may be said, by a parity of reasoning, that man was expressly made to
be eaten by the tiger: but as wild oxen exist where there are no men,
and men where there are no tigers, it would seem that in these
instances they do not properly answer the ends of their creation."

"It is a mystery," said Doctor Gaster.

"Not to launch into the question of final causes," said Mr Escot,
helping himself at the same time to a slice of beef, "concerning which
I will candidly acknowledge I am as profoundly ignorant as the most
dogmatical theologian possibly can be, I just wish to observe, that
the pure and peaceful manners which Homer ascribes to the Lotophagi,
and which at this day characterise many nations (the Hindoos, for
example, who subsist exclusively on the fruits of the earth), depose
very strongly in favour of a vegetable regimen."

"It may be said, on the contrary," said Mr Foster, "that animal food
acts on the mind as manure does on flowers, forcing them into a degree
of expansion they would not otherwise have attained. If we can imagine
a philosophical auricula falling into a train of theoretical
meditation on its original and natural nutriment, till it should work
itself up into a profound abomination of bullock's blood,
sugar-baker's scum, and other _unnatural_ ingredients of that rich
composition of soil which had brought it to perfection[2.1], and
insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the
advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous
advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon
discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its
lamentable inferiority in strength and beauty to all the auriculas
around it. I am afraid, in some instances at least, this analogy holds