Daemoniack phrenzy, mopeing melancholy, Dropfies and afthmas, and joint-racking rheums."* The onely mode in which man or brute can be useful or hapy, with refpect either to the generality or to the individual, is to be just, mild, mercyful, benevolent, humane, or, at least, innocent or harmless, whether fuch qualitys be natural or not; but if the present fystem of murder, bloodshed, cruelty, malignance, and mischief, fhould continue, it would be better that fuch diabolical monsters fhould cease to exift: "Let heaven kifs earth! Now let not Natures hand But let one fpirit of the firft-born Cain Reign in all bofoms, that, each heart being fet Shakspeare, Second part of Henry IV. * Paradife left, B. II. [41] CHAP. II. ANIMAL FOOD NOT NATURAL TO MAN. THE two most general distinctions of the carnivorous tribes of quadrupeds are deduce'd, one from the figure of the teeth, and the other from the conformation of the intestines. The animals that subsist on vegetables have all of them blunt teeth, as the horse, the ox, the sheep, and the hare; but the teeth of animals naturally carnivorous are sharp, as thofe of the car, the dog, the wolf and the fox. As to the intestines the frugivorous have fome, fuch as the colon, which are not to be found in the carnivorous. It feems, therefor, that, the teeth and intestines of man being like those of frugivorous animals, he should, naturally, be range'd in this clafs. This question is not onely confirm'd by anatomical obfervations, but is greatly favour'd by the monuments of antiquity.* * Rousseau, Dissertation on the inequality of mankind, note 5. The hypothefis of Buffon on this subject is fatisfactoryly confuteed by doctor Sparrman, in his Voyage to the cape of Good-bope, ii. 227, &c. Quadrupeds of the hog kind, like the rapacious kinds, are found to have fhort intestines, their hoofs, allfo, though cloveën to the fight, wil, upon anatomical infpection, appear to be fupply'd with bones like beasts of prey; and the number of their teats, allfo, increase the fimilitude: on the other hand, in a natural ftate, they live upon vegetables, and feldom feek after animal food, except when urge'd by necesfity. They offend no other animal of the forest, at the fame time that they are furnish'd with arms to terrify the braveëst.* From the tenderness of mans fkin, and the great care that is require'd, for years together, to rear him; from the make of his jaws, the evenness of his teeth, the breadth of his nails, and the flightness of both, it is not, in Mandevilles opinion, that Nature should have defign'd him for rapine.t One proof, fays Rousseau, that the taste of meat is not natural to the human palate, is the indifference which children have for that kind of food, and the preference they give to vegeta ble aliments, fuch as milk-meats, pastry, fruit, **Goldfmith's History of the earth, iv, 201, 214. Fable of the bees, I, 226. &c. * [which, certainly, agree with them better.]+ Lord Monboddo fays, "though i think that man has, from nature, the capacity of liveing, either by prey, or upon the fruits of the earth, it appears to me, that, by nature, and in his original ftate, he is a frugivorous animal, and that he only becomes an animal of prey by acquire'd habit." * Emilius, i, 286. Brasfavolus reports, of the younger daughter of Frederick, king of Naples, that she could not eat any kind of flesh, nor fo much as taste of it; and, as oft as she put any bit of it into her mouth, fhe was feize'd with a vehement fyncopé, and falling to the earth, and rolling herself thereupon, would lamentablely fhriek out. This she would continue to do for the space of half an hour, after she was return'd to herself. (Turners Hiftory of remarkable providences, 1697, fo. part 2, c. 2, § 6.) + Of males and females, chriften'd, within the general bil of mortality, from December 9, 1800, to December 15, 1801, fo that near 7,500 of these tender infants perish in the first five years of their life; most likely in confequence of their being ftuf'd with flesh-meat, which is unnatural to them, and, cannot be digested at fo early an age: this horrid practice gives rife to a variety of fatal diseaseës, which carry them off; nor can such a numerous obituary be imputeëd to any other cause. 3 No argument in fact, can be lefs decifive, or more fallacious, than that deduce'd from the canine teeth of the human jaw. The kanguroo, an animal of the gerboa kind, has canine teeth, and yet its onely food, at least the onely food it is known to eat, is grafs.* There was once an ape in the French kings cabinet with twentyeight teeth, of which four were what we call canine, resembleing those of the human species. Nevertheless, these apes feed entirely upon fruit ; our canine teeth, therefor, are no proof that man is naturally carnivorous. The ourang-outang, or pongo, defcribe'd by Battel, which resembles man more nearly, and is furnish'd with a much greater fhare of fagacity, and appearance of reafon, than any other animal but man, never meddles with animal flesh, but lives on nuts and other wild fruits. Neither are baboons, which bear fome, though lefs, refemblance, to the human fpecies, at all carnivorous; they principally feed upon fruits, roots, * Goldsmiths History of the earth, iv. 351. Rousseau, On the inequality of mankind, note 10. The animal of this kind disfected by doctor Tyfon, had two dentes canini, as in a man. "The teeth," he says, "of the cynocepbali [baboons] are like a dogs; thofe of our pygmie exactly refembled a mans. It had, alfo, intestines like thofe of a man." (See his Anatomy, &c. p. 65, 7.) |