104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the end of a much shorter period of work than he could have accom- 

 plished with ease and pleasantness, ere a tithe perhaps of the good he 

 was really competent to do has been effected, his health breaks down, 

 his strength fails him, he can no longer do the good he wanted so 

 much to do. Nay, worse, life not only becomes a burden to him, but 

 he becomes a burden to others. A wise and thoughtful care of self 

 would have avoided this. Such care of self, then, even if regarded 

 from the point of view which should be taken by the rest, is simply 

 far-sighted regard for others. 



Perhaps the simplest way of testing the matter is by considering 

 what would happen if all or many of the members of a community 

 followed a course which is commonly spoken of as if it were meritori- 

 ous. It is manifest that a community chiefly composed of persons 

 who neglecting self broke down their health and strength in exhaust- 

 ing efforts to advance the well-being of others would be a community 

 constantly burdened by fresh accessions of worn-out and used-up 

 members — including eventually most of those who had been most 

 anxious to serve their fellows. 



But the question becomes still more serious when the known facts 

 of heredity are taken into account. The evil effects of self-neglect, 

 whether in the form of overwork, or asceticism, or avoidance of all 

 such pleasurable emotions as lighten the toils and worries of life, or 

 in other ways, affect posterity as well as the individual life. Ill-health 

 and weakness are transmitted to children and to children's children 

 through many generations. It is not going too far to say that on the 

 average more misery is wrought and to a much greater number by 

 neglect of self than can be matched by any amount of benefit con- 

 ferred during life, still less by such benefit as directly arises from self- 

 sacrifice. A man shall work day after day beyond his strength for 

 ten years, and by such excess of activity shall perhaps accumulate at 

 the expense of a ruined constitution what may confer a certain amount 

 of happiness on several persons, or keep discomfort from them. Prob- 

 ably with better-advised efforts during that time more real good might 

 have been conferred on those same persons, for man does not live by 

 bread alone ; and certainly in the long run even of a single ordinary 

 life much more good may be done by combining zeal for others with 

 due regard for the welfare of self. But when we consider the multi- 

 plied misery inherited by the offspring of weak, sickly, and gloomy 

 parents, we see that even though, on the whole, there had been during 

 life a balance in favor of happiness conferred, this — more than out- 

 weighed even in the first generation — would be many hundred times 

 outweighed in the long run. 



CARE FOR SELF AS A DUTY. 



The thought seems strange to many that in conduct which appears 

 to them mei'e care of self there may be further-seeing regard for others 



