Avenues to health

Front matter

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This Book is Dedicated To My Friend

Preface

No dogmatism — only suggestions of what may be useful ; no one single path for all — but many paths from which each individual may select his own ; no guarantee of immediate success, rather a plea for fair personal trial before a verdict be passed. This is the truest “ Science of Health” until we know at least a hundred times as much as we do concerning the myriad changes which are constantly going on within our bodies and within our minds.

There is no universal panacea, no single and only avenue to complete health, though the past century has heard many a treatment called the universal# and only avenue by various fanatical individuals or classes. “Fast,” “Take no breakfast,” “ Eat slowly,” “Take no meat,” “Take nothing but meat and water,” “ Breathe deeply,” “ Do strengthexercises,” “ Practise Suggestion and develop your mind-forces,” — all these commandments we know well. But not one of these is likely to be by itself the means of complete health for all.

It is true that at least one avenue is absolutely essential to full health, namely purity. But even this has different approaches for different individuals ; nor will it, unaided, lead to complete health for all, unless we give the word its very highest sense, a sense not generally associated with the word in our own language to-day. The rest of the avenues also have different approaches for different individuals.

‘ Healers’ talk glibly of Diet, Exercise, Fresh Air, Water, Heat, Electricity, and so on, as being certain ‘means of cure. Each of these (as well as many others) may be an avenue to some health for some individuals. But in each of these there are many and various lines or ways of walking.

“Wholesome Diet.” Yes, but what diet? Perhaps the answer of the “ healer ” is “ A ‘ Vegetarian ’ diet.” Yes, that may be so ; but what “ Vegetarian ” diet? Is it to be fruits and nuts, or grains or grain-products, or milk, or milk-products, or pulses, or vegetables, or certain kinds out of each class, or certain combinations from two or more of these classes ? And, if so, what combinations ? Who shall say ? Read the ‘ Vegetarian ’ literature carefully and you will find many sects, each sect

maintaining that “ Nothing can be better than ”

(this is the commonest formula). And then there are the Hindus and other peoples who have their strict rules, and thrive on their various foods, and yet do not write to the ‘Vegetarian’ papers at all. And how shall we eat ? Shall we, obeying "one of the ‘healers,’ swallow no fibre or cellulose? And when and how often shall we eat ? Once a day, or twice, or three times, or four times ? And what shall we drink ? And how ? And how often ?

Or let us look along the avenue of “ Exercise .” “ Exercise is necessary to health.” I have read this in the writings of many vague authors lately. Yes, but what exercise ? Is it to be ordinary walking, or cycling, or athletics, or games, or “ strength-and-strain ” exercises (with or without this or the other apparatus), or the Macdonald Smith fast full movements, or the Delsarte (Miss Call and Mrs. Archer) slow reposeful movements? Or combinations of these ? And, if so, what combinations? How much exercise shall we take? and how often ?

Again, let us admit “ Water ” to be “ necessary to, health.” Yes, but is it to be cold, or cool, or warm, or hot, or in “permutations and combinations”? And, if so, in what permutations and combinations ? And how shall we use the water : with stomachwashings, enemas, partial or whole “packs,” or baths, or spongings, or douches, or sprays, or rubbings ? How often?

Or consider those mighty powers, Imagination and “ Suggestion ” (especially Self-suggestion) : how shall we use them? Shall we “imagine” pictures, or ideas, or sentences seen or heard? If sentences, then what sentences ? When ? how often ? under what physical conditions ?

There is no one and only panacea, there is no one single avenue to complete health for all alike ; there is no one single way in which all must walk alike in any one of the avenues.

Yet health is pre-eminently and abundantly worth while for every individual. Who in the wide world would not give time and trouble if, let us say after six months or a year or even two years, he could have (and really feel that he had) a pure and strong and enduring and active and prompt and attractive body, with its almost if not quite inevitable sequel, a pure and strong and enduring and active and prompt and attractive mind ; if he could know that healthy blood and healthy thoughts were his, well earned and henceforth well assured ?

Most of us, however, feel that this life is too short to enable us to try all the avenues and all the ways of walking in each ! Though every individual must eventually choose for himself or herself after fair trial, though no individual may condemn, ununtried, any reasonable and feasible way of walking in any reasonable and feasible avenue, yet some general rules are needed.

