And what a vigor and vitality there is in the literature of this period. Life is worth living, and studying, and describing. They see the world directly as it is; not some distorted picture of it, seen by an unhealthy mind and drawn by a feeble hand. The world is ever new and fresh to them because they see it through young, clear eyes.
Were they giants or are we dwarfed? Which of the two lives is normal? They used all their faculties and utilized all their powers. Do we? The only force or product which we are willing to see wasted is the highest mental and moral power. Our engines and turbine wheels utilize the last ounce of pressure of the steam or water. The manufacturers pay high wages to hands who can tend machines run at the highest possible speed. The profits of modern business come largely from the utilization of force or products formerly wasted. But how far do we utilize the highest faculties of the mind, which have to do with character, the crowning glory of human development? Are we not eminently "penny-wise and pound-foolish?" A ship which uses only its donkey-engines, and does nothing but take in and get out cargo is a dismantled hulk. A captain who thinks only of cargo, and engines, and the length of the daily run, but who takes no observations and consults no chart, will make land only to run upon rocks. Are we not too much like such dismantled hulks, or ships sailing with priceless cargoes but with mad captains?
But we have not yet seen the worst results of this waste of our highest powers. The sessile animal, which lives mainly for digestion, does not attain as good digestive organs as his more active neighbor, who subordinates digestion to muscle. Lower powers reach their highest development only in proportion as they are strictly subordinated to higher. This may be called a law of biology. And our lower mental powers fail of their highest development and capacity mainly because of the lack of this subordination.
But a disused organ is very likely to become a seat of disease and to thus enfeeble or destroy the whole body. And this disease effects the most complete ruin when its seat is in the highest organs. Dyspepsia is bad enough, but mania or idiocy is infinitely worse. And our moral powers are always enfeebled, and often diseased, from lack of strong exercise. And some blind guides, seeing only the disease, cry out for the extirpation of the whole faculty, as some physicians are said to propose the removal of the vermiform appendage in children. Similarly might the drunkard argue against the value of brain, because it aches after a debauch. Our work is hard labor, and we gain no enjoyment in the use of our mental powers; for the enjoyment of any activity is proportional to the height and glory of the purpose for which it is employed. As long as we are content to use only our lower mental faculties and to gain low ends, our use of even these will be feeble and ineffectual, and our lives will be poor, weak, and unhappy.