain to do so from
some inner conviction of the weakness of their own case?
BIBLE AND BEEF
"Bible and Beer" is the title that is sometimes sarcastically
applied to the political alliance between churchmen and
publicans; and in like manner the dietetic alliance between the
"unco' guid" and the butchers may be not inaptly designated as
Bible and Beef. When all else fails, the authority of Holy Writ
is triumphantly cited by the bibliolatrous flesh-eater as the
great court of appeal to which the food question must be
carried; and here at least, it is pleaded, there can be no doubt
as to the verdict. "It seems to me," wrote Dr. William Paley,
more than a hundred years ago, "that it would be difficult to
defend this right [to the flesh of animals] by any arguments
which the light and order of Nature afford, and that we are
beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture."[47]
Footnote 47:
"Moral and Political Philosophy."
It is a far cry from the theologian of 1784 to the _Meat Trades'
Journal_ of to-day, but from an editorial article we learn that
the organ of the butchering trade is animated by the same
profound sense of piety. "The great Creator of all flesh," it
says, "gave us the beasts of the field, not only for our food,
but for other purposes equally as essential to us. The grass
must be eaten by our flocks and herds, otherwise the fertility
of the soil would vanish. It was a frightful punishment on the
Egyptian [_sic_] King that he should be reduced to the level of
the beasts of the field and eat grass."[48]
Footnote 48:
November 19, 1892.
Now, waiving the fact that grass is not precisely the diet that
vegetarians adopt, and that it is, therefore, no reproach to
vegetarianism if Nebuchadnezzar, not being a ruminant, found
such a regimen distasteful, we must recognise that there is a
widespread idea among religious people that the lower animals
were "sent" us as food, and that the practice of flesh-eating
has the seal of biblical sanction. In meeting this prejudice,
there is a right line and a wrong line of reasoning, both of
which have at different times been followed by vegetarian
speakers.
The wrong line is to attempt to answer the texts quoted as
favourable to flesh-eating by pitting against them other texts
as favourable to vegetarianism—a course which not only degrades
the Bible into a text-book for disputants,[49] but also
surrenders the most sacred claim of the reformed diet—viz., its
appeal not to this or to that textual authority, which some
thinkers accept and others deny, but to the universal principle
of humanity and justice.
Footnote 49:
As in the epigram,
_Hic liber est in quo quærit sua dogmata quisque,
Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua_:
which may be freely rendered,
This is the Book, to dogmatists well-known,
Where each man dogma seeks, and finds—his own.
The right line is to show, first, that it is wholly impossible,
in the face of modern knowledge and evolutional science, to
maintain the old "anthropocentric" idea which regarded man as
the sum and centre of the universe, a monarch for whose special
benefit all else was created; and, secondly, that the ancient
Hebrew scriptures, whatever be their exact significance
for Christian readers (a matter with which we are not here
concerned), cannot be regarded as affording any clue to the
solution of modern problems which have arisen centuries later.
It would be no whit more absurd to argue that negro-slavery is
justifiable because it was not condemned in the Bible than to
claim scriptural sanction for the cruelties of butchery because
the Jews were flesh-eaters. And, indeed, such arguments _have_
been advanced by religious people in support of slavery; we
read, for example, the following in John Woolman's journal: "A
friend in company began to talk in support of the slave-trade,
and said the negroes were understood to be the offspring of
Cain, their blackness being the mark which God set upon him
after he murdered Abel; that it was the design of Providence
they should be slaves, as a condition proper to the race of so
wicked a man as Cain was."
But it is now time to introduce the textualist in person.
TEXTUALIST: Well, sir, I understand that you advocate
vegetarianism. What sort of a religion is that?
VEGETARIAN: The real sort—the sort that has to be
_practised_ as well as preached.
TEXTUALIST: If it is the real sort, the proof is easy.
Show me the passages in the Book.
VEGETARIAN: I beg to be excused. I do not bandy texts.
TEXTUALIST: What? You can produce no verses in support
of your religion? I thought vegetarians relied on what
they call the "Ten Best Texts," and here I stand ready
to meet them with five-and-twenty better ones.
VEGETARIAN: I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not
one of the text-quoting vegetarians. I regard all such
methods of reasoning as wholly irrelevant. There is
not the least doubt that the Jews were a flesh-eating
people; indeed, the very idea of vegetarianism (that is,
a deliberate and permanent disuse of flesh-food for
moral and hygienic reasons) was wholly unknown to them.
What, then, can be the use of hunting up Bible-texts
which do not refer, one way or the other, to the point
at issue?
TEXTUALIST: But if it was unknown and unmentioned in the
Bible, what hope for vegetarianism? It perishes like all
else that is unscriptural.
VEGETARIAN: The same hope as for the abolition of
slavery, or any other humane cause that has had birth in
our modern era. We live and learn.
TEXTUALIST: But it is written, "Rise, Peter, kill and
eat." What is your answer to that?
VEGETARIAN: It needs no answer, as you will see if you
study the context.
TEXTUALIST: Then you have not a single text to set
against the injunction with which I confront you?
VEGETARIAN: Not one—unless it be, "Answer not a fool
according to his folly."
To repel texts with texts is a futility to which vegetarians as a
body have fortunately not committed themselves, because vegetarianism
appeals, without reference to religion, to the common sentiment of
humaneness, and numbers amongst its adherents men of every nationality
and creed. If biblical vegetarians have engaged in controversy with
biblical flesh-eaters, that is their own concern; and we may rest
assured that the battle will be a sham one, as the firing is with blank
cartridge on both sides.
