{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61396/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61396","id":"gutenberg_61396","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61396","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Environmental Issues","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Nutrition","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Vegetarianism"],"text":"Why I Am a Vegetarian\n\n\nAn Address Delivered Before the Chicago Vegetarian Society\n\n\nBy J. Howard Moore\n\n\nFrances L. Dusenberry\nMcVicker\u2019s Theatre Building\nChicago\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThe human race is like a snake\u2014it sheds. Ever and anon, as the\nages bloom, old forms of thought are superseded by intellectual\nbran-news. Shrines at which one generation adores become to the\nsucceeding desolate and despised.\n\nThis little brochure has a mission. It is not a formidable one, but\nit is. It goes out with the hope that it may help, if ever so\ninfinitesimally, in ridding the human of that terrific instinct of\n_inconsideration_ toward the sub-human races. Solidarity is its\nplea, human and universal.\n\nIt would be inexcusable to suppose it to be exhaustive. It is not\neven defensive. It is a projectile, and projectiles do not apologize.\n\nIt intends to be followed.\n\nJ. H. M.\n\nChicago, May, 1895.\n\n\n\u201cWhat more advance can mortals make in sin?\nDeaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife,\nLooks up and from the butcher begs her life.\nDeaf to the harmless kid, who, ere he dies,\nAll efforts to procure thy pity tries,\nAnd imitates in vain thy children\u2019s cries.\u201d\n\n\u2014 ANONYMOUS.\n\n\n\u201cNo flocks that range the valley free,\nTo slaughter I condemn;\nTaught by the Power that pities me,\nI learn to pity them.\u201d\n\n\u2014 GOLDSMITH.\n\n\n\u201cIt is a vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary to\nhuman life.\u201d\n\n\u2014 SIR HENRY THOMPSON.\n\n\n\u201cThe anthropoids and all the quadrumana derive their alimentation\nfrom fruits, grains, and other succulent vegetal substances, and the\nstrict analogy between the structure of those animals and that of\nman clearly demonstrates his frugivorous nature.\u201d\n\n\u2014 OWEN.\n\n\n\u201cDoes it not shame you to mingle blood and murder with nature\u2019s\nbeneficent fruits? Other carnivora you call savage and\nferocious\u2014lions, tigers and serpents\u2014while yourselves come\nbehind them in no species of barbarity. And yet for them murder is\nthe only means of sustenance, whereas to you it is a superfluous\nluxury and crime.\u201d\n\n\u2014 PLUTARCH.\n\n\nWHY I AM A VEGETARIAN.\n\nI am not here to convert you to vegetarianism. I know too well the\nnature of mind to commit any such blunder. I am here to talk English\nand, if possible, give you glimpses. I can not hope in half a\nhundred minutes to rinse from your brains sand bars that have been\nages in depositing. It is no holiday matter to emancipate one\u2019s\nself from an old, inveterate slavery. It is a task so formidable\nthat few do it without help. It requires a courage and an iconoclasm\ngreater than most possess to make heroic initiatives. But after a\nreform is accomplished and its principles become matters of course,\nthere are then few persons without the ability to look back and\nwonder why idiots are so much like men.\n\nMen are somnambulistic. Stupefied by the long night of instinct out\nof which it arose, the human mind is only half awake. Washington was\nthe father of a country, but he held human beings as slaves and paid\nhis hired help in Virginia whisky. It took Americans one hundred\nyears to find out that \u201call men\u201d included Ethiopians. Men who\nrisked their lives to achieve personal and political liberty for\nblack men deliberately doom white women to a similar servitude. Rich\nmen give millions to museums or universities, when they would know,\nif they had the talent to stop and think, that the thousands who\nmake their wealth work like wretches from morning till night and\nsuffocate in garrets and feed on garbage, in order that they may be\nmunificent. Human beings preach as the cardinal of morality that\nthey should act upon others as they would be pleased to have others\nact upon them, and then take the most sensitive and beautiful beings\nall palpitating with life, and chop them into fragments with a\ncomposure that would do honor to the managers of an inferno.