Where pity is, for pity makes the world
Soft to the weak and noble for the strong.
Unto the dumb lips of the flock he lent

Sad, pleading words, showing how man, who prays
For mercy to the gods, is merciless,

Being as god to those ; albeit all life

Is linked and kin, and what we slay have given
Meek tribute of their milk and wool, and set
Fast trust upon the hands which murder them.
Also he spake of what the holy books

Do surely teach, how that at death some sink
To bird and beast, and these rise up to man

In wanderings of the spark which grows purged flame.
So were the sacrifice new sin, if so

The fated passage of a soul be stayed.

Nor, spake he, shall one wash his spirit clean

By blood; nor gladden gods, being good, with blood;

Nor bribe them, being evil; nay, nor lay

Upon the brow of innocent bound beasts

One hair's weight of that answer all must give
For all things done amiss or wrongfully,

Alone, each for himself, reckoning with that
The fixed arithmic of the universe,

Which meteth good for good and ill for ill,

Measure for measure, unto deeds, words, thoughts;
Watchful, aware, implacable, unmoved;

Making all futures fruits of all the pasts.

Thus spake he, breathing words so piteous
With such high lordliness of ruth and right,

The priests drew back their garments o'er the hands
Crimsoned with slaughter, and the king came near,
Standing with clasped palms reverencing Buddh;
While still our Lord went on, teaching how fair
This earth were if all living things be linked
In friendliness and common use of foods,

Bloodless and pure; the golden grain, bright fruits,
Sweet herbs which grow for all, the waters wan,
Sufficient drinks and meats. Which when these heard,

The might of gentleness so conquered them,
The priests themselves scattered their altar-flames

And flung away the steel of sacrifice;
And through the land next day passed a decree
Proclaimed by criers, and in this wise graved
On rock and column: Thus the king's will is:
There hath been slaughter for the sacrifice
And slaying for the meat, but henceforth none
Shall spill the blood of life nor taste of flesh,
Seeing that knowledge grows, and life is one,
And mercy cometh to the merciful.

So ran the edict, and from those days forth

Sweet peace hath spread between all living kind,

Man and the beasts which serve him, and the birds,

On all those banks of Gunga where our Lord

Taught with his saintly pity and soft speech.1

The Light of Asia; being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Founder of Buddhism. By Edwin Arnold.

THE

PERFECT WAY IN DIET.

By what habits and mode of life has humanity in the past attained its highest development, and what is the method which modern science and philosophy indicate to us as that best adapted to perfect our kind?

In order to resolve this vast and important inquiry, it will be necessary, in the first place, to refer to natural history, and seek in the study of the comparative anatomy of men and other animals for information regarding the primitive habits of mankind, and the mode of living which is indicated by their exterior conformation and by the structure of their organs. In short, we must inquire whether the human race is naturally carnivorous, herbivorous, omnivorous, or frugivorous.

of

Without accepting definitively the theories Lamarck, Darwin, and Haeckel, I think we may adopt, without fear of any serious objection, the classification of Linnæus, which is generally admitted by scientists. This classification distinguishes, under the name of Primates, the highest order in the class of mammiferous animals, and at its head is placed the human family and that of the anthropoïd apes. This last contains two species, one of

B

which, from an anatomical and physiological point of view, resembles man very closely; I mean the apes of the Old World, among which we find the orang-outan (wild man), the gorilla, and the chimpanzee. The orang belongs to the tribe of the Simiadæ, the gorilla and the chimpanzee to the Troglodytes.

We will examine as rapidly and shortly as possible the characters which attach these creatures to man, and those which separate them, as well as man, from certain other orders or genera. Next we shall inquire what mode of alimentation is proper to the animals most resembling the human family, and thus we shall be enabled to judge what ought to be, consistently with natural laws, the habits and diet of the latter. We will begin our task by an examination of the superior part of the skeleton, the cranium, and the organs it contains.

The most superficial observation enables us to recognise on the one hand the resemblance which exists between the general conformation of the skull of man and that of the ape, and on the other hand the differences which establish a line of separation more or less marked between the human cranium and that belonging to other mammalia of no matter what order or species. Passing by these familiar and superficial features of morphology, we will devote ourselves to the study of those which present a more scientific and less common interest.

The noblest and most important apparatus of the animal economy is without doubt the nervous system, which, dominating the functions of all the organs, presides over the harmony of their operations, regulates the work of all other systems and tissues, repairs their lesions, maintains their integrity, and is, as it were, preserver and law-giver of the bodily kingdom. The animal in which this system, and above all, the dominant part of this

system, that is to say the brain, appears to resemble the human type most closely, will therefore possess, à priori, the right to be considered the most man-like among the lower races. Moreover, it is to the perfection, more or less accentuated, of the nervous system, and in particular to that of its ganglionic centres--that is, to the more or less perfect aggregation and complete composition of the parts which constitute this system-that are due principally, we might almost say exclusively, the degree of elevation of any given being in the animal scale, and the characters which separate it more or less distinctly from the vegetable kingdom. Now it is in man that we find the supreme degree of this aggregation and ganglionic development, and the animal which most closely imitates him in this respect is the orang-outan. The height of the brain in the orang is greater than in the chimpanzee, the frontal lobe is more developed, the occipital smaller, the temporal more horizontal and less flattened-characteristics which well agree with the exterior aspect of the simians. Besides, the brain convolutions, which are very rudimentary in the rodents and edentates, less simple in the carnassiers, and still less so in the ruminants and solipedes, attain their greatest development in the apes, and particularly in the orang. The disposition of the cerebral mass in the carnivorous mammals, which has been well studied by Leuret, shows only six convolutions, varying in regularity and simplicity according to the species, but remaining in all cases parallel to each other and antero-posterior in direction. These convolutions have been described by Professor Sappey under the name of constant or primitive convolutions. It is not until we reach the elephant, the lemur, and particularly the apegroup, that we find certain new convolutions, or 'folds of perfectionment,' remarkable by their volume and by