Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. PHYSICAL EDUCATION. THE LAWS OF HEALTH. If man is ever to be elevated to the highest and happiest condition which his nature will permit, it must be, in no small degree, by the improvement—I might say, the redemption—of his physical powers. But knowledge on any subject must precede improvement.—Alcott. Physical and moral health are as nearly related as the body and the soul.—Hufeland's Art of Prolonging Life. If the reader is persuaded that the views presented in the last chapter on the importance of physical education are truthful—and they are concurred in by physiologists generally—he will naturally desire to become acquainted with the laws of health, that, by yielding obedience to them, he may improve his physical condition, and most successfully promote his intellectual and moral well-being. I might, then, here refer to some of the many excellent treatises on this subject; but I shall probably better accomplish the object for which this work has been undertaken by presenting, within as narrow limits as practicable, a summary of these laws. In every department of nature, waste is invariably the result of action. In mechanics, we seek to reduce the waste consequent upon action to the lowest possible degree ; but to prevent it entirely is beyond the power of man. Every breath of wind that passes over the surface of the earth, modifies the bodies with which it comes in contact. The great toe of the bronze statue of Saint Peter at Rome has been reduced, it is said, tc less than half its original size by the successive kisses of the faithful. In dead or inanimate matter, the destructive influence of action is constantly forced upon our attention by every thing passing around us, and so much human ingenuity is exercised to counteract its effects that no...