Digestion and Sleep are less perfect--the restorative process more and more fails to keep pace with the consuming process--the body is insufficiently repaired, more easily deranged, and with more difficulty brought into adjustment again; till at length the vital power being diminished, and the organs deteriorated,--Nourishment can neither be received, or prepared and diffused through the constitution--and Consumption so much exceeds Renovation, that decay rapidly closes the scene of Life.
One may form some Idea of _the Self-consumption of the human body_, by reflecting that the pulsation of the Heart, and the motion of the Blood connected with it, takes place 100,000 times every day; _i. e._ on an average
the pulse[21] beats 70 times in a minute, multiplied by 60 minutes in an hour, ---- 4200 24 hours in a day, ----- 16800 8400 ------ 100800 pulsations in a day.
What Machine, of the most adamantine material, will not soon be the worse for wear, from such incessant vibration--especially if the Mainsprings of it are not preserved in a state of due regulation?
The generative faculties, which are the last that Nature finishes--are the first that fail.--Economy in the exercise of them--especially before and after the second period of Life--is the grand precept for the restoration and accumulation of Strength, the preservation of Health, and the prolongation of Life;--we are vigorous, in proportion to the perfection of the performance of the Restorative process, _i. e._ as we Eat hearty, and Sleep soundly--as our Body loses the power of renovating itself, in like ratio, fails its faculty of creating--what may be a salutary subduction of the superfluous health of the Second--during the Third period of life, will be a destructive sacrifice of the strength of both the Mind and the Body.--See also the 9th chapter of the _First_ Edition of WILLICH _on Diet_. 8vo. 1799.
The next organical defect, (we perceive too plainly for our self-love to mistake it,) is manifested by THE EYE[22]. To read a small print--you must remove it from the Eye further than you have been accustomed to do--and place it in a better light.
The FALSETTO Voice now begins to fail, and THE EAR loses some of its quickness--several extraordinary Musicians have been able till then, if a handful of the keys of a Harpsichord were put down so as to produce the most irrelative combinations--to name each half note without a mistake.--When I mentioned this to that excellent Organ Player, Mr. Charles Wesley, he said, "At the age of twenty, I could do it myself--but I can't now." He was then in his 55th year.