No Animal Food Part 2

Speaking of the Indian peasant a writer in an English journal says: 'The ryot lives in the face of Nature, on a simple diet easily procured, and inherits a philosophy, which, without literary culture, lifts his spirit into a higher plane of thought than other peasantries know of.

Abstinence from flesh food of any kind, not only gives him pure blood exempt from civilized diseases but makes him the friend and not the enemy, of the animal world around.'

Eastern literature is renowned for its subtle metaphysics. The higher types of Orientals are endowed with an extremely subtle intelligence, so subtle as to be wholly unintelligible to the ordinary Westerner. It is said that Pythagoras and Plato travelled in the East and were initiated into Eastern mysticism. The East possesses many scriptures, and the greater part of the writings of Eastern scholars consist of commentaries on the sacred writings. Among the best known monumental philosophical and literary achievements maybe mentioned the _Tao Teh C'hing_; the _Zend Avesta;_ the _Three Vedas_; the _Brahmanas_; the _Upanishads;_ and the _Bhagavad-gita_, that most beautiful 'Song Celestial' which for nearly two thousand years has moulded the thoughts and inspired the aspirations of the teeming millions of India.

As to the testimony of individuals it is interesting to note that some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, poets, moralists, and many men of note, in different walks of life, in past and modern times, have, for various reasons, been vegetarians, among whom have been named the following:--

Manu Zoroaster Pythagoras Zeno Buddha Isaiah Daniel Empedocles Socrates Plato Aristotle Porphyry John Wesley Franklin Goldsmith Ray Paley Isaac Newton Jean Paul Richter Schopenhauer Byron Gleizes Hartley Rousseau Iamblichus Hypatia Diogenes Quintus s.e.xtus Ovid Plutarch Seneca Apollonius The Apostles Matthew James James the Less Peter The Christian Fathers Clement Tertullian Origen Chrysostom St. Francis d'a.s.sisi Cornaro Leonardo da Vinci Milton Locke Spinoza Voltaire Pope Ga.s.sendi Swedenborg Thackeray Linnaeus Sh.e.l.ley Lamartine Michelet William Lambe Sir Isaac Pitman Th.o.r.eau Fitzgerald Herbert Burrows Garibaldi Wagner Edison Tesla Marconi Tolstoy George Frederick Watts Maeterlinck Vivekananda General Booth Mrs. Besant Bernard Shaw Rev. Prof. John E. B. Mayor Hon. E. Lyttelton Rev. R. J. Campbell Lord Charles Beresford Gen. Sir Ed. Bulwer etc., etc., etc.

The following is a list of the medical and scientific authorities who have expressed opinions favouring vegetarianism:--

M. Pouchet Baron Cuvier Linnaeus Professor Laurence, F.R.S.

Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S.

Ga.s.sendi Flourens Sir John Owen Professor Howard Moore Sylvester Graham, M.D.

John Ray, F.R.S.

Professor H. Schaafhausen Sir Richard Owen, F.R.S.

Charles Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S.

Dr. John Wood, M.D.

Professor Irving Fisher Professor A. Wynter Blyth, F.R.C.S.

Edward Smith, M.B., F.R.S., LL.B.

Adam Smith, F.R.S.

Lord Playfair, M.D., C.B.

Sir Henry Thompson, M.B., F.R.C.S.

Dr. F. J. Sykes, B. Sc.

Dr. Anna Kingsford Professor G. Sims Woodhead, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.

Alexander Haig, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.

Dr. W. B. Carpenter, C.B., F.R.S.

Dr. Josiah Oldfield, D.C.L., M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.

Virchow Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, M.P., F.R.C.S.

Dr. Robert Perks, M.D., F.R.C.S.

Dr. Kellogg, M.D.

Harry Campbell, M.D.

Dr. Olsen etc., etc.

Before concluding this section it might be pointed out that the curious prejudice which is always manifested when men are asked to consider any new thing is as strongly in evidence against food reform as in other innovations. For example, flesh-eating is sometimes defended on the ground that vegetarians do not look hale and hearty, as healthy persons should do. People who speak in this way probably have in mind one or two acquaintances who, through having wrecked their health by wrong living, have had to abstain from the 'deadly decoctions of flesh' and adopt a simpler and purer dietary. It is not fair to judge meat abstainers by those who have had to take to a reformed diet solely as a curative measure; nor is it fair to lay the blame of a vegetarian's sickness on his diet, as if it were impossible to be sick from any other cause. The writer has known many vegetarians in various parts of the world, and he fails to understand how anyone moving about among vegetarians, either in this country or elsewhere, can deny that such people look as healthy and cheerful as those who live upon the conventional omnivorous diet.

