Thus we perceive the practice of diet doth hold no certain course, nor solid rule of selection or confinement; Some in an indistinct voracity eating almost any, others out of a timorous pre-opinion, refraining very many. Wherein indeed necessity, reason and Physick, are the best determinators. Surely many animals may be fed on, like many plants; though not in alimental, yet medical considerations: Whereas having raised Antipathies by prejudgement or education, we often nauseate proper meats, and abhor that diet which disease or temper requireth. [Sidenote: _A problem._ ] Now whether it were not best to conform unto the simple diet of our fore-fathers; whether pure and simple waters were not more healthfull then fermented liquors; whether there be not an ample sufficiency without all flesh, in the food of honey, oyl, and the several parts of milk: in the variety of grains, pulses, and all sorts of fruits; since either bread or beverage may be made almost of all? whether nations have rightly confined unto several meats? or whether the common food of one countrey be not more agreeable unto another? how indistinctly all tempers apply unto the same, and how the diet of youth and old age is confounded: were considerations much concerning health, and might prolong our days, but must not this discourse. CHAPTER XXVI Of Sperma-Ceti, and the Sperma-Ceti Whale. What Sperma-Ceti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned _Hofmannus_ in his work of Thirty years, [SN: De medicamentis officin.] saith plainly, _Nescio quid sit_. And therefore need not wonder at the variety of opinions; while some conceived it to be _flos maris_, and many, a bituminous substance floating upon the sea. That it was not the spawn of the Whale, according to vulgar conceit, or nominal appellation Phylosophers have always doubted, not easily conceiving the Seminal humour of Animals, should be inflamable; or of a floating nature. That it proceedeth from a Whale, beside the relation of _Clusius_ and other learned observers, was indubitably determined, not many years since by a Sperma-Ceti Whale, cast on our coast of _Norfolk_ [SN: _Near_ Wells.]. Which, to lead on further inquiry, we cannot omit to inform. It contained no less then sixty foot in length, the head somewhat peculiar, with a large prominency over the mouth; teeth only in the lower Jaw, received into fleshly sockets in the upper. The Weight of the largest about two pound: No gristly substances in the mouth, commonly called Whale-bones; Only two short finns seated forwardly on the back; the eyes but small, the pizell large, and prominent. A lesser Whale of this kind above twenty years ago, was cast upon the same shore. [SN: _Near_ Hunstanton.]