\n\nIt has been said that when a proposition is presented to us for our\nacceptance or rejection we treat it as we would treat an article of\nfurniture presented to us for our apartments. We try it. If it fits\nin character and complexion, we accept it, and it becomes a part of\nour paraphernalia. If it does not fit, we reject it. Every\nproposition that comes to our intelligence is thus accepted or\ndismissed, depending on the congeniality or uncongeniality of the\nsubjective and the objective. It is impossible absolutely for mind,\nconstituted as it is on the earth, to accept a proposition that is\nantagonistic to it. And when a proposition is presented to the mind,\nthe only way in the world to win its acceptance is by coaxing and\nmodifying the mind itself. I come to you tonight with a proposition.\nIn a very feeble and fragmentary way I attempt to do what every\npolemic attempts to do\u2014to dynamite your minds, to havoc their\nfoundations and reconstruct them in harmony with the proposition I\nchampion. But there are so many attitudes of opposition possible, so\nmany objections that are thinkable, and so many things assumed by\nthose who pitch themselves against it, that I cannot hope in one\nevening to accomplish more than a beginning. But if I can somehow\nsucceed in dilating your pupils a little, and enable you to realize\nin some measure the infamy in which you and the rest of the\noccidental world are today engaged, I shall feel better than if I\nhad spoken to stones.\n\nI want to remind you and warn you that it makes no difference how\njust a proposition may be and how universally and unreservedly it\nmay be ultimately accepted, its beginning is always a period of\ninterrogation and war. When Garrison first announced the proposition\ndenying the right to auction Ethiopians, the proposition was\nassailed by the most formidable volleys of objection. Those\nobjections seem puerile today, but in the days in which this\nproposition found few heads in which to hide, they were axioms of\nethical and political science. So when you take an attitude on this\nproposition _remember_ there are future generations as well as this\none, and _be careful_ that you do not make the same spectacle of\nyourself that poor old Webster and other blind men made when they\npoured cold water down the spines of early Abolitionists.\n\nI became a vegetarian by my own reflection. I did not know at the\ntime of the vegetarian movement, and, hence supposed myself alone\namong republics of carnivora. It did not seem to me graceful or\nideal that I, an ethical being, should maintain my existence at the\nincessant expense of misery and death to others. But the problem\nthat for some time tormented me was whether it were possible to keep\nup a successful and at all interesting existence without ox-hips. I\nwondered whether the universe were so constructed that it were\nimpossible for its most endowed children to live without the crudest\nand most recreant egoism. There is now no remnant of a doubt about\nthe possibilities of a bloodless existence, nor even of its positive\nhygienic advantages. I had been considerable of a vulture, and for\nsometime after eliminating flesh from my menus I had desire for it.\nBut gradually that desire faded, and there came in its stead a\ngrowing horror of flesh. The grinding of the tissues of my fellow\nbeings seemed horribly akin to the chewing of the emotions of my\nfriends. After a few weeks of fruits and vegetables there came over\nme a feeling of exultation and superiority and crispness that was\ntruly novel. Today, I am thoroughly emancipated from the coils of\nkreophagy. I shall go down to my grave and out into the darkling\nhereafter with a bloodless digestion, if I am the only animal in the\nuniverse to do so. The flesh-tearing performances which I am\ncompelled everywhere to behold seem to me to be the lurid deeds of\nmaniacs rather than the timed and premeditated acts of sane beings.\nAnd I can but pity, not only the creatures whose throats are severed\nand whose skeletons are stripped, but the blind and reckless\ncannibals who perpetrate these crimes. When the whole earth teems\nwith such a bewildering variety of beautiful and bloodless fruits,\nit seems so strange and so sad and so frightful that man should\ncontinue the barbarous, blood-sucking practices of the world\u2019s\ninfancy.\n\nVegetarianism is the neglect by one being to suppress another for\nnutritive purposes. I believe in it. I believe I should neglect to\nsuppress the interests and lives of _non_-human beings for\nidentically the same reason I should neglect to suppress the\ninterests and lives of _human_ beings. The exploitation of birds and\nquadrupeds for human whim or convenience is an offense not different\nin kind from the offenses denounced in human statutes as robbery and\nmurder. And the same logic which impels abstinence from one of these\noffenses impels everyone who has the power to be consistent to\nrefrain from all of them.