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 OF TASTE 
 
 NORMAN BRIDGE
 
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 The Rewards of Taste
 
 By the Same Author: 
 
 The Penalties of Taste 
 and Other Essays 
 
 i2mo, cloth, $1.50 
 
 The essay which gives the title to this 
 exceedingly readable little volume is fol- 
 lowed by five others, respectively entitled; 
 "Two Kinds of Conscience," "Bashful- 
 ness," "The Nerves of the Modern Child," 
 "Some Lessons of Heredity," and "Our 
 Poorly Educated Educators." 
 
 Dr. Bridge is a physician of wide prac- 
 tical observation and experience, and his 
 treatment of these themes is of the most 
 catholic kind. His plan is generous and 
 kind, and his style is simple, direct, agree- 
 able — even chatty. The reader can give a 
 fair guess at the scope and significance of 
 the treatment from the very names of the 
 essays. The two that seem to us to pos- 
 sess especial value are "The Nerves of the 
 Modern Child," and "Some Lessons of 
 Heredity." These are of prime impor- 
 tance and are treated in a rather striking 
 way. A layman might have written the 
 others, but not these. On the whole, it 
 can be truthfully and cheerfully said ot 
 this volume that it is thoughtful, full of 
 suggestions, and worthy of a wide read- 
 ing. — Los A ngeles Herald. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE AND COMPANY 
 CHICAGO
 
 The 
 
 Rewards of Taste 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 NORMAN BRIDGE, M.D. 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE df COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 
 
 MCMII
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Some Tangents of the Ego . . . . i 
 
 The Mind for a Remedy . . . . 51 
 
 The Etiology of Lying 87 
 
 Man as an Air-Eating Animal . . . 123 
 
 The Rewards of Taste i45 
 
 The Psychology OF THE Corset . . . i75 
 The Physical Basis OF ExPERTNESs . . .211 
 
 The Discordant Children . . . . 237
 
 Some Tangents of the Ego
 
 Some Tangents of the Ego 
 
 I 
 
 The study of the genus homo is a pursuit 
 of endless interest. The anatomy and phys- 
 iology of man, and the diseases that infest 
 his body, have been investigated with amaz- 
 ing success in recent decades. The moral 
 and emotional — the intellectual side of 
 human nature, has been a subject of wonder 
 and study through all history. Why and 
 how do people think and act so variously as 
 they do? What is the basis of their varying 
 equations in society? Essays and sermons, 
 and stories without number, have been writ- 
 ten to answer these questions, yet the sub- 
 ject is not exhausted, and never can be. 
 
 The general tendencies of human kind, and 
 much of the philosophy of life, were well 
 told some centuries ago. But new problems 
 arise, and new data are constantly being 
 found. The psychology of to-day is based 
 
 I
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 on physiology, and has made the character 
 of mind more plain and rational. Moreover, 
 on every fresh discovery of a cardinal fact 
 in science, there must be more or less of a 
 recasting of the theory of the branch to 
 which it belongs. Then in a measure it 
 becomes a new science. 
 
 One of the greatest ambitions of the study 
 of man is to be able to understand and pre- 
 dict his conduct under given circumstances; 
 and it is our confusion in trying to explain 
 it that makes the study interminable. If we 
 were all alike in emotions and motives, or if 
 we were any of us constantly the same in 
 these particulars, the question would be an 
 easier one. But we differ, like the trees, 
 and vary from time to time; we know our- 
 selves too little, and others far less, and for- 
 ever wonder why others act as they do. In 
 trying to say why, we tell stories and guess 
 mostly — we observe carelessly, and analyze 
 and reason very little. We usually miscon- 
 strue in another qualities that we ourselves 
 lack; and often when we try to understand, 
 we attribute acts to some impossible motive 
 that we fancy the other must have. 
 
 There are some truths that are known of 
 everybody, and so are common axioms. 
 They are verified by the universal experience 
 
 2
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 of the race. Certain necessary things man- 
 kind must forever do and think, and for 
 these we calculate. It is the unusual, the 
 erratic, the unsymmetrical, that disturb our 
 reckoning and make confusion. 
 
 The struggle for existence among all liv- 
 ing things must go on. It has probably 
 always been going on, and we need not look 
 to see it stop. With the human family the 
 struggle is not always for the same thing, 
 but it is always for something; for property, 
 shelter, warmth; for personal likes, and for 
 manifold real and imagined joys; for phys- 
 ical existence against the enemies of the 
 body. Each class and cult has ambitions 
 somewhat different from every other, but 
 they are alike in seeking the things desirable 
 for the exigent needs of self. 
 
 Selfishness is necessary for the struggle, 
 and furnishes its motive power. And it 
 makes vulgar cattle of us too often for the 
 comfort of the thoughtful. More or less we 
 prosper by the misfortunes of others, and 
 are glad of the misfortunes; and we try to 
 excuse ourselves for being glad. We push 
 others out of the easy paths if we can, and 
 only once in a while, when the awfulness of 
 the struggle is apparent, feel ashamed of it. 
 
 We are separate and different, yet more 
 
 3
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 or less connected, units, and we bowl on 
 through the journey of life, struggling to 
 keep up with the great procession, and hold 
 favored places in it. In our evolutions we 
 are bound to make detours and go off at 
 tangents, sometimes great and prolonged 
 ones, and often without knowing that we 
 are out of our usual grooves. We make some 
 of these detours purposely, but most of them 
 are really blunders, which we would avoid if 
 we could. The intention is to keep rather 
 closely to the beaten path. Sometimes we 
 push out to one side a little, and pretend 
 that we are pursuing an independent or ex- 
 perimental course, but the moment we find 
 that we really are, most of us feel timid or 
 shocked about it, begin to make excuses, 
 and rush back near the main road. 
 
