The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-Eating

Citation

Williams, H. (1883). The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-Eating. F. Pitman. Free official edition: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55785

Chapter Summary

Preface

The book is a historical anthology: a "catena" (chain) of writers, philosophers, physicians, poets and reformers who rejected flesh-eating, arranged in roughly chronological order. Its preface begins with an analogy. Cannibalism and human sacrifice were once orthodox and are now regarded with horror; Williams predicts that a later age will look in the same way on the habit of living by the slaughter of other species. He then lists the grounds for dietary reform: comparative anatomy and physiology, humaneness, national economy, social reform, domestic economy and hygiene, and holds that the humanitarian argument, resting on justice and compassion, carries the most weight. He answers three common objections (that nature is cruel, that industry needs animal materials, and "what is to become of the animals"), and rejects the reform of slaughter-houses as a compromise. Living authors are excluded, and the text first appeared in the journal The Dietetic Reformer over five years.

Chapters I–II: Hesiod and Pythagoras

Each chapter follows the same pattern: a biographical sketch of the authority, then passages from his writings or reports of his practice. Hesiod is introduced as the poet of peace and agriculture. The chapter on Pythagoras is longer and sets out his importance as the first systematic Western teacher of abstinence, his influence on Plato and the later Platonists, the possibility that he borrowed from Eastern teaching, and his near-contemporary, the Buddha.

Chapters III–IV: Plato and Ovid

Plato is presented as an admirer of Pythagorean teaching and dietary principles, with a sketch of his life and philosophy. The Ovid chapter begins with a contrast between Greek and Roman attitudes, including the cruelty of Roman public spectacles, before turning to Ovid and the speech of Pythagoras in the Metamorphoses, which later authors in the book cite.

Chapters V–VI: Seneca and Plutarch

Seneca's life is given with his early instruction by the Pythagorean Sotion and extracts from his letters, which attack luxury at table and argue that the difficulty of abstaining wears off with time. Plutarch is the first full case: his essay on flesh-eating argues that humans are the only creatures that eat everything, and do so from luxury and not need, and that kindness should extend beyond the reach of law to all species.

Chapters VII–X: Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Porphyry and Chrysostom

These four chapters deal with the early centuries. Tertullian is cited against Christians who appealed to Scripture to defend meat, and Clement and Chrysostom are used to show the ascetic tradition in the Church, which Williams says rested on ascetic rather than humanitarian grounds. Porphyry's treatise On Abstinence, in four books, is presented as the fullest ancient argument, with Voltaire's admiring comment on it.

Chapters XI–XIV: Cornaro, Sir Thomas More, Montaigne and Gassendi

Cornaro appears as a reformer of eating on health grounds alone. More's Utopia is cited for its rejection of hunting, and Montaigne for his compassion for hunted animals. Gassendi is the scientist who argued that human beings were meant to live on vegetable food, and who opposed Descartes.

Chapters XV–XXI: Ray, Evelyn, Mandeville, Gay, Cheyne, Pope and Thomson

A seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English group: the naturalist Ray on plants, Evelyn's profession of faith in a vegetarian diet, Mandeville's remark that custom blinds us to killing, Gay's fable in verse, and Pope and Thomson's poems against slaughter. Dr Cheyne's chapter is the longest, giving his own case, in which a milk-and-vegetable regimen cured serious illness.

Chapters XXII–XXIX: Hartley, Chesterfield, Voltaire, Haller, Cocchi, Rousseau, Linné and Buffon

A series of Enlightenment authorities. Hartley argues from benevolence and Chesterfield describes his scruples and how he resolved them in favour of meat. Voltaire's is one of the longest chapters in the book. Haller and Cocchi supply medical arguments, Rousseau is treated through Émile, and Buffon is quoted on how far human power over animals exceeds need.

Chapters XXX–XXXIV: Hawkesworth, Paley, St. Pierre, Oswald and Hufeland

Hawkesworth voices disgust at animal food, and Paley is quoted for his candid admissions about the right to eat flesh, which Williams says rest on biblical authority. St. Pierre recommends a vegetable regime for children, Oswald is the writer who abstained from flesh and joined the French Revolution, and the physician Hufeland closes the group.

Chapters XXXV–XL: Ritson, Nicholson, Abernethy, Lambe, Newton and Gleïzès

The turn to a modern movement. Ritson, who stayed on a milk-and-vegetable diet for thirty years, is followed by Nicholson's The Primeval Diet of Man and its recipes, Abernethy, and Lambe's reports on regimen. Newton and his family brought Shelley to the cause, and Gleïzès is the French reformer who wrote Thalysie.