Hence, one out of many sample hours has been outlined in Chapter VI. ; let the readers who wish to begin gradually, begin with some such hour, modifying it to suit their own conditions. Then let them fairly try as many of the other avenues as they shall think fit, not walking along all on the same day — that would be an absurd start — but testing them gradually by that personal experience which alone can give us certain knowledge.

The task may be long and not altogether easy.. Yet I can suggest no other way to the desired end, to full health of blood and body, of thought and mind. Each reader must settle with his own conscience how far it is his duty to work for better and fuller health ; only let him remember that his particular experiences, whether successful or not, and especially his particular devices, may prove of the greatest possible service to others. I suppose it has been some such idea that has encouraged me to experiment in many ways, and to make the results known to the public, not that the public would thereby learn a general truth, but that it might thereby be saved a certain amount of haphazard and senseless experimentation, and consequent waste of money, time, and energy.

Every one knows that disease is wont to use some one avenue of attack, rather than all the avenues at once. This individual, for instance, may be open to disease through the lungs ; that individual through the liver ; another through the kidneys. The whole body may ultimately be affected, and the whole body may die, but it is the weakest point that will have been the avenue of approach, the point of attack.

It has not yet been generally recognised, I think, that a similar principle is true of health. And yet it is obvious that, in thousands of examples, health has entered by some one avenue only, or else by some one avenue especially, even if the whole body may ultimately be affected. In the case of health, however, the entry may sometimes be not by the weakest point but rather by the strongest. Disease seldom or never enters by the strongest point.

There are people innumerable who have passed from miserable illness to robust health by a use of some one method, and even by an apparently unscientific use of it : witness the hundreds of cures even by the clumsiest and rudest and crudest applications of cold water, of hot water, of heat (as in the “ Baking Cure ”), of electricity and magnetism, of colour, of exercise, of rest, of “ Christian Science,” of “ Mental Science,” of all sorts of things, perhaps actually of drugs.

The author of this book cannot speak with the cocksureness of the ordinary advocates of these and other methods : he cannot choose for another more than one avenue to health, nor can he choose for him any single way of walking within any single avenue. The most that he can do is to mention various avenues, and various ways of walking within them, and then to leave to the individual reader the task of trying for himself, and thus of deciding for himself. By their fruits ye shall judge them, not by the theories either of their experienced and trusting lovers or of their ignorant and distrustful despisers.

Yet, for practical purposes, excessively safe vagueness may be as great a mistake as excessively risky cocksureness, which at least has the advantage of stimulating many patients with hope and confidence, and thus of affecting the strength and activity of the blood throughout the system. And therefore the author has suggested that certain avenues seem to him more likely than others to lead to health in most cases.

The great cures for diseases and clis-ease in the future, and the still greater and nobler preventions, seem likely to rest with the cheapest and easiest and purest means, and especially with the following ; — Simpler foods and fewer meals ; fresh air and the habit of correct breathing ; sensible clothing ; light and colour ; heat ; water ; the habit of correct bodily positions ; games and athletics adapted to city life ; brisk full-movement exercises ; muscular relaxing and the storing of energy ; music ; imagination and “self-suggestion;” gradual training of sensation and observation, intellect, emotion and desire, will and action ; last, but not least, the highest possible ideal of boyhood and girlhood, manhood and womanhood — the ideal that is both physical and aesthetic and intellectual and social and economical and moral and spiritual — kept constantly in view as being the reality which some day must and shall be reached and visibly expressed.

But as yet there is no exact general Science of any one of these vital subjects, except perhaps of the ideal, which is still, however, scarcely more than a dream that is forgotten when one awaketh ? Still less is there any fixed Code of Laws for any given individual. Thus no authority can safely say precisely which of these avenues are best for you personally ; or precisely when, how, how often, you personally shall use them.

Therefore each must learn by personal experiment, meanwhile guiding himself, and saving time and trouble for himself, by studying the personal experiments of others. Let each, therefore, study this book with this object — to save himself time and trouble, not to find rules of universal application.

All these and other “Avenues to Health” are selected and treated here according to what seems

(a) most likely to be near to general laws [not, mark me, to universal laws] ; and also

(b) most likely — -an essential consideration — to be tried by many classes or individuals, especially the poor and those who seek after useful truth for themselves, for humanity, for posterity.

