Humanitarian ethics and Pythagorean vegetarianism

Howard Williams

1837 – 1931

Howard Williams was an English author and humanitarian who traced the philosophical lineage of vegetarianism from Pythagoras, Plato, and Plutarch through to the Victorian era in his landmark The Ethics of Diet (1883), situating dietary reform within a broad tradition of esoteric and philosophical ethics that influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Henry Salt. He also wrote The Superstitions of Witchcraft (1865), a survey of the history of witch beliefs across European cultures from antiquity to the seventeenth century. His double contribution to the history of esoteric dietary practice and witch belief scholarship makes him a distinctive figure in Victorian occult-adjacent literature.