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mimus or ist is obtained with infinitely greater ease than the produce of the earth. Savages, and even early colonists, kill ummus for their fars or their hides, their flesh being often left 2 pers), is I wo value; and even in advanced stages of civiliade, the price of meat was either less or equal to that of brend But the proportion becomes gradually reversed.

Sy rindo regetable productions become so abundant is it be brought within the reach of the mass of mankind, and dberger than any of the other substances which are used as ind. Indeed, weeding to all the present experience of mankind in free countries, vegetable food increases with the demind closed by an trease of population, so that this increase 8 306 the cause but the effect of increased population. All $7 tredenskins of ex from an over-abundance of people, appear in European caries at least, to be visionary. Death SHES THT THEy, even in the poorest class of the people, * be mused DAT SHSons, by a want of food. Excess, and the abuse of the gifts of Providence, is productive of much De er It is not the parsimony of Nature which is the proLie source of vice and misery, but the wastefulness and prodigly ff me, and the abuses resulting from an excessive Inequality in the distribution of wealth—a distribution which is ss math a misfortune to those who are raised above the due jera as those who are sunk below it. To use the energetic language of our sublime and virtuous poet, Milton—

* If every just man, that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and beseeming share

Of that which lewdly pampered luxury
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
Natare's fall blessings would be well dispensed

In unsuperfluous even proportion,

And she no whit encumbered with her store.
And then the Giver would be better thanked,

His praise due paid; for swinish gluttony

Neler looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude

Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder."

But to return to our argument. This relative dearness of animal food, compared to that of the most common vegetables, making its use a species of privilege confined to persons in easy circumstances, the silly vanity of distinguishing themselves from the hard-working classes has conspired with the gratifications of the palate to make animal food to be esteemed by such persons one of the real necessaries of life. It is so habitual to them, that the greater part of such persons think it impossible

to live without it, and any proposal of the kind appears in their eyes either a monstrous barbarity or a ridiculous absurdity. They are tormented with imaginary terrors, and they conceive it to be an experiment full of danger; though in every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are sufficient for the support of life, and though the bulk of mankind live upon them at this hour. So perverted are the judgments of men; since, really (I speak it not in the spirit of ridicule or of asperity, but as a deduction from the most simple survey of the progress of human manners) the adherence to the use of animal food is no more than a persistence in the gross customs of savage life, and evinces an insensibility to the progress of reason, and the operation of intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered to be one of the numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations.

Where reason has interfered, and has exercised any influence on the manners of men, its voice has always been raised in favor of simple diet. Some ancient legislators are said to have confined the diet of the people to the fruits of the earth; a report which is very credible by what we know of the institutions of Hindostan, and the remote antiquity to which they reach.

Many sects both in ancient and modern times have inculcated on their adherents the same abstinence as a duty of religion. The Romans, in the purer days of the republic, favored the same maxims: their Fannian and Licinian laws limited the allowance of animal food, while that of vegetable matter was unrestricted. But laws are forced to bend to the existing habits and prejudices of the people for whom they are made. A good man will reverence the laws of his country. But there is a law more sacred, to which he will make his own actions conform : the voice of the inward monitor, which informs him that he should act in all things of moment according to the dictates of right reason.

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Can a practice be conformable to reason which stifles the best feelings of the human heart? By long habit and familiarity with scenes of blood, we have come to view them without emotion. But look at a young child who is told that the chicken which it has fed and played with is to be killed. not the tears it sheds, and the agonies it endures, the voice of nature itself crying within us and pleading the cause of humanity? We cannot hear even a fly assailed by a spider without compassion-without wishing to relieve its distress, and to re

pel its enemy. The coldness of philosophical inquiry may perhaps lead us to doubt whether the sound it emits, which is no more than a vitration of its wings, is really an index of pain; and whether we ought not to sympathize as much with the hunger of the spider as with the pain of the fly. The emotion, however, is natural and unavoidable. To suffer from the sufferings of any other sentient beings, and to have the sensibility aroused by the expressions of suffering, is, among civilized men, an essential property of human nature; and as such, it ought surely to be a law to man-a guide of human conduct.

