and corn.*

This is true of all the ape or monkey genus, except man. †

That animal food is eaten, masticateëd, and digefted by, and ferves for the nourishment of the human species, proves nothing at all. Horfeës, fheep, and oxen, are univerfally allow'd to be herbivorous animals; and yet there are inftanceës of their gradually quiting their usual aliment, and learning to live upon flesh. A

* Goldfmith, iv. 201, 214.

+ Sparrmans Voyage, ii. 227; and see before, in chap. 1. The Gauls fed their oxen and horfees with fish; and fo did the Paeonians, mention'd by Herodotus. Diomedes, king of Thrace, kil'd by Hercules, fed his mares with the flesh of miferable ftrangers, cut in pieceës for the purpose, which made them fo fierce and unmanageable that they were oblige'd to be kept in ftalls of brafs, and tye'd up in iron chains (Diodorus, B. 4, c. I.) African horfees frequently eat their own dung; and numbers have been deftroy'd in confequence of takeing into their ftomach vaft quantitys of Ainty fand (Barrows Travels, p. 103). Doctor Tyfons pygmie would eat any thing it faw men eating; though its natural food must have been fruits and the like. In the manor of Northland in

Norway, the people mix cods heads and fish-bones among the provender, which the cows eat with a good relish; nay, the Norwegian cows wil greedyly eat flesh, and gnaw the bones. with their teeth, like dogs and other carnivorous animals. The peasants fometimes regale them with pickle'd herrings. (Smolletts Prefent ftate of all-nations, i, 78.) In Some parts of Arabia, allfo, cattle are fed with fish. (Oving

young wood-pigeon, even, a fpecies of bird, which is univerfally known to feed upon any thing rather than flesh, has, by dint of hunger, been brought to relifh flesh fo as to refufe

tons Voyage to Surat, p. 425.) "That nourishment," fays Goldsmith," which is prepareed by the hand of man, chosen not to the appetites of domestick animals, but to fuit his own convenience, produces a number of distinctions, that are not to be found among the favage animals. Thefe, at first, were but accidental, but, in time, became hereditary; and a new race of artificial monfters are propagated, rather to answer the purpofe of human pleasure, than their own convenience. In fhort, their very appetites may be changed, and those that feed only upon grafs, may be rendered carnivorous. I have seen a sheep," he ads, " that would eat flesh, and' a' horse that was fond of oyfters." (Hiftory of the earth, ii, 327.) In the Oracle for January 6, 1790, is an account of a horse devouring a fheep. The latter animal, when constrain'd by hunger, wil certainly cat flesh, or any thing it can get. "A gentleman living about Ballaneah, in the countie of Cavan [in Ireland], took great pains to fave his sheep [in a great fall of fnow, 1635], yet misfed eleven of them. Some dayes after, being come forth to course, his man saw from a farre off, upon a hill, in a hollow place of a rock, fomething alive and ftirring... and' comming near they found it was the loft sheep; the which had sheer eaten away all the wool from one anothers back...and, which is more wonderfull, one of them being dead, the reft did eat her flesh, leaving nothing but the bare bones." Boates Natural biftory, p. 174.) See allfo Hearnes Journey into the northern ocean, p. 244.) Dogs, on the contrary,

every other kind of fustenance, even grain, of which it is naturally fo fond.*

"You ask of me," fays Plutarch, writeing to one of his friends, " for what reafon it was that Pythagoras abftain'd from eating flesh: i for my part do much admire in what humour, with what foul, or reason, the first man

-touch'd laughter with bis mouth,

And reach'd to 's lips the flesh of a dead animate:

and having fet people courfeës of ghastly corpfeës and ghofts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before low'd, cry'd, move'd and faw; how his fight could endure the blood of flaughter'd, flay'd and mangle'd bodys; how his fmel could bear their scent, and how the very nastynefs hapen'd not to offend the taste, while it chew'd the fores of others, and participateëd of the saps and juiceës of deadly wounds... That it is not natural to mankind to feed on flesh, we first of all demonftrate from

fuppofe'd to be naturally a carnivorous animal, may be supported entirely by vegetable food. (See Sparrmans Voyage, ii, 230.)

* Spallanzani, Dissertation iv. Such changeës, he observes, wil not excite the fmalleft degree of furprize in those who know that, of the various kinds of food, use'd by man and animals, the gelatinous part supplys the nutriment, and that this exifts alike in vegetables and animals.

do you, then,

your

the very fhape and figure of the body for a human body no way resembles those that are born for rapine: it hath no hawk-bil; no fharp talon; no roughness of teeth; no such strength of stomach, or heat of digestion, as can be fufficient to convert or alter fuch heavy and fleshy fare: but even from this, that is, the smoothness of the tongue, and the flowness of the stomach to digeft, nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals: but, if you wil contend that you yourself was born to an inclination to fuch food as you have now a mind to eat; yourself, kil what you would eat but do it own felf, without the help of a cleaver, mallet or ax; as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kil and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth ; worry a hog with thy mouth; tear a lamb in pieceës; and fall on and eat it alive as they do: but, if thou had'ft rather stay until what thou eatest is become dead, and art loth to force a foul out of its body, why, then, do'ft thou, against nature, eat an animate thing? Nay, there is no one that is wiling to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing as it is, but they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, that the palate, being thereby deceive'd, may admit of fuch uncouth fare."*

*Of eating flesh, tract 1.

"One proof, that the taste of meat is not natural to the human palate is the indifference which childeren have for that kind of food and the preference they give to vegetable aliments, fuch as milk-meats, pastry, fruit, &c. It is of the utmoft confequence not to vitiate this primitive tafte in childeren to make them carnivorous. Were even their health not concern'd, it would be expedient, on account of their dispofition and character; for it is fufficiently clear from experience, that those people who are great eaters of meat, are, in general, more ferocious and cruel than other men. This obfervation holds good of all times and all placeës: the Engleifh barbarity is wel known, whereas the Gaures [who abstain from flesh] are, on the contrary, the meekest creatures in the world. All favagees are cruel; and, as their manners do not tend to cruelty, it is plain it must arife from their aliments."*

"I have fometimes," fays doctor Cheyne, "indulge'd a conjecture, that animal food, in the original frame of our nature, was' not intended for human creatures. They feem to me neither to have these strong and fit organs for digesting it (at least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that' live on flefh); nor, naturally to have

Rousseau, Emilius, i, 285.

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