{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38727/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38727","id":"gutenberg_38727","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38727","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Nutrition","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Vegetarianism"],"text":"Produced by Norbert H. Langkau, Martin Pettit and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA VINDICATION OF NATURAL DIET.\n\nBY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.\n\nA NEW EDITION.\n\n     \"Our simple life wants little, and true taste\n     Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste\n     The scene it would adorn, and therefore still\n     Nature, with all her children, haunts the hill.\"\n\n     _Epipsychidion._\n\nLONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW.\nMANCHESTER: JOHN HEYWOOD, RIDGEFIELD; AND OFFICES\nOF THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY, 75, PRINCESS STREET.\n1884.\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTICE.\n\n\nShelley's \"Vindication of Natural Diet\" was first written as part of the\nnotes to \"Queen Mab,\" which was privately issued in 1813. Later in the\nsame year the \"Vindication\" was separately published as a pamphlet, and\nit is from this later publication that the present reprint is made. The\noriginal pamphlet is now exceedingly scarce, but it is said to have been\nreprinted in 1835, as an appendix to an American medical work, the\n\"Manual on Health,\" by Dr. Turnbull, of New York. Two copies only are\nknown to have been preserved of this excessively rare pamphlet, though\npossibly others may be hidden in unfrequented libraries and out of the\nway country houses. One copy is in the British Museum, and the other is\nin the possession of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, who has reprinted it in his\ngreat edition of Shelley, where it forms the opening part of the second\nvolume of the \"Prose Works.\"\n\nThe main object of Shelley's pamphlet was to show that a vegetable diet\nis the most _natural_, and therefore the best for mankind. It is not an\nappeal to humanitarian sentiment, but an argument based on individual\nexperience, concerning the intimate connection of health and morality\nwith food. It has no claim to originality in the arguments adduced; its\nmaterials being avowedly drawn from the works of Dr. Lambe and Mr.\nNewton, of whom an account may be read in Mr. Howard Williams' \"Catena,\"\nbut the style is Shelley's own, and the pamphlet is in many ways one of\nthe most interesting and characteristic of his prose works. Perhaps its\nmost remarkable feature is to be found in the very pertinent remarks as\nto the bearing of Vegetarianism on those questions of economy and social\nreform, which are now forcing themselves more and more on the attention\nof the English people.[1]\n\n\nAt the time of writing his \"Vindication of Natural Diet,\" Shelley had\nhimself, for some months past, adopted a Vegetarian diet, chiefly, no\ndoubt, through his intimacy with the Newton family. There seems no\nreason to doubt that he continued to practise Vegetarianism during the\nrest of his stay in England, that is from 1813 to the spring of 1818.\nLeigh Hunt's account of his life at Marlow, in 1817, is as\nfollows:--\"This was the round of his daily life. He was up early,\nbreakfasted sparingly, wrote this 'Revolt of Islam' all the morning;\nwent out in his boat, or in the woods, with some Greek author or the\nBible in his hands; came home to a dinner of vegetables (for he took\nneither meat nor wine); visited, if necessary, the sick and fatherless,\nwhom others gave Bibles to and no help; wrote or studied again, or read\nto his wife and friends the whole evening; took a crust of bread or a\nglass of whey for his supper, and went early to bed.\"\n\nIn 1818, he left England for Italy, and during his last four years, the\nmost dreamy and speculative period of his life, he seems to have been\nless strict in his observance of Vegetarian practice. It is not true\nhowever, as has sometimes been asserted, that Shelley lost faith in the\nprinciples of Vegetarianism; for his change in diet was owing partly to\nhis well-known carelessness about his food, which became more marked at\nthis time, and partly to a desire to avoid giving trouble to the other\nmembers of his household, which, as we see from a line in his letter to\nMaria Gisborne, written in 1820, \"Though we eat little flesh and drink\nno wine\" was not entirely a Vegetarian one. Yet, even at this period of\nhis life, he himself was practically, if not systematically, a\nVegetarian, for all his biographers agree in informing us that bread was\nliterally his \"staff of life.\" We cannot doubt that if he had lived in\nthe present time he would have taken a leading part in the movement\ntowards Food Reform. As it is, he has left us an invaluable legacy in\nhis \"Vindication of Natural Diet,\" perhaps the most powerful and\neloquent plea ever put forward in favour of the Vegetarian cause.\n\nHe found in this the presage of his ideal future. To his enthusiastic\nfaith in the transforming effect of the Vegetarian principle, we owe\nsome of the finest passages in his poetry. In the close of the eighth\ncanto of \"Queen Mab,\" we have a picture of a time when man no more\n\n\n     Slays the lamb that looks him in the face.\n\n\nIt is the same ideal of bloodless innocence as that of Israel's\nprophet-poet, who declares that in the Holy Mountain they shall not hurt\nnor destroy. Never did sage or singer, prophet or priest, or poet, see a\nbrighter vision of the future than that which is imaged in the\ndescription of a glorified earth, from which cruelty, bloodshed, and\ntyranny, have been banished.