242 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



for this only proves that you do not want it; since 

 the relish with which you enjoy drink depends upon 

 the fact of your requiring drink, and not at all 

 upon the nature of the drink itself. 



Now, apply all this to eating, instead of drinking. 

 Place before a hungry ploughman stale hread and 

 at pork, flanked by a jug of cold water. While his 

 hunger remains unappeased, he will eat and drink 

 with an eager relish: but when his hunger has 

 been satisfied, the bread and meat and water will 

 at once have lost what he before supposed to be 

 their delicious flavour. I say " supposed "; because, 

 in fact, the relish only existed in his own appetite 

 in the condition of the nerves of the palate, pro- 

 duced by hunger. And it is to produce artificially, 

 and when it is not required, this condition of the 

 palatal nerves that we use highly-flavoured food ; 

 for, in eating, we seem to have entirely lost sight of 

 the true object of food ; and only eat for the sake of 

 the enjoyment which the act of eating affords us. 

 But to return to the ploughman. 



When his appetite has been fully appeased, his 

 food seems to have lost, at once, all its flavour : the 

 attempt to eat more would now produce a feeling of 

 disgust; and, if he were to persist, would, in all 

 probability, make him sick. 