Chapters XLI–XLIV: Shelley, Phillips, Lamartine and Michelet

Shelley is the longest chapter in this section, with a life and extracts from his poetry and prose attacking the diet of blood. Phillips, Lamartine and Michelet follow, the last two as French writers who came to protest against slaughter.

Chapters XLV–XLVII: Cowherd, Metcalfe and Graham

These three chapters follow the movement in religious and organised form: Cowherd's Bible Christian Church, which made abstinence a doctrine, his follower Metcalfe, who emigrated to Philadelphia, and Sylvester Graham and his lectures on the science of human life.

Chapters XLVIII–L: Struve, Daumer and Schopenhauer

The book ends with three Germans. Struve is a German revolutionary and writer who published on vegetable diet as the basis of a new world-view, Daumer is a philosopher whose works attack orthodox eating and include the case of Kaspar Hauser, and Schopenhauer is treated as the philosopher who made compassion the basis of morality, though Williams faults him for not drawing the dietary conclusion.

Appendix

Seventeen further extracts include Hesiod, the Golden Verses, the Buddhist canon, Ovid, Musonius, Lessio, Cowley, Tryon, Hecquet, Pope, Chesterfield, Jenyns, Pressavin, Schiller, Bentham, Sinclair and Byron.

Key Concepts

Preface and Chapters I–X: Antiquity

• Catena of authorities: an argument made by assembling many witnesses over time.
• Humanitarian argument: the claim that justice and compassion forbid unnecessary slaughter.
• Pythagorean tradition: abstention as a philosophical and religious discipline.

Chapters XI–XXXIV: Early modern and Enlightenment

• Dietetic and anatomical argument: that human structure and health favour plant food.
• Custom and prejudice: the claim that habit hides cruelty from people.

Chapters XXXV–L and Appendix: Reform movements

• Organised dietary reform: societies, journals and churches that practised abstinence.
• Compassion as ethical ground: Schopenhauer's place in the argument.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Wide historical range. In fifty chapters, from Hesiod to Schopenhauer, the book shows that objections to flesh-eating are old and come from very different traditions.
• A clear structure. Each chapter gives a life and then the relevant passages, so a reader can look up one authority.
• Source for the movement itself. It documents the nineteenth-century British dietary-reform community, its journal and its sense of its own history.
• Appendix of extracts. The final section keeps further primary texts together.

Limitations

• A partisan selection. Williams collects witnesses on one side, and states that it is a catena, not a balanced survey; counter-arguments appear mainly where he answers them.
• Dated science and scholarship. The medical and anatomical claims, the biographies and some attributions reflect the 1880s and should not be taken as current.
• Heavy for a modern reader. The prose is long-winded, Greek, Latin, French and German passages are often left untranslated, and the book is very long.
• Mixed motives. As Williams notes, many authorities advocate abstinence for ascetic or health reasons, not for the sake of animals.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the applied ethics list, this is the historical primary source rather than a modern argument. Singer's Animal Liberation, Regan's Empty Cages and Cochrane's Animal Rights Without Liberation are the contemporary philosophical treatments, and Diamond's Eating Meat and Eating People is a short philosophical essay. Adams's The Sexual Politics of Meat and Neither Man nor Beast give the feminist critique; Singer's The Life You Can Save is on a different topic. Williams is best read after an introduction to modern animal ethics, to see how earlier writers framed the same questions.

How to Use This Book

This is a book to dip into, not to read straight through. It is suitable for undergraduates and anyone interested in the history of vegetarian thought.

• Start with: the Preface, then the chapters on Pythagoras, Plutarch and Porphyry.
• Then: choose by interest, for example Cheyne for medicine, Voltaire and Rousseau for the Enlightenment, Shelley for the Romantic poets, and Schopenhauer for philosophy.
• Use the appendix: it collects further passages.
• Check dates and claims: compare Williams's descriptions with modern biographies and with current nutrition science.

Edition and Sources

This guide covers the 1883 first edition as released by Project Gutenberg (eBook #55785, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55785), which is in the public domain. It is based on the preface, the table of contents, the opening and main diet-related passages of all fifty chapters and the appendix headings, with fuller reading of the chapters on Pythagoras, Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Porphyry, Voltaire, Shelley, Graham, Struve and Schopenhauer. The 2003 University of Illinois Press reprint, with a new introduction, is a separate edition.