THE PAST AND PRESENT OF
VEGETARIANISM
But, it may be said, before entering on a consideration of this reformed diet, for which such great merits are claimed by its exponents, the practical man is justified in asking for certain solid assurances, since busy people cannot be expected to give their time to speculations which, however beautiful in themselves, may prove at the end to be in conflict with the hard facts of life. And the first of these questions is, What is the historic basis of vegetarianism? In what sense is it an old movement, and in what sense a new one? Has it a past which may serve in some measure to explain its present and guarantee its future?
Such questions have been dealt with fully from time to time in vegetarian literature.[[3]] I can here do no more than epitomise the answers. Vegetarianism, regarded simply as a practice and without relation to any principle, is of immemorial date; it was, in fact, as physiology shows us, the original diet of mankind, while, as history shows us, it has always been the diet of the many, as flesh food has been the diet of the few, and even to this day it is the main support of the greater part of the world's inhabitants. Numberless instances might be quoted in proof of these assertions; it is sufficient to refer to the people of India, China, and Japan, the Egyptian fellah, the Bedouin Arab, the peasantry of Russia and Turkey, the labourers and miners of Chili and other South American States; and, to come nearer home, the great bulk of the country folk in Western Europe and Great Britain. The peasant, here and all the world over, has been, and still is, in the main a vegetarian, and must for the most part continue so; and the fact that this diet has been the result, not of choice, but of necessity, does not lessen the significance of its perfect sufficiency to maintain those who do the hard work of the world. Side by side with the tendency of the wealthier classes to indulge more and more in flesh food has been the undisputed admission that for the workers such luxuries were unneeded.
During the last half-century, however, as we all know, the unhealthy and crowded civilisation of great industrial centres has produced among the urban populations of Europe a craving for flesh food, which has resulted in their being fed largely on cheap butchers' meat and offal; while there has grown up a corresponding belief that we must look almost entirely to a flesh diet for bodily and mental vigour. It is in protest against this comparatively new demand for flesh as a necessity of life that vegetarianism, as a modern organised movement, has arisen.
Secondly, if we look back for examples of deliberate abstinence from flesh—that is, of vegetarianism practised as a principle before it was denoted by a name—we find no lack of them in the history of religious and moral systems and individual lives. Such abstinence was an essential feature in the teaching of Buddha and Pythagoras and is still practised in the East on religious and ceremonial grounds by Brahmins and Buddhists. It was inculcated in the humanitarian writings of great "pagan" philosophers, such as Plutarch and Porphyry, whose ethical precepts, as far as the treatment of the lower animals is concerned, are still far in advance of modern Christian sentiment. Again, in the prescribed regimen of certain religious Orders, such as Benedictines, Trappists, and Carthusians, we have further unquestionable evidence of the disuse of flesh food, though in such cases the reason for the abstinence is ascetic rather than humane. When we turn to the biographies of individuals, we learn that there have been numerous examples of what is now called "vegetarianism"—not always consistent, indeed, or continuous in practice, yet sufficiently so to prove the entire possibility of the diet, and to remove it from the category of generous aspiration into that of accomplished fact.[[4]]
But granting that there is historic basis for the vegetarian system, the question is asked whether, on ethnological evidence, it does not appear that the dominant races have been for the most part carnivorous, and the subject races vegetarian—a line of argument which always appeals strongly to the patriotic Briton.
Patriot: Come, now; it is all very well to talk of philosophers and poets, and I have no doubt you can point to such names among the founders of your creed, but what I ask is, Were the founders of the British Empire vegetarians? Were any great empires ever founded by vegetarians? Was Julius Cæsar a vegetarian? Was Wellington a vegetarian? Can you give me any instance of vegetarianism as a fighting force?
Vegetarian: As regards the rank and file of conquering armies, there are many such instances, both in ancient and modern history. The diet of the Roman soldier was not that of a flesh-eater, and the Roman Empire was assuredly not won by virtue of flesh-eating, but by the hardihood which could subsist on simple rations of wheat, oil, and wine. So, too, the armies which built up the earlier empires of Egypt and Assyria were, for the most part, vegetarian. That is to say, while the rulers and wealthy classes of fighting nations have been carnivorous, the bulk of the soldiery, drawn from the frugal peasant class, has been unaccustomed to such luxuries. The idea that the flesh-eating races have everywhere subjugated the vegetarians is quite illusory.
Patriot: But surely in India the flesh-eating Mohammedan has always conquered the vegetarian Hindu?
Vegetarian: Not by any means always. It took him centuries of fierce fighting to do so, with all the advantages of religious fanaticism on his side, as against an enemy weakened by internal dissension and an enervating climate. But that Mohammedanism does not depend on flesh food for its fighting qualities may be seen from the case of that special ally and favourite of yours, the Turk. Let me read you what the Standard said of him some twenty years back: "From the day of his irruption into Europe, the Turk has always proved himself to be endowed with singularly strong vitality and energy. As a member of a warlike race, he is without equal in Europe in health and hardiness. He can live and fight when soldiers of any other nationality would starve. His excellent physique, his simple habits, his abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to support the greatest hardships, and to subsist on the scantiest and simplest food." Have I said enough to show you that vegetarianism may be a fighting force?