a dead body, and cut it open and
expose it to the sun, as the only cause of all its evil actions, so
we could, by cutting out our gluttony and blood-shedding, purify and
cleanse the remainder of our lives. For the stomach itself is not guilty
of bloodshed, but is involuntarily polluted by our intemperance. But
if this may not be, and we are ashamed by reason of custom to live
unblamably, let us at least sin with discretion. Let us eat flesh; but
let it be for hunger and not for wantonness. Let us kill an animal; but
let us do it with sorrow and pity, and not abusing and tormenting it, as
many nowadays are used to do, while some run red-hot spits through the
bodies of swine, that by the tincture of the quenched iron the blood may
be to that degree mortified, that it may sweeten and soften the flesh in
its circulation; others jump and stamp upon the udders of sows that are
ready to pig, that so they may crush into one mass (O Piacular Jupiter!)
in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and the corruption of the
mashed and mangled young ones, and so eat the most inflamed part of the
animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and swans, and so shut them up
in darkness to be fattened, and then souse up their flesh with certain
monstrous mixtures and pickles.

By all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment,
or want, or any necessity, but for mere gluttony, wantonness, and
expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villany. Just as it happens
in persons who cannot satiate their passion upon women, and having made
trial of everything else and falling into vagaries, at last attempt
things not to be mentioned; even so inordinateness in feeding, when it
hath once passed the bounds of nature and necessity, studies at last to
diversify the lusts of its intemperate appetite by cruelty and villany.
For the senses, when they once quit their natural measures, sympathize
with each other in their distempers, and are enticed by each other
to the same consent and intemperance. Thus a distempered ear first
debauched music, the soft and effeminate notes of which provoke immodest
touches and lascivious tickling. These things first taught the eye
not to delight in Pyrrhic dances, gesticulations of hands, or elegant
pantomimes, nor in statues and fine paintings; but to reckon the
slaughtering and death of mankind and wounds and duels the most
sumptuous of shows and spectacles. Thus unlawful tables are accompanied
with intempe