o
or three Meals a Day is troublesome, they think their Health is
sufficiently provided for, by making only one Meal; that so the time
between one Repast and another, may (as they say) facilitate the Digestion
of those Aliments which they might have taken at twice: For this Reason
they eat as much at one Meal, that their Stomach is over-charged and out
of Order, and converts the Superfluities of its Nourishment into bad
Humours, which engender Diseases and Death.

I never knew a Man live long by this Conduct. These Men would doubtless
have prolong'd their Days, had they abridg'd the Quantity of their
ordinary Food proportionally as they grew in Years; and had they eat a
great deal less a little oftner.

Some again are of Opinion, that Sobriety may indeed preserve a Man in
Health, but does not prolong his Life. To this we say, that there have
been Persons in past Ages, who have prolong'd their Lives by this Means;
and some there are at present who still do it; for as Infirmities
contracted by Repletion shorten our Days, a Man of an ordinary Reach may
perceive, that if he desires to live long, it is better to be well than
sick, and that consequently Temperance contributes more to long Life, than
excessive Feeding.

Whatsoever Sensualists may say, Temperance is of infinite Benefit to
Mankind: To it he owes his Preservation; it banishes from his Mind the
dismal Apprehensions of dying; 'tis by its Means he becomes wise, and
arrives to an Age wherein Reason and Experience furnish him with
Assistance to free himself from the Tyranny of his Passions, which have
lorded it over him for almost the whole Course of his Life.

A very notable Instance of this we have in the Life of _Lewis Cornaro_, a
noble _Venetian_, who though of a weakly Constitution, increas'd by a
voluptuous Life, yet at the Age of thirty five or forty Years, he was
resolv'd to practice in all the Rules of Sobriety and Temperance, and to
withdraw from those Excesses that had brought upon him those usual Ills
the Gout and the Cholick, fatal Attendants to an indolent and luxurious
Life, and which reduc'd him to so low a State, that his Recovery was
despair'd of by the wisest Physician: And here he tells you that he was
born very cholerick and hasty, and flew out into a Passion for the least
Trifle, that he huffed all Mankind, and was so intolerable, that a great
many Persons of Repute avoided his Company: He apprehended the Injury
which he did to himself, he kn