Above all, to the vast majority of mankind — I do not say to all — I urgently recommend gradual beginnings tinder easy conditions . 1 would say,

keep the ideal persisently, obstinately, in view, but do not forget to start with the actual and real. Secure your first ground, and do not secure too much first ground. The Romans won a little land, made it peculiarly their own, “assimilated” it, before they began their rapid conquests. So did the* English. The Etruscans apparently did not ; neither did the Argives, nor the Persians. Too great an empire quickly won and loosely held has always fallen.

Do not try too many avenues at once. The best avenues for most people will be pointed out in a special Chapter. We must remember how far from real health most people are, and how much there is to be unmade as well as to be made afresh. A successful physician in America remarked that “taking something, doing something for the health, was the burden of lives almost innumerable ; verv few people were so well that some improvement was not desirable.”

I can count on my fingers the really healthy men whom I have ever met. “What of So-and-so?” perhaps you ask, naming some celebrated athlete. Well, he does not seem to me to be healthy all-round and throughout. He does not seem to me

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to be healthy in intellect, or even in body, under all sorts of conditions. P'or example, keep him in a city, and deprive him of his athletics for six months ; then will he be healthy in body? He is dependent on his environment : he is not free. Or perhaps you point out to me some man of intellect. But put him on a cricket-field, and try his physical health, his endurance, his activity, his prompt control of his limbs. You will see that he is not really healthy, all-round and throughout. Of the morals of the athlete, and of the- man of intellect, I say nothing, except that if either of these two persons be immoral he cannot be considered as even physically healthy. Neither is the typical saint physically healthy either. The general idea of a saint is an anaemic individual, such as, alas, we too often see represented in church windows.

Yet everyone of us would like to come nearer to the ideal of health, if, as must be the case, the o-reater the health is, the Qreater also must be the athletic success, the better the intellectual and moral standard, and the higher the happiness. But how can we come nearer to the ideal ?

“The literature on what to eat and what not to eat, on what to do and what not to do, on medicines that convert human stomachs into drug-stores, is simply boundless.” There are hundreds of books which oive us instruction. But most of these have

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three General faults.

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(1) They insist on special conditions. Many of them say, for instance : “ Spend your time in the open air.” This is the favourite advice for consumptives. But how can we do this if our livelihood is. gained by work in an office or a factory ? Besides, this takes up much time, whereas people are impatient, and want immediate results.

(2) Some one path to health is generally guaranteed as an absolutely certain path for every one.

For example, it may be fresh air, or exercise, or some special set of exercises, or some special way of breathing, or some special set of foods, or it may be fasting, or some water-treatment, or what not.

(3) If more than one path be recommended, then,, as a rule, the recommended paths are either only physical or only mental. There are many “ Christian Scientists” and “Mental Scientists” who utterly neglect all the physical paths to health, at least in theory. They say that it will not matter what our body does, so long as our thoughts are right. They forget that, for most of us, right thoughts are impossible apart from a right body with pure and active and strong blood. For the majority , on the present plane of evolution , physical helps are preferable , even if the future lies with the higher mental helps , and especially with Self-suggestion.

This book offers to its readers many physical avenues , and many mental avenues. But much of the emphasis will be laid on the mental avenues, because they are new to most readers, and because they are most neglected by physicians. Especially is the intelligence to be trained and cultivated that it may with freedom find out the best ways and means. Emphasis has also been laid on those avenues which seem to be most successful, especially after certificated doctors have failed to cure. No emphasis is laid on any avenue merely because it is orthodox ! This book, has nothing to clo with orthodoxy. There are already plenty of books about the orthodox treatments. The importance will be found to be assigned to the cheaper avenues already alluded to in this Preface.

Moreover this book offers many physical avenues and many mental avenues for ordinary conditions ,. for a town -clerk who has to spend all his day in

Preface, an office, or for a factory-girl who has to spend all her day in a work-shop. Especially is it written for the impatient. It is to them in particular that certain rapid means of restoring the natural health are offered. As examples of such means one might quote the early morning light-and-air-bath ( Luft-Bcid ) with brisk full-movement exercises, and followed by muscular relaxing, and the Lebenswecker (Chapter XXX), if this shall suit the individual.

