“By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at rest. But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease to _palliate_ their torments by medicine than to _prevent_ them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile, yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved; when it is as clear that those who live naturally are exempt from premature death as that one is not nine, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful, life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three years. Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be given that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than two years have now elapsed--_not one of them has died_. No such example will be found in any sixty persons taken at random. “Seventeen persons of all ages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven years on this diet without a death, _and almost without the slightest illness_.... In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of evidence, and when a thousand persons can be produced living on vegetables and distilled water,[238] who have to dread no disease but old age, the world will be compelled to regard flesh and fermented liquors as slow but certain poisons.” Shelley next insists on the incalculable benefits of a reformed diet economically, socially, and politically:--