to agriculture, as in these countries the ill consequences of using much animal food are more evident, and therefore universally known and acknowledged. In the temperate climates the existing population could not be supported by pasturage alone, and therefore the body of the people of necessity used a mixed diet, wholly ignorant, for the most part, of its effects upon the body. In the high northern latitudes agriculture is hardly known, and a scanty population is supported by fishing, the chase, or pasturage, with a scanty supply of vegetable productions. But they live so, not because it is most suitable to their situations, but from their ignorance of more useful arts.

There was a time, probably, when in every part of the globe men lived nearly as they now live in these remote regions. I cannot, therefore, persuade myself that even in those climates it is necessary for man to support his own life by the destruction of other animated beings. We find no part of the globe habitable by man which is not stocked with herbivorous animals. The Pesserais of Cape Horn is clothed with the skin of the guanicoe (a species of deer). At the northern extremity of the same continent, the buffalo, the moose-deer (or elk), the musk ox, common deer, squirrels, hares, rabbits, mice, and other animals, which draw their nutriment from the earth, are found in abundance as high as the 71st degree of north latitude, besides a plentiful stock of bears, wolves, foxes, wolverines, and other carnivorous animals, which are sustained indirectly from the same source. Where the support of every species of animals is so abundant, it is inconceivable that the earth should deny to man alone a salubrious and innocent repast.

In these regions the transition from their long and gloomy winter and summer heat is immediate, and nature compensates for the short duration of the season of vegetation by its great rapidity and luxuriance. The heat is at this time as great as in our own climate at the same season. The country becomes covered with verdure, and teems with life. Near the North Cape, the Ultima Thule of Europe, rich pastures that want no cultivation, and beautiful natural meadows are to be seen. And even at the very extremity, which forms the cape itself, in the 71st degree of north latitude, were found growing some plants of angelica, a salubrious vegetable. The arctic regions are not even without their delicacies, unknown to other countries. The berry-bearing plants are particularly abundant. The rubus chamamorns, a large kind of raspberry, is plentiful; and the rubus arcticus, a plant of the same genus, bears a fruit superior in fragrance and flavor to the strawberry and rasp

berry, and to all other fruit of the same kind, even of the choicest productions of Italy. A small plateful of this fruit is the most exquisite of perfumes.

These considerations show sufficiently how futile is this plea of necessity. On the contrary, they render it sufficiently evident that, in whatever part of the habitable globe man can exist, there vegetable nutriment may either be found or be raised; that in no situation fit for the habitation of man is the earth devoid of prolific power sufficient to satisfy his wants, and even to gratify his palate.

This plea of necessity is contradicted even by experience; for, from the latest accounts which have been published, agriculture has at length penetrated these remote regions. The potato cultivation has been several years quite general at Lyngen, in Lapland, situated under the 70th degree of north latitude, and the same is called a blessed corn country. Agriculture is practiced likewise at Alten; this is the most northern agriculture of the world.

As men, even in the rudest state of society, display a higher degree of intellectual power than other animals, which is applied both to the gaining of food and every other object conducive to his well being, it is argued that this makes so essential a difference between men and other animals, that we cannot apply to man the reasoning that is acknowledged to be conclusive with regard to others. In animals guided by instinct, it is true that we see a very exact adaptation of their form and powers to the objects of their desires and appetites. We may, therefore, in these commonly infer from their conformation the mode of life to which they are fitted. But superior powers having been given to man by the medium of a higher order of intellect, we must give him a wider field of action, nor suppose that nothing can be suited to his nature which happens not to be within the reach of his unaided physical powers.

I would allow so much weight to this argument as never to permit theoretical reasoning to weigh for a moment against the results of experience. The intellect of man is as much a part of his proper nature as his bodily frame, given him surely to promote his well being. But I suspect that its power over the organization must necessarily be very limited. For a wellorganized frame of body must be thought to be a possession anterior to all other improvements, and the instrument which the intellect itself makes use of to acquire the materials of all other improvements. In a certain degree it appears essential to the intellect itself, and connatural with it. It follows, then,

that a just bodily organization is neither the object nor the consequence of intellectual culture. It is rather the gift of nature, which is saying, nearly, that it results from natural habits. In fact, it has ever been more the effect of some happy combination of fortuitous circumstances than of design or wisdom.

On the place which man holds in the scale of animated beings, all naturalists are agreed. There are those, indeed, who deem it a sort of degradation to the human species to class mankind with monkeys, apes, and baboons, and to show the analogy of his structure with that of the orang-outang. But misplaced pride and an ignorant misapprehension cannot alter the nature of things. Our very language acknowledges the reality of the analogy between the races; monkey can mean nothing but mannikin, or little man. In insisting on this analogy we limit ourselves to physical facts which are undeniable. But granting it to be perfectly correct, it does not follow that man in consequence approaches more nearly to the nature of the monkey than he does to that of the otter, except in the single circumstance of the choice of food. The monkey is not in any respect superior to the otter, or the fox, or the beaver, or any other animal. In his nobler part, his rational soul, man is distinguished from the whole tribe of animals by a boundary which cannot be passed. It is only when man divests himself of his reason, and debases himself by brutal habits, that he renounces his just rank among created beings, and sinks himself below the level of the beasts.

