"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.
"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on vegetable food."
Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin and general structure of his limbs."
Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says--"This species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."
The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression:
"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to Adam the consequence of his disobedience: