Avenues to health / by Eustace H. Miles.

  • Eustace Miles
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Avenues to health / by Eustace H. Miles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    money. Do you pretend to say that the miscreants who did this deed committed no sin ? ’ In answering this I still hold firmly that all is good. I say that there are no miscreants, and that no sin was committed. I say that the men who did this deed were following that natural law which urges every living creature on in the pursuit of happiness. These men were seeking their own happiness, and were directed by the picture of the whole world’s selfishness, in their misguided attempt to realise their own happiness. They did not commit a sin, as the word is understood by Government, and by society, and by the clergy. They made a fearful mistake ; this mis- take will eventually teach them the truth by contrast. So it is seen that what we call sin is ignorance of the law of life, and of the law of happiness which is alto- gether good.” In other words, the power to search for happiness is being turned into a wrong direction. Well directed through intelligence, it is the greatest and most beneficial power in the world—misdirected, through ignorance, it is still the greatest but now the most disastrous power in the world. The science of developing this power in the right lines is in its infancy. As George Combe says : “ In chemistry one combination of elements produces a medicine of great power in removing pain ; another combination of elements, the same but different in their re- lative proportions, brings forth a mortal poison. In human nature, also, one combination of faculties may produce the midnight murderer and thief, another combination a Benjamin Franklin or a John Howard or a Fry, glowing with charity to man. If, however, we search the works of those philosophers who have hitherto written on the mind, to find rules by which to discriminate the effects (upon the character and conduct of individuals) from different combination of the mental powers, what in- formation do we receive? Instead of light we find dis- pute whether such differences are natural or the result of education and other circumstances. This department of philosophy is, in short, a perfect waste.” All ill-hcalth is due to ignorance, to ignorance of nature’s laws. (It is far easier to understand this than
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