THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS 



lungs about 25,000 times each day of our lives, yet 

 comparatively few persons ever learn to breathe to best 

 advantage, using all sets of respiratory muscles, and 

 changing the air frequently in all the air sacs even to 

 the very tips of their lungs. Yet we know that the 

 penalty of our slovenly breathing is very likely to be 

 consumption. The tubercle bacilli find lodgment in 

 the stagnant air passages, and are allowed to develop 

 unmolested, where proper breathing might often throw 

 them out or enable the tissues to resist them. 



Eating is another perennial function. But how few 

 people ever learn when to eat, what to eat, and how 

 much to eat for their own advantage. The great 

 tendency here is to overindulgence. It may be ques- 

 tioned whether one person in a hundred eats only as 

 much food as he needs, to say nothing of the digestible 

 quality of the food taken. Yet every indigestible 

 particle of food taken into the stomach, and every 

 particle of any kind in excess of what is needed insures 

 just so much unnecessary wear and tear on the organ- 

 ism. The penalty may or may not be manifest in a 

 local dyspepsia, but in either case there is sure to be 

 a telling effect on the system as a whole. 



The highest function of all, as manifested in con- 

 sciousness, is incessantly operative during all our wak- 

 ing hours. We may momentarily stop breathing; for 

 much longer periods we may abstain from eating; 

 but while we are awake we cannot even for an instant 

 stop thinking, and there is reason to believe that even 

 when we sleep the same mental processes, modified 

 only in degree, continue in operation. 



