This page has been validated.
36
Why I Am A Vegetarian.

sun, the inorganic, and the animal using this energy and completing the circle by sending the elements back again to the inorganic. And it is a "barbarism" in nature for animals to violate this beautiful arrangement by turning round and swallowing each other.

To one accustomed to obtain his supply of protoplasm chiefly from the bones of other animals instead of from the kingdom of the plant, the assertion that it is possible not only to sustain but to enhance existence on a fleshless diet seems very strange. It is not strange that such an assertion should seem strange. Anything is strange to the uninitiated. And the amount of ignorance on this subject is well-nigh pitiable. The delusion that flesh is the most genuine source of human energy has become so fixed that it actually disturbs the respiration of nineteen out of twenty to be told that flesh compared with many foods is a dilute form of nutrition,