108 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cise of the whole system, I may glance at the lessons to be gathered 

 from the exjierience of exploring expeditions in unhealthy countries. 

 The first to succumb are porters, guides, muleteers, private soldiers 

 and sailors, etc. Next come military and naval officers, while the doc- 

 tor, the botanist, the geologist, etc., hold out to the last, their sole ad- 

 vantage being a more thorough exercise of the whole system, muscle 

 and brain alike. 



Dr. Beard gives another reason for the longevity of the clergy 

 their comparative freedom from anxiety. This is the critical point to 

 decide whether brain-work shall be healthful or harmful. Let a man 

 work knowing that his livelihood is secure that it is indifferent whether 

 he completes any given task this month or this time six months and 

 no amount of study will harm him. But tell him that he must com- 

 plete some task by a given date under penalty of dismissal, or that his 

 prospects in life depend on his passing an examination better than a 

 score of competitors, and the probability is that his studies will bring 

 on softening of the brain, heart-diseases, or perhaps Bright's disease. 



Dr. Beard formally admits that " worry is the one great shortener 

 of life under civilization, and, of all forms of worry, financial is the 

 most frequent and the most distressing." Hence the differences be- 

 tween his views and mine are very much smoothed over, and we must 

 take in a " Pickwickian sense " his declaration elsewhere that " brain- 

 work is the highest of all antidotes to worry." 



He brings forward yet another reason for the longevity of clergy- 

 men "their superior temperance and morality." That such superi- 

 ority, if it exists, will have an influence in favor of health and long 

 life, I readily admit. But it is very doubtful whether they are in this 

 respect superior to other brain-workers. In the career of the scientist 

 mutinous passions are simply crowded out. For him the struggles 

 with temptation, of which the ethicists tell us, have simply no exist- 

 ence. How it may be among those brain-workers who move in a more 

 emotional sphere, I can not presume to say. 



Dr. Beard's contention that the brain-worker is, as a class, happier 

 than the muscle-worker, is very questionable. He asks : " Where is the 

 hod-carrier that finds joy in going up and down a ladder ; and, from 

 the foundation of the world until now, how many have been known to 

 persevere in ditch-digging or sewer-laying, or in any mechanical or 

 manual calling whatsoever, after the attainment of independence ? " 

 Such persons, I think, might be found. Many of these manual occu- 

 pations would, as far as I can judge, seem happier than a life spent at 

 the merchant's desk or at the exchange. If the man of business "con- 

 tinues to work in his special calling long after the necessity has ceased," 

 it is because he has been trained to believe that accumulation of wealth 

 is the whole duty of man. "Nearly all the money of the world," says 

 Dr. Beard, " is in the hands of brain-workers." This may be true ; 

 yet, at the same time, many of the hardest and most capable brain- 



