1883.] On Brain-Work and Hand-Work. 157 
clergy — their comparative freedom from anxiety. This is 
the critical point to decide whether brain-work shall be 
healthful or harmful. Let a man work knowing that his 
livelihood is secure, — that it is indifferent whether he com- 
pletes any given task this month or this time six months, — 
and no amount of study will harm him. But tell him that 
he must complete some task by a given date under penalty 
of dismissal, or that his prospers in life depend on his 
passing an examination better than a score of competitors, 
and the probability is that his studies will bring on softening 
of the brain, heart diseases, or perhaps Bright’s disease. 
Dr. Beard formally admits that “worry is the one great 
shortener of life under civilisation, and, of all forms of worry, 
financial is the most frequent and the most distressing.” 
Hence the differences between his views and mine are very 
much smoothed over, and we must take in a “ Pickwickian 
sense ” his declaration elsewhere that “ brain-work is the 
highest of all antidotes to worry.” 
He brings forward yet another reason for the longevity of 
clergymen — “ their superior temperance and morality.” 
That such superiority, if it exists, will have an influence in 
favour of health and long life, I readily admit. But it is 
very doubtful whether they are in this respeft superior to 
other brain-workers. In the career of the scientist mutinous 
passions are simply crowded out. For him the struggles 
with temptation, of which the ethicists tell us, have simply 
no existence. How it may be among those brain-workers 
who move in a more emotional sphere, I cannot presume to 
say. 
Dr. Beard’s contention that the brain-worker is, as a class, 
happier than the muscle-worker is very questionable. He 
asks, “ Where is the hod-carrier that finds joy in going up 
and down a ladder, and, from the foundation of the world 
until now, how many have been known to persevere in ditch- 
digging or sewer-laying, or in any mechanical or manual 
calling whatsoever, after the attainment of independence?” 
Such persons, I think, might be found. Many of these 
manual occupations would, as far as I can judge, seem 
happier than a life spent at the merchant’s desk or at the 
exchange. If the man of business “continues to work in 
his special calling long after the necessity has ceased,” it is 
because he has been trained to believe that accumulation of 
wealth is the whole duty of man. “ Nearly all the money 
of the world,” says Dr. Beard, “ is in the hands of brain- 
workers.” This may be true ; yet, at the same time, many 
of the hardest and most capable brain-workers rank among 