\n\nThere is, in fact, but one crime in the universe and all varieties\nof impropriety whatsoever are aspects or phases of this crime. It is\nthe crime of _exploitation_\u2014the suppression of the interests,\nlives, or welfares of some beings for the whim or convenience of\nothers\u2014the neglect to recognize the equal or the approximately\nequal rights of all to life, consideration and happiness\u2014the crime\nof doing to others as you would that others would _not_ do to you.\n\nI look back over the ages of this world\u2014not the ages of human\nhistory simply, for the history of the human species is but a little\nsection, the remembered chapter, in the history of the evolutions\nwhich have been performed by mundane life. I look back to the\nbeginning of life on this planet\u2014back 50,000,000 of years ago,\nwhen the first protoplasmic specks sprawled in primeval seas. Life\noriginated in the sea fifteen hundred thousand human generations\nago. After ages of evolution it crept out upon the continents,\nsubsequently entered the forests, climbed and clambered among the\ntrees, became endowed with perpendicularity and hands, descended and\nwalked upon the soil, invented agriculture, built cities and\nstates\u2014and here we are. Human civilization is but the van, the\nhither terminus, of an evolutional process which had its beginning\naway back in the protoplasm of primeval slime. The philosopher is\nthe remote posterity of the meek and lowly monad.\n\nNow, this whole enterprise, this entire process of biological\nevolution, has been accomplished by the survival from age to age of\nthe fittest to survive; that is, by the subjection and elimination\nof the weak and the simple by the more powerful and sophisticated,\nAnd the disposition to exploit manifested by every animal that\nbreathes, from philosopher to fish, is a disposition which has been\nimplanted in the natures of living beings by the necessities of\nevolution. The great task of reforming the universe, therefore, is\nthe task of eliminating from the natures of its inhabitants the\ndisposition to be inhospitable, egoistic and merciless, which has\nbeen everywhere developed by evolution.\n\nIn the ideal universe the life and happiness of no being are\ncontingent upon the suffering and death of any other. And the fact\nthat in this universe of ours life and happiness have been and are\ntoday so largely maintained by the infliction of indescribable\nmisery and extinction, is the most pathetic, the most stupendous,\nand the most sickening contemplation that ever invaded human mind.\nIt is encouraging to know, however, that life in its highest forms,\nthat is, as represented by the most cultured aggregates of the human\nspecies, is evolving rapidly and irrepressibly toward the ideal,\nthat is, toward a social state in which the interests and life of\neach individual being are more and more equally precious. What are\ncivilization and morality? What do we mean by ethical progress? The\ngrowth of consideration for others\u2014nothing more\u2014simply cessation\nof, or abstinence from, exploitation. Courtesy, kindness, justice,\naltruism, humanity, what are they? They are the qualities which\ndistinguish those who put themselves in the place of others, who\nrecognize the existence and the preciousness of others, and who act\nupon others as they themselves would be pleased to have others act\nupon them. Otherism is the antithesis of _laissez faire_. The growth\nof civility in the earth is the growth of the principle or\nconsciousness of solidarity among its inhabitants.\n\nVegetarianism, therefore, that is, abstinence from non-human\nexploitation or the recognition of universal solidarity, is related\nfrom this exalted standpoint to the logic of the Magna Charta, the\nDeclaration of Independence and the modern movements of social\nreform. The sympathies of the consistent vegetarian go out naturally\nto the stricken and oppressed everywhere\u2014to Cuba in her struggle\nfor autonomy, to Ireland in her misery, to the helpless quadruped\nquivering under the pole-ax, and to the pitiable proletarian who\ngoes up and down the monopolized universe seeking in vain for\nopportunities to earn honest nutrition. The vegetarian who is\nconscious enough to be consistent is in love with the universe, not\nsimply with his wife or clan or species. He strives to be graceful\nto every being whose destinies he contacts, however humble or\nhopeless or eccentric that being may be.