st to need little victuals, then it is the greatest felicity
to need none at all. If I may have leave to deliver my opinion, quoth
Cleodemus, I must profess myself of a different judgment, especially now
we sit at table; for as soon as the meat is taken away, what belongs to
those gods that are the patrons of friendship and hospitality has been
removed. As upon the removal of the earth, quoth Thales, there must
needs follow an universal confusion of all things, so in forbidding
men meat, there must needs follow the dispersion and dissolution of the
family, the sacred fire, the cups, the feasts and entertainment's, which
are the principal and most innocent diversions of mankind; and so
all the comforts of society are at end. For to men of business some
recreation is necessary, and the preparation and use of victuals
conduces much thereunto. Again, to be without victuals would tend to
the destruction of husbandry, for want whereof the earth would soon
be overgrown with weeds, and through the sloth of men overflowed with
waters. And together with this, all arts would fail which are supported
and encouraged hereby; nay, more, take away hospitality and the use of
victuals and the worship and honor of the gods will sink and perish; the
sun will have but small and the moon yet smaller reverence if thy afford
men only light and heat. And who will build an altar or offer sacrifices
to Jupiter Pluvius, or to Ceres the patroness of husbandmen, or to
Neptune the preserver of plants and trees? Or how can Bacchus be any
longer termed the donor of all good things, if men make no further use
of the good things he gives? What shall men sacrifice? What first-fruits
shall they offer? In short, the subversion and confusion of the greatest
blessings attend this opinion. Promiscuously and indefatigable to pursue
all sorts of pleasures I own to be brutish, and to avoid all with a
suitable aversion equally blockish, let the mind then freely enjoy such
pleasures as are agreeable to its nature and temper. But for the body,
there is certainly no pleasure more harmless and commendable and fitting
than that which springs from a plentiful table,--which is granted by all
men, for, placing this in the middle, men converse with one another and
share in the provision. As to the pleasures of the bed, men use these in
the dark, reputing the use thereof shameful and beastly as well as the
total disuse of the pleasures of the table.

Cleodemus having finishe