Modern psychology has rendered a service of far-reaching practical benefit in showing more definitely the intimate connection between the brain and mental action. In this connection of body and soul the two are correlated; the brain is organic to the functions of the soul. The health of the brain is largely dependent upon general physical conditions, and the old apothegm, “Mens sana in corpore sano,” is interpreted with a new meaning not fully known in the days of Juvenal. Maxims of health, sifted by the experience of ages, transmitted from generation to generation, and confirmed by the proofs of modern science, are wisdom of inestimable value for our instruction. He who wastes energy of the body wastes vigor and duration of mental power. Rev. William R. Alger used to say: “Keep yourself at highest working capacity by preserving the vigor of the body.” The various ways of wasting physical energy are susceptible of classification, and it is well worth the while to make a thoughtful analysis of the subject. We admire the firm step, erect bearing, clear eye, and bright brain that belong to healthful habits and noble manhood. Many a man by carefully conserving the vital forces will outlive and outdo others who, with stronger bodies, waste their energy.
Physical sins react upon the mind and debase character. They are signs of a character already weak, and the interaction between mind and body doubly hastens the relaxing of just restraint. The ancient virtue of moderation, or temperance, meant more than temperate habit; it meant the submission of animal unreason to reason—the “observance of due measure in all conduct.”
In accord with the maxims of health are the Greek Virtue of Moderation, the Cardinal Virtue of Temperance, the Hebrew Purity. Regard for these maxims is an important condition of success.
Courage appears in the Greek Category as heart for energetic action, and in the Cardinal Virtues as firmness for the right and against the wrong. Courage is the sine qua non of success. The student must have courage to overcome his inertia. A venerable professor of my college days used to say: “Every young man is naturally as lazy as he can be, and the greatest problem of education is to gain an energetic will.” Courage is required to undertake an enterprise demanding long years of toil. A volume recently published contains the early experience of celebrated authors now living, and nearly every one owes his success to a persevering determination, in spite of poverty, rebuffs, criticism, and repeated failures. Their genius lies in their courage. We need the courage of our convictions to stand by the right. The great reformers have shared this kind of confidence of soul. Nearly all of Carlyle’s types of the world’s great heroes possessed it to an almost sublime degree, and, most of all, the hero of the Reformation. Waiving all religious controversies that centre about the doctrines of Martin Luther, he is a figure for the world to admire. Some of his memorable words are known as household words, but, like strains of familiar grand music, are ever grateful—they lose nothing by repeating. When warned that Duke George of Leipzig was his enemy he said: “Had I business, I would ride into Leipzig though it rained Duke Georges for nine days running.” When summoned to the Diet at Worms, he answered the friends who would dissuade him: “Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof tiles, I would on.” When urged in the presence of that august council to recant, he replied: “Here I stand; I can do no other; God help me.” And the courage of his religious faith rose to its climax when he boldly faced the supernatural and hurled his inkstand at the head of the Devil himself. The student needs the courage of faith in his own powers and possibilities. Many a one fails because he has not confidence in himself. In rare moments of meditation one sometimes discovers capacities and possibilities of attainment that become a life inspiration.
We are proud of our Teutonic ancestry; of the bold enterprise that led the Teutons across Europe in conquest, or impelled them to embark in their galleys and push forth with adventurous spirit, and fearlessly ride the tempestuous waves, as their oars kept time to the music of their songs of victory. Their courageous and progressive spirit, tamed and refined, reappeared in the religious convictions of the Puritans, in the settlement of America, in the westward march of civilization in our own country, in the confidence of the pioneers that early crossed the plains and pitched their tents by these mighty mountains, in the energy that has made all that the world holds as greatest and best in material civilization, invention, government, science, literature, and moral and religious principle. The young man who has in his veins the blood of this people, and inherits the blessings that his race has wrought out, is a recreant to his trust if he does not stand courageously for all that is best in his own development, and all that is best in the progress of his age. Thor, the Norse god, possessed a belt of strength by which his might was doubled, and a precious hammer which when thrown returned to the hand of its own accord. When he wielded the hammer, as the Northern legends relate, he grasped it until the knuckles grew white. This hammer is an heirloom of the Northern races, handed down from the Halls of Walhalla. And herein lies the secret of success: grasp the hammer until the knuckles grow white.
Plato held Wisdom to be the supreme means by which to attain the great purpose of human existence. The Cardinal Virtue of Christian Wisdom is to gain knowledge of God. Plato conceived growth in wisdom to be a gradual realization, in the consciousness of man, of the eternal ideas. Man came from heaven and in his progress in knowledge he was but climbing the upward path to regain his lost estate. The exercise of wisdom marked him off from the lower order of beings, and he was fulfilling the distinctively human function only when living a rational life.
If nature is a congeries of metaphors arranged in a system of relations and constituting a sublime allegory, and we, being the offspring of God, may interpret this allegory and thereby come to a consciousness of verities, if there is a spiritual sense that may feel the presence of great truths and of a personal God—then man pursues his supreme calling when through the laws of physical nature, when through the beauty of its forms, when through knowledge of self, when through the world’s history and literature and philosophy he aims at a further acquaintance with truth. If knowledge and the power that comes through knowledge enhance our material civilization and make more favorable conditions for the body and more leisure for the mind and more refinement for the spirit, if to create material things brings us more in accord with the creative spirit of the universe, then we have the highest incentives to gain knowledge toward so-called practical ends.