MENTAL STRAIN. 487 



muscle that is not exercised becomes atrophied ; the muscle that 

 works too ranch becomes diseased. The mind that is not exer- 

 cised decays ; the mind that labors too mnch is distorted, and we 

 reach the sad result of weakening the understanding by the excess 

 of labor to which we subject it, of destroying the instrument we use. 



The philosophers of the eighteenth century extolled what they 

 vaguely called a return to the state of nature. They imagined 

 that man was primarily a perfect being, and that, as his intel- 

 lectual and social growth have gone on, he has correspondingly 

 degenerated and become vicious. Nature did well, they said, but 

 civilization made him wicked. The reverse of this, however, is 

 nearer the truth ; and if we had to look for types of moral perfec- 

 tion, we should not go among savage peoples. Neither do savages 

 excel the civilized races in vigor and health of body. But while 

 we recognize that savages are not men whose bodies and minds 

 are in a supreme condition of excellence, we have to acknowledge 

 that civilized man has singularly neglected his body, that vesture 

 to which it is necessary to attach some importance ; for, without 

 that vesture, there is no man. 



It is indeed hard to maintain the equilibrium of body and 

 mind. If we should try to lead an exclusively animal life, devoted 

 to eating, walking, sleeping, and making love, we should find 

 such existence insipid enough. We could not maintain it if we 

 would, for there are a thousand features of our present life that 

 we could not eliminate. But we can and should recommend and 

 require that a considerable place be given to physical exercise. 

 English youth, who practice passionately at cricket, cycling, and 

 canoeing, are at the same time good Hellenists, and often excel- 

 lent mathematicians. It is all the better for the mind to work, on 

 condition that the body is also exercised. A sound mind in a 

 sound body was the ancient maxim of the school of Salerno, and 

 no better formula has yet been found. Let us, then, have some 

 regard for the well-being of the body. Let us learn to keep our 

 muscles in full energy, to breathe the fresh and bracing air of the 

 mountains and the sea ; or, if these are too far away, the air of 

 the fields around our towns. By brief distractions of this kind 

 we will benefit the mind. 



The sad thing about the matter is, that it is not so much intel- 

 lectual labor, of which the mind is capable of doing a great deal, 

 as irregularities in that labor, that do the harm. We are satisfied 

 that the great workers, who have performed grand achievements 

 by genius or patience, owe their triumph less to a temporary ex- 

 cess of labor, than to continuous, regular, persevering work,* 



* Littre, one of the greatest workers that ever were, passed his whole day out of doors, 

 and never began to work till evening, at half-past seven, after dinner, and then stayed in 

 his library, bent over his books, without any relief, till about four o'clock in the morning. 



