“Memory then becomes extinct.  The patient, who in his delirium, recognized his friends, now fails even to know those with whom he had been on terms of the greatest intimacy.  He then loses sensation, but the senses go out in a successive and determinate order.  Taste and smell give no evidence of their existence, the eyes become covered with a mistful veil and the ear ceases to execute its functions.  For that reason, the ancients to be sure of the reality of death, used to utter loud cries in the ears of the dying.  He neither tastes, sees, nor hears.  He yet retains the sense of touch, moves in his bed, changes the position of the arms and body every moment, and has motions analogous to those of the foetus in the womb.  Death affects him with no terror, for he has no ideas, and he ends as he begun life, unconsciously.  “(Richerand’s Elements on Physiology, vol. ii. p. 600.)

Meditation XXVII.

Philosophical history of the kitchen.

Cookery is the most ancient of arts, for Adam must have been born hungry, and the cries of the infant are only soothed by the mother’s breast.

Of all the arts it is the one which has rendered the greatest service in civil life.  The necessities of the kitchen taught us the use of fire, by which man has subdued nature.

Looking carefully at things, three kinds of cuisine may be discovered.

The first has preserved its primitive name.

The second analyzes and looks after elements:  it is called chemistry.

The third, is the cookery of separation and is called pharmacy.

Though different objects, they are all united by the fact that they use fire, furnaces, etc., at the same time.

Thus a morsel of beef, which the cook converts into potage or bouilli, the chemist uses to ascertain into how many substances it may be resolved.

Order of alimentation.

Man is an omnivorous animal:  he has incisors to divide fruits, molar teeth to crush grain, and canine teeth for flesh.  Let it he remarked however, that as man approaches the savage state, the canine teeth are more easily distinguishable.

The probability was, that the human race for a long time, lived on fruit, for it is the most ancient food of the human race, and his means of attack until he had acquired the use of arms are very limited.  The instinct of perfection attached to his nature, however, soon became developed, and the sentiment attached to his instinct was soon exhibited, and he made weapons for himself.  To this he was impelled by a carniverous instinct, and he began to make prey of the animals that surrounded him.

This instinct of destruction yet exists:  children always kill the animals that surround them, and if they were hungry would devour them.

It is not strange that man seeks to feed on flesh:  He has too small a stomach, and fruit has not nourishment enough to renovate him.  He could subsist on vegetables, but their preparation requires an art, only reached after the lapse of many centuries.