Two Lectures on the Conditions of Health and Wealth Educationally Considered (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1860 Excerpt: ... THE CONDITIONS OF WEALTH EDUCATIONALLY CONSIDERED. On a former occasion I had the honour to address the members of this association on " The Conditions of Health Educationally considered." This evening I have to speak of the Conditions of Wealth similarly viewed. The task which I then attempted was easy compared with what now lies before me. I had then to contend, at worst, with the vis inertice which resists all new things till time has made them old, when it takes its stand as firmly upon them as before it did on those which they have displaced, and with the indifference that needs only to be roused to observe what has long lain before its eyes. To-night, however, I have further to do battle with misconceptions and with misrepresentations, I do not say wilful, but springing, as I think, from prejudice and ignorance. On no subject, probably, is confused thought so prevalent and so inveterate as on this; and partly for the very reason that it concerns us all too nearly to allow us to have no thoughts about it. Of the binomial theorem we may have no true conception without necessarily having false conceptions. There the mind may be a blank. But, regarding our social relations, we must have thoughts, or, at least, phrases which pass for thoughts; and these are oftener derived from hearsay or from hasty impressions than from candid and patient reflection. The difficulty and the importance of correcting erroneous, and clearing up confused, opinions on this subject are thus directly proportioned to each other. At the first glance, a contrast strikes us between the two subjects, --that which we have been, and that which we are now, considering. Every one in words admits, or, at least, no one denies, the importance and desirableness of health; while in deeds most o...