INTELLECTUAL AND PHYSICAL LIFE 57 



increasing infirmities, chief of which were " chronic consumption and 

 asthma." All this " painfully impeded his schemes of work and occa- 

 sionally induced states of mind altogether at variance with its otherwise 

 robust character." He was twenty years in writing his famous " Essay 

 on the Human Understanding " and it was done " by incoherent par- 

 cels and after long intervals of neglect." No man was ever more 

 impressed with the value of health and vigor and his " Thoughts on 

 Education " begin with the bitter words, " Our clay cottage is not to 

 be neglected " — for " he whose body is crazy and feeble will never be 

 able to advance in it." 



Immanuel Kant is a shining example of what can be done in econ- 

 omizing the bodily forces, and of how much may be accomplished in 

 the way of mental work by a frail body which is kept in a fair state 

 of health. " Possibly a more meager, arid, parched anatomy of a man 

 has not appeared upon this earth." " His organization was so delicate 

 that he was extremely sensitive to impressions from external objects, 

 and Jachmann relates that a newspaper fresh from the press and still 

 damp would give him a cold." " His digestive organs were early 

 deranged and gave him perpetual trouble." Yet he said of himself 

 that he was healthy, " that is in my usual weak way." If we can trust 

 DeQuincy, " Kant's health was even exquisite." That " weak way " 

 interfered with his work and he exclaimed : " Think of it, friends ! 

 Sixty years old, constantly disturbed by indisposition in plans only half 

 completed." " He spoke of himself often under the figure of a gym- 

 nastic artist, who had continued for nearly fourscore years to support 

 himself upon the slack rope of life without once swerving to the right 

 or to the left." We owe to Kant's clock-work regularity and temper- 

 ance of living the product which his fine brain produced, and his vast 

 influence upon the world. 



Herbert Spencer is another example of a philosopher who is put 

 down as an invalid, and invalid he was for the greater part of his life 

 after thirty-five. At thirteen he became homesick at school and started 

 one morning at six for home; walked forty-eight miles the first day, 

 forty-seven the second and twenty miles the third day, and in the whole 

 time had very little to eat. It would seem that only a child of very 

 remarkable vitality could have carried out such a program and sur- 

 vived. As he himself says, " It can scarcely be doubted that my system 

 received a detrimental shock . . . although there was no manifest sign 

 of mischief." As a boy he excelled in running and was a good skater. 



At sixteen he speaks of himself as " strong, in good health, and of 

 good stature," but easily excited and kept awake. 



At twenty-one as a draughtsman he worked from eight in the 

 morning to twelve at night and one day a week to three a.m. Keep- 

 ing these hours, either with his routine or literary work, he found him- 



