The strength of the aliments is estimated not by the nature of the food alone, but by its quantity: it is not therefore enough to be choice in the quality; attention should likewise be given to the quantity of the food. I will assert with confidence, that an error in either respect is attended with very bad consequences; but it is worst of all when it relates to the quantity. A due observation of the bodies of learned men will shew what aliments should be chosen, and what avoided: to enumerate all the various sorts would be tedious and disagreeable; it will be sufficient to mention the principal kinds. All fat, viscid aliments, all aliments puffed with wind, or hardened either by art or nature, are hurtful. The ancients condemned all sorts of pulse; and PYTHAGORAS strictly forbid his disciples to eat beans, as these have an extraordinary flatulency, highly destructive of the tranquillity of mind necessary to one who investigates truth. Every body knows, that whilst the stomach swells the mind is depressed with languor, and becomes incapable of performing its functions. The tender flesh of all young animals is of great service, except those of swine and geese; not when boiled in copious broth, for then they are deprived of their nutritious juices, but when roasted, or boiled in a small quantity of water. Such roots are wholesome as consist of a light flour, not without a mixture of salt or sugar[44]; soft herbs, which are neither too acid nor too emollient. Nor should the several sorts of seeds be denied their praise; nor ripe fruit, concerning the use of which, however, a caution should be observed; for they relax, dissolve, cause acidity, and thereby are the less fit for studious men. But take notice, amongst the most severe disorders of the learned are reckoned the stagnation, the thickening, and the hardening of the bile, which defeats are best remedied by fruits that swell with saponaceous juices, as cherries, strawberries, rasberries, gooseberries, peaches, grapes, pears, and other fruits of the like nature, which studious, sedentary men cannot well do without, especially in summer. Care should be taken to prevent their being detrimental, by eating them when the stomach is empty, either with or without bread, and long before and long after having drunk wine; for thus they neither disturb the digestion of the other aliments, nor, being hardened with wine, prove more difficult of digestion themselves, nor are turned into a sourness, but act like a mild and gently stimulating soap, resolve concretions, accelerate the course of the bile, stimulate the sluggish intestines, and, by removing obstinate costiveness, put an end to grievous disorders, and either prevent hypochondriac melancholy, with the matter from whence it arises, or cure it. They are of great service to those, whom severe study throws into inflammatory disorders, or slow fevers, proceeding from a drying up of the humours: but they are hurtful