None of the sentiments and maxims of M. Droz have been more severely censured than those of the succeeding paragraphs. I am as little disposed to inculcate an indolent philosophy, as any other person. These views seem peculiarly unfitted for the genius of our country, where everything respires, as it ought, energy, industry, a fixed purpose and a keen pursuit. That such are the requirements of our institutions is a truth too strongly forced upon us by the order of everything in our country, to require any other proof. I would be the last person to feel disposed to recommend a philosophy, which would tend to quench that busy and daring spirit which is the most striking characteristic of our nation. No elevation or opulence among us can dispense with a definite pursuit. So forcibly is every citizen reminded of this, by all he sees about him, that without a pursuit, no one among us can sustain his own self-respect. He, who courts seclusion and retirement, on the principles of the author is obliged, even in his retirement, to keep himself engaged. He must devote himself to agriculture, manufactures, or some other absorbing pursuit.
It is hardly necessary to add that no American is in danger of subscribing to his disqualifying views of the law, or any other profession. A freeman ought to hold, that he can confer respectability upon whatever pursuit circumstances may impel him to follow. Happily, no harm would result, in our country, from the dislike of the author to the law. By what seems to me an unhappy general consent among us, the law is absorbing in the temptations that it offers to our young men. It is the prescribed avenue to all honor and place. All our functionaries must have passed into the temple of power and fame through this portico. Hence it is, and probably long will be thronged by a great corps of supernumeraries. I would certainly be the last, not to think respectfully of the profession; but still I dislike to see so many of our aspiring young men crowding into it, to meet inevitable disappointment.
But critics will moderate their strictures upon the author, when they call to mind, that although there is no such class, as people of leisure in our country, it constitutes a great and powerful one in France; perhaps greater in proportion, than any other country. The chief application of these paragraphs must be to men of that condition, of whom the better class make literature at once their amusement and pursuit. For such, these are, probably, the wisest and best precepts that could be given. The whole of that part of this chapter, which inculcates an inactive retirement, is altogether calculated for another meridian, than that of our country. I have entirely omitted some of the passages, as not only of erroneous general tendency, but altogether inapplicable to any order of things among us. But admitting this, and a few other trifling exceptions, I have been astonished at the charges which have been brought against the moral tendency of the general opinions of M. Droz.
This short chapter upon health seems to me full of the soundest practical wisdom. Every one must be aware, that the wise pursuit of happiness must be preceded by the preserving of health. The wise ancients justly made the mens sana in corpore sano, to be the condition, if not the essence of human happiness. Most treatises upon health have oppressed the subject by too many, and too intricate rules. It would be difficult to add to the author’s precepts, brief as they are, so far as they relate to the moral and intellectual regimen necessary to health. I add a remark, or two, touching some physical appliances, that should be appended to the moral rules.
So far as my reading and observation extend, there are but three circumstances, which have almost invariably accompanied health and longevity. The favored persons have lived in elevated rather than in low and marshy positions; have been possessed of a tranquil and cheerful temperament, and active habits; and have been early risers.
It is related that the late King George the Third, who made the causes of longevity a subject of constant investigation, procured two persons, each considerably over a hundred years of age, to dance in his presence. He then requested them to relate to him their modes of living, that he might draw from them, if possible, some clue to the causes of their vigorous old age. The one had been a shepherd, remarkably temperate and circumspect in his diet and regimen; the other a hedger, equally noted for the irregularity, exposure, and intemperance of his life. The monarch could draw no inference, to guide his inquiries, from such different modes of life, terminating in the same result. On further inquiry, he learned, that they were alike distinguished by a tranquil easiness of temper, active habits, and early rising.
After all the learned modern expositions of the causes of dyspepsia, I suspect that not one in a thousand is aware how much temperance and moderation in the use of food conduce to health. There are very few among us who do not daily consume twice the amount of food, necessary to satisfy the requisitions of nature. The redundant portion must weigh as a morbid and unconcocted mass upon the wheels of life. Every form of alcohol is unquestionably a poison, slow or rapid, in proportion to the excess in which it is used. Disguise it is as we may, be the pretexts of indulgence as ingenious and plausible, as inclination and appetite can frame, it retains its intrinsic tendencies under every sophistication. Wine, in moderation, is, doubtless, less deleterious than any of its disguises. In declining age, and in innumerable cases of debility, it may be indicated as a useful remedy; but even here, only as a less evil to countervail a greater. Pure water, all other circumstances equal, is always a healthier beverage for common use. Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind, and active habits, I place early rising, as a means of health and happiness. I have hardly words for the estimate which I form of that sluggard, male or female, that has formed the habit of wasting the early prime of day in bed.—Laying out of the question the positive loss of life, the magna pars dempta solido de die, and that too of the most inspiring and beautiful part of the day, when all the voices of nature invoke man from his bed; leaving out of the calculation, that longevity has been almost invariably attended by early rising; to me, late hours in bed present an index to character, and an omen of the ultimate hopes of the person who indulges in this habit. There is no mark, so clear, of a tendency to self-indulgence. It denotes an inert and feeble mind, infirm of purpose, and incapable of that elastic vigor of will which enables the possessor always to accomplish what his reason ordains. The subject of this unfortunate habit cannot but have felt self-reproach, and a purpose to spring from his repose with the freshness of the dawn. If the mere indolent luxury of another hour of languid indulgence is allowed to carry it over this better purpose, it argues a general weakness of character, which promises no high attainment or distinction.—These are never awarded by fortune to any trait, but vigor, promptness and decision. Viewing the habit of late rising, in many of its aspects, it would seem as if no being, that has any claim to rationality, could be found in the allowed habit of sacrificing a tenth, and that the most pleasant and spirit-stirring portion of life, at the expense of health, and the curtailing of the remainder, for any pleasure which this indulgence could confer.
From personal experience and no inconsiderable range of observation, I am convinced that the author has by no means overrated the influence of imagination upon health and disease. It is indeed astonishing, at this late period, when every physiologist and physician is ready to proclaim his own recorded observations upon the medicinal influence of the moral powers, the passions, and especially the imagination, that so few medical men have thought it an object to employ them as elements of actual application. Hitherto these unknown and undefined powers of life and death have been in the hands of empirics, jugglers, mountebanks and pretended dispensers of miraculous healing. It is, at the same time, matter of regret, that scientific physicians, instead of questioning their undeniable cures, and pouring attempted ridicule upon them, have not separated the true from the false, and sought access to the real fountain of the efficacy of their practice, the employment of confident faith, hope, and the unlimited agency of the all pervading power of the imagination. Many physicians are sufficiently wise, and endowed with character, to exercise circumspection in giving their opinions and pronouncing upon the prognostics of their patients. They regulate their words, countenance and deportment with a caution and prudence which speak volumes in regard to their conviction of the influence which imprudence in these points might have.