The Arizona sentinel., 1889-02-09

savage as strong in arms as themselves.
Wherever records of longevity have
been kept it has been found to be In
proportion to the advance in civiliza-
ton and cultivation-the rate of NOR
talitv in Paris, for instance, having
decreased one hundred per cent. in the
last five hundred years, and half-bar-
barous Russia to-day showing in pro-
portion to its population more than
double the mortality of England. Our
insane asylums are largely peopled
with inmates, especially women, from
country districts, whose lives have
been one round of monotOnOus labor,
knowing little or no mental stimulus or
development. From somewhat the
same cause minds that maintain too
constantly relaxed, as opposed to
tense, attitude-indulging greatly, for
instance, in reading to the exclusion of
study, habitually relying upon written
memoranda instead of eXerting them
selves to remember, etc.-nOt only
dwell in bodies necessarily unstrung,
Dub Cdll uGNCL DO CllOl ONiS ny AON0ANAAJ
themselves. The reason, too, why in
everyday life and in personal crises
people are too slow in adopting the
right course is largely that, being too
mentally lazy to think, they have
missed the highest soundness and
health of all-the moral.
An able writer, Mr.. T. w. Higgon-
son, says: eff civilization sacrifice the
physical hopelessly to the mental, and
barbarism merely sacrifice the mental
to the physical, then barbarism is un-
questionably the better thing, so far as
it goes, because it provides the essen
tial preliminary conditions. Barbar-
ism is a one-story log hut, poor
thing, but better than nothing; while
such civilization would be simply a
second story, with a first story too
weak to sustain it, a magnificent sky
parlor, with all H eaven in view from
the upper windows, but with the whole
family coming down in crash pres
emily, through fatal neglect of the
basement. q" This happily, however, is
not the case. Civilization and intel
lectual culture are good all round, not
bad.
Now comes a highly important pro-
viso. All that has heretofore been said
in relation to the development and ex-
ercise of the mind being beneficial to
health must be unqualifedly condi-
toned by the statement that, when
mind activity is pushed beyond it's
proper limit, it ceases to be healthful
and becomes a source Of disturbance
and danger both to the general health
and to the brain, which is the organ of
the mind.
A human being possesses variety Of
powers, as, for instance, the physical,
the intellectual, the emotional, the
volitional, ETC., and his well-being de-
pends upon the normal proportion be-
ing preserved in their evolution and
use. This, of course, is not the same
for all persons, some being innately
intellectual rather than physical, some
the opposite, the relative strength Of
others lying in their passions, ETC., but
in each case it exists, and when it has
been found must be needed or harm
ensues. While the employment of the
intellect up to the limit of its power
health, and. indeed, is absolutely nee
essary for it, if carried beyond that
point. it destroys the balance among
! the different faculties, and becomes a
drain upon the system. We all know
| how common a thing it is for men
whose brains have been overworked in
/ their business to lose their appetites,
be troubled with Indigestion, palpita-
ton of the heart. etc, and we see when
they are attacked by disease how east
ly they often succumb, the brain
having appropriated to itself more
than its proper share of nutrition, and
left the general powers weak and in
capable of resistance. A human Or
ganism possesses only about so much
energy; if one faculty uses it all the
others are defrauded.
Excessive mental eXertion is also, as
we should naturally expect, detri-
mental to the brain itself. The brain,
/ in spite of the marvellous amount and
variety of work it is capable of doing,
is the least organized organ in the
body. 1t consists simply of an aggre-
cation of tubes and millions of cells,
permeated with blood vessels. Every
time we think, feel or will, imagine,
remember or desire, hundreds of these
cells are destroyed, and must be at
once replaced from the blood, or death
or insanity ensues. When we remem-
Der the varied and often tumultuous
drama which is enacted every day in
the consciousness of every one Of us,
we obtain some conception of the waste
and supply that go on within the
brain. Its nutrition consumes one
fifth of all the blood in the body.
When once it is injured, its powers of
recuperation are slight.
Some forms of mind exercise exert
more invigorating effect upon it than
do others. Total inertia results in
feebleness. Original or creative men
tai acts-as those of judging, plan
ming, calculating, inventing, literary
composition, etc. tend to increase its
volume, stability and endurance, just
as physical exercise develops and
hardens the muscles While this Is
true, every original brain-worker will