NATURE REQUIRES EXCITING EXERCISE. 249 



tion, or action, we cannot see the immorality, or impro- 

 priety of so far giving way to the dictates of nature as 

 to carry our pleasantries even to mirth, let our ages, or 

 professions be what they may. 



Laughing a proper and healthful exercise. Man is 

 the only laughing animal which the whole terrestrial 

 creation affords; and in the young, the indulgence of 

 this natural propensity, in proper places and under prop- 

 er circumstances, is universally approbated ; youth being 

 considered by all, as the appropriate season of innocent 

 merriment. But there are those who look upon the ac- 

 tion of the risible muscles, as being incompatible with 

 the gravity and solemn dignity of certain ages and pro- 

 fessions ; and therefore believe that such, ought always 

 to suppress their lively and facetious thoughts, and expres- 

 sions, lest they should excite laughter in others, or give 

 way to it themselves. 



Now we have no desire that any one should do vio- 

 lence to his conscience in this respect, but while, aside 

 from improper levity, we cannot imagine from what 

 source moral evil would come in consequence of the 

 exercise of the muscles of risibility in any human being 

 whatever, it is certain, that the act of laughter, conduces 

 to the health of the system, by the motion it gives to 

 certain muscles, as well as by the attendant relaxation 

 of the mind ; and therefore as a mere secular action, is 

 a very proper exercise for people of studious and sed- 

 entary habits. 



The muscles concerned in moderate laughter are 

 chiefly the diaphragm, and those between the ribs ; but 

 when the action becomes violent, those of the back and 

 chest are thrown into motion, and the whole frame is 

 shaken ; the lungs being at the same time alternately 

 filled with, and exhausted of air, by rapid muscular ac- 

 tions, which sometimes amount nearly to convulsions, 

 thus calling into contractile motion, all the muscles of 

 the trunk, and agitating the entire assemblage of the vis- 

 ceral organs, thus, perhaps, detaching any adhesions that 

 might be incipient in these parts, and at any rate, giving 

 vigor to the actions of the pipes, and strainers, the secre- 

 ting and the absorbing surfaces, the functions of which are 



