r
than brawny arms with their nerves severed could wield a sledge, I began
a study of digestion with new interest, with a view to save power from
undue waste.

It is the _sense of relish_, of flavor, that is behind all the woes of
indigestion, and not the sense of hunger. The sweetened foods; the pies,
cakes, puddings, etc., that are eaten merely from a sense of relish
after the sense of hunger has become fully sated, and generally by far
more of the plainer foods than waste demands, is the wrecking sin at all
but the humblest tables.

_Rapid eating_, by which there is imperfect solution of the tougher
solids and a filling of the stomach before the hunger sense can
naturally be appeased, is the additional evil to insure serious
consequences to the stomach and brain.

For merely _practical purposes_, all that is necessary to know about the
digestive process is that by a peculiar arrangement of the muscle forces
of the stomach the food is made to revolve in such a way as to wipe the
exuding digestive juice from the walls; that, therefore, the finer the
division of the solids by mastication the more rapid the solution to the
absorbing condition. That meat in finer particles will sooner dissolve
than meat in large, solid masses is clearly seen.

It will be recalled that digestive conditions are really soul
conditions, as if there were actual wires extending from the very depths
of the soul itself to each individual gland, with power to ebb and flow
as the mental condition shall determine.

It may be presumed that _power_ to digest is the power to revolve food
in the stomach and the power to generate the gastric juice as determined
by the power of the brain, the glands themselves not holding their juice
in mere reserve, but power to generate in reserve. Thus it is seen that
food in excess is in every way exhaustive as the immediate result.

These may be called the subjective conditions of digestion. Now let us
consider some of the objective conditions from the standpoint of moral
science. What the sunshine of a warm day is to all growing things on the
earth, so is that shining seen in other faces that reaches the depths of
the human soul with brightness and life.

_Overeating_ is so universal from the general ignorance of practical
physiology that few stomachs have a time for a full clearing with the
needed rest before the time of another filling arrives. It is therefore
a matter of sheer necessity not only to attain