पृष्ठ 155 / 1391

Still even in the management of health, care and thought,

continued over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we

do not exact too much of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that

all human freedom is limited by the laws of nature and of mind.

We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general

condemnation which he passes on the practice of medicine

prevailing in his own day, depreciates the effects of diet. He

would like to have diseases of a definite character and capable

of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism

interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that

time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders; and

that remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are

safer than those which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does

he see that there is no way in which the mind can more surely

influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking; or

any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher

freedom of the will can be more simple or truly asserted.