Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/65

Rh is one that might easily be abolished ; that point gained, the question of the total disuse of all animal products is one that will easily be decided hereafter. What I wish to insist on is that it is not “animal” food which we Food Reformers primarily abjure, but nasty food, expensive food, and unwholesome food. It is, therefore, absurd to twit us with the use of eggs and milk, because we do not eat fowls and beef. And the climax of absurdity is reached when Sir Henry Thompson gravely points out to us that the infant who thrives on mother’s milk is not subsisting on vegetarian diet! Talk of “equivocal terms, evasion,—in short, untruthfulness!” Was there ever such evasion of the real issue as this? It would be equally logical and scientific to argue that a cow must be classed among the carnivora, because a calf drinks milk.

Another point on which Sir Henry Thompson again and again insists in his paper on “Diet” is that it is unwise to limit in any way the choice of foods. “The great practical rule of life,” he says, “in regard to human diet will not be found in enforcing limitation of the sources of food which nature has abundantly provided.”