[144] Dr. Samuel Johnson gave up wine by the advice of Cheyne, and drank tea with Mrs. Thrale and Boswell till he died, Æt. 75.

[145] Bayle, the author of the great Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1690), to whom belongs the lasting honour of having inaugurated the critical method in history and philosophy, which has since led to such extensive and important results, seems also to have been the first explicitly to state the difficulties of that greatest crux of Theology—the problem of the existence, or rather dominance, of Evil. His rival Le Clerc, in his BibliothÉque, took up the orthodox cudgels. Lord Shaftesbury, the celebrated theologian and moralist, wrote his dialogue—The Moralists (1709)—in direct answer to Bayle, followed the next year by the Theodike or Vindication of the Deity of Leibnitz. Two of the most able and distinguished of the Anti-Optimists are Voltaire and Schopenhauer, the former of whom never wearies of using his unrivalled powers of irony and sarcasm on the Tout est Bien theory. As for the latter philosopher, he has carried his Anti-Optimism to the extremes of Pessimism.

[146] Pope here is scarcely logical upon his own premiss. It seems impossible, upon any grounds of reason or analogy, to deny to the lower animals a posthumous existence while vindicating it for ourselves, inasmuch as the essential conditions of existence are identical for many other beings. To the serious thinker the question of a post-terrestrial state of existence must stand or fall for both upon the same grounds. Yet what can well be more weak, or more of a subterfuge, than the pretence of many well-meaning persons, who seek to excuse their indifferentism to the cruel sufferings of their humble fellow-beings by the expression of a belief or a hope that there is a future retributive state for them? It must be added that this idle speculation—whether the non-human races are capable of post-terrestrial life or no—might, to any serious apprehension, seem to be wholly beside the mark. But what can be more monstrously ridiculous (???????, in Lucian’s language) than the inconsistency of those who would maintain the affirmative, and yet persist in devouring their clients? Risum teneatis, amici!

[147] Spence’s Anecdotes and The Guardian, May 21, 1713. His indignation was equally aroused by the tortures of the vivisectors of the day. And he demands how do men know that they have “a right to kill beings whom they [at least, the vast majority] are so little above, for their own curiosity, or even for some use to them.”

[148] See Travels, &c. Part IV.

[149] Dict. Phil., in article Viande, where it is lamented that his book, as far as appeared, had made no more converts than had the Treatise of Porphyry fifteen centuries before.

[150] See the amusing scene of the gourmand Canon Sedillo and Dr. Sangrado, who had been called in to the gouty and fever-stricken patient: “‘Pray, what is your ordinary diet?’ [asks the physician.] ‘My usual food,’ replied the Canon, ‘is broth and juicy meat.’ ‘Broth and juicy meat!’ cried the doctor, alarmed. ‘I do not wonder to find you sick; such dainty dishes are poisoned pleasures and snares that luxury spreads for mankind, so as to ruin them the more effectually.... What an irregularity is here! what a frightful regimen! You ought to have been dead long ago. How old are you, pray?’ ‘I am in my sixty-ninth year,’ replied the Canon. ‘Exactly,’ said the physician; ‘an early old age is always the fruits of intemperance. If you had drunk nothing else than pure water all your life, and had been satisfied with simple nourishment—such as boiled apples, for example—you would not now be tormented with the gout, and all your limbs would perform their functions with ease. I do not despair, however, of setting you to rights, provided that you be wholly resigned to my directions.’” (Adventures of Gil Blas, ii., 2.) We may comment upon the satire of the novelist (for so it was intended), that irony or sarcasm is a legitimate and powerful weapon when directed against falsehood; that there was, and is, only too much in the practice and principles of the profession open to ridicule; but that the attempted ridicule of the better living does not redound to the penetration or good sense of the satirist.

[151] Compare the similar thoughts of the Latin poet, Metam. xv.

[152] Autumn. Read the verses which immediately follow, describing, with profound pathos, the sufferings and anguish of the hunted Deer and Hare.

[153] Summer.

[154] Observations on Man, II., 3.

[155] Quam vehementes haberent tirunculi impetus primos ad optima quÆque si quis exhortaretur, si quis impelleret! The general failure Seneca traces partly to the fault of the schoolmasters, who prefer to instil into the minds of their pupils a knowledge of words rather than of things—of dialectics rather than of dietetics (nos docent disputare non vivere), and partly to the fault of parents who expect a head in place of a heart training. (See Letters to Lucilius, cviii.) Quis doctores docebit?

[156] An instance of the common confusion of thought and logic. The too obvious fact that a large proportion of animals are carnivorous neither proves nor justifies the carnivorousness of the human species. The real question is, is the human race originally frugivorous or carnivorous? Is it allied to the Tiger or to the Ape?

[157] “Who is this female personification ‘Nature’? What are ‘her principles,’ and where does she reside?” asks Ritson quoting this passage.

[158] The World. No. 190, as quoted by Ritson.

[159] Persian poets of the tenth and thirteenth centuries of our era.

[160] Asiatic Researches. iv. 12

[161] ElÉmens de la Philosophie de Newton, v. Haller, the founder of modern physiology, assures us that “Newton, while he was engaged upon his Optics, lived almost entirely on bread, and wine, and water” (Newtonus, dum Optica scribebat, solo poenÈ vino pane et aqu vixit).—Elements of Physiology, vi., 198.

[162] A fact which brings out into strong relief the entirely superfluous luxuries of living of the English residents.

[163] Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Esprit des Nations, introduction section xvi., and chap. iii. and iv.

[164] See Gen. ix. and Ecclesiastes iii., 18, 19.—Note by Voltaire.

[165] See Lettres d’Amabed À Shastasid. See also article Viande in the Dictionnaire Philosophique.

[166] La Princesse de Babylone. Cf. Dialogue du Chapon et de la Poularde.

[167] See article BÊtes in the Dict. Phil.

[168] Elements of Physiology.

[169] Cf. Virgil’s “Magna parens frugum.”

[170] See the Nouvelle Biographie Universelle. Didot, Paris.

[171] GrÆcorum Chirurgici Libri. Firenze, 1754.

[172] Dissertazione sopra l’uso esterno appresso gli Antichi dell’acqua fredda sul corpo umano. Firenze, 1747.

