“The First Step: An Essay on Vegetarianism and Non-Violence”

Tolstoy’s account of witnessing slaughter, and his conclusion that if a person “be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation of the passions caused by such food, its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling –killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food.”