(blood
that once coursed through the body of a highly sensitive and nervous
being), just the same. Surely a person whose olfactory nerves have not
been blunted prefers the delicate aroma of ripe fruit to the sickly
smell of mortifying flesh,--or fried eggs and bacon!

Notice how young children, whose taste is more or less unperverted,
relish ripe fruits and nuts and clean tasting things in general. Man,
before he has become thoroughly accustomed to an unnatural diet, before
his taste has been perverted and he has acquired by habit a liking for
unwholesome and unnatural food, has a healthy appetite for Nature's
sun-cooked seeds and berries of all kinds. Now true refinement can only
exist where the senses are uncorrupted by addiction to deleterious
habits, and the nervous system by which the senses act will remain
healthy only so long as it is built up by pure and natural foods; hence
it is only while man is nourished by those foods desired by his
unperverted appetite that he may be said to possess true refinement.
Power of intellect has nothing whatever to do _necessarily_ with the
_aesthetic instinct_. A man may possess vast learning and yet be a boor.
Refinement is not learnt as a boy learns algebra. Refinement comes from
living a refined life, as good deeds come from a good man. The nearer we
live according to Nature's plan, and in harmony with Her, the healthier
we become physically and mentally. We do not look for refinement in the
obese, red-faced, phlegmatic, gluttonous sensualists who often pass as
gentlemen because they possess money or rank, but in those who live
simply, satisfying the simple requirements of the body, and finding
happiness in a life of well-directed toil.

* * * * *

The taste of young children is often cited by vegetarians to demonstrate
the liking of an unsophisticated palate, but the primitive instinct is
not wholly atrophied in man. Before man became a tool-using animal, he
must have depended for direction upon what is commonly termed instinct
in the selection of a diet most suitable to his nature. No one can
doubt, judging by the way undomesticated animals seek their food with
unerring certainty as to its suitability, but that instinct is a
trustworthy guide. Granting that man could, in a state of absolute
savagery, and before he had discovered the use of fire or of tools,
depend upon instinct alone, and in so doing live healthily, cannot _what
yet remains