FoREL, Nerve Hygiene. 185 



upon his fulfilling the purpose of his life by labor. But since 

 man's labor is not accomplished like that of the plant and the 

 lowest worm, for he applies a higher understanding and feeling 

 to it, the fundamental possibility of happiness for him lies in a 

 sound brain. 



How are you going to convert a sound brain into a happy 

 spirit, disposition and will, and keep them up ? By continually 

 patching at an impaired organ with medicines and cures in nerve 

 or lunatic asylums? Such patchwork is good, or perhaps a ne- 

 cessity, if injury has already taken place, or has become great. 

 But always the best prescription is prevention, in general, that 

 one which any reasonable person can apply without either phy- 

 sician or apothecary. 



Would you, by means of poisonous stimulants, urge the in- 

 capable modern brain to some unusual activity, which neces- 

 sarily must exhaust and incapacitate still more ? That would be 

 putting out a fire with petroleum. Yet it is just what we are 

 doing when we use alcoholic drinks, morphine and similar so- 

 called nerve tonics. We injure the organ we desire to strength- 

 en and wear it out prematurely. We see the fruits of alcohol- 

 drinking in the saloon and in large part in the nervousness of 

 our age. We see them in the prisons, the lunatic asylums, the 

 idiots, the vagabonds, the idlers — consequences that are only 

 partly the result of the drinking customs of these people them- 

 selves, those of their forefathers bear part of the blame. 



Of course the use of alcohol is not the only occasion of the 

 '■ nervousness " of our age. There are others, such as poverty, 

 over-population of the cities, insufficient nourishment, but espe- 

 cially the unsuitable, the thoughtless marriages of stupid, eccen- 

 tric or evil people, whose defective brain peculiarities perpetu- 

 ate themselves in their posterity and contaminate society with 

 incapable, lazy, untruthful, immorally inclined, in brief, with 

 individuals that are a menace to the general good. 



How ought and can we oppose these evils, successfully 

 overcome our nervousness, and grow happier ? That riches 

 cannot make us either healthy or happy, that poverty occasions 

 unhappiness and disease, has been so clearly shown that we 

 need lose no words upon this subject. It stands approved by 

 experience that nerves and muscles which remain inactive lose 



