“Thus, Custom has awakened the inhuman, fierce nature, which makes killing, handling, and feeding upon flesh and blood, without distinction, so easy and familiar unto mankind. And the same is to be understood of men killing and oppressing those of their own kind; for do we not see that a soldier, who is trained up in the wars of bloody-minded princes, shall kill a hundred men without any trouble or regret of spirit, and such as have given him no more offence than a sheep has given the butcher that cuts her throat. If men have but Power and Custom on their side, they think all is well.”
Whatever may be thought of the zealous attempt of the pious author to meet the assertions of the (practical) materialists, who draw their arguments from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures, or elsewhere, his replies to the common subterfuges or prejudices of the orthodox dietists are able and conclusive. His humane arguments, indeed, are worthy of the most advanced thinkers of the present day; and those who are versed in the anti-kreophagist literature of the last thirty years—in the controversy in the press, and on the platform—will, perhaps, be surprised to find that the ordinary prejudices or subterfuges of this year “of Grace” are identical with those current in the year 1683. We wish that we could transcribe some of these replies. We cannot forbear, however, to quote his representation of the changed condition of things under the imagined humanitarian régime:—
“Here all contention ceaseth, no hideous cries nor mournful groans are heard, neither of man nor of ‘beast.’ No channels running with the blood of slaughtered animals, no stinking shambles, nor bloody butchers. No roaring of cannons, nor firing of towns. No loathsome stinking prisons, nor iron grates to keep men from enjoying their wife, children, and the pleasant air; nor no crying for want of food and clothes. No rioting, nor wanton inventions to destroy as much in one day as a thousand can get by their hard labour and travel. No dreadful execrations and coarse language. No galloping horses up hills, without any consideration or fellow-feeling of the victim’s pains and burdens. No deflowering of virgins, and then exposing them and their own young to all the miseries imaginable. No letting lands and farms so dear that the farmer must be forced to oppress himself, servants, and cattle almost to death, and all too little to pay his rent. No oppressions of inferiors by superiors; neither is there any want, because there is no superfluity nor gluttony. No noise nor cries of wounded men. No need of chirurgeons to cut bullets out of their flesh; nor no cutting off hands, broken legs, and arms. No roaring nor crying out with the torturing pains of the gout, nor other painful diseases (as leprous and consumptive distempers), except through age, and the relics of some strain they got whilst they lived intemperately. Neither are their children afflicted with such a great number of diseases; but are as free from distempers as lambs, calves, or the young ones of any of the ‘beasts’ who are preserved sound and healthful, because they have not outraged God’s law in Nature, the breaking of which is the foundation of most, or all, cruel diseases that afflict mankind; there being nothing that makes the difference between Man and ‘Beasts’ in health, but only superfluity and intemperance, both in quality and in quantity.”
His chapter, in which he deals with the relations between the sexes and the married state, shews him to have been as much in advance of his time, in a sound knowledge and apprehension of Physiology, and of the laws of Health, in that important part of hygienic science, as he was in the special branch of Diet.[299]
Affixed to this work is a very remarkable Essay, in the shape of A Dialogue between an East-Indian Brachman and a French Gentleman, concerning the Present Affairs of Europe. In this admirable piece, the author ably exposes the folly no less than the horrors of war—and, in particular, religious war—all which he ultimately traces to the first source—the iniquities and barbarism of the Shambles. The Dialogue is worthy of the most trenchant of the humanitarian writers of the next century. It was by meeting with The Way to Health that Benjamin Franklin, in his youth, was induced to abandon the flesh-diet, to which revolutionary measure he ascribes his success, as well as health in after life.
IX.
HECQUET. 1661–1737.
THIS meritorious medical reformer, at first intended for the Church, happily (in the event) adopted the profession which he has so truly adorned, by his virtues, as well as by his enlightened labours. After a long and severe course of Anatomy and Physiology, in 1684 he was admitted as “Doctor” at Reims, and as Fellow (Agrégé) in the College of Physicians in his native town. He then returned to Paris to perfect himself in physiological science. Disgusted with the tricasseries which were excited against him by the members of his profession, he withdrew (in 1688) to Port-Royal-des-Champs, where he succeeded Hamon, who had just died, as physician. Here he practised the reforms he taught, while he devoted himself to the most laborious works of charity, giving all his time and attention to the poor for several leagues round, and travelling the distances, great as they were, on foot.
His health enfeebled by excessive labour in this way, he was induced to retire from his post at Port-Royal, and he went back to the capital where, having gone through the necessary formalities, he was regularly enrolled as Doctor of the Paris University, receiving the official hat after an examination of “rare success” (1697).