THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 761 



to their destruction. Temperance-preachers descant on the "danger 

 of worldly temptations " and " selfish indulgence," on the " lusts of 

 unregenerate hearts." Drunkards plead their willingness to reform, 

 but " the flesh is stronger than the spirit," the clamors of instinct 

 silence the voice of every other monitor. Does the power of such 

 appetites not suggest the occasional incompetence of our natural in- 

 tuitions ? Does it not seem to confirm the dogma of natural depravity, 

 and prove an essential defect in the constitution of our physical con- 

 science ? Nay, in the light of Nature, for reason too often fails to 

 supply the shortcomings of instinct ; the teachers whom the ignorant 

 must follow seem themselves to be in need of a guide ; the stimulant- 

 vice has found learned and plausible defenders ; zealous priests of 

 Moloch have worshiped the man-devouring fire as a sacred flame ; 

 for thousands of honest truth-seekers the disagreement of doctors 

 makes it doubtful if alcohol is a friend or a foe, a health-giving tonic 

 or a death-dealing poison. 



Does all this not prove that, in one most important respect, Nature 

 has failed to insure the welfare of her creatures ? 



What it really proves is this : That habitual sin has blunted our 

 physical conscience till we have not only ceased to heed, but ceased to 

 understand, the protests of our inner monitor ; it proves that the 

 victims of vice have so utterly forgotten the language of their in- 

 stincts that they are no longer able to distinguish a natural appetite 

 from a morbid appetency. 



For the Creator has not intrusted our physical welfare to accident 

 or the tardy aid of science, and, in spite of the far-gone degeneration 

 of our race, our children still share nearly all the protective instincts 

 of the Nature-guided animals. Children abhor the vitiated air of our 

 city tenements ; they need no lecturer on practical physiology to im- 

 press the necessity of out-door exercise ; their instinct revolts against 

 the absurdities of fashion and the unnatural restraints of our seden- 

 tary modes of life. And the same inner monitor warns them against 

 dietetic abuses. Long before Bichat proved that our digestive or- 

 gans are those of a frugivorous animal, children preferred apples to 

 sausages and sweetmeats to greasy made-dishes ; they detest rancid 

 cheese, caustic spices, and similar whets of our jaded appetites. No 

 human being ever relished the first taste of a "stimulant." To the 

 palate of a healthy child, tea is insipid ; the taste of coffee (unless 

 disguised by milk or sugar) offensively bitter, laudanum acrid-caustic ; 

 alcohol as repulsive as corrosive sublimate. No tobacco-smoker ever 

 forgets his horror at the first attempt, the seasick-like misery and head- 

 ache Nature's protest against the incipience of a health-destroying 

 habit. Of lager-beer "the grateful and nutritive beverage which 

 our brewers are now prepared to furnish at the rate of 480,000 gallons 

 a day " the first glass is shockingly nauseous so much so, indeed, as 

 to be a fluid substitute for tartar emetic. Nor do our instincts yield 



