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" . Man docs not live by bread alone ; " nevertheless bread , or its equivalent , is no contemptible adjunct to the means of life : a remark which was once made to a friend of ours by a French lady sitting next to him at dinner , and who , desirous of entering upon conversation , while awaiting the soup , said , with the air of one communicating an important truth : Monsieur , le pain et Veau sont fort essentieU . Had we been the happy mortal thus addressed ; , our answer would have been , JEt la viande , done I for although same flaccid theorists maintain that vegetables alone constitute the true regimen of man , the prejudice in favour of beef has its merit .
M . Payen is publishing , in La Revue des Deux Monties , a series of articles on Public Food , and in the number for February 1 , there is one of great interest on Butchers' meat , which , although written with a view to the municipal regulations of Paris , contains many points of interest to other than Parisian readers . He undertakes , among other things , to disprove the vulgar notion that bones make good soup . The celebrated Gelatine Commission , some years ago , declared , as the results of many experiments , that gelatine was not nutritious ; and this result has been repeated in almost every test-book of physiology a 3 conclusive , and is adopted by M . Payem , wlio tests it in another series of experiments . Accepting the fact , we demur to the reasoning . But first let us state the fact . M . Payen boiled in one
that housewives have from time immemorial boiled the bones with the meat , and found the soup better for it . Is this a prejudice merely ? According to Mr . Payen , it is ; but we think the practice eminently rational-Although bone-soup ' without rneat will never be half so nutritious as beefsoup without bones , it nevertheless is not so valueless as theorists proclaim ; and bone-soup with vegetables is nutritious , bone-s oup with meat perfect . We want the gelatine ; if we do not get it in soup we must get it elsewhere . Of course the reader will understisrul that we are not ai'guing for the nutritiveness of bone as in the least equal to that of meat ; we only argtSe for its due recognition as a nutritive sufostance . Sf . Payen seems disinclined to allow it any value . He , however , attacks another prejudice , and this
time more successfully , in arguing in favour of cow-beef , as equal to and often superior to ox-beef . He also examines the influence of forage oii the quality of meat ; and lays it down , as a fact decided beyond dispute , thslt the superiority of French veal over the English ( a superiority no one wfio has tasted the two will deny ) , in aronia ,, tenderness , and delicacy , is owing to the French calves being fed on ; milk so sauch longer thati the English . EEe confirms the opinion that the milk of the cow depends foT Xti qualities oil ike forage ; thus when fed on plants containing little fat , or impregnated wifelt disagreeable odours , such as cabbages and turnips , the cow gives a nritk scanty in cream and without aroma . It is owing t 6 the inttnense cultivation of Swedish turnips in England that our milk and butter are inferior to those of Brittany and Normandy .
We have said enough to inake the readeT curious to See La Revue des Dewx Mondes , and consult M ., Fay en ' s article . If this week it has beeii our cue to speak less of the " food for the mind , " let the cause be appreciated— "We had rioxie such to speak of .
pot a portion of beef completely divested of bone , and in another the bone taken from the beef , with only a little salt . After five hours' slow boili&g , the liquid from the beef was perfectly limpid , and of a light amber colour , having that aroma and delicate taste known to belong to good beef tea . The liquid from the bones was whitish-grey , troubled and opaque , having a very slight odour , and a not agreeable taste . Nothing could be more opposed than the two soups thus produced . In another experiment , he repeated this
process with the addition of some vegetables , and even some drops of caramel . The beef-soup here maintained its delicious aronia , agreeably combined with that of the vegetables ; its limpidity was the same , but its colour of course stronger . The bone-souvp had a dominant odour of vegetables , but its troubled and opaque aspect made it very unappetizing . From these experiences M . Payen concludes that the prejudice in favour of the addition of bones to the soup is—a prejudice ; and that , in fact ^ bones ai * e not at all nutritions .
3 Now here we have to note a fallacy of some importance in physiology , and , what perhaps the reader will think even , more important , a fallacy in the practical deduction . Two weeks ago we had occasion to show how empirical practice , as regards the feeding of cattle in early morning , was legitimized "by science . Tradition was right , though it could give no reasons . We believe that the tradition respecting bone-Soup is right , and that Science can show why it is right ; although here , as in the case of cattle feeding , by pointing out the real cause it limits and defines the practice . Had physiologists considered more accurately what Nutrition really is , they would not so easily have made the mistake of supposing gelatine to be non-nutritious . Nutrition
is , at bottom , nothing but assimilation ; the process by which an organism selects from the substances in immediate contact with it those principles which arc like its own ; thus albumen is assimilated by albumen ^ and phosphate of lime assimilated by phosphate of lime ; thus an animal in whose structure bone is a constituent element , must have phosphate of lime given in its food , or its hones will perisha for it cannot make phosphates , itenn only assimilate them . As soon as this is clearly conceived the conclusion is inevitable , namely , that inorganic substances are as necessary to the nutrition
of an animal as organic substances are ; and when the Gelatine Commission declared gelatine not to be nutritious because animals fed on gelatine died rapidly of inanition , a fallacy was propounded ; for even albumen itself , if made the sole food , would not prevent the animal from rapid starvation , and yet no one declares albumen not to be eminently nutritious . The truth is , no > single element of food suffices for a complex structure . The organism can make nothing , it can only decompose and assimilate the products of such decomposition .
