Wesley Corpus

And yet it is the source of more nervous disorders than even intem perance in food; I mean, intemperance in sleep; the sleeping longer than nature requires. This alone will account for the weak nerves of most of our Nobility and Gentry. Not that I would insist upon the old rule, - Sex horas quivis poscit, septemque scholaris; Octo viator habet; nebulo quisque novem.” I would allow between six and seven hours, at an average, to a healthy man; or an hour more, between seven and eight hours, to an unhealthy man. And I do not remember, that in threescore years I have known either man or woman who laid longer in bed than this, (whether they slept or no,) but in some years they complained of lowness of spirits. The plain reason of which seems to be, while we sleep all the springs of nature are unbent. And if we sleep longer than is sufficient, they are relaxed more than is sufficient, and of course grow weaker and weaker. And if we lie longer in bed, though without sleep, the very posture relaxes the whole body; much more when we are covercd up with clothes, which throw back on the body whatever perspires. from it. By this means it is stewed in the moist vapour: It * Thus paraphrastically translated by an anonymous writer in the Arminian Magazine : “Six hours for sleep the human frame requires; IIard students may to seven incline; To eight, the men whom toil or travelling tires; But lazy knaves will all have nine.”-ED 1 r. sucks in again what nature has cast out, and the flesh is, as it were, parboiled therein, and becomes more and more soft and flabby; and the nerves suffer at least as much hereby as any other part of the habit. I cannot therefore but account this, the lying too long in bed, the grand cause of our nervous disorders. 8. And this alone sufficiently answers this question, “Why are we more nervous than our forefathers?” Because we lie longer in bed: They, rich and poor, slept about eight, when they heard the curfew-bell, and rose at four; the bell ringing at that hour (as well as at eight) in every parish in England. We rise (if not obliged to work for our living) at ten, eleven, or twelve.