\n\n\n     \"My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing\n     Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing\n     O'er the ripe corn. The birds and beasts are dreaming.\n       Never again may blood of bird or beast\n       Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,\n\n     To the pure skies in accusation steaming;\n       Avenging poisons shall have ceased\n         To feed disease and fear and madness;\n           The dwellers of the earth and air\n         Shall throng around our steps in gladness,\n           Seeking their food or refuge there.\n     Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,\n     To make this earth, our home, more beautiful;\n     And Science, and her sister Poesy,\n     Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!\"\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Over the plain the throngs were scattered then\n       In groups around the fires, which from the sea\n     Even to the gorge of the first mountain-glen\n       Blazed wide and far. The banquet of the free\n       Was spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree;\n     Beneath whose spires which swayed in the red flame\n       Reclining as they ate, of liberty,\n     And hope, and justice, and Laone's name,\n     Earth's children did a woof of happy converse frame.\n\n     Their feast was such as Earth, the general mother,\n       Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles\n     In the embrace of Autumn. To each other\n       As when some parent fondly reconciles\n       Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles\n     With her own sustenance; they relenting weep:--\n       Such was this festival, which, from their isles\n     And continents and winds and oceans deep,\n     All shapes might throng to share that fly or walk or creep.\n\n\nThat this was no mere poetic sentiment is proved by this pamphlet, which\nis an earnest vindication of Vegetarianism.\n\nH. S. S.\nW. E. A. A.\n\n\n[ORIGINAL TITLE PAGE.]\n\n\nA VINDICATION OF NATURAL DIET.\n\nBEING ONE IN A SERIES OF NOTES TO QUEEN MAB\n\n(A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM).\n\n[Greek: Iapetionide, panton peri medea eidos,\nChaireis pur klepsas, kai emas phrenas eperopeusas;\nSoit' auto mega pema kai andrasin essomenoisi.\nToisd'ego anti puros doso kakon, o ken apantes\nTerpontai kata thumon, eon kakon amphagapontes.]\n\n[Greek: ESIOD.] Op. et Dies. 1, 54.\n\nLONDON:\n\nPRINTED FOR J. CALLOW, MEDICAL BOOKSELLER, CROWN COURT,\nPRINCE'S STREET, SOHO,\nBY SMITH & DAVY, QUEEN STREET, SEVEN DIALS.\n1813.\n\n_PRICE ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE._\n\n\n\n\nA VINDICATION OF NATURAL DIET.\n\n\nI hold that the depravity of the physical and moral nature of man\noriginated in his unnatural habits of life. The origin of man, like that\nof the universe of which he is a part, is enveloped in impenetrable\nmystery. His generations either had a beginning, or they had not. The\nweight of evidence in favour of each of these suppositions seems\ntolerably equal; and it is perfectly unimportant to the present argument\nwhich is assumed. The language spoken, however, by the mythology of\nnearly all religions seems to prove, that at some distant period man\nforsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of\nhis being to unnatural appetites. The date of this event seems to have\nalso been that of some great change in the climates of the earth, with\nwhich it has an obvious correspondence. The allegory of Adam and Eve\neating of the tree of evil, and entailing upon their posterity the wrath\nof God, and the loss of everlasting life, admits of no other explanation\nthan the disease and crime that have flowed from unnatural diet. Milton\nwas so well aware of this, that he makes Raphael thus exhibit to Adam\nthe consequence of his disobedience:--\n\n\n                     ... Immediately a place\n     Before his eyes appeared: sad, noisome, dark:\n     A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid\n     Numbers of all diseased: all maladies\n     Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms\n     Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,\n     Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs;\n     Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic pangs,\n     Daemoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,\n     And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,\n     Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,\n     Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.\n\n\nAnd how many thousands more might not be added to this frightful\ncatalogue!\n\nThe story of Prometheus is one likewise which, although universally\nadmitted to be allegorical, has never been satisfactorily explained.\nPrometheus stole fire from heaven, and was chained for this crime to\nMount Caucasus, where a vulture continually devoured his liver, that\ngrew to meet its hunger. Hesiod says, that, before the time of\nPrometheus, mankind were exempt from suffering; that they enjoyed a\nvigorous youth, and that death, when at length it came, approached like\nsleep, and gently closed their eyes. Again, so general was this opinion,\nthat Horace, a poet of the Augustan age, writes:--\n\n\n     Audax omnia perpeti,\n     Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas,\n     Audax Iapeti genus\n     Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit,\n     Post ignem aetherea domo\n     Subductum, macies et nova febrium\n     Terris incubuit cohors\n     Semotique prius tarda necessitas\n     Lethi corripuit gradum.\n\n\nHow plain a language is spoken by all this. Prometheus (who represents\nthe human race) effected some great change in the condition of his\nnature, and applied fire to culinary purposes; thus inventing an\nexpedient for screening from his disgust the horrors of the shambles.