Vegetable cookery : with an introduction, recommending abstinence from animal food and intoxicating liquors / By a lady.

Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable cookery : with an introduction, recommending abstinence from animal food and intoxicating liquors / By a lady. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    one another, and distributed in even rows. Now, as man has received from nature teeth which are unlike those of the first class, and resemble those of the second, it seems that nature intended him to follow, in the selection of his food, not the carnivorous tribes, but those races of animals which are contented with the simple productions of the earth. Some persons, however, will argue that man is a mixed animal, and designed to live upon both animal and vegetable substances, because he does so live. This reminds us of a circumstance mentioned by BufFon, of a sheep being so trained to eat mutton that it would no longer eat grass ; but will any man contend that sheep were designed to live on mutton, because their nature might be so far perverted, as in the case above mentioned? If, then, men have de- generated from their original simplicity and inno- cence, is it to be contended that custom is a sufficient proof that their conduct is now right ? Others say that animals eat each other, and why may not we eat them ? What! because we see a wolf worry a lamb, are we to imitate the practice, and inherit the dispo- sition of the wolf? Some modern sophists will sar- castically ask, ‘ Why is man furnished with the canine or dog teeth, except that nature meant him to be carnivorous V Is then the propriety of an action to be determined purely by the physical capacity of the agent? Is it right to do everything we have the power to do ? Because nature has furnished man with the capacity to devour human flesh, will any one pretend that he was made to feed on his fellow men ? The possessing of similar instruments, powers, or capacities, ought not to be too much relied upon as indications of nature, with respect to the mode of living. Hares and rabbits have feet very similar, but how different are their habits! A dog has claws.