,why ,i ,am a ,vegetarian ,an ,address ,delivered ,before the ,chicago ,vegetarian ,society ,by ,j4 ,howard ,moore ,frances ,l4 ,dusenberry ,mc,vicker's ,theatre ,building ,chicago ,,preface4 ,the human race is like a snake--it sheds4 ,ever and anon1 as the ages bloom1 old forms of thought are superseded by intellectual bran-news4 ,shrines at which one generation adores become to the succeeding desolate and despised4 ,this little brochure has a mission4 ,it is not a formidable one1 but it is4 ,it goes out with the hope that it may help1 if ever so infinitesimally1 in ridding the human of that terrific instinct of inconsideration toward the sub-human races4 ,solidarity is its plea1 human and universal4 ,it would be inexcusable to suppose it to be exhaustive4 ,it is not even defensive4 ,it is a projectile1 and projectiles do not apologize4 ,it intends to be followed4 ,j4 ,h4 ,m4 ,chicago1 ,may1 #ahie4 8,what more advance can mortals make in sin8 ,deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife1 ,looks up and from the butcher begs her life4 ,deaf to the harmless kid1 who1 ere he dies1 ,all efforts to procure thy pity tries1 ,and imitates in vain thy children's cries40 -- ,,anonymous4 8,no flocks that range the valley free1 ,to slaughter ,i condemn2 ,taught by the ,power that pities me1 ,i learn to pity them40 -- ,,goldsmith4 8,it is a vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary to human life40 -- ,,sir ,,henry ,,thompson4 8,the anthropoids and all the quadrumana derive their alimentation from fruits1 grains1 and other succulent vegetal substances1 and the strict analogy between the structure of those animals and that of man clearly demonstrates his frugivorous nature40 -- ,,owen4 8,does it not shame you to mingle blood and murder with nature's beneficent fruits8 ,other carnivora you call savage and ferocious--lions1 tigers and serpents--while yourselves come behind them in no species of barbarity4 ,and yet for them murder is the only means of sustenance1 whereas to you it is a superfluous luxury and crime40 -- ,,plutarch4 ,,why ,i ,,am ,a ,,vegetarian4 ,i am not here to convert you to vegetarianism4 ,i know too well the nature of mind to commit any such blunder4 ,i am here to talk ,english and1 if possible1 give you glimpses4 ,i can not hope in half a hundred minutes to rinse from your brains sand bars that have been ages in depositing4 ,it is no holiday matter to emancipate one's self from an old1 inveterate slavery4 ,it is a task so formidable that few do it without help4 ,it requires a courage and an iconoclasm greater than most possess to make heroic initiatives4 ,but after a reform is accomplished and its principles become matters of course1 there are then few persons without the ability to look back and wonder why idiots are so much like men4 ,men are somnambulistic4 ,stupefied by the long night of instinct out of which it arose1 the human mind is only half awake4 ,washington was the father of a country1 but he held human beings as slaves and paid his hired help in ,virginia whisky4 ,it took ,americans one hundred years to find out that 8all men0 included ,ethiopians4 ,men who risked their lives to achieve personal and political liberty for black men deliberately doom white women to a similar servitude4 ,rich men give millions to museums or universities1 when they would know1 if they had the talent to stop and think1 that the thousands who make their wealth work like wretches from morning till night and suffocate in garrets and feed on garbage1 in order that they may be munificent4 ,human beings preach as the cardinal of morality that they should act upon others as they would be pleased to have others act upon them1 and then take the most sensitive and beautiful beings all palpitating with life1 and chop them into fragments with a composure that would do honor to the managers of an inferno4 ,it has been said that when a proposition is presented to us for our acceptance or rejection we treat it as we would treat an article of furniture presented to us for our apartments4 ,we try it4 ,if it fits in character and complexion1 we accept it1 and it becomes a part of our paraphernalia4 ,if it does not fit1 we reject it4 ,every proposition that comes to our intelligence is thus accepted or dismissed1 depending on the congeniality or uncongeniality of the subjective and the objective4 ,it is impossible absolutely for mind1 constituted as it is on the earth1 to accept a proposition that is antagonistic to it4 ,and when a proposition is presented to the mind1 the only way in