ABSTINENCE. 



In animals, especially those species of thorn which 

 are the most familiar to our observation, the effects 

 of abstinence are better known ; though even these 

 are so varied in different species, that it is not easy to 

 generalise them. As an animul, at least one of the 

 warm-blooded classes, is a much more complicated 

 organisation than a vegetable, it follows, as a matter of 

 course, that both abstinence and its opposite must have 

 more effect upon the animal system. Abstinence 

 in the young or growing stage will, as a matter of course, 

 diminish the si/.e of the animal, just as a thin and hungry 

 soil diminishes the size of a plant. But the opposite 

 treatment cannot carry the opposite effect to the same 

 extent in the animal kingdom as in the vegetable. 

 The reason of this will at once become obvious, when 

 it is considered that the food of the plant, whether 

 obtained through the medium of the soil or the air, is 

 taken immediately into the substance of the plant by 

 absorption; while, of the food of the animal, it is the 

 liquid portion only which is absorbed, and that too 

 but in part ; and also that the part absorbed, if it 

 exceed a certain limit, injures the power of assimilat- 

 ing the rest of the food, and thus produces some of 

 the effects of unhealthy abstinence. Fat, animals are 

 not the most ravenous eaters, whether the eating take 

 place at long or at short intervals. 



When the health, comfort, and activity of the indi- 

 vidual are the objects, which is the case with men, 

 and with all the working animals, an accurate know- 

 ledge and judicious use of the principle of abstinence 

 are of the very first importance ; for if the simple or- 

 ganisation of the vegetable can be so acted upon by 

 excess of food as that one part of its system shall get 

 the better of the other parts, and produce one of the 

 natural components or products in much greater 

 abundance than the others, much more must it happen 

 with animals, and < specially with those of the more 

 complicated organisations. 



The food of the animal, even during the period of 

 its growth, goes to replace the waste of the body as 

 well as to increase its volume. The digestive power 

 consequently requires more frequent supplies during 

 the period of growth than after the body has attained 

 its full dimensions ; but though the supplies require 

 to he more frequent, there is even more danger of 

 excess than where the body has attained maturity, 

 because the same decree of gluttony, which emaciates 

 the body and takes the colour of health out of the 

 cheek in after life, as certainly both stunts and deforms 

 the irrowing subject. Nor is that all ; for, from what 

 has been slated of the excessive action of one part of 

 the system diminishing that of all the rest, the pam- 

 pered youth must, as matter of course, grow up, as 

 one would say, " brainless in science, and handless in 

 art." When young people have free range in the 

 open air, they make solid bones and firm flesh upon 

 even abundant feeding, just as trees on a rich soil 

 make trood timber, when the breeze of heaven plays 

 freely around them ; but it sometimes happens that 

 the good feeding is purchased by the sacrifice of that 

 exercise which would render it wholesome ; and then 

 they necessarily UTOW up much in the same manner 

 as poles in those thick plantations where they are 

 choaked and etiolated by their own closeness, and will 

 not last for even a year when they are put to the test 

 a< timber. 



In old age, when the power of assimilating has be- 

 gun to fail in proportion to that of absorption, and 

 there is a tendency in the body to take up its own 



NAT. HIST. VOL. 1. 



matter in the circulation, abstinence has a direct ten- 

 dency to increase the evil ; and it does so the more 

 as, at that period of life, the feeling of hunger is not 

 so vigilant a monitor as when the system is in a more 

 vigorous state. Hunger is the call for assimilation, 

 not for absorption ; and as the absorption is the more 

 energetic of the two at that age, a partial inroad may 

 be made upon the system before hunger becomes 

 keen. It has been remarked, that old men who do 

 not eat except at long intervals, sooner become bent 

 in the spine, and stiffened in the joints, than those who 

 do not eat more on the whole, but do it more fre- 

 quently. 



Throughout: the whole of animated nature, it is a 

 law that those animals which can bear the most co- 

 pious feeding at one time, can also bear the longest 

 abstinence ; but it is also accompanied by another 

 law, that where there is the most intense action, there 

 must be the greatest: supply of food to maintain that 

 action. Something, too, depends on the nature of the 

 food. Animals which feed upon leaves continue eat- 

 ing during the greater part of the day ; those that feed 

 upon seeds eat less frequently ; those that feed upon 

 other animals less so ; and the preyers on warm- 

 blooded animals the least of any. But in all these, the 

 amount of quietude and repose after the meal obtained 

 are always in proportion to the power of abstinence. 

 The more powerful of the predatory animals, whether 

 mammalia or birds, are never found sporting. When 

 their hunger is appeased, they lay themselves down 

 to rest the lion stretches himself in his den, the eagle 

 squats on her ledge, or rests balanced on her pinnacle, 

 and all the weaker animals are at peace, or at least in 

 freedom and safety, till the lord of the desert or the 

 queen of the cliff again comes forth to feed. 



These general observations, which can be much 

 better expanded into their particular details in treating 

 of those animals of which they are characteristic, tend 

 to show how very beautifully all the parts of nature 

 work together. In man, we find that the years of his 

 life, during which he can bear the most hearty meal 

 and the longest abstinence, are also those in which he 

 is called upon to perform the duties of life with the 

 greatest energy and the least interruption; and that 

 as we look nearer either to the commencement of life 

 or its close, we find that this feebleness of the system 

 of the body is indicated by the more frequent calls for 

 nourishment. In the predatory animals again, the re- 

 pose after they are fed gives peace and safety to the 

 rest of the creatures ; and the lion spares the Hocks on 

 which he feeds as much, and nearly from a similar 

 cause, as man does, though in the case of the lion it is 

 merely an instinct of the animal, yet it is as much a 

 law of his nature as his other habits, or even his form ; 

 while with man it is matter of reason and expe- 

 rience. 



There are many very interesting points in the na- 

 tural history of particular animals closely connected 

 with the powers which these have of enduring absti- 

 nence ; but they either belong to the peculiar organi- 

 sations of the species in which they are manifested, or 

 they are ofaclimatal or seasonal nature, and as such 

 can lie noticed with more advantage in the article 

 HYBERNATION, and in those on the seasons during 

 which they take place. There are also many singula" 

 instances of abstinence in human beings, some of then 

 what are called voluntary and others involuntary, sonir 

 well authenticated and others doubtful ; but though 

 these, to a certain extent, show the flexibility of the 

 C 