If a vegetarian, owing to inherited susceptibilities, or incorrect rearing in childhood, or any other cause outside his power to prevent, is sickly and delicate, is it just to lay the blame on his present manner of life? It would, indeed, seem most reasonable to a.s.sume that the individual in question would be in a much worse condition had he not forsaken his original and mistaken diet when he did. The writer once heard an acquaintance ridicule vegetarianism on the ground that Th.o.r.eau died of pulmonary consumption at forty-five! One is reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes' witty saying:--'The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye: the more it sees the light, the more it contracts.'

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

III

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The primary consideration in regard to the question of diet should be, as already stated, the hygienic. Having shown that the non-flesh diet is the more natural, and the more advantageous from the point of view of health, let us now consider which of the two--vegetarianism or omnivorism--is superior from the ethical point of view.

The science of ethics is the science of conduct. It is founded, primarily, upon philosophical postulates without which no code or system of morals could be formulated. Briefly, these postulates are, (a), every activity of man has as its deepest motive the end termed Happiness, (b) the Happiness of the individual is indissolubly bound up with the Happiness of all Creation. The truth of (a) will be evident to every person of normal intelligence: all arts and systems aim consciously, or unconsciously, at some good, and so far as names are concerned everyone will be willing to call the Chief Good by the term Happiness, although there may be unlimited diversity of opinion as to its nature, and the means to attain it. The truth of (b) also becomes apparent if the matter is carefully reflected upon. Everything that is _en rapport_ with all other things: the pebble cast from the hand alters the centre of gravity in the Universe. As in the world of things and acts, so in the world of thought, from which all action springs. Nothing can happen to the part but the whole gains or suffers as a consequence. Every breeze that blows, every cry that is uttered, every thought that is born, affects through perpetual metamorphoses every part of the entire Cosmic Existence.[2]

We deduce from these postulates the following ethical precepts: a wise man will, firstly, so regulate his conduct that thereby he may experience the greatest happiness; secondly, he will endeavour to bestow happiness on others that by so doing he may receive, indirectly, being himself a part of the Cosmic Whole, the happiness he gives. Thus supreme selfishness is synonymous with supreme egoism, a truth that can only be stated paradoxically.

Applying this latter precept to the matter in hand, it is obvious that since we should so live as to give the greatest possible happiness to all beings capable of appreciating it, and as it is an indisputable fact that animals can suffer pain, _and that men who slaughter animals needlessly suffer from atrophy of all finer feelings_, we should therefore cause no unnecessary suffering in the animal world. Let us then consider whether, knowing flesh to be unnecessary as an article of diet, we are, in continuing to demand and eat flesh-food, acting morally or not. To answer this query is not difficult.

It is hardly necessary to say that we are causing a great deal of suffering among animals in breeding, raising, transporting, and killing them for food. It is sometimes said that animals do not suffer if they are handled humanely, and if they are slaughtered in abattoirs under proper superintendence. But we must not forget the branding and castrating operations; the journey to the slaughter-house, which when trans-continental and trans-oceanic must be a long drawn-out nightmare of horror and terror to the doomed beasts; we must not forget the insatiable cruelty of the average cowboy; we must not forget that the animal inevitably spends at least some minutes of instinctive dread and fear when he smells and sees the spilt blood of his forerunners, and that this terror is intensified when, as is frequently the case, he witnesses the dying struggles, and hears the heart-rending groans; we must not forget that the best contrivances sometimes fail to do good work, and that a certain percentage of victims have to suffer a prolonged death-agony owing to the miscalculation of a bad workman. Most people go through life without thinking of these things: they do not stop and consider from whence and by what means has come to their table the flesh-food that is served there. They drift along through a mundane existence without feeling a pang of remorse for, or even thought of, the pain they are accomplices in producing in the sub-human world. And it cannot be denied, hide it how we may, either from our eyes or our conscience, that however skilfully the actual killing may usually be carried out, there is much unavoidable suffering caused to the beasts that have to be transported by sea and rail to the slaughter-house. The animals suffer violently from sea-sickness, and horrible cruelty (such as pouring boiling oil into their ears, and stuffing their ears with hay which is then set on fire, tail-twisting, etc.,) has to be practised to prevent them lying down lest they be trampled on by other beasts and killed; for this means that they have to be thrown overboard, thus reducing the profits of their owners, or of the insurance companies, which, of course, would be a sad calamity. Judging by the way the men act it does not seem to matter what cruelties and tortures are perpetuated; what heinous offenses against every humane sentiment of the human heart are committed; it does not matter to what depths of Satanic callousness man stoops provided always that--this is the supreme question--_there is money to be made by it_.