If the question were proposed whether man were by nature intended to walk erect, or, like the animals, upon all-fours, from the mode in which the head is united to the spine, from the narrowness of the ischiadic bones, from the structure and position of the socket of the thigh, from the whole compages of the feet, I should conclude with confidence that the erect position was the most natural to the human species. Looking upon man merely as an animal, I should likewise conclude, from the structure of the hand, the form of the mouth, the articulation of the under jaw, the teeth, the stomach, the cæcum, the colon, and the length of the intestines; from all these circumstances, I say, I should conclude, that vegetable food is that which is most natural to man.* Many, indeed, assert that man

I have argued at some length in my "Reports on Cancer," that man is in his structure herbivorous. This appears to me to be a question of extreme importance, and I have therefore thought it might be useful to give on this subject the sentiments of a writer who has made comparative anatomy a peculiar object of his study. The following quotation is from the article "Man," in Dr. Rees's Encyclopedia, written by Mr.

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has a structure between that of the herbivorous and carnivorous tribes. Those who argue thus, acknowledge that we ought to Lawrence, assistant-surgeon of St. Bartholemew's Hospital. sent seems a very proper place for considering a question that is frequently agitated on this subject, whether man approaches most nearly to the carnivorous or herbivorous animals in his structure? We naturally expect to find in the figure and construction of the teeth a relation to the kind of food which an animal subsists on. The carnivorous have very long and pointed cuspidati or canine teeth, which are employed as weapons of offence and defence, and are very serviceable in seizing and lacerating their prey; these are three or four times as long as the other teeth in some animals, as the lion, tiger, etc., and constitute very formidable weapons. The grinding teeth have their bases elevated into pointed prominences, and those of the lower shut within those of the upper jaw. In the herbivorous animals these terrible canine teeth are not found, and the grinders have broad surfaces opposed in a vertical line to each other in the two jaws; enamel is generally intermixed with the bone of the tooth in the latter, and thus produces ridges on the grinding surface, by which their operation on the food is increased; in the former it is confined altogether to the surface. For further details on this subject see MAMMALIA. The articulation of the lower jaw differs very remarkably in the two kinds of animals: in the carnivorous it can only move forward and backward; in the herbivorous it has, moreover, motion from side to side. Thus, we observe in the flesh eaters, teeth calculated only for tearing, and subservient in part, at least, to the procuring of food as well as to purposes of defence, and an articulation of the lower jaw that procludes all lateral 'motion; in those which live on vegetables the form of the teeth and nature of the joint are calculated for the lateral or grinding motion; the former swallow the food in masses, while in the latter it undergoes considerable comminution before it is swallowed. The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of the carnivorous animals, except that their enamel is confined to the external surface; he possesses, indeed, teeth called canine, but they do not exceed the level of the others, and are obviously unsuited to the purposes which the corresponding teeth execute in carnivorous animals. These organs, in short, very closely resemble the teeth of monkeys, except that the canine are much longer and stronger in the latter animals. In the freedom of lateral motion, the lower jaw of the human subject resembles that of herbivorous animals. In the form of the stomach again, and, indeed, in the structure of the whole alimentary canal, man comes much nearer to the monkey than to any other animal. The length and divisions of the intestinal tube are very different, according to the kind of food employed. In the proper carnivorous animals, the canal is very short, and the large intestine is cylindrical; in the herbivora, the former is very long, and there is either a complicated stomach or a very large cæcum and a sacculated colon. In comparing the length of the intestines to that of the body in man, and in other animals, a difficulty arises on account of the legs, which are included in the former and left out in the latter; hence the comparative length of the intestinal tube is stated at less than it ought to be in man. If allowance be made for this circumstance, man will be placed on nearly the same line with the monkey race, and will be removed to a considerable distance from the proper carnivora. Soemmerring states, that the intestinal canal of man varies from three to eight times the length of the body. (De Corp. Hum. Tab. t. 6. p. 200.) În Tyson's chimpansee of

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and down, and live like them upon the substances to which his instinct would direct him, and which his physical powers would enable him to collect. These would probably be in harmony, as we find them in all other animals.

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As man is devoid of all natural clothing, we must suppose him placed in the tropical regions; here the air is always of a genial warmth; the fertility of the earth is abundant, and it is confined to no particular season; and the shade of the trees would protect him from the oppression of a vertical sun. same trees which shelter would yield the principal part of his sustenance. Thus the fruit of trees would appear to be the most natural species of diet. Rousseau says it is the most abundant; as he has convinced himself from having compared the produce of two pieces of land of equal area and quality, the one sown with wheat, and the other planted with chesnuttrees.*

But man would not confine himself to fruits, or the produce of trees; he is formed equally for climbing, and for walking on the ground; his eye may be directed with equal ease to objects above him and on the earth. His arm has a corresponding latitude of motion.

Man must have been fed previous to the invention of any art, even the simple one of making a bow and arrows. He' could not then have lived by prey, since all the animals excel him in swiftness. There is no antipathy between man and other animals which indicates that nature has intended them for acts of mutual hostility. Numerous observations of travelers and voyagers have proved that in uninhabited islands, or in other countries where animals are not disturbed or hunted, they betray no fear of men; the birds will suffer themselves to be taken by the hand; the foxes will approach him like a dog. These are no feeble indications that nature intended to live in peace with the other tribes of animals.

Least of all would instinct prompt him to use the dead body of an animal for food. The sight of it would rather excite horror, compassion, and aversion. In a warm climate, putrefaction succeeding immediately to dissolution, dead flesh must speedily diffuse an offensive odor, and occasion insuperable loathing and disgust.

* The bread-fruit tree appears to support the most abundant population. Dr. Forster, comparing the parts of Otaheite which are best cul tivated with those of France under the same circumstances, calculated the population, about the year 1774, to be to that of the latter nearly as seventeen to one.-Forster's Observations, 220.