o on to speak of exercise, lest I should share the
reproach of that ancient rhetorician who,--as related by Plutarch, in
his Aphorisms,--after delivering an oration in praise of Hercules, was
startled by the satirical inquiry from his audience, whether any one
had ever dispraised Hercules. As with Hercules, so with the physical
activity he represents,--no one dispraises, if few practise it. Even
the disagreement of doctors has brought out but little skepticism on
this point. Cardan, it is true, in his treatise, "Plantae cur Animalibus
diuturniores," maintained that trees lived longer than men because
they never stirred from their places. Exercise, he held, increases
transpiration; transpiration shortens life; to live long, then, we need
only remain perfectly still. Lord Bacon fell in with this fancy, and
advised "oily unctions," to prevent perspiration. Maupertuis went
farther, and proposed to keep the body covered with pitch for this
purpose: conceive, Dolorosus, of spending threescore years and ten in
a garment of tar, without even the ornament of feathers, sitting
tranquilly in our chairs, waiting for longevity! In more recent times,
I can remember only Dr. Darwin as an advocate of sedentary living. He
attempted to show its advantages by the healthy longevity attained by
quiet old ladies in country-towns. But this is questioned by his critic,
Dr. Beddoes, who admits the longevity, but denies the healthiness;
he maintains that the old ladies are taking some new medicine every
day,--at least, if they have a physician who understands his business.

Now I will not maintain, with Frederick the Great, that all our systems
of education are wrong, because they aim to make men students or clerks,
whereas the mere shape of the body shows (so thought King Frederick)
that we are primarily designed for postilions, and should spend most of
our lives on horseback. But it is very certain that all the physical
universe takes the side of health and activity, wooing us forth into
Nature, imploring us hourly, and in unsuspected ways, to receive her
blessed breath into body and soul, and share in her eternal youth. For
this are summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, given; for this do
violet and bloodroot come, and gentian and witch-hazel go; for this do
changing sunsets make yon path between the pines a gateway into heaven;
for this does day shut us down within the loneliness of its dome of
light, and night, lifting it, make us free of