\nFrom this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of disease. It\nconsumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and infinite variety,\ninducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and violent death. All\nvice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence. Tyranny, superstition,\ncommerce, and inequality, were then first known, when reason vainly\nattempted to guide the wanderings of exacerbated passion. I conclude\nthis part of the subject with an extract from Mr. Newton's Defence of\nVegetable Regimen, from whom I have borrowed this interpretation of the\nfable of Prometheus.\n\n\"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory\nas time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, which\nthis portion of the ancient mythology was intended to transmit, the\ndrift of the fable seems to be this: Man at his creation was endowed\nwith the gift of perpetual youth; that is, he was not formed to be a\nsickly suffering creature as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and to\nsink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth without disease\nor pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food (primus bovem\noccidit Prometheus)[2] and of fire, with which to render it more\ndigestible and pleasing to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods,\nforeseeing the consequences of these inventions, were amused or\nirritated at the short-sighted devices of the newly-formed creature, and\nleft him to experience the sad effects of them. Thirst, the necessary\nconcomitant of a flesh diet,\" (perhaps of all diet vitiated by culinary\npreparation) \"ensued; water was resorted to, and man forfeited the\ninestimable gift of health which he had received from heaven; he became\ndiseased, the partaker of a precarious existence and no longer descended\nslowly to his grave.\"[3]\n\n\n     But just disease to luxury succeeds,\n     And every death its own avenger breeds;\n     The fury passions from that blood began,\n     And turned on man a fiercer savage--Man.\n\n\nMan and the animals whom he has infected with his society, or depraved\nby his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the mouflon, the\nbison, and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die\neither from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog,\nthe sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible variety of\ndistempers; and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians\nwho thrive upon their miseries. The supereminence of man is like\nSatan's, a supereminence of pain; and the majority of his species,\ndoomed to penury, disease, and crime, have reason to curse the untoward\nevent that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him\nabove the level of his fellow animals. But the steps that have been\ntaken are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one\nquestion--How can the advantages of intellect and civilisation be\nreconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life? How can\nwe take the benefits and reject the evils of the system which is now\ninterwoven with all the fibres of our being? I believe that abstinence\nfrom animal food and spirituous liquors would in a great measure\ncapacitate us for the solution of this important question.\n\nComparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugivorous animals in\neverything, and carnivorous in nothing: he has neither claws wherewith\nto seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living\nfibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, would\nprobably find them alone inefficient to hold even a hare. After every\nsubterfuge of gluttony, the bull must be degraded into the ox, and the\nram into the wether, by an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the\nflaccid fibre may offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature. It is\nonly by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that\nit is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the\nsight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable\nloathing and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a\ndecisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a\nliving lamb with his teeth, and plunging his head into its vitals, slake\nhis thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of horror,\nlet him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that would rise\nin judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such work as this.\nThen, and then only, would he be consistent.\n\nMan resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, except man\nbe one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.\n\nThe orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order and number of\nhis teeth. The orang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape\ntribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species\nof animals in which this analogy exists.[4] In many frugivorous animals,\nthe canine teeth are more pointed and distinct than those of man. The\nresemblance also of the human stomach to that of the orang-outang is\ngreater than to that of any other animal.\n\nThe intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals,\nwhich present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and\ncellulated colons. The caecum also, though short, is larger than that of\ncarnivorous animals; and even here the orang-outang retains its\naccustomed similarity.