To ftpply this reasoning to bone-soup will not he difficult . Observation early showed that carnivorous animals devoured the bones as well us the flesh , and digested them ; had they rejected them as they do hair and other indigestible materials , or as the actinia docs the shell of the muscle or crab which it has swallowed ( after carefully assimilating the flesh—the actinia lias no bones or shell , therefore can iinil no use for those substances and rejects thorn ) then , indeed , we might reasonably have supposed the animals did not Und bones nutritious ; but as they digest and asaimilutc the bones , wo assert
the bones to be indispensable . Feed a dog on meat without bones , and give him no biscuit ; or other food , in which aic the inorganic substances ho demands , and you will soon find him perish let your meat be ever so nutritious . Chossat tried a similar experiment with pigeons : ho deprived thorn of all chalk , except such aa they took in the grains on which they fed ; the consequence was that they all died of ( starvation . But do wot let us quit the path of vulgar observation . On that path we have met "with the fact that animals cjit the bones ; we shall further meet the fact
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MODERN PAINTERS . Modern Painters . Vol . Til . Containing Part IV . Of Many Things By John . Ruskin , M . A . Smith , Elder and Go . We . have a kindness for Mr . Ruskin , derived entirely from the reading of his books . All men who think for themselves , or who have even wished to think for themselves on matters of Art and Literature , owe him a great debt of gratitude for valuable teaching and hearty encouragement . A writer who has brought long and arduous study , literacy ability of the highest order , earnestness , courage , and extraordinary originality of view to the service of criticism on Art in this country , has deserved well of his readers , and has acquired very strong claims to their admiration and regard . Feeling this , we have no desire to dwell at length on , what we believe to be , the inherent defects of MS . Ruskin ' s mental nature . We can find enough that is good , true , and beautiful in all his books to atonefor the blemishes which inav deface themhefe and thetfe
—blemishes which we see with no unfriendly eyes- —and which we sincerely deplore as obstacles that hinder Mr . Buskin sadly in his own earnest and noble purpose of following the truth himself , and of teaching it honestly to the public . The present volume , viewed as a literary achievement , is the highest and most striking evidence of the author ' s abilities that has yet been published . If it has all his former defects , it has more than his former merits . It shows the maturity of his powers of thought , avid the perfection of his grace of style " . Even where we . differ with him most widely , even where we believe him to be most mischievously self-deluded , in his character of public teacher , we can still recognise the qualities of a great , if not always of a deliberate and impartial thinker . The minor defects of this volume we shall not attempt to particularise—for they are more than balanced by the minor beauties only : the main faults are , as it seems to us , first , a disposition on the author ' s part to see
things too much in detail , to find out too many hidden meanings in the picture or poem which he is examining ; and secondly ) a tendency to believe in the infallibility of theory , which leads him , iinconsciously , to substitute in some places sophistry for reasoning , and occasionally to make his comparisons ( in the Irish phrase ) " all on one side . " In founding a theory on general views which are quite correct , Mr . Ruskin does liot appear willing to admit the influence of exceptional and particular cases , and seems not to feel , and not to let his readers feel , the Aveakening effect on the universal truth of the theory which such cases must inevitably have . In the chapters on the " Grand Style , " and elsewhere , at easily-recognisable intervals throughout the book , his desire to be infallibly right , and to prove his opponents to be infallibly wrong , leads him into exaggerations , intricacies , straw-splittings , and minute perversions , which would look like unfairness , if we did not make full allowance for the peculiar tendencies of the writer ' s mindj and did not always recognise his honesty of purpose . Has there ever been such a phenomenon
in the world as a man with views indisputably right , or a man with views indisputably wrong ? If there has , where in the whole history of human controversy can any proof bo found of it ? However , after all due stress has been laid on Mr . Ruskin ' s faults , theve must remain in his favour a large balauce of admiration -a balance which he has greatly increased in importance l > y his present volume . He touches this time ou such various topics , that his second title " Of Many Things , isnrach more expressive of what his book is really about , than the old title , * Modern Painters . " The only modern painter who gets much attention is turner ; Tlic Old Master whoso spurious claims to admiration arc exposed most con-False Idealthe of
vincinirly nnd justly is Claude , The True Ideal and the , Use Pictures , Medieval and Modem Landscape , are among the topics discussed with the widest reach of thought nnd the most eloquent persuasion oi language . Mr . Ruskin presses Poetry into the service of illustrating his thooncs , as wall as Painting . His comparison between the modern poets who have egotistically sought in their ivprks to keep themselves before the reader , occupying him incessantly with their own joys and sorrows , and the delightful absence < rt all egotism of this sort in the pooms of Scott , is most admirably drawn . In those passages , and in those relating to the French school of novel-writers , Mr . Ruskin nobly vindicates his courage , his vigorous originality of view , and
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws-they interpret and try to enforce them . 1 -Edinburgh lieview .
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February 23 , 1856 , ] THE LEADER . _ 183
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 23, 1856, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2129/page/15/
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