“A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness;
it hath no hawk’s bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such
strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to
convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But if you will contend
that you were born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind
to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it
yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet or axe, as
wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with
thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces,
and fall on and eat it alive as they do. But if thou had rather stay
until what thou eat is to become dead, and if thou art loath to force a
soul out of its body, why then dost thou against nature eat an animate
thing? There is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead
thing even as it is; so they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by
fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered
gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby
deceived may admit of such uncouth fare.”
―
Plutarch
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