So much for the mental history of the question.

Let us say a word about the physical aspects of it.
No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, of depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, is not an increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any kind.

And in one sense this is true.

The individual who passes his life in self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime.

For this reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions condemned asceticism on the part of his followers, except within certain fixed limits.