From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How prodigiously _cheap_ is the application of any such epithets, considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a _savage_ or a _villain_! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to--and to which, would we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on-- 'A man's a man for a' that!' Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and beauty. And not so much _their_ meanness and weakness, as that of those who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty and nobleness. The word 'health' wraps up in it--for, indeed, it is hardly metaphorical--a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which _healeth_ or maketh one to be _whole_, or, as the Scotch say, _hale_; which _whole_ or _hale_ (for they are one word) may imply entireness or unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in which there is no disorganization--no division of interest--but when it is recognized as a perfect _one_ or whole; or, in other words, not recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue _sanity_, which, from _sanus_, and allied to [Greek: saos], has underneath it a similar basis. Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he puts the idea contained in this word--speaking of the manifold relations of physical, psychal, and social health. Reference is made to his employment of it in the 'Characteristics'--itself one of the most authentic and veracious pieces of philosophy that it has been our lot to meet with for a long time; yet wherein he proves the impossibility of any, and the uselessness of all philosophies. Listen while he discourses thereon: 'So long as the several elements of life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is melody and unison: life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music and diapason--which, also, like that other music of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are _whole_.'