\n\nThe structure of the human frame then is that of one fitted to a pure\nvegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true that the\nreluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long\naccustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds,\nas to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument\nin its favour. A lamb which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's\ncrew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are\nnumerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having\nbeen taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural\naliment. Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and\nother fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation\nof the digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time,\nproduced serious inconveniences; _for a time_, I say, since there never\nwas an instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food\nto vegetables and pure water, has failed ultimately to invigorate the\nbody, by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to\nthe mind that cheerfulness and elasticity, which not one in fifty\npossesses on the present system. A love of strong liquors is also with\ndifficulty taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces\nthe first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is\ninvariably unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food, from\nthe perverted appetites which its constrained adoption produce, is to\nmake the criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse, it is\nappealing to the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of\nbrandy.\n\nWhat is the cause of morbid action in the animal system? Not the air we\nbreathe, for our fellow denizens of nature breathe the same uninjured;\nnot the water we drink, if remote from the pollutions of man and his\ninventions, for the animals drink it too; not the earth we tread upon;\nnot the unobscured sight of glorious nature, in the wood, the field, or\nthe expanse of sky and ocean; nothing that we are or do in common with\nthe undiseased inhabitants of the forest. Something then wherein we\ndiffer from them; our habit of altering our food by fire, so that our\nappetite is no longer a just criterion for the fitness of its\ngratification. Except in children there remains no traces of that\ninstinct which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural\nor otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning\nadults of our species, that it has become necessary to urge\nconsiderations, drawn from comparative anatomy, to prove that we are\nnaturally frugivorous.\n\nCrime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease\nshall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so\nlong overshadowed the globe, will lie bare to the axe. All the exertions\nof man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear\nprofit of his species. No sane mind in a sane body resolves upon a real\ncrime. It is a man of violent passions, bloodshot eyes, and swollen\nveins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple\ndiet promises no Utopian advantages. It is no mere reform of\nlegislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of the\nhuman heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged. It\nstrikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment which may be tried\nwith success, not alone by nations, but by small societies, families,\nand even individuals.\n\nIn no cases has a return to vegetable diet produced the slightest\ninjury: in most it has been attended with changes undeniably beneficial.\nShould ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded\nthat he might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural\nhabits, as clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to\nsensation. What prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and\nvegetable poisons that have been introduced for its extirpation? How\nmany thousands have become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic\ntyrants, dissolute and abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented\nliquors; who had they slaked their thirst only at the mountain stream,\nwould have lived but to diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted\nfeelings. How many groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not\nreceived a general sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of\nindividuals? Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris drank at\nthe pure source of the Seine, and satisfied their hunger at the\never-furnished table of vegetable nature that they would have lent their\nbrutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a set of\nmen, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, look with\ncoolness on an _auto da fe_? Is it to be believed that a being of gentle\nfeelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in sports of\nblood?\n\nWas Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his\ncheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human\nrace? Did Muley Ismael's pulse beat evenly, was his skin transparent,\ndid his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants,\ncheerfulness and benignity? Though history has decided none of these\nquestions, a child could not hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely\nthe bile-suffused cheek of Buonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow\neye, the ceaseless inquietude of his nervous system, speak no less\nplainly the character of his unresting ambition than his murders and his\nvictories. It is impossible had Bonaparte descended from a race of\nvegetable feeders, that he could have either the inclination or the\npower to ascend the throne of the Bourbons. The desire of tyranny could\nscarcely be excited in the individual; the power to tyrannise would\ncertainly not be delegated by a society neither frenzied by inebriation,\nnor rendered impotent or irrational by disease. Pregnant, indeed, with\ninexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of instinct, as it concerns\nour physical nature; arithmetic cannot enumerate, nor reason perhaps\nsuspect, the multitudinous sources of disease in civilised life. Even\ncommon water, that apparently innoxious _pabulum_, when corrupted by the\nfilth of populous cities, is a deadly and insidious destroyer.