Human Physiology. 



Can we naturally go farther? Ought we to deprive any 

 animal of life that we may feed npon its body? Oysters, and 

 other shell-fish have so little apparent sensibility, that we feast 

 upon them without much compunction. We have not much 

 sympathy with fishes. They do not come very near us, and 

 they seem to be a clean and tolerably healthy form of food. Yet 

 a man might well have some scruple about needlessly depriving 

 a trout or salmon of its vigorous and active life. When we 

 come to the warm, red-blooded animals, the birds and beasts 

 which seem to be more nearly related to us, we may well doubt 

 of our right to deprive them of life, and eat their flesh for food. 

 I have already expressed the opinion that man is naturally a 

 fruit-eating animal, and that he finds his most natural and most 

 healthful food in the vegetable kingdom that though the use 

 offish and flesh may be justifiable as a necessity, it is not the 

 original, or the best food of man, and that the most perfect 

 health, and therefore the highest use and enjoyment of life, may 

 be attained on a purely vegetable diet; and where a mixed diet 

 is used, I can have no doubt that the smaller the quantity of 

 flesh, and the larger the proportion of fruit and vegetable sub- 

 stances, the better will be the health of the great majority of 

 persons. 



The food should be pure, free from all diseased and diseasing 

 matters. We can never be sure of the healthfulness of the animal 

 whose flesh we are eating; with grains and fruits we have a much 

 greater security. And all flesh must contain waste matter not 

 yet cast out. The flesh of stall-fed animals, and especially of 

 offal-fattened swine, is often diseased. We want food that will 

 give us the purest matter of nutrition, at proper times and in 

 proper quantities. When our appetites are stimulated by excit- 

 ing food, the artifices of cookery, and by exciting and irritating 

 condiments, we are tempted to gluttony which is a sin against 

 nature, and a violation of the laws of health; we overtask our 

 powers of digestion and assimilation by eating too large a 



