The grand objection to an animal diet, is its detrimental effect upon
the mind: it is well known that flesh-eating makes the body strong and
lusty, (and it is for that reason recommended to pugilists who are in a
course of training,) but the mind becomes weak and inactive; for it must
needs happen, where a muddy and clogged body is shackled down by heavy
and unnatural nourishment, that all the vigour and brilliancy of the
understanding must be confused and made dull, and that, wanting
clearness for nobler things, it must ramble after little and unworthy
objects. The passions cannot fail to be excited, and thus the whole of
the irrational nature becoming fattened as it were, the soul is drawn
downward and abandons its proper love of true being. The truth of this
we must all more or less have experienced: we are never so lively when
we have dined, and the studious man knows well that the morning is the
more proper time for his employment.
Why then should we not liberate ourselves from such inconvenience, by
abandoning as far as we can a fleshy diet? and let us remember, that
even on the score of comfort, the pain of indigence is much milder than
that which is produced by repletion. We should thus free ourselves at
once from a heavy and somnolent condition of body, from many and
vehement diseases, from the want of medical assistance, from "the
crassitude of the corporeal bond," and above all, from that savage and
unnatural strength which incites to base actions, so as to escape an
Iliad of evils!
F.
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