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fish, flesh, and fowl. Birds, beasts, and fishes, have as full a
right to live as long as they can unmolested by man, as man
has to live unmolested by his neighbours. These words, let
me again assure you, are not mine, but those of the higher
power which inspires me.
‘I grant,’ he continued, ‘that animals molest one anoth-
er, and that some of them go so far as to molest man, but
I have yet to learn that we should model our conduct on
that of the lower animals. We should endeavour, rather, to
instruct them, and bring them to a better mind. To kill a
tiger, for example, who has lived on the flesh of men and
women whom he has killed, is to reduce ourselves to the
level of the tiger, and is unworthy of people who seek to be
guided by the highest principles in all, both their thoughts
and actions.
‘The unseen power who has revealed himself to me alone
among you, has told me to tell you that you ought by this
time to have outgrown the barbarous habits of your an-
cestors. If, as you believe, you know better than they, you
should do better. He commands you, therefore, to refrain
from killing any living being for the sake of eating it. The
only animal food that you may eat, is the flesh of any birds,
beasts, or fishes that you may come upon as having died a
natural death, or any that may have been born prematurely,
or so deformed that it is a mercy to put them out of their
pain; you may also eat all such animals as have committed
suicide. As regards vegetables you may eat all those that will
let you eat them with impunity.’
So wisely and so well did the old prophet argue, and

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