Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/66

Rh I may here remark in passing that Sir Henry Thompson’s reference to the Esquimaux, as an instance of a people to whom a vegetarian diet would be impossible, is not of much practical value to English readers in the elucidation of this food question ; for we desire to know what diet system is appropriate to the inhabitants of the temperate zones, and not those of the arctic circle. However, as far as the purely physical aspect of the food question is concerned, Food Reformers may be quite content to agree to Sir Henry Thompson’s opinion that we ought not “to limit man’s liberty to select his food and drink.” Everybody must choose {or himself on this most important question, for “no man,” as Sir Henry Thompson wisely remarks, “can tell another what he can or ought to eat without knowing what are the habits of life and work—mental and bodily—of the person to be advised.” Still, it does not constitute a very serious or insidious attack on individual liberty to point out, as the Vegetarian Society does, what advantages have been found in a particular line of diet by a large number of people. There is nothing dogmatic or sectarian in teaching of this kind ; indeed, it is adopted by Sir