 We are usually blind to the fact that we 
 are out of the regular course, and this is one 
 of the greatest of our misfortunes. Others, 
 for some reason, perhaps for fear of being 
 misunderstood, hesitate to tell us; if they 
 do tell us, we are in doubt whether they are 
 sincere, or mean to hurt us. So the fates 
 that always ought to help us, seem to pre- 
 vent us from being helped much. We must 
 seek the road alone, and, if we can, fall into 
 the regular step of the caravan v/ithout the 
 
 4
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 aid of others. This is the course of real 
 independence that we have to pursue. In 
 the momentous marches of our lives we walk 
 alone; we may take counsel of others, but 
 must follow our own advice. 
 
 Our egoistic ideas are necessarily the 
 strongest we have. Altruistic impulses are 
 kept in abeyance. As others cannot, in the 
 long run, think as much of a man as he 
 thinks of himself, he must look to his own 
 needs. This is both laudable and neces- 
 sary; and if we can see him give a little 
 thought to others, and yield a little that he 
 might possibly, within the law and custom, 
 take for himself, we regard him as normal. 
 We never think of accusing him of selfishness 
 as long as he takes only what we regard as 
 fair to the general lot. And society has 
 very positive notions of the measure of ego- 
 ism that may fairly be expressed in what we 
 call selfishness. But this is only one of the 
 numerous manifestations of egoism. Multi- 
 farious ideas, ways and habits of people who 
 are credited as unselfish, are as truly egois- 
 tic, and they persist as tenaciously as, for 
 example, the morbid desire to get money; 
 and they are as significant blemishes of 
 character. 
 
 Egoism that is normal needs no restraint; 
 
 5
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 it is only when this absorbing motive leads 
 us into excess and erratic conduct that it 
 hampers and harms us; then it becomes a 
 proper subject for the knife. 
 
 Everyone would have a symmetrical 
 character if he could, for this means the 
 greatest aggregate of happiness. Egoism, 
 self-thought and self-direction are given us 
 that we may order our lives to the highest 
 purposes. So ordered, we have the most 
 ideal character that is possible to us. 
 
 For convenience and power to do things 
 the ego must teach us habits, for these mul- 
 tiply our hands and feet and eyes of service. 
 The purpose is, of course, to create habits 
 that will always help and never hinder. But 
 we sometimes make bad habits — misleading 
 feet and uncunning hands. Yet nobody 
 tries to create such things. Some men have 
 a weak pride in them after they are formed 
 by accident; but perversity is not premedi- 
 tated. No man would willingly make a 
 race less than his best, and freakish habits 
 do not help to the best race. 
 
 When we investigate the bad and queer 
 habits we uncover a chain of curious fatuity. 
 At the core they are found to come almost 
 solely from the various yearnings and 
 antagonisms of our egoistic emotions. 
 
 6
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 Some of them we have ourselves created 
 solely; some we have been helped into by 
 our environment; and many of them have 
 come largely by hereditary influences. 
 
 While it is true that we rarely succeed in 
 learning our own egoistic fads and angles, 
 and rarely convince any man of his, yet 
 most men would like to know if they have 
 such foibles; and, on learning they have, 
 are eager to mend. There are examples of 
 such mending, even metamorphoses of 
 character as in the so-called "new birth" 
 under the stress of religious feeling. The 
 instant the individual is thoroughly con- 
 scious that he is far out of the path he de- 
 sires to follow, he promptly tries to come 
 back to it, and sometimes succeeds. The 
 realistic novels, and the vast range of cari- 
 cature, the sermons and essays on the foibles 
 of life, and especially the hard knocks of 
 experience, have doubtless helped some to 
 see a part of their own defects, and to cor- 
 rect a few of them.
 
 II 
 
 The foremost egoistic excess of our time 
 is probably greed. It produces what we 
 call variously avarice, penuriousness and 
 parsimony. It easily forgets the propor- 
 tions of good taste, and may forget the law, 
 and become criminal. In women of slight 
 self-restraint and poor moral balance it may 
 appear as kleptomania; but the alienists 
 refuse to recognize this as a form of lunacy 
 — to them it is merely a vulgar vice. The 
 same bad balance in men leads to common 
 thieving or more refined rascality. A vari- 
 ation is selfishness for minor things, and dis- 
 regard of the rights of others. This leads 
 to boorishness, often shown in the merest 
 trifles. It may be more conspicuous because 
 it descends to trifles, as it more shows the 
 lack of proportion begotten by the egoism 
 of selfishness. Some men and women of^ 
 this general class are physical and moral 
 degenerates, and become habitual criminals, 
 apparently for pleasure. 
 
 An opposite tangent is reckless giving and 
 
 o 
 o
 
 . SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 spending of money. The victim has no sense 
 of proportion as to values, and no adequate 
 idea of property. He may strive to gain 
 and get ahead, and might by the accidents 
 of life acquire a fortune, but he could not 
 keep it. He would spend and squander in 
 the most erratic manner, and become poor, 
 unless he died speedily. Such people are 
 useful, and often the very best souls, but 
 they are unfit to lead or direct in life. 
 They should always follow, or be directed. 
 
 One of the most disagreeable tangents, 
 and very common, is excessive conceit — 
 self-enlargement, egotism in its very purity. 
 This shows us people who are forever the 
 butt of jests, good subjects for the drama 
 and literature, and always amusing to 
 others. The sketches of them are amusing 
 even to the subjects themselves, who are 
 always unconscious of their egotism. Who 
 ever knew a conceited man to be conscious 
 of his conceit! If such a one should sud- 
 denly know it, his fault would be gone the 
 next day. Acquaintances may tell him of 
 his weakness, but to him ',they are usually 
 prejudiced, or they envy or dislike him, or 
 are conceited themselves. 
 
