Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/24

Rh examination to a system which claims to be once most moral, most wholesome, and most economical. For these are the three great advantages which the Vegetarian believes his way of living to posses ; these are the three chief aspects under which Vegetarianism may be viewed ; and surely, amidst all the clamour and din of conflicting theories and creeds, it is right that the voice of Vegetarianism should be heard, and that they cruelty and wastefulness of the system of flesh-eating should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Obviously the same arguments will not have like weight with all ; for while to the poorer classes it is the economic advantage of Vegetarianism that is of most pressing and immediate importance, to wealthier and more educated people the moral side of the question needs to be most forcibly stated. It is of this last that I now speak. My object is to show that only a bloodless diet is defensible on moral grounds.

There is a passage in Mr. Ruskin's works, where it is declared that a criterion of the morality of an action may be found in song. Actions are morally beautiful in proportion to their capability of becoming the subject of a song.