12 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of red wine a day for a period of something like 60 years, from 38 years of age to about 97, and had vigorous health during the time except when he transgressed his rule.  Of course, he was not a hard physical worker—­i.e. he did not do the work of a navvy.  But how, in view of these differences, can M.D. say:  “These quantities were settled by physiologists many years ago, and no good reasons have since been adduced for altering them”?  It is amazing to me to read such a statement.  It reminds me of a statement by a distinguished physician in London during last year to the effect that we could not give a growing schoolboy too much food—­we could not over-feed him.  My opinion, on the other hand, after a long experience, during which time my eyes have not been shut, is that the large majority of the diseases of humanity are due to mal-nutrition and that the form of that mal-nutrition is over-feeding—­not under-feeding.  This opinion should be taken for what it is worth.  But to test it we should ask ourselves:  What is the reason for the necessity to take food into the body?  Is it to give strength and heat to the body?  Or is it to restore the waste of the body sustained by the action on it of the force of life or zoo-dynamic which inhabits it?  The demands for food will vary and vary much according to the way in which we answer this question.  As you allowed me to discuss this question in Healthy Life in July and August of last year I must not take up your space by discussing it again.  But the answer we give determines the amounts of food that we require to take, since, obviously, if the strength and heat of the body depend upon the food, the more food we take the more strength and heat shall we have; while, if the function of food in the adult or grown body is only to restore the waste of the body, the question is how much is the waste.  There are various ways in which this question can be answered and I cannot go into them now; but I say, in my opinion, the waste is very much less than is commonly supposed.  The body, I take it, is made by zoo-dynamic or the life-force to be a fit habitation for itself.  The body must waste when the life-force acts through it, and that waste must be restored by food and sleep, or the body will die; since things (the body) cannot act as the medium of conveying forces (zoo-dynamic or the life-force) without wasting under their action.  But so beautifully has the body been made by zoo-dynamic that it wastes very little, much less than is commonly supposed, by the action of zoo-dynamic through it.  Not seeing this, we ingest into the body far more than is required to restore its waste, and so we fall ill, for, obviously, if we ingest more than the quantity necessary for this purpose we choke the body up and render it inefficient for its purpose as an instrument for work.

Now this is precisely what seems to me to happen in life.  As we are all under the double