I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of
truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by
the contagion of the world.
truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by
the contagion of the world.
Shelley
But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable
capability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and
fluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of
breathing, by which such exertion is performed, with a remarkable
exemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost
every one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be
equally capable of bodily exertion, or mental application, after as
before his simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effects of
ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting
stimuli, would yield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He
will no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui, that unconquerable
weariness of life, more to be dreaded than death itself. He will escape
the epidemic madness, which broods over its own injurious notions of the
Deity, and 'realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign. ' Every man
forms, as it were, his god from his own character; to the divinity of
one of simple habits no offering would be more acceptable than the
happiness of his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or
persecuting others for the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system
of simple diet to be a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be
incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which
he expects his gratification. The pleasures of taste to be derived from
a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of
apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and in
winter, oranges, apples and pears, is far greater than is supposed.
These who wait until they can eat this plain fare with the sauce of
appetite will scarcely join with the hypocritical sensualist at a
lord-mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures of the table.
Solomon kept a thousand concubines, and owned in despair that all was
vanity. The man whose happiness is constituted by the society of one
amiable woman would find some difficulty in sympathizing with the
disappointment of this venerable debauchee.
I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of
truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by
the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its
abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of
wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he
will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a
contemplation full of horror, and disappointment to his mind, that
beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take
delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The
elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has
lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a wide variety of
painful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change produced
without the risk of poisonous medicines. The mother, to whom the
perpetual restlessness of disease and unaccountable deaths incident to
her children are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet
experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual healths and
natural playfulness. (See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most
beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls
are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most
gentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment, which they experience
in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five
years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of
various diseases; and how many more of those that survive are not
rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and
quantity of a woman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead
flesh. In an island near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the
children invariably die of tetanus before they are three weeks old, and
the population is supplied from the mainland. --Sir G. Mackenzie's
"History of Iceland". See also "Emile", chapter 1, pages 53, 54, 56. )
The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases that it is
dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much
longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of Death, his most
insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?
Alla drakontas agrious kaleite kai pardaleis kai leontas, autoi de
miaiphoneite eis omoteta katalipontes ekeinois ouden ekeinois men gar o
phonos trophe, umin de opson estin.
capability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and
fluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of
breathing, by which such exertion is performed, with a remarkable
exemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost
every one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be
equally capable of bodily exertion, or mental application, after as
before his simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effects of
ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting
stimuli, would yield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He
will no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui, that unconquerable
weariness of life, more to be dreaded than death itself. He will escape
the epidemic madness, which broods over its own injurious notions of the
Deity, and 'realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign. ' Every man
forms, as it were, his god from his own character; to the divinity of
one of simple habits no offering would be more acceptable than the
happiness of his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or
persecuting others for the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system
of simple diet to be a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be
incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which
he expects his gratification. The pleasures of taste to be derived from
a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of
apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and in
winter, oranges, apples and pears, is far greater than is supposed.
These who wait until they can eat this plain fare with the sauce of
appetite will scarcely join with the hypocritical sensualist at a
lord-mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures of the table.
Solomon kept a thousand concubines, and owned in despair that all was
vanity. The man whose happiness is constituted by the society of one
amiable woman would find some difficulty in sympathizing with the
disappointment of this venerable debauchee.
I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of
truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by
the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its
abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of
wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he
will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a
contemplation full of horror, and disappointment to his mind, that
beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take
delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The
elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has
lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a wide variety of
painful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change produced
without the risk of poisonous medicines. The mother, to whom the
perpetual restlessness of disease and unaccountable deaths incident to
her children are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet
experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual healths and
natural playfulness. (See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most
beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls
are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most
gentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment, which they experience
in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five
years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of
various diseases; and how many more of those that survive are not
rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and
quantity of a woman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead
flesh. In an island near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the
children invariably die of tetanus before they are three weeks old, and
the population is supplied from the mainland. --Sir G. Mackenzie's
"History of Iceland". See also "Emile", chapter 1, pages 53, 54, 56. )
The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases that it is
dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much
longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of Death, his most
insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?
Alla drakontas agrious kaleite kai pardaleis kai leontas, autoi de
miaiphoneite eis omoteta katalipontes ekeinois ouden ekeinois men gar o
phonos trophe, umin de opson estin.
