The above definitions are fully comprehensive, but sometimes it is more effective to describe a thing by telling what it is not, and leaving the remainder as an inferential description.

Following this suggestion, it is safe to say, that:

Any one who eats when he is not hungry or what his appetite does not approve, is not a Fletcherite.

All this presupposes the ordinary opportunity for selection in civilized communities where this book is liable to be read and where its revelations and recommendations are most needed.

Any one who does not give his appetite a chance to guide him to healthy nutrition is not a Fletcherite.

Any one who does not extract all of the taste from his food, while it is in the region where taste is developed, is not a Fletcherite.

Any one who succumbs to greed of "getting the worth of his money," because he has paid for food, or can get food free of cost, or takes it on the insistence of Aggressive Hospitality, or to kill time, or for any purpose other than for the satisfaction of a real appetite, is not a Fletcherite.

FLETCHERISM AND LONGEVITY

Returning to positive definition of a Fletcherite: it is a good safe betting proposition that all persons who have passed the seventy year-mark in the life race are Fletcherites in the fundamental requirement of healthy eating. If they reach beyond the eighty year-mark it is certain that they have been fairly decent eaters for many years, even if they abused themselves earlier in life. For example: vide the autobiography of Luigi Cornaro, which was concluded only when he was nearly one hundred years old. Vide also, occasional newspaper statements attributed to centenarians or near centenarians who claim to have been Fletcherites before Fletcher was born. Some of them have had the "constitution" necessary to attain the respectable longevity and have used tobacco and alcohol at the same time, but there is no evidence that either tobacco or alcohol lengthened their lives. In the same category of questionably-profitable indulgences may be put any of the stimulants or narcotics which do not actually nourish the body.

W. E. GLADSTONE—FLETCHERITE