The Portland daily press., 1880-01-23

[.John Fiske in International Review for January.
William Kingdom Clifford died last March
in the island of Madeira, at the early age OF 80,
the victim, apparently, of what is called 'over-
work''-that is, of work long pursued in utter
disregard of the necessary limitations and i'm
perative requirements of the human system.
Never, perhaps, has the demon of overwork
carried off more illustrions victim. Never,
perhaps, has it heen more strikingly shown OF
how little avail is the mere knowledge of hy-
giene in insuring obedience to its precepts No
one understood better than Clifford what are
popularity known as the laws of health; no one
had fathomed more deeply or discussed more
lucidly the dependence of the mind upon the
body; no one in our time has been better able
to apply in physiological domain the most ac-
curate and definite conceptions of the relations
of energy to work. Yet from all l have been
able to learn regarding Clifford's intellectual
life, it would seem to have be'n at all times
carried on with an intensely passionate, ire
pressibe zeal, as regardless of all physical laws
as if the mind were not merely distinct but
an independent entity, unhampered even dur
ina: eI.e present life by physical conditions
- cite this singular discrepancy betNO0-
knowledge and practice on account of its in
trinsic interest, not in reproof of the course of
one whose loss l mourn as that of o friend.
Admitting, with Mr.. Spencer, that one is NOR
ally bound SO to treat the body as not ''in any
way to diminish the felness or vigor of its vi
tality," one sees at the same time that, as the
world is now constituted, emergencies often
arise which subordinate to higher duties the
duty of keeping ones self well. To save hu-
man life L may jump into freezing river,
though an ice-water bath be not recommended
the heroic sense of duty which often leads the
scholar to toll early and late, and long after
WEAKNESS has set in, in the performance of work
which is expected of him-though in many
cases the work itself may be obscure in fame,
and the taskmaster thankless and treacher-
Gus. For my own part | sympathize
keenly, too with a very different feel
ing-with that glorious exuberance of vital
energy which in youthful days leads one
far on into the night, working with kind
of sacred fury to seize and secure the sudden
glimpses of the fairyland of scientific truth or
literary beauty, ere drowsy memory shall let
them slip and fade away. think it very like
ly that in many such cases a systematic self
repression in Difference to hygienic considera-S
tons, might be just enough to clip dowgf- une
brilliant discoverer or original Thinker into a
Were scientific or literary prig. The secrets of
nature and of art are not to be won
without struggles, and in the serene re-
gions Of philosophic meditation, no less than in
the turmoil of practical life, the richest results
are often accomplished by those who work
with desperate energy quite regardless OF self.
Generous feelings of this sort have no doubt
frequently urged great thinkers, like Clifford,
fatally to overtask their physical resources;
and such mistakes are peculiarly facilitated by
the accommodating disposition of that faithful
servant, the brain, which in men of highly
strung nervous temperament is but too ready
to keep at its work without protest, as thor
ough-bred horse will run till it drops.