Apart, however, from such irrational argument, there is a sense
in which an appeal may be fairly made to the Bible, as to any
other great ethnical scripture or world-literature—that is, to
the spirit, as distinguished from the letter, the context as
distinguished from the text. That vegetarians, preaching and
practising a doctrine of love and humaneness, should quote,
"Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed ... to you it
shall be for meat," as indicating the ideal primitive diet, and
"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain," as
prophetic of the ideal future, is just and appropriate, for such
passages, though dealing with poetry rather than fact, are far
more suggestive than any textual evidence; and when we come to
ask what is the spirit of the New Testament towards such
instincts as that from which vegetarianism springs—the desire to
increase the happiness and lessen the suffering of all sentient
life—it is plain that here, at least, the vegetarian is on
unassailable ground.
But the answer to the biblical flesh-eater lies still nearer at hand.
For the moment any attempt is made by him to ally the modern religious
spirit with the maintenance of the slaughter-house, the incongruity
of his position is revealed. Take "grace before meat," for instance,
and note the flat impiety of offering thanks to God over the body of
a fellow-being that has been cruelly slaughtered for the sake of our
"pleasures of the table." As Leigh Hunt has remarked: "It is not
creditable to a thinking people that the two things they most thank
God for should be eating and fighting. We say grace when we are going
to cut up lamb and chicken, and when we have stuffed ourselves with
both to an extent that an orang-outang would be ashamed of; and we
offer up our best praises to the Creator for having blown and sabred
his 'images,' our fellow-creatures, to atoms, and drenched them in
blood and dirt. This is odd. Strange that we should keep our most pious
transports for the lowest of our appetites and the most melancholy of
our necessities; that we should never be wrought up into paroxysms of
holy gratitude, but for bubble-and-squeak or a good-sized massacre!"
But why, it may be asked, if the practice of flesh-eating is
such as it is here described, do "religious" people acquiesce
in it? Why indeed! except that, in these personal matters of
every-day life, the religionism of to-day, like the stoicism
of old, has a tendency to respect the letter, but disregard
the spirit of its principles. The complaint which modern
vegetarianism brings against the religious flesh-eaters is
that which the humaner philosophy made, centuries ago, against
the carnivorous stoics:
"Who is this censor who is so loud against the
indulgence of the body and the luxuries of the kitchen?
Why do they denounce pleasure as effeminate indulgence,
and make so much fuss about it all? Surely it had been
more logical if, while banishing from the table
sweet-meats and perfumes, they had exhibited yet more
indignation against the diet of blood! For as though all
their philosophy merely regarded household accounts,
they are simply interested in cutting down dinner
expenses, so far as concerns the superfluous dainties of
the table. They have no idea of deprecating what is
murderous and cruel."[50]
Footnote 50:
Plutarch, "On Flesh-Eating," quoted in "The Ethics of Diet,"
by Howard Williams.
And so is it nowadays with the champions of Bible and Beef, for,
like all formalists, they sacrifice the substance of religion to
the shadow, and while for ever quoting the sacred names of
justice and loving-kindness, not only oppose those principles
when in conflict with their own appetites, but actually base
their opposition on the authority of their "scripture." It would
be impossible to do the Bible a deadlier wrong than this; for
whether it be "inspired" or not, it is by universal consent a
great literary monument, and those who profess to reverence it
most should be the last to wish to utilise it as a handbook for
reactionists—a store from which to draw irrelevant quotations
for obstructing the progress of reform.
THE FLESH-EATER'S KITH AND KIN
There is nothing so pleasant as the reunion of long-separated
kinsfolk, and it is the cheerful duty of this chapter to exhibit
the flesh-eater in what may be called his domestic relationship,
to wit, his undoubted, but somewhat forgotten, connection with
the cannibal and the blood-sportsman. For, disguise it as he
may, he cannot altogether escape the fact that this kinship is a
real one. Kreophagist and anthropophagist, butcher and amateur
butcher, are but different branches of one and the same great
predatory stock. The cannibal and the sportsman are the wicked
uncles of the pious flesh-eater, unrespectable descendants from
a common ancestry, who have failed to adapt themselves to modern
requirements, and, like belated Royalists in a Commonweal, have
continued to play the old privileged game when its date is
over-past, an indiscretion which has caused them—the cannibal
especially—to be ignored as much as possible by their more
cautious relatives. We are all familiar with that chapter of
"The Egoist" (the "Minor Incident showing an Hereditary
Aptitude in the Use of the Knife"), in which the youthful Sir
Willoughby Patterne, already an adept at "cutting," is "not at
home" to his poor relation, the middle-aged unpresentable
lieutenant of marines. "Considerateness dismisses him on
the spot without parley." Even such is the attitude of the
respectable flesh-eater towards the bloodthirsty cannibal, and
in a less extent also towards the devotee of murderous "sport."
But to the student of the food question these antique types have
no little interest, as a survival from an earlier and more
innocent phase of flesh-eating when the old brutality was as yet
untempered by the new spirit of humaneness. They exhibit
kreophagy in its extreme logical form—an anachronism, no doubt,
and a _reductio ad absurdum_ in the present age—but at least
logical, and, therefore, not to be overlooked by those who, in
their hostility to food reform, are so fond of appealing to
logic.
The sportsman, for instance, is an old-world barbarian born into
a civilised era, a representative of the age when flesh-food
could only be obtained by the chase, and he is candid enough to
avow that he does his killing, not like the butcher, in order to
earn a livelihood, but for the brutal reason that he _enjoys_
it. "The instincts of the primeval man," it has been well said,
"food-hunting, predatory, self-preserving, re-emerge in the
modern: moral sanctions are disregarded, the rights of inferior
races are forgotten, and the hunter feels himself, figuratively
speaking, naked, savage, bloodthirsty, and unashamed."[51] A
butcher he certainly is, but an amateur butcher only, for it can
hardly be contended that the preserving of game increases the
national food-supply, in view of the fact that pheasants, hares,
and even rabbits, are sold at a price far below their actual
cost of production, and are thus a direct tax on the public
resources. The blood-sportsman, then, is a member of the
carnivorous family by another line of descent, which has kept a
touch of the rank primitive wildness even to the present day;
and this one thing alone can be said in his favour, that when he
butchers in sport, he at least does the butchery himself, and
does not delegate the filthy task to others. He is his own
slaughterman—a mere and simple savage.
