XXXIV 

 DOES ACQUIRED VIGOR COUNT? 



IN ordinary talk we often hear of a mysterious 

 quality called vigor, but it is very rarely that 

 any one even asks for a definition. It is evidently 

 something more than strength, for men with 

 powerful thews and sinews are often far from 

 vigorous; it is something more than health, for a 

 centenarian sea-anemone cannot be called vigorous. 

 The quality seems to mean capacity for living 

 intensely, yet without any loss of balance, a power 

 of expending energy lavishly, yet without ceasing 

 to have plenty in reserve, an ability to resist strain 

 and to defy fatigue. It implies being ever ready 

 for great exertions, and yet having staying power. 

 It must depend in part on an harmonious adjust- 

 ment of the various functions of the body, including 

 those of internal secretion and those w r hich keep 

 the wheels, so to speak, of the body-mind or mind- 

 body from becoming either clogged or rusty. 

 Probably it expresses a certain perfection in the 

 characteristic quality which living creatures in 

 contrast to inanimate systems have of circum- 

 venting the second law of thermo-dynamics of at 

 least delaying the tendency that energy has in its 

 transformations to pass into unavailable form. We 



