Vegetable cookery : with an introduction, recommending abstinence from animal food and intoxicating liquors / By a lady.

Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable cookery : with an introduction, recommending abstinence from animal food and intoxicating liquors / By a lady. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    evinced by the different tempers of the carnivorous and herbivorous animals; the former are savage, ferocious creatures, that prowl out at night and seek to destroy all within their reach; the others wander tranquilly on the plains in herds, enjoy themselves in the day, and manifest their innocence by various playful sports with each other. The temper of the carnivorous animal, however, is materially altered by the kind of food which is given to it. A dog, for instance, which is fed on raw flesh, is much more fierce and rapacious than one that feeds on milk or vegetable substances. And the ferocity even of a lion has been greatly abated, and he has been ren- dered tractable, by being fed on vegetable food. The same effect of aliment is discernible among the different nations of men. ‘The Tartars,’ says Sir John Sinclair, ‘ who live principally on animal food, possess a degree of ferocity of mind and fierce- ness of character which forms the leading features of all carnivorous animals. On the other hand, a vege- table diet gives to the disposition, as it appears in the Brahmin and Gentoo, a mildness of feeling directly the reverse of the former.* There can be no doubt, therefore, that the practice of slaughtering and devouring animals has a tendency to strengthen in us a murderous disposition and brutal nature, rendering us insensible to pity, and inducing us more easily to sanction the murdering of our fellow men. On the contrary, vegetable food clears the intellect, preserves innocency, increases compassion and love. We shall now proceed to show that a vegetable diet ought to be preferred from a principle of human- ity. It cannot be doubted that there exists within us by nature a repugnance to the spilling of blood; and we cannot even see an animal tortured, much less