William A. Alcott

General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument—1. The Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The Moral Argument.—Conclusion.

In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view.

There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine following heads, viz., the anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the economical, the experimental, the moral, the millennial, and the bible arguments.

Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical argument—though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several others.

Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject of vegetable dietetics to a system than any other individual,—though he makes much use of all the rest, especially the moral and medical,—appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold—the grand citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel.

If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted to fill the space which he appears to have been originally designed to fill—the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an heir of a glorious immortality.

But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned to this chapter.

I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT.

There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet—a diet partly animal and partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the herbivorous animals. In short—for I certainly need not dwell on this part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. Lawrence and Baron Cuvier—there is no intelligent naturalist or comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in favor of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division of our subject.

II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely negative.

A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and injurious dishes and which is so generally mistaken for true and genuine hunger.

I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the immediate effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and seasons of receiving it.

These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person merely,—though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand negative testimonies,—but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so with comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant day.

I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always hungry. Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated—what most people call hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing—is unknown to him. But there is scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was proper for him to eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner.

The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at every meal—nay, at every healthy meal—to a species of miniature fever. The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, but have not altered the sense:

"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile paroxysm."

And what is it, indeed, but a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes.

But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means the result would be accomplished.

The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater—if he lives right in all other respects—if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of it; nor should it be known by any body. We should leave it to the animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders of the lower animals.

But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better—all other things being equal—than that which is produced from any other food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved from putrefaction many days longer—the consequence of greater purity and a more perfect vitality—than that which is formed from any admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on that point.

The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I must confine myself to a page or two.

In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish once a day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, and Hibernian with Hibernian.

In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions of the rice and curry eaters there—bad as the admixture of rice and curry may be—for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It is necessary, however, in making the comparison, to place good vegetable food in opposition to good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many kinds of plain meat.

The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same tribe, and they will be found still more so.

In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids.

The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, the extremes of heat and cold. This power of endurance has ever been allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids.

The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other secretions and excretions—particularly the dejections—are as they should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few years, and live temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped.

There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which are poured into it—cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, and to severe epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and filthiest of animals.

Vegetable-eaters—especially if they avoid condiments, as well as flesh and fish—are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty conspicuous.

I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk eater, and water-drinker, do not need them.

It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and condiments will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and restricted sense.

The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other fruits, and milk, etc., by that name—of which, by the way, they are exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of the drink which is used, as now used, does more harm than good.

He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on our food to stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all day."

The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change in the other senses—the first three which I have named—even when we reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never begin it too early.

Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages of the north, and the Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the principle I have here advanced will hold, as a general rule, I believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, as a race, as our conduct.

A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly attest.

It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible, to remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age.

Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we resort to early discipline and correct education—in vain to moral and religious training—in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic habits—in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing it have unwisely departed.

III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT.

If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part of the subject—what I have ventured to call the medical argument—is at once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case—namely, that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health—I have no doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few facts, and present a few brief considerations.

It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, for about forty years a vegetable-eater, subsisting for much of this time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many years longer—perhaps to this time.

Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects.

Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at least, to his great temperance.

Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was attacked slightly, but recovered.

Another vegetable-eater—the Rev. Mr. Crocker—went out to a sickly part of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, however, he fell.

Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several years in the most sickly parts of the Southern United States, with an entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are correct.

Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and other farinaceous vegetables and fruits.

In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is right.

But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to all the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, and obeying to an iota all the laws of health—how could he contract disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus for its reception?

I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably had its origin in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact is—and this explains the whole riddle—those who are regarded, by the superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous abuses of their constitutions.

During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained from animal food—and their number was quite respectable—and who persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible.

But flesh-eaters—admitting the flesh were wholesome—are not only much more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of disease; it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations.

It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,—so much as to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to decaying fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable agriculture and horticulture.

And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts.

Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be injurious. We are told, by the most respectable medical men of France, that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less degree—if not with consumption, with something else. And of course their milk must be diseased—not, perhaps, as much as their blood and flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and cheese made from it must be diseased also.

But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger.

Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,—and besides the general admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"—it must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater or less degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease which is known.

Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.[21]

Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even say more. When not fresh, they are diseased. On this point we have the testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or putrefying process begins long before it is perceived, or even suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,—except when we keep the poultry ourselves,—are, when used, more or less in a state of decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, etc., of which it forms a component part.

One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, is, that it tends with such comparative rapidity to decomposition. Such is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less hurtful—by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more indigestible.

It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.[22] And most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be tender; that is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in the same road.

That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few.

Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,—"It is not improbable that certain cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all made dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no less eminent than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for many years.

The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the complaints against every form of animal oil or fat, in every age, by men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue to set mankind an example of its use.

Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very much to my present purpose.

"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, and unwholesome materials with which they are fed. Perpetual foulness and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures—and sure they can do no less in brute animals—and thus make our food poison. The same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it."

The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such diseases as cancer, gout, epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them.

Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, especially about towns and cities—their want of good air, abundant exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures which they sometimes eat—has not been astonished to find so little disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than vegetable food;—but how much more injurious is it made, in the circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it.