Footnote 51:
Robert Buchanan. Preface to J. Connell's "The Truth about the
Game Laws."
Cannibalism, again, is simply flesh-eating, free from those
sentimental "restrictions" which Sir Henry Thompson and his
fellow scientists deplore, and the cannibal's only fault, judged
from the scientist's standpoint, is that he carries out the
scientific doctrine not wisely but too well. For this reason
every lecture on vegetarianism ought to touch on cannibalism as
illustrating a past chapter in the great history of diet—a past
chapter as regards the leading and so-called civilised nations,
but to this day a present and very instructive chapter in the
world's remoter regions, from which we may learn certain lessons
as to the feelings, arguments, and fallacies that attend
the gradual process of transition from one dietetic habit
to another. The flesh-eater generally affects to look on
cannibalism as something monstrous and abnormal, a dreadful
perversion of taste which has no connection with the civilised
meat-diet on which our welfare is supposed to depend; but the
real facts show that the truth is quite otherwise, and that the
position of the cannibal who is being proselytised to give up
his man-eating is in many ways analogous to that of the
flesh-eater who is worried by the vegetarian propagandists. The
glories of the old English roast beef may be instructively
compared with the glories of the old African roast man.
It is amusing to observe that the kreophagist who, on the one
side, regards abstinence from flesh food as an absurd delusion
is equally confident that cannibalism, on the other side, is an
unpardonable infamy, forgetting that many of the excuses that
are made for flesh-eating might be made with as much justice for
cannibalism also. "Prejudice is strange," says Professor
Flinders Petrie. "A large part of mankind are cannibals, and
still more, perhaps all, have been so, including our own
forefathers, for Jerome describes the Atticotti, a British
tribe, as preferring human flesh to that of cattle.... Does the
utilitarian object? Yet one main purpose of the custom is
utility; in its best and innocent forms it certainly gives the
greatest happiness to the greatest number."[52] Nor can it be
held that all cannibals are a specially degraded race, for
Livingstone and later travellers quote well-authenticated
instances to show that tribes addicted to man-eating are
sometimes more advanced, mentally and physically, than those
which abstain from such diet; and as to the hygienic merits of
the regimen, does it not stand on record, in an old English
ballad, that Richard Cœur de Lion was cured of a dangerous
malady by eating a Turk's head, which was served up to him as
the best substitute for pork? The kreophagist at present is able
to pass unlimited censure on the cannibal, because the poor
savage has not the wit to argue with the civilised man; but if,
in these days of University Extension schemes, such a person as
a scientific anthropophagist should ever make his appearance,
who can say that the position might not be somewhat reversed?
Footnote 52:
For interesting facts concerning cannibalism, see Professor W.
M. Flinders Petrie's article, _Contemporary Review_, June
1897; "The Fall of the Congo Arabs," by Captain Sidney L.
Hinde, 1897; and "The Land of the Pigmies," by Captain Guy
Burrows, 1899.
VEGETARIAN: Let me introduce you, gentlemen. You are
blood-relations, I think, and should have much to say to
each other. The Kreophagist—the Anthropophagist.
KREOPHAGIST: Good morning, uncle. But I cannot admit the
relationship if it is true that you are addicted to the
atrocious habit of cannibalism.
ANTHROPOPHAGIST: How atrocious, nephew? If you eat one
kind of flesh, why should you abstain from another? Are
you aware that they are chemically identical? Pig or
"long pig"—where is the difference?
KREOPHAGIST: Where is the difference? Can you ask me
such a question?
VEGETARIAN: It is uncommonly like the question you have
been asking _me_!
ANTHROPOPHAGIST: Your objection to human flesh is
altogether a sentimental one. You are a food faddist. It
is the universal law of nature that animals should prey
on one another.
KREOPHAGIST: It is not _my_ nature to eat my
fellow-beings.
VEGETARIAN: Why, that is the very same answer that I
made to _you_!
ANTHROPOPHAGIST: And pray, what would become of our
paupers, criminals, lunatics, and sick folk, if we did
not eat them? Would they not grow to a great residuum
and overrun the land? And the missionaries, too—are they
not "sent" us as food? And what right have you to the
name _omnivorous_, if you restrict your diet in this
way? Why "omnivorous"?
The discontinuance of cannibalism marks, of course, an immense
step in humane progress, and so long as the kreophagist does not
absurdly claim that it is a _final_ step, his case against the
anthropophagist is a sure one; but if, while denouncing
anthropophagy as a barbarism of the past, he refuses to see that
flesh-eating must also, in turn, be replaced by a more humane
diet, he lays himself open to a raking fire of criticism.
Observe, for example, in view of the historical facts of
cannibalism, the absolute helplessness of Sir Henry Thompson's
position, when, as an objection to vegetarianism, he argues that
"the very idea of _restricting_ our resources and supplies is a
step backwards, a distinct reversion to the rude and distant
savagery of the past, a sign of decadence rather than of
advance." It is true that mankind has, on the whole, largely
extended its resources; but it is none the less true that, while
it has acquired many new foods, it has abandoned certain old
ones. It has advanced, in short, as already stated, by a process
not of omnivorism, but of eclecticism, which implies not only
acceptance, but rejection—a fact which knocks Sir Henry
Thompson's reasoning to atoms.
