p. 13 | Physical Morality

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1902

Physical Morality

The preservation of health is a duty. Few men seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorders entailed by disobedience to nature's dictates they regard simply as grievances, not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are often as great as those caused by crime, yet they do not think themselves in any way criminal. It is true that in the case of drunkenness the viciousness of this bodily transgression is recognized, but none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression is vicious, so, too, is every bodily transgression. The fact is that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins.—Herbert Spencer.