WE LEARN TO DO BY DOING
Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn.
YOUNG.
Good health and good sleep are so interdependent that it is as
difficult to separate them into cause and effect as to determine
“which came first, the hen or the egg?” If it be true that life may be
wonderfully prolonged as soon as we have learned to avoid disease and
exhaustion, and that we may learn to avoid both by avoiding excess,
then it is as much within our power to live long and well as to sleep
long and well, if we so wish. Senility, the disease of old age, is now
believed to be caused by germs which flourish in the waste matter left
in the system through improper or excessive eating.
Metchnikoff, the noted bacteriologist, alleges that the large intestine
is the breeding-place of these destructive germs. A Dr. Hall arrived
at the same conclusion earlier and combated his germs with copious
water-flooding of the bowels. So far, Metchnikoff’s experiments point
to the conclusion that lactic acid destroys them. That is why he
recommends the use of pure buttermilk and has invented a tablet that,
dropped into milk, will convert it into a wholesome drink for adult
man. Discoveries and inventions of this sort are of great interest to
all who enjoy and seek to prolong life. But purely physical things
cannot take the place of the mental attitude. The youngest woman of
seventy-nine that I have ever known is one who says, “Tell me more;
I must not get into such a rut that I cannot grow.” No discovery or
invention will do us much good if we allow habit to cramp our thought
and custom to stale it.
Science may show us how to avoid disease and to prolong life, but, if
we turn a deaf ear to her teaching, we shall get no benefit from it. It
is the alert, open mind that profits from discovery or experience. The
sun may shine with life-giving power, but, if the house be shuttered
and darkened, it will not benefit the dwellers. So with the mind. If
we resolutely shut it against new ideas, if we refuse to take even the
gift of life and health from an unaccustomed hand, then we must expect
to suffer.
If we would rid ourselves of sleeplessness, of disease, and
dissatisfaction, we must be willing to let go of every habit, every
thought, every feeling that may injure us. To hug them to us is merely
to invite further suffering, to lessen our own vigor and our own
enjoyment.
Nevertheless, we must hug our habits to us, if we can see or understand
nothing better. No one can help us beyond what we are willing to
receive: anyone can lead a horse to the water, but no one can make him
drink. If the end in view seems to us worth the price we must pay, we
pay it. We have no choice; for our desires push us that way. We often
take credit to ourselves for things for which no credit is due us.
However self-denying an act may seem, it is, after all, the thing we
want most to do, else we would not do it.
In the same way, if we refuse to profit by the discoveries and
experiments of others, if we prefer to go on in our old way of
suffering, nobody can really prevent us. It is all a matter that we
must decide. This book does not pretend to cure any ill. It intends
merely to show what investigation and experience have proved; to point
to possible ways of escape from the ills with which men now suffer. If
it looks desirable to you, you will only read it; but, until you have
tried it, you cannot say whether it is good or not.