Harm

“ We commonly understand by it any kind of harm done by one man to another; but we do not define the idea of [Pg 286] harm; sometimes we limit it to the harm which the sufferer is conscious of, whereas much the worst injuries are those he is unconscious of; and, at other times, we limit the idea to violence, or restraint, whereas much the worse forms of injury are to be accomplished by carelessness, and the withdrawal of restraint. ”

“ Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.
8. That which does not make a man worse than he was, also does not make his life worse, nor does it harm him either from without or from within. ”

“ Evil thought, worry, directs to the person, or to that part of the body considered, an injurious and baneful influence that produces pain, inharmony, unhappiness. It is as if one were to divert a stream of corroding acid upon a sensitive wound, and do it because we wished to heal the wound. ”

“ But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; ”

“ CHARMS AND MEDICAL LORE Charms for warding off unseen harm and danger, and for curing bodily ills were of course much more numerous, and more generally accredited in the early decades of last century than they are to-day. ”

“ We know that they inevitably terminate in diseases and distortions of proper action, either in the body or in the mind, or in both; and that these evils can only be cured by the liberation of the said instincts again to their proper expression and harmonious functioning in the whole organism. ”

“ However, every one knows that the harmony and connection between the Body and the Mind are so establish’d and constituted, while they are united, that the Diseases of the one always affect the other in a very sensible manner; and experience daily demonstrates, that violent passions of the mind produce Fevers, Fainting Fits, and other severe effects on the Body ”

“ But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine
The body of this world—like thine,
My little world! That fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our souls' bliss: then we shall rise
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region where no night
Can hide us from each other's sight.
Meantime thou hast her, earth: much good
May my harm do thee! ”

“ A little house in a garden may look like a little paradise in the sunshine, and yet feel like a dungeon when a poor woman all alone looks out across her flowers in the rain, and sees nothing but the wall that shuts her in, and thinks to herself that she has no refuge nor escape from it—nobody to tell her what to do, nothing but her own feeble powers to support her, and the dreadful idea that she has done harm and can do no good to her only protector. ”

“ He felt their presence here and there in his brain, like pockets of poison, harmless as long as you left them encysted and did not prick them. ”

“ Kill not for food, and where Necessity Demands the sacrifice of sentient life, Kill with all kindness and with due regard To Physical—and Mental—feelings. Pain Is a nerve-racking, dread experience, Especially unto the dumb Creation, Who cannot question, yet are forced to bear That dread experience, all unwillingly. ”

“ Who can tell the countless temptations to evil which flow in from a neglected, disordered, deranged nervous system,—temptations to anger, to irritability, to selfishness, to every kind of sin of appetite and passion? ”

“ The term "injury" I use this term in a somewhat peculiar sense, to signify any moral influence or physical force exerted by one human being upon another, the legitimate effect of which is to destroy or impair life, to destroy or impair the physical faculties, to destroy or impair the intellectual powers, to destroy, impair or pervert the moral and religious sentiment, or to destroy or impair the absolute welfare, all things considered, of the person on whom such influence or force is exerted ”

“ Thou art, in thy very nature, impure, and hast already diffused amongst us too much of thy deadly poison before we took the alarm. Like an infected atmosphere, thou hast silently entered the abodes of moral health; thou hast penetrated the strong holds of our freedom, without giving us any warning! ”

“ Out of our own experience we know that [Pg 69] anger, fear, worry, hate, revenge, avarice, grief, in fact all negative and low emotions, produce weakness and disturbance not only in the mind but in the body as well. It has been proved that they actually generate poisons in the body, they depress the circulation; they change the quality of the blood, making it less vital; they affect the great nerve centres and thus partially paralyse the very seat of the bodily activities. ”

“ And it is from this cause that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself not only in contortions, but in shrieks and groans—that in anger, and fear, and grief, the gesticulations are accompanied by shouts and screams—that delightful sensations are followed by exclamations—and that we hear screams of joy and shouts of exultation. ”

“ I have trod merry England, and dwelt on its charms;
I have wandered through Erin, that gem of the sea;
But the Highlands alone the true Scottish heart warms,
For her heather is blooming, her eagles are free. ”

“ These are the languors and sickness of the soul, and that the medicine. Nothing is as potent to restrain the attack of wrath, or quell the tumour of pride, or heal envy's wound, or put out the fire of lust, or temper avarice. ”

“ As the great explosive forces of destruction and decay seemed to have released actual germs to attack the physical well-being of races, had the terrible crashes of spiritual destinies unsettled the very air of life, poisoned it, drugged it with madness and despair? ”

“ Possibility of the Spirit Suffering: It is just as real, this suffering of the spirit for the violation of the moral law, as the suffering of physical pain that comes from the violation of some physical law. The mind no less than the body may be hurt, wounded as deeply as the body, and carry its scars as the evidence of its wounds as long. Mental suffering is as real and poignant as physical pain ”

“ All physical poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind, while the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul. ”

“ One generates the blood which is the life, the other is its purifier and renovator. The use of both is health, vigor, and enjoyment; the abuse of either counts up largely in the account we have to pay for what of evil there is in the world.—Abridged from Westminster Review. ”

“ A beast, or a human being in whose veins coursed undisciplined blood, might, as involuntarily as the boughs of trees lash before storms, perform wild and wicked deeds after inhaling that hot air, evil with the sweat of sinevoked toil, with nitrogen stored from festering sores of nature and the loathsome emanations of suffering life. ”

“ Heat and cold, hunger and thirst, toil and labor, countless illnesses and diseases of the body, fear, anguish, disturbance, care and sorrow in the mind, constant dangers and temptations in the soul, treachery and unfaithfulness in friends, misfortunes in temporal affairs, troubles from masters, servants, neighbors, false brethren, one's own children, ourselves, and a thousand other trials and crosses; it is in these things that human life mostly consists. ”

