But are there not other reasons alleged against the practice of Vegetarianism? Ah, those dear old Fallacies, so immemorial yet ever new, how can I speak disrespectfully of what has so often refreshed and entertained me! Every food-reformer is familiar with them–the “law of nature” arguments, which would approximate human ethics to the standard of the tiger-cat or rattle-snake; the “necessity-of-taking-life” argument, which conscientiously ignores the practice of unnecessary killing; the blubber argument, or, to put it more exactly, the “what-would-become-of-the-Esquimaux”? to which the only adequate answer is, a system of State-aided emigration; the “for-my-sake” argument, which may be called the family fallacy; the “what-should-we-do-without-leather?” that lurid picture of a shoeless world instantaneously converted to Vegetarianism; and the disinterested “what-would-become-of-the-animals?” which foresees the grievous wanderings of homeless herds who can find no kind protector to eat them. Best of all, I think, is what may be termed the logic of the larder, beloved of learned men, which urges that the animals would prefer to live and be eaten than not to live at all–an imaginary ante-natal choice in an imaginary ante-natal condition!
Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) Excerpted from “The Humanities of Diet” (Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914), serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library. Learn more Henry Salt.
