THE NEW PYTHAGOREANS.
WE should not ourselves call either vegetarians or teetotalers "faddists," at least not in any oppro- brious sense. They are faddists, no doubt, inasmuch as they give to a single idea an irrational importance; but if they were a little more scientific in their methods and a little less cocksure of their own superior wisdom and morality, we should include them in the useful class of innocent experi- menters in modes of living. It is quite expedient to ascertain by actual experiment whether all the great races of mankind have been mistaken in thinking wine good to drink, or to test the merit of various kinds of food as sustenance for man. We do not yet know accurately what kind of diet nourishes the strongest and the cleverest men, or whether, in fact, diet, so long as it is pleasant to those who consume it, produces any considerable effects at all. If a few hundred people living under the same conditions would half of them drink wine and half of them abstain, and compare results im- partially and with scientific precision, they might teach us all something it would be highly advantageous to know, more especially as wine has mental effects which are not yet proved to belong to any kind of solid food. If, again, a number of persons of the same condition would divide themselves into committees, and live for a time on various articles of food, we might find that they had enlightened us on a great physical question, while they would certainly be able to tell us what is the absolutely cheapest kind of sustenance for those who work. We have been assured on good authority that in England a diet of haricot beans boiled and then fried in melted dripping is the cheapest that will keep up strength to the full; but there may be other and more agreeable provant which is equally easy of attainment. Is millet, as some say, more sustaining than wheat? Can strong men be bred upon rice P — a question which would be answered differently by Bengalees and negro labourers f South Carolina. Is there any reason for a mixed iet of flesh and feriae other than a taste, which may be
rverted, like the English taste for high game. All these re problems worth solving, and which, indeed, ought to be lved. If any Society will set about seeking a solution we hall praise that Society as composed of men ready to sacrifice heir own comfort, their own tastes, possibly even their own gusts, for the general good. We have never been able to oin in the ridicule of the two Scotch philosophers who r.dered a dish of raw snails, and pronounced them "much too reen "; we cannot know if raw snails are nice unless some- ody will swallow them, and if they are nice the world is • ting a large supply of cheap food. What we complain of that teetotalers and vegetarians will exalt their horns so igb, will declare that they alone possess wisdom, will make their theories about diet religions, will, above all, pour • ntempt upon the experience of mankind. If there is a • t of history which is certain, it is that the wine-drinking • have conquered the world, have civilised the world, and re moralised the world. We owe monotheism to the Jew ho drank, art to the Greek who drank, law to the Roman ho drank, freedom to the Teuton who drank, usually a good
too much. Testimony like that, quite certain and con-
tinuous for thousands of years, may not be irrefutable, but it at least raises a presumption that the habit does not greatly injure the races which contract it, a presumption not to be set aside by a mere denunciation. Similarly, it is certain that the best, the strongest, and the most energetic men in the world have been the whites of the upper classes, who for at least two thousand years have lived upon mixed food, eating flesh and vegetables indiscriminately. Is all that evidence to be brushed away by a. few words of not very convincing argument P
The teetotal question has grown wearisome, and the vegetarians are just now to the fore, so we will narrow the discussion down to them, and begin by saying that we wish them to prevail. If they were right—that is, if a vegetable diet were the healthier—many of the problems which perplex philanthropists would be easily solved. Grass, no doubt, would be grown only for its beauty, and there would be no comfortable boots, but it would be far easier to live cheaply, and slaughter-houses, which, like many inevitable things, are very disgusting, would finally cease upon the planet. But, then, where is the evidence for their theory, or rather for their theories, which are many P Some of them say we have no right to take life, but that is a pure assumption, con- tradicted by the fact that we are compelled by Nature to take life every moment of the day. What gives the ox his superior sanctity, making it monstrous to kill him, over that of the millions of animalcules all alive whom we must kill ? Can size have such importance in a scheme of morals, or are we perhaps less guilty when we kill a sheep than when we kill a whale, which, we may remark, is not a fish, but a mammal as much as the sheep is P Others, again, declare that in killing animals we brutalise ourselves, which, if true, would be a. good argument ; but then is it true Are English gentlemen more brutal than Hindoos, or, to bring the matter nearer home, are average Englishmen of the same cultivation more brutal than the vegetarians themselves As for the argu- ment that a vegetable diet is the healthier diet, there are no facts to substantiate at. There is no light to be derived from the naturalists, for though all the animals which have grown very big are vegetarians, the biggest birds all kill for their - subsistence, while as to men, millions of Hindoos spring from families which have never for two thousand years tasted meat. Are they healthier than Tartars brought up on meat alone, or English gentlemen who eat grain and dead flesh indiscriminately every day P Experts in insurance do not think so, or doctors, or those who have lived where they could closely observe both sets of eaters. Mind, the difference is not caused by race or climate. The average Rajpoot is taller than the average Englishman, is quite as big, and is as brave, but as healthy he is not, while his persistent energy is distinctly less. The native Christians of India of the second and third generation are notoriously heavier and stronger men than those around them, and to what is the difference to be attributed save to difference of diet,—a fact, we may remark, still more true of the Mehter caster who live degraded, but may and do eat anything ? The physical argument is, in fact, worthless, as is also, as we have shown, the argument from religion or philanthropy, and nothing remains except this, that there are men who dislike the thought of eating dead flesh. Very well, let them abstain, but do not let them elevate their tastes into universal moral laws.
Be it observed that we have no prejudice in the matter- We entirely admit that, provided always that the use of milk is sanctioned, a healthy and strong race can be bred upon vegetables alone. Bigger men or stronger men than the Highlanders of the last generation, thousands of whom never tasted butcher's meat, never existed. We have repeatedly described the rice-eating Bengalees as the quickest and , subtlest of mankind, while scores of Scotchmen bred as boys on porridge have risen to the forefront of the professions. If any man likes to live on grain only, let him live only on grain, there is no manner of objection, and, except when he is an unexpected guest, he is in no way a nuisance. What we want to know is, why because of his taste he thinks himself the superior of men of other tastes ; why he preaches a diet as if it were a basis for a religion ; above all, why he defies historic facts, which show that flesh-eaters are conquering the world, and are therefore presumably the most energetic men within it. The burden of proof rests with him who preaches
restriction and defies experience, not with us, who defend liberty, and believe that in matters of diet the millions upon millions of working men who have lived and died have found out the truth past question by putting it to the hardest of tests.
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