Chapter VIII: Tryon. 1634-1703

One of the best known of the seventeenth century humane Hygeists, was born at Bibury, a village in Gloucestershire. His father was a tiler and plasterer, who by stress of poverty was forced to remove his son, when no more than six years of age, from the village school, and to set him at the work of spinning and carding, (the woollen manufacture being then extensively carried on in Gloucestershire). At eight years of age he became so expert, he tells us, as to be able to spin four pounds a day, earning two shillings a week. At the age of twelve he was made to work at his father’s employment. At this period he first learned to read. He next took to keeping sheep. With the sum of three pounds, realised by the sale of his four sheep, he went to London to seek his fortune, when seventeen years old, and bound himself apprentice to a “castor-maker,” in Fleet Street. His master was an Anabaptist--“an honest and sober man;” and, after two years’ apprenticeship, Tryon adopted the same religious creed. All his spare time was now devoted entirely to study; and, with the usual ardour of scholars who depend upon their own talents and exertions, he scarcely gave any time to food or sleep. The holiday period, too, spent by his fellow-apprentices in eating and drinking, and gross amusements, was utilised in the same way. Science, and Physiology in particular, attracted his attention.

At the age of twenty-three he first adopted the reformed diet, “my drink being only water, and food only bread and some fruit, and that but once a day for some time; but afterwards I had more liberty given me by my guide, Wisdom, to eat butter and cheese; my clothing being mean and thin; for, in all things, self-denial was now become my real business.” This strict life he maintained for more than a year, when he relapsed, at intervals, during the next two years. At the end of this period he had become confirmed in his reform, and he remained to the end strictly akreophagist, and, indeed, strictly frugal, “contenting myself with herbs, fruits, grains, eggs, butter and cheese for food, and pure water for drink.” About two years after his marriage he made voyages to Barbadoes and to Holland in the way of trade--“making beavers.” He finally settled himself in England, and at the age of forty-eight he published his first book on _Dietetics_.

His brief autobiography, from which the above facts are drawn, ends at this period. His editor adds, as to his appearance and character: “his aspect easily discovered something extraordinary; his air was cheerful, lively, and brisk; but grave with something of authority, though he was of the easiest access. Notwithstanding he was of no strong make, yet, through his great temperance, regularity, and by the strength of his spirits and vigour of his mind, he was capable of any fatigue, even to his last illness, equally with any of the best constitutions of men half his years. Through all his lifetime he had been a man of unwearied application, and so indefatigable that it may be as truly said of him as it can be of any man that he was never idle; but of such despatch that, though fortune had allotted him as great multiplicity of business as, perhaps, to any one of his contemporaries, yet, without any neglect thereof, he found leisure to make such a search into Nature, that perhaps few of this age equalled him therein: and not only into Nature, but also into almost all arts and sciences, of some whereof he was an improver, and of all innocent and useful ones an encourager and promoter.”[295]

In spite of that penetration of mind and justness of thought which influenced him to abandon the cruelty and coarseness of the orthodox diet, the author of _The Way to Health_ could not free himself from certain of the credulous fancies of his age; and, it must be admitted, his writings are by no means exempt from such prejudices. It is as a moral reformer that he has deserved our respect, and of his numerous books the following are noteworthy:--

_A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks._ London, 1682.

_The Way to Health, Long Life, &c._ 1683, 1694, 1697. 3 vols., 8vo.

_Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West
Indies._ London, 1684.

_The Way to Make All People Rich: or, Wisdom’s Call to Temperance
and Frugality._ 1685.

_Wisdom’s Doctrine: or, Aphorisms and Rules for Preserving the
Health of the Body and the Peace of the Mind._ 1696.

_England’s Grandeur and the Way to Get Wealth: or, Promotion of
Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced._ 1699. 4_to._

Nothing can be more just or forcible than these expostulations:--

“Most men will, in words, confess that there is no blessing this
world affords comparable to health. Yet rarely do any of them
value it as they ought to do till they feel the want of it. To
him that hath obtained this goodly gift the meanest food--even
bread and water--is most pleasant, and all sorts of exercise and
labour delightful. But the contrary makes all things nauseous and
distasteful. What are full-spread Tables, Riches, or Honours, to
him that is tormented with distempers? In such a condition men do
desire nothing so much as _Health_. But no sooner is that obtained,
but their thoughts are changed, forgetting those solemn promises
and resolutions they made to God and their own souls, going on in
the old road of _Gluttony_, taking little or no care to continue
that which they so much desired when they were deprived of it.

