UNWRITTEN HISTORY. 317 



patbic disorders. After the action of the bowels has become perfectly- 

 regular, after fat and sugar have ceased to cause heart-burn, the cbronic 

 lassitude not pain exactly, but a nervous disinclination to active ex- 

 ercise still lingers about the knee-joints ; the flexor muscles of the 

 upper arm still shirk their work ; headaches that can not always be 

 traced to dietetic backslidings recur at irregular intervals. The coun- 

 tenance is still sallow, the eyesight more or less impaired ; even ver- 

 tigo and murmurs in the ears occur, without their former gastric con- 

 comitants. But at the end of each month the progress in the direc- 

 tion of general health is unmistakable. Mountain excursions marvel- 

 ously further the good work ; but even the counting-house drudge 

 need not doubt the reward of his perseverance, as long as he sticks 

 to a plain diet, and such exercise as the opportunities of his leisure 

 will offer on all but the busiest days. Unlike consumption (which 

 can only be made non-progressive), dyspepsia can be thoroughly 

 cured. As far as they are capable of repair, injuries to the respira- 

 tory organs heal quickly ; gastric ailments with less ease but more 

 completely. 



Gymnastics, however, combined with cold-baths, air-baths, deep 

 draughts of cold spring-water, dietetic aperients, temperance, absti- 

 nent forenoons, liberal siestas, cheerful evenings, and wide-open bed- 

 room-windows, will speed the advent of the time when the after- 

 dinner hour shall cease to be the "saddest of the sad twenty-four" 

 nay, when digestion, like all normal functions of the animal organism, 

 shall be once more not only a painless but a pleasurable process. 



UNWRITTEN" HISTOEY.* 



By Professor T. H. HUXLEY. 



I DOUBT not that you all joined in cheering Lord Wolseley and 

 his companions in arms the other day, when they came to Wind- 

 sor to receive their well-earned honors at the hands of the sovereign. 

 If I had been among you I should have given a special cheer, on my 

 own account, to the general not so much to the successful soldier as 

 to the man of science, who had thoroughly studied the conditions of 

 the problem with which he had to deal ; who knew what causes would 

 produce certain desired effects; and whose experiments were followed 

 by the predicted results more surely than sometimes happens with 

 those which are made on a lecture-table. 



But a much larger interest attaches to the day of Tel-el-Kebir, 

 with all that preceded and followed it, than if it were an isolated 

 experimental investigation of the great " survival of the fittest " prob- 



* A lecture to the Eton Volunteer Corps, with some additions. 



