Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The ethics of diet / by Howard Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![The “ wisdom of our ancestors,” which has been so often invoked, both before and since the days of More, and which Bentham has so mercilessly exposed, apparently did not subdue the reason of the author of TJtopia ; yet, with no little amount of applause it has been made to serve as a very conclusive argument against dietetic reformation, as against many other changes:— “ ‘ These things,’ say they, ‘pleased our forefathers and ancestors—would to God we could be so wise as they were !’ And, as though they had wittily concluded the matter, and with this answer stopped every man’s mouth, they sit down again as who should say, ‘ It were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be found wiser than his forefathers were.’ And yet be we content to suffer the best and wittiest [wisest] of their decrees to be unexecuted; but if in anything a better order might have been taken than by them was, there we take fast hold, finding therein many virtues.”* 4-«*4 XIII. MONTAIGNE. 1533—1592. The modern Plutarch and the first of essayists deserves his place in this work, if not so much for express and explicit denunciation, totidem verbis, of the barbarism of the Slaughter-House, at least for a sort of argument which logically and necessarily arrives at the same conclusion. In truth, if he had not “seen and approved the better way” (even though, with too many others, he may not have had the courage of his convictions), he would be no true disciple of the great humanitarian. It is necessary to remember that the “ perfect day ” was not yet come; that a few rays only here and there enlightened the thick darkness of barbarism; that, in fine, not even yet, with the light of truth shining full upon us, have reason and conscience triumphed, as regards the mass of the community, either in this country or elsewhere. Michel de Montaigne descended from an old and influential house in Perigord (modern Perigeaux, in the department of the Dordogne). His youth was carefully trained, and his early inclination to learning fostered under his father’s diligent superintendence. He became a member of the provincial parliament, and, by the universal suffrage of his fellow- citizens, was elected chief magistrate of Bordeaux, from the official routine of whose duties he soon retired to the more congenial atmosphere * Utopia. Translated into English by Ralph Robinson, Fellow of Corpus Christi College. London : 1556; reprinted by Edward Arber, 1S69. Wo have used this English edition as more nearly representing the stylo of Sir Thomas More than a modern version. It is a curious fact that no edition of tho Utopia was published in England during the author’s lifetime—or, indeed, before that of Robinson, in 1551. It was first printed at Louvain; and, after revision by the autnor, it was reprinted at Basle, under the auspicas of Erasmus, still in the original Latin.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24869387_0110.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
