369. Culture; Custom; Eating "It is not very easy to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat some animals, and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, it is not uniform. That which is selected as delicate in one country, is by its neighbours abhorred as loathsome." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 1,524. Culture "If in books thus made venerable by the uniform attestation of successive ages, any passages shall appear unworthy of that praise which they have formerly received, let us not immediately determine, that they owed their reputation to dulness or bigotry; but suspect at least that our ancestors had some reasons for their opinions, and that our ignorance of those reasons makes us differ from them." Johnson: Adventurer #58 (May 25, 1753) Link 1,653. Culture; Fashion "The manners of the world are not a regular system, planned by philosophers upon settled principles, in which every cause has a congruous effect, and one part has a just reference to another. Of the fashions prevalent in every country, a few have arisen, perhaps, from particular temperatures of the climate; a few more from the constitution of the government; but the greater part have grown up by chance; been started by caprice, been contrived by affectation, or borrowed without any just motives of choice from other countries." Johnson: Adventurer #131 (February 5, 1754) Link 1,817. Culture; Custom "National manners are formed by chance." Johnson: Idler #87 (December 15, 1759) Link