Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/20

Rh persist in squandering their money and repressing their finest moral impulses, in order to supply themselves with the costly food which they stupidly imagine to be necessary for their physical health.

In addition to the serious arguments brought forward by the scientific opponents of Vegetarianism, there are, of course, many minor objections which are constantly cropping up when the subject is discussed in ordinary conversation, all of them more or less fallacious, and some exceptionally remarkable for the curious insight they give one into the mental state of those who advance them. Many and many a time have I been begged to explain "what would become of the animals" under a vegetarian régime, fears being sometimes expressed that they would drive mankind from off the face of the earth, at other times that they would themselves perish miserably in utter want and destitution! Many and many a time have I been reminded, not as a joke, but as a serious argument, that animals were "sent" us as food! I have no space here to notice these and similar difficulties; and, in truth, it is but a thankless task to answer them at any time,