Morality in diet / [H.S. Salt].

  • Salt, H. S.
Date:
Between 1880 and 1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Morality in diet / [H.S. Salt]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MORALITY IN DIET IT is strange that, among the many important subjects which at this time are demanding investigation from every thoughtful man, vegetarianism has not attracted more general attention. For, though it cannot be classed among those vexed “ questions of the day,” which occupy the time of parliament and agitate the surface of party politics, yet it may safely be asserted that there is no matter which more truly deserves full and patient enquiry than this question of diet, connected as it is with the deep under¬ lying problems—How to live ? How to improve and elevate, mentally and bodily, the lives of our fellow-countrymen ? In all ages, from the days of Pythagoras to the days of Shelley, vegetarianism has had its prophets and apostles; but they have for the most part stood alone and isolated, solitary lights amidst almost universal darkness. Now, at last, in this progressive age, when the morality of life is more widely studied, and the laws of health and economy are better understood,‘earnest and hard-working men should be induced at least to give fair and unprejudiced examination to a system which claims to be at once most moral, most wholesome, and most economical. For these are the three great advantages which the vegetarian believes his way of living to possess; these are the three chief aspects under which vegetarianism may be viewed; and surely, amidst all the clamour and din of conflicting theories and creeds, it is right that the voice of vegetarianism should be heard, and that the cruelty and wastefulness of the system of flesh-eating should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Obviously, the same arguments will not have like weight with all; for while to the poorer classes it is the economic advantage of vegetarianism that is of most pressing and immediate importance, to wealthier and more educated people the moral- side of the question needs to be most forcibly stated. It is of this last that I would now speak. My object is to show that a bloodless diet is alone defensible on moral and aesthetic grounds. There is a passage in Mr. Ruskin’s works, where it is declared that a criterion of the morality of an action may be found in song. Actions are morally beautiful in proportion to their capability of becoming the subject of song. This is a standard from which no vegetarian will ever shrink; which no flesh-eater will ever dare to accept. The fruits and cereals of a vegetarian meal might well find mention in the purest and most delicate poem. Could the same be said of the repast of a flesh-eater? What are the dainties which Porphyro, in Keat’s “Eve of St. Agnes,” heaps “with glowing hand ” for his love,” in the retired quiet of the night ? They are “ candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, manna and dates,” and other “ delicates ” which would rejoice the soul of a vegetarian. What would have been the effect on the poem, if, instead of these, he had “heaped”* “beef-steaks and mutton-chops?” And why is it that the mere idea of such? a change is at once disgusting and ridiculous ? Again, would it not be admitted on all hands that fruits and herbs and corn would be a right and natural subject for the skill of a vegetarian poet? Yet what should we; think, if some enthusiastic flesh-eater were to give vent to the poetry of his- feelings in a ‘“Song of the Slaughter-house,” or “ Ballads of the Butcher ? ” And why is it that, while the one subject would be innocent and elevating,, the other would be loathsome and degrading ? This criterion, however, may be considered too fanciful, if we carry it to its logical conclusion. So we will not ask the supporters of the present system to sing of such subjects: we will merely beg of them to think. For thought is surely the best and truest standard, by which we may distinguish, the right from the wrong. That action and system are the best, which can best stand the scrutiny of thought. We will therefore venture to think about our diet; even though it be at the risk of shocking “delicate-minded” ladies and gentlemen, who vote it impolite and disgusting to refer to such matters as the slaughter of animals, and b'rand all such enquiry with the epithet