[173] Del Vitto Pithagorico Per Uso Della Medicina: Discorso D’Antonio Cocchi. Firenze, 1743. A translation appeared in Paris in 1762 under the title of Le RÉgime de Pythagore.

[174] Del Vitto Pithagorico. Amongst the heralds and forerunners of Cocchi deserve to be mentioned with honour Ramazzini (1633–1714), who earned amongst his countrymen the title of Hippokrates the Third; Lessio (in his Hygiastricon, or Treatise on Health), in the earlier part of the 17th century; and Lemcry, the French Physician and Member of the AcadÉmie, author of A Treatise on all Sorts of Food, which was translated into English by D. Hay, M.D., in 1745.

[175] Rousseau adds in a note: “I know that the English boast loudly of their humanity and of the good disposition of their nation, which they term ‘good nature,’ but it is in vain for them to proclaim this far and wide. Nobody repeats it after them.” Gibbon, in the well-known passage in his xxvith chapter, in which he speculates upon the influence of flesh-eating in regard to the savage habits of the Tartar tribes, quoting this remark of Rousseau, in his ironical way, says: “Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall not easily allow the truth of his example.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxvi.

[176] He corrects this mistake in a note: “One of my English translators has pointed out this error, and both [of my translators] have rectified it. Butchers and surgeons are received as witnesses, but the former are not admitted as jurymen or peers in criminal trials, while surgeons are so.” Even this amended statement needs revision.

[177] How the French apostle of humanitarianism and refinement of manners, if he were living, would regard the recently reported practice of French and other physicians of sending their patients to the slaughter-houses to drink the blood of the newly-slaughtered oxen may be more easily imagined than expressed.

[178] Rather carnes consumere nati—“born simply to devour.”—See Hor., Ep. I., 2.

[179] Emile: ou de l’Education, II.

[180] Julie IV., Lettre 10. See also her protests against shooting and fishing.

[181] Confessions. One of his friends, Dussault, surprised him, it seems, on one occasion eating a “cutlet.” Rousseau, conscious of the betrayal of his principles, “blushed up to the whites of his eyes.” (See GleÏzÈ’s Thalysic.) In truth, as we have already observed, his principles on the subject of dietetics, as on some other matters, were better than his practice. His sensibility was always greater than his strength of mind.

[182] Amoenitates AcademicÆ, x., 8.

[183] This little word “seems” here, as in very many other controversies, has a vast importance and needs a double emphasis.

[184] Buffon here entirely ignores the true cause of the “inanition” of the poor classes of the community. It is not the want of flesh-meats, but the want of all solid and nutritious meat of any kind, which is to be found amply in the abundant stores supplied by Nature at first hand in the various parts of the vegetable world. Were the poor able to procure, and were they instructed how best to use, the most nourishing of the various farinacea, fruits, and kitchen herbs, supplied by the home and foreign markets, we should hear nothing or little of the scandalous scenes of starvation which are at present of daily occurrence in our midst. The example of the Irish living upon a few potatoes and buttermilk, or of the Scotch peasantry, instanced by Adam Smith, proves how all-sufficient would be a diet judiciously selected from the riches of the vegetable world. For, À fortiori, if the Irish, living thus meagrely, not only support life, but exhibit a physique which, in the last century, called forth the admiration of the author of The Wealth of Nations, might not our English poor thrive upon a richer and more substantial vegetable diet which could easily be supplied but for the astounding indifference of the ruling classes?

[185] Hist. Naturelle, Le Boeuf.

[186] Edition of Swift’s Works. Canon Sydney Smith, equally celebrated as a bon-vivant and as a wit, at the termination of his life writes thus to his friend Lord Murray: “You are, I hear, attending more to diet than heretofore. If you wish for anything like happiness in the fifth act of life eat and drink about one-half what you could eat and drink. Did I ever tell you my calculation about eating and drinking? Having ascertained the weight of what I could live upon, so as to preserve health and strength, and what I did live upon, I found that, between ten and seventy years of age, I had eaten and drunk forty-four horse wagon-loads of meat and drink more than would have preserved me in life and health! The value of this mass of nourishment I considered to be worth seven thousand pounds sterling. It occurred to me that I must, by my voracity, have starved to death fully a hundred persons. This is a frightful calculation, but irresistibly true.” Commentary upon this candid statement is superfluous. Ab uno disce omnes. If amongst the richer classes the ordinary liver may consume a somewhat smaller quantity of life during his longer or shorter existence, at all events the sum total must be a sufficiently startling one for all who may have the courage and candour to reflect upon this truly appalling subject. Another thought irresistibly suggests itself. What proportion of human lives thus supported is of any real value in the world?

[187] In reply to this sort of apology it is obvious to ask—“Have the frugivorous races, who form no inconsiderable proportion of the mammals, no claim to be considered?”

[188] To this very popular fallacy it is necessary only to object that Nature may very well be supposed able to maintain the proper balance for the most part. For the rest, man’s proper duty is to harmonise and regulate the various conditions of life, as far as in him lies, not indeed by satisfying his selfish propensities, but by assuming the part of a benevolent and beneficent superior. To this we may add with some force, that man appeared on the scene within a comparatively very recent geological period, so that the Earth fared, it seems, very well without him for countless ages.

[189] And, in point of fact, two-thirds at least of the whole human population of our globe.

[190] This popular excuse is perhaps the feeblest and most disingenuous of all the defences usually made for flesh-eating. Can the mere gift of life compensate for all the horrible and frightful sufferings inflicted, in various ways, upon their victims by the multiform selfishness and barbarity of man? To what unknown, as well as known, tortures are not every day the victims of the slaughter-house subjected? From their birth to their death, the vast majority—it is too patent a fact—pass an existence in which freedom from suffering of one kind or other—whether from insufficient food or confined dwellings on the one hand, or from the positive sufferings endured in transitu to the slaughter-house by ship or rail, or by the brutal savagery of cattle-drivers, &c.—is the exception rather than the rule.

[191] Moral and Political Philosophy, i., 2. It is deeply to be deplored that Dr. Paley is in a very small minority amongst christian theologians, of candour, honesty, and feeling sufficient to induce them to dispute at all so orthodox a thesis as the right to slaughter for food. That he is compelled, by the force of truth and honesty, to abandon the popular pretexts and subterfuges, and to seek refuge in the supposed authority of the book of Genesis, is significant enough. Of course, to all reasonable minds, such a course is tantamount to giving up the defence of kreophagy altogether; and, if it were not for theological necessity, it would be sufficiently surprising that Paley’s intelligence or candour did not discover that if flesh-eating is to be defended on biblical grounds, so, by parity of reasoning, are also to be defended—slavery, polygamy, wars of the most cruel kind, &c.

