THE CAUSES OF PHYSICAL DEGENERACY. 485 



the centre of life and heat, and without which vegetable life would be 

 a nullity. Can we, therefore, doubt its energizing potency upon ani- 

 mal life ? 



It is not only poets and sentimentalists that have acknowledged 

 the importance of the moon and the stars as hygienic mental and spir- 

 itual influences upon man, but grave doctors and learned searchers 

 after truth have been ready to add the weight of their judgment to 

 the superficial imaginings of the common thought. The moon has 

 been deemed almost the arbiter of man's destiny, for every thing was 

 supposed to be attached to the mystery of its quarterings, and its com- 

 ing or going was (and is) supposed to have a gravity utterly untenable 

 upon any scientific principle ; and yet to the great orb of day, of which 

 the moon and stars are but reflections, and to which we are compelled 

 to directly ascribe life and vigor, so little attention has been paid 

 perhaps from the comparative absence of mystery that its importance 

 has been, till lately, unrecognized by hygienic writers. 



The long-lived generations of the past did better than worship the 

 gun : they lived in its light, bathed in its warmth, and had their spirits 

 and material substance imbued with its life-giving potency. Instead 

 of sun-penetrated tents, men now live in thick- walled dwellings, through 

 whose stony externals the solar warmth cannot strike to dry up the 

 dank humidity, and the sparse and infrequent rays, that might per- 

 chance enter through the narrow windows, are carefully shut out by 

 the voluminous folds of ornamental silks, lest the rich carpets be 

 faded thereby. And the dwellers within live in darkness of vision 

 and intellect, ignorant that they are excluding the royal visitor to 

 whose gracious coming every avenue should be thrown wide open, to 

 admit the king possessing a true " royal touch," potent to the cure of 

 more ills than was ever ascribed to earthly sovereign. 



There is a prospect of some return to a renewal of the beneficent 

 influences of the sun, from the sheepish followers of fashion. This fickle 

 goddess has recently started the doctrine that, as a reaction from the 

 tanning effects of a summer's out-of-door exposure, the winter's change 

 adds new brilliancy and transparence to the complexion. Fashionable 

 butterflies now seek for the most complete tanning that the sum- 

 mer's solstice can effect, in order to secure a corresponding reaction, 

 and insensibly gather health and invigoration. 



Contrast the myopic and weak-eyed men of the day with the eagle- 

 eyed men of the plain and forest, whose sight needs no screening from 

 the sunlight, by broad visor and head-apparel or dainty parasols. To 

 their unshrinking eyes light has no perils or disagreeableness. 



Have we not here another great contrast between the past and the 

 present ? Where picturesqueness may have gained from the embowered 

 cottage and the shaded dwelling, has not health suffered. The city, 

 thronged with high residences and warehouses, has shut out the po- 

 tent rays of the sun, and humanity has grown pallid in its shade, like 