A writer has thus graphically described the scene in a cattle-boat in rough weather: 'Helpless cattle dashed from one side of the s.h.i.+p to the other, amid a ruin of smashed pens, with limbs broken from contact with hatchway combings or winches--dishorned, gored, and some of them smashed to mere bleeding ma.s.ses of hide-covered flesh. Add to this the shrieking of the tempest, and the frenzied moanings of the wounded beasts, and the reader will have some faint idea of the fearful scenes of danger and carnage ... the dead beasts, advanced, perhaps, in decomposition before death ended their sufferings, are often removed literally in pieces.'

And on the railway journey, though perhaps the animals do not experience so much physical pain as travelling by sea, yet they are often deprived of food, and water, and rest, for long periods, and mercilessly knocked about and bruised. They are often so injured that the cattle-men are surprised they have not succ.u.mbed to their injuries. And all this happens in order that the demand for _unnecessary_ flesh-food may be satisfied.

Those who defend flesh-eating often talk of humane methods of slaughtering; but it is significant that there is considerable difference of opinion as to what _is_ the most humane method. In England the pole-axe is used; in Germany the mallet; the Jews cut the throat; the Italians stab. It is obvious that each of these methods cannot be better than the others, yet the advocates of each method consider the others cruel. As Lieut. Powell remarks, this 'goes far to show that a great deal of cruelty and suffering is inseparable from all methods.'

It is hard to imagine how anyone believing he could live healthily on vegetable food alone, could, having once considered these things, continue a meat-eater. At least to do so he could not live his life in conformity with the precept that we should cause no unnecessary pain.

How unholy a custom, how easy a way to murder he makes for himself Who cuts the innocent throat of the calf, and hears unmoved its mournful plaint!

And slaughters the little kid, whose cry is like the cry of a child, Or devours the birds of the air which his own hands have fed!

Ah, how little is wanting to fill the cup of his wickedness!

What unrighteous deed is he not ready to commit.

Make war on noxious creatures, and kill them only, But let your mouths be empty of blood, and satisfied with pure and natural repasts.

OVID. _Metam._, _lib._ xv.

That we cannot find any justification for destroying animal life for food does not imply we should never destroy animal life. Such a cult would be pure fanaticism. If we are to consider physical well-being as of primary importance, it follows that we shall act in self-preservation 'making war on noxious creatures.' But this again is no justification for 'blood-sports.'

He who inflicts pain needlessly, whether by his own hand or by that of an accomplice, not only injures his victim, but injures himself. He stifles what n.o.bleness of character he may have and he cultivates depravity and barbarism. He destroys in himself the spirit of true religion and isolates himself from those whose lives are made beautiful by sympathy. No one need hope for a spiritual Heaven while helping to make the earth a b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. No one who asks others to do wrong for him need imagine he escapes the punishment meted out to wrong-doers. That he procures the service of one whose sensibilities are less keen than his own to procure flesh-food for him that he may gratify his depraved taste and love of conformity does not make him less guilty of crime. Were he to kill with his own hand, and himself dress and prepare the obscene food, the evil would be less, for then he would not be an accomplice in r.e.t.a.r.ding the spiritual growth of a fellow being. There is no shame in any _necessary_ labour, but that which is unnecessary is unmoral, and slaughtering animals to eat their flesh is not only unnecessary and unmoral; it is also cruel and immoral. Philosophers and transcendentalists who believe in the Buddhist law of Karma, Westernized by Emerson and Carlyle into the great doctrine of Compensation, realize that every act of unkindness, every deed that is contrary to the dictates of our n.o.bler instincts and reason, reacts upon us, and we shall truly reap that which we have sown. An act of brutality brutalizes, and the more we become brutalized the more we attract natures similarly brutal and get treated by them brutally. Thus does Nature sternly deal justice.

'Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.'

It is appropriate in this place to point out that some very pointed things are said in the Bible against the killing and eating of animals.

It has been said that it is possible by judiciously selecting quotations to find the Bible support almost anything. However this may be, the following excerpta are of interest:--

'And G.o.d said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.'--Gen. i., 29.

'But flesh with life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat.'--Gen. ix., 4.

'It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood.'--Lev. iii., 17.

'Ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl, or beast.'--Lev. vii., 26.

'Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.'--Lev.

xvii., 14.

'The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.'--Isaiah lxv.

'He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man.'--Isaiah lxvi., 3.