At Tyre, in Phœnicia, meat was consumed on the altar, but the gods had the profit of it, and nobody else. Some fruit and a few vegetables were sufficient for the frugality of people enjoying innocent and primitive customs. But it happened, in the time of Pygmalion,[XV-22] that a young sacrificer having perceived that a piece of the victim had fallen, hastened to pick it up and replace it carefully on the fire of the altar. In the performance of this operation he burned his fingers, and instantly put them into his mouth, to lessen the pain. As he could not help tasting the fat with which they were covered, the greedy young man experienced a new sensation, which tempted him to swallow a mouthful--then a second--a portion of the victim was eaten; he put another piece under his cloak, and, with his wife, made the finest supper in his life. All went on very well until the prince, being informed of this profanation, loaded them with reproaches, and condemned both to the punishment of death. Gluttony, however, is rash: other sacrificers ate--at first in secret--of this forbidden food; then they were imitated; and, at last, by degrees meat passed from the altar of the gods, who did not taste it, to the tables of mortals, who feasted upon it.[XV-23] People may or may not believe this anecdote, which informs us in so satisfactory a manner of the epoch at which man, from being frugivorous, became carnivorous; but one thing is certain, that in the time of Homer (there is only eighty years between him and Pygmalion), the flesh of animals was then much in fashion, for we read of his giving to his heroes, as their principal food, a whole hog, three years old, and oxen roasted--not even jointed.[XV-24] Some ideologists and dreamers have risen against the use of meat; their declamations, often very eloquent, have been read; but, from Pythagoras, a sublime and honest enthusiast, down to the whimsical J. J. Rousseau--who, by-the-by, was very fond of mutton chops and _bœuf à la mode_, although he exclaimed against the cruelty of mankind, whose hands were stained with the blood of animals--no nation has yet determined to adopt the patriarchal diet of the first ages of the world. Plutarch was a vegetarian; and we possess one of his treatises, in which he endeavours to prove that flesh is not the natural food of man.[XV-25] As a conclusive answer--meat was eaten. So, when an ancient philosopher one day denied the movement of matter, a person reduced him to silence by walking.