ed by permanent inactivity, and it
becomes less fit to manifest the mental powers with readiness and
energy." It is "the withdrawal of the stimulus necessary for its healthy
exercise, which renders solitary confinement so severe a punishment,
even to the most daring minds. It is a lower degree of the same cause,
which renders continuous seclusion from society so injurious, to both
mental and bodily health."

"_Inactivity of intellect and of feeling_ is a very frequent
predisposing cause of every form of nervous disease. For demonstrative
evidence of this position, we have only to look at the numerous victims
to be found, among persons who have no call to exertion in gaining the
means of subsistence, and no objects of interest on which to exercise
their mental faculties and who consequently sink into a state of mental
sloth and nervous weakness." "If we look abroad upon society, we shall
find innumerable examples of mental and nervous debility from this
cause. When a person of some mental capacity is confined, for a long
time, to an unvarying round of employment, which affords neither scope
nor stimulus for one half of his faculties, and, from want of education
or society, has no external resources; his mental powers, for want of
exercise, become blunted, and his perceptions slow and dull." "The
intellect and feelings, not being provided with interests external to
themselves, must either become inactive and weak, or work upon
themselves and become diseased."

"The most frequent victims of this kind of predisposition, are females
of the middle and higher ranks, especially those of a nervous
constitution and _good natural abilities_; but who, from an ill-directed
education, possess nothing more solid than mere accomplishments, and
have no materials of thought," and no "occupation to excite interest or
_demand_ attention." "The liability of such persons to melancholy,
hysteria, hypochondriasis, and other varieties of mental distress,
really depends on a state of irritability of brain, induced by imperfect
exercise."

These remarks, of a medical man, illustrate the principles before
indicated;--namely, that the demand of Christianity, that we live to
promote the general happiness, and not merely for selfish indulgence,
has for its aim, not only the general good, but the highest happiness,
of the individual of whom it is required.

A person possessed of wealth, who has nothing more noble to engage his
attention, than see