26 EVILS OF IGNCfRANCE. 



quence of these apparent anomalies and contradic- 

 tions is, that when in health, we come practically td 

 look upon the effects of air, food, exercise, and dress 

 as very much matters of chance, subject to no fixed 

 rule, and therefore little worth attending to, except 

 when carried to palpable extremes, or in the cure of 

 disease ; and in this way, man, instead of being able 

 to protect his children by the results of his own 

 experience in his journey through life, goes on from 

 generation to generation, groping a little, then see- 

 ing a little, and then groping again, till he arrives, 

 often prematurely, at the end of his existence, when 

 he stumbles into his grave, leaving his posterity to 

 pass unaided through the same series of experiments, 

 and arrive at the same termination as himself. 



This unnatural result must arise either from the 

 laws which regulate the animal functions and the 

 operations of external objects being variable and 

 ever changing, or from the conditions of the living 

 body on which they act being different in different 

 persons, or in the same person at different ages or 

 seasons ; and it is not difficult to determine to which 

 of these it is to be ascribed. It cannot be to the 

 first, for the laws of nature are invariable and un- 

 bending. The food which to-day nourishes and 

 sustains the body, and which to-morrow, when 

 sickness is present, raises the pulse and excites the 

 heart to febrile action, has not altered its qualities 

 or changed its relation to the healthy body. It is 

 the state of the body that has changed and caused 

 the apparent discrepancy of effect. In judging, 

 therefore, of the propriety, advantages, or evils of 

 exercise, food, and clothing, we must take into con- 

 sideration, not only the kind of exercise, the kind of 

 food, and the kind of clothing, but also the age, 

 health, and kind of constitution of the individual who 

 uses them, and adapt each to the degree in which it 

 is required; and then we may rest assured that 

 many of our difficulties will vanish, and certainty 

 and consistency come proportionally into view. 



