354 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



food as income, and we exert so much force and give off waste 

 matters as expenditure ; our profit in this transaction consisting of 

 the " energy" or power of doing work we obtain from our food. 

 It is true that we eat to live ; it would be a truer statement if we 

 said that we eat to work. We begin our physiological career 

 with work, and our dinners are the consequence of our exertion. 



There is, after all, a considerable savour of an admirable social 

 philosophy in this view of matters. The knowledge that these 

 frames of ours periodically make reasonable and natural demands, 

 through hunger and thirst, for the wherewithal of life and work, 

 seems to lead to the plain conclusion that they deserve good and 

 wise treatment. There can be no hesitation in endorsing the 

 statement that living well means, other things being equal, living 

 long. Smith's dinner looming in the distance becomes thus in- 

 vested with a fresh charm in one's eyes, and the charm is all the 

 more aesthetic and satisfying because it is scientific. I shall feel 

 equal to the task of looking benignantly even at Caudal whilst I 

 listen to the platitudes wherewith he entertains us at the festive 

 board. The Professor represents a science which has administered 

 many grains of comfort to the bon vivant, and which does not add 

 any exceptional granum salts except to assure us that chloride of 

 sodium (otherwise common salt) is a necessary component of the 



gastric juice, and one without which But we are becoming too 



scientific, and one has already found the true justification of a 

 good dinner. This is all. No ; I had almost forgotten Smith's 

 invitation. Now for its reply : "Yes, with the greatest of pleasure;" 

 and may good digestion wait on appetite. 



THE END. 



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