The power which has condemned cannibalism is that growing
instinct of humaneness which makes it impossible for men to prey
on their fellow-beings when once recognised as such. A notable
passage in one of Olive Schreiner's works may be quoted in
illustration:
"In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when
he hungered, fed on the flesh of his fellow-man and
found it sweet. Yet even in those days it came to pass
that there was one whose head was higher than her
fellows and her thought keener, and as she picked the
flesh from a human skull she pondered. And so it came to
pass that the next night, when men were gathered round
the fire ready to eat, she stole away, and when they
went to the tree where the victim was bound, they found
him gone. And they cried one to another, 'She, only
she, has done this, who has always said, I like not the
taste of man-flesh; men are too like me: I cannot eat
them.' Into the heads of certain men and women a new
thought had taken root; they said, 'There is something
evil in the taste of human flesh.' And ever after, when
the flesh-pots were filled with man-flesh, these stood
aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not;
then, as the years passed, none ate."[53]
Footnote 53:
"Trooper Peter Halket."
A strange comment this on the Andrew Wilson formula, that we
should eat "that which is likest to our own composition!" For
what if we have begun to recognise that the lower animals also
are related to us by a close bond of kinship? From our knowledge
of the past we form our judgment of the future, and see, with
Thoreau, that "it is part of the destiny of the human race, in
its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely
as the savage tribes left off eating each other when they came
in contact with the more civilised."[54]
Footnote 54:
Walden, "Higher Laws."
VEGETARIANISM AS RELATED TO OTHER REFORMS
It is sometimes held by the champions of vegetarianism that
reform of diet is the starting-point and foundation-stone of all
other reform—a panacea for the ills and maladies of the world.
This over-estimate on the part of a few enthusiasts of an
unpopular cause is due, presumably, to a revolt from the
contrary extreme of depreciation; for a little thought must
show us that, in the complexity of modern life, there is no
such thing as a panacea for social ailments, and that, as
there is no royal road to knowledge, so there is no royal
road to reform. It is impossible for vegetarianism to solve
the social question, unless by alliance with various other
reforms that are advancing _pari passu_—so interlocked and
interdependent are all these struggles towards freedom. It has
been well said that, "By humanitarians, socialists, vegetarians,
anti-vivisectionists, teetotalers, land-reformers, and all such
seekers of human welfare, this must be borne in mind—that each
of their particular efforts is but a detail of the whole work of
social regeneration, and that we cannot rightly understand and
direct our own little piece of effort unless we know it, and
pursue it, as part of the great whole."[55]
Footnote 55:
The _New Charter_, "The Humanitarian View."
Still more mistaken, on the other hand, is that common prejudice
against food reform which would exclude it altogether from the
dignity of propagandism, and would limit it to the personal
practice of individuals. "There can be no objection," says Dr.
Burney Yeo, "to individuals adopting any kind of diet which they
may find answer their needs and minister to their comfort; it is
only when they attempt to enforce what they practise on others
that they must expect to encounter rational opposition."[56]
Unfortunately, we have learnt by bitter experience that
_rational_ opposition is the last thing we can expect to
encounter—as, indeed, is made sufficiently evident by Dr. Yeo's
argument. For how could individual vegetarians have ever heard
of the new diet except for the propaganda? And why have
vegetarians, as a body, less right than teetotalers, socialists,
or any other propagandists, not to "enforce," but to _advocate_
their philosophy of diet with the view of ultimately influencing
public opinion? This professional attempt to class vegetarianism
as an idiosyncrasy, and not a system, is as irrational as it is
insincere, and what its insincerity is may be seen from the fact
that, though we are told at one moment that "there can be no
objection" to individual practice of the diet, yet whenever
individuals do attempt to practise it, they meet with the
strongest possible objection from the doctors themselves!
Footnote 56:
"Foods in Health and Disease."
Thus it comes about that in this progressive age, and even
among those who label themselves "progressives," vegetarianism
is so frequently regarded as a mere whim and crotchet, with no
practical bearing on the forward movement of to-day. It is a
marvel that so many "advanced" journals, which have a good
word for a host of worthy causes that are fighting an uphill
battle against monopoly and injustice—social reform, land
reform, law reform, prison reform, hospital reform, and a
hundred more—are dumb as death, or speak only to sneer, when
the subject is food reform; and thus lead their readers to
suppose that, whereas on all other matters there has been a
great change of feeling during the past half-century, on the
one matter of diet there has been no sort of progress! Yet
they might easily learn, if they made serious inquiry, that
the reformed dietetics, so far from being the outcome of mere
sentiment about animals, have a past record based as surely on
moral and scientific reasoning as that of any cause included
in the progressive programme. Vegetarianism is, in truth,
_progressiveness in diet_; and for a progressive to scout such
ideas as valueless and Utopian is to play the part (as far as
diet is concerned) of a reactionist. What is the meaning of
this strange discrepancy? It must mean, we fear, that to a
large number of our social reformers the reform of other
persons is a much more congenial battle cry than the reform of
one's self. _Hinc illæ lacrymæ._ They call vegetarianism
"impracticable" for the strange reason that, unlike most
_isms_, it asks them to do something individually which they
know they _could_ do—if they wished! It is impracticable
because it does not suit them to practise it.
REFORMER: Let me entreat you; give up this fanciful
scheme of vegetarianism and come and work for social
reform.
VEGETARIAN: Social reform without food reform! Is not
that rather a lame and lop-sided business?
REFORMER: Not at all. When we have so many things to do
we must do the most important ones first.
VEGETARIAN: And what are the most important?
REFORMER: Well, there is international peace and
arbitration. You will admit that our first duty is to
avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
VEGETARIAN: Ah, I see! And the habit of _living_ by
bloodshed doesn't come within your scope!
REFORMER: Then there is the land question, and the need
of relieving the congestion of our crowded cities by the
revival of agriculture.
VEGETARIAN: So, of course, you can't attend to a
diet-system which would bring people back to the land!