How closely the use of a temperate regimen is connected with morality and with intellectual excellence seems to have been perfectly understood by the masters of ancient wisdom. Plato has said that "no one is bad spontaneously; but that bad morals proceed from some depraved habit of body, or from neglected education." He must therefore have thought a proper regimen to be a fundamental part of a moral education. Indeed, he has expressly enumerated this among the other instruments of forming the human character: "Of much efficacy are the customs, either political or domestic, in which men are brought up, and the daily manner of life, either fortifying or corrupting the mind; for exposure to the air, simple aliments, gymnastic exercises, and the manners of associates have the greatest influence in disposing either to virtue or vice."

It is allowed that men should be guided by reason; no truth can be more evident. But let us well understand what is meant by the term. By reason we cannot surely mean that feeble glimmering of light which just enables the mass of mankind to grope through the gloomy paths of life, and to pass a few fretful years in a vain pursuit of happiness. The reason of individuals (if, indeed, it deserves the name) is commonly just sufficient to conduct them through the habitual occupations of the day; but the bulk of mankind are quite unable to comprehend the bearings of a complex argument, and still more to trace effects to their remote causes. Nor is this the case with the vulgar merely, for so limited is the human capacity, that the most exalted genius, and the deepest powers of investigation, have not been able to raise their possessors above the errors and prejudices of their age, on the subjects which have not been made the peculiar objects of their reflections.

Mankind have therefore had recourse to artificial aids to the feebleness of individual reason, as the guides of life, and the preservers of the social order; to the writings of sages; to maxims, proverbs, and apothegms which condense as it wero

the experience of ages; to the institution of wholesome customs; the establishment of just laws; to the sanctions of religious truth.

There is then a superior and more exalted reason, which consists in the perception of truths founded in the constant relations of things, in obedience to the fixed and immutable laws of Nature. This is the reason which has informed the spirit of philosophers, of heroes and legislators, of those who have improved the arts of life, or extended the boundaries of knowledge. This reason we cannot but conceive to be a kind of emanation from the eternal fountain of truth. This the reason, the empire of which ought to be established on earth. The experience of the past gives no very favorable omens for the future; but genuine philanthrophy must prompt us to consider its promotion as the object the most deserving of our exertions, directly tending to diffuse genuine civilization, and all the blessings depending upon it.

CHAPTER VIII.

On the use of spirituous and fermented liquors.-Spices.-Man by nature not a drinking animal.

In the use of animal food, man having deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of Nature, and which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering which is connected with it. To this habit almost all nations that have emerged from a state of barbarism have united the use of some spirituous and fermented liquors. As the course of my inquiries has taken a range somewhat extensive, I have thought it right not wholly to overlook the effects of these liquors on the human body; but having little that is original to offer on the subject, it shall be comprised in as few words as possible.

The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of oppression, fullness, and uneasiness, and if the measure of it be in excess, some nausea, and tendency

to sickness. Such persons say, meat is too heavy for their stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. We find that the use of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings. It is thought to assist the digestion. Probably, its real utility arises from the strong, and at the same time agreeable, impression it makes on the stomach, which counteracts the uneasiness arising from the solid part of our aliment. Thus the food sits lighter on the stomach, and digestion goes on more com fortably.

It is in vain to attempt to determine the question of the sa lubrity or insalubrity of these liquors from the evidence and pretended experience of those who use them. Very many persons have enjoyed improved health from the total abandonment of all fermented liquors, and confining themselves to water. These are, of course, enemies of fermented liquors, and preachers of temperance. But others, again, assert, with the same confidence, that they receive benefit from a moderate use of these liquors, and even that they cannot live without them. I do not see why these persons are not as worthy of credit as their opponents. They must be supposed to give a faithful account of their own feelings at least. This conflicting testimony, like so many others with regard to the operation of substances upon the human body, is an additional proof that, in such investigation, we must look beyond the primary effect of things, and can determine little or nothing from the agreeable or uneasy feelings which may immediately arise from them. For the ultimate effect (which it is of the most consequence to determine), we must have recourse to some more correct criterion.

Perhaps the oppugners of fermented liquors weaken their influence by pushing their hostility too far, and contradicting the common experience of mankind. They deny that such liquors give strength, and use some refined arguments to establish their doctrine. The bodily strength furnished by beer, Dr. Franklin said, can only be in proportion to the solid part of the barley dissolved in the water; and from this he argued, that a penny loaf would give more strength than a pint of beer. But men will not be so talked out of their feelings. Universal experience shows, undoubtedly, that fermented liquors, used in moderation, commonly augment for a time the muscular strength. And hence we are taught, that stimulation causes temporary strength.

In fact, food itself raises the muscular strength, in consequence of its application to the surface of the stomach; for we

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