“Happy it were if men did but use the tenth part of that care and
diligence to preserve their minds and bodies in Health, as they
do to procure those dainties and superfluities which do generate
Diseases, and are the cause of committing many other evils, there
being but few men that do know how to use riches as they ought.
For there are not many of our wealthy men that ever consider that
as little and mean food and drink will suffice to maintain a
_lord_ in perfect health as it will a _peasant_, and render him
more capable of enjoying the benefits of the Mind and pleasures
of the Body, far beyond all ‘dainties and superfluities.’ But,
alas! the momentary pleasures of the _Throat-Custom_, vanity,
&c., do ensnare and entice most people to exceed the bounds of
necessity or convenience; and many fail through a false opinion or
misunderstanding of Nature--childishly imagining that the richer
the food is, and the more they can cram into their bellies, the
more they shall be strengthened thereby. But experience shews to
the contrary; for are not such people as accustom themselves to the
richest foods, and most _cordial_ drinks, generally the most infirm
and diseased?

“Now the sorts of foods and drinks that breed the best blood and
finest spirits, are Herbs, Fruits, and various kinds of Grains;
also Bread, and sundry sorts of excellent food made by different
preparations of Milk, and all dry food out of which the sun hath
exhaled the gross humidity, by which all sorts of Pulses and Grains
become of a firmer substance. So, likewise, Oil is an excellent
thing, in nature more sublime and pure than Butter.” ...

As to the unsuspected cause of the various diseases so abundant:--

“Many of the richest sort of people in this nation might know by
woful experience, especially in London, who do yearly spend many
hundreds, I think I may say thousands, of pounds on their _ungodly
paunches_. Many of whom may save themselves that charge and trouble
they are usually at in learning of _Monsieur Nimble-heels_, the
Dancing-Master, how to go upright; for their bellies are swollen up
to their chins, which forces them ‘to behold the sky,’[296] but not
for contemplation sake you may be sure, but out of pure necessity,
and without any more impressions of reverence towards the Almighty
Creator than their fellow-brutes; for their brains are sunk into
their bellies; _injection and ejection_ is the business of their
life, and all their precious hours are spent between the platter
and the glass and the close-stool. Are not these fine fellows to
call themselves _Christians_ and _Right-Worshipfuls_.”[297]

In his xiv chapter, “Of Flesh and its Operation on the Body and Mind,” Tryon employs all his eloquence in proving that the practice of slaughtering for food is not only cruel and barbarous in itself, but originates, or, at all events, intensifies the worst passions of men.

Eulogising the milder manners of the followers of Pythagoras, and of the Hindus generally, he tells his countrymen that:--

“The very same, and far greater, advantages would come to
pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from contention,
oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto) the
killing of other animals, and eating their flesh and blood; and,
in a short time, human murders and devilish feuds and cruelties
amongst each other would abate, and, perhaps, scarce have a
being amongst them. For _separation_ has greater power than most
imagine, whether it be from evil or from good; for whatever any
man separates himself from, that property in him presently is
weakened. Likewise, _separation_ from cruelty does wonderfully
dispel the dark clouds of ignorance, and makes the understanding
able to distinguish between the good and evil principles--first in
himself, and then in all other things proportionably. But so long
as men live under the power of all kinds of uncleanness, violence,
and oppression, they cannot see any evil therein. For this cause,
those who do not separate themselves from these evils, but are
contented to follow the multitude in the left-hand-way, and resolve
to continue the religion of their fore-fathers--though thereby they
do but continue mere _Custom_, the greatest of tyrants--’tis, I
say, impossible for such people ever to understand or know anything
_truly_, either of divine or of human things....

“It is a grand mistake of people in this age to say or suppose:
That Flesh affords not only a stronger nourishment, but also more
and better than Herbs, Grains, &c.; for the truth is, it does yield
more stimulation, _but not of so firm, a substance, nor so good
as that which proceeds from the other food_; for flesh has more
matter for corruption, and nothing so soon turns to putrefaction.
Now, ’tis certain, such sorts of food as are subject to putrify
_before_ they are eaten, are also liable to the same afterwards.
Besides, Flesh is of soft, moist, gross, phlegmy quality, and
generates a nourishment of a like nature; thirdly, Flesh heats the
body, and causeth a drought; fourthly, Flesh does breed great store
of noxious humours; fifthly, it must be considered that ‘beasts’
and other living creatures are subject to diseases[298] and many
other inconveniences, and uncleannesses, surfeits, over-driving,
abuses of cruel butchers, &c., which renders their flesh still more
unwholesome. But on the contrary, all sorts of dry foods, as Bread,
Cheese, Herbs, and many preparations of Milk, Pulses, Grains, and
Fruits; as their original is more clean, so, being of a sound firm
nature, they afford a more excellent nourishment, and more easy
of concoction; so that if a man should exceed in quantity, the
Health will not, thereby, be brought into such danger as by the
superfluous eating of flesh....

