No Animal Food | Page 7

not equally
well subsist on vegetable food under similar conditions.
In an article entitled Vegetarianism in Cold Climates, by Captain
Walter Carey, R.N., the author describes his observations during a
winter spent in Manchuria. The weather, we are told, was exceedingly
cold, the thermometer falling as low as minus 22° F. After speaking of
the various arduous labours the natives are engaged in, Captain Carey
describes the physique and diet of natives in the vicinity of
Niu-Chwang as follows: 'The men accompanying the carts were all
very big and of great strength, and it was obvious that none but
exceptionally strong and hardy men could withstand the hardships of
their long march, the intense cold, frequent blizzards, and the work of
forcing their queer team along in spite of everything. One could not
help wondering what these men lived on, and I found that the chief
article was beans, which, made into a coarse cake, supplied food for
both men and animals. I was told by English merchants who travelled
in the interior, that everywhere they found the same powerful race of
men, living on beans and rice--in fact, vegetarians. Apparently they
obtain the needful proteid and fat from the beans; while the coarse
once-milled rice furnishes them with starch, gluten, and mineral salts,
etc. Spartan fare, indeed, but proving how easy it is to sustain life
without consuming flesh-food.'
So far, then, as the physical condition of those nations who are
practically vegetarian is concerned, we have to conclude that practice

tallies with theory. Science teaches that man should live on a non-flesh
diet, and when we come to consider the physique of those nations and
men who do so, we have to acknowledge that their bodily powers and
their health equal, if not excel, those of nations and men who, in part,
subsist upon flesh. But it is interesting to go yet further. It has already
been stated that mind and body are inseparable; that one reacts upon the
other: therefore it is not irrelevant, in passing, to observe what mental
powers are possessed by those races and individuals who subsist
entirely upon the products of the vegetable kingdom.
When we come to consider the mentality of the Oriental races we
certainly have to acknowledge that Oriental culture--ethical,
metaphysical, and poetical--has given birth to some of the grandest and
noblest thoughts that mankind possesses, and has devised philosophical
systems that have been the comfort and salvation of countless millions
of souls. Anyone who doubts the intellectual and ethical attainments of
that remarkable nation of which we in the West know so little--the
Chinese--should read the panegyric written by Sir Robert Hart, who,
for forty years, lived among them, and learnt to love and venerate them
as worthy of the highest admiration and respect. Others have written in
praise of the people of Burma. Speaking of the Burman, a traveller
writes: 'He will exercise a graceful charity unheard of in the West--he
has discovered how to make life happy without selfishness and to
combine an adequate power for hard work with a corresponding ability
to enjoy himself gracefully ... he is a philosopher and an artist.'
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