the world to win its acceptance is by coaxing and modifying the mind itself4 ,i come to you tonight with a proposition4 ,in a very feeble and fragmentary way ,i attempt to do what every polemic attempts to do--to dynamite your minds1 to havoc their foundations and reconstruct them in harmony with the proposition ,i champion4 ,but there are so many attitudes of opposition possible1 so many objections that are thinkable1 and so many things assumed by those who pitch themselves against it1 that ,i cannot hope in one evening to accomplish more than a beginning4 ,but if ,i can somehow succeed in dilating your pupils a little1 and enable you to realize in some measure the infamy in which you and the rest of the occidental world are today engaged1 ,i shall feel better than if ,i had spoken to stones4 ,i want to remind you and warn you that it makes no difference how just a proposition may be and how universally and unreservedly it may be ultimately accepted1 its beginning is always a period of interrogation and war4 ,when ,garrison first announced the proposition denying the right to auction ,ethiopians1 the proposition was assailed by the most formidable volleys of objection4 ,those objections seem puerile today1 but in the days in which this proposition found few heads in which to hide1 they were axioms of ethical and political science4 ,so when you take an attitude on this proposition remember there are future generations as well as this one1 and be careful that you do not make the same spectacle of yourself that poor old ,webster and other blind men made when they poured cold water down the spines of early ,abolitionists4 ,i became a vegetarian by my own reflection4 ,i did not know at the time of the vegetarian movement1 and1 hence supposed myself alone among republics of carnivora4 ,it did not seem to me graceful or ideal that ,i1 an ethical being1 should maintain my existence at the incessant expense of misery and death to others4 ,but the problem that for some time tormented me was whether it were possible to keep up a successful and at all interesting existence without ox-hips4 ,i wondered whether the universe were so constructed that it were impossible for its most endowed children to live without the crudest and most recreant egoism4 ,there is now no remnant of a doubt about the possibilities of a bloodless existence1 nor even of its positive hygienic advantages4 ,i had been considerable of a vulture1 and for sometime after eliminating flesh from my menus ,i had desire for it4 ,but gradually that desire faded1 and there came in its stead a growing horror of flesh4 ,the grinding of the tissues of my fellow beings seemed horribly akin to the chewing of the emotions of my friends4 ,after a few weeks of fruits and vegetables there came over me a feeling of exultation and superiority and crispness that was truly novel4 ,today1 ,i am thoroughly emancipated from the coils of kreophagy4 ,i shall go down to my grave and out into the darkling hereafter with a bloodless digestion1 if ,i am the only animal in the universe to do so4 ,the flesh-tearing performances which ,i am compelled everywhere to behold seem to me to be the lurid deeds of maniacs rather than the timed and premeditated acts of sane beings4 ,and ,i can but pity1 not only the creatures whose throats are severed and whose skeletons are stripped1 but the blind and reckless cannibals who perpetrate these crimes4 ,when the whole earth teems with such a bewildering variety of beautiful and bloodless fruits1 it seems so strange and so sad and so frightful that man should continue the barbarous1 blood-sucking practices of the world's infancy4 ,vegetarianism is the neglect by one being to suppress another for nutritive purposes4 ,i believe in it4 ,i believe ,i should neglect to suppress the interests and lives of non-human beings for identically the same reason ,i should neglect to suppress the interests and lives of human beings4 ,the exploitation of birds and quadrupeds for human whim or convenience is an offense not different in kind from the offenses denounced in human statutes as robbery and murder4 ,and the same logic which impels abstinence from one of these offenses impels everyone who has the power to be consistent to refrain from all of them4 ,there is1 in fact1 but one crime in the universe and all varieties of impropriety whatsoever are aspects or phases of this crime4 ,it is the crime of exploitation--the suppression of the interests1 lives1 or welfares of some beings for the whim or convenience of others--the neglect to recognize