This is not the sense in which I am about to speak of the “humanities” of diet. I have not been fired by the Spectator’s enthusiasm for the rescue of some “neglected quadruped,” nor have I any wish to see eviscerated Elands hanging a-row in our butchers’ shops. On the contrary, I suggest that in proportion as man is truly “humanised,” not by schools of cookery but by schools of thought, he will abandon the barbarous habit of his flesh-eating ancestors, and will make gradual progress towards a purer, simpler, more humane, and therefore more civilised diet-system.
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.
