the last meal was digested? How can she calculate the result of such a
combination of causes? As we heard said by the father of a
five-years-old boy, who stands a head taller than most of his age, and
is proportionately robust, rosy, and active:--"I can see no artificial
standard by which to mete out his food. If I say, 'this much is enough,'
it is a mere guess; and the guess is as likely to be wrong as right.
Consequently, having no faith in guesses, I let him eat his fill." And
certainly, any one judging of his policy by its effects, would be
constrained to admit its wisdom. In truth, this confidence, with which
most parents legislate for the stomachs of their children, proves their
unacquaintance with physiology: if they knew more, they would be more
modest. "The pride of science is humble when compared with the pride of
ignorance." If any one would learn how little faith is to be placed in
human judgments, and how much in the pre-established arrangements of
things, let him compare the rashness of the inexperienced physician with
the caution of the most advanced; or let him dip into Sir John Forbes's
work, _On Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease_; and he will see that,
in proportion as men gain knowledge of the laws of life, they come to
have less confidence in themselves, and more in Nature.

Turning from the question of _quantity_ of food to that of _quality_, we
may discern the same ascetic tendency. Not simply a restricted diet, but
a comparatively low diet, is thought proper for children. The current
opinion is, that they should have but little animal food. Among the less
wealthy classes, economy seems to have dictated this opinion--the wish
has been father to the thought. Parents not affording to buy much meat,
answer the petitions of juveniles with--"Meat is not good for little
boys and girls;" and this, at first probably nothing but a convenient
excuse, has by repetition grown into an article of faith. While the
classes with whom cost is no consideration, have been swayed partly by
the example of the majority, partly by the influence of nurses drawn
from the lower classes, and in some measure by the reaction against past
animalism.

If, however, we inquire for the basis of this opinion, we find little or
none. It is a dogma repeated and received without proof, like that
which, for thousands of years, insisted on swaddling-clothes. Very
probably for the infant's stomach, not yet endowed with much muscular
p