NATURE REQUIRES EXCITING EXERCISE. 245 



action, we cannot see the immorality or impropriety of so 

 far giving way to the dictates of nature as to carry our 

 pleasantries even to mirth, let our ages or professions be 

 what they way. 



773. Laughing a proper and healthful Exercise. Man 

 is the only laughing animal which the whole terrestrial 

 creation affords ; and in the young, the indulgence of this 

 natural propensity, in proper places, and under proper 

 circumstances, is universally approbated ; youth being 

 considered by all as the appropriate season of innocent 

 merriment. But there are those who look upon the action 

 of the risible muscles, as being incompatible with the 

 gravity and solemn dignity of certain ages and profes- 

 sions ; and therefore believe that such ought always to 

 suppress their lively and facetious thoughts, and expres- 

 sions, lest they should excite laughter in others, or give 

 way to it themselves. 



774. Now we have no desire that any one should do 

 violence to his conscience in this respect, but while, aside 

 from improper levity, we cannot imagine from what source 

 moral evil would come in consequence of the exercise of 

 the muscles of risibility in any human being whatever, it 

 is certain that the act of laughter conduces to the health 

 of the system, by the motion it gives to certain muscles, as 

 well as by the attendant relaxation of the mind, and there- 

 fore, as a mere secular action, is a very proper exercise for 

 people of studious and sedentary habits. 



775. The muscles concerned in moderate laughter are 

 chiefly the diaphragm, and those between the ribs, but 

 when the action becomes violent, those of the back and 

 chest are thrown into motion, and the whole frame is 

 shaken ; the lungs being at the same time alternately filled 

 with, and exhausted of air, by rapid muscular actions, 

 which sometimes amount nearly to convulsions, thus call- 

 ing into contractile motion all the muscles of the trunk, 

 and agitating the entire assemblage of the visceral organs, 

 thus, perhaps, detaching any adhesions that might be in- 

 cipient in these parts, and at any rate, giving vigor to the 

 actions of the pipes and strainers, the secreting and the 

 absorbing surfaces, the functions of which are so neces- 



21* 



