DIGESTION AND FOOD. 69 



two principles to be noticed and observed : 1st, that we 

 are commanded to eat as much food, and of such quality, as 

 the stomach can easily convert into the material for the 

 blood, and the system requires for its nourishment; 2d, that 

 this food may be so selected and compounded, and cooked 

 in such a manner, as to be agreeable to the palate. We are 

 not only allowed by the law of our being to enjoy the pleas- 

 ures of the table, but there are encouragements and induce- 

 ments held out for us to obtain this enjoyment, whenever it 

 is consistent with the first duty. 



144. But it is plain that this pleasure of the appetite is 

 merely the accompaniment, not the main end, of eating, and 

 should, therefore, never be the motive for this act. To select 

 our food, not according to its nutritive power, or its digesti- 

 bility, but according to its acceptableness to fhe palate, to 

 eat when the body does not require nourishment, or, after 

 we have taken sufficient for this purpose, to eat some more 

 for the indulgence of the pleasure, these are manifest per- 

 versions of the duty required of us, and abuses of a privi- 

 lege granted to us. It would seem a very foolish thing in a 

 shipmaster to load his vessel,. not with the freight that it 

 can carry best, or which is wanted at the port of desti- 

 nation, but with that which is the pleasantest to load ; or if, 

 for the same reason, he should, when his ship is filled, still 

 crowd in more than the vessel can carry, or the market 

 will justify. 



145. This would be foolish indeed, but not more so than 

 for a man to select and measure his food without regard to 

 the wants of nutrition in his body, or to the power of the 

 digestive organs to convert it into the material of the blood, 

 but according to the pleasure of its passage from the table to 

 the stomach. In the case of the ship, when the unfitting or 

 excessive cargo is crowded into the hold, it can be taken out, 

 and the vessel spared the danger of sinking, and the mer- 

 chant saved the loss on merchandise sent to a wrong desti- 

 nation, and no damage need be sustained but the labor of 

 loading and unloading. But, when the food is once in the 



