The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-07-18
HEALTH AND WEALTH.
Two Conditions which Have MANY Points
In Common.

in Common.
Health and wealth have many points
in common; first of all in their very
names. To have health is to be well;
to have wealth is also to be well-well
off.
Wealth is for Che most part got in
three ways-by inheritance, by self-de-
NAL, by care, labor and attention; often
by some combination of these three.
Wealth is lost by extravagant expendi-
ture or by carelessness and neglect.
Health may also be got in these three
ways. A man may inherit it from his
ancestors; he may gain or keep it by de-
nying his appetites for luxurious food
and drink, and for excuses of all kinds;
he may besides have to work for it, by
painstaking exercise, and constant SUI
pervision over his habits. In brief, I'M
less man has inherited large and
vigorous stock of health, he must do as
he has to do when he does not inherit
wealth-earn it.
He may also lose his health by extrav-
agant demands upon it, by reckless ex-
penditure or by carelessness in nurtur-
ing and preserving it.
Moreover, the connection between
health and wealth is so close that if he
spends his wealth lavishly and recklessly
on luxurious living and dissipation at
the gaming table or other improper
places far into the night, his health will
90 with his wealth. So again it often
happens that he can not have both an
excess of health and an excess of wealth
at the same time. He often loses his
health acquiring his wealth, and if he
has to care anaiously for his health he
is not likely to accumulate wealth.
Again, health is like wealth in that a
man may accumulate health not only
without wronging anybody, but in doing
so actually benefits the world. A man
who gathers health and vigor from the
air and the water, from proper exercise
and correct life. does not take one
particle of health from anybody There
still remain in the earth and atmos-
phere plenty of the elements of health
for all the rest of the world. He, more
over, provides in himself and his Off
spring certain number of persons who
will not burden the community with
sick and feeble members.
So, too, a man by his labor and his
self-denial may, without injuring any
person whatsoever, gather wealth from
the soil, from the manufacturing forces
of nature and art or from his capacity
to organize business enterprises and so
reduce the friction of commerce.. The
wealth thus created is besides a posi-
tive addition to the comfort and pros
perity of mankind.
Man can not voluntarily be deprived
of his health. He may sacrifice it him.
self, Just as he may sacrifice his wealth,
for the benefit of his fellow-men. But
no one can take it from him. If there
were any way of doing so there would
be but one result. No man would deny
himself or take any pains whatever to
| acquire or preserve his health. only fol
the sake OF being obliged to give it W
to some person, too luxurious OR toe
lazy to acquire it for himself.
The same is true of wealth, No mar
| would accumulate wealth if he knew il
would be confiscated by the self-indul
gent or the lazy the moment he had goI
enough of it to tempt them to take il
socialist and communist schemes. L
put in practice men would cease to ac
| quire wealth, and the civilization would
degenerate into savagery.
In some conditions men are forced to
| give up their wealth to other people
| Slaves have to do it. Heavily-taxed
people have to do it. What is the re
sultp Slaves and the heavily-taxec
cease to produce much more thar
enough to keep themselves alive, and
the races or nation which long suffer
such state of things become impover.
ished and 60 to decay.
There is one particular, however, in
which health seems to, but really does
not, differ from wealth. If it were pos.
sible for shrewd and cunning man tc
obtain health from other people, leaving
them sick and feeble, he would then BIZ
like the Spectator or gambler who OBJ
tains property from others without pro
ductive labor. But man who should
get health in this way would add moth.
| ing to the common stock of health
He would merely transfer from othel
people to himself. This, however
would be an unequal distribution, moi
an accumulation of health So the
gains of a gambler or Spectator are MOI
an accumulation of wealth but an un
equal distribution of property.
Such transfers add no more to tn.
general wealth of the country thar
transfers of health would add to its gen
eral health. But any man who by self
denial or labor accumulates either
health or wealth is not only entitled tt
what he acquires, but his acquisition il
positive addition to both the health
and the wealth of the world. -Detroi
Free Press.