\n\nI am a vegetarian because I believe that present-day ethics is\nfounded on that puerile, pre-Darwinian delusion that all other kinds\nof creatures and all worlds were created explicitly _for_ the\nhominine species. Vegetarianism is the ethical corollary of\nevolution. It is simply the expansion of ethics to suit the\nbiological revelations of Charles Darwin. Evolution has taught us\nthe kinship of all creatures. The ancient hiatus between man and the\nother animals has been effectually sewed up. Biology teaches us, if\nit teaches us anything, that there is a solidarity of the sentient\nworld. Man is simply _one_ of a _series_ of sentients, differing in\ndegree but not in kind from the creatures below and around him. The\nox he enslaves and slays and the poor reptile that wriggles in his\npathway are his brothers, partaking of his nature and sharing his\ndestiny. Man is simply the adult of long evolution, and his\nqualities are, of course, found among the juveniles and infants of\nthe sentient world. The industrious bee, the civilized ant, the\ndevoted steed, the mischievous ape, the irascible serpent, the\nsagacious elephant, the beautiful gazelle and the great, honest ox\nhave within them in embryo all the emotions that roll through the\nsoul of man. Fear, love, fidelity, hate, jealousy, joy, selfishness,\ncuriosity, remorse, are all found everywhere, and they are the same\npassions that heave your breast and mine. Chastity, sobriety,\nobedience, personal cleanliness, industry, sympathy, self-control,\nfriendship, heroism, sagacity\u2014many dogs and other semi-civilized\nanimals have all these qualities, and in a greater degree even than\nwhole races of men. And these faculties and capacities of the\nnon-hominine world are the same identical faculties and capacities\nthat you have and I have. Industry and ingenuity in the beaver are\njust as genuine and just as commendable as the same qualities in\nman. The faithful dog who stood over the lifeless body of his master\ngrieving for recognition and starting at every flutter of his\ngarments till he himself died of starvation, was just as noble as if\nhe had all his days walked on his hind legs and worn a cane. The\nwild bird who takes her life in her wings to save her nestlings from\nthe voracious serpent, and the mother bear away on the Arctic snows\nwho allows herself to be murdered in order to save her child, have\njust as genuine mother love and love just as sacred as that which\nburns in the breast of woman. The ingenious ant, which tends its\nfields, gathers its harvests, keeps slaves and armies and goes to\nwar, and performs about all the antics of civilized man except\nmaltreating the females and drinking gin, is not less civilized, and\nits civilization is not less real, because it is miniature. And the\nChristian who goes to church on Sunday and wails long prayers and\nthen goes home and stuffs his alimentary with the quivering vitals\nof his naive fellows, and through the week lashes the flanks of his\noverburdened horse till the strained tendons are ready to snap, is\nnot less criminal because he is strategic, and his crimes are not\nless infernal because they have no penalty but his conscience and no\njudge but himself. Whether we realize it or not the doctrine that on\nmankind\u2019s account all the rest of the animal world came into being\nand that all non-human beings are mere hunks devoid of all psychic\nqualities found in man, is a doctrine not one whit more sagacious\nthan the old geocentric theory of the universe.\n\nMan has defined himself as the \u201cparagon of the universe.\u201d I do\nnot say that he is not. I simply say that if he is, the universe has\nno cause for dry eyes. Man\u2019s treatment of his own kind and especially\nhis conduct toward the forms of life differing from him have been\nsuch as to brand him as a most ill-mannered and immodel organism.\nHuman beings have been sufficiently clever and sufficiently devoted\nto each other to evolve into the masters of the earth, but instead\nof converting themselves into preceptors for the conquered races,\nthey have become the butchers of the universe. Instead of becoming\nthe models and school-masters of the world in which they have\noutstripped, and striving to repair the clumsy natures and regulate\nthe straying feet of those by means of whom they have been hoisted\ninto distinction, they have become colossal pedants and assassins,\nproclaiming themselves the pets and gods of creation and teaching\neach other that other races are mere fixtures to furnish food and\namusement for themselves. They inculcate as a rule of conduct\u2014and\nthey preach it valiantly\u2014that each should act upon others as he\nhimself would choose to be acted upon. This ideal of social\nrectitude has been promulgated by the sages of the species for more\nthan 2,000 years. But with miserable pusillanimity they confine its\napplication to the members of their own species. No non-human is too\ninnocent or too interesting or too wonderful to escape the most\nfrightful humiliations, if by those humiliations human comfort or\nhuman amusement or human whim is in any way whatever garnished.