The care and preservation of health is, therefore, a great act, and a great means of independence; and hygiene is thus raised to the high position of a personal and social duty. He who has been early imbued with these views may account it a real blessing. To many, in afterlife, a book or a lecture on physiology* applied to the preservation of health comes like a revelation.

Hygiene loses its high character, when it degenerates into hypochondria. We somehow feel an antipathy towards those who are over-anxious about their health; and in their case, as well as in that of others, is the saying verified, “he that loveth his life shall lose it:" the hypochondriac does lose it, for his enjoyment of life is ever corroded by anxiety.

Still hypochondria is only an abuse of hygiene, and a moderate care is of such importance, that a sickly body with a knowledge of physiology might safely be preferred to a robust constitution with ignorance of the laws of health. No doubt it is owing to the spread of physiological knowledge that an eminent statesman † can speak of these times as days of prolonged maturity. Certainly the body, instead of being abused and contemned, is now treated as an important partner, whose co-operation must be earnestly sought in any great intellectual or spiritual work.

Of all the mental dispositions that influence health favourably, cheerfulness is the most potent. Joy, hope, mirth, laughter, especially if innocent, stimulate the

* Such as the admirable book of Dr. Andrew Combe.
†The Right Hon. B. Disraeli in "Lothair."

respiration and circulation, and aid the various organs to perform all their functions smoothly and powerfully. But that kind of mirth which ends in heaviness, and in a word all the depressing passions, retard and weaken functional action, and eventually impair health. This had not escaped the wonderful observer who writes :—

"He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
And so she died: had she been light, like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might ha' been a grandam ere she died:

And so may you; for a light heart lives long." *

When we see what has been done on a great scale, we ought to take courage and try what we can do on a small scale. We have seen ague eradicated by drainage, scurvy driven away by diet, smallpox exterminated by vaccination; and this should lead us to believe in the power to prevent disease, and in the benefits which individuals may derive from acting according to the laws of health.

However, it is fated that as new helps and new blessings arise, so new dangers and new diseases follow them. Thus sanitary improvements lessen the mortality from epidemics; but owing to the excitement and competition of these times, diseases of the heart and brain have increased.t

The physician and the surgeon are deservedly in high and increasing esteem; and he who consults them is wise. At the same time one must respect them neither too much nor yet too little. Some of them exaggerate illness either to exonerate themselves from failure or to

"Love's Labour's Lost," v. 2.

+ Brit. Med. Journal (Times, Mar. 25, 1872).

magnify their cure; and others perhaps without any motive at all speak very unguardedly. When Wilberforce was about twenty-eight years of age he was very ill, and a consultation of the chief physicians of the day ended in the declaration to his family, "That he had not stamina to last a fortnight."* Yet he lived to be nearly seventy-four.

Such mistakes ought not to lead to contempt, and to a violation of their prescriptions and rules. He who does so, does it at his peril. The case of Hephæstion, Alexander's friend, illustrates the impatience of thousands. As a young man and a soldier, he could not bear to be kept to strict diet in his illness; and taking the opportunity to dine, when his physician Glaucus had gone to the theatre, he ate a roasted fowl, and drank a flagon of wine made as cold as possible; in consequence of which he grew worse, and died a few days after.

66

It is the part of an imprudent man to pay no attention to health till he is ill. Even the antiquated Ecclesiasticus knew better than this, and advises (xviii. 19) to use physic or ever thou be sick."† But a wise man nowadays knows that there are many precautions against illness besides physic, and has as much confidence and more pleasure in pure air, pure water, wholesome food, seasonable clothing, and gentle exercise; and he will attend to these more especially when he perceives that the system is falling below the healthy standard.

The Shakers, who have no doctors among them, and smile at our Gentile ailments-headaches, fevers, colds,

* Life, i. 169.

↑ Cf. also Persius, iii. 64—" venienti occurrite morbo."

and what not-take a close and scientific care of their ventilation. Every building is ventilated. Stoves warm the rooms in winter, with an adjustment delicate enough to keep the temperature for weeks within one degree of warmth. Fresh air is the Shaker medicine. "We have only had one case of fever in thirty-six years," says Antoinette: "and we are very much ashamed of ourselves for having had it; it was wholly our fault.” *

It is a common-place remark, and therefore less likely to be pondered, that we never know the value of a blessing till we have lost it; yet health unobtrusively blesses infancy, youth, and age. It is that which makes the child gleesome, the man energetic, and which makes "December smile." Health gives especially a capacity for appreciating all the good things of life. The bee sucks up sweet matter from the flower-cups, and to a healthy man who is at the same time wise all nature is full of flower-cups, and all the flower-cups full of honey.

Health improves even the physiognomy. Every one knows the pained, dejected look of the invalid; and knows as well the bright and buoyant look of the healthy. In the case of the one we are apt to pity and pass away; the other has a passport to our society and hearts at once. The human face is an index of the temper within, and health is generally allied to kindness. They co-operate with each other, and then we have

"A face with gladness overspread !

Sweet looks, by human kindness bred!"+

* Hepworth Dixon's "New America," ii. 91.
+ Wordsworth.

This is the beauty that lasts and pleases when the grace of outline and colour has passed away, and when the haughty beauty undervalues her mirror, saying: "Such as I am, I am not willing to behold myself; and such as I was once, I cannot see." ""* Still it would be a cruel mistake to assert that the face is always an index; for some people both healthy and good resemble rock crystal, dark outside, but internally iridescent. All that is maintained is that there is a close connection between the physical and the moral, and this is an old doctrine † confirmed by new science; and that generally virtue and vice write their hieroglyphics on the body as indelible as tattoo marks.

It is a higher praise of health that it makes the body an excellent instrument for the soul to work with, makes it keen, makes it strong, makes it enduring. Shakespeare says, "It is the mind that makes the body rich ;" and the converse is quite as true: It is the body that makes the mind rich; and probably fine intellectual products bear a proportion to the fine health of the brain.‡

Health is also a handmaid of religion. How much of the inhuman and unnatural religion of Mystics and Puritans may have been owing to their sedentary lives, to deranged livers, to diseased hearts. Sickness may be of use in calling the attention of the thoughtless to God,

* Greek Anthology, xc.

Westminster Selection.

† οἴκων δ' ἄρ ̓ εὐθυδίκων

καλλίπαις πότμος ἀεί.

Æsch. Agam., 761.

"Utrumque per se indigens, alterum alterius auxilio eget."

Sall. Cat., i.