(5) We are also told that the stimulants in animal food are certain secretions which have formed in the animal prior to death. It is quite certain that if the animal be overdriven and overfed, waste matters will be found in an increased degree in its flesh, which, had it lived long enough, would have been excreted by the kidneys. We are all familiar with the statement made by Atfield, which, I believe, originally emanated from Flint, that, denied the use of his nasal organ, he would be quite unable to differentiate by any chemical process between home-made beef-tea and urine. But, as I have already said, cooking alters the character of these waste matters, and, if necessary, they could be largely separated during this process. In any case, many valuable vegetable foods contain poisonous secretions - e.g., the husks of nuts, the poison in cassava roots, the acrolein in beans, and we might even mention, as we are considering lacto-vegetarianism, the tyro-toxicon of cheese.

(6) All animals living on vegetarian diet are strong and peaceful, and it is therefore suggested that man need only live in the same manner to have a similar temperament. But surely the case here is again overstated, for few of us would like to be abandoned to the tender mercies of the herbivorous bison, buffalo, or even the rhinoceros. The charge of an infuriated elephant or a savage horse is by no means to be despised, and, as I have before remarked, I consider that excess of protein in the diet is as likely to be responsible for such outbreaks as the character of the protein. The assumption that men living on a fleshless diet would be peaceable and on a mixed diet ferocious is, of course, entirely gratuitous. We cannot readily forget the ferocity of the flesh-abstaining mutineers in 1856, and we are apt to compare these fiends with the beef-fed and rum-drinking British sailor, whose characteristic traits are simplicity and child-like playfulness. The men in our Navy are to-day better fed than ever, and without doubt are infinitely better physically than at any stage in their history, and their generous natures and gentle dispositions are a great contrast to the crafty, deceitful, cunning, vindictive cruelty of many Eastern vegetarian peoples. But this is largely a question of the influence of civilisation, just as with animals ferocity is extinguished by taming.

In this connection it was pathetic, during the Russo-Japanese War, to notice the haste with which vegetarians pointed to the undoubtedly splendid fighting qualities of the Japanese as evidence of the value of a fleshless diet, without seeing the incongruity of their argument. Perhaps less haste would have been displayed had they stopped to consider that amongst the Japanese fish is a most important article of diet, and, what is to our Occidental minds most repulsive, raw fish eaten without a knife or fork is preferred. But poultry and other mixed food is by no means despised, and the army commissariat department was literally always to the fore in the late war in its efforts to obtain freshly-killed animals in preference to the tinned foods which had otherwise to be relied upon.

Vegetarians have not a monopoly of the quality of tranquillity, any more than the meat-eater of pugnacity. A parallel instance of the folly of rash generalisations occurred in the comparison made during a vegetarian lecture by an enthusiast between the odour emanating from the herbivorous animals' cages and that from the lion and tiger cages in the Zoological Gardens, much to the advantage of the former; but he was quite nonplussed when an auditor whispered loudly, "What about the monkey-house?" Despite this contretemps, however, it is an undoubted fact that diet has a marvellous effect on the odour of the faeces. Metchnikoff mentions a species of parrot in South America which lives on bananas, and whose faeces have the aroma of bananas, not being in the slightest degree offensive. With a well-balanced ration the odour of the faeces is by no means repulsive. Fatty acids resulting from the decomposition of carbohydrates are the natural stimuli of the colon, and as the action of proteolytic bacteria produces an alkaline medium, an excess of protein will neutralise or inhibit the formation of such fatty acids. The result is stasis of the colon and putrefaction with offensively smelling faecal matter. There is little doubt that the faeces of a lacto-vegetarian will offend the sense of smell in a degree infinitely less than those of the average mixed feeder.

(7) The consumption of flesh is alleged to deaden the moral and intellectual faculties. I am not aware that the vegetarians can produce any more evidence of saintliness amongst their adherents than can be evidenced from a study of ancient Jewish records, and the attempts of Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Benjamin Franklin, and Herbert Spencer to subsist upon a fleshless diet without success are by no means encouraging, and certainly do not warrant the statement that their intellect in any way suffered from their meat-eating habits. Both Franklin and Spencer are often claimed as adherents by vegetarians. It is quite true that Franklin in early life, partly for the sake of economy and partly on higher grounds, practised vegetarianism for about two years. Spencer discontinued the practice after six months' experience - long enough, in his judgment, to determine its suitability or otherwise, and the reason he gave for abandoning it was that his vitality was lowered almost to extinguishing point, as displayed by his lack of energy and inability to keep warm. His significant commentary on the nerve-feeding qualities of vegetables was to burn all that he had written during the six months.

It would, however, be quite unfair to condemn the lacto-vegetarian diet because of the inability of even such eminent men as Carlyle and Spencer to subsist upon it with advantage. If they had made a careful study of the fleshless elements of nutrition and selected them with care, there is no apparent reason why their experiment should not have been a success.