Note (21) — CANTO THIRD.

“Dr. Alphonsus Lercy, of Paris, has published an essay on certain diseases of men, which he traces to the animals on which they had fed; and he establishes the doctrine generally, that many diseases with which mankind are afflicted, are communicated by eating the flesh of animals.” (Monthly Magazine, June 1815, p. 446.)

“The late Sir Edward Barry prevailed with a man to live on partridges, without vegetables; but after eight days’ trial he was obliged to desist, in consequence of strong symptoms then appearing of an incipient putrefaction.” (Sir J. Sinclair’s Code of Health, Vol. I. p. 425.)

“The use of swine’s flesh, in union with ardent spirits, is, in all likelihood, the grand cause of the scurvy, which is so common in the British nation, and which would probably assume the form and virulence of a leprosy, were our climate as hot as that of Judea.” (Dr. Adam Clarke.)

“It is a remarkable fact, that at Heimaey, the only one of the Westmann islands which is inhabited, scarcely a single instance has been known, during the last twenty years, of a child surviving the period of infancy. In consequence, the population, which does not exceed two hundred souls, is entirely kept up by emigration from the main land of Iceland. The food of this people consists principally of sea-birds, fulmars, and puffins. The fulmars they procure in vast abundance; and they use the eggs and flesh of the birds, and salt the latter for their winter food. There are a few cows and sheep on the island, but the inhabitants are said to have no vegetable food.”—(Dr. Lambe’s Reports on Regimen, p. 197.)

“In ancient times, the medicines of the Indians consisted chiefly, according to Strabo, in regularity, temperance, and a choice of food.” (Bartolomeo, by Johnson, p. 423.)

“The man who forsakes not the law, and eats not flesh meat, like a blood thirsty demon, shall attain good will in this world, and shall not be afflicted with maladies.” (Laws of Menu, from Sir William Jones, Vol. III. p. 206.)

(Dryden’s Virgil, Georg. II. l. 698.—III. l. 790.)

“The moral effect of aliment is clearly evinced in the different tempers of the carnivorous and the frugivorous animals. The former, whose destructive passions, like those of ignorant man, lay waste all within their reach, are constantly tormented with hunger, which returns and rages in proportion to their devastation; this creates that state of warfare or disquietude which seeks, as in murderers, the night and the veil of the forest; for should they appear on the plain, their prey escapes, or, seen by each other, their warfare begins.—The frugivorous animals wander tranquilly on the plains, and testify their joyful existence by frisking and basking in the genial rays of the sun, or browsing with pleasure on the green herb. The same effect of aliment is discernible amongst the different species of men; the peaceful temper of the frugivorous Asiatic is strongly contrasted with the ferocious disposition of the carnivorous European.” (Jean Jacques Rousseau.)

“The man who sheds the blood of an ox or sheep, will be habituated more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his fellow men; inhumanity takes possession of his soul; and the professions whose object is to sacrifice animals for the purpose of supplying the supposed necessities of men, impart to those who exercise them, a ferocity which their relative connexions with society but imperfectly serve to mitigate.” (Encyclopedie Methodique. Tome VII. Part. 1. liv. 65.)

“India, in fact, of all the regions of the earth, is the only public theatre of justice and tenderness to brutes, and all living creatures; for there, not confining murder to the killing of man, they religiously abstain from taking the life of the meanest animal.” (Ovington’s Voyage to Surat, p. 296.)

“The Gentoos rear numerous herds of cattle; but such is their veneration for these animals, on account of their useful and patient services to man, that to kill, or even maim one of them, is deemed a capital offence.” (M. de Page’s Travels, Vol. II. p. 27.)

“Among the Wallachians, though there is no positive institution to the contrary, yet the women never destroy the life of any creature. Whether this custom were founded by some of their ancient legislators, or whether it originated from accidental circumstances, is uncertain; but however that be, nothing can be more suitable to the gentleness and timidity which form the most beautiful and engaging part of the female character.” (Dr. Alexander’s History of Women, Vol. I. p. 366.)

“The Indian Bramins neither kill nor eat any sort of animal; and it is certain they have not done it for more than two thousand years.” (Dr. Clarke’s Fleury, p. 87.)

“As a proof of the havoc committed by more savage man on the creatures of his prey, it is said, that in Paris there are four thousand sellers of oysters, and that fifteen hundred large oxen, and above sixteen thousand sheep, calves, or hogs, besides a prodigious quantity of poultry and wild fowls, are eaten daily.” (Bayle’s Dictionary.—Art. Ovid.)

“When children are barbarous towards innocent animals, they will soon become the same towards men. Caligula, before imbruing his hands in human blood, had made a practice of destroying flies. It may be said, that the moral behavior of man to man commences, in some measure, with that of an infant towards insects. Never, therefore, let a child acquire a truth by means of a vice; nor extend its understanding at the expense of its heart. Let it not study the laws of nature in the pangs of sentient beings; but rather in the succession of their enjoyments.” (St. Pierre’s Harmonies of Nature, Vol. I. p. 411.)

The celebrated Mr. John Tweddell, in one of his letters, thus beautifully expresses himself:—“I no longer eat flesh meat, nor drink fermented liquors. As for the latter, it is merely because I do not believe that they can ever be good for the constitution, and still more especially with a vegetable diet. With regard to the flesh of animals, I have many times thought on the subject. I am persuaded we have no other right than the right of the strongest, to sacrifice to our monstrous appetites the bodies of living things, of whose qualities and relations we are ignorant. Different objections which struck me, as to the probability of good from the universality of this practice, have hitherto held me in indecision.

“I doubted whether, if this abstinence were universal, the animals which we now devour might not devour, in their turn, the fruits and vegetables reserved for our sustenance. I do not know whether this would be so; but I do not believe it: it seems to me that their numbers would not augment in the proportion which is apprehended. If, on the one hand, we now consume them with our teeth, on the other, we might then abandon our schemes and inventions for augmenting the means of propagation. Let nature follow her own course with regard to all that lives. I am told that they would destroy each other:—In the first place, the two objections cannot exist together: if they would destroy each other, their numbers would not be excessive. And what is this mutual destruction to me? Who has constituted me dictator of the realms of nature? Why am I umpire between the mistress and her servants? Because two chickens fight till one dies, am I obliged to worry one of them to prevent the engagement? Exquisite and well imagined humanity!

“On the other hand, let precautions be adopted against famine, when experience shall have shown the necessity of them; in the mean while, we are not called upon to bury in our bowels the carcasses of animals, which, a few hours before, lowed or bleated; to flay and to dismember a defenceless creature; to pamper the unsuspecting beast that grazes before us, with the single view of sucking its blood and grinding its bones; and to become the unnatural murderers of beings, of whose powers and faculties, of whose modes of communication and mutual intercourse, of whose degree of sensibility and extent of pain and pleasure, we are necessarily and fundamentally ignorant.” (Life and Remains of J. Tweddell, p. 215.)