An argument on behalf of the primitive diet of man / [Frederic Richard Lees].

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An argument on behalf of the primitive diet of man / [Frederic Richard Lees]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    with the dews of mercy, and are laved in the waters of life;—they are green with unfading hope, and blossom with immortality! The lust of ambition and the love of power, the rage of conquest and the impulses of ferocity, are never fed by the feasts of Nature. Towering amidst a host of famous men—prophets, priests, philosophers, sages, poets, authors, philanthropists, apostles—there are Daniel and John, Pythagoras and Epahinondas, Epicurus and Porphyry, Siddhar- ta, Cyrus, and Manahem, Milton and Shelley, Swedenborg, Howard, Ferguson, Franklin, Williams, aud the sainted Wes- ley. * If we consult the records of Longevity, we shall also discover that the Vegetarian-practice has been concomitant with many of the most noteworthy instances of the extreme prolongation of a happy, conscious human-life. § 12. Even hostile critics have been compelled to concede the suffi- ciency of grain and fruit to sustain the physical-man. The late Dr Samuel Brown, in the Westminster Review article, says:—“ We are ready to admit that Vegetarian writers—especially the author of * Fruits and Farinacea ’—have triumphantly proved that physical, horse- like strength is not only compatible with, but also favored by, a well- chosen diet from the vegetable kingdom; and likewise, that such a table is conducive to length of days.” Dr Carpenter, in the Medico- Cltirurgical Review, says:—“ As regards the endurance of physical labor, there is ample proof of the capacity of what is commonly called the vegetable regimen, to afford the requisite sustenance. ... The vegetable kingdom is perfectly capable of supplying the necessary wants of man under all ordinary circumstances. ... The advocates of Vegetari- anism have a wide and secure basis of Experience, such as can scarcely be shaken by any negative testimony—certainly not by the fullest proof of the unsuitableness of vegetable regimen to individuals.” TV. The Dietetic Laics of Mature. § 13. A law is a relationship—a method of action—a procession of facts, after a fixed invariable order. To understand the relation, we must understand the things related, which, in this case, are Man, with his multifarious wTants, and Diet, the adapted-means of their satisfac- tion. Man is an organized being—a warm-blooded animal—intended for action and material conquest. “ Go, and subdue the earth,” is the primal announcement of his mission : and his body is the machine and enginery wherewith he must accomplish the task. Let us, then, glance at its statics, its structure, and its conditions. § 14. All who know anything of the Chemistry of Nature, know that the surface of our globe and the atmosphere wdiich envelopes it—from * Sir Isaac Newton thought-out and wrote his famous Principia under the vegetal-regimen.
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