Behind the mere name of the reformed diet, whatever name be employed (and, as we have seen, "vegetarian" at present holds the field), lies the far more important reality. What is the raison d'Être, the real purport of vegetarianism? Certainly not any a priori assumption that all animal substances, as such, are unfit for human food; for though it is quite probable that the movement will ultimately lead us to the disuse of animal products, vegetarianism is not primarily based on any such hard-and-fast formula, but on the conviction, suggested in the first place by instinctive feeling, but confirmed by reason and experience, that there are certain grave evils inseparable from the practice of flesh-eating. The aversion to flesh food is not chemical, but moral, social, hygienic. Believing as we do that the grosser forms of diet not only cause a vast amount of unnecessary suffering to the animals, but also react most injuriously on the health and morals of mankind, we advocate their gradual discontinuance; and so long as this protest is successfully launched, the mere name by which it is called is a matter of minor concern. But here on this practical issue, as before on the nominal issue, we come into conflict with the superior person who, with a smile of supercilious compassion, cannot see why we poor ascetics should thus afflict ourselves without cause.

Superior Person: But why, my dear sir—why should you refuse a slice of roast beef? What is the difference between roasting an ox and boiling an egg? In the latter case you are eating an animal in embryo—that is all.

Vegetarian: Do you not draw any distinction between the lower and the higher organisation?

Superior Person: None whatever. They are chemically identical in substance.

Vegetarian: Possibly; but we were talking, not of chemistry, but of morals, and an egg is certainly not morally identical with an ox.

Superior Person: How or where does the moral phase of food-taking enter the science of dietetics?

Vegetarian: At a good many points, I think. One of them is the question of cannibalism. Allow me to read you a passage from the "EncyclopÆdia Britannica": "Man being by nature {?} carnivorous as well as frugivorous, and human flesh being not unfit for human food, the question arises why mankind generally have not only avoided it, but have looked with horror on exceptional individuals and races addicted to cannibalism. It is evident on consideration that both emotional and religious motives must have contributed to bring about this prevailing state of mind."

Superior Person: Of course. Why read me all that?

Vegetarian: To show you that what you call "the moral phase of food-taking" has undoubtedly affected our diet. The very thought of eating human flesh is revolting to you. Yet human flesh is chemically identical with animal flesh, and if it be true that to boil an egg is the same thing as to roast an ox, it follows that to butcher an ox is the same thing as to murder a man. Such is the logical position in which you have placed yourself by ignoring the fact that all life is not equally valuable, but that the higher the life the greater the responsibility incurred by those who destroy it.

Or it may be that the superior person, instead of denying that morals affect dietetics, himself poses as so austere a moralist as to scorn the wretched half-measure of merely abstaining from flesh food while still using animal products. The result is in either case the same. The all-or-nothing argument is sometimes put forward in this fashion:

Superior Person: Well, as far as the right or wrong of the question is concerned, I would not care to be a vegetarian at all, unless I were a thorough one. What can be the good of forswearing animal food in one form if you take it in another?

Vegetarian: But surely it is rational to deal with the worst abuses first. To insist on an all-or-nothing policy would be fatal to any reform whatsoever. Improvements never come in the mass, but always by instalment; and it is only reactionists who deny that half a loaf is better than no bread.

Superior Person: But in this case I understand that it is quite possible to be consistent. There are individuals, are there not, who live upon a purely vegetable diet, without using milk or eggs? Now, those are the people whose action one can at least appreciate and respect.

Vegetarian: Quite so. We fully admit that they are in advance of their fellows. We regard them as pioneers, who are now anticipating a future phase of our movement.

Superior Person: You admit, then, that this extreme vegetarianism is the more ideal diet?

Vegetarian: Yes. To do more than you have undertaken to do is a mark of signal merit; but no discredit attaches on that account to those who have done what they undertook. We hold that "the first step," as Tolstoy has expressed it, is to clear one's self of all complicity in the horrible business of the slaughter-house.

Superior Person: Well, I must repeat that, were I to practise any form of asceticism, I should incline to that which does not do things by halves.

Vegetarian: Of course. That is invariably the sentiment of those who do not do things at all.

Asceticism! such is the strange idea with which, in many minds, our principles are associated. It would be impossible to take a more erroneous view of modern vegetarianism; and it is only through constitutional or deliberate blindness to the meaning of the movement that such a misconception can arise. How can we convey to our flesh-eating friends, in polite yet sufficiently forcible language, that their diet is an abomination to us, and that our "abstinence," far from being ascetic, is much more nearly allied to the joy that never palls? Is the farmer an ascetic because, looking over into his evil-smelling pigsty, he has no inclination to swill himself from the same trough as the swine? And why, then, should it be counted asceticism on our part to refuse, on precisely the same grounds, to eat the swine themselves? No; our opponents must clearly recognise, if they wish to form any correct notion of vegetarianism, that it is based, not on asceticism, but Æstheticism; not on the mortification, but the gratification of the higher pleasures.

We conclude, then, that the cause which vegetarians have at heart is the outcome, not of some barren academic formula, but of a practical reasoned conviction that flesh food, especially butchers' meat, is a harmful and barbarous diet. Into the details of this belief we need not at present enter; it has been sufficient here to show that such belief exists, and that the good people who can see in vegetarianism nothing but a whimsical "fad" have altogether failed to grasp its true purport and significance. The raison d'Être of vegetarianism is the growing sense that flesh-eating is a cruel, disgusting, unwholesome, and wasteful practice, and that it behoves humane and rational persons, disregarding the common cant about "consistency" and "all-or-nothing," to reform their diet to what extent and with what speed they can.