No Animal Food | Page 8

Gleizes
Hartley Rousseau Iamblichus Hypatia Diogenes Quintus Sextus Ovid
Plutarch Seneca Apollonius The Apostles Matthew James James the
Less Peter The Christian Fathers Clement Tertullian Origen
Chrysostom St. Francis d'Assisi Cornaro Leonardo da Vinci Milton
Locke Spinoza Voltaire Pope Gassendi Swedenborg Thackeray
Linnæus Shelley Lamartine Michelet William Lambe Sir Isaac Pitman
Thoreau Fitzgerald Herbert Burrows Garibaldi Wagner Edison Tesla
Marconi Tolstoy George Frederick Watts Maeterlinck Vivekananda
General Booth Mrs. Besant Bernard Shaw Rev. Prof. John E. B. Mayor
Hon. E. Lyttelton Rev. R. J. Campbell Lord Charles Beresford Gen. Sir
Ed. Bulwer etc., etc., etc.
The following is a list of the medical and scientific authorities who
have expressed opinions favouring vegetarianism:--
M. Pouchet Baron Cuvier Linnæus Professor Laurence, F.R.S. Sir
Charles Bell, F.R.S. Gassendi Flourens Sir John Owen Professor
Howard Moore Sylvester Graham, M.D. John Ray, F.R.S. Professor H.
Schaafhausen Sir Richard Owen, F.R.S. Charles Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S.

Dr. John Wood, M.D. Professor Irving Fisher Professor A. Wynter
Blyth, F.R.C.S. Edward Smith, M.B., F.R.S., LL.B. Adam Smith, F.R.S.
Lord Playfair, M.D., C.B. Sir Henry Thompson, M.B., F.R.C.S. Dr. F. J.
Sykes, B. Sc. Dr. Anna Kingsford Professor G. Sims Woodhead, M.D.,
F.R.C.P., F.R.S. Alexander Haig, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P. Dr. W. B.
Carpenter, C.B., F.R.S. Dr. Josiah Oldfield, D.C.L., M.A., M.R.C.S.,
L.R.C.P. Virchow Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, M.P., F.R.C.S. Dr.
Robert Perks, M.D., F.R.C.S. Dr. Kellogg, M.D. Harry Campbell, M.D.
Dr. Olsen etc., etc.
Before concluding this section it might be pointed out that the curious
prejudice which is always manifested when men are asked to consider
any new thing is as strongly in evidence against food reform as in other
innovations. For example, flesh-eating is sometimes defended on the
ground that vegetarians do not look hale and hearty, as healthy persons
should do. People who speak in this way probably have in mind one or
two acquaintances who, through having wrecked their health by wrong
living, have had to abstain from the 'deadly decoctions of flesh' and
adopt a simpler and purer dietary. It is not fair to judge meat abstainers
by those who have had to take to a reformed diet solely as a curative
measure; nor is it fair to lay the blame of a vegetarian's sickness on his
diet, as if it were impossible to be sick from any other cause. The writer
has known many vegetarians in various parts of the world, and he fails
to understand how anyone moving about among vegetarians, either in
this country or elsewhere, can deny that such people look as healthy
and cheerful as those who live upon the conventional omnivorous diet.
If a vegetarian, owing to inherited susceptibilities, or incorrect rearing
in childhood, or any other cause outside his power to prevent, is sickly
and delicate, is it just to lay the blame on his present manner of life? It
would, indeed, seem most reasonable to assume that the individual in
question would be in a much worse condition had he not forsaken his
original and mistaken diet when he did. The writer once heard an
acquaintance ridicule vegetarianism on the ground that Thoreau died of
pulmonary consumption at forty-five! One is reminded of Oliver
Wendell Holmes' witty saying:--'The mind of the bigot is like the pupil
of the eye: the more it sees the light, the more it contracts.'

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

III
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The primary consideration in regard to the question of diet should be,
as already stated, the hygienic. Having shown that the non-flesh diet is
the more natural, and the more advantageous from the point of view of
health, let us now consider which of the two--vegetarianism or
omnivorism--is superior from the ethical point of view.
The science of ethics is the science of conduct. It is founded, primarily,
upon philosophical postulates without which no code or system of
morals could be formulated. Briefly, these postulates are, (a), every
activity of man has as its deepest motive the end termed Happiness, (b)
the Happiness of the individual is indissolubly bound up with the
Happiness of all Creation. The truth of (a) will be evident to every
person of normal intelligence: all arts and systems aim consciously, or
unconsciously, at some good, and so far as names are concerned
everyone will be willing to call the Chief Good by the term Happiness,
although there may be unlimited diversity of opinion as to its nature,
and the means to attain it. The truth of (b) also becomes apparent if the
matter is carefully reflected upon.