SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, ^C. 14^9 



nating in our organs of taste, but in some complex mental 

 association. If we were ignorant of what we were about to 

 eat, we might feast on human flesh with pleasure : tell us 

 what we have devoured, and we should sicken at the frightful 

 meal. It seems to be a principle of our nature, to be averse 

 to devouring what has been an object of affection; as if the 

 mind disliked to prostitute that to the low cravings of the body, 

 which had once ministered to the elevated desires of the soul. 

 Man is the object of our strongest affection — the tendcrest 

 emotion's of the heart are excited by individuals of the human 

 race; and these emotions are extended by association in some 

 degree to all mankind. The form, the countenance, the 

 lineaments of man, excite in our minds faint traces of the love 

 which we had felt for individuals of his kind. It is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that we should have the most invincible an- 

 tipathy to eating human fles-h; that we should shudder at de- 

 vouring that which is so peculiarly associated with oin- strong- 

 est affections. But man is not the only object which, by lov- 

 ing, we cannot use for food. We never eat the animals which 

 we have domesticated : the reason is, because we feel for 

 them emotions of regard, differing in degree, not in kind, 

 from those which we feel for man. The dog, the companion 

 of my solitary walk ; the cat who sits by my winter's fire-side, 

 and whose purring is music to my ear; and the horse who' 

 bears me patiently over many a long rough road, produce in 

 me feelings nearly allied to affection. Why do not the flesh 