“ Like the moon, when the stars are bedimm'd with her blaze.
The mavis and lark, when they welcome the dawn,
Make a chorus of joy to resound through the lawn:
But the mavis is tuneless; the lark strives in vain,
When my beautiful charmer renews her sweet strain. ”

“ While we all allow that extensive or recognizable diseases of, or injuries to, the brain, free a man from responsibility and punishment, how can we logically mete out blame or praise, punishment or reward to our ordinary acts, thoughts, and impulses, seeing that all our acts, thoughts, and impulses, good or bad, virtuous or criminal, are equally the mere expressions of certain inevitable physical changes in the brain, the mere register on the dial plate of consciousness of necessary predetermined complications in the working of certain atoms of the gray matter of our cortex? ”

“ For some cry and leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places. The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves and other men. ”

“ It is na beauty's fairest bloom,
⁠It is na maiden charms consign'd,
And hurried to an early tomb,
⁠That wrings my heart and clouds my mind;
But sparkling wit, and sense refin'd,
⁠And spotless truth without disguise,
Make me with sighs enrich the wind
⁠That fans the grave whare Mary lies. ”

“ For, under the guise of some injury, or love, or anger, or grief, or strangling you with a rope, or drowning you, or throwing you from a precipice, or by suicide, or apoplexy, or some other disease, they deprive you of life. ”

“ For this purpose, striking and perilous situations are devised, or circumstances of strong moral excitement, a troubled conscience, partial gleams of insanity, or bodings of imaginary evil, which haunt the soul, and force it into all the agonies of terror. ”

“ And here, also, the soul is central. The clean heart, pure thoughts, controlled appetites, aspiring hopes, these make health. Evil temper, lust, worry, care, envy, these are the soul processes that disturb the life and destroy health. ”

“ Thus also the disturbance and fear, which often follow upon a man’s having done an injury, arise from a sense of his being blameworthy; otherwise there would, in many cases, be no ground of disturbance, nor any reason to fear resentment or shame. On the other hand, inward security and peace, and a mind open to the several gratifications of life, are the natural attendants of innocence and virtue. ”

“ Whatever can cause, or help to cause, discomfort, pain, sickness, death, vice, or crime—and whatever has a tendency to avert or destroy, or diminish such cases—are matters of interest to the sanitarian ”

“ Our original corruptions are the sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indisposition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not seared and senseless. ”

“ His anger cooled at the sight of the blood; fearful pangs of conscience seized the strong man, he repented his rash deed, turned hurriedly back, hoping he might yet quench the stream of blood, and save the unhappy boy. ”

“ First, on principles of reason. For how easy is it to suppose, that a strong, lively and sudden apprehension of the heinousness of sin, the wrath of God, and the bitter pains of eternal death, should affect the body as well as the soul, during the present laws of vital union; should interrupt or disturb the ordinary circulations, and put nature out of its course? ”

“ Or is there no remedy, and must we go on, either enduring tortures artistically, or suffering spiritually? We are not omniscient, but we venture to assert that conditions might be caused to improve by the adoption of several changes of procedure that are herewith recommended. ”

“ Whether the cause be referred to mental, physical, or spiritual conditions, everyone knows the effect; every one has felt that the looks, the actions or gestures of the beloved awaken some vestige of tenderness in those most deeply sinned against and grievously wronged. ”

“ Dragging with her one woman who was paralysed with fright, she induced the others to follow her, and when they were out of the line of fire, proceeded to examine the terrific wounds from which one and all declared themselves to be suffering. ”

“ To be killed, or kill—life or death for those—
I wonder which; happy I cannot lose!”
Count not men Molochs that with passive eyes,
They witness neighbours’ agonies.
Bodily ills all; how should bodies care
For others’ ills? Each has its own to bear.
Easily flow our tears when others weep;
As easily we fall asleep;
When Havoc stalks abroad, content we see
Other flesh in pain from which ours is free!
Let flesh be flesh; we by rough ways and bleak
Will climb up to the mountain peak; [102]
And entering through guarded ramparts there
Find peace from flesh in temples stately, fair ”

“ Our body, which is the means of attaining the four aims of life, viz., virtue, worldly pursuits, pleasure, and liberation, is subject to diseases which emaciate and weaken it, deprive the senses of their functions, and cause extreme pain. ”

“ If grief, anger, or excessive joy are able to vitiate secretions, and cause sickness and death, a happy frame of mind, intellectual exertion and moral excellence tend to the perfect health of these secretions. Health is a condition to be gained and kept by careful observance of its laws, and these laws are of the physical as well as mental being. ”

“ The main point here, however, is that diseases are in all cases caused by the operation of evil spirits, and that their operation is in and by means of spiritual conditions either of the mind's life or induced upon it. ”

“ This is how curing or preventive virtues come to be attributed to the movements which one makes, to the cries uttered, to the blood shed and to the wounds inflicted upon one's self or others; and as these different tortures necessarily make one suffer, suffering by itself is finally regarded as a means of conjuring evil or curing sickness. ”

“ Between hell and heaven and in danger of persecutions, banishments, eternal damnations, and ungracious looks of kings and ladies the mind was lithe and bold: alas! what is mind becoming today!" [21] In brief, danger and enmity are good for man. ”

“ Dangers encompass us, unseen at every moment. Within us, in the wonderful and delicate organisation of our bodies--around us, when in circumstances of the greatest comfort and apparent safety--are dangers unseen, which at any moment might terminate our earthly career. ”

“ But let the body rise up with its passions, with the fallen nature pertaining to it, and let the spirit yield to it, your destruction is sure. On the other hand, let the spirit take the lead, and bring the body and its passions into subjection, and you are safe. ”