Fifty years of food reform : a history of the vegetarian movement in England / by Charles W. Forward.

Forward, Charles W. (Charles Walter)

Date:: 1898

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fifty years of food reform : a history of the vegetarian movement in England / by Charles W. Forward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. devouring flesh in general that he hears carnivor- ous men express against eating human flesh, or flesh of Horses, Dogs, Cats, or other animals which, in some countries, it is not customary for carnivorous men to devour. “4. Because Nature seems to have made a superabundant provision for the nourishment of [frugivorous] animals in the saccharine matter of Roots and Fruits, in the farinaceous matter of Grain, Seed, and Pulse, and in the oleaginous matter of the stalks, leaves, and pericarps of numerous vegetables. “ 5. Because he feels an utter and unconquerable repugnance against receiving into his stomach the flesh or juice of deceased animal organization. “ 6. Because the destruction of the mechanical organization of vegetables inflicts no sensible suffering, nor violates any moral feeling, while vegetables serve to sustain his health, strength, and spirits above those of most carnivorous men. “ 7. Because during thirty years of rigid absti- nence from the flesh and juices of deceased sensitive beings, he finds that he has not suffered a day’s serious illness, that his animal strength and vigour have been equal or superior to that of other men, and that his mind has been fully equal to numerous shocks which he has had to encounter from malice, envy, and various acts of turpitude in his fellow-men. “8. Because observing that carnivorous propen- sities among animals are accompanied by a total want of sympathetic feelings and gentle sentiments —as in the Hyaena, the Tiger, the Vulture, the Eagle, the Crocodile, and the Shark—he conceives that the practice of these carnivorous tyrants affords no worthy example for the imitation or justification of rational, reflecting, and conscientious beings. “ 9. Because he observes that carnivorous men, unrestrained by reflection of sentiment, even refine on the most cruel practices of the most savage animals [of other species], and apply their resources of mind and art to prolong the miseries of the victims of their appetites—bleeding,skinning, roasting, and boiling animals alive, and torturing them without reservation or remorse, if they thereby add to the variety or the delicacy of their carnivorous gluttony. “ 10. Because the natural sentiments and sym- pathies of human beings, in regard to the killing of other animals, are generally so averse from the practice that few men or women could devour the animal whom they might be obliged themselves to kill; and yet they forget, or affect to forget, their living endearments or dying sufferings. % “ 11. Because the human stomach appears to be naturally so averse from receiving the remains of animals, that few people could partake of them if they were not disguised and flavoured by culinary preparation ; yet rational beings ought to feel that the prepared substances are not the less what they truly are, and that no disguise 0/ food, in itself loathsome, ought to delude the unsophisticated perceptions of a considerate mind. “12. Because the forty-seven millions of acres in England and Wales would maintain in abund- ance as many human inhabitants, if they lived wholly on grain, fruits, and vegetables ; but they sustain only twelve millions [in 1811] scantily, while animal food is made the basis of human subsistence. “ 13. Because animals do not present or contain the substance of food in mass, like vegetables; every part of their economy being subservient to their mere existence, and their entire frames being solely composed of blood necessary for life, of bones for strength, of muscles for motion, and of nerves for sensation. “ 14. Because the practice of killing and devour- ing animals can be justified by no moral plea, by no physical benefit, nor by any just allegation of necessity in countries where there is abundance of vegetable food, and where the arts of gardening and husbandry are favoured by social protection, and by the genial character of the soil and climate. ,l 15. Because whenever the number and hostility of predatory land animals might so tend to prevent the cultivation of vegetable food as to render it necessary to destroy (and, perhaps, to eat) them, there could in that case exist no necessity for destroying the animated existences of the distinct elements of air and water; and, as in most civilized countries, there exist no land animals besides those which are bred for slaughter or luxury, of course the destruction of mammals and birds in such countries must be ascribed either to unthinking wantonness or to carnivorous gluttony. “ 16. Because the stomachs of locomotive beings appear to have been provided for the purpose of conveying about with the moving animal nutritive substances, analogous in effect to the soil in which are fixed the roots of plants and, there- fore, nothing ought to be introduced into the stomach for digestion and absorption by the lacteals, or roots of the animal system, but the natural bases of simple nutrition—as the sac- charine, the oleaginous, and the farinaceous matter of the vegetable kingdom.” In 1807 he was elected by the ‘ Livery ’ of London to the office of High Sheriff of the City and County of Middlesex, and during the whole of his life he appears to have been an ardent and advanced reformer. In his career as a publisher he was offered Sir W. Scott’s manuscript of “ Waverley,” but did not, for some unex- plained reason, accept and publish it. “ The Return to Nature,” by John Frank Newton, is dedicated by the writer to Dr. Lainbe in gratitude for the recovery of his health by the adoption of a Vegetarian dietary. Jefferson Hogg, in his “ Life of Shelley ” writes :— “ Shelley was intimate with the Newton family, and was converted by them in 1813, and he began then a strict vegetable diet. His intimate association with the amiable and ac- complished votaries of a ‘ Return to Nature ’