Popular Lectures on Zoonomia: Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and DiseaseGarnett, Thomas
Science
Popular Lectures on Zoonomia: Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease
Garnett, Thomas
Physiology
Though these complaints originate from a deficiency of stimulus, yet
it is very seldom from a deficiency of the common stimulant powers.
The only people, who in general labour under this deficiency of the
common stimulants, are the poor; they are seldom troubled with
nervous complaints; their daily exercise, and constant attention to
procure common necessaries, prevent their feeling what so grievously
afflicts the rich and luxurious. These complaints arise chiefly from
a deficiency of mental stimuli. The most common cause of them, and
whose effects are the most difficult to remove, is to be looked for
in the mind.
The passions and emotions, when exercised with moderation, and kept
within proper bounds, are the sources of life and activity; without
these precious affections, we should be reduced to a kind of
vegetation, equally removed from pleasure and from pain. For want of
these elastic springs, the animal spirits lose their regularity and
play; life becomes a lethargic sleep, and we fall into indifference
and languor.
If then the passions are so necessary to the support of the health of
the body, when in a proper degree, can we expect, that when they are
inordinate or excessive, or even deficient, we shall escape with
impunity? tumultuous passions are like torrents, which overflow their
bounds, and tear up every thing before them; and mournful experience
convinces us, that these effects of the mind are easily communicated
to the body. We ought, therefore, to be particularly on our guard
against their seduction.
"'Tis the great art of life to manage well
The restless mind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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