[5] Who\ncan wonder that all the inducements held out by God himself in the Bible\nto virtue should have been vainer than a nurse's tale; and that those\ndogmas, apparently favourable to the intolerant and angry passions,\nshould have alone been deemed essential; whilst Christians are in the\ndaily practice of all those habits which have infected with disease and\ncrime, not only the reprobate sons, but these favoured children of the\ncommon Father's love. Omnipotence itself could not save them from the\nconsequences of this original and universal sin.\n\n\nThere is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet\nand pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment has\nbeen fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength,\ndisease into healthfulness: madness, in all its hideous variety, from\nthe ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities\nof ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and\nconsiderable evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge\nof the future moral reformation of society. On a natural system of diet,\nold age would be our last and our only malady: the term of our existence\nwould be protracted; we should enjoy life, and no longer preclude others\nfrom the enjoyment of it; all sensational delights would be infinitely\nmore exquisite and perfect; the very sense of being would then be a\ncontinued pleasure, such as we now feel it in some few and favoured\nmoments of our youth. By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human\nrace, I conjure those who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial\nto the vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject\nwhose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at rest. But\nit is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a\nsacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its\nultimate excellence should not admit of dispute.\n\nIt is found easier, by the short-sighted victims of disease, to\npalliate their torments by medicine, than to prevent them by regimen.\nThe vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile; yet I\ncannot but feel myself persuaded, that when the benefits of vegetable\ndiet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear, that those who live\nnaturally are exempt from premature death, as that nine is not one, the\nmost sottish of mankind will feel a preference towards a long and\ntranquil, contrasted with a short and painful life. On the average, out\nof sixty persons, four die in three years. In April, 1814, a statement\nwill be given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years\non vegetables and pure water, are then _in perfect health_. More than\ntwo years have now elapsed; _not one of them has died_; no such example\nwill be found in any sixty persons taken at random. Seventeen persons of\nall ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven\nyears on this diet without a death, and almost without the slightest\nillness. Surely, when we consider that some of these were infants, and\none a martyr to asthma, now nearly subdued, we may challenge any\nseventeen persons taken at random in this city to exhibit a parallel\ncase. Those who may have been excited to question the rectitude of\nestablished habits of diet, by these loose remarks, should consult Mr.\nNewton's luminous and eloquent essay.[6] It is from that book, and from\nthe conversation of its excellent and enlightened author, that I have\nderived the materials which I here present to the public.\n\nWhen these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by\nall who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence\nfrom aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal.\n\nIn proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of\nevidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on\nvegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old\nage, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented\nliquors as slow but certain poison. The change which would be produced\nby simpler habits on political economy is sufficiently remarkable. The\nmonopolising eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his\nconstitution by devouring an acre at a meal, and many loaves of bread\nwould cease to contribute to gout, madness, and apoplexy, in the shape\nof a pint of porter or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted\nfamine of the hard-working peasant's hungry babes. The quantity of\nnutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox,\nwould afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving indeed, and incapable\nof generating disease, if gathered immediately from the bosom of the\nearth.