the equal or the approximately equal rights of all to life1 consideration and happiness--the crime of doing to others as you would that others would not do to you4 ,i look back over the ages of this world--not the ages of human history simply1 for the history of the human species is but a little section1 the remembered chapter1 in the history of the evolutions which have been performed by mundane life4 ,i look back to the beginning of life on this planet--back #ej1jjj1jjj of years ago1 when the first protoplasmic specks sprawled in primeval seas4 ,life originated in the sea fifteen hundred thousand human generations ago4 ,after ages of evolution it crept out upon the continents1 subsequently entered the forests1 climbed and clambered among the trees1 became endowed with perpendicularity and hands1 descended and walked upon the soil1 invented agriculture1 built cities and states--and here we are4 ,human civilization is but the van1 the hither terminus1 of an evolutional process which had its beginning away back in the protoplasm of primeval slime4 ,the philosopher is the remote posterity of the meek and lowly monad4 ,now1 this whole enterprise1 this entire process of biological evolution1 has been accomplished by the survival from age to age of the fittest to survive2 that is1 by the subjection and elimination of the weak and the simple by the more powerful and sophisticated1 ,and the disposition to exploit manifested by every animal that breathes1 from philosopher to fish1 is a disposition which has been implanted in the natures of living beings by the necessities of evolution4 ,the great task of reforming the universe1 therefore1 is the task of eliminating from the natures of its inhabitants the disposition to be inhospitable1 egoistic and merciless1 which has been everywhere developed by evolution4 ,in the ideal universe the life and happiness of no being are contingent upon the suffering and death of any other4 ,and the fact that in this universe of ours life and happiness have been and are today so largely maintained by the infliction of indescribable misery and extinction1 is the most pathetic1 the most stupendous1 and the most sickening contemplation that ever invaded human mind4 ,it is encouraging to know1 however1 that life in its highest forms1 that is1 as represented by the most cultured aggregates of the human species1 is evolving rapidly and irrepressibly toward the ideal1 that is1 toward a social state in which the interests and life of each individual being are more and more equally precious4 ,what are civilization and morality8 ,what do we mean by ethical progress8 ,the growth of consideration for others--nothing more--simply cessation of1 or abstinence from1 exploitation4 ,courtesy1 kindness1 justice1 altruism1 humanity1 what are they8 ,they are the qualities which distinguish those who put themselves in the place of others1 who recognize the existence and the preciousness of others1 and who act upon others as they themselves would be pleased to have others act upon them4 ,otherism is the antithesis of laissez faire4 ,the growth of civility in the earth is the growth of the principle or consciousness of solidarity among its inhabitants4 ,vegetarianism1 therefore1 that is1 abstinence from non-human exploitation or the recognition of universal solidarity1 is related from this exalted standpoint to the logic of the ,magna ,charta1 the ,declaration of ,independence and the modern movements of social reform4 ,the sympathies of the consistent vegetarian go out naturally to the stricken and oppressed everywhere--to ,cuba in her struggle for autonomy1 to ,ireland in her misery1 to the helpless quadruped quivering under the pole-ax1 and to the pitiable proletarian who goes up and down the monopolized universe seeking in vain for opportunities to earn honest nutrition4 ,the vegetarian who is conscious enough to be consistent is in love with the universe1 not simply with his wife or clan or species4 ,he strives to be graceful to every being whose destinies he contacts1 however humble or hopeless or eccentric that being may be4 ,i am a vegetarian because ,i believe that present-day ethics is founded on that puerile1 pre-,darwinian delusion that all other kinds of creatures and all worlds were created explicitly for the hominine species4 ,vegetarianism is the ethical corollary of evolution4 ,it is simply the expansion of ethics to suit the biological revelations of ,charles ,darwin4 ,evolution has taught us the kinship of all creatures4 ,the ancient hiatus between man and the other animals