 The peacock strut begins very early in 
 life. The most striking form of it is in 
 
 9
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 children; it appears numerously and in sev- 
 eral orders of society. In no other class of 
 persons is there ever seen a mental bent that 
 is so positive, transparent and easily under- 
 stood as this. The symptoms may be vol- 
 ubility, romancing, boasting; more likely 
 they are the doing of all sorts of acts for 
 the unconscious purpose of attracting the 
 attention of others, especially strangers, or 
 persons a little strange, like neighbors and 
 friends not of the child's household or set. 
 A child will play for hours with other child- 
 ren or by itself in the presence of only its 
 mother, or some person it does not care to 
 impress, and play in the most natural man- 
 ner, and for its own wholesome amusement. 
 But let a stranger approach; then watch and 
 you will see the scene change. Suddenly 
 the youngster begins to do a dozen different 
 things that he had not thought of before, 
 and they are all such as would presumably 
 attract the attention of the stranger, or . 
 impress him with the superiority of the 
 child. And it can easily be seen by a little 
 study just what form the conceit takes. If 
 the child is vain of his general smartness, 
 the tricks will show it, as in pompous decla- 
 rations about something — anything that he 
 fancies will make an impression. If he is 
 
 10
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 vain of his expert skill, or of his prowess, 
 he is likely to show off in some mimetic per- 
 formance, or to pick a quarrel with, or domi- 
 neer over, something, it matters little what; 
 it may be a dog, or another boy. If the 
 stranger ignores the child the latter will 
 become more bold and outlandish, till the 
 limit of parental endurance is reached; and 
 nothing that can be done, short of actual 
 humiliation of the offender, has the small- 
 est effect of repression. On the departure 
 of the stranger the child promptly returns 
 to his normal or more wholesome demeanor, 
 as if nothing had happened. In the half 
 hour he has exhibited two phases of his 
 nature so different and opposite that it 
 might have been two children. The victim 
 of this vice is often so completely absorbed 
 by it, that it practically dominates his life; 
 in the presence of others it rules him com- 
 pletely; and, even when by himself, he con- 
 trives schemes for his own glorification, and 
 often displays a high degree of ingenuity, 
 and sometimes the most appalling decep- 
 tion, in this behalf. The two impulses, the 
 conceit and the strut, are substantially 
 alike; they are expressions of the same 
 emotion, and it is all egoistic — wholly 
 selfish. Such a child will not do a disinter- 
 
 II
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 ested act of kindness to another when it 
 costs anything in effort or self-denial. 
 He will do kindnesses on compulsion, or 
 when he sees something in glory or atten- 
 tion or privilege likely to come back to him- 
 self, but not otherwise. And efforts to 
 keep him to a standard of duty are met by 
 the dogged or surly reluctance of a rebel- 
 lious prisoner. Duty is a word unknown to 
 him. In these particulars boys are, I think, 
 a little more barbarous than girls, only a 
 little — any way they are more brutal in 
 their barbarism, if not more exasperat- 
 ing. 
 
 It is no excess to say that not one in a 
 hundred of the caretakers of these children 
 has any conception of the mental basis of 
 the conduct I have described. To the mass 
 of them it is roguishness, bad behavior, 
 naughtiness and meanly taking advantage 
 of parent or nurse in the presence of stran- 
 gers — never the legitimate result of one 
 overpowering emotion. They often punish 
 for it, but not correctively, for they never 
 make the child see the mainspring of his 
 actions, which is the only first step toward 
 any real consenting reformation. The child 
 is ashamed of the emotion the moment he 
 perceives it, as the man is; and in his soul 
 
 12
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 he afterwards thanks any power that has 
 made him discover it. 
 
 The most unfortunate tendency of the ego 
 is showrl in the pathologic state of despond- 
 ency, or melancholia. Egoism moves the 
 world, but the moving force is weak except 
 when we are free from bodily sensations 
 that worry us. We can stand sensations that 
 hurt; not those that worry. 
 
 Hunger may gnaw us until we are fed. 
 We eat in pleasure, and have comfort that 
 we have eaten, then we take up our burdens 
 and go on. So of other sensations and 
 wants. But too much introspection, too 
 much thought about self — the physical me 
 — hampers our power of objective action and 
 stops all good creative work. 
 
 A normal man goes into battle with cour- 
 age and forgets himself; or he carries for- 
 ward large enterprises of peace with no 
 worry and little feeling about his personal 
 self. He is dominated by the one emotion 
 to pursue the objective purposes of his life. 
 But let him have a harmless palpitation of 
 the heart, or instable abdominal nerves, and 
 his mind will wander from his work; he will 
 have all sorts of vagaries of introspection, 
 and believe he has a mortal disease. He 
 may become an incapable baby, or a cring- 
 
 13
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 ing coward. He cannot sleep. He may 
 force himself to go on with his work, but it 
 will be a listless performance. He may dis- 
 cover that his memory is poor, and fear 
 insanity, or be afraid for his personal safety; 
 and all this when his sensations are slight 
 and without danger. Why has his back- 
 bone disappeared? Not usually owing to 
 any serious sickness, but because the pecul- 
 iar nature of his disorder has completely 
 changed the relation of his ego to his work 
 and to the world. 
 
