508 FRAGMENTS OF SCTKNCE. 



be mourned over, but to be honestly considered accepted 

 if it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly false, wisely 

 sifted and turned to account if it embrace a mixture of 

 [truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous 

 I system, and its relation to thought and feeling, have 

 profoundly occupied inquiring minds. Jt is our duty 

 not to shirk it ought rather to be our privilege to accept 

 the established results of such inquiries, for here 

 assuredly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to 

 the truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous 

 system exercises over man's moral and intellectual nature, 

 we shall be better prepared, not only to mend their mani- 

 fold defects, but also to strengthen and purify both. Is 

 mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence? 

 Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to the 

 level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance 

 would remove it. 



But the light is dawning, and it will become stronger as 

 time goes on. Even the Brighton "Church Congress" 

 affords evidence of this. From the manifold confusions 

 of that assemblage my memory has rescued two items, 

 which it would fain preserve: the recognition of a relation 

 between health and religion, and the address of the Rev. 

 Harry Jones. Out of the conflict of vanities his words 

 emerge wholesome and strong, because un drugged by 

 dogma, coming directly from the warm brain of one who 

 knows what practical truth means, and who has faith in 

 its vitality and inherent power of propagation. I wonder 

 whether he is less effectual in his ministry than his more 

 embroidered colleagues? It surely behooves our teachers to 

 come to some definite understanding as to this question of 

 health; to see how, by inattention to it, we are defrauded, 

 negatively and positively: negatively, by the privation of 

 that "sweetness and light" which is the natural con- 

 comitant of good health; positively, by the insertion into 

 life of cynicism, ill-temper, and a thousand corroding 

 anxieties which good health would dissipate. We fear and 

 scorn " materialism." But he who knew all about it, and 

 could apply his knowledge, might become the preacher of 

 a new gospel. Not, however, through the ecstatic moments 

 of the individual does such knowledge come, but through 

 the revelations of science, in connection with the history 

 of mankind. 



