Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

What an insult to the Creator who fashioned them so wonderfully and fearfully in His own image, that the graduates from our high schools and even universities, and young women who "finish their education," become proficient in the languages, in music, in art, and have the culture of travel, but can not describe or locate the various organs or functions upon which their lives depend! "The time will come," says Frances Willard, "when it will be told as a relic of our primitive barbarism that children were taught the list of prepositions and the names of the rivers of Thibet, but were not taught the wonderful laws on which their own bodily happiness is based, and the humanities by which they could live in peace and goodwill with those about them." Nothing else is so important to man as the study and knowledge of himself, and yet he knows less of himself than he does of the beasts about him.

The human body is the great poem of the Great Author. Not to learn how to read it, to spell out its meaning, to appreciate its beauties, or to attempt to fathom its mysteries, is a disgrace to our civilization.

What a price mortals pay for their ignorance, let a dwarfed, half-developed, one-sided, short-lived nation answer.

"A brilliant intellect in a sickly body is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket."

Often, from lack of exercise, one side of the brain gradually becomes paralyzed and deteriorates into imbecility. How intimately the functions of the nervous organs are united! The whole man mourns for a felon. The least swelling presses a nerve against a bone and causes one intense agony, and even a Napoleon becomes a child. A corn on the toe, an affection of the kidneys or of the liver, a boil anywhere on the body, or a carbuncle, may seriously affect the eyes and even the brain. The whole system is a network of nerves, of organs, of functions, which are so intimately joined, and related in such close sympathy, that an injury to one part is immediately felt in every other.

Nature takes note of all our transactions, physical, mental, or moral, and places every item promptly to our debit or credit.

Let us take a look at a page in Nature's ledger:—

To damage to the heart in youth by immoderate athletics, tobacco chewing, cigarette smoking, drinking strong tea or coffee, rowing, running to trains, overstudy, excitement, etc.	The "irritable heart," the "tobacco heart," a life of promise impaired or blighted.
To one digestive apparatus ruined, by eating hurriedly, by eating unsuitable or poorly cooked food, by drinking ice water when one is heated, by swallowing scalding drinks, especially tea, which forms tannic acid on the delicate lining of the stomach; or by eating when tired or worried, or after receiving bad news, when the gastric juice can not be secreted, etc.	Dyspepsia, melancholia, years of misery to self, anxiety to one's family, pity and disgust of friends.
To one nervous system shattered by dissipation, abuses, over-excitement, a fast life, feverish haste to get riches or fame, hastening puberty by stimulating food, exciting life, etc.	Years of weakness, disappointed ambition, hopeless inefficiency, a burnt-out life.
To damage by undue mental exertion by burning the "midnight oil," exhausting the brain cells faster than they can be renewed.	Impaired powers of mind, softening of the brain, blighted hopes.
To overstraining the brain trying to lead his class in college, trying to take a prize, or to get ahead of somebody else.	A disappointed ambition, a life of invalidism.
To hardening the delicate and sensitive gray matter of the brain and nerves, and ruining the lining membranes of the stomach and nervous system by alcohol, opium, etc.	A hardened brain, a hardened conscience, a ruined home, Bright's disease, fatty degeneration, nervous degeneration, a short, useless, wasted life.
By forced balances, here and there.	Accounts closed. Physiological and moral bankruptcy.

Sometimes two or three such items are charged to a single account. To offset them, there is placed on the credit side a little feverish excitement, too fleeting for calm enjoyment, followed by regret, remorse, and shame. Be sure your sins will find you out. They are all recorded.

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us."