How can a servant keep well and
rested if the master drives him to such an extent that he is brought
into a state, not where he won't go, but where he can't go, and must
therefore drop? It is the intelligent master, who is a true disciple
of plain common sense, who will train his servant, the body, in the
way of resting, eating and breathing, in order to fit it for the
maximum of work at the minimum of energy. But if you obey every
external law for the health and strength of the body, and obey it
implicitly, and to the letter, with all possible intelligence, you
cannot keep it healthy if the mind that owns the body is pulling it
and twisting it, and _twanging_ on its delicate machinery with a
flood of resentment and resistance; and the spirit behind the mind
is eager, wretched, and unhappy, because it does not get its own
way, or elated with an inflamed egoism because it is getting its own
way.
All plain common sense in the way of health for the body falls dead
unless followed up closely with plain common sense for the health of
the mind; and then again, although when there is "a healthy mind in
a healthy body," the health appears far more permanent than when a
mind full of personal resistance tries to keep its body healthy,
even that happy combination cannot be really permanent unless there
is found back of it a healthy spirit.
But of the plain common sense of the spirit there is more to be said
at another time.
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