OF NATURAL HISTORY. 217 



ces are ufed in their diet. Cuftom, laws, and religious rites, it mud 

 be allowed, produce confiderable differences in the articles of food, 

 among particular nations, which have no dependence on climate, or 

 the natural produdions of the earth. But when men are not fet- 

 tered or prejudifed by extraneous circumftances, or political inftitu- 

 tions, the nature of their food is invariably determined by the cli- 

 mates they inhabit. The variety of food, in any country, is like- 

 wife greatly influenced by culture, and by imitation. Commerce 

 occafionally furnifhes new fpecies of food, particularly of the vege- 

 table kind. In Scotland, till about the beginning of this century, 

 the common people lived almoft entirely upon grain. Since that 

 period, the culture and ufe of the potatoe, of many fpecies of cole- 

 worts, and of fruits, have been introduced, and univerfally difFufed 

 through the nation. 



Whether man was originally intended by Nature to live folely 

 upon animal or vegetable food ? is a queftion which has been much 

 agitated both by the ancients and the moderns. Many fads and cir- 

 cumftances concur in eftablifhing the opinion, that man was defign- 

 ed to be nouriftied neither by animals nor vegetables folely, but by 

 a mixture of both. Agriculture is an art, the invention of which 

 muft depend on a number -of fortuitous circumftances* It requires 

 <i long fuccelTion of ages before favage nations learn this art. They 

 depend entirely for their fubfiftence upon hunting wild animals, 

 fifhing, and fuch fruits as their country happens fponianeoufly to 

 produce. This has uniformly been ihe manner of living among all 

 the favage nations of which we have any proper knowledge ; and 

 feems to be a clear proof, that animal food is by no means repug- 

 nant to the H' ure of man. Befides, the furface of the earth, even 

 in the mofl uxurianr. climates, and though afTifted by culture, is 

 not capable of producing vegetable food in fufEcient quantity to 

 fupport the ? uman race, after any region of it has become fo popu- 

 ii E e t lous 



