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THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
of the bowels. During fasting, when the digestive fire of the stomach does not have food to burn, it starts consuming toxins which would have led to ailments. By burning these toxins, fasting can be said to delay the ageing process.
RIGHT CONDUCT The eighth aphorism of health is ethical conduct (charitra). According to Plato, good is an essential element of Reality. Evil does not exist in itself but is, rather, an imperfect reflection of the Real, which is good. According to Plato, human virtue lies in the fitness of a person to perform his proper function in the world. The human soul has three elements-intellect, will and emotion. Each possesses a specific virtue in the good person and performs a specific role. The virtue of intellect is wisdom or knowledge of life; that of will is courage and the capacity to act; that of emotion is temperance or self-control. The ultimate virtue-justiceis the harmonious relation of all the elements, each fulfilling its appropriate task and keeping its proper place. Plato maintained that the intellect is sovereign, that the will is second to the intellect, and that the emotion is subject to both. The just person, whose life is ordered in this way, is therefore a good person.
German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) placed ethics in a social context. According to Hegel, to be ethical is to fulfil one's duty to the best of one's ability. Hegel claimed that a man's reason and desires can be bridged by the recognition on the part of each person that he or she is part of a community. Since the individual is shaped by the community in which he lives, the community fosters those desires in him that benefit the community the most. Therefore, the individual should not pursue interests that contradict the interests of the community. Hegel spoke of three major circles in which a person should fulfil
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