Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/462

458 extensively non-physiological considerations are still drawn upon in justifying vegetarianism. He writes: "The individual who endeavors to exercise abstemiousness will unavoidably be obliged to abide by a fixed rule, the first element in which is abstemiousness in eating—fasting. But if he fasts and strives earnestly and zealously to lead a good life, he must, above all things, abstain from animal foods. For aside from the incitement of the passions which is provoked by these foods, it is decidedly improper to partake of them for the reason that they call for a procedure which is revolting to our moral feelings, namely, the act of putting to death."

It has frequently been pointed out that the apostles of the non-animal diet have been individuals imbued with unusual views of life and the ways of the world. As in earliest times religious motives were the underlying factors in the prescription of rules of living, so in subsequent periods it has usually been some idealistic conception of the problems of existence which determined the vegetarian doctrine of the time. The political dreamer and the philosophical visionary represent types of men in whom the striving for a new order of doing found expression. No period of history has lacked individuals who fail to find in existing systems the Utopia of their dreams. The traits of mind here referred to are exemplified in the poets Byron and Shelley, both of whom the vegetarians have been proud and eager to include within their ranks. It is needless to refer to the eccentricities or the remarkable genius of either. It is well known of the one that his morbid disposition was not infrequently roused and irritated; of the other it has been said that 'his imagination preponderated over judgment and reason.' Some light is perhaps thrown upon the real attitude of the poet in the subject under discussion by the following lines from Shelley's 'Queen Mab' (VIII.):

 Here now the human being stands adorning This loveliest earth, with taintless body and mind; Blest from his birth with all bland impulses, Which gently in his bosom wake All kindly passions and all pure desires.

 And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene Swift as an unremembered vision, stands Immortal upon earth. No longer now He slays the lamb that looks him in the face, And horribly devours his mangled flesh, Which still avenging nature's broken law, Kindled all putrid humours in his frame. All evil passions, and all vain belief. Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,