Royal Society; 5^3 
ilomach, and inteftines, being all but one continued canal) 
this DuBus, he fays, is properly the chara6teriftic of an ani- 
mal, or^roprlum quarto modo-y there being no animal with- 
out fuch a dudl: Plants receive their nourilhment by nume- 
rous fibres from their roots, but have no common receptacle for 
digefling the food received, or vent for carrying off the recre- 
ments^ but in all, even the loweft degree of animal life, we 
may obferve a ftomach and inteftmes, where we cannot 
perceive the lead formation of any organ of the fenfes, unlefs 
that common one of touch, as in an oifter j where alfo we may 
obferve a fenfible mufcular motion, or contraction 5 tho' it 
would be difficult to affign what part fhould be reckon'd the 
brain, or fpinal marrow, from whence the nerves arile that 
give it fo ilrong a motion: Now this du6l being fo principal a 
part in an animal, and its ufe being to receive and digeft the 
food, and diftribute the chyle, 'tis reafonable to fuppofe, that 
according to the difference of the food, the flrufture of the 
prgan fhould alfo be different, or where the organ was the 
fame, there the ufe was alfo the fame : Man therefore having 
thefe parrs formed, not like carnivorous animals, but more 
refembling thofe that live on herbs, roots, fruits, ^c. it may 
feem reafonable to conclude, that nature never defign'd him to 
live upon flefhj but that the wantonnefs of his appetite, and 
a depraved cuftom, had inured him to ir, as GaJJendus remarks 
in one of his epiftles 5 viz>. that cuftom may make that {^ctm 
natural to us, which nature never intended, as he instances in 
a lamb bred on fliip-board, which refufed the green pafture 
of the fields, for the diet it was formerly ufed to 5 and the Dr. 
has often feen in London a horfe, that with a great deal of 
pleafure, would eat oyfters, Icranching them fhell and all be- 
tween his teeth and fwallowing them down 5 and this the Dr. 
takes to be by accident, being left at a tavern-door, where 
flood a tub of oifters, and after that the horfe did the fame fre- 
quently, whenever they were offered him; now Gajfendus 
obferves, that children (from whom he thinks we may better 
take the inftin£ls of nature, than from our appetites when 
depraved by cuftom) are much fonder of fruit, than of any 
flefh that is offered them; and therefore he fuppofes it more 
natural to them. 
The inftance Dr. IFalll s givcs^ wherein the ftrufiure of the 
inteftines of carnivorous anmials is different from that in men, 
is ; that the former want a Colon ; whereas in men there is a 
very large one, which is not to be obferved, but in fuch arii- 
VoL.ill. Ttt raals 