has been effectually sewed up4 ,biology teaches us1 if it teaches us anything1 that there is a solidarity of the sentient world4 ,man is simply one of a series of sentients1 differing in degree but not in kind from the creatures below and around him4 ,the ox he enslaves and slays and the poor reptile that wriggles in his pathway are his brothers1 partaking of his nature and sharing his destiny4 ,man is simply the adult of long evolution1 and his qualities are1 of course1 found among the juveniles and infants of the sentient world4 ,the industrious bee1 the civilized ant1 the devoted steed1 the mischievous ape1 the irascible serpent1 the sagacious elephant1 the beautiful gazelle and the great1 honest ox have within them in embryo all the emotions that roll through the soul of man4 ,fear1 love1 fidelity1 hate1 jealousy1 joy1 selfishness1 curiosity1 remorse1 are all found everywhere1 and they are the same passions that heave your breast and mine4 ,chastity1 sobriety1 obedience1 personal cleanliness1 industry1 sympathy1 self-control1 friendship1 heroism1 sagacity--many dogs and other semi-civilized animals have all these qualities1 and in a greater degree even than whole races of men4 ,and these faculties and capacities of the non-hominine world are the same identical faculties and capacities that you have and ,i have4 ,industry and ingenuity in the beaver are just as genuine and just as commendable as the same qualities in man4 ,the faithful dog who stood over the lifeless body of his master grieving for recognition and starting at every flutter of his garments till he himself died of starvation1 was just as noble as if he had all his days walked on his hind legs and worn a cane4 ,the wild bird who takes her life in her wings to save her nestlings from the voracious serpent1 and the mother bear away on the ,arctic snows who allows herself to be murdered in order to save her child1 have just as genuine mother love and love just as sacred as that which burns in the breast of woman4 ,the ingenious ant1 which tends its fields1 gathers its harvests1 keeps slaves and armies and goes to war1 and performs about all the antics of civilized man except maltreating the females and drinking gin1 is not less civilized1 and its civilization is not less real1 because it is miniature4 ,and the ,christian who goes to church on ,sunday and wails long prayers and then goes home and stuffs his alimentary with the quivering vitals of his naive fellows1 and through the week lashes the flanks of his overburdened horse till the strained tendons are ready to snap1 is not less criminal because he is strategic1 and his crimes are not less infernal because they have no penalty but his conscience and no judge but himself4 ,whether we realize it or not the doctrine that on mankind's account all the rest of the animal world came into being and that all non-human beings are mere hunks devoid of all psychic qualities found in man1 is a doctrine not one whit more sagacious than the old geocentric theory of the universe4 ,man has defined himself as the 8paragon of the universe40 ,i do not say that he is not4 ,i simply say that if he is1 the universe has no cause for dry eyes4 ,man's treatment of his own kind and especially his conduct toward the forms of life differing from him have been such as to brand him as a most ill-mannered and immodel organism4 ,human beings have been sufficiently clever and sufficiently devoted to each other to evolve into the masters of the earth1 but instead of converting themselves into preceptors for the conquered races1 they have become the butchers of the universe4 ,instead of becoming the models and school-masters of the world in which they have outstripped1 and striving to repair the clumsy natures and regulate the straying feet of those by means of whom they have been hoisted into distinction1 they have become colossal pedants and assassins1 proclaiming themselves the pets and gods of creation and teaching each other that other races are mere fixtures to furnish food and amusement for themselves4 ,they inculcate as a rule of conduct--and they preach it valiantly--that each should act upon others as he himself would choose to be acted upon4 ,this ideal of social rectitude has been promulgated by the sages of the species for more than #b1jjj years4 ,but with miserable pusillanimity they confine its application to the members of their own species4 ,no non-human is too innocent or too interesting or too wonderful to escape the most frightful humiliations1 if by those humiliations human comfort or human