Chapter III: Part 3

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."