“They say that vegetable food is not sufficiently nutritious. But chemistry proves the contrary. So does physiology. So does experience. Indeed, it can be demonstrated that many kinds of fruit are nearly as nutritious as flesh. Many kinds of vegetables are quite as much so, and the grains and nuts several times as nutritious. They allege that human beings cannot have permanent strength without the use of animal food, right in face of the fact that the hardest work is now being done, and has always been done, by those who use the least animal food; and right in the face of the fact, too, that no flesh eating animals can endure prolonged and severe labour. I should like to see them try the experiment of working a lion or a tiger, or a hyena against an ox, a camel, or a mule. Examples exist here and there, all over the world, of men of extraordinary powers of endurance who do not use animal food at all; and history is full of such examples in all ages of the world. And again: the largest and strongest animals in the world are those which eat no flesh-food of any kind—the elephant and rhinoceros.”[30] [30] “Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism,” p. 20. As a matter of fact, all the work in the world is done by vegetarian animals—the horse, ox, camel, elephant, etc. I cannot refrain here from alluding to the most common objection to vegetarianism we meet with in this country; and I do so for the purpose of explaining it away. The objection is, that vegetarians are themselves poor specimens of health. And the answer is that the great majority of those who are the subjects of notice and comment are invalids who are restricted to a vegetable diet, because they can recover health in no other way; and many of them are living on a strict vegetable regimen because it is the only way they can live at all. At the various hydropathic establishments in this country the most desperate cases are put on a vegetable diet, simply because it affords them the best chance of getting well. The casual observer, who judges by appearances, will always find an argument in favour of flesh-eating in the fact that the best-looking persons, physiologically, are those who eat meat. There are, however, scattered, in America, in England and elsewhere, many persons who will not suffer by comparison, either physical or mental, with the flesh-eaters of any country that can be found. In bodily vigour and in mental capacity they are equal to any meat-eaters. Let us consider this a little more fully.