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and to habits generally, and what will be the effects
of each on each individual. It is not sufficient to
learn simply that cheese is a bad food, as it gives a
pain to one who eats a surfeit of it ; we must know
what the pain is, the reasons for it, and which constituent
of man is harmfully affected. For there are
many other bad foods and bad drinks, which affect a
man in different ways. I would therefore have the
point put thus :--"Undiluted wine, drunk in large
quantity, produces a certain effect upon a man." All
who know this would realise that this is a power of
wine, and that wine itself is to blame, and we know
through what parts of a man it chiefly exerts this
power. Such nicety of truth I wish to be manifest
in all other instances. To take my former example,
cheese does not harm all men alike ; some can eat
their fill of it without the slightest hurt, nay, those
it agrees with are wonderfully strengthened thereby.
Others come off badly. So the constitutions of these
men differ, and the difference lies in the constituent of
the body which is hostile to cheese, and is roused and
stirred to action under its influence. Those in whom
a humour of such a kind is present in greater quantity,
and with greater control over the body, naturally suffer
more severely. But if cheese were bad for the human
constitution without exception, it would have hurt
all. He who knows the above truths will not fall
into the following errors.
PART 21
XXI. In convalescence from illness, and also in
protracted illnesses, many disturbances occur, some
spontaneously and some from things casually
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