" We should say that the lilies were
talking about things that they did not understand, and that though the
Solomons do not toil nor spin, yet there had been no lack of either
toiling or spinning before they came to be arrayed so gorgeously.
Let me now return to the Professor. I have said enough to show the
general drift of the arguments on which he relied in order to show that
vegetables are only animals under another name, but have not stated his
case in anything like the fullness with which he laid it before the
public. The conclusion he drew, or pretended to draw, was that if it was
sinful to kill and eat animals, it was not less sinful to do the like by
vegetables, or their seeds. None such, he said, should be eaten, save
what had died a natural death, such as fruit that was lying on the ground
and about to rot, or cabbage-leaves that had turned yellow in late
autumn. These and other like garbage he declared to be the only food
that might be eaten with a clear conscience. Even so the eater must
plant the pips of any apples or pears that he may have eaten, or any plum-
stones, cherry-stones, and the like, or he would come near to incurring
the guilt of infanticide.
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