REFORMER: There is also the temperance problem—the
terrible evils of the drink crave.
VEGETARIAN: Which would disappear for the most part if
we left off eating flesh.
REFORMER: And the welfare of animals—for to that also I
devote myself. We need some stringent legislation for
the better prevention of cruelty.
VEGETARIAN: We do. But as such legislation would leave
your reformers dinnerless, don't you think you should
revise your dietary meantime? Your reforms are
excellent, I grant you; but what of _self-reform_? Does
not reform, like charity, begin at home?
REFORMER: Well, well; to everyone his taste—reform or
self-reform. I prefer the former; you the latter, I
suppose.
VEGETARIAN: No; that is just where you are mistaken. I
prefer both at once.
Reform _and_ self-reform, not reform _or_ self-reform—that is
the true key to the solution of the social question. The work
that we can do ourselves is the most wholesome condiment for the
work that we can only do through society. And here let me
express the hope that, as a matter of policy, vegetarians will
stand aloof from all "philanthropic" schemes of _vicarious_ food
reform in prisons, reformatories, and workhouses; for there is
no surer way of making a principle unpopular than by forcing it
on the poor and helpless, while carefully avoiding it one's
self. Philanthropists, if they be philanthropists, will practise
what they preach; by their practice we shall know them.
To the so-called ethical, no less than to the political, school
of thought the question of vegetarianism is unwelcome, obtruding
as it does on the polite wordiness of learned discussion with an
issue so coarsely downright: "You are a member of an ethical
society—do you live by butchery?" But the ethics of diet are the
very last subject with which a cultured ethical society would
concern itself, and the attitude of the modern "ethicist"
towards the rights of animals is still that of the medieval
schoolman. The ethicist does not wish to forego his beef and
mutton, so he frames his ethics to avoid the danger of such
mishap, and while he talks of high themes with the serene wisdom
of a philosopher the slaughter-houses continue to run blood. We
surmise that the royal founder and archetype of ethical
societies was that learned but futile monarch referred to in the
epitaph:
Here lies our mutton-loving king,
Whose word no man relies on:
He never _said_ a foolish thing,
And never _did_ a wise one.
So, too, throughout the whole field of hygiene, temperance, and
plain living, to ignore vegetarianism is to ignore one of the
most potent influences for self-restraint. One is reluctant to
quote the late Sir Henry Thompson in any matter that tends to
the praise of vegetarianism, in view of the extreme irritability
which that distinguished scientist exhibited as regards his
sacred text, with which you could never take the liberty of
assuming that, when it distinctly said one thing, it did not
mean the opposite; yet he _did_ say that "a proportion amounting
at least to more than one-half of the disease which embitters
the middle and latter part of life, among the middle and upper
classes of the population, is due to avoidable errors in
diet."[57] If this be so, it is obvious that diet reform (of
some sort) is very urgently needed; and I submit that it would
be difficult to frame any intelligible scheme of diet reform in
which vegetarian principles should play no part, embracing, as
they do, all the best features of temperance and frugality. What
is the use of for ever preaching about the avoidance of luxuries
and stimulants, if you rule out of your system the one dietary
which makes stimulants and luxuries impossible? The relation of
vegetarianism to temperance, of the food question to the drink
question, is that of the greater which includes the less.
Footnote 57:
_Nineteenth Century_, May, 1885.
But it is when we turn from philanthropy to zoophily, and to the
questions more particularly affecting the welfare of animals,
that the importance of vegetarianism, in spite of the stubborn
attempts of the old-fashioned "animal lovers" to overlook it, is
most marked. Here, again, I do not share the extreme vegetarian
view that food reform is the _foundation_ of other reforms, for
I think it can be shown that all cruelties to animals, whether
inflicted in the interests of the dinner-table, the laboratory,
the hunting-field, or any other institution, are the outcome of
one and the same error—the blindness which can see no unity and
kinship, but only difference and division, between the human and
the non-human race. This blindness it is—this crass denial of a
common origin, a common nature, a common structure, and common
pleasures and pains—that has alone hardened men in all ages of
the world, civilised or barbarous, to inflict such fiendish
outrages on their harmless fellow-beings; and to remove this
blindness we need, it seems to me, a deeper and more radical
remedy than the reform of sport, or of physiological methods, or
even of diet alone. The only real cure for the evil is the
growing sense that the lower animals are closely akin to us, and
have rights.
And here we see the inevitable logic of vegetarianism, if our
belief in the rights of animals is ever to quit the stage of
theory and enter the stage of fact; for just as there can be no
human rights where there is slavery, so there can be no animal
rights where there is eating of flesh. "To keep a man, slave or
servant," says Edward Carpenter, "for your own advantage merely,
to keep an animal that you may _eat_ it, is a lie; you cannot
look that man or animal in the face." I am not saying that it
is not a good thing that, quite apart from food reform,
anti-vivisectionists should be denouncing the doings of "the
scientific inquisition," while humanitarians of another school
are exposing the horrors of sport, for cruelty is a many-headed
monster, and there must at times be a concentration of energy on
a particular spot; but I do say that any reasoned principle of
kindness to animals which leaves vegetarianism outside its scope
is, in the very nature of things, foredoomed to failure.[58]
Footnote 58:
Take, for example, the rule to which some bird-lovers bind
themselves, to wear no feathers but those of birds killed for
food. One is reminded of Thomas Paine's epigram: "They pity
the plumage, but forget the dying bird."
Vegetarianism is an essential part of any true zoophily, and
the reason why it is not more generally recognised as such
is the same as that which excludes it from the plan of the
progressive—that it is so upsetting to the every-day habits
of the average man. Few of us, comparatively, care to murder
birds in "sport," and still fewer to cut up living animals
in the supposed interests of "science," but we have all been
taught to regard flesh food as a necessity, and it is a
matter, at first, of some effort and self-denial to rid
ourselves of complicity in butchering. Herein is at once the
strength and the weakness of the case for vegetarianism—the
strength as regards its logic, and the weakness as regards
its unpopularity—that it makes more direct personal demand
on the earnestness of its believers than other forms of
zoophily do; for which reason there is a widespread, though
perhaps unconscious, tendency among zoophilists to evade it.
