dom. Hence, it has been conceived, that man also ought to confine himself to one sort, that he probably did so in his natural state, and that the present variety in his bill of fare is the consequence of degeneration or departure from nature. The question of the natural food of man has, therefore, been much agitated.

The nature of an animal is only to be learned by an observation of structure, actions, and habits. From the powerful fangs and jaws, the tremendous talons, the courage, and the vast muscular strength of the lion, and his constant practice of attacking living prey, we pronounce his nature to be ferocious, predatory, and carnivorous. From evidence of the same sort, we determine the nature of the hare to be mild, timid, and herbivorous. In a similar way we conclude man to be naturally omnivorous; finding that he has instruments capable of procuring, masticating, and digesting all descriptions of food, and that he can subsist in health and strength on flesh or vegetables only, or on a mixture of both.

It is alleged in reply, that man in society is artificial and degenerate; and the object of inquiry is stated to be, what does he feed on before civilization, in his original, unsophisticated condition? Generally on animal food, the produce of the chase or the fishery; because vegetable food cannot be obtained in sufficient certainty and abundance, until something like settled habits of life have begun, until the arts, at least that of agriculture, have commenced. If the rudest barbarism be the most natural state of man, the New Hollanders and the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, are the most unexceptionable specimens; raised, and but just raised, above the level of brutes. These savages are very thinly scattered, in small numbers, and at wide intervals, along the coasts of the great austral continent; and derive their support from the sea. They are not, however,

pure icthyophagists, as they sometimes get a kangaroo, a bird, or a few roots, and sometimes the large larvæ of an insect from the bark of the dwarf gum-tree (eucalyptus resinifera) sometimes they mix their roots wi.h ants, and their larvæ into a paste*.

The individuals, whom we send to New South Wales, are not the best specimens of our iron age, yet they are far beyond these children of nature, in physical and moral attributes.

The Greenlanders, the Kurilian and Aleutian islanders, the wandering hordes of Asia, and the hunting tribes of North America, are, perhaps, too much civilized to be admitted as examples of natural man: they are all car

nivorous.

If the practices of savage and barbarous people are to be the criterion, we must deem it natural to eat earth. "The Ottomaques," says HUMBOLDT †, "on the banks of the Meta and the Orinoco, feed on a fat unctuous earth, or a species of pipe-clay, tinged with a little oxyd of iron. They collect this clay very carefully, distinguishing it by the taste: they knead it into balls of four or six inches in diameter, which they bake slightly before a slow fire. Whole stacks of such provisions are seen piled up in their huts. These clods are soaked in water, when about to be used; and each individual eats about a pound of the material every day. The only addition, which they occasionally

COLLINS, Account of the English Colony in New South Wales ; Appendix, No. 4. Their habitations, if that name be deemed applicable to a hole in a tree or rock, or to a piece of bark stripped from a single tree, bent and laid on the ground; and the rest of their domestic and social economy, as portrayed in the same work, are quite in unison with their bill of fare.

Tab. phys. des Régions equatoriales.

make to this unnatural fare, consists in small fish, lizards, and fern-roots. The quantity of clay that the Ottomaques consume, and the greediness with which they devour it, seem to prove that it does more than merely distend their hungry stomachs, and that the organs of digestion have the power of extracting from it something convertible into animal substance."

The same practice has been observed in other places *.

Is it a just point of view to regard the savage state exclusively as the state of nature? Is civilization to be considered as opposed to and incompatible with the nature of man?

A power of improvement, of advancement in arts and sciences, that is, the capability of civilization, or perfectibility, as it has sometimes been called, is recognised in all human beings: its degree is very various in individuals and races. All have lived in society, which strongly tends to promote and assist the developement of this power. Social life and progressive civilization, instead of being unnatural to man, are therefore parts, and very valuable parts of his nature, as much as the erect stature and speech; as much as ferocity and solitary life are the nature of predacious animals, or mildness and herding together are of many herbivorous ones. It is as much the nature of man to form societies, to build up political associations, to cultivate arts and sciences, to spread himself over the globe, and avail himself of both organised kingdoms for his support, as it is that of the bee and ant to establish their communities, to gather honey

"I saw one man, whose stomach was already well lined, but who, in our presence, ate a piece of steatite, which was very soft, of a greenish colour, and twice as large as a man's fist. We afterwards saw a number of others eat of the same earth, which serves to allay the sensation of hunger by filling the stomach."

LABILLARDIERE, Voyage in search of LA PEROUSE, v. 2, 214.

and lay up provisions, or that of any other animals to perform the actions by which they are respectively characterised.

These considerations lead to the conclusion, that progressive advance and developement, and the employment of all kinds of food, are as natural to man, as stationary uniformity and restriction to one species of aliment are to any animals.

In discussing this question, we sometimes meet with positions respecting the influence of animal or vegetable diet, on the developement of the bodily and mental powers, which are quite unsupported by direct proof: and some -have even sought for a support to their systems in the fictions of poetry.

"The Pythagorean diet," says BUFFON, "though extolled by ancient and modern philosophers, and even recommended by certain physicians, was never indicated by nature. If man were obliged to abstain totally from flesh, he would not, at least in our climates, either exist or multiply. An entire abstinence from flesh can have no effect but to enfeeble nature. To preserve himself in proper plight, man requires not only the use of this solid nourishment, but eveh to vary it. To obtain complete vigour, he must choose that species of food, which is most agreeable to his constitution; and, as he cannot preserve himself in a state of activity, but by procuring new sensations, he must give his senses their full stretch, and eat a variety of meats, to prevent the disgust arising from an uniformity of nourish ment."

We are told, on the other hand, that in the golden age man was as innocent as the dove; his food was acorns, and his beverage pure water from the fountain. Finding every where abundant subsistence, he felt no anxieties, but lived independent, and always in peace both with his own spe

sies, and the other animals. But he no sooner forgot his native dignity, and sacrificed his liberty to the bonds of society, than war and the iron age succeeded that of gold and of peace, Cruelty and an insatiable appetite for flesh and blood were the first fruits of a depraved nature, the corruption of which was completed by the invention of manners, arts, and sciences. Either immediately, or remotely, all the physical and moral evil, by which individuals are afflicted, and society laid waste, arose from these carnivorous practices.

Both these representations are contradicted by the only criterion in such questions, an appeal to experience. That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by the Eskimaux in the northern, and the natives of Tierra del Fuego in the southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely on flesh, and that often raw.

Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as that of animal matters is with physical force and courage. That men can be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities be fully developed in any climates by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant proof from experience. In the periods of their greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations; indifferent bread, fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries of Europe of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and Scotch may be mentioned; who are certainly not rendered weaker than their English fellow-subjects by