EDITOR'S TABLE. 



843 



way we see how natural it is that they 

 should act in unison, the first revealing 

 more and more of tlie beauty and order 

 of the world, the second giving its sanc- 

 tion and aid to what we may call the 

 transcendent effort and impulse of the 

 human mind. In view of this common 

 ministry of blessing how petty seem 

 all the disputes of the past! Let us 

 hope that we have heard nearly the last 

 of them, and that, henceforth, as the 

 poet says : 



" Mind and heart, aceording: well, 

 May make one music as before. 

 But vaster." 



A DISEASE OF MODEBN LIFE. 



In a recent number of the Contem- 

 porary Eeview Prof. T. Clifford Allbutt 

 discusses in a very interesting and in- 

 structive manuer the question whether, 

 as commonly alleged, nervous diseases 

 are much more prevalent in the present 

 day than they were a generation or two 

 ago. Ilis conclusion is that such is not 

 the case. He disputes, in the first 

 place, the statistics which seem to show 

 that insanity is greatly on the increase ; 

 and, in the second place, maintains 

 that in a great many cases in which the 

 nervous system is affected the trouble 

 is not primarily nervous at all : the 

 nerves have been implicated through 

 disorder in other regions of the body. 

 He believes that some of the condi- 

 tions of city life are unfavorable to 

 the health and vigor of the so-called 

 laboring classes ; but he thinks that, on 

 the whole, tliere is a marked increase 

 of vitality and power in the more fa- 

 vored classes. " I do not hesitate to 

 say " we take pleasure in quoting this 

 encouraging statement "that when I 

 look back upon the young men and 

 women of forty and thirty years ago, I 

 am amazed rather at the physical splen- 

 dor and dashing energy of our young 

 friends of to-day. The world seems to 

 have filled with Apollos and Dianas; 

 cheap food and clothing, improved sani 

 tation, athletics that bring temperance 



with them, frequent changes of air and 

 scene, and a more scientific regulation 

 of all habits, seem since my adolescence 

 to have transformed middle-class youth, 

 and the change is rapidly spreading 

 downward." Women, the professor 

 says further, seem especially to be 

 changed for the better. "Freedom to 

 live their own lives and the enfranchise- 

 ment of their faculties in a liberal edu- 

 cation, which, physically put, means the 

 development of their brains and nerves, 

 seem not only to have given them new 

 charms and fresher and wider interests 

 in life, but also to have promoted in 

 them a more rapid and continuous flow 

 of nervous spirits, and to have warmed, 

 and animated thera with a new vitality 

 both of body and mind." The profess- 

 or is eloquent, but no one will affirm 

 that on such a theme eloquence is mis- 

 placed. The question may now be 

 asked. If there is so much cause for 

 congratulation in the physical and men- 

 tal condition of the present generation, 

 where do we find the darker lines of 

 the picture? Our headline speaks of A 

 Disease of Modern Life. What is it ? 



The disease of modern life which 

 Prof. Allbutt recognizes is lack of self- 

 control. It is not that nerves are too 

 excitable their business is to be excit- 

 able, he remarks but that a certain 

 power of what may be called inhibition 

 is largely lacking. What is wanted is 

 not that there should be less sensibility, 

 but that sensibility should not be con- 

 fined so much as it is to the external 

 parts of our nature. Let sensibility be 

 more profound, and the whole man will 

 be a gainer. We can not do better, 

 however, than quote the professor's 

 own words : "As we become more and 

 more able to subordinate the impres- 

 sions of the moment, and compare them 

 with our stores of previous impressions, 

 we learn that momentary realities, keen 

 as they are, must take their places in 

 the larger sequences of that beautiful 

 instrument which harmonizes our joys 

 and resolves our discords ; we learn 



