Brighton, October 29, 1922.
I AM flattered by Mr. Arch’s reference, in his “Book Chat,” to my Seventy Years Among Savages; but I wish he had dwelt rather upon the points wherein we agree than upon those in which we differ. The book is rationalistic throughout (it shows, as the Church Times remarked, “to what substitutes a man is driven when he has eliminated belief in God from his life”); and vegetarianism is only one of many subjects that are discussed in it. If Mr. Arch is “an incorrigible meat-eater,” it is hardly worth while for me to attempt to illuminate him; especially as the festive season of the Christian Saturnalia is drawing so near. But I think he would be well advised to search for a better argument against the humane diet than the one which he suggests : that the “means of subsistence” might fail unless we have recourse to flesh-food. It was pointed out by Mr. W. R. Greg, in his Enigmas of Life, that “the amount of human life sustainable on a given area may be almost indefinitely increased by a substitution pro tanto of vegetable for animal food,” and that “a given acreage of wheat will feed at least ten times as many men as the same acreage employed in growing mutton.
Literary Guide, December 1922