No Animal Food | Page 8

etc.
The following is a list of the medical and scientific authorities who have expressed opinions favouring vegetarianism:--
M. Pouchet Baron Cuvier Linn?us Professor Laurence, F.R.S. Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S. Gassendi 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 assume 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 Thoreau 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 classes throughout the world, the strongest evidence that those who adopt a sensible non-flesh dietary, suited to their own constitution 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