The Philosophy of Sacred History (1859)

AUTHOR: Graham, Sylvester

Henry Stephen Clubb edited this collection from those of Graham's manuscripts that defend veg*ism (and Temperance) on the basis of Scripture, showing that veg*ism is consistent with, and indeed grounded in, the Christian Scriptures. The ethical foundations of Graham's otherwise health-centered arguments for veg*ism are particularly pronounced in these writings.

Graham's basic assumption is that “[w]hatever, in food or drink, or any other bodily habit or indulgence, produces a general, morbid irritability and sensibility in the nervous system, always tends to produce a morbid excess in the moral sense of conscientious people” (16). He then meticulously constructs an argument, proceeding step by step in numbered paragraphs (cross-referenced throughout the text) that discuss in detail Old and New Testament passages supporting veg*ism. One way to do this is ex-negativo, by showing that “the use of flesh as food, and of wine and alcoholic liquor of any kind” goes against “the great purposes of divine benevolence” (100) and “is incompatible with the highest and best state of human nature” (102). He adduces arguments from his Lectures on the Science of Human Life, in which he shows “that man is naturally in no measure a flesh-eating animal, but is organized to subsist wholly on the products of the vegetable kingdom” (103) and that “the use of flesh as food”:

serves to deteriorate the whole complex nature of man – to multiply disease and suffering, and error and wickedness in the human world, and abbreviate the period of human life, and increase the power of the animal over the intellectual and moral and religious man, and render man less able to understand the true nature and character of God, and the true relations between God and man (66), ... and less able to be actuated by any other than selfish and sensual motives (51), ... and thus serves to sink man into a deeper and darker and more brutally savage state of barbarian heathenism (104).

Graham claims that “every part of the Bible, when accurately interpreted, is perfectly consistent with these scientific demonstrations” (106) and he goes on to demonstrate that this is indeed the case.

Last updated on September 20th, 2024

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