Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/34

Rh But, it may be asked, is it a fact that ﬂesh-food is gross in taste and smell? One of the commonest objections of ﬂesh-eaters to the reformed diet is that ﬂesh-meat is “nice,” and the guests at an aesthetic dinner-table have presumably no sort of suspicion that they are eating anything which is not “high art.” Of course dietetic taste, like all other taste, is relative and subjective; there is no absolute criterion of “good taste,” but each man must decide for himself what he considers “nice.” It is therefore impossible to prove the superiority of the reformed diet, or to convince ﬂesh-eaters that their taste is not immaculate. we can only trust to the results of experience, and the good taste which is gradually brought about by culture and education. All Vegetarians will emphatically deny that flesh-food is nice, and will assert that only a depraved and uncultivated taste can relish it; and if our aesthetic friends will give the matter a little serious consideration, they will very soon ﬁnd themselves arriving at the same conclusion.

So far I have used the word æstehticism as merely equivalent to the actual perception by the senses, a meaning to which its modern