WITH MUSCULAR EXERCISE. 115 



fore, to say that exercise is not beneficial when in 

 reality proper exercise has not been tried. 



The amount of bodily exertion of which soldiers 

 are capable is well known to be prodigiously in- 

 creased by the mental stimulus of pursuit, of fight- 

 ing, or of victory. In the retreat of the French 

 from Moscow, for example, when no enemy was 

 near, the soldiers became depressed in courage and 

 enfeebled in body, and nearly sank to the earth 

 through exhaustion and cold; but no sooner did the 

 report of the Russian guns sound in their ears, or 

 the gieam of their bayonets flash in their eyes, than 

 new life seemed to pervade them, and they wielded 

 powerfully the arms which, a few moments before, 

 they could scarcely drag along the ground. No 

 sooner, however, was the enemy repulsed, and the 

 nervous stimulus which animated their muscles 

 withdrawn, than their feebleness returned. Dr. 

 Sparrman,in like manner, after describing the fatigue 

 and exhaustion which he and his party endured in 

 heir travels at the Cape, adds, " yet, what even 

 now appears to me a matter of wonder is, that as 

 soon as we got a glimpse of the game, all this languor 

 left us in an instant" On the principle already men- 

 tioned, this result is perfectly natural, and in strict 

 harmony with what we observe in sportsmen, crick- 

 eters, golfers, skaters, and others, who, moved by a 

 mental aim, are able to undergo a much greater 

 amount of bodily labour than men of stronger mus- 

 cular frames, actuated by no excitement of mind or 

 vigorous nervous impulse. We have heard an in- 

 telligent engineer remark the astonishment often 

 felt by country people, at finding him and his town 

 companions, although more slightly made, withstand 

 the fatigues and exposure of a day's surveying better 

 than themselves ; but, said he, they overlooked the 

 fact, that our employment gives to the mind as well 

 as to the body a stimulus which they were entirely 

 without> as their only object was to uflford us bodily 



