A strange comment this on the Andrew Wilson formula, that we should eat "that which is likest to our own composition!" For what if we have begun to recognise that the lower animals also are related to us by a close bond of kinship? From our knowledge of the past we form our judgment of the future, and see, with Thoreau, that "it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilised."[[54]]
VEGETARIANISM AS RELATED TO OTHER REFORMS
It is sometimes held by the champions of vegetarianism that reform of diet is the starting-point and foundation-stone of all other reform—a panacea for the ills and maladies of the world. This over-estimate on the part of a few enthusiasts of an unpopular cause is due, presumably, to a revolt from the contrary extreme of depreciation; for a little thought must show us that, in the complexity of modern life, there is no such thing as a panacea for social ailments, and that, as there is no royal road to knowledge, so there is no royal road to reform. It is impossible for vegetarianism to solve the social question, unless by alliance with various other reforms that are advancing pari passu—so interlocked and interdependent are all these struggles towards freedom. It has been well said that, "By humanitarians, socialists, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists, teetotalers, land-reformers, and all such seekers of human welfare, this must be borne in mind—that each of their particular efforts is but a detail of the whole work of social regeneration, and that we cannot rightly understand and direct our own little piece of effort unless we know it, and pursue it, as part of the great whole."[[55]]
Still more mistaken, on the other hand, is that common prejudice against food reform which would exclude it altogether from the dignity of propagandism, and would limit it to the personal practice of individuals. "There can be no objection," says Dr. Burney Yeo, "to individuals adopting any kind of diet which they may find answer their needs and minister to their comfort; it is only when they attempt to enforce what they practise on others that they must expect to encounter rational opposition."[[56]] Unfortunately, we have learnt by bitter experience that rational opposition is the last thing we can expect to encounter—as, indeed, is made sufficiently evident by Dr. Yeo's argument. For how could individual vegetarians have ever heard of the new diet except for the propaganda? And why have vegetarians, as a body, less right than teetotalers, socialists, or any other propagandists, not to "enforce," but to advocate their philosophy of diet with the view of ultimately influencing public opinion? This professional attempt to class vegetarianism as an idiosyncrasy, and not a system, is as irrational as it is insincere, and what its insincerity is may be seen from the fact that, though we are told at one moment that "there can be no objection" to individual practice of the diet, yet whenever individuals do attempt to practise it, they meet with the strongest possible objection from the doctors themselves!
Thus it comes about that in this progressive age, and even among those who label themselves "progressives," vegetarianism is so frequently regarded as a mere whim and crotchet, with no practical bearing on the forward movement of to-day. It is a marvel that so many "advanced" journals, which have a good word for a host of worthy causes that are fighting an uphill battle against monopoly and injustice—social reform, land reform, law reform, prison reform, hospital reform, and a hundred more—are dumb as death, or speak only to sneer, when the subject is food reform; and thus lead their readers to suppose that, whereas on all other matters there has been a great change of feeling during the past half-century, on the one matter of diet there has been no sort of progress! Yet they might easily learn, if they made serious inquiry, that the reformed dietetics, so far from being the outcome of mere sentiment about animals, have a past record based as surely on moral and scientific reasoning as that of any cause included in the progressive programme. Vegetarianism is, in truth, progressiveness in diet; and for a progressive to scout such ideas as valueless and Utopian is to play the part (as far as diet is concerned) of a reactionist. What is the meaning of this strange discrepancy? It must mean, we fear, that to a large number of our social reformers the reform of other persons is a much more congenial battle cry than the reform of one's self. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. They call vegetarianism "impracticable" for the strange reason that, unlike most isms, it asks them to do something individually which they know they could do—if they wished! It is impracticable because it does not suit them to practise it.
Reformer: Let me entreat you; give up this fanciful scheme of vegetarianism and come and work for social reform.
Vegetarian: Social reform without food reform! Is not that rather a lame and lop-sided business?
Reformer: Not at all. When we have so many things to do we must do the most important ones first.
Vegetarian: And what are the most important?