thirteen shillings, and labourers of the second class only ten
shillings. I am not going to recommend vegetarianism, which, how-
ever, has many healthy adherents, as I know from comradeship ; and
very many eminent supporters in science and medicine, as Baron
Cuvier, Linnaeus, Professors Lawrence and Newman, Dr. Richard-
son, Sir Henry Thomson, and so on. It is, besides, the mode of
diet of two-thirds of the entire human race ; and was, indeed, the
diet largely of our own ancestors, who were no weaklings. But I
am anxious to show that the stress laid upon meat as the chief and
only means to a healthy, strong life is quite of a mistaken kind.
For every 100 parts there are more parts of water in meat than
there are in many of the cereals and nutritious vegetables, as peas,
beans, lentils, and haricots. Meat may be a little more quickly
digested, perhaps, but that is about all its particular A^alue. If you
have read the preceding translation, " Stars and Atoms," carefully,
and Huxley's essay on " The Physical Basis of Life," which is in the
D.M.I. Library, you must know that everything in nature may be
reduced to atoms, these atoms assuming different appearances,
according to certain unknown conditions. Our physical bodies, the
bodies of animals and the bodies of plants (so to speak) and vege-
tables are built up of atoms or protoplasm, similar in each and
with all. To sustain his body man requires a constant supply of
these atoms, which he may take from either the animal or vegetable
worlds, for both animal and vegetable physically are really identical,
if outwardly differing. Flesh is merely vegetable matter in an
altered form — a biological or psychical difference constituting appear-
ances. One proof of this, apart from scientific and chemical investi-
gations, is that, as I have said, two-thirds of the human race live
as well upon one as upon the other. But observe that while they do so,
every particular race is careful to choose some article of food that is
pre-eminently nutritious and climatic. Our own ancestors lived on
oatmeal, which has the remarkable strength of 88 parts out of 100
of solid matter, 12 only being of water. The Irish took, un-
fortunately, to a less healthy diet, chiefly of potatoes, which have in
their composition 76 parts of water — though you may not quite see
it — and only 24 parts of solid good food ; and they, the Irish, have
suffered accordingly. The Indians, Hindoos, make rice almost their
sole food : and one of the healthiest, strongest races of the world,
the Arabs of the desert, live on figs and dates; the Italian peasantry
often on chestnuts, cheese, and macaroni — a kind of wheaten flour.
Note how figs and dates contain so much more nutrition than
other fruits ; and place this against such slight eating as turnips,
onions, etc. Besides all this, permit me to point out to you what of
course you know, the difference in price between meat at tenpence a
pound and, for instance, maize, which costs a penny or half-penny
a pound, or for wheat, which is sold at three halfpence a pound.
We, however, could not live on figs and dates, which supply little
heat-giving force. The Arabs have plenty of natural simlight ; we
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FOOD VALUES.