The subject of Food-reform might reasonably be expected to provide both instruction and interesting matter of thought, to cultured persons who have apprehended the truth that the building of the human temple is a matter that deserves our serious consideration. But very few indeed would expect that the subject could be handled in such a manner as to provide amusement as well as instruction. This task, however, is accomplished by Mr. H. S. Salt in his Essays and Dialogues entitled The Logic of Vegetarianism, a book which is worthy of study by all progressive thinkers and students of the higher philosophy of life.
All the conventional arguments against Vegetarianism, which are usually raised by prejudiced and short-sighted people, are met by the author in such a logical manner as to bring conviction to every reasonable reader of this collection of pros and cons appertaining to the ethics of Diet. And the twenty chapters include such topics as: The Raison d’être of Vegetarianism, Structural Evidence, The Appeal to Nature, Palliations and Sophistries, The Consistency Trick, the Aesthetic Argument, The Hygienic Argument, Digestion, Conditions of Climate, Flesh Meat and Morals, Vegetarianism as related to Other Reforms, etc.
The following extract from the chapter entitled “Flesh-Meat and Morals” will give our readers some idea of the earnestness of tone that characterizes Mr, Salt’s writing, and perhaps induce them to obtain the book and study it:—
“‘Man is what he eats,’ says the materialist in the German proverb. The body is built up of the food-stuffs which it assimilates, and it is reasonable to suppose that diet has thus a determining influence on character. If this be true, the reflection is not a pleasant one for the flesh-eater. ‘Animal food,’ it has been said, ‘containing as it does highly-wrought organic forces, may liberate within our system powers which we may find it difficult or even impossible to dominate—-lethargic monsters, foul harpies, and sad-visaged tenures—which may insist on having their own way, building up an animal body not truly human.’
“If mind affects matter, matter also affects mind; if spirit acts on food, food in its turn reacts on spirit. The one truth that stands out clearly from a consideration of this subject, and from the witness of common experience, is that a gross animal diet is inimical to the finer instincts, and that, as Thorean says, “every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or more poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food.’ . . .
“But there is a tendency among certain ‘phychical’ authorities of the present day to eschew the vegetarian doctrine as itself ‘materialistic,’ and as attributing too much importance to the mere bodily functions of eating and digesting. ‘What does it matter about our diet,’ they say, ‘whether it be animal or vegetable, flesh or fruit, so long as the spirit in which we seek it be a fit and proper one? The question of food is one for the doctors to decide; ‘tis they who are concerned with the body, while we are concerned with the soul.’ I wish to show that this reasoning is nothing but a piece of charlatanry, and rests upon a perversion of the philosophy that it claims to represent.
“For though it is true, in a sense, that spirit can sanctify diet, it is not true that a general sanction is thereby given to any diet, whatsoever, no matter what cruelties may be caused by it, or who it be that causes them. We may grant that so long as no scruple has arisen concerning the morality of flesh-eating, or any other barbarous usage, such practices may be carried on in innocence and good faith, and therefore without personal demoralization to those who indulge in them.
“But from the moment when discussion begins, and an unconscious act becomes a conscious or a semi-conscious one, the case is wholly different, and it is then impossible to plead that ‘it does not matter’ about one’s food. On the contrary, it is a matter of vital import if injustice be deliberately practised. To use flesh-food unwittingly, by savage instinct, as the carnivora do, or, like barbarous mankind, in the ignorance of age-long habit, is one thing; but it is quite another thing for a rational person to make a sophistical defence of such habits when their iniquity has been displayed, and then to claim that he is absolved from guilt by the spirit in which he acted.”
As the vegetarian and fruitarian ideal is now gaining adherents in all sections of Society, and as it is more than probable that within another decade the dietetic habits of the people will be very much changed in this direction, it behoves all who take an interest in the great work of spiritual evolution, and would desire to keep abreast of contemporary and humane thought, to give this subject the serious consideration which it deserves—and to help forward the Food Reformation by personal influence and example. For when the carnivorous habit is abandoned by the people of Christendom, the change will result in the prevention of an incalculable amount of human and sub-human pain, and a corresponding amount of advantage in the form of Health and Happiness will accrue to the community.
The Occult Review, Vol. 8 No. 6, December 1908, pp. 355-357
Book Reviewed: The Logic of Vegetarianism