324. Human Physiology. 



of melancholy. Others, as gout and other painful affections, 

 leave the mind free, or in some cases seem to promote mental 

 activity and enjoyment. Every physician has observed the 

 sweetness of character which often accompanies scrofulous affec- 

 tions, and the happy hopefulness in tubercular consumption. 

 Health of body is, however, the usual condition of mental and 

 moral well-being and consequent happiness ; but the mind and 

 the soul often assert their superiority to all material conditions, 

 and we see serenity, hope, and happiness in the midst of bodily 

 disease, decay, and dissolution. 



Health is the natural condition of every organised being. 

 This point is very important. It is not something to be attained 

 by effort or artifice. It is a normal state; a natural condition; 

 the rule of life to which disease is the exception. We see this 

 to be the case throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 

 Not one blade of grass in a million suffers from disease not 

 one plant or tree of millions. In a state of nature plants and 

 trees of all kinds germinate, grow, produce leaves, flowers, 

 seeds, fruit, and live out their natural lives without a sign of 

 disease. They die at last of old age, in one season, or hun- 

 dreds, or thousands of years ; but when they have reached the 

 natural term of their existence. When brought under culture 

 and exposed to unnatural conditions we see signs of disease 

 and premature decay. Plants may be crowded like men, de- 

 prived of wholesome air, supplied with improper, or insufficient, 

 or redundant, nutriment; but in their natural state their almost 

 universal condition is one of pure, beautiful, and vigorous 

 health. 



The same is true of the whole animal creation. In crowded 

 and overfed flocks, among pampered horses and stall-fed cattle 

 deprived of light and air, we find disease, contagion, epidemics, 

 and great mortality, the same as among human beings exposed 

 to similarly unnatural conditions. But who would expect to 

 find sick fishes in the open sea, or in lake or river, unless it had 





