your Meal; [at [3]] the same time abstain from all Sauces, or
at least such as are not the most plain and simple. A Man could not be
well guilty of Gluttony, if he stuck to these few obvious and easy
Rules. In the first Case there would be no Variety of Tastes to sollicit
his Palate, and occasion Excess; nor in the second any artificial
Provocatives to relieve Satiety, and create a false Appetite. Were I to
prescribe a Rule for Drinking, it should be form'd upon a Saying quoted
by Sir William Temple; [4] The first Glass for my self, the second for
my Friends, the third for good Humour, and the fourth for mine Enemies.
But because it is impossible for one who lives in the World to diet
himself always in so Philosophical a manner, I think every Man should
have his Days of Abstinence, according as his Constitution will permit.
These are great Reliefs to Nature, as they qualifie her for struggling
with Hunger and Thirst, whenever any Distemper or Duty of Life may put
her upon such Difficulties; and at the same time give her an Opportunity
of extricating her self from her Oppressions, and recovering the several
Tones and Springs of her distended Vessels. Besides that Abstinence well
timed often kills a Sickness in Embryo, and destroys the first Seeds of
an Indisposition. It is observed by two or three Ancient Authors, [5]
that Socrates, notwithstanding he lived in Athens during that great
Plague, which has made so much Noise through all Ages, and has been
celebrated at different Times by such eminent Hands; I say,
notwithstanding that he lived in the time of this devouring Pestilence,
he never caught the least Infection, which those Writers unanimously
ascribe to that uninterrupted Temperance which he always observed.

And here I cannot but mention an Observation which I have often made,
upon reading the Lives of the Philosophers, and comparing them with any
Series of Kings or great Men of the same number. If we consider these
Ancient Sages, a great Part of whose Philosophy consisted in a temperate
and abstemious Course of Life, one would think the Life of a Philosopher
and the Life of a Man were of two different Dates. For we find that the
Generality of these wise Men were nearer an hundred than sixty Years of
Age at the Time of their respective Deaths. But the most remarkable
Instance of the Efficacy of Temperance towards the procuring of long
Life, is what we meet with in a little Book published by Lewis Cornare
the Veneti