Vegetarianism is an important choice in anybody's life. You may choose it for
ethical, medical or religious reasons, or for all three together. You should
also bear in mind that food is one of man's main links with the natural environment.
If you choose the right food, your body and mind will be closer to nature and
healthier. Plants are the only living organisms that can synthesise solar energy
directly, so if you eat vegetables you will get solar energy in a purer form.
If you eat meat it will be in a perverted form. The examples of great personalities
who have espoused the vegetarian ideal have always been instructive, and one
of these is the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In 1812, through William Godwin's son, Shelley met John Frank Newton, the author
of "The Return to Nature" which strongly advocated the vegetarian
diet. Newton was a highly educated person who had formerly been at Christ Church
College Oxford and intended to write three more books on vegetarianism. The
Shelleys were influenced by his vegetarian views and adopted them in 1812. Later
they admitted that their health had improved and that they felt much better.
Shelley wrote two articles advocating vegetarianism, both of which are very
interesting as their approach is extraordinarily contemporary. In "A Vindication
of Natural Diet", Shelley considers meat eating as a consequence of the
Fall from Grace described in the Old Testament, and a proof that we live in
a post-lapsarian world. He gave the example of Prometheus. Having brought fire
to people for culinary purposes, thus allowing them to consume flesh, Prometheus
was punished by having his liver perpetually devoured by vultures.
Shelley considered that people should eat only the food produced in their own
native country because they grew up in that natural environment and are adapted
to it. Consequently he believed that the English should not drink wines from
France, Portugal or Spain. Spices from India were also not to be used, for the
same reason. He was against any kind of strong drinks because they are not a
natural product: "Drink no drink but water restored to its original purity
by distillation." With regard to food, he counselled: "Never take
any substance into the stomach that once had life. Vegetarianism will give you
longevity. Avoiding meat does not mean self- mortification. It is both for you
and for the natural environment you belong to. You will be rewarded for this."
Shelley's second article about vegetarianism is "On the Vegetable System
of Diet". The author considers that eating animal food is an unnatural
habit producing disease. As we don't have the teeth that predator animals have
it is normal to assume that animal food should not be eaten by humans. We should
also keep in mind that eating animal food means torturing animals. Man tortures
either when he kills them or when he raises them. This is unfortunately very
contemporary when we think of present-day factory farming systems.
Butchering animals is wicked. Forcing them to produce more products than is
natural is wicked. Forcing them into existence is wicked. "If the use of
animal food be, in consequence, subversive to the peace of human society, how
unwarrantable is the injustice and the barbarity which is exercised toward these
miserable victims. They are called into existence by human artifice that they
may drag out a short and miserable existence of slavery and disease, that their
bodies may be mutilated, their social feelings outraged. It were much better
that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed
only to endure unmitigated misery."
Shelley's advice is to have simple culinary habits as the human being is most
capable of bodily exertion after or before a simple meal.
The great Romantic poet advocates vegetarianism in a very convincing and contemporary
way. He might be our contemporary or we might be his contemporaries from this
point of view.
The only conclusion to be drawn is this: Let us follow Shelley's example and
share his views.