WITH MUSCULAR EXERCISE. 119 



its different stages, it becomes easy to deduce 

 rules applicable to all, for promoting the healthy 

 development of the muscular system, and to trace 

 the errors by which indolent people are accustomed 

 to maintain that exercise is hurtful to their consti- 

 tutions. The second stage of exercise, or that in 

 which, by its frequency, moderation, and regularity,, 

 nutrition and vigour are preserved at their highest 

 pitch, is of course to be aimed at; but the quantity 

 of exercise which corresponds to it must vary ac- 

 cording to the constitution and previous habits of 

 the individual, as is well exemplified in training for 

 pedestrian feats, for the ring and for racing. The 

 assertion made by many, that exercise hurts them, 

 arises entirely from overlooking this circumstance. 

 A person accustomed to daily activity will feel 

 invigorated by a walk of four or five miles in the 

 open air ; whereas the same distance will weaken 

 another, who has not been in the habit of walking 

 at all. But instead of inferring from this, as is often 

 done, that exercise in the open air is positively 

 hurtful to the latter, reason and experience coincide 

 in telling us, that he has erred only by exceeding 

 the powers of his system, and that to acquire 

 strength and activity, he ought to have begun with 

 one mile, and to have gradually extended his walk 

 in proportion as the muscles became invigorated by 

 the increased nutrition consequent on well-regulated 

 exercise. A person recovering from fever begins 

 by walking across his room perhaps ten times in a 

 day, and gradually extends to twenty or thirty 

 times, till he gains strength to go into the open air. 

 On going out, a walk of ten minutes proves suffi- 

 cient for him at first, but by degrees his strength 

 and flesh increase, and his exercise is prolonged till 

 he arrives at his usual standard. Such is the order 

 of Nature ; but many sedentary people have no 

 patience for such slow progress, and when urged to 

 take exercise, they grudge the trouble of going out 