\n\nLook at the horse! No nobler and more beautiful creature is found in\nall the animal realm. A marvel of strength, speed and splendor. The\nmost useful and most consummate associate of man. What wonderful\npossibilities of reciprocity! Man takes the horse from the plains,\nwhere he is exposed to the inclemencies of weather, the\ncontingencies of food and the blunders of his own childlike nature.\nHe gives him regular meals, pleasant shelter, intellectual\nsurroundings, and a home. The horse in return gives man the benefit\nof his superior strength and speed, bearing man and his burdens and\nsupplementing in a thousand ways the inadequate energies of his\nmentor. These are the possibilities, the ideal\u2014gigantic strength\nsupplementing superior wisdom. Beautiful reciprocity! What are the\nactualities? Sad, indeed! The horse is not an associate but a\n_slave_. He has no rights, and is seldom suspected of being entitled\nto feelings or vanities at all. He is treated as if he had merely\nexistence and usefulness. He is neglected, overburdened and\noverworked, beaten, insulted, starved, maimed, misunderstood,\ndeprived of leisure and liberty, unconsidered\u2014doomed to an\nenvironment out of which has been drained every element calculated\nto promote his happiness and intelligence and perpetuate his\nnobility and beauty. He is a mere suggestion of the might-have-been.\nHis regal neck has wilted; the splendid flanks are lean and drawn;\nthe ambitious face is sad. The proud galloper of the plains, the\ncompanion of the winds, bearing fire in his nostrils and thunder in\nhis hoofs, has become a soured, impoverished, broken-hearted but\nfaithful _wreck_. The stars of heaven never looked down on a more\npitiful sight than that of a horse, after having drudged all his\ndays in the service of his lord, cast out in his helpless old age to\nwander and perish.\n\nOur own happiness and that of our species are believed to be so much\nmore important than that of others that we sacrifice without scruple\nthe most sacred prerogatives of others in order that our own may be\nfastidiously trimmed. Even for a tooth or a feather to wear on our\nvanity marauders are sent through the forests of the earth to ravage\nand depopulate them. Beautiful beings which fill the woods with song\nand juvenility are compelled to sprawl lifeless and disheveled on\nthe skulls of unconscionable sillies. Criminal and inconvenient\nraces are exterminated with eager and superfluous violence.\nThousands of innocent and helpless souls are caught up and carried\nby unfeeling emissaries into foul dungeons and there doomed by\nghoulish clowns of science to the most protracted, useless, and\ndamning victimizations. It is enough almost to make villains\nweep\u2014the cold-blooded manner in which human beings cut the\nthroats, dash out the brains, and discuss the flavor of their\nvictims at their cannibalistic feasts.\n\nLook at the scenes to be met with in all our streets and stockyards!\nAn army of butchers standing in blood ankle deep and working\nthemselves to exhaustion carving the throats of their helpless\nfellows\u2014unsuspecting oxen with limpid eyes looking up at the\ndeadly pole-ax and a moment later lying a-quiver under its\nrelentless thud\u2014struggling swine swinging by their hinders with\ntheir life leaping from their gashed jugulars\u2014an atmosphere in\nperpetual churn with the groans and yells of the massacred\u2014streets\nthronged with unprocessioned funerals\u2014everywhere corpses dangling\nfrom sale-hooks or sprawling on chopping blocks\u2014men and women\nkneeling nightly by their pillow sides and congratulating themselves\non their whiteness and rising and leaping on the bloody remains of\nsome slaughtered fellow\u2014such are the spectacles in all our streets\nand stockyards, and such are the enormities perpetrated day after\nday by Christian cannibals on the defenseless dumb ones of this\nworld.\n\nHoly days, days above all others when it seems men\u2019s minds would\nbe bent on compassion, are farces of gluttony and ferocity.\nUnfeeling ruffians cowardly shoot down defenceless birds or prowl\nthe country in rival squads massacring every living creature that is\nnot able to escape them\u2014_and for no higher or humaner purpose than\njust to see who can kill the most!