To those who would seriously devote themselves to the cultivation of poise it is, therefore, a vital necessity to be in a condition of perfect health.  It would be a misfortune, indeed, for them to find themselves balked in their progress toward acquiring this quality by anxieties regarding the condition of their bodies.

Any indisposition, not to mention actual diseases, has a tendency to inhibit all initiative.

There is no room for doubt that a physical ailment by attracting to itself the attention of the person who is attacked by it, prevents him from giving the proper amount of energy to whatever he may be engaged upon.

He thinks about nothing but his malady and quite forgets to take the exercises that would enable him to alter his condition, to change his actions, and even to make over his thoughts.

His thoughts above all.  Physical well-being has an undeniable influence upon one’s mental health.

One very rarely sees a sick person who is happy.  Even those who are endowed with great force of character lose, under the burden of their sufferings, part of their firmness of soul and of their legitimate ambition.

A very scientific force of hygiene is particularly recommended.  Excessive measures of any sort must be avoided for various reasons: 

(1) They are antagonistic to the maintenance of a perfect physical equilibrium.

(2) They will inevitably grow to dominate the mind unduly.

When we speak of excesses, we intend to include those undertaken in the way of work no less than those which are the outcome of the search for pleasure.

Nevertheless we will hasten to add that these last are much the more to be feared.

What can be expected, for instance, from a man who has passed a night in debauchery?

Morning finds him a weakling, good for nothing, and incapable of making the slightest effort that calls for energy.

He is lucky, indeed, if his excesses have no disastrous results that will destroy his happiness or his good name.

The fear of complications that may be the outcome of his gross pleasures soon begins to haunt him and to usurp in his mind the place of nobler and more useful impulses.

As to his health, it is hardly necessary for us to insist upon the disorder that such habits must necessarily produce.

The least misfortune that he can look for is a profound lassitude and a desire for rest which is the enemy of all virile effort.

The same thing is true of the man who indulges too freely in the pleasures of the table.  The work of digestion leaves him in an exhausted condition and with a craving for repose that very soon results in a complete lack of moral tone.

Even supposing that his daily routine consists of two principal meals, and of two others of less importance, it will be easily understood that the man who loads down his stomach with such a large amount of continuous work will not be very apt to adapt himself readily to matters of a wholly different kind.