The white race has a greater range and a higher quality in sensation and emotion than any other. Modern psychologists—who are in fact physiologists—have demonstrated this by experiments. The white race alone responds to the most delicate stimuli in art, in religion, and in scientific thought; and probably its members alone are, as a race, capable of the highest degrees of happiness; though single individuals of the other races doubtless may equal them in this respect.
Let the individual of any race not despair of joy. Let him pursue it with a firm intent and a clear understanding of what it is, and he will surely receive it to the capacity of which his nature is capable. The barriers of race or nation fence him off from no flowery fields or sun-lit pastures. There are gates, if he will seek them, which open on them all.
More ominous to his welfare are the traits he inherits from his own family, his immediate ancestors. How true it is that a man’s worst enemies may be those of his own household! How dreadful it is that they may be those who love him most, who brought him into the world, who would die for him! As in Ibsen’s terrible drama, the ghosts of the follies of our fathers may ever hover near us, poisoning our blood, darkening our daylight, blighting our lives, transmitting to us the seeds of insanity, the mortal leaven of consumption, or the loathsome virus
sucked from the breasts of illicit pleasure. Who can deliver us from the body of this death?
No one but ourselves. Here more than elsewhere it is vain to sit by the wayside and cry to the passers-by for aid. Scant is the consolation and slight the assistance they can proffer us. We must ourselves search the arid plains for such meagre roses and shriveled leaves as remain for us to twine the chaplets of pleasure. He who is born to an inheritance of disease—and the majority are—should boldly recognize it as his special danger, and should study the means of its prevention. If of the serious character of those I have mentioned, he should make it his main business to escape its inroads by choosing an appropriate avocation, by removal to other surroundings, and by adopting a course of life which medical science prescribes as that most likely to postpone indefinitely its outbreak. There are thousands of such wise men in every civilized community, who were born with these blood-taints, but who successfully escape them,—till they fall a victim to some other malady. Nor have these by any means the worst part of life. The habit of constant watchfulness and forethought thus engendered is one of the most valuable guarantees of personal happiness; this is why among confirmed and chronic invalids we often meet a degree of cheerfulness and even gayety which surprises us.
These beings are doubly fortunate; for they have escaped not only their particular malady, but another not
less dangerous to their own well-being and that of those around them—a morbid valetudinarianism, a perpetual fussiness about their own ills and ails. The victims of this complaint are the malades imaginaires, constantly coddling themselves, thinking of no one but themselves, of whom we meet an endless number in the wealthier classes of society. It must have been of such as these that old Dr. Johnson blurted out his rough judgment,—“Every sick man is a scoundrel!” They usually forfeit more than they win by such selfish concentration. It is a symptom of disease to think constantly about one’s health. The most effectual remedy for it is to think about increasing the comfort of others.
There is no need for me to go into details of what such a training should be to protect one as much as possible against the development of hereditary diseases. The precepts must be adapted to the particular case and circumstances, and in this age Personal Hygiene is a science by itself, with abundant and competent instructors. Its scope is not limited to the prevention of disease, but extends to the strengthening and symmetrical development of the whole body. No one who intelligently pursues his happiness will omit the study and practice of its precepts. Health is not indispensable to happiness. Fortunately, no one condition is indispensable. But there is no other condition which so generally and potently contributes to it. Therefore, he who intelligently seeks enjoyment will pay early and frequent attention to athletic culture; he will
seek some healthful and agreeable physical exercise; his posture will be erect and his breathing full; his periods of effort will be prolonged to positive fatigue, and will be judiciously alternated by others of changed activity or complete repose.
The trainer of athletes lays down for his pupils a rigid discipline. He is as far from encouraging overstrain and excessive exercise as he is indolence. He condemns stimulants and narcotics beyond a most moderate use; and he is solicitous about such things as sleep, and food, and cleanliness. If his pupils find it repays them to submit to his stringent dicta for the hope of winning a champion’s belt or a silver medal, is it not worth while to accept the much less severe regimen necessary to obtain the Olympian garland woven of the joys which a sound and elastic health offers?