PERFECT HEAL'TH 123 



are always several or many outlets for an outgoing impulse, 

 leading to very different responses in word or deed. Time 

 and occasion must be taken into account; it is sometimes best 

 to wait a little. Many or most of the impulses are discarded, 

 or neglected and straightway forgotten; some are perceived, 

 recognized and stored up in the memory until time and occa- 

 sion are ripe. There is much sifting and selection; and we 

 may well take heed what and how we hear, feel and re- 

 member. When the response comes, it often seems a com- 

 posite result of many stimuli, no one of which alone would 

 have called it forth in its final form. Here are the place, op- 

 portunity and necessity for the control of the marvellous sys- 

 tem by a perfectly healthy mind. 



Now our phraseology changes. We no longer speak merely 

 of vibrations or material impulses, but somehow in correla- 

 tion with these we recognize that mind has appeared on the 

 stage. Aladdin has rubbed his lamp. We are intelligent, 

 feeling and willing beings; and these powers or aspects gov- 

 ern our actions. Physical health demands the highest and 

 most harmonious development of all our organs. One weak 

 spot may destroy the efficiency of the whole body. Must 

 not the same be true of the mind? This gives room for al- 

 most infinite variety of possibilities. 



We say that our first need is to see things exactly and 

 clearly as they are. This is well and easily said, and it does 

 not seem to demand too much from a healthy vision. But it 

 is not easy, though it may be natural. We all see through the 

 variegated glasses of heredity and early environment and edu- 

 cation. Every object of practical interest is seen through the 

 glass of prejudice, and the prejudices of the ignorant are mild 

 and harmless compared with those of the trained specialist. 

 We see it from our own standpoint, rarely in its true perspec- 

 tive, and relations with the whole; never from all sides and 

 in its place in time, " sub specie ceternitatis.'' The blind spots 

 in our mortal eyes, due to defects of inheritance, training, dis- 

 use or misuse and degeneration, render many of its finest 

 points invisible. The same object or event has a totally 



