his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter
of them generally changes the name of labour for that of exercise, but
differs only from ordinary labour as it rises from another motive.

A country life abounds in both these kinds of labour, and for that
reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more
perfect enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the
body as a system of tubes and glands, or to use a more rustic phrase, a
bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful
a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. This
description does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, veins,
nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a
composition of fibres, that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes
interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers.

This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its
niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labour is for
the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and
agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as
well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of
which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and
lasting tone. Labour or exercise ferments the humours, casts them into
their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in
those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its
vigour, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties
of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination
untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper
exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union