Health cannot in itself guarantee
happiness if other evils obtrude; but it removes many of the commonest
impediments thereto, and normally produces an increase in all other
values. Heightened vitality means an increased sense of power, a keener
zest in everything; troubles slide off the healthy man that would stick
to the less vigorous. Bodily depression almost always involves mental
depression; our "blues" usually have an organic basis. It was not a
superstition that evolved our word "melancholy" from the Greek "black
(i.e., disordered) liver" nor is it a mere pun or paradox to say that
whether life is worth living depends upon the liver.
More than this, health is opportunity. The man of abundant energy can
taste more of the joys of life, can enlarge the bounds of his
experience, can use precious hours of our brief span which the weakling
must devote to rest, can learn more, can range farther, can venture
all sorts of undertakings from which the other is precluded by his
lack of strength. All these experiences, if they are guided by prudence
and self-control, bring their meed of insight and skill and character.
It is only through living that we grow, and health means the potentiality
of life.
(2) Health means efficiency, more work done, greater usefulness to
society. Sooner or later every man who is worth his salt finds some
task the doing of which arouses his ambition and becomes his particular
contribution to the world.
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