[192] The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, xii., 11. See, amongst others, the philosophical reflections of Mr. Greg in his Enigmas of Life, Appendix. But the subject has been most fully and satisfactorily dealt with by Professor Newman in his various Addresses.

[193] Compare the similar observation of Flourens, Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, in his Treatise on the Longevity of Man (Paris, 1812). He quotes Cornaro, Lessio, Haller, and other authorities on the reformed regimen.

[194] He well exposes the fatal mischief of emulation (in place of love of truth and of love of knowledge, for its own sake) in schools which tends to intensify, if not produce, the selfism dominant in all ranks of the community. Not the least meritorious of his exhortations to Governments is his desire that they would employ themselves in such useful works as the general planting of trees, producing nourishing foods, in place of devastating the earth by wars, &c.

[195] The reason, as given by himself, for his abandonment in after years of his self-imposed reform, is worthy neither of his philosophic acumen nor of his ordinary judgment. It seems that on one occasion, while his companions were engaged in sea-fishing, he observed that the captured fish, when opened, revealed in its interior the remains of another fish recently devoured. The young printer seemed to see in this fact the ordinance of Nature, by which living beings live by slaughter, and the justification of human carnivorousness. (See Autobiography.) This was, however, to use the famous Sirian’s phrase, “to reason badly;” for the sufficient answer to this alleged justification of man’s flesh-eating propensity is simply that the fish in question was, by natural organisation, formed to prey upon its fellows of the sea, whereas man is not formed by Nature for feeding upon his fellows of the land; and, further, that the larger proportion of terrestrials do not live by slaughter.

[196] Wealth of Nations iii., 341. See, too, Sir Hans Sloane (Natural History of Jamaica, i., 21, 22), who enumerates almost every species of vegetable food that has been, or may be, used for food, in various parts of the globe; the philosophic French traveller, Volney (Voyages), who, in comparing flesh with non-flesh feeders, is irresistibly forced to admit that the “habit of shedding blood, or even of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiment of humanity;” the Swedish traveller Sparrman, the disciple of LinnÉ, who corrects the astonishing physiological errors of Buffon as to the human digestive apparatus; Anquetil (RÉcherches sur les Indes), the French translator of the Zend-Avesta who, from his sojourn with the vegetarian Hindus and Persians, derived those more refined ideas which caused him to discard the coarser Western living; and Sir F. M. Eden (State of the Poor).

[197] History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxvi. Notwithstanding Gibbon’s expression of horror, we shall venture to remark that the “unfeeling murderers” of the Tartar steppes, in slaughtering each for himself, are more just than the civilised peoples of Europe, with whom a pariah-class is set apart to do the cruel and degrading work of the community.

[198] The Task. When Cowper wrote this (in 1782) the Law was entirely silent upon the rights of the lower animals to protection. It was not until nearly half a century later that the British Legislature passed the first Act (and it was a very partial one) which at all considered the rights of any non-human race. Yet Hogarth’s Four Stages of Cruelty—to say nothing of literature—had been several years before the world. It was passed by the persistent energy and courage of one man—an Irish member—who braved the greatest amount of scorn and ridicule, both within and without the Legislature, before he succeeded in one of the most meritorious enterprises ever undertaken. Martin’s Act has been often amended or supplemented, and always with no little opposition and difficulty.

[199] The term “Mercy,” it is important to observe, is one of those words of ambiguous meaning, which are liable, in popular parlance, to be misused. It seems to have a double origin—from misericordia, “Pity” (its better parentage), and merces, “Gain,” and, by deduction, “Pardon” granted for some consideration. It is in this latter sense that the term seems generally to be used in respect of the non-human races. But it is obvious to object that “pardon,” applicable to criminals, can have no meaning as applied to the innocent. Pity or Compassion, still more Justice—these are the terms properly employed.

[200] The observation of a non-Christian moralist (Juvenal, xv.) It is the motto chosen by Oswald for his title page.

[201] In the Hindu sacred scriptures, and especially in the teaching of the great founder of the most extensive religion on the globe, this regard for non-human life, however originating, is more obvious than in any other sacred books. But it is most charmingly displayed in that most interesting of all Eastern poetry and drama—Sakuntala; or The Fatal Ring, of the Hindu KalidÂsa, the most frequently translated of all the productions of Hindu literature. We may refer our readers also to The Light of Asia, an interesting versification of the principal teaching of Sakya-Muni or Gautama.

[202] The Cry of Nature: an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice on behalf of the Persecuted Animals. By John Oswald. London, 1791.

[203] Long Life, or the Art of Prolonging Human Existence.

[204] See the Nouvelle Biographie Universelle for complete enumeration of his writings.

[205] Makrobiotik.

[206] Afterwards Sir Richard Phillips, whose admirable exposition of his reasons for abandoning flesh-eating, published in the Medical Journal, July 1811, is quoted in its due place.

[207] Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty, ix. Ritson, in a note, quotes the expression of surprise of a French writer, that whereas abstinence “from blood and from things strangled” is especially and solemnly enjoined by the immediate successors of Christ, in a well-known prohibition, yet this sacred obligation is daily “made of none effect” by those calling themselves Christians.

[208] “I have known,” says Dr. Arbuthnot, “more than one instance of irascible passions having been much subdued by a vegetable diet.”—Note by Ritson.

[209] Written in 1802. Since that time the “pastime” of worrying bulls and bears, has in this country become illegal and extinct. Cock-fighting, though illegal, seems to be still popular with the “sporting” classes of the community.

