The Ethics Of Flesh-Eating

A final word in regard to the ethics of flesh-eating, and we will have done with it. This is a matter which demands the careful attention of every right minded and thinking man.

The killing of animals is ethically wrong, man having primarily no right to destroy the life which he did not give, and which he cannot restore. We admit and put in practise this very principle - the sacredness of life - when we restrain boys from wantonly destroying birds' nests, and prevent them from killing small birds, or other inoffensive and innocent forms of life. Why not let the child be brutal?

One of the first of the doctrines of Buddha is "not to take life." "Sooner," said he. "shall the cleft rock reunite so as to make a whole, man may he who kills any living thing be admitted into our society."

Pythagoras, who lived 600 years before Christ, taught abstinence from all animal food and wine. The gospel of Pythagoras abhorred the shedding of blood, and recommended the use of "food which needs no cooking" - nuts, fruits, honey and the like.

"The Romans were, at this time, so persuaded of the superior goodness of vegetable diet that, besides the private examples of most of their greatest men, they established it by their laws of food.

We find the same preference given to vegetable food by all the ancient Latin writers, who had any understanding of the nature of things, and by Galen and Plutarch, who has showed more particularly perhaps than any one else, the danger of animal diet, in his precepts of health and various discourses on eating flesh.

Certainly the opinion of such authorities must be worthy of our serious attention and thought.

After carefully looking into the matter, and after some years of experience, I am bound to say that under no circumstances is the flesh of animals necessary as an article of food - except starvation. As has been pointed out in another chapter in this book, that in so far as body nourishing, building and sustaining qualities are concerned, there are many other articles of food which are far superior in every respect to flesh meats.

Experience, which is the best teacher, teaches every individual that if flesh eating be dispensed with, and its place be substituted by the other valuable foods, the time will quickly come when one will lose all desire for flesh foods; in fact, no inducement, however strong, can be offered to cause one's return to their use.

Unquestionably the highest mental, physical and spiritual excellence will come to a person only when, among other things, he refrains from a flesh and blood diet. The moment an individual decides to discontinue the use of flesh foods from praiseworthy or other motives, that very moment does he become a better individual. In doing this he respects the rights of animals. This mental attitude engenders in one the spirit of kindliness, than which none greater exists, and elevates a man above the level of the brute or savage state.

Volumes upon volumes have been written upon this subject, the literature of which is well worth the readers attention and perusal. Ovid has expressed it thus :

"Let white-robed peace be man's divinity, Rage and ferocity are of the beast. Why should man destroy, kill and eat? "

The whole subject - the concrete idea - is beautifully expressed by Cowper in his well known stanza:

"I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting in sensibility, the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."

This is precisely the teaching and philosophy of the Hindus, according to their Scriptures.

Fasting

Fasting is an idea almost as old as the hills. This is to be seen in the Rhamadan or Lenten season of the Mahommedan; while innumerable instances of it are furnished in the Bible. In the days gone by, purification and sanctification were accomplished by fasting. In modern times, however, the practise of fasting is a comparatively rare procedure, and is thought of almost as a thing of the past, fasting being rather supplanted by feasting. Yet fasting has its uses, even in modern days.

There is no doubt that many people are cured of chronic ailments by the fasting method. Many persons who have suffered severely from minor ailments, have found them disappear after an illness, a temporary illness in which the body has had sufficient time to regain its normal balance or condition of health. The same thing frequently occurs after a sea voyage; the stomach is so thoroughly shaken up and emptied by retching, that the individual practically puts in a time of compulsory abstemiousness or fasting, and Nature has time to burn up the waste matters of the body.

"The more you feed a sick body, the sicker you make it." Conversely the less the body is fed, the healthier it becomes.

There is really only one benefit from fasting, and that is getting rid of the uric acid cinders, the proteid waste of the body. The majority of people are eating three or four times more proteid material than they need, and the consequence is they cannot utilize it all, and it accumulates in the body as half-burned material or uric-acid cinders.

A man cannot profitably consume more than one ounce, or one and a half ounces, of proteids or nitrogenous food per day, but, ordinarily, from four to six ounces per day are taken: flesh-meats, eggs, nuts, cheese, peas, beans, lentils.

The army ration supplies four or five ounces, which is a great excess; and most health books, physiology and all, say that three or four ounces are necessary to keep a man healthy; these are antiquated ideas.