Provided that the advice which I give can be put into practice by these people, the city-clerks and the factory-girls and the impatient, then a fortioi'i it can be put into practice by almost any one and every one. But it is not for a moment to be imagined that the rapid cures which I suggest are permanent cures ; they are temporary helps which may give quick relief. They may hurry on the processes of nature. They need not remove the deep cause ot the mischief, which probably can only be removed by a new way of living. Yet at any rate it cannot be denied that such cures are very simple for people in all sorts of circumstances. As a writer in the “ Fortnightly Review” aptly remarked: “In practice one must

consider the organisation of modern society in large cities, such as London or Paris. One cannot debar a civilised member of society from going to the theatre, etc., for ever.” One must find avenues in which the public will agree to walk.

As to the keynote of this book, it is expressed in the Yogi Vivekananda’s well-known work on the Indian Yoga-practice. This practice is often poohpoohecl as ridiculous ; but a quotation will show that at least it is not stated ridiculously ; in tact, no one has ever said anything less extreme, less exaggerated, than the following : —

“ Take up a method of practice honestly, and then, if you do not find the higher truth, you will have the right to say that there is no truth in the plan. No faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing until you

find it out tor yourself. The study takes a long time and constant practice, but there is no mystery in it. What I preach, you must practise, to see whether these things happen or not. With practice, within a few days a little glimpse will come, enough to give you encouragement and hope. No amount of reasoning wilt prove it to you, until you have demonstrated it for yourself . As one practice cannot suit every one , various methods will be recommended and every one by actual experience will find out that which helps him most.”

Although mine is not a book on Yoga-practice, still these words will serve to express my point of view as well as the point of view of Vivekananda. Each should find for himself his own avenues, both physical and mental. Each should try at least one physical and one mental avenue, and each must choose his own way of walking in it. For example, let us suppose that your physical avenue is diet, and that within this avenue you have chosen the ‘ No-breakfast' plan, which thousands have adopted with success in America. Then keep to this plan till it ceases to suit you, but do not make it your only avenue. Perhaps with it you may combine brisk exercise, and the art of relaxing the muscles. You may also combine some form of Self-suggestion. But you need steady practice before you can tell whether this or that be your avenue or not. And you need such practice before you can honestly and safely condemn.

For all the avenues are practical and nearly all have been actually used by myself* and by many others

* The colour-treatments are an exception.

with ore at advantage. I look forward to improving constantly in health, and I hope that I have been improving constantly in health during the last few years. And certainly there is only a single one of these avenues in which I do not to some extent walk.

Above all, there is no mystery in this book. I would rather confess my ignorance than pretend that 1 can explain one half of the reasons for what I suggest. A confession of ignorance is not seldom the truest wisdom. The more one examines concrete examples, the more one concludes that each individual avenue has to be tided and judged on its own merits. To show how little each can judge without trying, and how liable the highest authorities are to gave quite the wrong advice, I mention two cases which have recently come under my notice.

A friend of mine went to a leading specialist, and was told that he had a weak heart ; that he must diet himself carefully, and give up smoking. My friend tried the cure for a day or two, but then went back to his ordinary way of living, except that he added to it more physical and mental recreation than before. Within a few months he came back to the same specialist, who now pronounced him as healthy a man as he had ever seen, and nobly confessed himself to have made a mistake in his former opinion. The doctor’s final remark was to the effect that he had thoug-ht the case to be one of heart-trouble and impure blood, whereas it was rather a case of nerves. On the other hand, a second friend of mine was convinced that his was a case of nerves. It had nothing particular to do with his blood, he thought; and if he could enjoy himself, he was perfectly well. But it was conclusively proved to him that his blood was in a state of exceptional impurity. He could not be convinced that anything was wrong with him except his nerves, until he was shown the poisons which were coming out of his own body.

We have need not merely of a number of avenues from which to choose, but also of a number of simple tests which any one can apply for himself. We do not want to worry every moment, but we want to know what our state of health is. We want to have simple tests on which we may rely, and hence in one Chapter I give some easy rules about the pulse, the temperature (including the temperature of the feet), the bowels, and the “uric acid” ; and to these I have added the simplest test of all, the test of one’s own feelings. For if one has a tendency to do good work persistently, and not to be slack or to worry ; if one has a tendency really to enjoy life uniformly ; if one is inclined to help others ; then one may be fairly sure of one’s health. In this same Chapter I have gathered together a few of the simplest remedies, so that he who does not satisfy the tests can have at hand some easy helps towards restoring the balance.

