344 HEALTH. 



genius which is called felicity when its works come forth with com- 

 plete adaptation to the time and space which they are to fill. 



Health, in short, by the old definition (and we know of no better), 

 is harmony in its most considerable meaning — harmony of the parts 

 of the body with themselves — harmony of the mind with the body 

 — and harmony of both with the circumstances and ordinances into 

 which we are born : harmony also of the human frame with the 

 climate that it inhabits, and with external nature in its variety. 

 The science of health, then, is ideal physiology and psychology, and 

 the art of healing embraces the means that may conduct us from 

 the present or any state of unhealth, to that picture in the clouds 

 which we cannot give up if we cannot reach it — the means which 

 may gradually make some part of our ideals real. 



There is, of course, a dark side observe to health, in the exist- 

 ence of innumerable maladies and diseases, which beset human 

 nature ; otherwise health would not have been heard of, but instead 

 of it existence full of the play of power, and of the power of play : 

 but upon our present experience as a background, pain, which is the 

 writhing and restiveness of the human form away from, and against 

 disease, sketches out with the pencils of hope and desire the linea- 

 ments of a bright possibility. In this light we look at health from 

 disease, which is perhaps its only point of view. For, as we said 

 before, if that ground be left,* the name of health becomes too nega- 

 tive, and perishes ; and in its place other substances arise, such as 

 joy, love, activity, and all those states which are blessings irrespec- 

 tive of bans. In that case we do not think of state but contemplate 

 action, and valetudinarianism ceasing out of mind and body, leaves 

 us free and fearless for our business. 



Health is therefore only the beginning of a just consideration of 

 the human being, as it were the birth of man into the realms of 

 humanity ; and yet as he is ever beginning afresh, it pursues him 

 with new exigencies along the stages of his journey. To be well 

 with the world of this hour, and equal to the existing situation, is 

 a demand which is always changing, and health must be flexible to 

 meet it; especially so, in a being, who is a child to-day, a youth to- 

 morrow, and an old man in time, and who has no experience of these, 

 his eras, until they come upon him. For health implies a perpe- 



