DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES
We have next to with a special class of foemen, the and Bashi-Bazouks of the flesh-eater's army, game it is to and the movement by a small fire of and as to what the has in store. The they are, minds are not so much with the or of the system, as with the of "what would happen" if the of should be won; and so are their as to a of the whole of society, if once that great and of civilisation—the of animals—should be undermined.
Now, at the outset, it should be said that the well-worn method of trying to new by "wanting to know" how will happen, is in many cases a and device. There are, of course, questions, as to the scope and of any reform, to which must be prepared to make answer they can to prevail, and to such questions have a reply; but when the takes the of for a present of developments, and for a of which, in the very nature of things, are unknowable, then it is well to make it clear from the that we will be no parties to any such waste of time. Reasonable is one thing, the gift of is another; and it is in no wise the of those who are a more or less goal, to give a survey of their Promised Land.
In the case of the and mostly under two heads, to the which the of flesh-food would upon mankind, and secondly to the not less to which the animals themselves would be under so misguided a régime. Let us take the selfish view first, as containing, perhaps, a of feeling, which can be in that for the animals. There are some folk, it seems, over minds there hang, like a nightmare, the alarmist's of a world and by vegetarianism—a world leather, bone, soap, candles, manure, everything.
Alarmist: But this is trifling. It is to talk of the humanity, the wholesomeness, the economy of a diet, while you are the that you in the face. We may be able, as you say, to without meat, but what we do without leather and the other animal on which depends?
Vegetarian: Well, I we should take not to be without them, or something just as good.
Alarmist: How we do that, if there were no to supply us with hides, bone, and tallow? In your to an you to that if your prevailed, we might wake up some to ourselves by the of the trade, the trade, the trade, and a hundred others. Thousands of men and would be out of work, and we should soon have no boots, no portmanteaus, no soap, no candles, no knife-handles. It would be a into barbarism.
Vegetarian: But, happily, your picture is on the false that would come about by a and conversion. That is not the way in which great are accomplished. They are a of years and centuries, not of days and weeks; and the "fine morning" you spoke of will be a of very duration.
Alarmist: Well, but that is only off the day—it would come at last.
Vegetarian: But would not something else have also been meantime? Would not the demand, in this as in all other of life, have produced the supply? There is no need, however, to as to what would happen, it is already.
Alarmist: What is happening?
Vegetarian: The articles which you named are being in from the vegetable kingdom. Slowly and at first, as is while are so in numbers; but boots, soap, and are now in the market, and as the movement spreads, the will be greater. So pray do not about the of trade, for the whole change, great as it is, will come to pass imperceptibly, and will a moment's to anyone. Mankind, as it happens, is not so helpless, so uninventive, so "hidebound," as to let its progress be on skins, bones, and guts.
There is a good of humour, too, in some of the that are alleged. Thus, are often asked how the land be without the use of animal manure, it being that ex fit, and that animals can only return to the land in what they have taken from it in food; also that by our we are all the time our and with a of which would be for the soil. "Let the land," says Mr. William Hoyle, "only receive, in the shape of manure, the and from the population of our and villages, in to the other means which are to it, and let it be properly and cultivated, and there is any limit to its power of production."[45]
But it is to time in such questions, for their is in of their honesty. For years the of in the press had been asking, "What should we do without leather?" etc.; yet as soon as the for these articles to be at the Vegetarian Congress, the note was changed, and the reporters that the was "not of much interest," until we the London of a big paper actually that "the against meat of every kind, and against leather (at this they have and shoes of leather), is the a little too far." Our are hard to satisfy. We are going "a little too far" if we produce a for leather; if we do not produce one, we are not going enough.
And now, with all gravity, we turn to the second branch of our subject—the as to "what would of the animals" if we to kill them for food. "If the life of animals," says Dr. Paul Carus, "had to be as as life, there can be no about it that whole would be destroyed, and would at once to a very condition. Many millions would starve, and large would from the of the earth. But the would too. There might be a temporary of life, but not of happiness. Cattle would only be for draught-oxen and milk-kine, and they would not die the death at the hands of the butcher, but slowly of old age or by disease."[46]
A picture, indeed! It not for a moment to this of that the of will necessarily be gradual, and that do not the life of animals to be "as as life." To who do not what the means they reject it, and who all of the and relative of the of life, must naturally to be a of thought—the confusion, in reality, being on their own side.
Alarmist: There is another of this question, and a very one. If flesh-eating were abolished, what would of the animals?
Vegetarian: Yes, let us talk about that contingency. You think they would be out of employment, so to speak—would their cut short, or left long?
Alarmist: It is no joking matter. Would they not wild in ever-increasing numbers, and the land, or, if food failed them, and about our and suburbs?
Vegetarian: Before I your on this point, may I just that this second to the one? If every is likely to have a ox against his garden-gate, we need not the failure of the leather and trade. But once again you are mistaken. You have the that the of animals is not free and unrestricted, but is limits, and by man; so that if the for butchers' meat should decline, there would be no more result than a in the supply from the breeder.
Alarmist: Well, I don't know. I sadly would themselves so comfortably.
Vegetarian: Ah, you think that some neglected old porker, like Scott's "Last Minstrel," would be left out in the cold.
"For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Longed to be with them and at rest."
But no; for look at the case of the donkey. We do not (knowingly) eat donkeys, yet a is a sight. Nor are we with donkeys—at least, not in the to.
Alarmist: Yet I that in India, where there is a to kill animals, they are often in plight.
Vegetarian: True; but we were talking not of killing animals but of them. Vegetarianism is not Brahminism; we would kill when necessary, for our own or the animals', but we would not them in numbers in order to kill, kill them in order to eat. Surely the is a clear one?
The of this is plain for those who wish to it. Regarding the of animals for food as and unnecessary, they its (a which, if it comes about at all, will, as I have shown, be a one, and will at no point any of conditions), but this not them to the that animal life, in all its grades, is and inviolable. Must we not that the of flesh-eating who make these and are to do so from some of the of their own case?