_ This is egoism unparalleled on\nthe face of the earth. No species of animal except man plunges to\nsuch depths of atrocity. It is bad enough in all conscience for one\nbeing to suppress another in order to tear it to pieces and swallow\nit, but when such outrages are perpetrated by organized packs just\nfor pastime it becomes an enormity beyond characterization. The\ninsectivora, the carnivora, and the reptilia are cruel. It is\nhorrible to contemplate the enormous wickedness perpetrated on the\nless offensive races by these relentless brutes. But the crimes\ncommitted by the hominine species are the most insolent and\nextravagant in the universe. Non-human murderers are ruthless, but\neven serpents and hyenas do not exterminate for sport. A universe\nis, indeed, to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so\nunconscious, so irresponsible, and so ethically repulsive that they\nmake life a commodity, mercy a disease, and systematic massacre a\npastime and profession.\n\nI am a vegetarian because I believe in the golden rule. _Act toward\nothers as you would that others would act toward you_, has been the\nbasic precept of the morals of the generations. This wonderful rule\nhas been mouthed and mouthed since the days of Confucius, 2,400\nyears ago. But it never has been _lived_. Do as you would be done\nby. Certainly. _But to whom?_ Each class or clan has been its own\nlittle clique to whom it after a fashion observed this rule. Slavery\nand slaughter have been the rule toward everyone else. The\nTroglodytes hunted the Ethiopians in four-horse chariots with as\nlittle compunction as Americans hunt the wood-deer today. A Roman\ncould take the life of his Gallic slave with as perfect impunity as\nan American can slay his bovine servant today. Yet to kill a Gaul\nwas as really murder as to kill a Roman. It hasn\u2019t been very long\nsince all the Christian nations hunted their dusky brethren in\nAfrica and sold and loaned and lashed them as we do the horse today.\nAll these crimes are now matters of course to us. It is the same old\nstory. We can see behind us but not around us. After so many\ncenturies the solidarity of _our species_ has dimly dawned on us,\nbut we can not discern the solidarity of all the animal world. We go\non daily committing crimes as horrible as those we execrate. And we\ndo it for the very same reason our long line of ancestors have done\nit, because the human mind is too feeble to be conscious of all the\ncomplicated relations which it is called upon to be conscious of.\n\nThe apology of the criminals has always been the same as it is\ntoday\u2014that the crucified creatures were of a different order of\nbeing\u2014that a chasm yawned between the persecutors and the\npersecuted\u2014that there was not a solidarity. The Gaul has no rights\nbecause he was a \u201cbarbarian.\u201d The fact that he has a nervous\nsystem and a love of life had nothing to do with it. The black man\nhad no rights that were inconvenient to respect because he had no\nsoul and because his subordination was God-ordained. And the honest\nox and the faithful dog have no rights today, _because they were\nmade to be murdered._\n\nI am a vegetarian because I believe in justice. There is injustice\nin the universe, because there are beings in it who monopolize its\nsweets and opportunities. They want their own pleasures and also the\npleasures of others. They shuffle upon others their bitters, and at\nthe same time rob them of their sweets. Others live, not as ends,\nbut as means and conveniences. I do not eat my fellow creatures, for\nthe same reason I do not enslave my brother and treat my sister as\nan appendage and otherwise monopolize the sweets and opportunities\nof the planet. There are on this ball billions of beings. They are\nmy fellow creatures. So far as I can make out they have\napproximately the same right to existence and to the enjoyment of\nexistence as I have. I do not want their pleasures and I do not want\nthem to drink my sorrows. I want simply my own and I am perfectly\ncontent to rob no one. In the words of another, \u201cI never want\nhappiness that gives another pain. I wish not happiness from\nothers\u2014only happiness out of the bosom of the great ALL which\ncomes like the red flowers of the oleander.