[210] General Advertiser, March 4th, 1784. Since Ritson quoted this from the newspaper of his day, 80 years ago, the same scenes of equal and possibly of still greater barbarity have been recorded in our newspapers, season after season, of the royal and other hunts, with disgusting monotony of detail. Voltaire’s remarks upon this head are worthy of quotation: “It has been asserted that Charles IX. was the author of a book upon hunting. It is very likely that if this prince had cultivated less the art of torturing and killing other animals, and had not acquired in the forests the habit of seeing blood run, there would have been more difficulty in getting from him the order of St. Bartholomew. The chase is one of the most sure means for blunting in men the sentiment of pity for their own species; an effect so much the more fatal, as those who are addicted to it, placed in a more elevated rank, have more need of this bridle.”—Œuvres LXXII., 213. In Flaubert’s remarkable story of La LÉgende de St. Julien the hero “developes by degrees a propensity to bloodshed. He kills the mice in the chapel, the pigeons in the garden, and soon his advancing years gave him opportunity of indulging this taste in hunting. He spends whole days in the chase, caring less for the ‘sport’ than for the slaughter.” One day he shoots a Fawn, and while the despairing mother, “looking up to heaven, cried with a loud voice, agonising and human,” St. Julien remorselessly kills her also. Then the male parent, a noble-looking Stag, is shot last of all; but, advancing, nevertheless, he comes up to the terrified murderer, and “stopped suddenly, and with flaming eyes and solemn tone, as of a just judge, he spoke three times, while a bell tolled in the distance, ‘Accursed one! ruthless of heart! thou shalt slay thy father and mother also,’ and tottering and closing his eyes he expired.” The blood-stained man on one occasion is followed closely by all the victims of his wanton cruelty, who press around him with avenging looks and cries. He fulfils the prophecy of the Stag, and murders his parents.—See Fortnightly Review, April, 1878.

[211] It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that a quarter of a century later (1827), when Martin had the courage to introduce the first bill for the prevention of cruelty to certain of the domesticated animals (a very partial measure after all), the humane attempt was greeted by an almost universal shout of ridicule and derision, both in and out of the Legislature.

[212] See Appendix.

[213] Quoted from an article in the Gentleman’s Magazine, (August, 1787), signed Etonensis, who, amongst other particulars, states of the hero of his sketch that he was “one of the most original geniuses who have ever existed.... He was well skilled in natural philosophy, and might be said to have been a moral philosopher, not in theory only, but in strict and uniform practice. He was remarkably humane and charitable; and, though poor, was a bold and avowed enemy to every species of oppression.... Certain it is, that he accounted the murder (as he called it) of the meanest animal, except in self defence, a very criminal breach of the laws of nature; insisting that the creator of all things had constituted man not the tyrant, but the lawful and limited sovereign, of the inferior animals, who, he contended, answered the ends of their being better than their little despotic lord.... He did not think it

for he acted in strict conformity with them.... His vegetable and milk diet afforded him, in particular, very sufficient nourishment; for when I last saw him, he was still a tall, robust, and rather corpulent man, though upwards of fourscore.” He was reported it seems, to be a believer in the Metempsychosis. “It was probably so said,” remarks Ritson, “by ignorant people who cannot distinguish justice or humanity from an absurd and impossible system. The compiler of the present book, like Pythagoras and John Williamson, abstains from flesh-food, but he does not believe in the Metempsychosis, and much doubts whether it was the real belief of either of those philosophers.”—Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty, by Joseph Ritson. R. Phillips, London, 1802.

[214] In a sketch of the life of George Nicholson, contributed to a Manchester journal, by Mr. W. E. A. Axon.

[215] Perhaps the fallacy of this line of apology, on the part of the ordinary dietists, cannot be better illustrated than by the example of the man-eating tribes of New Zealand, Central Africa, and other parts of the world, who confessedly are (or were) hominivorous, and who have been by travellers quoted as some of the finest races of men on the globe. The “wholesome nutriment” of their human food was as forcible an argument for their stomach as the “agreeable flavour” was attractive for their palates. Such glaring fallacy might be illustrated further by the example of the man-eating tiger who, we may justly imagine, would use similar apologies for his practice.

[216] On the Conduct, &c., and The Primeval Diet of Man, &c., by George Nicholson, Manchester and London, 1797, 1801. The author assumes as his motto for the title-page the words of Rousseau—Hommes, soyez humains! C’est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse y a-t-il pour vous hors de l’humanitÉ? “Humans, be humane! It is your first duty. What wisdom is there for you without humanity?”

[217] Surgical Observations on Tumours. John Abernethy, M.D., F.R.C.S.

[218] Excessive poverty of blood, it is obvious to remark, is caused, not by abstaining from flesh but by abstaining from a sufficient amount of nutritious non-flesh foods.

[219] Additional Reports, 1814. Amongst valuable diagnoses of this kind the reader may be referred in particular to the highly interesting one of the Rev. C. H. Collyns, M.A., Oxon, which originally appeared in the Times newspaper, and which twice has been republished by the Vegetarian Society. The success of the pure regimen in first mitigating and, finally, in altogether subduing long-inherited gouty affections, was complete and certain. The recently published evidence of the President of the newly-formed French Society, Dr. A. H. de Villeneuve, is equally satisfactory. (See Bulletin de la SociÉtÉ VÉgÉtarienne of Paris, as quoted in Nature, Jan., 1881.)

[220] See, too, the testimony of Newton, Return to Nature, and of Shelley in his Essay on the Vegetable Diet, in which he describes these children as “the most beautiful and healthy beings it is possible to conceive. The girls are the most perfect models for a sculptor. Their dispositions, also, are the most gentle and conciliating.”

[221] The Life of William Lambe, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. By E. Hare, C.S.I., Inspector-General of Hospitals, to which valuable biography we are indebted for the present sketch. In Mr. Hare’s memoir will be found, among other testimonies to the truths of Vegetarianism, a highly-interesting letter, written to him by his friend Dr. H. G. Lyford, an eminent physician of Winchester.

[222] Life of Shelley, by Jefferson Hogg, quoted by Mr. Hare in Life of Dr. Lambe. Hogg adds that he conformed for good fellowship, and found the purer food an agreeable change.

[223] See the Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger, August, 1873.

[225] This is, perhaps, scarcely just to Pythagoras and his school. It is, without doubt, deeply to be lamented that they did not more widely promulgate a doctrine of such vital importance to the world; but the reasons of their reserve and partial reticence have been indicated already in our notice of the founder of Akreophagy. In a word—like the Founder of Christianity in a later age—they had many things to say which the world could not then learn. Moreover, as GleÏzÈs remarks, the teachers themselves could not have, from the nature of the case, the full knowledge of later times.

