e was not very sure, but that
he fancied and believed, that the party lying there was his own son,
brother, father, or tent-companion; which were more advisable, think
you,--to hearken to a false suggestion, and so to let go an enemy under
the notion of a friend, or to slight an authority not sufficient to
beget faith, and to slay a friend instead of a foe? This you will all
say would be insupportable. Do but consider the famous Merope in the
tragedy, who taking up a hatchet, and lifting it at her son's head, whom
she took for her son's murderer, speaks thus as she was ready to give
the fatal blow,

Villain, this holy blow shall cleave thy head;
(Euripides, "Cresphontes," Frag. 457.)

what a bustle she raises in the whole theatre while she raises herself
to give the blow, and what a fear they are all in, lest she should
prevent the old man that comes to stop her hand, and should wound the
youth. Now if another old man should stand by her and say, "Strike, it
is thy enemy," and this, "Hold, it is thy son"; which, think you, would
be the greater injustice, to omit the punishing of an enemy for the sake
of one's child, or to suffer one's self to be so carried away with anger
at an enemy as to slay one's child? Since then neither hatred nor wrath
nor any revenge nor fear for ourselves carries us to the slaughter of
a beast, but the poor sacrifice stands with an inclined neck, only to
satisfy thy lust and pleasure, and then one philosopher stands by
and tells thee, "Cut him down, it is but an unreasonable animal," and
another cries, "Hold, what if there should be the soul of some kinsman
or god enclosed in him?"--good gods! is there the like danger if I
refuse to eat flesh, as if I for want of faith murder my child or some
other friend?

The Stoics' way of reasoning upon this subject of flesh-eating is no
way equal nor consonant with themselves. Who is this that hath so many
mouths for his belly and the kitchen? Whence comes it to pass, that they
so very much womanize and reproach pleasure, as a thing that they will
not allow to be either good or preferable, or so much as agreeable, and
yet all on a sudden become so zealous advocates for pleasures? It were
indeed but a reasonable consequence of their doctrine, that, since they
banish perfumes and cakes from their banquets, they should be much more
averse to blood and to flesh. But now, just as if they would reduce
their philosophy to their account-books, they le