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some mean by a low vegetable diet"; and which is unnatural to the human stomach,-except in small quantities, and along with other food. No wonder that a person feels irritable from so injudicious a change as this. It could scarcely fail to be otherwise with any one; and it was probably from this cause that Sir Walter Scott condemned "a severe vegetable diet";-having himself been affected, while under its influence, "with a nervousness never felt before nor since." But if a person, whatever be his constitution or temperament, gradually change from a diet of animal food, to one of fruit and farinacea, -including wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, &c.,-I have not the least doubt of his being (in a short time) not only better in health, but in temper also; and free from that distressing state of nervous sensibility experienced by Sir Walter Scott.

452. Fuseli, the painter, was in the habit of eating raw meat, for the purpose of engendering in his imagination horrible fancies; and it is related of Mrs. Radcliffe that, when she was writing "The Mysteries of Udolpho", she ate uncooked meat for the same object.

453. "The fact", says Graham, "that in those tribes destitute of intellectual and moral cultivation, or in the uncivilized state, which subsist principally or entirely on pure vegetable food, the brain is more symmetrically developed, and the upper and front parts are much larger in proportion to the lower and back parts, than in the uncivilized flesh-eaters, proves conclusively that flesh-meat increases the relative size and power of those cerebral parts which, according to phrenology, are the organs of

the more exclusively selfish propensities; and tend to cause the animal to predominate over the intellectual and moral man: while a pure vegetable diet, without neglecting to secure-by the most complete and harmonious organization and perfect physiological endowments—all the interests of organic life and animal instinct, at the same time, naturally tends to produce that symmetry of particulars and general development and harmony of parts, which give comeliness and beauty to the person; and fit man, as an intellectual and moral being, to understand and appreciate and fulfil his duties to himself, and his relations to his fellow-creatures and his God.

Hence the

notorious fact that, in the perfectly rude and uncultivated state of man, the vegetable-eating tribes and nations never sink so low on the scale of humanity,―never approach so near to an utter extinction of the intellectual and moral faculties, never become so deeply degraded and thoroughly truculent, as the flesh-eating tribes. However rude the state of the uncivilized vegetable-eater, he always (other things being equal) manifests more intelligence, more moral elevation, more natural grace and urbanity, than the flesh-eating savage. This fact has been observed by travellers and writers, from the days of Homer to the present time. The Patagonian may subsist wholly on flesh, with his other habits and circumstances of life, and be tolerably gentle and peaceable; but bring him under the ten thousand exciting and irritating and debilitating mental and moral and physical causes of civic life, and he would soon find, that his exclusively flesh diet was a powerful source of evil to him. Fortunately for the course of

humanity, those tribes of the human race who subsist wholly or principally on flesh, cannot be prolific; and, therefore, their population never becomes dense,-like that of India: nor can they procure the means of habitual and free indulgence in the use of intoxicating substances."*

454. Few parents are aware of the immense amount of mischief they bring upon their offspring, by training them early to the use of animal food. In most instances, it is doubtless from a conviction that it will impart strength and vigour to the frame; but its tendency is most certainly of a directly opposite character. By giving an improper stimulus to their feeble constitutions, they gradually weaken the organs of digestion, and render their children puny and sickly: the cause of the evil not being suspected, they too frequently encourage them to take more, and even add condiments and other stimulants, to excite an appetite which nature has denied. In this way, the seeds of disease are unsuspectingly sown, and sooner or later will be the cause of much pain and misery. But this is not the only evil to be apprehended from this unnatural food. Those whose frames are sufficiently robust to escape immediate disease, have the animal propensities prematurely developed; the passions and feelings are abnormally excited, and the tempers rendered irritable and imperious; so that the moral effects are perhaps more to be dreaded than the physical. All who pay any attention to this important subject, must admit that fruit and farinacea are much more appropriate than the flesh of * GRAHAM'S LECTURES. Vol. II. P. 340, &c.

animals, as a diet for the young. Those who restrict their children to the former diet, may reasonably hope to secure for them the blessings of health, and a proper balance between the various organs of the brain; so that the sentiments and propensities, instead of acting from blind and uncontrollable instinct, shall receive their direction from the superior faculties.

455. Sufficient evidence has (I think) been adduced, to convince an unprejudiced mind that, under a well chosen vegetable diet, for it is so various that all constitutions and temperaments may be suited,—the mental and moral faculties may be much better trained, and admit greater elevation, than under an animal or mixed diet, which too. frequently renders early discipline and moral instruction inefficient. Under the former (along with mental, moral, and religious instruction) greater ease and freedom of thought will be experienced; calmness and placidity of temper will be promoted; the cares and disappointments of the world will cause less anxiety and irritation of mind; the passions and propensities will be less likely to pass beyond their legitimate bounds; acquisitiveness, and combativeness, and destructiveness, will not be so liable to degenerate into selfishness, quarrelsomeness, and cruelty; and man will be the more prepared for the universal reign of peace, benevolence, justice, and truth.

CHAPTER XV.

VEGETABLE DIET FAVOURABLE TO LONGEVITY.

456. IF life be a good, then must long life be a great good; provided that the sensitive, mental, and moral powers, which are the principal sources of enjoyment and happiness, still retain their integrity. Men, however, so frequently associate old age with protracted feebleness, insensibility, and helplessness, that longevity appears to some scarcely desirable. "An advanced term of life and decrepitude", says Dr. Southwood Smith, "are commonly conceived to be synonymous: the extension of life is vulgarly supposed to be the protraction of the period of infirmity and suffering;-that period which is characterised by a progressive diminution of the power of sensation and a consequent and proportionate loss of the power of enjoyment; the 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing'. But this is so far from being true, that it is not within the compass of human power to protract in any sensible degree the period of old age properly so called; that is, the stage of decrepitude. In this stage of existence, the physical changes that successively take place clog, day by day, the vital