\n\nThe most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now actually\ncultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment\nabsolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to\nany great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead\nflesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege, by\nsubjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the nation\nthat should take the lead in this great reform would insensibly become\nagricultural: commerce, with all its vice, selfishness, and corruption,\nwould gradually decline; more natural habits would produce gentler\nmanners, and the excessive complication of political relations would be\nso far simplified that every individual might feel and understand why he\nloved his country, and took a personal interest in its welfare. How\nwould England, for example, depend on the caprices of foreign rulers, if\nshe contained within herself all the necessaries, and despised whatever\nthey possessed of the luxuries of life? How could they starve her into\ncompliance with their views? Of what consequence would it be that they\nrefused to take her woollen manufactures, when large and fertile tracts\nof the island ceased to be allotted to the waste of pasturage? On a\nnatural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no wines\nfrom Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous\narticles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and\nwhich are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous\nand sanguinary national disputes.\n\nIn the history of modern times, the avarice of commercial monopoly, no\nless than the ambition of weak and wicked chiefs, seems to have fomented\nthe universal discord, to have added stubbornness to the mistakes of\ncabinets, and indocility to the infatuation of the people. Let it ever\nbe remembered, that it is the direct influence of commerce to make the\ninterval between the richest and the poorest man wider and more\nunconquerable. Let it be remembered that it is a foe to every thing of\nreal worth and excellence in the human character. The odious and\ndisgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all that is\ngood in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a\nbarbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a state of\nsociety, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the\nproduction of his solid happiness?\n\nCertainly, if this advantage (the object of all political speculation)\nbe in any degree attainable, it is attainable only by a community which\nholds out no factitious incentives to the avarice and ambition of the\nfew, and which is internally organized for the liberty, security, and\ncomfort of the many. None must be entrusted with power (and money is the\ncompletest species of power) who do not stand pledged to use it\nexclusively for the general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and\nfermented liquors, directly militates with this equality of the rights\nof man. The peasant cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without\nleaving his family to starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping\ncurtailers of population, pasturage would include a waste too great to\nbe afforded. The labour requisite to support a family is far lighter[7]\nthan is usually supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves,\nbut for the aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers.\n\nThe advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any\nother. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of\nlegislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are\nproduced, is to suppose, that by taking away the effect, the cause will\ncease to operate. But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on\nthe proselytism of individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to\nthe community, upon the total change of the dietetic habits in its\nmembers. It proceeds securely from a number of particular cases to one\nthat is universal, and has this advantage over the contrary mode, that\none error does not invalidate all that has gone before.\n\nLet not too much, however, be expected from this system. The healthiest\namong us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most symmetrical,\nathletic, and long-lived, is a being inexpressibly inferior to what he\nwould have been, had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors\naccumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the\nmost perfect specimen of civilized man something is still found wanting\nby the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then,\ninstantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking\nroot in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I\ncontend for is, that from the moment of the relinquishing all unnatural\nhabits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to\nhereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed\nsupply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula,\nsuch is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water.\n\nThose who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system a\nfair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their\npractice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon the\nbreaking through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr.\nTrotter[8] asserts that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually\nrelinquishing his dram. Animal flesh, in its effects on the human\nstomach, is analogous to a dram. It is similar in the kind, though\ndiffering in the degree, of its operation. The proselyte to a pure diet\nmust be warned to expect a temporary diminution of muscular strength.\nThe subtraction of a powerful stimulus will suffice to account for this\nevent. But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable\ncapability for exertion far surpassing his former various and\nfluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of\nbreathing, by which the same exertion is performed with a remarkable\nexemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost\nevery one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be\nequally capable of bodily exertion or mental application after as before\nhis simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effects of ordinary\ndiet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting stimuli, would\nyield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He will no longer\npine under the lethargy of _ennui_, that unconquerable weariness of\nlife, more dreaded than death itself. He will escape the epidemic\nmadness that broods over its own injurious notions of the Deity, and\n\"realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign.\" Every man forms, as\nit were, his god from his own character; to the divinity of one of\nsimple habits, no offering would be more acceptable than the happiness\nof his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or persecuting others\nfor the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system of simple diet to\nbe a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be incessantly\noccupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which he expects\nhis gratification.\n\nThe pleasures of taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans,\npeas, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries,\nstrawberries, currants, raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples,\nand pears, is far greater than is supposed. Those who wait until they\ncan eat this plain fare with the sauce of appetite will scarcely join\nwith the hypocritical sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims\nagainst the pleasures of the table. Solomon kept a thousand concubines,\nand owned in despair that all was vanity. The man whose happiness is\nconstituted by the society of one amiable woman would find some\ndifficulty in sympathising with the disappointment of this venerable\ndebauchee.\n\nI address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of\ntruth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by\nthe contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its\nabstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity and its promise of\nwide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he\nwill hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a\ncontemplation full of horror and disappointment to his mind, that beings\ncapable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies, should take\ndelight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The\nelderly man whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has\nlived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a variety of\npainful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change,\nproduced without the risk of poisonous medicines.[9]The mother, to whom\nthe perpetual restlessness of disease, and unaccountable deaths\nincident to her children, are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would\non this diet experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual\nhealth and natural playfulness.\n\nThe most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases, that it is\ndangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much\nlonger will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of death, his most\ninsidious, implacable, and eternal foe? The proselyte to a simple and\nnatural diet, who desires health, must from the moment of his conversion\nattend to these rules--\n\n\n     NEVER TAKE ANY SUBSTANCE INTO THE STOMACH THAT ONCE HAD LIFE.\n\n     DRINK NO LIQUID BUT WATER RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL PURITY BY\n     DISTILLATION.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Shelley's pamphlet appeared in 1813. The Vegetarian Society was not\nfounded until 1847. Information as to this Society, with list of its\npublications, can be had free on application to the Secretary, 75,\nPrincess Street, Manchester.\n\n[2] \"Plin. Nat Hist.,\" Lib. vii, Soc. 57.\n\n[3] \"Return to Nature.\" Cadell, 1811.\n\n[4] Cuvier, Lecons d'Anat. Comp. tom. iii., pages 169, 373, 448, 465,\nand 480. Rees's Cyclopaedia, article Man.\n\n[5] See Dr. Lambe's \"Report on Cancer.\"\n\n[6] Return to Nature, or Defence of Vegetable Regimen. Cadell, 1811.\n\n[7] It has come under the author's experience that some of the workmen\non an embankment in North Wales who, in consequence of the inability of\nthe proprietor to pay them, seldom received their wages, have supported\nlarge families by cultivating small spots of sterile ground by\nmoonlight. In the notes to Pratt's Poem, \"Bread for the Poor,\" is an\naccount of an industrious labourer, who by working in a small garden,\nbefore and after his day's task, attained to an enviable state of\nindependence.\n\n[8] See Trotter on \"The Nervous Temperament.\"\n\n[9] See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most beautiful and\nhealthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls are perfect\nmodels for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most gentle and\nconciliating; the judicious treatment which they experience in other\npoints, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of\ntheir life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various\ndiseases; and how many more of those that survive are rendered miserable\nby maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and quantity of a\nwoman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. In an\nisland, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the children\ninvariably die of tetanus, before they are three weeks old, and the\npopulation is supplied from the mainland.--_Sir G. Mackenzie's History\nof Iceland._ See also _Emile_, chap, i., p. 53, 55, 56.