 This melancholy ego is really the most 
 selfish of them all, only in an unusual direc- 
 tion. Unfettered by such self-scrutiny, we 
 have the normal ambition for the world's 
 rewards. When the gloom or the bodily 
 fear strikes us we are more than ever selfish, 
 but not for fortune or fame — in that direc- 
 tion the emotion may cease, while it is alert 
 to escape from a physical calamity. Nos- 
 talgia, or homesickness, is another variation 
 of this type. 
 
 Tea, coffee, tobacco and alcohol sometimes 
 help a man for the moment by freeing him 
 from some of these annoying sensations. But 
 it is a question whether these and other stim- 
 ulants do not, all of them, in the long run, 
 do more harm than good. That men often 
 
 14
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 demand them so strenuously is but another 
 evidence of egoistic insistence. 
 
 Another form of mental twist is closely 
 related to melancholy, namely, that exhib- 
 ited by the intense absorption of an invalid 
 in the things that concern himself. His pains, 
 feelings, thoughts and interests are his uni- 
 verse. He is less afraid of dying than he is 
 that others will not regard him as needing 
 attention. The well-meant remark of a 
 visitor that he looks well to-day, throws a 
 shadow over him that lasts for hours. He 
 even becomes cross, and, after his visitor 
 has gone, will remark on how absurd it is to 
 come in and talk to a sick man in that way. 
 He can, in a measure, direct his thoughts to 
 the business of life, and he worries less than 
 some melancholies do about dying. The 
 paramount interest of the world to him is 
 that his needs of the moment shall be con- 
 served. He may come to have pleasure in 
 his invalidism, and be grieved, not merely 
 that people should say he looks well, but 
 that he should recover, and so cease to be 
 an object of interest and solicitude on the 
 part of others. Such people may be said to 
 be sick long after they are well! They are 
 the clay with which miracles are wrought 
 by faith and prayer, by mind cures and mes- 
 
 15
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 merizers; by laying on of hands, and by 
 non-science called science. But the mir- 
 acles consist solely in some mental impres- 
 sion that, for the moment, creates a new 
 hope and removes the egoism, or subordi- 
 nates the emotional basis on which the 
 invalidism rests and has continued. A fire 
 in the house, an earthquake, or the sudden 
 appearance of a mouse, might accomplish 
 the purpose quite as well. 
 
 Over-civilized and over-developed society 
 always contains numerous specimens of 
 this unfortunate class. They need some- 
 thing to break in upon the monotony of their 
 lives; they need to be shocked, hypnotized 
 or angered by something that will change 
 the current of their thoughts, and for the 
 time fill them with some dominating emo- 
 tions other than those of an exalted egoism 
 concerned with their own sensations. The 
 pity is that now and then we shock the 
 wrong person, and are cruel to the sick who 
 never magnify their ills, and could not be 
 cured by any change of emotions. But such 
 mistakes are no worse than, with the best 
 intentions, we make in other ways in our 
 dealings with people from day to day; for 
 if there is anything we are nearly certain to 
 do, it is to misjudge the motives and emotions 
 
 i6
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 that govern other people. If our estimate 
 of the motives of others comes to their 
 knowledge, .they are usually either outraged 
 or flattered, and generally have a poor opin- 
 ion of our discernment. 
 
 Allied to the peculiarity just described is 
 a feverish yearning for amusement and 
 entertainment — what some have called the 
 "company fever"; company mania would 
 be a better name. It besets some people 
 from infancy to middle life, and after. In 
 childhood, crying and general fuss compel 
 attention and coddling. The more highly 
 wrought the parents, and the more nervous 
 the child, the more he is entertained and 
 kept excited, so that he easily grows to have 
 a constant yearning for this sort of stimula- 
 tion. If he is sick or weak, the desire is 
 accentuated, and he may become nearly 
 insane on the subject. When he reaches this 
 pass, his emotions easily drift into a mixed 
 desire for entertainment and sympathy. 
 
 Such people constitute a distinct class of 
 what might be called emotional freaks. 
 Many of them have the hysterical temper- 
 ament in a high degree. They have an 
 unwholesome and intense avidity for atten- 
 tion and sympathy. They develop such 
 ardor of desire for these favors that they 
 
 17
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 forget the moral law, in their schemes to 
 command them; they deceive in the most 
 extreme and cunning fashion, and literally 
 stop at nothing to attain their ends. As 
 these schemes of deception are often asso- 
 ciated with hysteria, the symptoms of this 
 disorder have in many minds come to be 
 regarded as voluntary and wholly controlla- 
 ble. This theory is only partly true, and, 
 as to many hysterical persons, it is false and 
 cruelly unfair. 
 
 The "injured air" is one of the variations 
 shown by these people. It may command 
 attention, and so pander to their emotions. 
 When carried to great lengths this feeling 
 impels to extreme self-abnegation and vol- 
 untary martyrdom, and occasionally leads 
 intense natures to suicide. Most of the 
 suicides, especially among the young, are 
 due to this debauchery of emotion, and not 
 to fear of disgrace or prison. And we must 
 remember that the young, even small chil- 
 dren, may have these uncanny emotional 
 promptings. There are plentiful records of 
 moody school-children committing suicide 
 when smarting under some rebuke or in the 
 frenzy of jealousy. Of such cases the greatest 
 number are probably between fifteen and 
 twenty-five years of age, but middle life is 
 
 i8
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 by no means exempt from similar weak- 
 nesses. 
 
