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CHAPTER III.
INFERENCES FROM SIGHT, SMELL, AND TASTE.
In all matters connected with organic life, man is directed (as inferior animals) by instincts, through sensations yielding pleasure and causing desire, or through disagreeable sensations warning him of danger. This applies eminently to the selection of his natural food, since he needs instincts alike to direct him to it, and also to test its qualities. Sydney Smith well says, "that Nature does not leave us to Reason in respect to the necessaries of life," but places Animalism as our basis.
Can we, then, suppose that man was originally tempted by the sight of other animals to kill them for food? There is beauty in them, it is true; their symmetry and movements delight us; but this beauty does not excite our appetite. Again, suppose an animal killed by accident, or even by design, and its skin removed, would the sight, or the smell, excite desire of eating it? Would they not rather excite horror and aversion? In a warm climate, must not the dead flesh have speedily caused insuperable loathing? Mangled and gory limbs do not gratify sight, smell, nor yet taste. Man therefore cannot have been originally carnivorous.
What objects would naturally entice his appetite? The herbivorous animal is attracted by a grassy lawn; but not so man. His appetite is excited by trees "pleasant to the sight" (as Moses calls them): the organ of sight first directs him to fruit, and its fragrance presently allures him. Fruit, no doubt, was the primary and most congenial repast.
CHAPTER IV.
PREPARATION OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD.
How soon the use of fire in cookery was discovered, we cannot learn; but before it was introduced, it would be impossible for man to covet flesh meat. I believe no instance can be adduced[1] of any nation feeding upon raw flesh, where fruits, farinaceous roots, and corn could be procured. Moreover, man has not by nature implements for slaying and cutting up animals. The carnivora have claws and powerful fangs to catch, tear, and devour; but for man there is no such provision. Hence his onginal diet, before art was advanced, cannot have been of flesh.
- ↑ [Some may refer us to the horrid Abyssian practice described by the author in his article 146, of cutting a steak out of a living ox, and eating it while warm with life. But this is only a depraved result of pampered appetite, evidently exceptional.—Editor]
