The idea that excessive physical exercise is a sound means of promoting health is erroneous. Man is not constructed to be a running or a leaping animal like a deer or a cat, and to raise the physical above the mental culture were to return to the shortness and misery of savage life. Physical training, while it should be moderately encouraged, should be refined and made secondary to mental training. Every rash and violent feat of competitive prowess should be discountenanced.
VIII
The combination of mental and physical fatigue, as it is practised in many pursuits at this time, are exceedingly dangerous. Long journeys each day, to and from the sphere of profession or business, are hurtful. The idea that mental labour may be advantageously supplemented by violent muscular exercise, such as is implied in long and fatiguing walks or laborious exercise on horseback, is an error. Moderate and regular exercise, at the same time, favours mental work. The practical point is to regulate the physical labour that it shall not induce fatigue.
IX
One of the surest means for keeping the body and mind in perfect health consists in learning to hold the passions in subservience to the reasoning faculties. This rule applies to every passion. Man, distinguished from all other animals by the peculiarity of his reason, is placed above his passions to be the director of his will, can protect himself from every mere animal degradation resulting from passionate excitement. The education of the man should be directed, not to suppress such passions as are ennobling, but to bring under governance, and especially to subdue, those most destructive passions, anger, hate, and fear.
X
To escape the evils arising from the use of alcohol there is only one perfect course, namely, to abstain from alcohol altogether. No fear need be entertained of any physical or mental harm from such abstinence. Every good may be expected from it. True, a certain very qualified temperance, a temperance that keeps the adult to a strict allowance of one ounce and a half of alcohol in each twenty-four hours, may possibly be compatible with a healthy life; but such indulgence is unnecessary and encourages the dangerous desire to further indulgence. A man or woman who abstains is healthy and safe. A man or woman who indulges at all is unsafe. A man or woman who relies on alcohol for support is lost.
XI
Smoking tobacco, and the use of tobacco in every form, is a habit better not acquired, and when acquired is better abandoned. The young should especially avoid the habit. It gives a doubtful pleasure for a certain penalty. Less destructive than alcohol, it induces various nervous changes, some of which pass into organic modifications of function. So long as the practice of smoking is continued the smoker is temporarily out of health. When the odour of tobacco hangs long on the breath and other secretions of the smoker, that smoker is in danger. Excessive smoking has proved directly fatal.