“What an ill and ungrateful sight is it to behold dead carcasses,
and pieces of bloody, raw, flesh! It would undoubtedly appear
dreadful, and no man but would abhor to think of putting it in
his mouth, had not Use and Custom from generation to generation
familiarised it to us, which is so prevalent, that we read in some
countries the mode is to eat the bodies of their dead parents
and friends, thinking they can no way afford them a more noble
sepulchre than their own bowells. And because it is _usual_, they
do it with as little regret or nauseousness as others have when
they devour the leg of a Rabbit or the wing of a Lark. Suppose a
person were bred up in a place where it were not a _custom_ to kill
and eat flesh, and should come into our Leadenhall Market, or view
our Slaughter Houses, and see the communication we have with dead
bodies, and how blythe and merry we are at their funerals, and
what honourable sepulchres we bury the dead carcasses of beasts
in--nay, their very guts and entrails--would he not be filled with
astonishment and horror? Would he not count us cruel monsters, and
say we were _brutified_, and performed the part of beasts of prey,
to live thus on the spoils of our fellow-creatures?

“Thus, Custom has awakened the inhuman, fierce nature, which makes
killing, handling, and feeding upon flesh and blood, without
distinction, so easy and familiar unto mankind. And the same is
to be understood of men killing and oppressing those of their own
kind; for do we not see that a soldier, who is trained up in the
wars of bloody-minded princes, shall kill a hundred men without any
trouble or regret of spirit, and such as have given him no more
offence than a sheep has given the butcher that cuts her throat.
If men have but Power and Custom on their side, they think all is
well.”

Whatever may be thought of the zealous attempt of the pious author to meet the assertions of the (practical) materialists, who draw their arguments from the Jewish Sacred Scriptures, or elsewhere, his replies to the common subterfuges or prejudices of the orthodox dietists are able and conclusive. His _humane_ arguments, indeed, are worthy of the most advanced thinkers of the present day; and those who are versed in the anti-kreophagist literature of the last thirty years--in the controversy in the press, and on the platform--will, perhaps, be surprised to find that the ordinary prejudices or subterfuges of this year “of Grace” are identical with those current in the year 1683. We wish that we could transcribe some of these replies. We cannot forbear, however, to quote his representation of the changed condition of things under the imagined humanitarian _régime_:--

“Here all contention ceaseth, no hideous cries nor mournful groans
are heard, neither of man nor of ‘beast.’ No channels running with
the blood of slaughtered animals, no stinking shambles, nor bloody
butchers. No roaring of cannons, nor firing of towns. No loathsome
stinking prisons, nor iron grates to keep men from enjoying their
wife, children, and the pleasant air; nor no crying for want of
food and clothes. No rioting, nor wanton inventions to destroy as
much in one day as a thousand can get by their hard labour and
travel. No dreadful execrations and coarse language. No galloping
horses up hills, without any consideration or fellow-feeling
of the victim’s pains and burdens. No deflowering of virgins,
_and then exposing them and their own young to all the miseries
imaginable_. No letting lands and farms so dear that the farmer
must be forced to oppress himself, servants, and cattle almost
to death, and all too little to pay his rent. No oppressions of
inferiors by superiors; neither is there any want, because there
is no superfluity nor gluttony. No noise nor cries of wounded men.
No need of chirurgeons to cut bullets out of their flesh; nor no
cutting off hands, broken legs, and arms. No roaring nor crying out
with the torturing pains of the gout, nor other painful diseases
(as leprous and consumptive distempers), except through age, and
the relics of some strain they got whilst they lived intemperately.
Neither are their children afflicted with such a great number of
diseases; but are as free from distempers as lambs, calves, or the
young ones of any of the ‘beasts’ who are preserved sound and
healthful, because they have not outraged God’s law in Nature, the
breaking of which is the foundation of most, or all, cruel diseases
that afflict mankind; there being nothing that makes the difference
between Man and ‘Beasts’ in health, but only superfluity and
intemperance, both in quality and in quantity.”

His chapter, in which he deals with the relations between the sexes and the married state, shews him to have been as much in advance of his time, in a sound knowledge and apprehension of Physiology, and of the laws of Health, in that important part of hygienic science, as he was in the special branch of Diet.[299]

Affixed to this work is a very remarkable Essay, in the shape of _A Dialogue between an East-Indian Brachman and a French Gentleman, concerning the Present Affairs of Europe_. In this admirable piece, the author ably exposes the folly no less than the horrors of war--and, in particular, _religious_ war--all which he ultimately traces to the first source--the iniquities and barbarism of the Shambles. The Dialogue is worthy of the most trenchant of the humanitarian writers of the next century. It was by meeting with _The Way to Health_ that Benjamin Franklin, in his youth, was induced to abandon the flesh-diet, to which revolutionary measure he ascribes his success, as well as health in after life.