[226] The eloquence and style of Buffon, it need scarcely be remarked, are more indisputable than his scientific accuracy. Amongst his many errors, none, however, is more surprising than his assertion of the carnivorous anatomical organisation of man, which has been corrected over and over again by physiologists and savants more profound than Buffon.

[227] “Lachrymas—nostri pars optima sensus.”

[228] In newly-discovered countries, no decided predominance of one species over another has been found; and the reason is, that qualities are pretty nearly equally divided, and that the strongest animal is not at the same time the most agile or the most intelligent.—Note by GleÏzÈs.

[229] Upon this, not the least interesting and important of the side views of Vegetarianism, we refer our readers, amongst numerous authorities, to the opinions of Paley, Adam Smith, Prof. Newman, Liebig, and W. R. Greg (in Social Problems).

[230] That the victims of the Slaughter-House have, in fact, a full presentiment of the fate in store for them, must be sufficiently evident to every one who has witnessed a number of oxen or sheep driven towards the scene of slaughter—the frantic struggles to escape and rush past the horrible locality, the exertions necessary on the part of the drovers or slaughtermen to force them to enter as well as the frequent breaking away of the maddened victim—maddened alike by the blows and clamours of its executioners and the presentiment of its destiny—who frantically rushes through the public streets and scatters the terrified human passengers—all this abundantly proves the transparent falsity of the assertion of the unconsciousness or indifference of the victims of the shambles. See a terribly graphic description of a scene of this kind in Household Words, No. 14, quoted in Dietetic Reformer (1852), in Thalysie, and in the Dietetic Reformer, passim. Also in Animal World, &c., &c.

[231] Thalysie: ou La Nouvelle Existence: Par J. A. GleÏzÈs. Paris, 1840, in 3 vols., 8vo. See also preface to the German version of R. Springer, Berlin, 1872. Our English readers will be glad to learn that a translation by the English Vegetarian Society is now being contemplated.

[232] Poeta, in its original Greek meaning, marks out a creator of new, and, therefore, (it is presumable) true ideas.

[233] Compare the fate of Gibbon, who, at the same age, found himself an outcast from the University for a very opposite offence—for having embraced the dogmas of Catholicism. (See Memoirs of my Life and Writings, by Edw. Gibbon.) The future historian of The Decline and Fall, it may be added, speedily returned to Protestantism, though not to that of his preceptors.

[234] Shelley. By J. A. Symonds. Macmillan, 1887.

[235] Hogg’s Life of Shelley. Moxon (1858).

[236] Shelley. By J. A. Symonds.

[237] Cuvier’s LeÇons d’Anatomie Comp., Tom. III., pages 169, 373, 443, 465, 480. Rees’ Cyclop., Art Man.

[238] Inasmuch as at this moment there are in this country more than two thousand persons of all classes, very many for thirty or forty years strict abstinents from flesh-meat, enrolled members of the Vegetarian Society (not to speak of a probably large number of isolated individual abstinents scattered throughout these islands, who, for whatever reason, have not attached themselves to the Society), and that there have long been Anti-flesh eating Societies in America and in Germany, the À fortiori argument in the present instance will be allowed to be of double weight.

[239] “See Mr. Newton’s Book [Return, to Nature. Cadell, 1811.] His children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive. The girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions also are the most gentle and conciliating. The judicious treatment they receive may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various diseases—and how many more that survive are rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal! The quality and quantity of a mother’s milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. On an island, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the children invariably die of tetanus before they are three weeks old, and the population is supplied from the mainland.—Sir G. Mackenzie’s History of Iceland—note by Shelley.”

[240] Revolt of Islam, v. 51, 55, 56.

[241] Lately given to the world by Mr. Forman who has carefully collated and printed from Shelley’s MSS.

[242] English CyclopÆdia.

[243] Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. Moxon.

[244] Shelley. By J. A. Symonds.

[245] See preface to The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. New edition. London, 1869. The increasing reputation of Shelley is proved, at the present time, by the increasing number of editions of his writings, and by the increasing number of thoughtful criticisms and biographies of the poet, by some of the most cultured minds of the day. Since the time, indeed, when a popular writer but sometimes rash critic, with condemnable want of discernment and still more condemnable prejudice, so egregiously misrepresented to his readers the character as well of the poet as of his poems—which latter, nevertheless, he was constrained to admit to be the most “melodious” of all English poetry excepting Shakespere, and (their “utopian” inspiration apart) the most “perfect”—(Thoughts on Shelley and Byron, by Rev. C. Kingsley, “Fraser,” 1853,) the pre-eminence of the poet, both morally and Æsthetically, has been sufficiently established.

[246] In another place he indulges his ironical wit at the expense of the beef-eaters, in representing a certain Cretan personage in Greek story to have

[247] See Life and Letters. Murray.

[248] Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Sir R. Phillips. London, 1808.

[249] They had been published by him several years earlier in the Medical Journal for July 27 1811.

[250] Golden Rules of Social Philosophy: being a System of Ethics. 1826.

[251] A Dictionary of the Arts of Life and Civilisation. 1833. London: Sherwood & Co. It will be seen that the origin of his revolt from orthodox dietetics, given by himself, differs from that narrated in the Life from which we have quoted above. It is possible that both incidents may have equally affected him at the moment, but that the spectacle of the London slaughter-house remained most vividly impressed upon his mind.

[252] Million of Facts, p. 176. For the substance of the greater part of this biography, our acknowledgments are due to the researches of Mr. W. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L., F.S.S.

[253] La Chute d’un Ange. HuitiÈme Vision.

[254] Les Confidences, par Alphonse de Lamartine, Paris, 1849–51, quoted in Dietetic Reformer, August, 1881. It is in this book, too, that he commemorates some of the many atrocities perpetrated by schoolboys with impunity, or even with the connivance of their masters, for their amusement, upon the helpless victims of their unchecked cruelty of disposition.

[255] The question of kreophagy and anti-kreophagy had already been mooted, it appears, in the Institut, at the period of the great Revolution of 1789, as a legitimate consequence of the apparent general awakening of the human conscience, when slavery also was first publicly denounced. What was the result of the first raising of this question in the French Chamber of Savans does not appear, but, as GleÏzÈs remarks, we may easily divine it. One interesting fact was published by the discussion in the Deputies’ Chamber—viz., that in the year 1817, in Paris, the consumption of flesh was less than that of the year 1780 by 40,000,000lb., in proportion to the population (see GleÏzÈs, Thalysie, QuatriÈme Discours), a fact which can only mean that the rich, who support the butchers, had been forced by reduced means to live less carnivorously.