One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony had induced,—by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line?

IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT.

I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to its political, national, or general advantages.

Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it.

But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us to reflection. Let us see what some of them are.

The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, too, in their present comfort, and without clearing up any more new land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily—if animal food is unnecessary—which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings in life, health, and happiness.

Now, if life is a blessing at all—if it is a blessing to twenty-two millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United States—then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants.

We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions?

I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than one meal a day, or one third of our whole living.

Suppose there was no crime in shutting human beings out of existence by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned—still, is it not, I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist.

V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT.

The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor considerations that I wish to present under this head, that could not so well have been introduced any where else.

There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject.

It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products of an acre of land—such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.—will sustain a family in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general rule, for the other.

But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that "a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly?

The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in another work,[23] that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising thirty bushels of corn!

It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables.

But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight pounds a day—far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty pounds, or one third of a bushel—more than sufficient for the family of an Hibernian.

Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, it would give also about two or three ounces a day!

Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about four or five ounces of food a day, and one which will give each of them more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of economy, at least, between one and ten.

I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and Sir Humphrey Davy, of England.

Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances.

The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived from Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are infallible.

VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE.

A person trained in the United States or in England—but especially one who was trained in New England—might very naturally suppose that all the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream—little does a person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream—that almost all the world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even taste it at all. And yet such is the fact.

It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which has been received, and according to our power of self-government.

I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train the same children to the ordinary, complex, high-seasoned diet of this country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of unnaturals which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are first presented to him.

Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and effeminate. This is a specimen—perhaps a tolerably fair one—of the natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this—other things being equal—in the same proportion do they degenerate physically, intellectually, and morally.

Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with a few exceptions—and those more apparent than real—nations have flourished, and continued to flourish, in proportion as they have retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same effects which follow the use of spirits—first, invigoration, and subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor?

In short—for the case appears to me a plain one—it is the simple habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time retain—through the medium of an artificial strength—the ascendency among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off.

But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice and fruits—a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe.

Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and with little modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern.

The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits.

Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations."

The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their equals? The men, even—the Scotch and Irish, for example—are they weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food?

It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that neglect of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were destined to move.

But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing."

We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known.

In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or character. Out of Europe and the United States—I might even say, out of the latter—the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford them.

VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT.

In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or fish, is a moral argument.

Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better condition—better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the great Creator—as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system—then is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some have estimated it,[24] saying nothing of the pain and suffering undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral argument.

If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,—then we have another moral argument in its favor.

But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral.

But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause every reflecting individual—not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities of our nature—to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of a true sensibility—not a morbid one—on this subject, than a blind man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few.

Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of great pleasure, and when children, as in some cases, are almost constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results!

In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems to me like one mighty slaughter-house—one grand school for the suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling—one grand process of education to the entire destitution of all moral principle—one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so?

I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less affected than before by human suffering?

I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part of the work.

I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned doctrine, that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it—though I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that to render children familiar with the taking away of animal life,—especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, in relation to them,—cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency.

How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but from day to day, through life! What could they—what would they—expect from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but mourning, desolation, and woe!

On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological Society thus remarks—and I wish the remark might have its due weight on the mind of the reader:

"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to behold such slaughter? How can it be right to blunt the edge of their moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but rejoicing while we feast upon them?"

One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency?

It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched—I believe impartially—the effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am I quite sure that any virtuous adult can.

How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by that merriment which often accompanies the slaughter of an innocent fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text,

—the beast's not excepted—and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit of a poor domestic animal?

Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the abuse of a thing, which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil never will be prevented otherwise.

The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and often cruel forms,—whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy sympathy,—is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it is the reason given—it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most efficient one.

It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually made for these cruel sports; and made too, in some instances, by good men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,—and by his own concessions, too,—are doubtful in regard to their moral tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible?

VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT

I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, physiology, or the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at least of first nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him at first—perhaps not in accordance with his best interests—yet it has become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, he now seems to require it."

This reasoning, at first view, appears very specious. But upon second view, we see it is wanting—greatly so—in solidity. It takes for granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of food necessary, is not likely to disappear—nay, that it is every century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning flash of intelligence?

And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more necessary to us now, than they were a thousand years ago, will they not be still more necessary a thousand years hence?

I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and China—the former more especially—if the march of civilization should be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce.

These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at least for the present.

IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT.

It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned its use.

But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour?

And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use animal food—was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us?

But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who incline to wine and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or fish because the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument on this direction is unnecessary.

CONCLUSION.

But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the merits of the question before us, it may not have as much weight—regarded as a part of the moral argument—on every mind, as it has on my own.

Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. Now, what will they eat?

The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,—most of which are nourishing, and more or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal—the horse, the ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it as he pleases.

Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon the animals around him? Does any person believe—can he for one moment believe—he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears? Would he despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one—I repeat the question—can any one believe it?

On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at first—yes, and for a long time afterward—to the vegetable world for his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his feelings—his moral nature—to the thought of flesh-mangling or flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would they do so in the circumstances we have supposed?

I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not necessary, however. The argument—the moral argument, I mean—is sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no other weapon but ridicule?

[21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption.