rier, Lecons d*ADat. Comp. torn. iii. pages 160^ S73| 418 ,
\65rtl0. Aeea'a Qyctopcidhi, artide Maa.
NOTES. 115

What is the cause of morbid action in the animal sys
teui ? Not the air we breathe, for our fellow denizens of
nature breathe the same uninjured ; not the water we
drink, if remote from the polliftions of man and his inven-
tions,* for the animals drink it too ; not the earth we tread
upon : not the unobscured sight of glorious natute, in the
wood, the field, or the expanse of sky and ocean; nothing
that we are or do in common with the undiseased inhabi-
tants of the forest. Something then wherein we differ
from them ; our habit of altering our food by fire, so that
our appetite is no longer a just criterion for the fitness of
Its gratitication. Except in children there remain no traces
of that instinct which determines, in all other animals,
what aliment is natural or otherwise ; and so perfectly obli-
terated are they in the reasoning adults of our species, that
'it has become necessary to urge considerations drawn from
comparative anatomy; to prove that we are naturally fzu-
^ivorous.
