One of the surest means for keeping the body and mind in perfect health
consists in learning to hold the passions in subservience to the
reasoning faculties. This rule applies to every passion. Man,
distinguished from all other animals by the peculiarity of his reason,
is placed above his passions to be the director of his will, can protect
himself from every mere animal degradation resulting from passionate
excitement. The education of the man should be directed, not to suppress
such passions as are ennobling, but to bring under governance, and
especially to subdue, those most destructive passions, anger, hate, and
fear.
X
To escape the evils arising from the use of alcohol there is only one
perfect course, namely, to abstain from alcohol altogether. No fear need
be entertained of any physical or mental harm from such abstinence.
Every good may be expected from it. True, a certain very qualified
temperance, a temperance that keeps the adult to a strict allowance of
one ounce and a half of alcohol in each twenty-four hours, may possibly
be compatible with a healthy life; but such indulgence is unnecessary
and encourages the dangerous desire to further indulgence. A man or
woman who abstains is healthy and safe. A man or woman who indulges at
all is unsafe. A man or woman who relies on alcohol for support is lost.