“Being thus wicked and incontinent in inordinate desires, it is no less easy to be proved that men are more intemperate than other animals even in those things which are necessary--_e.g._, in eating and drinking--the pleasures of which we [the non-human races] always enjoy with some benefit to ourselves. But you, pursuing the pleasures of eating and drinking beyond the satisfaction of nature, are punished with many and lingering diseases[44] which, arising from the single fountain of superfluous gormandising, fill your bodies with all manner of wind and vapours not easy for purgation to expel. In the first place, all species of the lower animals, according to their kind, feed upon one sort of food which is proper to their natures--some upon grass, some upon roots, and others upon fruits. Neither do they rob the weaker of their nourishment. But man, such is his voracity, _falls upon all_ to satisfy the pleasures of his appetite, tries all things, tastes all things; and, as if he were yet to seek what was the most proper diet and most agreeable to his nature, among all animals is the only _all-devourer_.[45] He makes use of flesh _not out of want and necessity_, seeing that he has the liberty to make his choice of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible; but out of luxury and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks after impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter of living beings; by this showing himself more cruel than the most savage of wild beasts. For blood, murder, and flesh are proper to nourish the kite, the wolf, and the serpent: _to men they are superfluous viands_. The lower animals abstain from most of other kinds and are at enmity with only a few, and that only compelled by necessities of hunger; but neither fish, nor fowl, nor anything that lives upon the land escapes your tables, though they bear the name of humane and _hospitable_.” Reprobating the harshness and inhumanity of Cato the Censor, who is usually regarded as the type of old Roman virtue, Plutarch, with his accustomed good feeling, declares:-- “For my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like so many horses and oxen, or turning them off or selling them when grown old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit, which thinks that the sole tie between man and man is interest or necessity. But goodness moves in a larger sphere than [so-called] justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to beings of every species. And these always flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that flow from the living fountain.