But consider the position
of the stomach. Like a Persian monarch, it occupies the centre of the
system; despotic from its remote situation and the absolute power it
exercises, all parts of the external organism are its ministers: the
feet must run for its daily food, the hands must prepare that food with
cunning devices, the brain must direct the operations of feet and hands.
Now, unlearned youth, wilt thou contend that the degree of refinement
evinced by attention or indifference to the niceties of cooking, and so
forth, has no bearing upon the character of the man and the race? Take
as a standard the method of immediately conveying the food to the mouth,
as it has progressed from barbarism. First, fingers; then, pieces of
bark; then, rough wooden spoons, knives, two-pronged steel forks;
and lastly, an epitome of civilization in each one that is used,
five-pronged silver forks, evincing both the increased complexity of the
nature that devises the extra prongs, and the refinement of taste that
insists upon the silver. It is impossible to use wheat in any of its
preparations," ("With five-pronged forks," murmured his attentive pupil
parenthetically,) "without at least a piece of bark, for mixing and
cooking, if not for eating.
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