e choice of his nourishment;
that he must reduce by two-thirds the quantity of nitrogen he absorbs,
and largely increase the volume of hydrocarbons; that a little fruit,
or milk, a few vegetables, farinaceous substances--now the mere
accessory of the too plentiful repasts which he works so hard to
provide, which are his chief object in life, the goal of his efforts,
of his strenuous, incessant labour--are amply sufficient to maintain
the ardour of the finest and mightiest life. It is not my purpose here
to discuss the question of vegetarianism, or to meet the objections
that may be urged against it; though it must be admitted that of these
objections not one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous inquiry. I,
for my part, can affirm that those whom I have known to submit
themselves to this regimen have found its result to be improved or
restored health, marked addition of strength, and the acquisition by
the mind of a clearness, brightness, well-being, such as might follow
the release from some secular, loathsome, detestable dungeon. But we
must not conclude these pages with an essay on alimentation, reasonable
as such a proceeding might be. For in truth all our justice, morality,
all our thoughts and feelings, derive from three or four primordial
necessities, whereof the principal one is food. The least modification
of one of these necessities would entail a marked change in our moral
existence. Were the belief one day to become general that man could
dispense with animal food, there would ensue not only a great economic
revolution--for a bullock, to produce one pound of meat, consumes more
than a hundred of provender--but a moral improvement as well, not less
important and certainly more sincere and more lasting than might follow
a second appearance on the earth of the Envoy of the Father, come to
remedy the errors and omissions of his former pilgrimage. For we find
that the man who abandons the regimen of meat abandons alcohol also;
and to do this is to renounce most of the coarser and more degraded
pleasures of life. And it is in the passionate craving for these
pleasures, in their glamour, and the prejudice they create, that the
most formidable obstacle is found to the harmonious development of the
race. Detachment therefrom creates noble leisure, a new order of
desires, a wish for enjoyment that must of necessity be loftier than
the gross satisfactions which have their origin in alcohol. But are
days such as