It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which has been received, and according to our power of self-government. I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train the same children to the ordinary, complex, high-seasoned diet of this country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of _unnaturals_ which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are first presented to him. Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and effeminate. This is a specimen--perhaps a tolerably fair one--of the natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this--other things being equal--in the same proportion do they degenerate physically, intellectually, and morally.