[256] In the same strain an eminent savan, Sir D. Brewster, has given expression to his feeling of aversion from the slaughter-house—a righteous feeling which (strange perversion of judgment) is so constantly repressed in spite of all the most forcible promptings of conscience and reason! These are his words: “But whatever races there be in other spheres, we feel sure that there must be one amongst whom there are no man-eaters—no heroes with red hands—no sovereigns with bloody hearts—and no statesmen who, leaving the people untaught, educate them for the scaffold. In the Decalogue of that community will stand pre-eminent, in letters of burnished gold, the highest of all social obligations—‘Thou shalt not kill, neither for territory, for fame, for lucre, nor for food, nor for raiment, nor for pleasure.’ The lovely forms of life, and sensation, and instinct, so delicately fashioned by the Master-hand, shall no longer be destroyed and trodden under foot, but shall be the objects of increasing love and admiration, the study of the philosopher, the theme of the poet, and the companions and auxiliaries of Man.”—More Worlds than One.

[257] Bible de l’HumanitÉ—Redemption de la Nature, VI.

[258] Cf. a recently published Essay, in the form of a letter to the present Premier, Mr. Gladstone, entitled The Woman and the Age. The author, one of the most refined thinkers of our times, has at once admirably exposed the utter sham as well as cruelty of a vivisecting science, and demonstrated the necessary and natural results to the human race from its shameless outrage upon, and cynical contempt for, the first principles of morality.

[259] The Bird, by Jules Michelet. English Translation. Nelson, London, 1870. See, too, his eloquent exposure of the scientific or popular error which, denying conscious reason and intelligence, in order to explain the mental constitution of the non-human races (as well that of the higher mammals as of the inferior species), has invented the vague and mystifying term “instinct.”

[260] La Femme, vi. OnziÈme Edition. Paris, 1879.

[261] This memorable building has been succeeded by the present well-known one in Cross Lane, where the Rev. James Clark, one of the most esteemed, as well as one of the oldest, members of the Vegetarian Society is the able and eloquent officiating minister.

[262] These biographical facts we have transferred to our pages from an interesting notice by Mr W. E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L.

[263] Memoir of the Rev. William. Metcalfe, M.D. By his son, Rev. Joseph Metcalfe, Philadelphia, 1865.

[264] See Memoir of the Rev. William Metcalfe. By his son, the Rev J. Metcalfe. Philadelphia; J. Capen. 1866.

[265] See Memoir in Sylvester Graham’s Lectures on the Science of Human Life. Condensed by T. Baker, Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Manchester: Heywood; London: Pitman.

[266] The New American CyclopÆdia. Appleton, New York, 1861. It deserves remark in this place that, in no English cyclopÆdia or biographical dictionary, as far as our knowledge extends, is any sort of notice given of this great sanitary reformer. The same disappointment is experienced in regard to not a few other great names, whether in hygienic or humanitarian literature. The absence of the names of such true benefactors of the world in these books of reference is all the more surprising in view of the presence of an infinite number of persons—of all kinds—who have contributed little to the stock of true knowledge or to the welfare of the world.

[267] The Greek story of the savage horses of the Thracian king who were fed upon human flesh, therefore, may very well be true.

[268] Graham here quotes various authorities—LinnÉ, Cuvier, Lawrence Bell, and others.

[269] Professor Lawrence instances particularly “the Laplanders, Samoides, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Bamtschatdales, in Northern Europe and Asia, as well as the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Tierra del Fuego in the southern, extremity of America, who, although they live almost entirely on flesh, and that often raw, are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people of the globe.”—Lectures on Physiology. Of all races the North American native tribes, who subsist almost entirely by the chase, are notoriously one of the most ferocious and cruel. That the omnivorous classes in “civilised” Europe—in this country particularly—have attained their present position, political or intellectual, in spite of their kreophagistic habits is attributable to a complex set of conditions and circumstances (an extensive inquiry, upon which it is impossible to enter here) which have, in some measure, mitigated the evil results of a barbarous diet, will be sufficiently clear to every unprejudiced inquirer. If flesh-eating be the cause, or one of the principal causes, of the present dominance of the European, and especially English-speaking peoples, it may justly be asked—how is to be explained, e.g., the dominance of the Saracenic power (in S. Europe) during seven centuries—a dominance in arms as well as in arts and sciences—when the semi-barbarous Christian nations (at least as regards the ruling classes) were wholly kreophagistic.

[270] For one of the ablest and most exhaustive scientific arguments on the same side ever published we refer our readers to The Perfect Way in Diet, by Mrs. Algernon Kingsford, M.D. (Kegan Paul, London, 1881). Originally written and delivered as a Thesis for le Doctorat en MÉdicine at the Paris University, under the title of L’Alimentation VÉgÉtale Chez L’Homme (1880), it was almost immediately translated into German by Dr. A. Aderholdt under the same title of Die Pfanzennahrung bei dem Menschen. It is, we believe, about to be translated into Russian. The humane and moral argument of this eloquent work is equally admirable and equally persuasive with the scientific proofs.

[271]

[272] See Pflanzenkost; oder die Grundlage einer Neuen Weltanschauung, Von Gustav Struve, Stuttgart, 1869. For the substance of the brief sketch of the life of Struve we are indebted to the courtesy of Herr Emil Weilshaeuser, the recently-elected President of the Vegetarian Society of Germany (Jan., 1882), himself the author of some valuable words on Reformed Dietetics.

[273] See SakuntalÀ, or the Fatal Ring, of the Hindu Shakspere KalidÂsa, the most interesting production of the Hindu Poetry. It has been translated into almost every European language.

[274] Mandaras’ Wanderungen. Zweite Ausgabe. Mannheim. Friedrich GÖtz. 1845. For a copy of this now scarce book we are indebted to the courtesy of Herr A. von Seefeld, of Hanover.

[275] Pflanzenkost, die Grundlage einer neuen Weltanschauung. Stuttgart, 1869. Cf. Liebig’s Chemische Briefe (“Letters on Chemistry.”)

