Thirty-Nine Reasons Why I am a Vegetarian (1903)

AUTHOR: Clubb, Henry Stephen

KEYWORDS: animals, food, religion

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

Clubb enumerates many of the most prominent arguments against eating meat -- religious and health reasons as well as animal rights and anti-cruelty arguments -- to explain his vegetarianism. For example:

4. Transcorporation Eating a lamb does not make one lamb-like in the same way that “eating a missionary does not convert a savage into a Christian” (13).
5. Scala Naturae: Clubb argues that by eating non-animal food, humankind can “rise out of and above the animal instincts” (14).
7. Animal Automaton: “This freedom of choice is essential to human development, as without it man would be merely automatic and could not attain the higher powers” (14).
12. Purity: “To live a pure life man must restrict himself to pure food and drink, and this is impossible while he consumes the flesh and blood of animals” (15).
13. Animal Rights: “Almost all animals just previous to being killed are subjected to the most cruel and heartless treatment, such as traveling in railroad cars for days without food or drink; driving through streets by means of goads or sharpened rods, wrenching of their tails, etc.; causing the most excruciating pain and naturally exciting their most violent passions, inflaming the blood and distributing bile all through their bodies, so that if they were healthy when they commenced their journey, they become full of disease before reaching their destination where the scenes of bloodshed they are permitted to witness intensify their distress and work them up to a state of frenzy and madness specially adapted to sow the seeds of insanity in those who consume their flesh” (16).
21-23. Raw foodism: “Some Vegetarians prefer uncooked food; others cooked in endless variety. Some Vegetarians prefer even their grain uncooked or as ripened by the sunshine” (17).
32. Ben Franklin: “A healthy condition of the nerves promotes equanimity of temper and disposition, a condition most favorable to the acquisition of knowledge as observed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin when subsisting on biscuits and raisins during his apprenticeship” (19).
38. Kindness to animals: “The power of the mind over the body grows with obedience to divine law. The exercise of kindness towards all creatures is productive of intense satisfaction and delight. The heart and affections become tender towards all and soul and body become permeated with the divine love and wisdom (20).