364 JOURNAL R. A. S. (CEYLON). [Vol. III. 



which is incapable of further development ; therefore it was 

 necessary that their instinct should guide them at once to 

 the description of food which is exactly suited to their wants. 

 But on man a mind has been bestowed, which he is expected 

 to make use of in bettering his own condition and that of 

 his fellow-creatures, and thus we see, that as a nation passes 

 from a savage to a civilized state, that not only the arts and 

 sciences, but the general manner of living and feeding, pass 

 through progressive stages of development. 



There is one exception perhaps to this law, in the case of 

 the inhabitants of the Polar regions ; but it is an exception 

 that goes to prove the rule, for these countries, from the nature 

 of their climate, may perhaps be said to be incapable of change 

 or improvement, and their inhabitants are so far placed on a 

 level with the lower animals, for the only food which they 

 can obtain is such as is best suited to sustain life and bodily 

 heat ; and we find their taste, consequently, directed to such 

 food as train oil and blubber, without which they would be 

 unable to maintain a healthy existence in the intense cold 

 of the Arctic regions. 



Therefore I say, that the exception in the case of these people, 

 helps to prove the general rule, that we must not be guided in 

 our choice of food, in most countries, by the present diet of 

 their inhabitants. The climate of the Polar regions is such 

 that, in all probability, no great progress can ever be made in 

 their state of civilization, and consequently, we see that 

 Providence has given them an inclination to a description 

 of food exactly suited to their wants. 



Now, the climate and soil of all ether countries, admit of 

 more or less application of the progressive improvements in 

 agricultural science, therefore, though in the uncivilized state 

 of some nations, we may find them existing, in one case on 

 raw or putrid fish, as on some parts of the West Coast of Africa ; 

 or, in another case, consuming for food their own species, as 

 among cannibals ; we are not, if our lot happens to be cast 

 in these countries, to consider it best for our health to follow 