Yet that such evasion is a blunder may be seen from the
outcry raised against it not by vegetarians only, but by the
vivisectionists and sportsmen themselves, who are quick to ask
the zoophilists why, if they are so eager for the well-being of
the animals, they do not desist from eating them—a question
which, however insincere in the mouths of some who propound it,
must at least be allowed to be logical. For it is simple truth
that though vivisection is a more refined and diabolical
torture, and sport a more stupidly wanton one, the _sum_ of
suffering that results from the practice of flesh-eating
is greater and more disastrous than either, and by being
so familiarly paraded in our streets is a cause of wider
demoralisation. When one thinks of the aimless and stunted life,
as well as the barbarous death, of the wretched victims of the
slaughter-house, bred as they are for no better purpose than to
be unnaturally fattened for the table, it makes one marvel that
so many kindly folk, keenly sensitive to the cruelties inflicted
elsewhere, should be utterly deaf and blind to the doings of
their family butcher. The zoophilist loves to quote the famous
lines of Coleridge:
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
But what kind of "love" is that which eats the object of its
affection? There are hidden rocks in that poetical passage which
a sense of humour should indicate to the pilot of zoophily.
Our position, therefore, is this—that while we make no exaggerated
claim for vegetarianism, as in itself a panacea for human ills and
animal sufferings, we insist on the rational view that reform of diet
is an indispensable branch of social organisation, and that it is idle
to talk of recognising "rights of animals" so long as we unconcernedly
_eat_ them. Vegetarianism is no more and no less than an essential
part in the highly complex engine which is to shape the fabric of a
new social structure, an engine which will not work if a single screw
be missing. The part without the whole is undeniably powerless; but so
also, as it happens, is the whole without the part.
CONCLUSION
The chief object of this work, as stated at the outset, has been
to prove the logical soundness of vegetarian principles, and the
hollowness of the hackneyed taunt, so often a makeshift for
reasoning, that vegetarians are a crew of mild brainless
enthusiasts whose "hearts are better than their heads." How far
I have been successful in this purpose it is for the reader to
judge; I trust it has, at least, been made plain that, if it is
logic that our friends are in need of, we are quite ready to
accommodate them, and that nothing will please us better than
a thorough intellectual sifting of the whole problem of
diet. Only it must be a _thorough_ sifting. The great foe of
vegetarianism, as of every other reform, is habit—that inert,
blind, dogged force which time called into being, and time only
can outwear—and it is this which lurks behind the flimsy
sophisms and excuses that the flesh-eater loves to set up, in
which, as a rule, though there is much show of controversy,
there is little real discussion. To those of our opponents who
honestly wish to grapple with the question of diet, and to
understand what vegetarianism means (whether they agree with it
or not), I submit that the following points have, at any rate,
been clearly set before them:
1. That the objections raised to the name "vegetarian"
are founded on sheer ignorance of the word's origin,
and calculated, if not designed, to distract attention
from the substance by fixing it on the shadow. It is
not nowadays seriously denied, by any responsible
authority, that a vegetable diet, _with the addition
of eggs and milk_, is quite adequate for nutriment;
but the method is this—to allow what is said (rightly
or wrongly) of the sufficiency of a _strictly_ vegetable
diet to be misunderstood by the public as referring
to "vegetarianism." Thus, Dr. J. Burney Yeo, in his
"Food in Health and Disease," first argues that
"vegetarians" have no right to their title, because they
consume animal products, and then proceeds to allege
various reasons against "a purely vegetable diet," which
by his own showing is not what vegetarianism represents.
This is a fair sample of flesh-eaters' logic.
2. That the immediate aim of vegetarians is not that
which, under various forms, is so industriously
foisted on them—viz., a desire to attain at one step
to the millennium, by altogether ceasing to take the
life of animals, or by entire abstinence from animal
products—but rather it is a practical, intelligible,
though necessarily imperfect, attempt to humanise, as
far as may be, the present sanguinary diet system, by
the omission at least of its more loathsome and
barbarous features.
3. That vegetarianism, if once admitted to be
practicable, offers certain positive benefits of the
utmost value, humane, æsthetic, hygienic, social,
economic; while, on the other hand, the denials that
have hitherto been made of its practicability, on the
plea of structure, laws of nature, climate, digestion,
and so forth, are far too weak and illogical to bear the
test of criticism. There _may_, of course, be some
conclusive reason against vegetarianism, but if so, why
is its production delayed?
4. That in the greater number of the arguments brought
against vegetarianism, the importance of the _moral_
aspect of the question is studiously kept out of sight.
Thus, Sir Henry Thompson, in his _Nineteenth Century_
article of 1885, while admitting the possibility of
abstaining from flesh foods, gave judgment on the whole
in favour of a moderate use of them—but without allowing
the smallest weight to humane or moral considerations.
Writing on the same subject in 1898, he so far repaired
this oversight as to argue that it is really kinder
to eat animals than not to do so, because otherwise
they would not be bred at all! That is the amount of
attention the moral side of vegetarianism receives from
its opponents, a great humane issue being set aside by a
sophism more suited for a Savoy comedy than for serious
discussion.
