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240 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
greater capacity and freedom, which enable him to do
greater and nobler deeds, enable him at the same time
to do meaner and more debasing ones.
Vegetables, by careful effort, may be made to grow
in soils not specially adapted to nourish them, and in
climates not best adapted to their production. So
animals may be educated to live on unnatural diet, but
this is never a condition of health. Thus cows upon a
barren sea-shore learn to live on fish ; a sheep has been
taught to eat beefsteak and drink coffee ; and a horse
has acquired the filthy and disgraceful habit of chewing
tobacco. But no sane man will say that these things
are natural or healthy.
In the same way man learns to eat and love a great
variety
of unnatural and hurtful articles of food, such as
are not adapted to his or digestive organs, the best nu
trition of his. system. He also learns to tolerate and
love the most nauseous and detestable poisons, of which
the wide-spread
stance.
use of tobacco is a remarkable in
Man has, in accordance with the energy of his na
ture, and the versatility of his powers, a greater range
of adaptiveness than any other animal. He can live in
all climates, by the aid of artificial protection and heat,
and he can live on a wide range of alimentary sub
stances.
But all experience, all observation, and all science,
prove that there are ceitiin kinds of fool especially
adapted to the constitution of man—the same as in the
case of other animals; and this food is best adapted to
health in its widest and most comprehensive meaning.
The essential nutriment of vegetables consists,, of four