INTEODUCTOEY AND GENERAL. 3 



gruous nature and heterogeneous substances are sometimes 

 collected as to make an outrageous amalgamation, so that 

 an alderman at a City feast might make one shudder ; 

 but this is too curious an investigation — ^it is the abuse 

 of abundance too, and we know that abuse is the origin 

 of all evil. This fact should lead us to another point, 

 the appreciation of goodness and beneficence. The adap- 

 tation of external nature has often been insisted on — 

 the adaptation of men to all circumstances, states, and 

 conditions is carrying out the idea. The inferior animals 

 are tied down, even by the narrowness of their animal 

 necessities, to a small range of existence ; but man can 

 seldom be placed in any circumstances in which his 

 universal appetite cannot be appeased. From the naked 

 savage snatching a berry from the thorn, to the well- 

 clad, highly-civilised denizen of the town, surrounded by 

 every comfort, every luxury; from the tired traveller 

 who opens his wallet and produces his oaten cake beside 

 the welling lymph which is to slake his thirst, to the 

 pursy justice, "in fair round belly with good capon 

 lined," who spreads the damask napkin on his knees, 

 tucks his toes under the table, and revels in calipee and 

 calipash, — what an infinite diversity of circumstances ! 

 The Word of God tells us : " Every moving thing 

 that liveth shall be meat for you ; even as the green 

 herb have I given you all things." Still Animal food 

 is even now but sparingly used in Eastern countries, 

 and by some nations held in utter abhorrence. All great 

 legislators of the Orient have, moreover, forbidden the 

 use of certain animals which they call unclean. Moses, 

 Manu, and Mahomet proscribed them alike. Buddhism 

 makes the killing of a living animal sinful. Nor does 

 any nation on earth yet subsist on Animal food only ; even 

 the lowest in the scale of civilisation, those who live as 

 fishermen and hunters, mix some vegetables with their 

 diet. 



That which characterises especially meat and fish, is 

 the abundance of nitrogenous matter which can be 

 assimilated into our tissues, and which conduces to 



b2 



