Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. Now, what will they eat? The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,--most of which are nourishing, and more or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal--the horse, the ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it as he pleases. Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon the animals around him? Does any person believe--can he for one moment believe--he would forthwith imbrue his hands