Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/22

Counter-Currents be taken to the shambles, to watch the agonized struggles of the terrified victims as they are dragged to the spot where knife or mallet slays them; if he could be made to stand with the odours of the blood reeking in his nostrils; if there his astral vision could be opened so that he might see the filthy creatures that flock round to feast on the loathsome exhalations, and see also the fear and horror of the slaughtered beasts as they arrive in the astral world, and send back thence currents of dread and hatred that flow between men and animals in constantly refed streams; if a man could pass through these experiences, he would be cured of meat-eating forever."

Now, when one has belonged for many years to the society which printed this precious paragraph, when one has believed all one's life that to be sentient is to possess rights, and that, not kindness only, but justice to the brute creation is an essential element of decent living, it 6