pain. As a consequence of the above consideration the candidate for
Longevity at the commencement of his career must begin to eschew his
physical desires, not from any sentimental theory of right or wrong, but
for the following good reason. As, according to a well-known and now
established scientific theory, his visible material frame is always
renewing its particles; he will, while abstaining from the
gratification of his desires, reach the end of a certain period during
which those particles which composed the man of vice, and which were
given a bad predisposition, will have departed. At the same time, the
disuse of such functions will tend to obstruct the entry, in place of
the old particles, of new particles having a tendency to repeat the said
acts. And while this is the particular result as regards certain
"vices," the general result of an abstention from "gross" acts will be
(by a modification of the well-known Darwinian law of atrophy by
non-usage) to diminish what we may call the "relative" density and
coherence of the outer shell (as a result of its less-used molecules);
while the diminution in the quantity of its actual constituents will he
"made up" (if tried by scales and weights) by the increased admission of
more ethereal particles.

What physical desires are to be abandoned and in what order? First and
foremost, he must give up alcohol in all forms; for while it supplies
no nourishment, nor any direct pleasure (beyond such sweetness or
fragrance as may be gained in the taste of wine, &c., to which alcohol,
in itself, is non-essential) to even the grossest elements of the
"physical" frame, it induces a violence of action, a rush so to speak,
of life, the stress of which can only be sustained by very dull, gross,
and dense elements, and which, by the operation of the well-known law of
Re-action (in commercial phrase, "supply and demand") tends to summon
them from the surrounding universe, and therefore directly counteracts