When we come to consider the mentality of the Oriental races we certainly have to acknowledge that Oriental culture--ethical, metaphysical, and poetical--has given birth to some of the grandest and noblest thoughts that mankind possesses, and has devised philosophical systems that have been the comfort and salvation of countless millions of souls. Anyone who doubts the intellectual and ethical attainments of that remarkable nation of which we in the West know so little--the Chinese--should read the panegyric written by Sir Robert Hart, who, for forty years, lived among them, and learnt to love and venerate them as worthy of the highest admiration and respect. Others have written in praise of the people of Burma. Speaking of the Burman, a traveller writes: 'He will exercise a graceful charity unheard of in the West--he has discovered how to make life happy without selfishness and to combine an adequate power for hard work with a corresponding ability to enjoy himself gracefully ... he is a philosopher and an artist.' Speaking of the Indian peasant a writer in an English journal says: 'The ryot lives in the face of Nature, on a simple diet easily procured, and inherits a philosophy, which, without literary culture, lifts his spirit into a higher plane of thought than other peasantries know of. Abstinence from flesh food of any kind, not only gives him pure blood exempt from civilized diseases but makes him the friend and not the enemy, of the animal world around.' Eastern literature is renowned for its subtle metaphysics. The higher types of Orientals are endowed with an extremely subtle intelligence, so subtle as to be wholly unintelligible to the ordinary Westerner. It is said that Pythagoras and Plato travelled in the East and were initiated into Eastern mysticism. The East possesses many scriptures, and the greater part of the writings of Eastern scholars consist of commentaries on the sacred writings. Among the best known monumental philosophical and literary achievements maybe mentioned the _Tao Teh C'hing_; the _Zend Avesta;_ the _Three Vedas_; the _Brahmanas_; the _Upanishads;_ and the _Bhagavad-gita_, that most beautiful 'Song Celestial' which for nearly two thousand years has moulded the thoughts and inspired the aspirations of the teeming millions of India. As to the testimony of individuals it is interesting to note that some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, poets, moralists, and many men of note, in different walks of life, in past and modern times, have, for various reasons, been vegetarians, among whom have been named the following:--