Oh this killing, killing, killing—this awful, never-stopping, never-ending, world-wide butchery! What a world! 'Ideal'?—and 'perfect'?—and 'all-wise'… - J. Howard Moore

The inhabitants of the earth are all alike in one particular—they are all striving to experience pleasure and to avoid pain. Early in the evolution of living beings, these two opposite forms of experience were hit upon as the determinants of conduct; and the plan worked so well that it has been continued ever since. It is an excellent scheme in a world where simple survival is the main thing. It promotes earnestness. But it is inconvenient, to say the least. And it ought to be changed if there could ever be found a way to do it.

I became a vegetarian by my own reflection. I did not know at the time of the vegetarian movement, and hence, supposed myself among republics of carnivora. It did not seem to me graceful or ideal that I, an ethical being should maintain my existence at the incessant expense of misery and death to others.

These wider relations and obligations implied by evolution should be included in every program designed for the amelioration of the world. To ignore them is to classify ourselves as incompetents. No one but an inferior can any longer maintain that kindness, justice, sympathy, love, honesty, humanity, and charity are not as good for dogs, horses, and fishes as they are for men; or that cruelty, hatred, and inhumanity are not he same damning things wherever they fall on living souls.