The principles of health for the normal man are few and simple, the reward great; what stands in the way is partly our apathy and indifference, partly our incontinent appetites, partly the unwholesome and deadening social influences in which we find ourselves enmeshed.  For those who care enough, almost unlimited vistas open up; as Spinoza has it, “No one has yet found the limits of what the body can do.”  William James was convinced [Footnote:  See his essay, “The Energies of Man,” in Memories and Studies.] that the potentialities of human energy and efficiency are but half realized by the best of us.  We must learn better to run the human machine.  Our prevalent disregard of the conditions of bodily vigor, our persistent carelessness in the elementary matters of hygiene and health, is nothing short of criminal.

“We would have health, and yet still use our bodies ill; Bafflers of our own prayers from youth to life’s last scenes.”

Happiness that impairs health seldom pays.  Where it is a question of useful work done at the expense of our fatigue, there may be more question; normally such sacrifices are undesirable; but what seems over fatigue may not really be so, and the earnest man will err on this side rather than run risk of pusillanimous shirking.  Moreover, some work practically requires an over effort for its accomplishment; and no man of mettle will begrudge his very life-blood when necessary.  Overwork is “the last infirmity of noble minds.”  Yet when not really necessary, it must be ranked as a sin, and not too generously condoned.  The intense competition of modern industry, the complexity of our economic machinery, the colossal accumulation of facts which must be mastered for success, bring heavy pressure to bear upon those who have their way to make in the world.  The pace is fast, and many there are that die or break from overstrain when at the height of their usefulness.  Such, overpressure does not pay; it means that less work will in the end get done.  When we consider also the moral dangers it involves, the glumness or irritability of taut nerves, the unhealthy tension that demands strong excitements and does not know how to rest or enjoy quiet and restorative pleasures; when we consider the broken men and women that have to be taken care of, the widows and children of the workers who have died before their time, the children perhaps weakened for life because of the tired condition of their parents at birth; when we consider the number of defective children born to such overworked parents, we realize that it is not primarily a question of enjoying life more or less, it is a matter of grave economic and moral import. [Footnote:  Cf.  M. G. Schlapp, in the Outlook, vol. 100, p. 782.] Whether we actually work harder, on the whole, than our forebears, and whether there is actually a decrease in the health and endurance of the younger generation today owing to the overstrain of their parents, is open to dispute.