without pain, and the eyes were gently closed as in sleep. Horace, in alluding to the theft of Prometheus, observes:
"Thus, from the sun's ethereal beam,
When bold Prometheus stole the enlivening flame,
Of fevers dire a ghastly brood
(Till then unknown) the unhappy fraud pursued;
On earth their horrors baleful spread;
And the pale monarch of the dead,
Till then slow moving to his prey,
Precipitately rapid swept his way."[1]
28. Mr. Newton, the author of the "Return of Nature," gives the following interpretation of this fable, in which Prometheus is thought to represent the human race:—"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory as time might produce, after the important truths were forgotten which this portion of the ancient mythology was intended to transmit, the drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed with the gift of perpetual youth; that is, he was formed not to be a sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him; but to enjoy health, and to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food (primus bovem occidet Prometheus) and of fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, perhaps of all diet vitiated by culinary preparations, ensued; water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift of health which he had received from Heaven; he became diseased—the partaker of a precarious existence; and no longer descended slowly to his grave."[2]
29. Hallé, in his "Hygiène," entertained the opinion here advocated, respecting the various articles successively employed as human food. "Moses, in his history of the world," says he, "describes the different substances which man successively included in the range of alimentary matter. He represents him as at first faithful to reason; then transgressing the rules which it prescribes; obedient to the laws of necessity, but yielding to the charms of pleasure with too faint a resistance; satisfying his hunger with the fruits with which the trees in a happy climate abundantly supplied him; then with the herbs and corn which he obtained from a more avaricious earth, as the reward of his labors; with the milk of his flocks;
