About six or seven hundred years, however, after the death of the old
prophet, a philosopher appeared, who, though he did not claim to have any
communication with an unseen power, laid down the law with as much
confidence as if such a power had inspired him. Many think that this
philosopher did not believe his own teaching, and, being in secret a
great meat-eater, had no other end in view than reducing the prohibition
against eating animal food to an absurdity, greater even than an
Erewhonian Puritan would be able to stand.
Those who take this view hold that he knew how impossible it would be to
get the nation to accept legislation that it held to be sinful; he knew
also how hopeless it would be to convince people that it was not wicked
to kill a sheep and eat it, unless he could show them that they must
either sin to a certain extent, or die. He, therefore, it is believed,
made the monstrous proposals of which I will now speak.
He began by paying a tribute of profound respect to the old prophet,
whose advocacy of the rights of animals, he admitted, had done much to
soften the national character, and enlarge its views about the sanctity
of life in general. But he urged that times had now changed; the lesson
of which the country had stood in need had been sufficiently learnt,
while as regards vegetables much had become known that was not even
suspected formerly, and which, if the nation was to persevere in that
strict adherence to the highest moral principles which had been the
secret of its prosperity hitherto, must necessitate a radical change in
its attitude towards them.
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