amusement or human whim is in any way whatever garnished4 ,look at the horse6 ,no nobler and more beautiful creature is found in all the animal realm4 ,a marvel of strength1 speed and splendor4 ,the most useful and most consummate associate of man4 ,what wonderful possibilities of reciprocity6 ,man takes the horse from the plains1 where he is exposed to the inclemencies of weather1 the contingencies of food and the blunders of his own childlike nature4 ,he gives him regular meals1 pleasant shelter1 intellectual surroundings1 and a home4 ,the horse in return gives man the benefit of his superior strength and speed1 bearing man and his burdens and supplementing in a thousand ways the inadequate energies of his mentor4 ,these are the possibilities1 the ideal--gigantic strength supplementing superior wisdom4 ,beautiful reciprocity6 ,what are the actualities8 ,sad1 indeed6 ,the horse is not an associate but a slave4 ,he has no rights1 and is seldom suspected of being entitled to feelings or vanities at all4 ,he is treated as if he had merely existence and usefulness4 ,he is neglected1 overburdened and overworked1 beaten1 insulted1 starved1 maimed1 misunderstood1 deprived of leisure and liberty1 unconsidered--doomed to an environment out of which has been drained every element calculated to promote his happiness and intelligence and perpetuate his nobility and beauty4 ,he is a mere suggestion of the might-have-been4 ,his regal neck has wilted2 the splendid flanks are lean and drawn2 the ambitious face is sad4 ,the proud galloper of the plains1 the companion of the winds1 bearing fire in his nostrils and thunder in his hoofs1 has become a soured1 impoverished1 broken-hearted but faithful wreck4 ,the stars of heaven never looked down on a more pitiful sight than that of a horse1 after having drudged all his days in the service of his lord1 cast out in his helpless old age to wander and perish4 ,our own happiness and that of our species are believed to be so much more important than that of others that we sacrifice without scruple the most sacred prerogatives of others in order that our own may be fastidiously trimmed4 ,even for a tooth or a feather to wear on our vanity marauders are sent through the forests of the earth to ravage and depopulate them4 ,beautiful beings which fill the woods with song and juvenility are compelled to sprawl lifeless and disheveled on the skulls of unconscionable sillies4 ,criminal and inconvenient races are exterminated with eager and superfluous violence4 ,thousands of innocent and helpless souls are caught up and carried by unfeeling emissaries into foul dungeons and there doomed by ghoulish clowns of science to the most protracted1 useless1 and damning victimizations4 ,it is enough almost to make villains weep--the cold-blooded manner in which human beings cut the throats1 dash out the brains1 and discuss the flavor of their victims at their cannibalistic feasts4 ,look at the scenes to be met with in all our streets and stockyards6 ,an army of butchers standing in blood ankle deep and working themselves to exhaustion carving the throats of their helpless fellows--unsuspecting oxen with limpid eyes looking up at the deadly pole-ax and a moment later lying a-quiver under its relentless thud--struggling swine swinging by their hinders with their life leaping from their gashed jugulars--an atmosphere in perpetual churn with the groans and yells of the massacred--streets thronged with unprocessioned funerals--everywhere corpses dangling from sale-hooks or sprawling on chopping blocks--men and women kneeling nightly by their pillow sides and congratulating themselves on their whiteness and rising and leaping on the bloody remains of some slaughtered fellow--such are the spectacles in all our streets and stockyards1 and such are the enormities perpetrated day after day by ,christian cannibals on the defenseless dumb ones of this world4 ,holy days1 days above all others when it seems men's minds would be bent on compassion1 are farces of gluttony and ferocity4 ,unfeeling ruffians cowardly shoot down defenceless birds or prowl the country in rival squads massacring every living creature that is not able to escape them--and for no higher or humaner purpose than just to see who can kill the most6 ,this is egoism unparalleled on the face of the earth4 ,no species of animal except man plunges to such depths of atrocity4 ,it is bad enough in all conscience for one being to suppress another in order to tear it to pieces and swallow it1 but when such outrages are perpetrated by