“Alas for our savage inhumanity! It is a terrible thing to see the table of rich men decked out by those layers out of corpses [νεκρόκοσμους], the butchers and cooks: a still more terrible sight is the same table _after_ the feast--for the wasted relics are even more than the consumption. These victims, then, have given up their lives uselessly. At other times, from mere niggardliness, the host will grudge to distribute his dishes, and yet he grudged not to deprive innocent beings of their existence! “Well, I have taken away the excuse of those who allege that they have the authority and sanction of Nature. For that man is not, by nature, carnivorous is proved, in the first place, by the external frame of his body--seeing that to none of the animals designed for living on flesh has the human body any resemblance. He has no curved beak, no sharp talons and claws, no pointed teeth, no intense power of stomach [κοιλίας εὐτονία] or heat of blood which might help him to masticate and digest the gross and tough flesh-substance. On the contrary, by the smoothness of his teeth, the small capacity of his mouth, the softness of his tongue, and the sluggishness of his digestive apparatus, Nature sternly forbids him [ἐξομνύται] to feed on flesh. “If, in spite of all this, you still affirm that you were intended by nature for such a diet, then, to begin with, kill _yourself_ what you wish to eat--but do it yourself with your own _natural_ weapons, without the use of butcher’s knife, or axe, or club. No; as the wolves and lions and bears themselves slay all they feed on, so, in like manner, do you kill the cow or ox with a gripe of your jaws, or the pig with your teeth, or a hare or a lamb by falling upon and rending them there and then. Having gone through all these preliminaries, _then_ sit down to your repast. If, however, you wait until the living and intelligent existence be deprived of life, and if it would disgust you to have to rend out the heart and shed the life-blood of your victim, why, I ask, in the very face of Nature, and in despite of her, do you feed on beings endowed with sentient life? But more than this--not even, after your victims have been killed, will you eat them just as they are from the slaughter-house. You boil, roast, and altogether metamorphose them by fire and condiments. You entirely alter and disguise the murdered animal by the use of ten thousand sweet herbs and spices, that your natural taste may be deceived and be prepared to take the unnatural food. A proper and witty rebuke was that of the Spartan who bought a fish and gave it to his cook to dress. When the latter asked for butter, and olive oil, and vinegar, he replied, ‘Why, if I had all these things, I should not have bought the fish!’