But there is the further question—and as far as these chapters
are concerned, the final question—why, if vegetarianism is part
and parcel of a genuine "progressive" movement, does it not more
rapidly progress? "Why so little _result_ from your propaganda?"
is the frequent sneer of the flesh-eater, and the vegetarian
himself is sometimes fain to be down-hearted at the seeming
slowness of his advance. Does vegetarianism progress? Yes and
no, according to the expectations, reasonable or unreasonable,
that its supporters have been cherishing. If we have fondly
hoped to witness, in the future, the triumph of the humaner
living, it must be allowed that the actual rate of progress is
extremely disheartening; but if, on the contrary, we work under
a rational understanding that a widespread change of diet, like
any other radical change, is a matter not of years but of
centuries, then we shall not find in the slow growth of our
movement any reason for dissatisfaction. Revolution in personal
habits, be it remembered, is even more difficult than revolution
in political forms, and needs a greater time for its fulfilment,
and, looked at in this light, vegetarianism has made as much
progress during the past half-century as any other cause which
aims at so far-reaching a change.
But what of the many individual failures, it is asked, among
those who make trial of vegetarianism? Taking the circumstances
into account, the failures cannot be regarded as numerous; for
in every such movement there are half-hearted people who are
impelled by motives of restlessness and curiosity, rather than
of real conviction, and in view of the personal obstacles that
beset the path of the vegetarian it is not surprising that in
food reform, as in drink reform, there are a certain number of
backsliders. In an ordinary household every possible influence,
social and domestic, is brought to bear on the heretic who
abstains from flesh foods. Anxious relatives and indignant
friends adjure him to remember the duty he owes to himself and
to his family, and urge him for the sake of those dear to him,
if not for his own, to return to that great sacramental bond
of union between man and man—the eating of our non-human
fellow-beings. Is he smitten by one of the numberless ailments
that are the stock-in-trade of the physician, and of which
flesh-eaters are daily the victims in every part of the
world? The doctor looks wise, shakes his head, and informs
a sorrowing circle that it is the direct result of "his
vegetarianism." Above all, the fear of ridicule, acting on the
natural unwillingness of mankind to venture along unknown paths,
is a strong deterrent; for there are still many persons to whom
the idea of abstinence from butchers' meat is positively a
matter for merriment, and it seems fated that vegetarianism,
like every new principle, must be a target for such shafts.
Well, so be it! We know that the struggle will be a long one,
and if vegetarianism has got to run the blockade of Noodledom,
and a huge amount of foolish talk must perforce be fired off,
the sooner the battle commences, and the sooner it is concluded,
the better for all concerned. And ridicule, as the flesh-eater
will learn, is a weapon which can be wielded by more parties
than one.
For, to be frank, the dietists of the old-fashioned kreophagist school
have talked, and are talking, a great deal of downright nonsense in
their tirades against vegetarianism, and the only reason why they have
not been more widely brought to book is that they speak in orthodox
quarters where no reply is permitted. The oracle, of course, must not
be answered or criticised. So far as they have condescended to state a
case against food reform, it is a case which would be laughed out of
court, as a string of quibbles and absurdities, in any open discussion;
for the specialist, that most humourless of persons, is apt to forget
that the moment he quits the ground on which he has made himself a
master (and such ground has very narrow limitations) he is no longer
infallible, and that if he thinks to exorcise modern feeling by the
repetition of ancient formulas, he will only make himself ridiculous.
And as a matter of pure humour, apart from humanity, which is the more
comical—the man who can live in simple affluence on a supply of food
which is as little costly to himself as it is burdensome to others, or
he who cannot be content unless he gluts an ogreish appetite on animals
slaughtered for his larder, and then pharisaically pretends that he has
done them a kindness by eating them? It is custom, and custom alone—the
thraldom of that "ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead
level of civilisation reduces us"[59]—that prevents civilised men from
seeing the essential silliness of maintaining the diet of savages.
Footnote 59:
Richard Jefferies, "Field and Hedgerows."
That a percentage of those who make trial of vegetarianism
should return to their former habit is in accordance with what
always happens in the fight between the new and the old, and at
the utmost—that is, in the rare cases where such trial has been
a genuine one—proves only that a change of diet is much more
difficult for some persons than it is for others, a fact which
all rational food reformers have recognised. But from the force
of _affirmative_ testimony there is no escape, when, as in the
case of vegetarianism successfully practised, and yielding the
best results, the instances are drawn from every rank and
temperament, and are amply sufficient in number to prove the
experience trustworthy. It is idle to go on asserting that a
thing cannot be done, when you are face to face with some
thousands of people who not only have done it, but are happier
and healthier in consequence.
With the question of the right choice of food, and how to adopt
vegetarianism, I am not here concerned; such information is
readily accessible in current vegetarian literature. But it must
be said in conclusion—and this is the thought which, above all
others, I would leave in the mind of the reader—that the surest
warrant of success in the reform of diet is a sincere belief in
the moral rightness of the cause. The _spirit_ in which one
takes up vegetarianism is the main factor in the result. It is
useless to look for any absolute proof in such matters—the proof
is in one's self—for those, at least, who have heart to feel,
and brain to ponder, the cruelty and folly of flesh-eating. It
is an issue where logic is as wholly on the one side as habit is
wholly on the other, and where habit is as certainly the shield
of barbarism as logic is the sword of humaneness.
