nd also through keeping the blood stream pure
and unclogged, almost absolutely free from surfeit matter. A rested
stomach will get more nutriment out of a small amount of food-stuff
than an overworked stomach will get out of a much larger quantity. But
experimentation which is sudden and covers a few weeks only, is worse
than useless, as it tends to disprove the very principles that a saner
method of experimentation would probably establish. And if I can
impress this fact upon the reader I shall have performed a good
service.

Carefully undertaken, and properly graduated, I believe there are few
people in these days who would not greatly benefit by a reduction in
the number of meals and in the quantity of food they take. By means of
a healthy and cheerful habit of introspection--not morbid and
feverish--I am firmly convinced that by cutting down their meals most
people would not only greatly improve their health, but their mental
and spiritual condition as well, and also greatly increase their
capacity for work ... And if in this way we can effect such an
improvement in our life and condition it does not really matter
whether we get to the two or even one meal basis or not.

As to myself, my work is chiefly literary and my life moderately
sedentary. But the fact is that I now have two moderate meals a day
whereas I used to have four pretty good ones. But I have many friends
whose work is mechanical, and demands much muscular energy, who are
two-mealists. One lady I know, who is one of the healthiest, strongest
and best physically developed persons I have ever met, is a
two-mealist, and not only does she work at a mechanical occupation for
ten hours a day, but on several evenings each week conducts a ladies
gymnastics class as well. But in her case, as in mine, the two meal
was an ideal that was gradually and slowly attained, and not a sudden
reform. Indeed, the main thing to remember is that it is all a matter
of training, it being quite impossible to say where the limit is. For
of one thing I am quite sure--viz. that most people, were they to
adopt a slow process of food and meals reduction, on the lines I
suggested in my article, would be astonished at the result. The number
of people one meets, chiefly among those whose life is more or less
sedentary, who say they can't work as they should, are subject to
pains and heaviness in the head, constipation and indigestion, is
simply appalling; and on questioning such peo