“The further we remove from a natural mode of living the more do we lose our natural tastes; or rather habit makes a _second_ nature, which we substitute to such a degree for the first that none among us any longer knows what the latter is. It follows from this that the most simple tastes must also be the most natural, for they are those which are most easily changed, while by being sharpened and by being irritated by our whims they assume a form which never changes. The man who is yet of no country will conform himself without trouble to the customs of any country whatever, but the man of one country never becomes that of another. This appears to me true in every sense, and still more so applied to taste properly so-called. Our first food was milk. We accustom ourselves only by degrees to strong flavours. At first they are repugnant to us. Fruits, vegetables, kitchen herbs, and, in fine, often broiled dishes, without seasoning and without salt, composed the feasts of the first men. The first time a savage drinks wine he makes a grimace and rejects it; and even amongst ourselves, whoever has lived to his twentieth year without tasting fermented drinks, cannot afterwards accustom himself to them. We should all be abstinents from alcohol if we had not been given wines in our early years. In fine, the more simple our tastes are the more universal are they, and the most common repugnance is for made-up dishes. Does one ever see a person have a disgust for water or bread? Behold here the impress of nature! Behold here, then, our rule of life. Let us preserve to the child as long as possible his primitive taste; let its nourishment be common and simple; let not its palate be familiarised to any but natural flavours, and let no exclusive taste be formed.... I have sometimes examined those people who attached importance to _good living_, who thought, upon their first awaking, of what they should eat during the day, and described a dinner with more exactitude than Polybius would use in describing a battle. I have thought that all these so-called men were but children of forty years without vigour and without consistence--_fruges consumere nati_.[178] Gluttony is the vice of souls that have no solidity (_qui n’ont point d’étoffe_). The soul of a gourmand is in his palate. He is brought into the world but to devour. In his stupid incapacity he is at home only at his table. His powers of judgment are limited to his dishes. Let us leave him in his employment without regret. Better that for him than any other, as much for our own sakes as for his.”[179] In the _Julie: ou la Nouvelle Heloise_ he describes his heroine as preferring the innocent feast:--