 Love is mostly egoistic — that is, selfish. 
 We love too often for the possible rewards; 
 love, hoping for a return in some sort and 
 degree. The ardent love one person has for 
 another is usually beautiful, and seeins un- 
 selfish. But watch and observe, and you 
 may soon see evidence that the moving pur- 
 pose is less love than the hope of being 
 loved; the hope of some return. How love 
 ministers to the egoism of the individ- 
 ual is shown in the accessory emotion of 
 jealousy. Love that is completely un- 
 selfish hardly knows the meaning of jealousy, 
 and is incapable of it. Jealousy is an egois- 
 tic fear of being defrauded sentimentally, 
 and is by inversion an attribute of selfish 
 love. Jealousy is often fired by trifles. We 
 are apt to think a man is growing childish 
 when he shows a childish estimate of the 
 acts of others that refer to himself. We for- 
 get that his egoism and feelings may be 
 touched, and so throw him off his balance on 
 this point, while he maybe correct in every 
 other particular. Woe be to the balance 
 of that man whose sense of what attentions 
 are due him from others, becomes exalted. 
 For he may show the most silly effeminacy 
 
 19
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 in certain directions, and do all manner of 
 foolish things, even suicide. 
 
 Lovers' quarrels are mostly due to failure 
 of adjustment to each other of the two 
 egoisms — the self-regard of the two. There 
 is no trouble about the love that each has 
 for the other; no quarrel ever comes from 
 that. The quarrels come, rather, from the 
 love each has for self, and the estimate 
 that each has of the duty and love the 
 other ozves. It is the fear and uncertainty 
 about the love receivable that is the matter; 
 never about the love payable. It is a debtor 
 and credit situation. We always have more 
 trouble about the bills receivable — we are 
 afraid they may not be paid, or not paid 
 promptly or in the exact currency to please 
 us. We do not worry so much about the 
 bills payable, although it is a green spot in 
 the record of human nature that some peo- 
 ple have large scruples on that score. That 
 they are thus sensitive gives us a new faith 
 in human kind, and a better hope for the 
 world. 
 
 Many of the most fascinating people 
 reveal, sooner or later, that there lurks 
 beneath their gentle demeanor a consuming 
 ambition for personal gratification, regard- 
 less of others. It is a sad disillusionment 
 
 20
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 to find this out. On first acquaintance we 
 are forcibly and instantly drawn to them; 
 their charm is like a June morning, and 
 they seem faultless. Sometimes their 
 selfish emotion may remain permanently 
 hidden from most of their friends, but the 
 discerning ones make the discovery, and 
 now and then some emotional explosion 
 reveals it to the general gaze. Then we 
 discover just what a human vampire, suck- 
 ing the blood of personal devotion, really is. 
 That the vampire should generally be igno- 
 rant of this ruling purpose of his own life, is 
 the pitiful fact. 
 
 While nearly every one likes to be loved, 
 it is the dictum of some writers of both 
 sexes that women most covet being told of it. 
 The testimony is so unanimous that it must 
 be true, and egoism is, of course, at the 
 bottom of it. Kipling has shown vividly 
 how the emotion can, in a woman, run wild. 
 She fishes for praise, and makes talk for 
 love words, and sulks if she fails to get 
 them; yet she picks flaws in the very terms 
 of the homage paid her. If she is told she 
 is beautiful and lovely she remembers, or 
 invents, some prior hint that contradicts it, 
 as though from sheer malice she would see 
 if she can goad her admirer to greater
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 extravagance. Uncandid in her angling for 
 flattery, she rebukes the slightest, even 
 venial, insincerity in the terms in which it 
 is uttered, and will repeat the game often 
 — and quite oblivious of the fact that she is 
 playing it. 
 
 Every normal nature has an avidity for 
 returned affection. But there are degrees 
 of it; it may be wholesome; it may be over- 
 powering and wanton. It may, when whole- 
 some, be hidden, like commendable conceit, 
 so that when it is discovered it appears to 
 have ingenuously tried to keep hidden. 
 Then it is like a delicate perfume; and it 
 glorifies human life and living. 
 
 Bashfulness, which is nearly universal, is 
 sometimes so extreme as to amount to a 
 positive deformity, and it makes people 
 afraid to act; they hesitate, fear conse- 
 quences, fear further embarrassments to 
 such a degree that they never can take an 
 efficient stand in anything. 
 
 This peculiar emotion, when in an extreme 
 degree, makes its victim so fearful of meet- 
 ing people that he is liable to become a 
 recluse; he shuns not merely society, but 
 his friends — the people with whom he could 
 work. He sees a friend coming down the 
 street, and crosses to the other side to avoid 
 
 22
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 him. He cannot be depended upon; he 
 cannot depend upon himself. He knows his 
 weakness, but is powerless to overcome it. 
 This phase constitutes in part the picture of 
 melancholia, but it may occur without that 
 mental defect. 
 
 It seems almost wicked to say that too 
 much politeness is a character blemish. 
 Yet it is true, and I do not mean the insin- 
 cere politeness alleged of many people — 
 even of a whole nation, but the genuine 
 quality of the best of our kind. True and 
 thoughtful politeness always renders social 
 intercourse more comfortable. But when 
 excessive it becomes a burden, an embarrass- 
 ment that makes you shun your friends. 
 They will hide your hat to make you stay 
 and dine with them, and then embarrass 
 you by refusing to accept the smallest favor; 
 or if they do accept, will cover you with a 
 speech on your virtues and their unworthi- 
 ness. Fearing they may violate the best 
 amenities, they lose all sense of relation, and 
 by over-doing them waste the energy they 
 need for the business of life, and so make life 
 actually more difficult. Worse, this blemish 
 makes a man disingenuous. In your com- 
 pany he will pretend to like a thing because 
 you like it, or he thinks you do; or forego a 
 
 23
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 thing he desires because he thinks you dis- 
 like it. Ten chances to one he makes a mis- 
 take as to your tastes, and so both are made 
 uncomfortable, and there is no gain any- 
 where. And if you detect his instinctive 
 tricks of politeness, and try to foil him by a 
 counter-play of the same sort, you will prob- 
 ably increase the confusion. 
 
