Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages / Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

by William A. Alcott

CHAPTER VIII.

VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED.

General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument—1. The Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The Moral Argument.—Conclusion.

In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view.

There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine following heads, viz., the anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the economical, the experimental, the moral, the millennial, and the bible arguments.

Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical argument—though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several others.

Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject of vegetable dietetics to a system than any other individual,—though he makes much use of all the rest, especially the moral and medical,—appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold—the grand citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel.

If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted to fill the space which he appears to have been originally designed to fill—the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an heir of a glorious immortality.

But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned to this chapter.