Now, I wish to make it plain that vegetarians are not wedded to any a priori theory that the lines of dietetic development are stringently limited by the original structure of man. If the flesh-eater appeals, as he so often does, to physical structure, with the intent of attributing carnivorous instincts to mankind, we confront him with an array of scientific opinion which quickly makes him wish he had let the subject alone; and if he insists on the "evolutional" rather than the "natural" aspect of the problem, we are equally ready to meet him on this newer ground. But we decline to fall victims to the rather disingenuous quibble that lurks in the specious application to mankind of the term "omnivorous."
For what, in the present connection, does the word "omnivorous" mean? It cannot, obviously, mean that man should, like the hog, eat everything, for, if so, it would sanction not only flesh-eating, but cannibalism, and we should have to class mankind (so Professor Mayor has wittily remarked) as hominivorous! It must mean, presumably, that man is fitted to eat not everything, but anything—vegetable food or animal food—implying that he is eclectic in his diet, free to choose what is good and reject what is bad, without being bound by any original law of nature.[[7]] To the name "omnivorous," used not in the hoggish sense, but in this rational sense, and not excluding, as the scientists would absurdly make it exclude, the force of moral and other considerations, the vegetarian need raise no objection. Man is "omnivorous," is he? He may select his own diet from the vegetable and animal kingdoms? Well and good: that is just what we have always advised him to do, and we are prepared to give reasons, moral and hygienic, why, in making the selection, he should omit the use, not of all animal products, but of flesh. The scientists cannot have it both ways. They cannot dogmatise on diet as a thing settled by comparative anatomy, and also assert that man is "omnivorous"—i.e., free to choose what is best.
But let us return to our monkeys.
Scientist: You just now quoted the gorilla as a frugivorous animal, but, on further consideration, I cannot admit him to be so. He is omnivorous—like man. I have Sir Richard Owen's authority for it.
Vegetarian: What! Does the ape rush upon the antelopes, and rend them with those canine teeth of his? How horrible!
Scientist: Not exactly that; but it was stated by Sir Henry Thompson that "Sally," the large chimpanzee once so popular in the Zoological Gardens, was not infrequently supplied with animal food.
Vegetarian: Well, and how does that prove that the chimpanzee is not naturally frugivorous? I should imagine that any one of us, if placed in a cage, and stared at all the year round by a throng of gaping visitors, might be liable to aberrations. Even a vegetarian might do the same.
Scientist: But in their wild state also the baboons are known to prey on lizards, young birds, eggs, etc., when they can get them. Perhaps you were not aware of this when you called the apes frugivorous?
Vegetarian: I was quite aware of it, and in view of the exceedingly small importance of these casual pilferings as compared with their staple diet, I maintain that they are, for all practical purposes, frugivorous. Indeed, so far from this mischievous penchant of the apes being an argument against vegetarianism, it is most suggestive as explaining how the early savages may have passed, almost by accident at first, from a frugivorous to a mixed diet.
Scientist: Well, at any rate, it indicates that apes have a tendency to become omnivorous.