156 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



health to blur the beauty of God's noblest work 

 solely to gratify the capricious whim of that many- 

 headed monster, called SOCIETY. 



Again, the brain itself is the product of the blood 

 it is as literally and truly made of blood, as the 

 most beautiful china vase is made of clay. Hence 

 the qualities of the brain the mental energies, as 

 they are called courage, the powers of abstract 

 thinking, fortitude, patience, generosity, and, above 

 all, good-humour*, can only exist in conjunction 

 with, and owe their very being to, a vigorous cir- 

 culation. Hence it seems scarcely too much to say, 

 that thought itself is produced from the blood; 

 since there can be no energy of thought without 

 energy of brain, and no energy of brain without 

 energy of circulation through that brain. 



THOUGHT is an act of the WILL. It is an act by 

 which certain ideas are, to the exclusion of all 

 others, summoned to present themselves to the 

 mind's eye, that judgment may marshal them, com- 

 pare them, and newly combine them. Tims, in 



* If you go in search of good-humour, you must look to 

 find it playing on the ruddy cheek and laughing in the un- 

 clouded eye of athletic strength. The sensibility of the athlete 

 is too obtuse to be easily irritated. The skin of his mind is 

 thick ; and causes capable of excoriating others have only 

 power to tickle the athlete. 