 One of the most insistent tangents of the 
 ego is shown in its irritation by the acts and 
 words of others. The ego in some men is 
 more easily nagged than it is in others — it 
 has its weak side in all of us. It is jarred 
 most by the things that are avoidable; and 
 these are very largely the acts of other people. 
 The unavoidable things, even if they are irri- 
 tating, do not disturb it half as much. The 
 wind and rain; the noise of trains and mills 
 may be endured. But irritating things done 
 by people are avoidable, and therefore exas- 
 perating. If all people affected us alike, or 
 if they all presented the same moral picture 
 to us, we should be equally irritated by the 
 same acts done by any of them. But they do 
 not affect us alike. Comparative strangers, 
 or people unfamiliar to us, have a measure 
 of novelty and uncommonness in behavior 
 and looks. This, in a degree, overcomes 
 the irritation, or has a neutralizing effect 
 
 24
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 upon it, and so it annoys us less. Then, 
 with strangers, we have an attitude of reserve 
 that helps us to overcome the sense of 
 annoyance, and we are helped by an intuitive 
 caution to hide disagreeable manners from 
 those who do not know that we can display 
 them. Besides, as to the strangers, it does 
 not always occur to us that they can avoid 
 their disagreeable ways. 
 
 It is different with our families. Our own 
 people have no such defense against our crit- 
 icism. We are so familiar with them, and 
 they with us, that we have less to hide from 
 them, and so there is less impediment to our 
 impulses. We make their lives feel our irri- 
 tation; we first object to what they do or say 
 that is innately rasping to our nerves; then 
 we become more annoyed at the same things; 
 repetition begets increased irritability. 
 Then the ego is nagged by the things that 
 are not innately irritating, but become so 
 because these familiar persons happen to do 
 them. Finally, nothing they do or can 
 do is satisfactory; their every act is annoy- 
 ing; and even their faces, forms, voices and 
 gait start within us a disagreeable feeling, 
 and create rebellion. 
 
 This is not a fancy picture. It is often 
 seen in the modern family of highly culti- 
 
 25
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 vated people. A man may be genial and 
 moderate to the outside world, and have a 
 reputation for justice and gentleness, but to 
 those nearest him, the members of his own 
 household, or some of them, he is a cross, 
 sour, snarling, ungenerous animal. He may 
 be aware of his infirmity and try to avoid it, 
 but he frequently breaks away and explodes 
 in anger at some inadequate thing, or 
 expends a vast amount of energy in con- 
 trolling his temper. In either case he is a 
 pitiable object, for he is bound to end with 
 injured nerves and some degree of moral 
 chaos. 
 
 Cases of this kind sometimes become so 
 extreme as to constitute true insanity — a 
 form known as oikiomania. The irritability 
 may be toward a particular member of the 
 family, and may be life-long, or it may be 
 directed against all of them. It is more 
 likely to exist between parents and children 
 than between two children, and it is often 
 strong between husbands and wives. It is 
 liable to fluctuate, depending for its varia- 
 tions on the physical condition of the indi- 
 vidual, the degree of fatigue, and the 
 amount of work and worry in other direc- 
 tions. It is often marked toward those that 
 are intensely loved. A woman is unhappy 
 
 26
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 with her lover out of her sight; yet when he 
 is present she quarrels with him constantly. 
 The history of love is full of examples 
 of this sort. The lovers quarrel as easily as 
 the sparks fly upward; they separate only to 
 be drawn together by an irresistible impulse 
 — to quarrel, to part again and again, or 
 reach a final tragedy. 
 
 When these people know their weakness, 
 their efforts to mend are usually an object- 
 lesson of wonder. They go at it with stren- 
 uous will and tense muscles, and try to force 
 themselves to ignore the things that irritate. 
 If they succeed, it is always at great loss in 
 nerve force; it is not an economical way. 
 The only profitable course is by the gentle 
 wooing of a sense of tranquillity and relaxa- 
 tion that is proof against annoyance. The 
 mood is everything, and it can be enticed, 
 but not with clenched fists. The great thing 
 is to start right'; then the growth is easy. 
 It is like dropping from a rapid gait to a slow 
 one — it helps deliberation in all things. An 
 impetuous man, trying to say a serious thing 
 hurriedly, is embarrassed and worried over 
 the effort. When he can resolve, and stick 
 to it, that he will speak slowly and deliber- 
 ately, he becomes a changed man. His 
 thoughts come easily, and readily fall into 
 
 2^
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 words. He cannot be stampeded by dis- 
 turbing influences. A steady, slow stroke 
 of the pen may annul the muscular confu- 
 sion of writer's cramp. The writing is 
 smooth and easy, and by some strange influ- 
 ence on the mind the thinking is easier, and 
 the temper smoother also. 
 
 When, as usually happens, the remedy 
 suggested is beyond his reach, the best way 
 is to remove the oikiomaniac from his fam- 
 ily, keep him among strangers, and if these 
 become too familiar, remove him again. 
 His disturbed ego, freed from its irritations, 
 rests and is restored. Various diversions 
 fill its life, and it forgets its horrors. 
 
 An amusing sign of this mental drift is 
 shown in antagonism to any proffered 
 advice or leading. Many a man discovers 
 that he is cross and snappish to his family 
 and friends, and restrains himself from the 
 major offense. But he continues to show 
 the same lamentable trait by resisting every 
 suggestion made to him. His friends under- 
 stand this, and learn to manage him. If it 
 is vital to have his support of some plan, 
 they will first disfavor it in his presence, or 
 lead him by non-committal allusions to pro- 
 pose the scheme himself. They would not 
 dare to say to him: "We should like to 
 
 28
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 have you approve of this measure," etc., 
 unless they wished him to reject it. But 
 they say, rather: "This measure has been 
 proposed, but probably you don't care to 
 consider it," and his impulse is prompt to 
 say that he jikes the idea. By a little 
 adroitness these people can be led in this 
 way for years without their suspicion. 
 
