Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-04-12

Every living thing, vegetable or animal.
commences its existence with Discriminate
stock OF vitality. The tiny mushroom, which
completes its growth in a single hour and In
the darkness of night; the stalwart oak, whose
rugged branches battle with the tempests of a
thousand years; the microscopic infusoria.
five hundred millions of which find ample
room in drop of water; the huge elephant of
the forest, and the monster leviathan of the
deep--all start in the race of life as a mere
speck of organized matter, develop within the
limits of pre-ordained and invariable law,
mature. decay, and die.
The life-principle is inherent not ACQUIRED.
1t is exhaustible but unreplenishable. 1t may
be expended more or less rapidly, but can
never be regained. When once wasted or de-
stroyed, it is lost forever. And thus, as the
vital machinery is used or abused, will the
lamp of life hold out to burn, or the organism
prematurely perish.
The theory of longevity. in the light of
these premises, becomes exceedingly simple
Philosophers have seldom looked al this sub
ject from the right standpoint While the
needless masses of men have been hurrying,
and worrying, and stimulating themselves out
of health, and eating and drinking. and chew
ing and smoking, and rioting themselves into
untlmely graves, the thinking few have been
gathering statistics to show where, when, and
under what circumstances long life is to be
found. In this investigation external influences
have been too much dwelt upon, while inter-
nal conditions and personal habits have been
too little regarded.
The health, and vigor, and endurance of al
most all persons depend vastly more on per-
sOnal habits and conduct, than on occupation,
climate, atmospheric vicissitudes, and ther-
mOmetrical or barometrical variations.
The world is full of disease, because people
are everywhere recklessly and ignorantly
wasting their vital energies The man who
will hoard his money in bank, or invest it in
permanent securities, so carefully guarded
that no one. himself not excepted, can eXpend
more than the accumulated interest, will haz-
ard his whole fund of life in the schemes of a
single year. the qualifications of day. or the
pleasures of an hour. Need we wonder that
SO many who on Monday morning go to their
business avOcatiOns, in the pride of Success
and in the prime of manhood, before Saturday
evening sleep the sleep that knows no wax
ing?'
Infants are still-born /; children are death
struck with spasm or a CONFUSION; youth
and mddle-age fall down lifeless. like with
cred summer leaves. after the lOcusts have de-
youred their vital sap; all over the land the
sable hearses are hurriedly conveying the
1" earl Y dead y to the :" narrow house" Not
one in thousand dies natural death, or
reaches the period of old age. Scarcely one
in hundred arrives at the full maturity of
middle life.
Why should the human being die in the very
act of being born? Why perish in the full
flush of life? Why crnmble to dust in five, or
ten, or fifty years, when nature has provided
capital for three-score and ten, or for an
hundred and twenty years? Learned doctors,
can you answer why it is?
Man is not less tenacious of life than the
lower animals. Nay, his powers for selfpre-
Ill L.
ings precisely in the ratio that his structures,
and organs, and functions, and relations are
more complicated and more exalted. He
should be the most healthy. the most vigorous,
the most enduring, instead of the feeblest, and
frailest, and sickliest creature on the earth.
He is so naturally. And the reason that he
is not so practically is, because he wastes his
vital energies abusively instead of employing
them usefnlly. If in precOcious pleasures, or
in dissipation, or in stimulation, or in excuses
of any kind, or in unphysiological habits of
any sort, he overdraws his account of vitality
to-day, he must make it good Tomorrow. If
in the hot pursuit of immediate advantages;
if in the fast living and feverish eXcitements
of this year, he eXpend the next years fund of
life, when the next year comes he will find
nature a most memorable accountant. She
will not be cheated with fictitious signatures,
nor defrauded by false entries. lie must square
ms tohye. OF Ue Inc lOIlneT lie can not 40.
The latter he can not help doing.
If the people of this generation waste an
amount ofvitality which. properly used, would
suffice for two or three generations, the next
generation must begin its course of life with
greatly diminished capital. Conscious of
its inherent weakness, it will resort to artificial
means, to eXcitants, stimulants, etc. to pro-
woke the sensation of strength, and thus dis
ordere and destruction will be superadded TO
debility. 1t is in this way that Persia, Egypt.
Rome, and Greece-each in turn the sfmpasS
aud the umpire of the world-so rapidly de-
generated aud so ingloriously persisted. In
this way. too, are China, Turkey, Spain Portu-
gal and Mexico now in the process of dis
Indignation. 10 this way, ere long, will power
full russia, enlightened France and Britain,
and civilized Italy, Austria, Prussia, and a
score of lesser kingdoms, become eventually
what Persia, and Egypt, and Rome, and
Greece are now, unless higher education and
physiological revolution shall intcrpose for
their salvation. And in this way will Ameri-
ca, so soon as her precocious development is
accomplished, deteriorate with a rapidity
proportional to her marvellous growth unless
before her summit of power and glory is
achieved, the great masses of her people shall
learn, and practice upon, the principle of
using the God-given powers of life, without
abusing then.-Lite Illustrated.