The Laws of Life and Health #226515

A healthy organism is one which can adapt itself and go on adapting itself — both in structure and function, to its surroundings; and Of all organised beings man displays the greatest ability to adjust himself to his environment. The human family has the power to remain in perfect health in the coldest of Arctic regions and in the hottest of tropical zones; the highest of mountains and the lowest of valleys are compatible with health within limits. This implies that a healthy frame is one which has a good construction, capacity for endurance, self-control (not only physical but mental and emotional), and ability to resist all sorts of injurious influences. The actual signs, however, of this condition are SO illusory and so liable to misinterpretation that it Is wise to fall back upon a more general definition, and probably the best is, that health is the harmonious adaptation of the body to its environment. This fulfils every requirement, and is in accordance with the Spencerian doctrine that life is the continual adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. Health and disease are different aspects Of the same body, definite results flowing from definite conduct, just as good and evil in the moral world have the same physical substratum and one or the other will arise according to the actions Of the individual.