Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![of sleep, as well as of otlier appetites. He states that sleeji is more easy and more salutary, in proportion as we go tc rest and rise every day at the same hours; and observes thai this periodicity seems to have a reference to the motions oi the solar system. Now, how should such a reference be at first established in the constitution of man, animals, and plants, and trans- mitted from one generation of them to another ? If we sup- pose a wise and benevolent Creator, by whom all the parts of nature were fitted to their uses and to each other, this is what we might expect and understand. On any other sup- position, such a fact appears altogether incredible and in- conceivable.* BECKONING DISTANCE BY TIME. In Oriental countries, it has been the custom from the earliest ages to reckon distances by time, rather than by anj direct reference to a standard of measure, as is commonly reckoned in the present day. In the Scriptures Ave find dis- tances described by a day's journey, three days'journey, and other similar expressions. A day's journey is supposed to have been equal to about thirty-three British statute miles, and denoted the distance that could be performed without any extraordinary fatigue by a foot-passenger; a Sabbath day's journey was peculiar to the Jews, being equal to rather less than one statute mile. It may not be in exact accordance with our habits of thought, and usual forms oi expression, thus to describe distances by time; yet it seems to possess some advantages. A man knowing nothing oi the linear standards of measure employed in foreign coun- tries, would receive no satisfactory information on being told that a particular city, or town, was distant from another a certain number of milesf or leagues,]; as the case might happen to be. But if he were told that such city or town was distant from another a certain number oi hours or clays, there would be something in the account that would com- * Abridged from Whewell's Bridgwater Treatise. t In Holland a mile is nearly equal to three and three-quarters; in G-ermany it is rather more than four and a half; and in Switzerland it is about equal to five and three-quarters British miles. % A league in France is equal to two and three-quarters; in Spain to four ; in Denmark to four and three-quarters; in Switzerland to five and a half; and in Sweden to six and three-quarters British miles.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081244_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