 The hyperesthesia of the e^o is not always 
 so much shown toward one's intimates as 
 toward the general conditions of his environ- 
 ment, both personal and material. Every- 
 thing annoys him; nothing is just right. 
 He is worried by everything less than per- 
 fection, and his standards are captious. 
 The day is too hot or too cold; the soup 
 was poorly seasoned and the steak was 
 tough; his collar did not fit, and his 
 neck-tie was soiled. His servant an- 
 noyed him by not knowing the unknow- 
 able. There was a draught from the 
 window that distracted him. Yes, the book 
 was a good one, but why would any writer 
 persist in using such vulgarisms? — The con- 
 cert? It was well enough, except the work 
 of the tenor, who sang flat. And so on 
 interminably; it is the tangent of the blase 
 man or woman who has seen the world, and 
 is tired of it; of people who have allowed 
 
 29
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 their irritability to dominate their lives, 
 and make them, as well as their neighbors, 
 miserable. 
 
 This bent usually begins in childhood, in 
 an excessive desire for entertainment, a 
 restless ardor for new things. The desire is 
 a normal one, and all children have it; nor 
 is it necessarily harmful. But indulgent 
 parents and nurses usually help to make it 
 grow — they never moderate or repress it. 
 When excessive it is like a "wild" locomo- 
 tive, and tends to hysteria and "nervous 
 prostration." It grows by what it feeds 
 upon; helps to make the old-young people, 
 with little of the ideal simplicity of youth; 
 people whose nerves are rasped, and teeth 
 set on edge by life's atoms. From such 
 material emerge the grown-up irritables for 
 whom this world is, apparently, unfit. 
 
 There are people of passive natures whose 
 lives are, unknown to them, one long con- 
 tinuity of protest. They never compliment 
 or express active satisfaction in anything; 
 it never occurs to them to do it. They men- 
 tion the adverse and disagreeable things. 
 Nothing is quite right. Yet they rarely 
 scold and are not rampant fault-finders; and 
 they are not bad people. They have no 
 ardor of delights to mention; nor enthu- 
 
 30
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 siasms to voice. Ask them how the journey 
 was, and they reply that it was or was not 
 unpleasant. The lecture was bad or it was 
 not; the weather was or was not disagreea- 
 ble. The language is always along the high- 
 way of protest, never in terms of approval 
 or pleasure. They are not merely wanting 
 in enthusiasm; they kill it by a withering 
 blight. In giving vent to your enthusiasm 
 in their presence you feel yourself sinning 
 against good form. They are wet blankets 
 to enthusiasm of any sort; it withers in their 
 presence like a flame under a fire-extin- 
 guisher. 
 
 We see every day an egoistic tangent that 
 is the product of a mixture of bashfulness 
 and conceit, and it is both curious and inter- 
 esting. One man is very polite with stran- 
 gers and, in public, deferential to every 
 body, even over-polite. With his own peo- 
 ple, and hidden from the public gaze, he 
 behaves like the average man or even less 
 politely. He probably reasons automatically 
 that politeness is right and desirable, and 
 the due of certain others; but the important 
 fact is that it soothes his own feelings and 
 gives him a sense of comfort to observe it 
 toward outsiders. And this is an analysis 
 that he would be the last man in the world 
 
 31
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 to make to himself; to him this sort of con- 
 duct is normal and requires no more expla- 
 nation than the shape of his face, or the 
 color of his hair — nor half so much, for he 
 sees in his physical body evidence of his 
 heredity, and that is capable of analysis. 
 
 Another man is gruff and severe to the 
 public. With his intimates and in his pri- 
 vate confidential life he is gentle and 
 natural; says what he means and always 
 means what he says. But project him into 
 the public, let him feel that he is under 
 observation, and his demeanor changes in 
 an instant. Now he is grandiose and 
 austere, wrinkles his brow, talks and acts 
 on the plane of defiance and buncomb. He 
 quotes, probably uses slang, and acts per- 
 haps as if he were a great personage or 
 were conscious that he is making history. 
 .He has personal dignity to conserve, and 
 it would not be in keeping with this to 
 ask favors or put himself under obliga- 
 tion. His conduct and speech reveal 'all 
 this to others, but he is as unconscious 
 of it as he is of the function of his spleen. 
 He needs or wants a service of another per- 
 son, and it would favor his getting it if he 
 should ask in a candid and simple manner. 
 But he could not goad himself to do such a 
 
 32
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 thing, and he so frames his petition that if 
 the favor is granted it shall seem to have 
 been proffered by the other person. He 
 avoids the possibility of a rebuke or a 
 refusal. He wishes to borrow some utensil 
 of a neighbor and it would seem a natural 
 thing to go and ask the loan of it. But 
 that is not his way. He goes to the neigh- 
 bor and, after making some conversation 
 about commonplaces, he says, as if by pure 
 accident or as an after-thought, "I suppose 
 you wouldn't like to loan me your plow for 
 a day;" or, "How would you like to let me 
 have your plow to-morrow?" When such a 
 man proposes marriage he is liable to do it 
 in a way to entrap the woman into answer- 
 ing a question he has not asked. If her 
 answer is negative his conceit is spared, for 
 he did not really ask her; he only gave her 
 a chance to express her sentiments if she 
 would. 
 
