ely that he will maintain it at its normal
standard of efficiency. Under certain conditions, of which we will speak
in a moment, the body-machine is run quite unconsciously, and run well;
that is to say, the body is kept in perfect health without the aid of
science. But, then, we do not now live under these conditions, and so
our reason has to play a certain part in encouraging, or, as the case
may be, in restricting the various desires that make themselves felt.
The reason so many people nowadays are suffering from all sorts of
ailments is simply that they are deplorably ignorant of their natural
bodily wants. How much does the ordinary individual know about
nutrition, or about obedience to an unperverted appetite? The doctors
seem to know little about health; they are not asked to keep us healthy,
but only to cure us of disease, and so their studies relate to disease,
not health; and dietetics, a science dealing with the very first
principles of health, is an optional course in the curriculum of the
medical student.

Food is the first necessary of life, and the right kind of food, eaten
in the right manner, is necessary to a right, that is, healthy life. No
doubt, pathological conditions are sometimes due to causes other than
wrong feeding, but in a very large percentage of cases there is little
doubt that errors in diet have been the cause of the trouble, either
directly, or indirectly by rendering the system susceptible to
pernicious influences.[1] A knowledge of what is the right food to eat,
and of the right way to eat it, does not, under existing conditions of
life, come instinctively. Under other conditions it might do so, but
under those in which we live, it certainly does not; and this is owing
to the fact that for many hundred generations back there has been a
pandering to sense, and a quelling and consequent atrophy of the
discriminating animal instinct. As our intelligence has developed we
have applied it to the service of the senses and at the expense of our
primitive intuition of right and wrong that guided us in the selection
of that which was suitable to our preservation and health. We excel the
animals in the possession of reason, but the animals excel us in the
exercise of instinct.

It has been said that animals do not study dietetics and yet live
healthily enough. This is true, but it is true only as far as concerns
those animals which live _in their natural surroundings and under
natural conditio