The sick have longed for it.

Saints have prayed for it and, in the search for its fabled, false elixir,
alchemists have sacrificed their lives. It remained for the smug, "sober
judgment" of our day to pronounce it "unattainable"--unattainable!

This, however, is a matter of small moment; for, as Whittier reminds us:
"The falsehoods which we spurn today were the truths of long ago"--and
although men part reluctantly with favorite--and lucrative--fallacies,
and "Faith, fantastic Faith, once wedded fast to some dear falsehood,
hugs it to the last," nevertheless this false belief, like so many other
sapient pronouncements of human wisdom, must be subjected to final
reversal.

The ideal state of health is, truly, "unattainable" when we refuse to
yield obedience to the simple laws of nature--when we continuously
persist in interference with her work and embarrass her with artificial
substitutes, defying her august hygienic precepts by our manner of life.

Not so, however, if we yield to her inducements, fulfil her
requirements, and submit ourselves freely to her unerring will.

There is less of fault than of weakness in the fact that so many of us
fail to give nature the opportunity to rear us as healthy men and
women, to keep us more free than we are from suffering and disease.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness and follow on the lines of the veriest
simplicity.

The preservation of health must needs, then, move along these self-same