Our position, therefore, is this—that while we make no exaggerated claim for vegetarianism, as in itself a panacea for human ills and animal sufferings, we insist on the rational view that reform of diet is an indispensable branch of social organisation, and that it is idle to talk of recognising "rights of animals" so long as we unconcernedly _eat_ them. Vegetarianism is no more and no less than an essential part in the highly complex engine which is to shape the fabric of a new social structure, an engine which will not work if a single screw be missing. The part without the whole is undeniably powerless; but so also, as it happens, is the whole without the part. CONCLUSION The chief object of this work, as stated at the outset, has been to prove the logical soundness of vegetarian principles, and the hollowness of the hackneyed taunt, so often a makeshift for reasoning, that vegetarians are a crew of mild brainless enthusiasts whose "hearts are better than their heads." How far I have been successful in this purpose it is for the reader to judge; I trust it has, at least, been made plain that, if it is logic that our friends are in need of, we are quite ready to accommodate them, and that nothing will please us better than a thorough intellectual sifting of the whole problem of diet. Only it must be a _thorough_ sifting. The great foe of vegetarianism, as of every other reform, is habit—that inert, blind, dogged force which time called into being, and time only can outwear—and it is this which lurks behind the flimsy sophisms and excuses that the flesh-eater loves to set up, in which, as a rule, though there is much show of controversy, there is little real discussion. To those of our opponents who honestly wish to grapple with the question of diet, and to understand what vegetarianism means (whether they agree with it or not), I submit that the following points have, at any rate, been clearly set before them: 1. That the objections raised to the name "vegetarian" are founded on sheer ignorance of the word's origin, and calculated, if not designed, to distract attention from the substance by fixing it on the shadow. It is not nowadays seriously denied, by any responsible authority, that a vegetable diet, _with the addition of eggs and milk_, is quite adequate for nutriment; but the method is this—to allow what is said (rightly or wrongly) of the sufficiency of a _strictly_ vegetable diet to be misunderstood by the public as referring to "vegetarianism." Thus, Dr. J. Burney Yeo, in his "Food in Health and Disease," first argues that "vegetarians" have no right to their title, because they consume animal products, and then proceeds to allege various reasons against "a purely vegetable diet," which by his own showing is not what vegetarianism represents. This is a fair sample of flesh-eaters' logic.