It is hoped that the critics will remember the keynote of this book, and will treat its suggestions as they treated those of “ Muscle, Brain, and Diet.” The same spirit permeates both works ; there is no dogmatism, there is only suggestion. Each individual has to decide for himself, after fair trial, whether such-and-such a theory be true or not. There is only one answer. It is true for you, if it removes your disease and dis-ease, and restores your health. For instance, is this or that form of Self-suggestion a good theory ? You must study it, and try it. and practise it fairly. If after fair study and trial and practice you do not get satisfactory results, then the theory is not true (or is not yet true) for you ; and that is probably the answer which chiefly concerns you. The book is not dogmatic, arbitary, fanatical ; and it is not final. New light about health must be thrown on the subject every year, nay, every week. At first many of the ideas seemed to me quite absurd. One of the absurclest was Dewey’s “No-breakfast plan ” ; but it appears to have suited the great majority of those who have tried it, and the physiological reasons seem to be sound up to a certain point. Other means to health, which at first sight might appear needless, are the systems of muscular relaxing, of brisk full-movement exercises, the Lebenswecker, the colour-cures, and so on ; but all have met with great success in a vast number of cases where they have been tried. I have tried all these (except the colour-cures), and have found them all to be good for me. I have found them all to be easy and cheap, and good for me, and therefore, possibly, to be good for many others besides myself. These avenues, and I hope all the others in this book, are in the direction of economy, simplicity, and adaptation to all sorts and conditions of men and women, boys and girls. In most of these avenues each reader can walk by himself, and walk safely .

I had at first intended to write only a short book but then these fresh ideas flooded in upon me, and I did not like to set them aside and leave them undescribed. I had to give up a great deal of time to putting them to a fair personal test. The results of my experiments have led me to write a far longer book than I should have written at first. But I preferred to be more safe and accurate in my advice.

I did not see what I could fairly omit; I thought it best to mention all the avenues so that I might suit all people. And there can be no doubt whatever that every year will make me change my opinion somewhat, now in this direction, and now in that. At present the most I can do is to ask for free criticism and suggestion — if possible, after a fair individual experimentation.

Those who wish to read the book quickly can pass over the quotations, many of which are printed in smaller type. For the convenience of such readers I have given summaries of the arguments of the most important Chapters : specimens will be found in Chapter XIV (the Two-meal or One-meal Plan), Chapter XV (Slow Eating), Chapter XXXVI, (Self-suggestion).

Ordinary “ cranks ” may be defined as those who have one theory which (whether it be entirely or partially or not at all true or feasible, and whether or no it be a source of physical and mental well-being to themselves as individuals), they importunately command every one everywhere instantly to put into full practice, on pain of physical and mental annihilation.

The author of this work gives no commandment whatsoever beyond this: “Try fairly before you condemn.” He points out a large number of ways which have not only helped to give health, or to give it more abundantly, to numbers of others besides himself, but which have also proved available and workable in daily life without an utter subversion of custom, of fashion, of reputation for saneness. Not one is guaranteed as by itself a certain means of cure ; only one is insisted on as an essential foundation to true health. All the others await the verdict of each experimenter for himself. By their fruits ye shall know them : not by my theoretical defence, nor yet by another’s theoretical objection.

The scout must often be content to make a negative report. In this or that direction, he might say, there seems to be less danger than along your present line of march ; there may be some danger, but we have not seen any. You cannot stay where you are. You must move forwards. And this or that path seems the best to try. It is only in the spirit of a scout in a little known country that I have ventured to offer any advice at all. Where I have sensed danger, as along the myriad paths of “ druggery without drudgery,” I have urged every reader to step warily or to step elsewhere.

In conclusion, I cannot do better than use the words of Hume, “the cheerful sceptic, in order to emphasise my own point of view. After considerable study and experience, “as a result I found myself in each case wiser than before, but too wise to incalculate a positive doctrine. I must be a sceptic till I am sure of my beliefs. I know only one side of my story. I await further insights. I am as yet unable fully to discover. Therefore I leave so-and-so an open question. As to my fellows, I can teach them only as I personally deem wisest. I shall frankly tell them that I have one hope to give them, for I will not mask as one who positively knows. In my relations with them I am concerned, only with my attitude towards them, not with theirs, unless they ask my help. I am an egoist if you like. But I am an altruist by aspiration. I am contagiously happy, and feel no shame. Show me that I am wrong, and I will gladly listen.