It is only the wealthy that can, to
any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead
flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by
subjection to supernumerary diseases.
any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead
flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by
subjection to supernumerary diseases.
Shelley
More than two
years have now elapsed; NOT ONE OF THEM HAS DIED; no such example will
be found in any sixty persons taken at random. Seventeen persons of all
ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven
years on this diet without a death, and almost without the slightest
illness. Surely, when we consider that some of those were infants, and
one a martyr to asthma now nearly subdued, we may challenge any
seventeen persons taken at random in this city to exhibit a parallel
case. Those who may have been excited to question the rectitude of
established habits of diet by these loose remarks, should consult Mr.
Newton's luminous and eloquent essay. ("Return to Nature, or Defence of
Vegetable Regimen". Cadell, 1811. )
When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by
all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence
from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. In
proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of
evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on
vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old
age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented
liquors as slow but certain poisons. The change which would be produced
by simpler habits on political economy is sufficiently remarkable. The
monopolizing eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his
constitution by devouring an acre at a meal, and many loaves of bread
would cease to contribute to gout, madness and apoplexy, in the shape of
a pint of porter, or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted
famine of the hardworking peasant's hungry babes. The quantity of
nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox,
would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving indeed, and incapable
of generating disease, if gathered immediately from the bosom of the
earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now
actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment
absolutely incapable of calculation.
It is only the wealthy that can, to
any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead
flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by
subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the nation
that should take the lead in this great reform would insensibly become
agricultural; commerce, with all its vice, selfishness, and corruption,
would gradually decline; more natural habits would produce gentler
manners, and the excessive complication of political relations would be
so far simplified that every individual might feel and understand why he
loved his country, and took a personal interest in its welfare. How
would England, for example, depend on the caprices of foreign rulers if
she contained within herself all the necessaries, and despised whatever
they possessed of the luxuries, of life? How could they starve her into
compliance with their views? Of what consequence would it be that they
refused to take her woollen manufactures, when large and fertile tracts
of the island ceased to be allotted to the waste of pasturage? On a
natural system of diet we should require no spices from India; no wines
from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous
articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and
which are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous
and sanguinary national disputes. In the history of modern times, the
avarice of commercial monopoly, no less than the ambition of weak and
wicked chiefs, seems to have fomented the universal discord, to have
added stubbornness to the mistakes of cabinets, and indocility to the
infatuation of the people. Let it ever be remembered that it is the
direct influence of commerce to make the interval between the richest
and the poorest man wider and more unconquerable. Let it be remembered
that it is a foe to everything of real worth and excellence in the human
character. The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon
the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury
is the forerunner of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it
impossible to realize a state of society, where all the energies of man
shall be directed to the production of his solid happiness? Certainly,
if this advantage (the object of all political speculation) be in any
degree attainable, it is attainable only by a community which holds out
no factitious incentives to the avarice and ambition of the few, and
which is internally organized for the liberty, security, and comfort of
the many. None must be entrusted with power (and money is the completest
species of power) who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the
general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors
directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant
cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to
starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of
population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded.
years have now elapsed; NOT ONE OF THEM HAS DIED; no such example will
be found in any sixty persons taken at random. Seventeen persons of all
ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven
years on this diet without a death, and almost without the slightest
illness. Surely, when we consider that some of those were infants, and
one a martyr to asthma now nearly subdued, we may challenge any
seventeen persons taken at random in this city to exhibit a parallel
case. Those who may have been excited to question the rectitude of
established habits of diet by these loose remarks, should consult Mr.
Newton's luminous and eloquent essay. ("Return to Nature, or Defence of
Vegetable Regimen". Cadell, 1811. )
When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by
all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence
from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. In
proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of
evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on
vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old
age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented
liquors as slow but certain poisons. The change which would be produced
by simpler habits on political economy is sufficiently remarkable. The
monopolizing eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his
constitution by devouring an acre at a meal, and many loaves of bread
would cease to contribute to gout, madness and apoplexy, in the shape of
a pint of porter, or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted
famine of the hardworking peasant's hungry babes. The quantity of
nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox,
would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving indeed, and incapable
of generating disease, if gathered immediately from the bosom of the
earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now
actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment
absolutely incapable of calculation.
It is only the wealthy that can, to
any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead
flesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by
subjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the nation
that should take the lead in this great reform would insensibly become
agricultural; commerce, with all its vice, selfishness, and corruption,
would gradually decline; more natural habits would produce gentler
manners, and the excessive complication of political relations would be
so far simplified that every individual might feel and understand why he
loved his country, and took a personal interest in its welfare. How
would England, for example, depend on the caprices of foreign rulers if
she contained within herself all the necessaries, and despised whatever
they possessed of the luxuries, of life? How could they starve her into
compliance with their views? Of what consequence would it be that they
refused to take her woollen manufactures, when large and fertile tracts
of the island ceased to be allotted to the waste of pasturage? On a
natural system of diet we should require no spices from India; no wines
from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous
articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and
which are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous
and sanguinary national disputes. In the history of modern times, the
avarice of commercial monopoly, no less than the ambition of weak and
wicked chiefs, seems to have fomented the universal discord, to have
added stubbornness to the mistakes of cabinets, and indocility to the
infatuation of the people. Let it ever be remembered that it is the
direct influence of commerce to make the interval between the richest
and the poorest man wider and more unconquerable. Let it be remembered
that it is a foe to everything of real worth and excellence in the human
character. The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon
the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury
is the forerunner of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it
impossible to realize a state of society, where all the energies of man
shall be directed to the production of his solid happiness? Certainly,
if this advantage (the object of all political speculation) be in any
degree attainable, it is attainable only by a community which holds out
no factitious incentives to the avarice and ambition of the few, and
which is internally organized for the liberty, security, and comfort of
the many. None must be entrusted with power (and money is the completest
species of power) who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the
general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors
directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant
cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to
starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of
population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded.
