Artificially arranged, however, as society now is, whole classes of the community find it impossible to dine till much later in the day. The question then comes to be--As we cannot follow the system laid down by Nature, what is the next best to be done? Ought we to eat nothing till we can find time to dine at five, six, or seven o’clock; or ought we rather to take a light meal at the natural time, about one or two o’clock, and reserve our appetite chiefly for the substantial meal which we have leisure to digest? The principle in virtue of which digestion is interrupted by bodily or mental labour occurring after a full meal, having been already sufficiently explained, it needs scarcely be added, that the second is the better plan, and moreover that by leaving the stomach too long empty we risk impairing its functions, and weakening the system. When dinner cannot be taken earlier than seven or eight hours after breakfast, most people will find it advantageous to partake of some slight refreshment in the mean time--enough to blunt the keenness of appetite, but not entirely to destroy it. When the individual is exposed to much bodily exertion in the open air, or is at the period of rapid growth, a portion of animal food, or an ordinary luncheon, taken in moderation, may be allowable, and even requisite; but where the habits are sedentary and the constitution formed, a bit of bread or biscuit and a glass of water will be far more serviceable. Many people, from want of any better occupation, make a pastime of filling their stomachs every forenoon at the pastry-cook’s, with as little regard to its powers and necessities as if digestion were meant merely as an appendage to taste; and think themselves entitled to complain of their defective appetites, and the great discomfort which attends the subsequent ingestion of a heavy dinner. To relieve the weakness, arising not from exhaustion but from the oppression of satiety, they resort to wine, as if by adding fuel to the fire they could hope to extinguish the flame! Even in fashionable life the superiority of Nature’s arrangements over those of man is so far acknowledged, that it is an almost universal rule for children to dine in the middle of the day; and there cannot be a doubt that the practice is attended with manifold advantages to the young, although, as regards their moral training, these would be greatly increased were they to associate at meals with their parents, instead of being left entirely to the company and management of servants.