A SICK MAN’S THOUGHTS.

Evening Star, Issue 18399, 6 October 1923, Page 2

A SICK MAN’S THOUGHTS.

We have been ill. Not for very long, and not very seriously, thank goodness. Three weeks in bed, with the doctor in attendance, with the restrictions of a spare diet and some few swallowings of nauseous drugs. No very pleasant experience on the whole, but with its compensations. Not to speak of kindly hands that ministered to us, there was time, after the first few days, to rend and time to think. Most precious, perhaps, of all the gifts which sickness brings is that time to think; an opportunity so lacking in the rude and busy days of health. We read somo of our favorite books over again, and we [ thought “ things new’ and old.” We thought, for example, what a wretched waste of energy is involved in this being ill. How much bettor the world would wag if nobody were ever “laid up”! There would not be much for the doctors to do, that is true. The occupation ol

these Othellos would he gone. But what of that! They could go poultry fanning, or tally bees on on apiary. How much more power would bo available for driving the machinery of the world wore everybody always well and going at top! When the house wife is laid aside so much of her task must stand over till sho is well again. Her husband may do something in the mornings and the evenings. Good neighbors may look in through the day and help. But there is always a great deal left undone. When the husband lakes to bod two men must do the work of three at his office, or business is disorganised, if not at a standstill, till he returns. Had wo the data and the mathematical bent wo could reckon up how many thousands of days’ work are lost to the community every year through sickness, and it would be an appalling number. Surely Nature bungled things when she made man so delicate a creature that he is always in danger of being ill. But did she? That depends on what she had in view when she rondo man. It is clear that sho was not aiming at producing any stupendous embodiment of physical power. Even when wo are well and “in perfect nick,” we do not greatly excel m strength. There is not a single physical faculty that our fellow-denizens of this planet, the lower creatures ns we call them, do not overtop us in. A man is a puny creature beside a horse or an ox or a tiger; slew of foot compared with a hare, a deer, or a kangaroo. He cannot fly like a bird or swim like an otter. In dexterity a spider boats him. In mere ability to go on living he cannot hold a candle to the tortoise. And yet man is greater than all the animals. An immeasurable distance separates him from the noblest of them. He stands apart, despite his weakness, in virtue of his mind. Ho has powers of observation they know nothing of. He can generalise. Ho can reason. Tie can discover principles and apply them to particular cases. He can distinguish between competing motives ant! make choice which he will bo governed by. He can share his life with his fellows and participate in theirs. .Mind, soul, spirit, call it what wo will; whatever adumbration thereof we may find in the animal world, man possesses it in a unique degree. It is hi? differentiating' characteristic. It is what makes him man. An’d it far more than makes up for all his deficiency in merely physical qualities. So that after all it may not be due to any, bungling on Nature’s part that we are so weak. Sho was not trying to make us strong. Thi.s very liability to illness is no blunder on her part. On the contrary, it goes to serve her chief design.

Let us continue to think. Our mental [lowers, wo discover, -arc stimulated hy the necessities of our physical weakness. We learned to build houses because we [could not endure the hunt of the sun or j the cold of winter. Whether the use of j the lever was discovered by accident or i otherwise, it would never have been discovered at all had we been able to move great weights without it. It was some poor wretch swimming for his life, and far spent, clutching at a Heating log, who first conceived (ho idea of a raft—the idea which ultimately gave us our groat oceangoing liners. His manifold needs taught man in tho beginning to grasp at whatever aid Nature could lend him in his struggle for life. Tho beginning of ail science was impelling necessity. Other motives may lie behind the study of Nature now; but all along and to this hour tho motive of finding help for om; weakness has been the dominant one. Wafer and steam we learned to harness because our own muscular force could accomplish so little. Wo invented the spinning jenny and tho power loom because human fingers span and wove so slowly. We knew that there wore ranges of vision which cur eyes could not explore, and we did not rest till wo had fashioned the, telescope and the microscope. By cunning electrical devices wo devised means of talking to each other over long distances, thus overcoming the disadvantages of slow communications. Our proneness to sickness has forced us to seek much knowledge. Had no one ever ailed, would wo ever hove learned to keep ourselves clean? Would wo ever have equipped our towns and villages with supplies of wholesome water. Given greater physical strength and immunity from disease, and civilisation would never have been, or it would have been of vastly slower growth, Tho thirst for knowledge had to bo stimulated by the dire sense of need.

There is another consideration, too Man’s weakness lias made him dependent on his fellows to an extent unknown among the animals. A human babe is the most helpless of nil offspring, and human children longest in gaining inrlfpeiidenca of their parents. It was tills that bound the family together; it was out of this there grew family affection and loyalty. It was weakness made families cling to one another and form chins. They cuild not exist without each other’s aid. So dans cohered in tribes, and tribes in nations. And it will bo our human weakness that eventually will compel the nations to cohere in some grand “federation cf the world.” Man is a creature who cannot livo alone. Ho must relate himself to his follow-men. Ho depends on them r.i d they on him. And it is out of this mutual dependence grow the fairest flowers of character—trust, honor, fidelity, sympathy, self-sacrifice, lovo. In short, hut for his weakness man could never reach the heights of his manhood. Our fvnrility is plainly a designed affair. It is the c edition of our spiritual life. To parody a lino of Browning’s, brutes ne might have been, but dare not sink i’ the scale. Cur miserable lack of strength, our humiliating dependence on one another, compeihd us to climb the steeps of knowledge and love. And sickness has played its part in that severe but gracious compulsion. Nature’s hands are rough, but she is a kind nurse. Sho has made men t,f us.