In the five preceding chapters I have advanced a number of reasons for thinking that the natural diet of man is vegetarian or fruitarian, and have endeavoured to show why flesh-eating is injurious. We saw that, from anatomical structure, from physiological function, from chemical analysis, for hygienic reasons, and because of the past experience of nations and individuals—for all these reasons man should abstain from meat. In the present chapter I shall adduce a number of miscellaneous arguments, tending to show that flesh is not man’s natural food; and that he cannot make it an article of his diet without violating many of the laws of his organisation—mental and moral, as well as physiological. These laws are important, also, and have their rightful place, just as mental and moral considerations have their place in any other question; and I shall accordingly consider them here.
There is first of all the humanitarian argument. This argument is perfectly legitimate, so far as it goes, and a most forceful one. The idea of taking life unnecessarily is very repellant to some—those who have not become hardened, and who have thought of this matter at all. To see a cartload of young animals going to the slaughter-house is a sad if not a disgusting sight—especially when we consider that these animals are soon to be cut up, and made into human food! The ill-treatment which the animals receive, during shipment, is certainly not in favour of their flesh being in any too good condition when it is received at the slaughter-house; and, if mental conditions count for anything, in their effect upon the composition of the blood and tissue juices, there is very good reason for thinking that their bodies are pretty well poisoned before they are killed—even if they were healthy when they left the stock-farm. But, apart from such considerations, every animal has its right to live; the ox and the calf, and the sheep, and even the swine, has its mental life, just as man; and there is a universal life running throughout the animal kingdom, which it is no part of man’s duty to take needlessly. This brings me to a very important factor in the argument. It is the taking of life needlessly which the vegetarian protests against so strongly. If it were necessary to kill these animals; if man could not live without flesh, then killing and eating would be perfectly justifiable. It would simply be a case of the survival of the fittest, and man would be entitled to kill and eat other animals, just as the carnivora do. But it is not necessary in any degree. Man can live perfectly well without meat of any kind; and not only live as well, but far better! My arguments in the chapter devoted to the hygiene of this subject should prove that to the satisfaction of the reader. Man can live without animal flesh; consequently the eating of this flesh is purely to gratify an appetite—and a perverted appetite at that. No normal appetite could possibly crave flesh of any kind. So that there is no possible excuse for the killing and eating of animals, than this—except, of course, ignorance. After all, that is the greatest factor!
It is against this taking of life unnecessarily that the vegetarian protests not the taking of life at all. Besides, there is a difference between killing a highly organised and sensitive animal, and one far lower in the scale of Evolution. Shedding the blood of such animals is against all normal instincts. Said a lady once, to a gentleman who was eating beef: “How can you eat a thing that looks out of the eyes?” The very plaintiveness, coupled with the helplessness of such animals, should inspire a certain pity in the breasts of all who have any humanitarian instincts.
This aspect of the controversy throws a different and a more rational light upon this question. It has frequently been contended, e.g., that, if this humanitarian argument were carried far enough, it would become absurd, for the reason that every drop of water we drink, and every breath of air we breathe contains living animals, which we kill within our bodies! Moreover, every vegetable we cut or pick, takes life (such as it is) and consequently this argument cannot be carried to its logical conclusion, and is consequently worthless!
The position I have indicated above answers this objection. If we cannot live without taking the lives of certain animalculæ, or that of certain plants, then we must take their lives (for the most part, be it noted, unconsciously). But there is a great difference between this and taking the lives of highly organised animals intentionally and voluntarily. Besides, the one is necessary, the other not. As I said before, if meat were a necessary article of diet, there could be no possible objection to making it an article of food; but it is not necessary. That is the crux.
Further, it can be shown that, on a fruitarian diet, it is not necessary to take the life even of the fruit eaten! If a cabbage be cut, e.g., we thereby kill the cabbage—its psychic life, that is. The same is true of all other vegetables. But it will be observed that, when fruits are eaten, nothing is destroyed; no life taken unnecessarily. Fruits, when they are ripe, fall from the tree, and rot upon the ground—thus exposing the seed, and allowing it to become buried in the soil. It will be seen that the pulp of the fruit is of no further use to the seed; it has nourished it up to the time of its falling to the ground, but thenceforward, it is virtually useless to the seed. So that we might with justice feel that we were taking no life at all in eating this pulp of the fruit—which, again, would seem to indicate that fruit is man’s natural diet.[31] However, as I said before, I do not think it is necessary to split hairs so finely on this question. The valid ground to take is that it is wrong and cruel to take highly organised life uselessly; and I do not think that such an attitude is in any way open to criticism.
I may as well answer, in this place, one objection that has been frequently raised against vegetarians by the meat-eaters, which is that, if we did not eat meat, we should soon be overrun by the various animals, and there would be no room for man upon the earth! They would eventually crowd man out! This supposed argument is really absurd. In the first place, hardly one-tenth of the animals now brought into the world would be raised. They are now especially bred for eating purposes, and if the demand decreased, the supply would decrease also. Further, how is it that we are not overrun by wild animals of all sorts? We have never been in any danger from them, somehow; but it has invariably been found that they tend to recede before the advance of civilisation. Many survive, to be sure, but Nature seems to take care that their numbers are not unduly increased, so as to be a menace to the human race. If this be true of wild animals—which might really be a menace to the human race, if their numbers were sufficiently increased—it is certainly all the more true of the harmless domestic animals. Nature would
see to it that man was not overrun by animals of any sort, as she always has in the past. People need not worry about the future welfare of the bovine race, if they would only be a little more humane in their treatment of its present representatives!
There is an ethical and an æsthetic aspect of diet, just as there is a hygienic and chemical aspect. There is a wider view of this question of diet than merely that of supplying the body with pabulum for the tissues; the body itself cannot be built equally well from all food-stuffs, but the body is cleaner and internally purer on some foods than upon others. The keeping of the body in a clean, pure state—a fit tenant for the soul—is in itself an aspect of the diet problem that should affect us most keenly. It is not as though food had no effect upon mental life and morals. Far from it. There is the closest inter-relation. The whole process of ingesting food is disgusting, in one sense, but that is no excuse for choosing, in consequence, carrion and offal to feed upon! Think of the condition of a man’s stomach who has eaten a regular table-d’hôte dinner, and compare it, in the mind’s eye, with the stomach of a man who has dined on peaches and Brazil nuts! Were one to stop and think of what meat is, and what it was, it is doubtful if one could eat it. It is merely dead and decaying flesh—flesh from the body of an animal. There is nothing more repellent to think about than the “scorched corpses,” as Bernard Shaw calls them, which grace the tables of so-called civilised people. The sight, the smell, the taste, all are repellent. Only by the fact that they are covered up, and their true nature concealed by cooking, and basting, and pickling, and peppering and salting can we eat them at all. If we were naturally carnivorous animals, we should delight in bloodshed and gore of all kind! We should go out and kill our dinner, just as we now eat it; and the one would seem no more repulsive to us than the other. Carnivorous animals secure their food in this way, and so should we, if we were naturally carnivorous. We should eat our flesh warm and quivering—just as it comes from the cow! But instead of this, what do we find? That the majority of people in civilised nations will not even consent to go near a slaughter-house! And when they do go, they come away sickened at the sights and the odours which they encounter. Take for example the following extracts from a diary—the notes being descriptive of a Chicago meat market:—