[276] Das Seelenleben; oder die Naturgeschichte des Menschen. Von Gustav Struve. Berlin: Theobald Grieben. 1869.

[277]

[278] Quoted in Die NaturgemÄsse DiÄt: die DiÄt der Zukunft, von Theodor Hahn, CÖthen, 1859. For the substance of biographical notice prefixed to this article we are again indebted to the kindness of Herr Emil WeilshÄuser, of Oppeln.

[279] Das Menschendasein in seinen Weltewigen ZÜgen und Zeichen. Von Bogumil Goltz. Frankfurt.

[280] Compare the remarks of Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825), in his treatise on Education, Levana, in which he, too, in scarcely less emphatic language, protests against the general neglect of this department of morals. Among other references to the subject, the celebrated novelist thus writes: “Love is the second hemisphere of the moral heaven. Yet is the sacred being of love little established. Love is an inborn but differently distributed force and blood-heat of the heart (blutwÄrme des herzens). There are cold and warm-blooded souls, as there are animals. As for the child, so for the lower animal, love is, in fact, an essential impulse; and this central fire often, in the form of compassion, pierces its earth-crust, but not in every case.... The child (under proper education) learns to regard all animal life as sacred—in brief, they impart to him the feeling of a Hindu in place of the heart of a Cartesian philosopher. There is here a question of something more even than compassion for other animals; but this also is in question. Why is it that it has so long been observed that the cruelty of the child to the lower animals presages cruelty to men, just as the Old-Testament sacrifice of animals preshadowed that of the sacrifice of a man? It is for himself only the undeveloped man can experience pains and sufferings, which speak to him with the native tones of his own experience. Consequently, the inarticulate cry of the tortured animal comes to him just as some strange, amusing sound of the air; and yet he sees there life, conscious movement, both which distinguish them from the inanimate substances. Thus he sins against his own life, whilst he sunders it from the rest, as though it were a piece of machinery. Let life be to him [the child] sacred (heilig), even that which may be destitute of reason; and, in fact, does the child know any other? Or, because the heart beats under bristles, feathers, or wings, is it, therefore, to be of no account?”

[281] See a pamphlet upon this subject by Dr. V. GÜtzlaff—Schopenhauer ueber die Thiere und den Thierschutz: Ein Beitrag zur ethischen Seite der Vivisectionsfrage. Berlin, 1879.

[282] Le Fondement de La Morale, par Arthur Schopenhauer, traduit de l’Allemand par A. Burdeau. Paris, BailliÈre et Cie, 1879.

[283] Quoted in Die NaturgemÄsse DiÄt, die DiÄt der Zukunft, von Theodor Hahn, 1859. We may note here that Moleschott, the eminent Dutch physiologist, and a younger contemporary of Liebig, alike with the distinguished German Chemist and with the French zoologist, Buffon, is chargeable with a strange inconsistency in choosing his place among the apologists of kreophagy, in spite of his conviction that “the legumes are superior to flesh-meat in abundance of solid constituents which they contain; and, while the amount of albuminous substances may surpass that in flesh-meat by one-half, the constituents of fat and the salts are also present in a greater abundance.” (See Die NaturgemÄsse DiÄt, von Theodor Hahn, 1859). But, in fact, it is only too obvious why at present the large majority of Scientists, while often fully admitting the virtues, or even the superiority of the purer diet, yet after all enrol themselves on the orthodox side. Either they are altogether indifferent to humane teaching, or they want the courage of their convictions to proclaim the Truth.

[284] Among English philosophic writers, the arguments and warnings (published in the Dietetic Reformer during the past fifteen years) of the present head of the Society for the promotion of Dietary Reform in this country, Professor Newman, in regard to National Economy and to the enormous evils, present and prospective, arising from the prevalent insensibility to this aspect of National Reform are at once the most forcible and the most earnest. It would be well if our public men, and all who are in place and power, would give the most earnest heed to them. But this, unhappily, under the present prevailing political and social conditions, experience teaches to be almost a vain expectation.

[285] ?????s? GrÆvius, the famous German Scholar of the 17th century, maintains to mean here Fruits, not “Flocks,” according to the vulgar interpretation, and the translation of GrÆvius, it will be allowed, is at least more consistent with the context than is the latter. It must be added that the whole verse bracketed is of doubtful genuineness.

[286] This remarkable passage, it is highly interesting to note, is the earliest indication of the idea of “guardian angels,” which afterwards was developed in the Platonic philosophy; and which, considerably modified by Jewish belief, derived from the Persian theology, finally took form in the Christian creed. Compare the beautiful idea of guardian angels, or spirits in the Prologue of the Shipwreck of Plautus.

[287] See PoetÆ Minores GrÆci ... Aliisque Accessionibus Aucta. Edited by Thomas Gaisford. Vol. III. LipsiÆ, 1823.

[288]

[289] The Light of Asia: or, The Great Renunciation (MahÂbhinishkramana). Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India, and Founder of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist). By Edwin Arnold. London: TrÜbner.—In the Hindu Epic, the MahÂbhÂrata, the same great principle is apparent, though less conspicuously:—

[290] Compare the beautiful verses of Lucretius—who, almost alone amongst the poets, has indignantly denounced the vile and horrible practice of sacrifice—picturing the inconsolable grief the Mother Cow bereft of her young, who has been ravished from her for the sacrificial altar:—

See also the memorable verses in which the rationalist poet stigmatises the vicarious sacrifice of Iphigeneia.—Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum (L).

[291] See, also, Fasti, already quoted above.

[292] Florilegium of StobÆus—(17–43 and 18–38), quoted by Professor Mayor in Dietetic Reformer, July, 1881. In the erudite and exhaustive edition of Juvenal, by Professor Mayor (Macmillan, Cambridge), will be found a large number of quotations from Greek and Latin writers, and a great deal of interesting matter upon frugal living.

[293] “Hygiasticon: On the Right Course of Preserving Life and Health unto Extreme Old Age; together with Soundness and Integrity of the Senses, Judgment, and Memory. Written in Latin by Leonard Lessius, and now done into English. The second edition. Printed by the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge, 1634.” Lessio, like his master Cornaro, Haller, and many other advocates of a reformed diet, was influenced not at all by humanitarian, but by health reasons only.

[294] Cf. Plutarch—Essay on Flesh-Eating.