\u201d\n\nI am a vegetarian because it is logical and natural to be so. The\nvegetable world contains all the elements necessary to human\nsustenance, and in a much more prime condition than they are found\nin the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants. The belief that\nwe can not have peach in our dimples and diamonds in our brains\nwithout dead bodies in our digestion is a belief having no\nfoundation except ignorance. Vegetal fibrin is identical with animal\nfibrin, and vegetal albumen is identical with animal albumen. Even\nin albuminoids, in the supply of which meat is supposed to be rather\nexclusive, there are vegetables, nuts and grains that far exceed\nchops and steaks. Fish, for instance, contains about 13 per cent. of\nalbuminoids, pork on average 16 per cent., and beef 17\u00bd per cent.;\nwhile nuts furnish from 8 to 25 per cent., grains 7 to 15 per cent.,\neggs 14 per cent., cheese 29 per cent., peas 22 per cent., lentils\n25 per cent., and beans from 22 to 35 per cent. The vegetable world,\nin fact, is the natural storehouse and the only original storehouse\nfrom which animals may derive energy. No animal can produce\nprotoplasm, which is the basis of all life and energy. This is a\nfunction of the plant, and of the plant only. All an animal can do\nis to take it after it is produced and burn it up. Animals are\nsimply locomotives consuming the energy which plants slowly\naccumulate from the sun. It is a graceful and perfect\nprocess\u2014plants storing up energy from the soil and sun, the\ninorganic, and the animal using this energy and completing the\ncircle by sending the elements back again to the inorganic. And it\nis a \u201cbarbarism\u201d in nature for animals to violate this beautiful\narrangement by turning around and swallowing each other.\n\nTo one accustomed to obtain his supply of protoplasm chiefly from\nthe bones of other animals instead of from the kingdom of the plant,\nthe assertion that it is possible not only to sustain but to enhance\nexistence on a fleshless diet seems very strange. It is not strange\nthat such an assertion should seem strange. Anything is strange to\nthe uninitiated. And the amount of ignorance on this subject is\nwell-nigh pitiable. The delusion that flesh is the most genuine\nsource of human energy has become so fixed that it actually disturbs\nthe respiration of nineteen out of twenty to be told that flesh\ncompared with many foods is a dilute form of nutrition, and that\nmore than half the inhabitants of the earth today are practical and\nprosperous vegetarians. There is no reason known to science or\nexperience why human beings may not keep up as profitable and as\ninteresting an existence without flesh as with it. In fact, after an\nexperience of four years and a rather careful contemplation of the\nmatter, I assert that physiological integrity may be more accurately\nsustained by a judicious diet of fruits, grains, vegetables, and\nnuts than by a diet in which carrion is a distinguished constituent.\nMan is not naturally a carnivorous animal. He has evolved from the\nfrugivorous anthropoids, and has a long biological ancestry of\nvegetarians. His mouth, digestive organs, skin structure, and modes\nof life are all unadapted to a carnivorous life. Man has probably\nadopted predatory habits almost within historic times. Not only the\nstudent and the thinker but the manual laborer as well is benefited\nby a fleshless regimen. A breakfast of oatmeal and cream, a couple\nof eggs on toast, whole wheat muffins and butter, and a nice rich\napple or banana is much more civilized, nutritious and economical\nthan a breakfast in which bloody beef plays chief role. The most\nsuccessful burden bearers of the world today are vegetarians. The\nTurkish longshoremen, perhaps the most powerful bipeds on the planet\n(except the gorilla), are lifelong vegetarians. They will pick up a\nburden of six or eight hundred pounds and walk away with it with no\nmore effort than is made by a meat-eating Englishman in carrying two\nhundred. De Lesseps said that the Suez Canal, the greatest\nengineering achievement ever accomplished on the earth, never could\nhave been finished, on account of the heat and the slavish character\nof the labor, by meat-eating Europeans. It had to be done by the\nbarley-feeding Bedouins and Armenians. De Lesseps became a\nvegetarian and remained one to his death, from his experiences in\nthe building of the Suez Canal. The peasantry of Russia, Italy,\nGermany, Ireland, and even Norway and Sweden away from the coast,\nare largely vegetarians. So, also, are millions in the Orient.\n\nFrom the standpoint of economy alone vegetarianism ought to appeal\npowerfully to everyone possessed of undoubted sanity. If men would\ntake the beautiful fruits of the soil, fresh from nature\u2019s hand,\ninstead of sitting down and devouring in the form of the accumulated\nresiduum of ruminants an acre at a meal, the problem of the\nincreasing density of mundane population would not be such a grave\none.