INDEX
Adams, B. K., quoted, 68, 69
Æsthete, the, 51-54
Alarmist, the, 84-89
"All-or-Nothing" argument, 10-12 See Consistency
Animals, what would become of them? 86, 87
Animal products, use of, 5, 6, 42, 43, 109, 110
Anthropoid apes, 18-22
Anthropologist, the, 24-28
Anthropophagist, the, 95-98
Asceticism, 11, 72
Athletics, vegetarian, 60
Axon, W. E. A., quoted, 81
Bible and Beef, 89
Bon Vivant, the, 30-32
Brahminism, 43, 44, 87
British Islander, the, 67, 68
_British Medical Journal_, quoted, 29, 34, 62, 63
Buchanan, Robert, quoted, 96
Butchery, effect on character, 47-50
Canine teeth, argument from, 19
Cannibalism, 10, 64, 65, 73 (note);
its relation to flesh-eating, 95-97
Carnalist, the, 73
Carpenter, Edward, quoted, 71 (note), 106
Cartesian theory, 26
Carus, Dr. Paul, quoted, 86
Cattle transit, 31
Chemical argument, 9, 10
Chemist, the, 64-66
Cheyne, Dr., quoted, 60
Chicago shambles, 35, 36, 49, 55
Climate, argument from, 67-70
"Cock-and-Bull" argument, 42, 43
Coit, Dr. Stanton, quoted, 39
Consistency, true and false. See "All-or-Nothing," 41-46
Cramming system, 75, 76
Darwinian theory, 25, 26
Dembo, Dr., quoted, 32
De Quincey, quoted, 55
Digestibility of foods, 62-65
Diseased flesh, 58, 59
Drover, the, 31
Economy of vegetarian diet, 77, 78
Esquimaux, what would become of them? 68
"Ethics of Diet," 15 (note), 93
Ethical Societies, attitude towards Vegetarianism, 39, 104
Fish-eating, 45, 46, 82 (note)
Flinders Petrie, Professor, quoted, 97
Franklin, Benjamin, 24, 28
Fraser, J. F., quoted, 55
Frugivorous nature of Man, 18-22
Gordon-Cumming, C. F., quoted, 65
Grace before meat, 92, 93
Greg, W. R., quoted, 79, 80
Habit, influence of, 109, 113
Haig, Dr. A., 60, 61
Herbivora, the, 20, 62
Hofmann's Experiments, 64, 65
Hudson, W. H., quoted, 36
Humanity, synonymous with culture, 51, 54
Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 54, 93
Hygienic Aspect of Vegetarianism, 57, 58
Keith, Dr. G., quoted, 75
Kingsford, Dr. Anna, 13 (note), quoted, 74
Kropotkin, Prince, quoted, 25, 26, 81 (note)
Land question, the, 80
Lawrence, Sir William, quoted, 68
Leather, what should we do without? 84-86
Lester, H. F., quoted, 48, 50
Life, relative value of, 10, 27, 28, 42
Logic, uses of, 1, 109
"Man is what he eats," 71
Manure question, 85
Maxwell, Sir H., 38
Mayor, Rev. Professor J. E. B., 5, 21
_Meat Trades Journal_, quoted, 32, 89
"Metaphysic of the larder," 37-39
Michelet, Jules, quoted, 33, 34
Monastic orders, vegetarian diet of, 14, 74
Moral aspect of diet question, 10, 34, 72-74, 110
Nature, argument from, 24-28
Newman, Professor F. W., quoted, 58, 80
Nordau, Max, quoted, 81
Oldfield, Dr. J., quoted, 21 (note), 65, 70
Omnivorism, 20, 21, 99
Owen, Sir Richard, quoted, 18
Paley, Dr. William, quoted, 89
Patriot, the, 15, 16
Philanthropist, the, 84, 108
Plutarch, 14, 93
Progressive movement, relation of Vegetarianism towards, 102,
103
Psychic philosopher, the, 72, 73
"Pythagorean diet," the same as Vegetarianism, 4, 6
Reform and self-reform, 104
Reformer, the, 103, 104
Richardson, Sir B. W., quoted, 19, 47, 57, 59, 65, 66, 75, 77,
78
Rights of animals, 110
Ritchie, Professor D. G., 51
Roman soldiery, diet of, 15
Russell, Hon. R., quoted, 13 (note), 78 (note)
Schreiner, Olive, quoted, 99
Scientist, the, 19-23
Shaw, G. Bernard, quoted, 54
Slaughter-house, the, 32;
reform of, 39, 40
Slaughterman's work, effect on character, 47-50
Slavery, justified by Bible texts, 90, 91
Smith, Dr. T. P., quoted, 33, 43
Sophist, the, 37, 38
Sport, in relation to flesh-eating, 95, 96
Stead, W. T., 35, 36, 43, 44
Stephen, Leslie, 38
Superior Person, the, 9-11
Temperance Movement, 69
Tertullian, _Contra Psychicos_, 73 (note)
Textualist, the, 91
Thompson, Sir Henry, 5-7, 45, 96, 99, 105, 110
Thomson, J. Arthur, quoted, 26
Thoreau, quoted, 71, 72, 79, 100
Tuberculosis, danger of, 58
Turkish soldiery, diet of, 16
"Vegetarian," the name, origin, 4;
objections urged against it, 4-8, 109, 110;
why retained, 7, 8
Vegetarianism, misunderstandings of, 1, 2;
grades of, 6, 11;
its real purpose, 9-12, 110;
a moral principle, 9, 10, 29, 47, 73, 74, 110;
relation to other reforms, 101-108;
individual failures and successes, 111, 112, 116;
"inconvenience" of, 78
Vegetarian Society, its founding and principles, 4, 5, 45
Verbalist, the, 4, 5
Wages question, in relation to Vegetarianism, 79
Wallace, Dr. Alfred R., quoted, 36
Wilson, Dr. Andrew, 44, 45, 64, 65, 100
Wollaston's "Religion of Nature," 29, 30
Women's work at Deptford, 48
Woolman, John, quoted, 90, 91
Yeo, Dr. J. Burney, quoted, 77, 101, 102, 110
Zoophily, as related to Vegetarianism, 105-107
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS GUILDFORD
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FOOTNOTES:
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Transcriber’s Note
1. Punctuation and capitalization have been normalized.
Variations in hyphenation have been retained as they were in the
original publication. Index, Anthropophogist changed to
Anthropophagist.
2. Italicized words and phrases are presented
by surrounding the text with _underscores_.
3. This book uses = signs to begin and end Bold type.
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