Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/142



The principles of regeneration by natural hygiene may be summed up in Dr. Hufeland's advice, to "re-establish, as far as practicable, the conditions to which our organism became adapted during the infinite series of ages preceding the era of indoor-life and made-dishes." The human constitution—physical and moral—was never intended for the sloth of the domestic habits enforced by our sabbatharian civilization. Man's predecessors in the scale of organic evolution were the most restlessly active of all vertebrate animals. Our Darwinian cousins pass their life in the gymnasia of nature—the tree-tops of the tropical virgin-woods; their meals, courtships, and forays alternate with acrobatic exploits; they build no nests, except an occasional rain-shelter, and carry their young in their migrations from forest to forest.

Almost equally active, and even more athletic, man-like creatures inhabited this planet for a period variously estimated from 25,000 to half a