Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

mankind indicate that they are naturally flesh-eaters. In this epistle, too long for insertion here,[18] Gassendi maintains, with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus concludes: "And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of man's nature." I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that they cannot, or rather, will not conform to