The Ethics of Diet / A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh Eating

by Howard Williams

“Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.

“The orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order and in the number of his teeth. The orang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape tribe, all of whom are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists.[237] In many frugivorous animals the canine teeth are more pointed and distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to that of the orang-outang is greater than to that of any other animal.

“The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure vegetable diet in every essential particular. It is true that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds as to be scarcely overcome. But this is far from bringing any argument in its favour. A Lamb, who was fed for some time on flesh by a ship’s crew, refused her natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are numerous instances of Horses, Sheep, Oxen, and even Wood-Pigeons having been taught to live upon flesh until they have loathed their natural aliment. Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced serious inconveniences—for a time, I say, since there never was an instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses on the present system. A love of strong liquors also is with difficulty taught infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably unerring, but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted appetites which its continued adoption produces, is to make the criminal a judge of his own cause. It is even worse, for it is appealing to the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy.

“Except in children, there remain no traces of that instinct which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally frugivorous.

“Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease shall be discovered, the root from which all vice and misery have so long overshadowed the Globe will be bare to the axe. All the exertions of man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear profit of his species. No sane mind in a sane body resolves upon real crime.... The system of a simple diet promises no Utopian advantages. It is no mere reform of legislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small societies, families, and even individuals. In no cases has a return to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been attended with changes undeniably beneficial. Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded that he might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits as clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation....

“By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at rest. But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease to palliate their torments by medicine than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile, yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear that those who live naturally are exempt from premature death as that one is not nine, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful, life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three years. Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and pure water, are then in perfect health. More than two years have now elapsed—not one of them has died. No such example will be found in any sixty persons taken at random.

“Seventeen persons of all ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven years on this diet without a death, and almost without the slightest illness.... In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of evidence, and when a thousand persons can be produced living on vegetables and distilled water,[238] who have to dread no disease but old age, the world will be compelled to regard flesh and fermented liquors as slow but certain poisons.”

Shelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet economically, socially, and politically:—

“The monopolising eater of flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a meal; and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working peasant’s hungry babes. The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraved, indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now actually cultivated by men for [other] animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the nation, that should take the lead in this great reform, would insensibly become agricultural.

“The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect the cause will cease to operate....