organized packs just for pastime it becomes an enormity beyond characterization4 ,the insectivora1 the carnivora1 and the reptilia are cruel4 ,it is horrible to contemplate the enormous wickedness perpetrated on the less offensive races by these relentless brutes4 ,but the crimes committed by the hominine species are the most insolent and extravagant in the universe4 ,non-human murderers are ruthless1 but even serpents and hyenas do not exterminate for sport4 ,a universe is1 indeed1 to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so unconscious1 so irresponsible1 and so ethically repulsive that they make life a commodity1 mercy a disease1 and systematic massacre a pastime and profession4 ,i am a vegetarian because ,i believe in the golden rule4 ,act toward others as you would that others would act toward you1 has been the basic precept of the morals of the generations4 ,this wonderful rule has been mouthed and mouthed since the days of ,confucius1 #b1djj years ago4 ,but it never has been lived4 ,do as you would be done by4 ,certainly4 ,but to whom8 ,each class or clan has been its own little clique to whom it after a fashion observed this rule4 ,slavery and slaughter have been the rule toward everyone else4 ,the ,troglodytes hunted the ,ethiopians in four-horse chariots with as little compunction as ,americans hunt the wood-deer today4 ,a ,roman could take the life of his ,gallic slave with as perfect impunity as an ,american can slay his bovine servant today4 ,yet to kill a ,gaul was as really murder as to kill a ,roman4 ,it hasn't been very long since all the ,christian nations hunted their dusky brethren in ,africa and sold and loaned and lashed them as we do the horse today4 ,all these crimes are now matters of course to us4 ,it is the same old story4 ,we can see behind us but not around us4 ,after so many centuries the solidarity of our species has dimly dawned on us1 but we can not discern the solidarity of all the animal world4 ,we go on daily committing crimes as horrible as those we execrate4 ,and we do it for the very same reason our long line of ancestors have done it1 because the human mind is too feeble to be conscious of all the complicated relations which it is called upon to be conscious of4 ,the apology of the criminals has always been the same as it is today--that the crucified creatures were of a different order of being--that a chasm yawned between the persecutors and the persecuted--that there was not a solidarity4 ,the ,gaul has no rights because he was a 8barbarian40 ,the fact that he has a nervous system and a love of life had nothing to do with it4 ,the black man had no rights that were inconvenient to respect because he had no soul and because his subordination was ,god-ordained4 ,and the honest ox and the faithful dog have no rights today1 because they were made to be murdered4 ,i am a vegetarian because ,i believe in justice4 ,there is injustice in the universe1 because there are beings in it who monopolize its sweets and opportunities4 ,they want their own pleasures and also the pleasures of others4 ,they shuffle upon others their bitters1 and at the same time rob them of their sweets4 ,others live1 not as ends1 but as means and conveniences4 ,i do not eat my fellow creatures1 for the same reason ,i do not enslave my brother and treat my sister as an appendage and otherwise monopolize the sweets and opportunities of the planet4 ,there are on this ball billions of beings4 ,they are my fellow creatures4 ,so far as ,i can make out they have approximately the same right to existence and to the enjoyment of existence as ,i have4 ,i do not want their pleasures and ,i do not want them to drink my sorrows4 ,i want simply my own and ,i am perfectly content to rob no one4 ,in the words of another1 8,i never want happiness that gives another pain4 ,i wish not happiness from others--only happiness out of the bosom of the great ,,all which comes like the red flowers of the oleander40 ,i am a vegetarian because it is logical and natural to be so4 ,the vegetable world contains all the elements necessary to human sustenance1 and in a much more prime condition than they are found in the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants4 ,the belief that we can not have peach in our dimples and diamonds in our brains without dead bodies in our digestion is a belief having no foundation except ignorance4 ,vegetal fibrin is identical with animal fibrin1 and vegetal albumen is identical with animal albumen4 ,even in albuminoids1 in the supply of which meat is supposed to be