'A Yogi must not think of injuring anyone, through thought, word or deed, and this applies not only to man, but to all animals. Mercy shall not be for men alone, but shall go beyond, and embrace the whole world.' _Commentary of Vivekananda._ 'Surely hell, fire, and repentance are in store for those who for their pleasure and gratification cause the dumb animals to suffer pain.' _The Zend Avesta._ Gautama, the Buddha, was most emphatic in discountenancing the killing of animals for food, or for any other unnecessary purpose, and Zoroaster and Confucius are said to have taught the same doctrine. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: See _Sartor Resartus_, Book I., chap. xi.: Book III., chap. vii. Also an article by Prof. W. P. Montague, Ph.D.: 'The Evidence of Design in the Elements and Structure of the Cosmos,' in the _Hibbert Journal_, Jan., 1904.] IV THE AESTHETIC POINT OF VIEW St. Paul tells us to think on whatsoever things are pure and lovely (Phil. iv., 8). The implication is that we should love and worship beauty. We should seek to surround ourselves by beautiful objects and avoid that which is degrading and ugly. Let us make some comparisons. Look at a collection of luscious fruits filling the air with perfume, and pleasing the eye with a harmony of colour, and then look at the gruesome array of skinned carcasses displayed in a butcher's shop; which is the more beautiful? Look at the work of the husbandman, tilling the soil, pruning the trees, gathering in the rich harvest of golden fruit, and then look at the work of the cowboy, branding, castrating, terrifying, butchering helpless animals; which is the more beautiful? Surely no one would say a corpse was a beautiful object. Picture it (after the axe has battered the skull, or the knife has found the heart, and the victim has at last ceased its dying groans and struggles), with its ghastly staring eyes, its blood-stained head or throat where the sharp steel pierced into the quivering flesh; picture it when the body is opened emitting a sickening odour and the reeking entrails fall in a heap on the gore-splashed floor; picture this sight and ask whether it is not the epitome of ugliness, and in direct opposition to the most elementary sense of beauty.