as he followed after her rival.
    The poor boy continually thought of the better class of his fellow-students,
and tried to model his conduct on what he thought was theirs. »They,« he said to
himself, »eat a beefsteak? Never.« But they most of them ate one now and again,
unless it was a mutton chop that tempted them. And they used him for a model
much as he did them. »He,« they would say to themselves, »eat a mutton chop?
Never.« One night, however, he was followed by one of the authorities, who was
always prowling about in search of law-breakers, and was caught coming out of
the den with half a shoulder of mutton concealed about his person. On this, even
though he had not been put in prison, he would have been sent away with his
prospects in life irretrievably ruined; he therefore hanged himself as soon as
he got home.
 

                              Chapter Twenty-Seven

                     The Views of an Erewhonian Philosopher

                      Concerning the Rights of Vegetables

Let me leave this unhappy story, and return to the course of events among the
Erewhonians at large. No matter how many laws they passed increasing the
severity of the punishments inflicted on those who ate meat in secret, the
people found means of setting them aside as fast as they were made. At times,
indeed, they would become almost obsolete, but when they were on the point of
being repealed, some national disaster or the preaching of some fanatic would
reawaken the conscience of the nation, and people were imprisoned by the
thousand for illicitly selling and buying animal food.
    About six or seven hundred years, however, after the death of the old
prophet, a philosopher appeared, who, though he did not claim to have any
communication with an unseen power, laid down the law with as much confidence as
if such a power had inspired him. Many think that this philosopher did not
believe his own teaching, and, being in secret a great meat-eater, had no other
end in view than reducing the prohibition against eating animal food to an
absurdity, greater even than an Erewhonian Puritan would be able to stand.
    Those who take this view hold that he knew how impossible it would be to get
the nation to accept legislation that it held to be sinful; he knew also how
hopeless it would be to convince people that it was not wicked to kill a sheep
and eat it, unless he could show them that they must either sin to a certain
extent, or die. He, therefore, it is believed, made