LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 237 



man requires daily one pound of food to supply his 

 daily waste, recollect, that although he may eat 

 double that quantity, yet he will be not one atom 

 stronger, nor longer, nor broader, than if he had 

 eaten no more than the one necessary pound. He 

 may have enveloped himself in an extra layer of 

 fat he may have added another portion of padding 

 to the coat; but he himself, like the coat, will 

 remain in statu quo, with the chance of being found, 

 some morning, " kilt dead " by a fit of apoplexy. 

 He who eats more than he wastes, with the view of 

 making himself stronger, is guilty of precisely the 

 same folly as he who should continue to pour 

 water into a vessel which is already full, with the 

 view of filling it fuller. 



But, in some constitutions, if a man eat greatly 

 too much, the secretion of fat may not be suflicient 

 to relieve the overburthened vessels. Now, if this 

 man should escape the usual disease resulting from 

 plethora, then there is, in literal fact, a very great 

 danger that some one or other of his vessels may, 

 indeed, actually burst; and so destroy him, by bleed- 

 ing from the lungs, or some other active and deadly 

 haemorrhage. What warranty have you that your 

 constitution is not one of this kind ? 



We arrive, therefore, at this inevitable conclusion, 