\n\nI am a vegetarian, therefore, because cannibalism is unnecessary. I\ncan live just as well and be just as happy without drinking the\nblood of my fellows, and why _should_ I slay them? Why _should_ I\nnot live and let live\u2014especially when I can do it just as well as\nnot? It is not _necessary_ that ten thousand creatures should give\nup their lives in order that I may keep mine, and if I make any\npretensions to morality why should I require them to do it? If you\nsay such a thing _is_ necessary in your case, I say to you it is\nnot\u2014and further, that if it were, it would be your duty as an\nethical being to call on your undertaker. There is no sense in\ncarnivora talking about ethics and justice and mercy, for their very\nexistence is a travesty on such things. It makes me indignant and\nsad when I hear men deplore sin and prate about justice and love and\nmercy, when the very energy they expend in preaching justice and\nmercy is obtained from the skeletons and sensibilities of their\nfellows. It is a spectacle that ought to make the imps of netherdom\ntremble for their laurels\u2014man, the remorseless glutton, going\nabout with a tongue and a knife, with his tongue preaching peace,\nmercy, and love, and with his knife making the very earth sodden\nwith blood.\n\nIt may seem irreverent, but I say it, that if Christians can do\nthese crimes and yet so act as to earn celestial ecstasies, hell\nwill be uninhabited. I would like to retain respect for the religion\nof my boyhood, but when I see that religion look with equanimity and\neven levity upon a hemorrhage wide as the continents and horrible\neven to heathens, not only wink at it but actually perpetuate it,\nand even scaffold those few emancipated souls who are trying to\ncurtail it\u2014I almost despair of it.\n\nVegetarianism appeals not to the selfish but to the noble. It is for\nbeings who love justice, liberty, reciprocity. It teaches the Golden\nRule in its only sensible sense. It recognizes the moral progress of\nthe past and points to those still higher highlands toward which the\nages have ever heaved. It teaches to do as you would be done by.\n\u201cTo whom?\u201d Not to the black man and the white woman alone, but\nto the sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well. Yes, do as you\nwould be done by\u2014not to creatures of your own anatomy or your own\nguild only, _but to all creatures._ In a world like this, with its\ntangles and irrationalities, it is impossible to act in every\nparticular at all times and to all creatures ideally. This is not an\nideal world, and if we are to judge of the universe by the clod we\nroot and ride on, the whole thing is not a flattering affair. Our\nrelations to our fellow _men_ are not ideal, and from the nature of\nthings _they never can be_. But we think we can do amply when we do\nthe best we can. The difference between him who attempts honestly\nand faithfully to do just the best he can and him who knows little\nand cares less is as great as the difference between January and\nJune.\n\nEnjoy and let others enjoy. Live and let live. Do more. _Live and\nhelp live._ Do to beings below you as you would be done by beings\nabove you. Pity the grub and the ladybug, and have mercy on the\nmole. Poor, defenceless, undeveloped, untaught creatures. They are\nour fellow mortals. They are enmeshed in the same mighty processes\nas we. They came from the same source and are destined to the same\nend. They lived, moved and breathed on primeval land fragments when\nthe continents we creep over were sleeping in the seas. They are our\nancestors. They are the forms of being that have made you and me\npossible. Let us be brothers and sisters to them, not ruffians; pity\nthem and help them and pray for their untaught natures. Let us be\nconsistent, for we have but one life to live. We are striving for\nthe amelioration of this suffering world. Let us be economical. Let\nus not with one hand pour oil upon its agonies and with the other\ninflict gashes. Let us vow allegiance to the principles of universal\ncourtesy and love, whether to the lone worm wandering in the\ntwilight of consciousness, the feathered forms of the fields and\nforest, the heifer of the meadows, the simple savage on the banks of\nthe gladed river, the political slaves whom men call wives, or the\neconomic exiles of industry. The same spirit of sympathy and\nfraternity that broke the black man\u2019s manacles and is today\nmelting the white woman\u2019s chains will tomorrow emancipate the\nworkingman and the heifer, and as the ages bloom and the great\nwheels of the centuries grind on, the same spirit of leaven shall\nbanish _Selfishness_ from the earth and convert the planet finally\nto one unbroken and unparalleled spectacle of _Peace_, _Justice and\nSolidarity._","title":"Why I Am a Vegetarian: An Address Delivered Before the Chicago Vegetarian Society","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":6213}