188 LAWS OF :multipijcation. 



elaborate appliances for Diechanically-preparing it, and 

 rejecting its useless parts. So that they live on matters of 

 less nutritive value, which cost more both to masticate and 

 to digest. Further, to uncivilized men supplies of 



food come very irreo^ularly : long periods of scarcity are 

 divided by short periods of abundance. And though by 

 gorging when opportunity occurs, something is done towards 

 compensating for previous want, yet the effects of prolonged 

 starvation cannot be neutralized by occasional enormous 

 meals. Bearing in mind, too, that improvident as they are, 

 savages often bestir themselves only under pressure of 

 hunger, we may fairly consider them as habitually ill- 

 nourished — may see that even the poorer classes of civilized 

 men, making regular meals on food separated from in- 

 nutritive matters, easy to masticate and digest, tolerably 

 good in quality and adequate if not abundant in quantit}-, 

 are much better nourished. 



Then, again, though a much greater consumption in mus- 

 cular action appears to be undergone by civilized men than 

 by savages ; and thoug-h it is probabl}^ true that among our 

 labouring people the daily repairs cost more; yet in many 

 cases there does not exist so much difference as we are apt to 

 suppose. The chase is very laborious; and great amounts of 

 exertion are gone through by the lowest races in seeking 

 and securing the odds and ends of wild food on which 

 they largely depend. We naturally assume that because 

 barbarians are averse to regular labour, their muscular 

 action is less than our own. But this is not necessarily true. 

 The monotonous toil is what they cannot tolerate ; and they 

 may be ready to go through as much or more exertion when 

 it is joined with excitement. If we remember that the 

 sportsman who gladly scrambles up and down rough hill- 

 sides all day after grouse or deer, would think himself hardly 

 used had he to spend as much effort and time in digging ; we 

 shall see that a savage who is the reverse of industrious. 

 may nevertheless be subject to a muscular waste not very 



