"Recently, the Vegan Society adopted revised and extended rules which, among other things, clarify the goal towards which the movement aspires. The Society’s object and the meaning of the word “veganism,” which until now had been matters of inference and personal predilection, are now defined as follows:
“The object of the Society shall be to end the exploitation of animals by man”; and “The word veganism shall mean the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals.”
The Society pledges itself, “in pursuance of its object,” to “seek to end the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection, and all other uses involving the exploitation of animal life by man.”
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"The effect of this development is to make veganism unique among movements concerned with animal welfare. For it has crystallized as a whole, and not, as are all other such movements, as an abstraction. Where every other movement deals with a segment—and therefore deals directly with practices rather than principles—veganism is itself a principle, from which certain practices logically flow."
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"A great and historic wrong, whose effect upon the course of evolution must have been stupendous, would be righted. The idea that fellow creatures might be used by man for self-interested purposes would be so alien to human thought as to be almost unthinkable. In this light, veganism is not so much welfare as liberation—liberation for the creatures, and for the mind and heart of man; not so much an effort to make the present relationship bearable, but an uncompromising recognition that because it is in the main one of master and slave, it has to be abolished before something better and finer can be built.
Veganism is, in truth, an affirmation that where love is, exploitation vanishes. It possesses historical continuity with the movement that set free human slaves. Were it put into effect, every basic wrong done to animals by man would automatically disappear. At its heart is the healing power of compassion, the highest expression of love of which man is capable. For it is a giving without hope of getting."
LESLIE CROSS
