I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not necessary, however. The argument--the moral argument, I mean--is sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no other weapon but ridicule? FOOTNOTES: [21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption. [22] See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250. [23] The Young Housekeeper. [24] Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this country. In England, it is one year and five-sevenths. OUTLINES OF A NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY. In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit. But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the vegetarians--the followers of Dr. Schlemmer--eat every thing in a raw state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at once, must be legitimate, and even preferable--if not for the individual, at least for the race.