486 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and forethought, and we should be very culpable if we did not 

 have some care for the fate of our great-great-grandchildren. 



The prominent characteristic of living beings, of whatever 

 kind, is the tendency to resemble their parents. It is fatal, irre- 

 sistible, and dominant in all biological laws. By heredity we ac- 

 quire this or that trait of our fathers, whether it be natural or 

 acquired in them. The consequence of this fact is momentous, 

 and has been admirably set forth by M. Marion in his book on 

 Moral Solidarity. It is, that our children will be the same as we 

 have been. They are our image and the faithful portrait of our- 

 selves. A vice acquired by us will become natural with them. 

 An accidental physical or moral blemish, brought on by our 

 faults, or errors, or carelessness, will become in them a natural 

 blemish, and they will transmit it to their descendants. 



Unless we are now able to preserve our mental and bodily 

 forces intact, our grandchildren will be victims to our faults. 

 They would even have the right to a certain extent to call us to 

 account for our careless conduct. " What did you do with that 

 vigorous body and healthy and sturdy mind that were given you 

 by your parents ? for it is by your fault that we are miserable and 

 sickly." The importance of the question is thus well established. 

 Since the future depends on the present, it is no less than a ques- 

 tion of the future of men. This being fixed, the query arises, 

 Is there mental overstrain ? A careful examination of the facts 

 gives us occasion to answer affirmatively. In consequence of the 

 prodigiously artificial conditions of existence which our advanced 

 civilization has imposed upon us, we have greatly modified the 

 habitual and physiological life of our organism. A close study of 

 the habits of contemporary men, such as the author of this book 

 has made, will show that nothing is less in agreement with a 

 healthy vitality than the mode of living of to-day. 



From very early years children are shut up in work-rooms for 

 many hours with tiresome books. They have no sufficient dis- 

 traction from these books, no better prospect of good to be derived 

 from them than the hope of some time passing an examination, 

 complicated, hard, and encyclopedic, of a compass surpassing 

 that of the knowledge of the wisest man that can be imagined. 

 Then, in youth there are still examinations, still hours of study, 

 still books, with only the scantiest provisions for diversion and 

 recreation, except by resorting to fatiguing dissipations. Too 

 much civilization, too much mental culture, with too little care 

 for the physical part. Do we forget that the material structure 

 is the organ of the mind, and that the mind can not maintain 

 itself in an enfeebled body ? We ought to realize that sooner or 

 later the body will avenge itself. We can not break away with 

 impunity from the laws of sound psychological hygiene. The 