rather exclusive1 there are vegetables1 nuts and grains that far exceed chops and steaks4 ,fish1 for instance1 contains about #ac per cent4 of albuminoids1 pork on average #af per cent41 and beef #ag per cent42 while nuts furnish from #h to #be per cent41 grains #g to #ae per cent41 eggs #ad per cent41 cheese #bi per cent41 peas #bb per cent41 lentils #be per cent41 and beans from #bb to #ce per cent4 ,the vegetable world1 in fact1 is the natural storehouse and the only original storehouse from which animals may derive energy4 ,no animal can produce protoplasm1 which is the basis of all life and energy4 ,this is a function of the plant1 and of the plant only4 ,all an animal can do is to take it after it is produced and burn it up4 ,animals are simply locomotives consuming the energy which plants slowly accumulate from the sun4 ,it is a graceful and perfect process--plants storing up energy from the soil and sun1 the inorganic1 and the animal using this energy and completing the circle by sending the elements back again to the inorganic4 ,and it is a 8barbarism0 in nature for animals to violate this beautiful arrangement by turning around and swallowing each other4 ,to one accustomed to obtain his supply of protoplasm chiefly from the bones of other animals instead of from the kingdom of the plant1 the assertion that it is possible not only to sustain but to enhance existence on a fleshless diet seems very strange4 ,it is not strange that such an assertion should seem strange4 ,anything is strange to the uninitiated4 ,and the amount of ignorance on this subject is well-nigh pitiable4 ,the delusion that flesh is the most genuine source of human energy has become so fixed that it actually disturbs the respiration of nineteen out of twenty to be told that flesh compared with many foods is a dilute form of nutrition1 and that more than half the inhabitants of the earth today are practical and prosperous vegetarians4 ,there is no reason known to science or experience why human beings may not keep up as profitable and as interesting an existence without flesh as with it4 ,in fact1 after an experience of four years and a rather careful contemplation of the matter1 ,i assert that physiological integrity may be more accurately sustained by a judicious diet of fruits1 grains1 vegetables1 and nuts than by a diet in which carrion is a distinguished constituent4 ,man is not naturally a carnivorous animal4 ,he has evolved from the frugivorous anthropoids1 and has a long biological ancestry of vegetarians4 ,his mouth1 digestive organs1 skin structure1 and modes of life are all unadapted to a carnivorous life4 ,man has probably adopted predatory habits almost within historic times4 ,not only the student and the thinker but the manual laborer as well is benefited by a fleshless regimen4 ,a breakfast of oatmeal and cream1 a couple of eggs on toast1 whole wheat muffins and butter1 and a nice rich apple or banana is much more civilized1 nutritious and economical than a breakfast in which bloody beef plays chief role4 ,the most successful burden bearers of the world today are vegetarians4 ,the ,turkish longshoremen1 perhaps the most powerful bipeds on the planet 7except the gorilla71 are lifelong vegetarians4 ,they will pick up a burden of six or eight hundred pounds and walk away with it with no more effort than is made by a meat-eating ,englishman in carrying two hundred4 ,de ,lesseps said that the ,suez ,canal1 the greatest engineering achievement ever accomplished on the earth1 never could have been finished1 on account of the heat and the slavish character of the labor1 by meat-eating ,europeans4 ,it had to be done by the barley-feeding ,bedouins and ,armenians4 ,de ,lesseps became a vegetarian and remained one to his death1 from his experiences in the building of the ,suez ,canal4 ,the peasantry of ,russia1 ,italy1 ,germany1 ,ireland1 and even ,norway and ,sweden away from the coast1 are largely vegetarians4 ,so1 also1 are millions in the ,orient4 ,from the standpoint of economy alone vegetarianism ought to appeal powerfully to everyone possessed of undoubted sanity4 ,if men would take the beautiful fruits of the soil1 fresh from nature's hand1 instead of sitting down and devouring in the form of the accumulated residuum of ruminants an acre at a meal1 the problem of the increasing density of mundane population would not be such a grave one4 ,i am a vegetarian1 therefore1 because cannibalism is unnecessary4 ,i can live just as well and be just as happy without drinking the blood of my fellows1 and why should ,i slay them8 ,why should ,i not live and let live--especially when ,i can do it just as well as not8 ,it is not necessary that ten thousand creatures should give up their lives in order that ,i may keep mine1 and if ,i make any pretensions to morality why should ,i require them to do it8 ,if you say such a thing is necessary in your case1 ,i say to you it is not--and further1 that if it were1 it would be your duty as an ethical being to call on your undertaker4 ,there is no sense in carnivora talking about ethics and justice and mercy1 for their very existence is a travesty on such things4 ,it makes me indignant and sad when ,i hear men deplore sin and prate about justice and love and mercy1 when the very energy they expend in preaching justice and mercy is obtained from the skeletons and sensibilities of their fellows4 ,it is a spectacle that ought to make the imps of netherdom tremble for their laurels--man1 the remorseless glutton1 going about with a tongue and a knife1 with his tongue preaching peace1 mercy1 and love1 and with his knife making the very earth sodden with blood4 ,it may seem irreverent1 but ,i say it1 that if ,christians can do these crimes and yet so act as to earn celestial ecstasies1 hell will be uninhabited4 ,i would like to retain respect for the religion of my boyhood1 but when ,i see that religion look with equanimity and even levity upon a hemorrhage wide as the continents and horrible even to heathens1 not only wink at it but actually perpetuate it1 and even scaffold those few emancipated souls who are trying to curtail it--,i almost despair of it4 ,vegetarianism appeals not to the selfish but to the noble4 ,it is for beings who love justice1 liberty1 reciprocity4 ,it teaches the ,golden ,rule in its only sensible sense4 ,it recognizes the moral progress of the past and points to those still higher highlands toward which the ages have ever heaved4 ,it teaches to do as you would be done by4 8,to whom80 ,not to the black man and the white woman alone1 but to the sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well4 ,yes1 do as you would be done by--not to creatures of your own anatomy or your own guild only1 but to all creatures4 ,in a world like this1 with its tangles and irrationalities1 it is impossible to act in every particular at all times and to all creatures ideally4 ,this is not an ideal world1 and if we are to judge of the universe by the clod we root and ride on1 the whole thing is not a flattering affair4 ,our relations to our fellow men are not ideal1 and from the nature of things they never can be4 ,but we think we can do amply when we do the best we can4 ,the difference between him who attempts honestly and faithfully to do just the best he can and him who knows little and cares less is as great as the difference between ,january and ,june4 ,enjoy and let others enjoy4 ,live and let live4 ,do more4 ,live and help live4 ,do to beings below you as you would be done by beings above you4 ,pity the grub and the ladybug1 and have mercy on the mole4 ,poor1 defenceless1 undeveloped1 untaught creatures4 ,they are our fellow mortals4 ,they are enmeshed in the same mighty processes as we4 ,they came from the same source and are destined to the same end4 ,they lived1 moved and breathed on primeval land fragments when the continents we creep over were sleeping in the seas4 ,they are our ancestors4 ,they are the forms of being that have made you and me possible4 ,let us be brothers and sisters to them1 not ruffians2 pity them and help them and pray for their untaught natures4 ,let us be consistent1 for we have but one life to live4 ,we are striving for the amelioration of this suffering world4 ,let us be economical4 ,let us not with one hand pour oil upon its agonies and with the other inflict gashes4 ,let us vow allegiance to the principles of universal courtesy and love1 whether to the lone worm wandering in the twilight of consciousness1 the feathered forms of the fields and forest1 the heifer of the meadows1 the simple savage on the banks of the gladed river1 the political slaves whom men call wives1 or the economic exiles of industry4 ,the same spirit of sympathy and fraternity that broke the black man's manacles and is today melting the white woman's chains will tomorrow emancipate the workingman and the heifer1 and as the ages bloom and the great wheels of the centuries grind on1 the same spirit of leaven shall banish ,selfishness from the earth and convert the planet finally to one unbroken and unparalleled spectacle of ,peace1 ,justice and ,solidarity4