[295] Some Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Tryon, late of London, Merchant. Written by Himself. London, 1705.

[296] Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri.—Ovid, Met. I.

[297] Compare Seneca and Chrysostom, above.

[298] If Tryon could point to diseases among the victims of the shambles in the 17th century, what use might he not make of the epidemics or endemics of the present day?

[299] The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness: or a Discourse of Temperance, and the Particular Nature of all things Requisite for the Life of Man.... The Like never before Published. Communicated to the World, for the General Good, by Philotheos Physiologus [Tryon’s nom de plume.] London, 1683. It is (in its best parts) the worthy precursor of The Herald of Health, and of the valuable hygienic philosophy of its able editor—Dr. T. L. Nichols.

[300] See Biog. Universelle, Art. Philippe Hecquet

[301] TraitÉ des Dispenses, &c. Par Philippe Hecquet, M.D., Paris. Ed. 1709.

[302]

[303] And, Pope might have added, a more diabolical torture still—calves bled to death by a slow and lingering process—hung up (as they often are) head downwards. Although not universal as it was some ten years ago, this, among other Christian practices, yet flourishes in many parts of the country, unchecked by legal intervention.

[304] See Article, Plutarch, above.

[305] So far, at least, as the natural and necessary wants of each species are concerned.—That “Nature” is regardless of suffering, is but too apparent in all parts of our globe. It is the opprobrium and shame of the human species that, placed at the head of the various races of beings, it has hitherto been the Tyrant, and not the Pacificator.

[306] The Four Stages of Cruelty, in which, beginning with the torture of other animals, the legitimate sequence is fulfilled in the murder of the torturer’s mistress or wife.

[307] Which is the accomplice really guilty? The ignorant, untaught, wretch who has to gain his living some way or other, or those who have been entrusted with, or who have assumed, the control of the public conscience—the statesman, the clergy, and the schoolmaster? Undoubtedly it is upon these that almost all the guilt lies, and always will lie.

[309] “That is,” remarks Ritson, “in a state of Society influenced by Superstition, Pride, and a variety of prejudices equally unnatural and absurd.”

[310] “The converse of all this is true. He is certainly taught by example, and by temptation, and prompted by (what he thinks is) interest.”—Note by Ritson in Abstinence from Flesh a Moral Duty.

[311] Among living enlightened medical authorities of the present day, Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., perhaps the most eminent hygeist and sanitary reformer in the country now living, has delivered his testimony in no doubtful terms to the superiority of the purer diet. In his recent publication Salutisland he has banished the slaughter-house, with all its abominations, from that model State. See also his Hygieia.

[312] L’Art de Prolonger la Vie et de Conserver la SantÉ: ou, TraitÉ d’HygiÈne. Par M. Pressavin, GraduÉ de l’UniversitÉ de Paris; Membre du CollÈge Royal de Chirurgie de Lyon, et Ancien Demonstrateur en MatiÈre Medicale-Chirurgicale. A Lyon, 1786.

[313] Die Eleusische Fest.

[314] Der AlpenjÄger. See also GÖthe—Italienische Reise, XXIII. 42; Aus Meinem Leben, XXIV. 23; Werther’s Leiden; Brief 12.

[315] Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (page 311). By Jeremy Bentham, M.A., Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, &c.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876. It must be added that the assumption (on the same page on which this cogent reasoning is found), that man has the right to kill his fellow-beings, for the purpose of feeding upon their flesh, is one more illustration of the strange inconsistencies into which even so generally just and independent a thinker as the author of the Book of Fallacies may be forced by the “logic of circumstances.” Among recent notable Essays upon the Rights of the Lower Animals (the right to live excepted) may here be mentioned—Animals and their Masters, by Sir Arthur Helps (1873), and The Rights of an Animal, by Mr. E. B. Nicholson, librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford (1877).

[316] Compare the Voyages of Volney, one of the most philosophical of the thinkers of the eighteenth century, who himself for some time seems to have lived on the non-flesh diet. Attributing the ferocious character of the American savage, “hunter and butcher, who, in every animal sees but an object of prey, and who is become an animal of the species of wolves and of tigers,” to such custom, this celebrated traveller adds the reflection that “the habit of shedding blood, or simply of seeing it shed, corrupts all sentiments of humanity.” (See Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte.) See, too, Thevenot (the younger), an earlier French traveller, who describes a Banian hospital, in which he saw a number of sick Camels, Horses, and Oxen, and many invalids of the feathered race. Many of the lower Animals, he informs us, were maintained there for life, those who recovered being sold to Hindus exclusively.

[317] This feeling occasionally appears in his poems, as, for instance, when describing a “banquet” and its flesh-eating guests, he wonders how “Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.”

[318] Note on this point the words of the late W. R. Greg, to the effect that “the amount of human life sustained on a given area may be almost indefinitely increased by the substitution of vegetable for animal food;” and his further statement—“A given acreage of wheat will feed at least ten times as many men as the same acreage employed in growing ‘mutton.’ It is usually calculated that the consumption of wheat by an adult is about one quarter per annum, and we know that good land produces four quarters. But let us assume that a man living on grain would require two quarters a year; still one acre would support two men. But, a man living on [flesh] meat would need 3lbs. a day, and it is considered a liberal calculation if an acre spent in grazing sheep and cattle will yield in ‘beef’ and ‘mutton’ more than 50lb. on an average—the best farmer in Norfolk having averaged 90lb., but a great majority of farms in Great Britain only reach 20lb. On these data it would require 22 acres of pasture land to sustain one adult person living on [flesh] meat. It is obvious that in view of the adoption of a vegetable diet lies the indication of a vast increase in the population sustainable on a given area.”—Social and Political Problems (TrÜbner).

[319] “Of the Cruelty connected with he Culinary Arts” in Philozoa; or, Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, and on the Means of Improving the Same; with numerous Anecdotes and Illustrative Notes, addressed to Lewis Gompertz, Esq., President of the Animals’ Friend Society: By T. Forster, M.B., F.R.A.S., F.L.S., &c. Brussels, 1839. The writer well insists that, however remote may be a universal Reformation, every individual person, pretending to any culture or refinement of mind, is morally bound to abstain from sanctioning, by his dietetic habits, the revolting atrocities “connected with the culinary arts, of which Mr. Young, in his Book on Cruelty, has given a long catalogue.”