civilization of a people one main means is the improvement of their
skies.

The disorders of the body may disorder the whole range of our moral
perceptions, and prepare the way for an outburst of the most evil
passions. A man whose constitution is ruined by a course of dissipation
is more easily led to extremes than one who has kept his body as it
should be kept. This is, indeed, the horrible plan of those who destroy
our youths, and that father of robbers must have known man well, who
said, "We must destroy both body and soul." Catiline was a profligate
before he became a conspirator, and Doria greatly erred when he thought
he had no cause to fear a voluptuary like Fiesco. On the whole, it is
very often remarked that an evil spirit dwells in a sick body.

In diseases this sympathy is still more striking. All severe illnesses,
especially those of malignant nature and arising from the economy of the
abdominal regions, announce themselves, more or less, by a strange
revolution in the character. Even while the disease is still silently
stealing through the hidden corners of our mechanism, and undermining the
strength of nerve, the mind begins to anticipate by dark forebodings the
fall of her companion. This is a main element in that condition which a
great physician described in a masterly manner under the name of
"Horrores." Hence their moroseness of disposition, which none can
account for, their wavering fancies and inclinations, their disgust at
what used to give them pleasure. The amiable man grows quarrelsome, the
merry man cross, and he who used to lose himself, and gladly, in the
bustle of the world, flies the face of man and retires into a gloomy
melancholy. But underneath this treacherous repose the enemy is making
ready for a deadly onslaught. The universal disturbance of the entire
mechanism, when the disease once breaks forth, is the most speaking proof
of the wonderful dependence of the soul on the body. The feeling,
springing from a thousand painful sensations, of the utter ruin of the
organism, brings about a frightful mental confusion. The most horrible
ideas and fancies rise from their graves. The villain whom nothing could
move yields under the dominant power of mere animal terror. Winchester,
in dying, yells in the anguish of despair. The soul is under a terrible
necessity, it would seem, of snatching at whatever will drag it deeper
into darkness, and rejects with obstinate madness every ray of comfort.