Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics — John Shaqi
Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
8. BEGIN AT THE RIGHT PLACE.--Too many are, however, impatient of
results. They are not satisfied to begin where their fathers did,
but where they left off. They think to enjoy the fruits of industry
without working for them. They cannot wait for the results of labor
and application, but forestall them by too early indulgence.
* * * * *
HEALTH A DUTY.
Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will
both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the
preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is
such a thing as physical morality.
Men's habitual words and acts imply that they are at liberty to treat
their bodies as they please. Disorder entailed by disobedience to
nature's dictates they regard as grievances, not as the effects of
a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences
inflicted on their descendents and on future generations are often as
great as those caused by crime, they do not think themselves in any
degree criminal.
It is true that in the case of drunkenness the viciousness of a bodily
transgression is recognized; but none appear to infer that if this
bodily transgression is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression.
The fact is, all breaches of the law of health are physical sins.
When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the
physical training of the young receive all the attention it deserves.
Purity of life and thought should be taught in the home. It is the
only safeguard of the young. Let parents wake up on this important
subject.
[Illustration: GLADSTONE.]
* * * * *
VALUE OF REPUTATION.
1. WHO SHALL ESTIMATE THE COST.--Who shall estimate the cost of a
priceless reputation--that impress which gives this human dross its
currency--without which we stand despised, debased, depreciated? Who
shall repair it injured? Who can redeem it lost? Oh, well and truly
does the great philosopher of poetry esteem the world's wealth as
"trash" in the comparison. Without it gold has no value; birth, no
distinction; station, no dignity; beauty, no charm; age, no reverence;
without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms,
every dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations and
accomplishments of life stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock,
warning the world that its approach is dangerous; that its contact is
death.
2. THE WRETCH WITHOUT IT.--The wretch without it is under eternal
quarantine; no friend to greet; no home to harbor him, the voyage of
his life becomes a joyless peril, and in the midst of all ambition
can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, he tosses on the
surge, a buoyant pestilence. But let me not degrade into selfishness
of individual safety or individual exposure this individual principle;
it testifies a higher, a more ennobling origin.
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