Relations of Mental Labor to Physical Health: A Paper Read Before the National Council of Education at Its Meeting at Chicago, July, 1887 |
Common terms and phrases
activity admit appear appreciated body and mind breakdown character charged commission committee complex complicated concentration of nervous conditioned conduct consciousness Council of Education data demands determination development difficulties directed disturbance doubt downward dwarfs economic education enhanced entire equally excessive forces forms free frequently further habits of eating hand head heredity higher highest holds human hurry ical important individual influence influence of social inner innermost inquiry intellectual interpretation involved lead least less lies limit matter Maudsley memory mental modification motives need network notice numerous object observation organs orgies outcome outward passive pays perhaps periodical reports persons physical functions PHYSICAL HEALTH point possible potent powers problem processes profitable proposal psychic psychic function reaction reason reference RELATION relationship render reports secure seeks self-preservation side social contagion soul sound special spring structure subjective feeling submit successively suitable surroundings thinking thought tion true understood unfavorable upward vegetative vigor W. N. HAILMANN whereas whole
Popular passages
Page 3 - ... lies inward, upward, symbolizes, seeks relationship, levitates ; the physical lies outward, downward, assimilates, seeks matter, gravitates. The relative energies of these forces determine the drift and character of the complex automatism which rules each individual life-history. With reference to the physical, the mental appears involved in the physical as its innermost potentiality, as its soul, its raison d'etre, its highest outcome. In its evolution it seems to proceed out of the physical...
Page 6 - ... difficulties, not the least of which is, that the controlling spiritual law can never yield to our finite powers of analysis. This leads to the important inner differentiations between feeling on the one side and thinking and willing on the other. Of these, feeling is the innermost ; it represents the immediate effect of influences and inner processes on consciousness. Thinking and willing appear, respectively, as the passive and active reactions of feeling in consciousness. However, the activity...
Page 7 - We frequently notice such cases of simple will-less mind engrossment in novel readers whose whole being is taken up with the shifting scenes of their stories. It is obvious that salvation lies only in harmonious life development, a life development in which mind and body, the inward and outward activities, feeling, thought, will, and conduct, seek with equal eagerness that all-sided, evenly-balanced self-expansion which holds all worthy objects of human life and whose attainment is the problem of...
Page 4 - ... successively higher functions, both of body and mind, make successively greater demands upon the life forces, it cannot be argued from this that excessive activity of any one function reacts unfavorably only in downward directions — ie, from mind to body. On the contrary, the unfavorable reaction is in both directions, downward and upward through the entire series of connected functions. Excessive physical development dwarfs the mind, as surely as excessive mental activity dwarfs the body ;...
Page 5 - Thus mental operations rest on memory, but exclusive or excessive attention to the cultivation of memory hinders mental growth and development. Hence the tendency in the practical work of education to train the memory more toward relations than facts, and to render the functions of memory automatic with the smallest possible expenditure of time. Thus, too, the concentration of nervous force upon intellectual processes reduces the vigor of other functions both upward and downward, affecting not only...
Page 5 - ... to sexual sins, excessive social indulgence, to morbid story-book voracity, and the like, or to the mere absence of suitable physical exercise, to unfavorable surroundings or conditions affecting the vegetative processes of life, and the like. The problem...
Page 3 - ... highest mental life is attainable only through strict obedience to the requirements of complete, healthy, physical life. On the other hand, it seems to be less generally appreciated that, within the limit of the powers involved, enhanced mentality renders physical life, as a whole, not only more complex, but more intense, more vigorous, — lifts it to a higher level of efficiency. It is frequently overlooked, what demands. increasing mentality makes upon all the physical functions of self-preservation...
Page 3 - ... foresight, in superior self-adaptation ; in short, in the more economic use of the powers ; in return secures self-preservation more fully and less expensively. Thus the individual is enabled to economize on the...
Page 5 - ... directions, downward and upward through the entire series of connected functions. Excessive physical development dwarfs the mind, as surely as excessive mental activity dwarfs the body ; the head pays for the orgies of the stomach as surely as the stomach pays for the orgies of the head. The same holds good within the limits of psychic function. Thus mental operations rest on memory, but exclusive or excessive attention to the cultivation of memory hinders mental growth and development. Hence...
Page 7 - Thus the boy builds a frail liouse of cards, and then blames the first slight tremor of the table on which it stands for the downfall of the structure. Similarly the very complex network of influences in which we are held by our surroundings are strangely disregarded on questions like the one submitted to- your committee. It is true, in the formulation of laws they can be eliminated more readily than the deeper influences of social contagion and heredity, yet in the observation and investigation...