Illi robur et æs triplex
Circa pectus erat.
To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to gratify luxury, and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot find any great difference, on the foot of natural reason and equity only, between feeding on human flesh and feeding on brute animal flesh, except custom and example.
I believe some [more] rational creatures would suffer less in being fairly butchered than a strong Ox or red Deer; and, in natural morality and justice, the degrees of pain here make the essential difference, for as to other differences, they are relative only, and can be of no influence with an infinitely perfect Being. Did not use and example weaken this lesson, and make the difference, reason alone could never do it.”—Essay on Regimen, &c. 8vo. 1740. Pages 54 and 70.
Noble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member of a profession—which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical, in opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr. Cheyne’s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger than in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of his health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through his writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen years to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation and success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by whom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst his intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like himself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the bedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot and Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence in favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his Author’s Case, written towards the end of his life:—
“My regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee, bread and butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short, everything that has not life, dressed or not, as I like it, in which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods, so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid, moist, or juicy.[141] Only after dinner I drink either coffee or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a glass of soft, small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder, though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal diet; but then I am more alive than ever I was. As soon as I wake I get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.”
As for the effect of this regimen, he tells us that “since that time [his last lapse] I thank God I have gone on in one constant tenor of diet, and enjoy as good health as, at my time of life (being now sixty), I or any man can reasonably expect.” When we remember the complicity of maladies of which he had been the victim during his adhesion to the orthodox mode of living, such experience is sufficiently significant. Some ten years later he records his experiences as follows:—
“It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, this light food I took as my appetite directed, without any measures, and found myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to lessen this quantity, and I have latterly reduced it to one-half, at most, of what I at first seemed to bear; and if it should please God to spare me a few years longer, in order to preserve, in that case, that freedom and clearness which by his presence I now enjoy, I shall probably find myself obliged to deny myself one-half of my present daily sustenance, which, precisely, is three Winchester pints of new milk, and six ounces of biscuit, made without salt or yeast, baked in a quick oven.”[142]—[Natural Method of Curing Diseases, &c., page 298; see also Preface to Essay on Regimen].
The last production of Dr. Cheyne was his “Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body. In three parts. Part I.—General Reflections on the Economy of Nature in Animal Life. Part II.—The Means and Methods for Preserving Life and Faculties; and also Concerning the Nature and Cure of Acute, Contagious, and Cephalic Disorders. Part III.—Reflections on the Nature and Cure of Particular Chronic Distempers. 8vo. Strahan, London, 1742.” It is dedicated to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who records his grateful recognition of the benefits he had experienced from his methods. He writes: “I read with great pleasure your book, which your bookseller sent me according to your direction. The physical part is extremely good, and the metaphysical part may be so too, for what I know, and I believe it is, for as I look upon all metaphysics to be guess work of imagination, I know no imagination likelier to hit upon the right than yours, and I will take your guess against any other metaphysician’s whatsoever. That part which is founded upon knowledge and experience I look upon as a work of public utility, and for which the present age and their posterity may be obliged to you, if they will be pleased to follow it.” Lord Chesterfield, it will be seen below, was one of those more refined minds whose better conscience revolted from, even if they had not the courage or self-control to renounce, the Slaughter House.