Man, being naturally omnivorous, or adapted for the digestion of both animal and vegetable substances, holds, as it were, an intermediate place in regard to the rapidity of mastication. He is neither obliged to ruminate like the cow, nor can he beneficially bolt his food with the rapidity displayed by birds of prey. His object is merely to reduce the alimentary mass to a soft and pulpy consistence, and digestion is promoted or retarded in exact proportion as he approaches or falls short of this point. Hasty mastication is consequently injurious, because it prevents the food from being sufficiently broken down and impregnated with saliva; and the more uncommon error of protracted mastication is also injurious, owing to the undue dilution which the mass sustains from the overflow of the salivary secretion. Due mastication being thus essential to healthy digestion, the Creator, as if to insure its being adequately performed, has kindly so arranged, that the very act of mastication should lead to the gratification of taste--the mouth being the seat of that sensation. That this gratification of taste was intended, becomes obvious when we reflect that, even in eating, Nature makes it our interest to give attention to the process in which we are for the time engaged. It is well known, for example, that when food is presented to a hungry man, whose mind is concentrated on the indulgence of his appetite, the saliva begins to flow unbidden, and what he eats is consumed with a peculiar relish and is easily digested. Whereas, if food be presented to an individual who has fasted equally long, but whose soul is absorbed in some great undertaking or deep emotion, and who is consequently insensible to the gratification of taste, it will be swallowed almost without mastication, and without sufficient admixture with the saliva--now deficient in quantity--and therefore lie on the stomach for hours unchanged. In this point of view the peculiarly English custom of reading the newspapers or magazines _during_ breakfast is more hurtful than one would suppose; and many dyspeptics have been surprised at the benefit resulting from its discontinuance. However, therefore, philosophy and morality condemn the _undue_ cultivation of our bodily appetites, it cannot be denied that a certain degree of attention to taste, and to the pleasures of appetite, is both reasonable and beneficial; and it is only when these are abused that we oppose the intentions of Nature.