The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government (1871)

AUTHOR: Woodhull, Victoria

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

Woodhull provides some theoretical support to the veg*an diet, although it is not promoted as such. Veg*nism is envisaged as the necessary consequence of evolution and as the most direct access to the “vital elements” that are naturally present in the “vegetable kingdom” (112).

Two chapters in particular detail Woodhull’s beliefs regarding the natural workings of the world: “Principles of Government 1” and “Basis of Physical Life.” Both rely on the same theory of evolution and “natural” selection of the fittest.

“Principles of Government, No. 1”:
Woodhull derives her political theory of government from the “scientific” observation of the natural world, the basic assumption being that life’s driving force moves towards evolution and, ultimately, perfection. “The evidence of evolution - progress - being, that from the rocks the flower has been produced. Ascending to the animal kingdom, motion, the result of power applied to matter, was found manifesting itself in the simplest of organic forms. There, as in the previous periods, it continued its constructive workings, until the perfect animal form, man, was evolved” (110). “Again, the vegetable world feeds from the animal - the animal feeds from the vegetable, which is the only source which furnishes living protoplasmic food, upon which the animal can alone exist. Humanity takes this protoplasmic dish either fresh from the vegetable or second-hand from the animal. It will thus be seen that everything which nature accomplishes serves specific purposes, and that when the supply is exhausted the demand ceases. If this principle is followed to its legitimate end, it will close in the life of the whole animal kingdom being merged into humanity, which will then feed entirely from the fresh protoplasmic dishes or the highly developed fruit of the vegetable kingdom” (112). It appears that she expects animals to die out and veg*nism will be the consequence of a natural process of evolution.

“The Basis of Physical Life”:
While very much informed by scientific notions such as the fact that the universe is made up of a limited number of indivisible chemical elements, Woodhull’s system is deeply rooted in spiritual beliefs according to which God is the origin of all life and the power that moves matter to motion. “Religion belongs to the unknowable; science deals with the knowable, which is the manifestation of the unknowable. Therefore, viewed philosophically, religion and science stand for the subjective and objective whose relations comprise the whole” (208). The chapter is in fact based on Professor Huxley’s lecture of the same title, which proposes that “all matter has a common basic principle by which we obtain our evidence of it” (217). This principle or basis of physical life he calls Protoplasm. From there, he argues, all things derive and “even the manifestation of intellect, of feeling and of will, are not excluded from the classification” (217). Woodhull deduces that since “its chemical constituents are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, which form carbonic acid, water and ammonia; and that these are compounded by plants into the ‘matter of life’ of protoplasm, which is the first compound of elements possessing inherent organic motion … we must always look to the vegetable world for continuous supplies of it; and though we obtain it in large quantities from the animal world, it is only at second-hand. In the vegetable world, then, must we find the traces of organic life” (219). No explicit dietary prescription follows, even though she acknowledges that “it is a physiological fact, however, that habitual living upon certain kinds of food - all containing this identical ‘matter of life’ - does produce heterogeneous effects, mental and physical, upon the system. Thus, if a person who has constantly lived upon animal food changes his diet entirely to fruit and vegetables, a corresponding change will take place in his individual capacities” (220).

Tendencies and Prophecies of the Present Age:
“The history of the past as well as the tendencies of the present prophecy with distinctiveness and positiveness that the demand will soon go out, not only for a government founded on equal rights to all, but whose laws shall be administered with justice and equity, guaranteeing freedom of body, mind and soul to every living intelligence” (230).