How would You Describe a Vegetarian... continued.
3. MORE NATURAL TO MAN
Third: Because man is not naturally made to be carnivorous, and therefore this horrible food is not suited to him. Here again let me give you a few quotations to you what authorities are ranged upon our side of this matter. Baron Cuvier himself writes: "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, consists of fruit, roots and vegetables"; and Professor Eay tells us: "Certainly man was never made to be a carnivorous animal."Sir Richard Owen, F. R. C. S., writes: " Anthropoids and all the quadrumana derive their alimentation from fruits, grains and other succulent vegetable substances, and the strict analogy which exists between the structures of these animals and that of man clearly demonstrates his frugivorous nature."
Another Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor William Lawrence, writes: "The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of carnivorous animals; and whether we consider the teeth, the jaws or the digestive organs, the human structure closely resembles that of the frugivorous animals."
Once more Dr.Spencer Thompson remarks: "No physiologist would dispute that man ought to live on vegetarian diet "; and Dr. Sylvester Graham writes: "Comparative anatomy proves that man is naturally a frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and farinaceous vegetables."
The desirability of the vegetarian diet will of course need no argument for anyone who believes in the inspiration of the scriptures, for it will be remembered that God, in speaking to Adam while in the Garden of Eden, said : " Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." It was only after the fall of man, when death came into the world, that a more degraded idea of feeding came along with it; and if now we hope to rise again to edenic conditions we must surely commence by abolishing unnecessary slaughter performed in order to supply us with horrible and degrading food.
4. GREATER STRENGTH
Fourth: Because men are stronger and better on a vegetarian diet. I know that people say: "You will be so weak if you do not eat dead flesh." As a matter of fact this is untrue. I do not know whether there may be any people who find themselves weaker on a diet of vegetables; but I do know this, that in many athletic contests recently the vegetarians have proved themselves the strongest and the most enduring - as for example in the recent cycling races in Germany, where all those who took high places in the race were vegetarian. There have been many such trials, and they show that, other things being equal, the man who takes pure food succeeds better. We have to face facts, and in this case the facts are all ranged on one side, as against foolish prejudices and loathsome lust on the other. The reason was plainly given by Dr. J. D. Craig, who writes:
"Vigour of body is often boasted by flesh-eaters, particularly if they live mostly in the open air; but there is this peculiarity about them, that they have not the endurance of vegetarians. The reason of this is that flesh meat is already on the downward path of retrograde change, and as a consequence its presence in the tissues is of short duration. The impetus given to it in the body of the animal from which it was taken is reinforced by another impulse in the second one, and for these reasons what energy it does contain is soon given out, and there are urgent demands for more to take its place. The flesh-eater, then, may do a large amount of work in a short time if well-fed. He soon gets hungry, however, and when so becomes weak. On the other hand, vegetable products are of slow digestion; they contain all of the original store of energy, and no poisons; their retrograde change is less rapid than meat, having just commenced, and therefore their force is released more slowly with less loss, and the person nourished by them can work for a long time without food if necessary, and without discomfort. The people in Europe who abstain from flesh are of the better and more intelligent class, and the subject of endurance has been approached and thoroughly investigated by them. In Germany and England a number of notable athletic contests that required endurance have been made between flesh-eaters and vegetarians, with the result that the vegetarian has invariably come off victorious."
We shall find, if we investigate, that this fact has been known for a long time, for even in ancient history we find traces of it. It will be recollected that of all the tribes of Greeks the strongest and the most enduring, by universal admission and reputation, were the Spartans; and the simplicity of their vegetable diet is a matter of common knowledge. Think too of the Greek athletes - those who prepared themselves with such care for participation in the Olympian and Isthmian games.
If you will read the classics you will find that these men, who in their own line surpassed all the rest of the world, lived upon figs, nuts, cheese and maize. Then there were the Roman gladiators - men on whose strength depended their life and fame; and yet we find that their diet consisted exclusively of barley-cakes and oil; they knew well that this was the more strengthening food.
All these examples show us that the common and persistent fallacy that one must eat flesh in order to be strong has no foundation in fact; indeed the exact contrary is true. Charles Darwin remarked in one of his letters: " The most extraordinary workers I ever saw, the labourers in the mines of Chili, live exclusively on vegetable food, including many seeds of leguminous plants."Of the same miners Sir Francis Head writes: " It is usual for the copper miners of Central Chili to carry loads of ore of two hundred pounds weight up eighty perpendicular yards twelve times a day; and their diet is entirely vegetarian - a breakfast of figs and small loaves of bread, a dinner of boiled beans, and a supper of roasted wheat."
Mr. F. T. Wood in his Discoveries at Ephesus writes: "The Turkish porters in Smyrna often carry from four hundred to six hundred pounds weight on their backs, and the captain one day pointed out to me one of his men who had carried an enormous bale of merchandise weighing eight hundred pounds up an incline into an upper warehouse; so that with this frugal diet their strength was unusually great."
Of these same Turks Sir William Fairbairn has said: "The Turk can live and fight where soldiers of any other nationality would starve. His simple habits, his abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to suffer the greatest hardships and to exist on the scantiest and simplest of foods."
I myself can bear witness to the enormous strength displayed by the vegetarian Tamil coolies of the South of India, for I have frequently seen them carry loads which astonished me. I remember in one case standing upon the deck of a steamer, and watching one of these coolies take a huge case upon his back and walk slowly but steadily down a plank to the shore with it and deposit it in a shed. The captain standing by me remarked with surprise, "Why, it took four English labourers to get that case on board in the docks at London!” I have also seen another of these coolies, after having had a grand piano put on his back, carry it unaided for a considerable distance; yet these men are entirely vegetarian, for they live chiefly upon rice and water, with perhaps occasionally a little tamarind for flavouring.
On the same subject Dr. Alexander Haig, whom we have already quoted, writes: "The effect of getting free from uric acid has been to make my bodily powers quite as great as they were fifteen years ago; I scarcely believe that even fifteen years ago I could have undertaken the exercise in which I now indulge with absolute impunity - with freedom from fatigue and distress at the time and from stiffness next day. Indeed I often say that it is impossible now to tire me, and relatively I believe this is true." This distinguished physician became a vegetarian because, from his study of the diseases caused by the presence of uric acid in the system, he discovered that flesh-eating was the chief source of this deadly poison. Another interesting point which he mentions is that his change of diet brought about in him a distinct change of disposition - that whereas before he found himself constantly nervous and irritable, he now became much steadier and calmer and less angry; he fully realises that this is due to the change in his food.
If we require any further evidence, we have it close to our hand in the animal kingdom. We shall observe that there the carnivora are not the strongest, but that all the work of the world is done by the herbivora - by horses, mules, oxen, elephants and camels. We do not find that men can utilise the lion or the tiger, or that the strength of these savage flesh-eaters is at all equal to that of those who assimilate directly from the vegetable kingdom.
(Vegetarianism and Occultism by C. W. Leadbeater).
To be continued...
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