O'SHEA — ASPECTS OF MENTAL ECONOMY. 67 



plete, sees that in the matter of human perfection (which 

 means nothing more than consummate adjustment to one's so- 

 cial and natural environments) people may be aided in indi- 

 vidual cases in attaining thereunto by compliance with the nat- 

 ural laws to which harmonious adjustment is required! This 

 conception leads one to believe in the possibility of continuous 

 improvement, while at the same time holding securely to all 

 that has been accomplished, and being devoutly thankful there- 

 for. 



§3. The Educator s Concern With Cerebral Hygiene. — Such 

 a bulletin as this would doubtless not be necessary if there were 

 persons in the community whose special interest and duty it 

 was to bring the matters herein discussed in their practical 

 aspects to the attention of the people at large. But there are at 

 present few such persons in any community, and in most places 

 there are none at all. One would naturally suppose that these 

 affairs would lie within the domain of the physician; but as 

 a matter of fact physicians have hitherto been dealing largely 

 if not entirely with disease, with therapeutics, while the thing 

 we are considering is of a wholly different character. One's 

 energies may run out on the debit side for so long a time, 

 without proportionate income on the other side, that hostile 

 forces overpower him; disease seizes upon him, and then the 

 physician seeks to aid him in winning back wasted strength. 

 But it is a far cry from the highest efficiency of mind and body 

 to that disintegrated condition realized in actual disease. One 

 may be living on a low plane so far as the generation and 

 conservation of vital energy is concerned, and yet not come 

 under the eye of the physician. The M. D.'s have not yet 

 dealt largely with the subject of nutrition for healthy beings; 

 and they have only glanced by the way at all the various ave- 

 nues through which energies are dissipated in prosecuting the 

 work of daily life. Indeed, medicine seeks to cure, not to pre- 

 vent, nor to raise the general level of organic life. A few medi- 

 cal writers have, however, given these matters some attention, 



