“He remonstrates with Firmus, that in abstaining from flesh and from strong liquors the health of the soul and of the body is preserved; that one lives longer and with more innocence. All his reflections are those of a scrupulous theologian, of a rigid philosopher, and of a gentle and sensitive spirit. One might believe, in reading him, that this great enemy of the Church is a Father of the Church. He does not speak of the _Metempsychosis_, but he regards other animals as our brothers--_because_ they are endowed with life as we, _because_ they have the same _principles_ of life, the same feelings, ideas, memory, industry, as we. Speech alone is wanting to them. If they had it, should we dare to kill and eat them? Should we dare to commit those fratricides? What barbarian is there who would cause a lamb to be slaughtered and roasted, if that lamb conjured him, by an affecting appeal, not to be at once assassin and cannibal? “This book, at least, proves that there were, among the ‘Gentiles,’ philosophers of the strictest and purest virtue. Yet they could not prevail against the butchers and the _gourmands_. It is to be remarked that Porphyry makes a very beautiful eulogy on the Essenians. At that time the rivalship was who could be the most virtuous--Essenians, Pythagoreans, Stoics, Christians. When churches form but a small flock their manners are pure; they degenerate as soon as they get powerful.”[82] Of this famous treatise there is, it appears, only one English translation, that of Taylor (1851), long out of print; and there is a German version by Herr Ed. Baltzer, President of the Vegetarian Society of Germany; thus we have to lament for Porphyry, no less than for Plutarch, the indifferentism of the publishers, or rather of the public, which allows a production, of an inspiration far above that of the common herd of writers, to continue to be a sealed book for the community in general. It has been already stated that it consists of four Divisions. The first treats of Abstinence from the point of view of Temperance and Reason. In the second is considered the lawfulness or otherwise of animal sacrifice. In the third Porphyry treats the subject from the side of Justice. In the fourth he reviews the practice of some of the nations of antiquity and of the East--of the Egyptians, Hindus, and others. This last Book, by its abrupt termination, is evidently unfinished. Porphyry begins with an expression of surprise and regret at the apostasy of the Pythagorean renegade:--