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:--