There is no doubt of it. The unwelcome truth has been long suppressed
by interested parties who find their account in playing sycophant to
that self-satisfied tyrant Modern Man; but to the impartial philosopher
it is as plain as the nose upon the elephant’s face that our ancestors
ate one another. The custom of the Fiji Islanders, which is their only
stock-in-trade, their only claim to notoriety, is a relic of barbarism;
but it is a relic of our barbarism.
Man is naturally a carnivorous animal. That none but green-grocers
will dispute. That he was formerly less vegetarian in his diet than
at present, is clear from the fact that market gardening increases in
the ratio of civilization. So we may safely assume that at some remote
period Man subsisted on an exclusively flesh diet. Our uniform vanity
has given us the human mind as the acme of intelligence, the human face
and figure as the standard of beauty. Of course we cannot deny to human
fat and lean an equal superiority over beef, mutton and pork. It is
plain that our meat-eating ancestors would think in this way, and being
unrestrained by the mawkish sentiment attendant on high civilization,
would act habitually on the obvious suggestion. _A priori_,
therefore, it is clear that we ate ourselves.
Philology is about the only thread that connects us with the
prehistoric past. By picking up and piecing together the scattered
remnants of language, we form a patchwork of wondrous design and
significance. Consider the derivation of the word “sarcophagus,” and
see if it be not suggestive of potted meats. Observe the significance
of the phrase “sweet sixteen.” What a world of meaning lurks in the
expression “she is as sweet as a peach,” and how suggestive of luncheon
are the words “tender youth.” A kiss is but a modified bite, and a fond
mother, when she says her babe is “almost good enough to eat,” merely
shows that she is herself only a trifle too good to eat it.
These evidences might be multiplied _ad infinitum_; but if enough
has been said to induce one human being to revert to the diet of his
forefathers the object of this essay is accomplished.
1868.