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boasts of the dignity of his nature, the superiority of his understanding, and immortality of his soul, belie himself, by recurring to the practices and dispositions of those he deems the low and irrational part of the creation. Tho' we might, in numerous instances, receive instruction from brutes, it is not necessary that we should too implicitly follow the Apostle's rule, "in becoming fools that we may be wise;" neither is it requisite to become a beast, in order to learn a behaviour becoming the man.

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It is objected that If flesh were not proper food we should not probably be inclined to eat it. are not naturally inclined to eat an animal, because in order to eat him he must be killed. Civilized, as we are, unaccustomed to shed blood, we shrink from the task. Depraved habit, only, can overcome this refined aversion. How ill does refinement and savigism assort! The argument of agreeable flavour proves nothing. The Eskimaux delight in rotten flesh; preferring it to roast beef. If taste be admitted as a test, in the present question, how are we to explain the attachment of some Africans to the eating of dirt?

That animal food is eaten, masticated, and digested by, and nourishes the human species, proves nothing. The Gauls fed their oxen and horses with fish, the Paconians, according to Heroditus did the same. Goldsmith asserts in his "Animated Nature," ii, 327, that he saw a sheep which would eat flesh and a horse that was fond of oysters. Is there any one therefore, who will undertake to say that horses, oxen and sheep are carnivorous? A young wood pigeon, which would naturally feed on any thing rather than flesh; has by dint of hunger been brought to relish flesh, so as to refuse every other sustenance.

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Gassendus says that a lamb which had been fed on Hesh till it was nine months old, on board a vessel sailing among the Greek islands, refused the pasture which was before it when it went on shore, and eagerly sought the hand which held out it's accustomed food.

How infamously does man debase himself when he prostitutes his reason to the wretched custom of murdering animals. He vauntingly says "He did not inflict the torture, his feelings," forsooth, "would not let him." But behold, it was inflicted on his account. What a wretched quibble! what consummate hypocrisy !

It will be urged, moreover, Shall man, who is indued with an immortal soul, be compared to a beast that perisheth ?" Yes verily, for if he acts like the most wild and barbarous of quadrupeds, the comparison is just, and his boast of immortality the most egregious folly.

It is contended, that The pleasure of eating is diminished by forsaking animal food. Many who have been accustomed, for a long time, to a vegetable diet, say, that the smell of animal food, while undergoing the culinary preparation, and even when served up, has nothing in it inviting or agreeable. This may be accounted for from the influence of ideas. A settled dislike to any practice impresses the mind with a repugnance to it in every state, and thus what may be inviting to some is nauseous and digusting to others; so much depends on our likes and dislikes, arising from the influence of opinion or prejudice. To men of temperance and sound judgment, the trifling gratifications of the sense of taste, will weigh extremely light when opposed to the superior object of preserving "a sound mind in a sound body,"

knowing well, that little of any real pleasure can be enjoyed without a competent portion of health. The opinions and habits of the Grecian philosopher, Epicurus, were strictly of this cast, and yet they have been so little understood by the vulgar, as to be thought to contain the precepts of the most abandoned votary of pleasure. With regard to the flesh of animals I am persuaded, says Mr. J. Tweddell, we have no other right, than the brutal right of the strongest, to sacrifice to our monstrous appetites the bodies of living things, of whose qualities and relations we are ignorant. Different objections which struck me, as to the probability of good, from the universality of this practice, held me in indecision. I doubted whether if this abstinence were universal, the animals, which we now devour, might not devour, in their turn, the fruits and vegetables reserved for our sustenance; but I do not believe it; it seems to me that their numbers would not augment in the proportion which was apprehended; if on the one hand, we now consume them with our teeth, on the other, we might then abandon our schemes and inventions for augmenting the means of propagation. Let nature follow her own course with regard to all that lives. I am told that they would destroy each other. In the first place, the two objections cannot exist together; for if they would destroy each other, their numbers would not be excessive. And what is this mutual destruction to me? Who has constituted me dictator of the realms of nature? Why am I umpire between the mistress and her servants? Because two chickens fight till one dies, should I have wor. ried one of them to prevent their engagement? Exquisite and well imagined humanity! On the other hand, let precautions be adopted against famine,

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when experience shall have shewn the necessity of them; in the mean while we are not called on to bury in our bowels the carcase of animals, which, a day or two before, lowed or bleated; to flay alive and dismember a defenceless creature; to pamper the unsuspecting beast which grazes before us, with the single view of sucking his blood and grinding his bones; and to become the unnatural murderers of beings, of whose powers and faculties, of whose modes of communication and mutual intercourse, of whose degree of sensibility and extent of pain and pleasure we are necessarily and fundamentally ignorant. The calamity does not appear to me to be sufficiently ascertained, which warrants so barbarous a proceeding, so violent a remedy, on suspicion and by anticipa. tion. That the human body cannot suffer from abstinence I am well convinced; and the mind, I am firmly persuaded, must gain by it.-Life and Remains, p. 215.

It is said, by some, I cannot exist on a herbivorous or frugivorous diet, it would disagree with me. It is evident that animal food, morbid and unnatural as it is, by habit, is eaten and no uneasiness produced, and vegetable food may have the very opposite effect. It is a great misfortune to have the feelings of the stomach so completely perverted. Yes, it is possible, that leaving off animal food may cause suffering and uneasy feeling. This is a misfortune, because it betrays a profound ignorance, of the elementary principles of human nature, to mention such things, as serious objections to a vegetable regimen. It is well known that to a person whose digestion is weak, changes of any kind induce uneasiness or pain. Let him change his long accustomed habit of eating a household bread to that which is very fine, and in

digestion, with it's effects of flatulency, will ensue.' By perseverance, the stomach becomes easy, and he digests the fine bread. Let him again change to the coarser household bread, and the same effects, as be fore, will occur. By resolution, a change of diet from putrid flesh to the salubrity of vegetable productions may be effected, and the former so far from being desirable, will be disliked and avoided. "I must assert," says Dr. Lambe, "that except some uneasy sensation, for a short time, I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which many scare themselves and their neighbours, is a mere phantom of the imagination; the danger lies wholly on the other side."-Addit. Reports, p. 134.

In answer to the trite and specious objection that What suits one constitution may not suit another, Mr. Newton boldly declares, that if a single instance can be produced wherein the vegetable diet with the use of distilled water, has not produced an improved healthiness, he is willing that the whole system may fall at once to the ground.

It has been said by many old women and old men too, that, What is one man's meat is another man's poison" What assertion can be more ill-founded or nonsensical? It cannot deserve a serious refutation. A facetious friend, says, "I can interpret this profound proverb for you. It's meaning is this, what is meat for the patient may, perchance, be poison to the doctor."

I have heard it said, that The only advantage of a vegetable diet is, that by it excess is avoided; that it is excess which is alone injurious; and excess of animal food is acknowledged to be more so thun vegetable. I answer, that the different effects of excess,