AN'MALS. 31] 



provided against an immediate call. The lower rafe of animals, 

 when satisfied, for the instant moment, are perfectly happy -. but 

 it is otherwise with man ; his mind anticipates distress, and feels 

 the pangs of want even before it arrests him. Thus the mind, 

 being continually harassed by the situation, it at length influences 

 the constitution, and unfits it for all its functions. Some cruel 

 disorder, but no way like hunger, seizes the unhappy sufferer ; so 

 that almost all those men who have thus long lived by chance, and 

 whose every day may be considered as a happy esca])e from 

 famine, are known at last to die in reality of a disorder caused 

 by hunger ; but which, in the common language, is often called 

 a broken heart. Some of these I have known myself, when 

 very little able to relieve them : and J have been told by a very 

 active and worthy magistrate, that the number of such as die in 

 London for want, is much greater than one would imagine — I 

 think he talked of two thousand in a year ! 



But how numerous soever those who die of hunger may be, 

 many times greater, on the other hand, are the number of those 

 who die by repletion. It is not the province of the present page 

 to speculate, with the physician, upon the danger of surfeits ; or, 

 with the moralist, upon the nauseousness of gluttony : it will 

 only be proper to observe, that ac nothing is so prejudicial to 

 health as hunger by constraint, so nothing is more beneficial to 

 the constitution than voluntary abstinence. It was not without 

 reason that religion enjoined this duty ; since it answered the 

 double purpose of restoring the health oppressed by luxury, and 

 diminished the consumption of provisions, so that a part might 

 come to the poor. It should be the business of the legislature, 

 therefore, to enfoi'ce this divine precept ; and thus, by restrain 

 ing one part of mankind in the use of their superfluities, to con- 

 sult for the benefit of those who want the necessaries of life. 

 The injunctions for abstinence are strict over the whole Conti- 

 nent ; and were rigorously observed even among ourselves, for a 

 long time after the Reformation. Queen Elizabeth, by giving 

 her commands upon this head the air of a political itijunction, 

 lessened, in a great measure, and in my opinion very unwisely, 

 the religious force of the obligation. She enjoined that her sub- 

 jects should fast from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays ; but at 

 the same time declared, that this was not commanded frotn mo- 

 lives of rdigion, as if there were any differences in meats, but 