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n\nPersons on vegetable diet have been remarkable for longevity. The first\nChristians practised abstinence from animal flesh, on a principle of\nself mortification. Other instances are, Old Parr 152; Mary Patten 136;\nA Shepherd in Hungary 126; Patrick O'Neale 113; Joseph Elkins 103;\nElizabeth de Val 101; Aurungzebe 100; St. Anthony 105; James, the Hermit\n104; Arsenius 120; St. Epiphanius 115; Simeon 112; and Rombald 120.\n\n\nMr. Newton's mode of reasoning on longevity is ingenious and conclusive.\n\"Old Parr, healthy as the wild animals, attained to the age of 152\nyears. All men might be as healthy as the wild animals. Therefore all\nmen might attain to the age of 152 years.\" The conclusion is\nsufficiently modest. Old Parr cannot be supposed to have escaped the\ninheritance of disease, amassed by the unnatural habits of his\nancestors. The term of human life may be expected to be infinitely\ngreater, taking into the consideration all the circumstances that must\nhave contributed to abridge even that of Parr.\n\n\nIt may be here remarked, that the author and his wife have lived on\nvegetables for eight months. The improvements of health and temper here\nstated, is the result of his own experience.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENTS\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF DIET.\n\nA CATENA OF AUTHORITIES DEPRECATORY OF THE PRACTICE OF FLESH-EATING.\n\n348 pp., 8vo.\n\nBY HOWARD WILLIAMS, M.A.\n\n\n\"I consider it a very valuable work.\"--COLONEL J. M. EARLE.\n\n\"THE CATENA is good and useful.\"--FRANCES E. HOGGAN, M.D.\n\n\"'The Ethics of Diet' much pleases me.\"--T. K. CHEYNE, M.A.\n\n\nPrice Five Shillings; Post free from the Office of the Vegetarian\nSociety, 75, Princess Street, Manchester.\n\n\nESSAYS ON DIET, BEING\nCollected Lectures and Papers on Vegetarian Diet.\n\nBY FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN.\n\nLONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, AND CO.; AND THE VEGETARIAN\nSOCIETY, 75, PRINCESS STREET, MANCHESTER.\n\nPRICE ONE FLORIN.\n\n\nTHE PERFECT WAY IN DIET:\n\nA TREATISE ADVOCATING A RETURN TO THE NATURAL AND\nANCIENT FOOD OF OUR RACE.\n\nBy ANNA KINGSFORD,\n\nDoctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Paris.\n\nLondon: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 1, Paternoster Square; or\nfrom the Vegetarian Society, 75, Princess Street, Manchester.\n\nPRICE ONE FLORIN.\n\n\nPrice 6d. 64pp., 8vo. Post free, 7d.\n\n\"ALMONDS AND RAISINS\" FOR 1884.\n\nEdited by R. BAILEY WALKER, F.S.S.\n\n\nCONTAINS:--\n\nMushrooms and Toadstools. By H. S. S.\nA Hunting of the Deer. By E. Dudley Warner.\nA Christmas Ghost. By E. Grenville Waller.\nThe Ribblesdale Papers--Nos. I.-IV. By \"Dora.\"\nRubies from Ruskin.\nThe Ministry of Food. By R. Bailey Walker.\nThe Abbot's Reply. By W. E. A. Axon.\nAlmonds and Raisins. By E. J. Baillie.\nThe Torquoise Ring. A Story by Mrs. Anna Kingsford, M.D.\nKalendar and Notes for 1884.\nFruits in Season for each Month, &c., &c.\n\n75, Princess Street, Manchester.\n\n\nPRICE SIXPENCE. POST FREE, SEVENPENCE.\n\nTHE HYGEIAN HOME COOK-BOOK:\n\nHEALTHFUL AND PALATABLE FOOD WITHOUT CONDIMENTS.\n\nBy R. T. TRALL, M.D.\n\nFirst English Edition, with Chapters on Bread, Pies, Puddings, Soups,\nSauces, Vegetables, Fruits, &c. Also with Appendix on\n\nHygienic Bread-Making, Fruit Preserving, &c.\n\nBy Mrs. MATTIE JONES.\n\n\nVEGETIST'S DIETARY\n\nAND MANUAL OF VEGETABLE COOKERY.\n\nBy \"Domestica.\"\n\nFourth Edition. Revised. Price Sixpence. Cloth, One Shilling.\n\n\nPRICE SIXPENCE.\n\nOUT-DOOR FRUIT FOR THE MILLION:\n\nHOW TO GROW IT IN LARGE AND CONTINUOUS QUANTITY, BY SIMPLE AND\nINEXPENSIVE MEANS.\n\nFIFTH, AND AUTHORISED EDITION, REVISED AND ILLUSTRATED.\n\nBy \"Head Gardener.\"\n\nManchester: Offices of the Vegetarian Society, 75, Princess Street.\n\n\nTHE SHELLEY SOCIETY\n\n_PUBLICATIONS FOR 1886._\n\n\nThe Society's Publications for 1886 will be at least twelve of the\nfollowing fourteen:--\n\n\n     1. Shelley's _Adonais_: an Elegy on the Death of John Keats. Pisa,\n     4to, 1821. A Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper, edited, with a\n     Bibliographical Introduction, by Thomas J. Wise. (_Second Edition,\n     Revised._) 10s.\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     2. Shelley's Review of Hogg's novel, \"Memoirs of Prince Alexy\n     Haimatoff.\" Now first reprinted from _The Critical Review_, Dec.\n     1814, on hand-made Paper, with an Extract from Prof. Dowden's\n     article, \"Some Early Writings of Shelley\" (_Contemp. Rev._, Sept.\n     1884). Edited, with an Introductory Note, by Thos. J. Wise.\n     (_Second Edition, Revised._) 2s. 6d.\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     3. Shelley's _Alastor_, or The Spirit of Solitude; and other Poems.\n     London, fcap. 8vo., 1816. A Facsimile Reprint on hand-made Paper,\n     with a new Preface by Bertram Dobell. (_Second Edition, Revised._)\n     6s.\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     4. _A Shelley Bibliography_, or \"The Shelley Library.\" Part I.\n     First Editions and their Reproductions. By H. Buxton Forman.\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     5. Shelley's _Vindication of Natural Diet_. London, 12mo, 1813. A\n     Reprint, 1882, with a Prefatory Note by H. S. Salt and W. E. A.\n     Axon. Presented by Mr. Axon. (_Second Edition._)\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     6. _A Memoir of Shelley_, with a fresh Preface, by William Michael\n     Rossetti; a Portrait of Shelley; and an engraving of his Tomb.\n\n_Issued._\n\n\n     7. Shelley's _Cenci_, (for the Society's performance in May), with\n     a prologue by Dr. John Todhunter, and an Introduction and Notes by\n     Harry Buxton Forman and Alfred Forman; and a Portrait of Beatrice\n     Cenci. 2s. 6d.\n\n_Issued._","title":"A Vindication of Natural Diet.","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7215}