ble
of toil and exposure, whom the winds of heaven cannot visit too roughly
without leaving behind the seeds of dissolution." Here and elsewhere Dr.
Ray cites the passion for light and emotional literature as a proof of
our degeneracy. We have certainly nothing to say in behalf of that
quality of modern character produced by the indolent reading of
sensational writing. Still it may be questioned whether the enormous
supply of bad books has not increased the demand for good ones,--just as
quacks make practice for physicians. The readers of the Ledger stories
have learned to demand a weekly instalment of the good sense and
sobriety of Mr. Everett. And we are disposed to accept the view of a
late American publisher, who declared that as a business-transaction he
could not do better than subscribe to the diffusion of spasmodic
literature, since it directly promoted the sale of the best authors in
whose works he dealt. The craving for an intense and exciting literature
Dr. Ray attributes to "feverish pulse, disturbed digestion, and
irritable nerves." No doubt he is right,--within limits. But may not a
_healthy_ laborer find in the startling effects of the younger Cobb
refreshment as precisely adapted to idealize his life, and divert his
thoughts from a hard day's work, as that for which the college-professor
seeks a tragedy of Sophocles or a romance of Hawthorne?

The chapter treating of "Mental Hygiene as affected by Physical
Influences" begins with such warnings against vitiated air as all
intelligent people read and believe,--yet not so vitally as to compel
corporations to reform their halls and conveyances. The remarks upon
diet have a very practical tendency. Dr. Ray, while declining to commit
himself to any theory, is very emphatic in his leanings towards what is
called vegetarianism. He questions the popular impression that
hard-working men require much larger quantities of animal food than
those whose employments are of a sedentary character. Although
confessing that we lack statistics from which to establish the relative
working-powers of animal and vegetable substances, Dr. Ray declares that
the few observations which have met his notice are in favor of a diet
chiefly vegetable. The late Henry Colman was satisfied that no men did
more work or showed better health than the Scotch farm-laborers, whose
diet was almost entirely oatmeal. In the California mines no class of
persons better endure hardships or accomplish g