Heightened vitality means an increased sense of power, a keener zest in everything; troubles slide off the healthy man that would stick to the less vigorous.  Bodily depression almost always involves mental depression; our “blues” usually have an organic basis.  It was not a superstition that evolved our word “melancholy” from the Greek “black (i.e., disordered) liver” nor is it a mere pun or paradox to say that whether life is worth living depends upon the liver.

More than this, health is opportunity.  The man of abundant energy can taste more of the joys of life, can enlarge the bounds of his experience, can use precious hours of our brief span which the weakling must devote to rest, can learn more, can range farther, can venture all sorts of undertakings from which the other is precluded by his lack of strength.  All these experiences, if they are guided by prudence and self-control, bring their meed of insight and skill and character.  It is only through living that we grow, and health means the potentiality of life.

(2) Health means efficiency, more work done, greater usefulness to society.  Sooner or later every man who is worth his salt finds some task the doing of which arouses his ambition and becomes his particular contribution to the world.  How bitterly will he then regret the heritage denied him or foolishly squandered, the handicap of quivering nerves, muscular flabbiness, wandering mind, that impedes its accomplishment!  Determination and persistence may, indeed, use a frail physique for splendid service; such names as Darwin, Spencer, Prescott, remind us of the strength of human will that can override physical obstacles and by long effort produce a great achievement.  But for one victor in this struggle of will against body there are a hundred vanquished; and even these men of genius and grit could have accomplished far more if they had had normally serviceable bodies.

(3) Health makes morality easier and likelier.  The pernicious influence of bodily frailty and abnormality upon mind and morals has always been recognized (cf. the mens sana in corpore sano of the ancients), but was never so clearly seen as today.  The lack of proper nutrition or circulation, the state of depressed vitality resulting from want of fresh air, exercise, or sleep, are important factors in the production of insanity and crime.  Over fatigue means a weakening of the power of attention, and hence of will, a paralyzing of the highest brain centers, a lowered resistance to the more primitive instincts and passions.  Chronic irritability, moroseness, pathological impulses of all sorts, generally betokens eyestrain, dyspepsia, constipation, or some other bodily derangement.  With the regaining of normal health the unruly impulses usually become quieter, sympathy flows more freely, the man becomes kinder, more tolerant, and morally sane.  Professor Chittenden of Yale is quoted as saying that “lack of proper physical condition