Health, or, How to Live

SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS

In addition to our own personal obligations to physical law, we are under high accountability in consequence of our relations to society. We are under obligations to law for the sake of posterity. Parents, and those who may expect to be parents, are called upon to take care of their health and constitution for the sake of generations to come. If parents are of weakly or diseased constitution, the children must suffer, to more or less extent, the consequences. By the unlawful course of parents in regard to themselves, the children suffer disease and premature death. HHTL 345.2

Parents are also under obligation to teach and oblige their children to conform to physical law for their own sakes. The mother who suffers her children to eat irregularly, or to violate the laws of their systems in any other way, commits a crime against her offspring, against humanity, and against Heaven, for which God will hold her responsible. She commits a crime against the dearest objects of her affections, the evil consequences of which, time may never be able wholly to remove, and eternity alone reveal to her understanding. HHTL 345.3

How strange and unaccountable, that mothers should love their children as tenderly as to indulge them in what they have occasion to know may injure their constitutions, and impair their happiness for life! May many children be delivered from such mothers, and from such cruel kindness! HHTL 346.1

The managers and teachers of schools and literary institutions are under obligations to secure such facilities for exercise and regulations in regard to the observance of dietetic law, as are adapted to preserve the health, and promote the literary progress, and secure to the world the usefulness of their pupils. And students owe it to the world that they so walk in obedience to law, as to render their existence and advantages a blessing to society. HHTL 346.2

Professional men cannot disregard the laws of their own health, without infringing upon their obligations to community whom they serve. If their services are required, they are bound to make the most of their ability to meet the demand. The labors of any professional man, engaged in the active business of his calling, whether he be a clergyman, a physician or a lawyer, make a severe draft upon the nervous system, which will require all the strength that it can possibly command. HHTL 346.3

Working men have a responsibility in this matter. Those who employ laborers are in duty bound, not only for their own interests, but for the interests of those who serve them, so to regulate the hours of each day’s labor, as to give their men a chance to live, enjoy the blessings of life, and sustain those who may fall into their charge. Those who are employed to labor, are under obligation to live in such a manner as to make themselves of service to their employers and meet the demands of society at large. HHTL 346.4

All who desire the welfare and improvement of society, are under obligation to exert an influence over others on this subject, by example and precept. No man can live entirely isolated from his fellow-beings; his influence by word or deed, is constantly telling pro or con the well-being of the world. Let him see to it that it be such, touching this matter, as shall make mankind the better and happier for his having lived in it. Let him be at least a drop in the bucket of that great wheel which moves the vast machinery of human improvement in its onward course. — Philosophy of Health. HHTL 346.5