 Once a New England Yankee came to me 
 for an official favor that he regarded as very 
 important. He believed that my consent 
 was necessary. It meant a great deal to 
 him. It should have been easy to state 
 his case, and ask for the thing desired; but 
 that was not the way he did. He merely 
 said, "Don't you think you had better" do 
 
 33
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 so and so? To have asked the favor in terms 
 would have made him blush to his ears, and 
 have been a distinct shock to his uncon- 
 scious conceit. 
 
 The peculiar egoism of these persons 
 entails as much pain when they have to con- 
 fess an error as when they petition for a 
 favor. And they pick their words and plan 
 their actions so as to avoid it if possible. 
 Their opinions are put in a tentative or an 
 interrogative way, so that they cannot be 
 driven into a corner and forced to confess 
 themselves wrong. If you ask one of them 
 a question that can be directly answered 
 only by a number, he does not answer it 
 directly. Suppose he thinks the number is 
 67 — he does not say that. He says, "Per- 
 haps it is 67," or, "Don't you think it is 
 67?" — thus escaping conviction if the figure 
 is wrong. It is a cowardly sort of conceit, 
 but it is a common one. 
 
 Talk furnishes only one of a thousand 
 ways of working off a certain kind of energy, 
 and ministering to egoistic needs that one 
 feels without knowing it. Loquacity is one 
 of man's numerous unconscious excesses; 
 loquacity, I mean, in the interest of the 
 ego. He does not know (but his neighbors 
 do) that he is forever talking for his own 
 
 34
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 pleasure; and he is surprised if such a 
 thought is suggested to him. Observe a 
 loquacious woman visit with a silent one 
 who listens well; after an hour she will come 
 away with delight at the charming visit she 
 has had, and full of praise for the other 
 woman. But the latter has not spoken a 
 dozen words, and the few she has uttered 
 were tentative hints. The visitor has talked 
 incessantly — and thinks her hostess a superb 
 conversationalist. 
 
 Probably few of the very talkative people 
 can ever lessen their habit; it would profit 
 some of them greatly if they could. 
 
 But the habit is not always nor wholly 
 unfortunate. It furnishes a vent for nervous 
 energy that otherwise might explode in a 
 worse way. Moreover, it helps bashful 
 people over their difificulties. Frequently a 
 rapid monologue will spare one from the 
 abhorrent sense of blushing. It is like 
 twirling one's watch chain, or like the little 
 laughter with which embarrassed people 
 speak. It has another useful ministry, 
 namely, to furnish a refuge for some silent 
 people. A loquacious man needs a silent 
 one to listen to him — a garrulous one is a 
 bore. Note his chafing at a talkative per- 
 son who gets in the first word. But a silent 
 
 35
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 one, who will listen attentively, look intel- 
 ligent, reply in hints and monosyllables that 
 will rather help his utterances to seem 
 acceptable, is the delight of his life. The 
 proper niche for the silent man is to get 
 into relations with a talkative one. He acts 
 as a sort of buffer — something at which sen- 
 tences may be fired, and that will not stop 
 the flow of them nor interject embarrassing 
 talk, 'but listen and look appreciative. And 
 the comfort is mutual — the adjustment is 
 perfect — the quiet man is happy also. He 
 has found his complement, and is glad. 
 
 Two sharply contrasted phases of the talk- 
 ative impulse stand out in the observation 
 of us all. One is shown by the man who 
 ripples on like a singing bird. It is simply 
 his own sweet chatter on anything in the 
 universe, merely for the joy of saying it — 
 and as guileless as the air. He is amusing. 
 But the contrast is in the man who has his 
 say (and it is an interminable one) in 
 antagonisms and personal insistence. He 
 has fixed views on some things, and adverse 
 views on everything that another may pro- 
 pose. You cannot possibly make an initial 
 statement that he will completely agree with; 
 and he will fly off into a long argument on 
 every trifling point he can antagonize. In 
 
 36
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 his conversation there is no such thing as 
 give and take. He only does the one and 
 does it with such effect of omniscience as to 
 either make you feel that you are in the 
 presence of a superior being, or that a fiend- 
 ish animal has fastened its claws into your 
 back, and will not let go. 
 
 Undue egoism is shown in the tenacity 
 with which people cling to their beliefs, 
 religious, political and ethical, as well as in 
 their intolerance of opposite beliefs. Once 
 committed to a particular idea, such a man 
 sticks to it. He grows to believe it more 
 and more, and that contrary views portend 
 ruin. He is impatient and testy with those 
 who have different ideas. A moderate man 
 expresses himself in moderate terms on a 
 public question, but somebody resists him; 
 numerous people controvert him; perhaps 
 some accuse him of insincerity or dogma- 
 tism. His conceit is nettled and he 
 becomes, not the moderate man, but an 
 intense one, and expresses views and argu- 
 ments that, in the beginning, he could not 
 have uttered. Lawyers and bishops may 
 undergo this mental change. There is a 
 common belief abroad that, once committed 
 on a subject, a man cannot change; and when 
 we see one candid enough to sink his foolish 
 
 37
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 personal feelings and adopt new views that 
 are more rational to him, we are surprised. 
 I once heard a brilliant woman express 
 intense disgust for a relative of hers who 
 had changed his politics. She declared that 
 his father, grandfather and great-grandfather 
 had all belonged to the same party; and 
 that now the foolish man had gone and 
 changed his politics! As if his views on 
 the subject matter could possibly have more 
 influence upon him than his pride of family! 
 
 38
 
 Ill 
 
 The tangents of the ego that are faults are 
 many and varied. The great practical ques- 
 tion is how they can be corrected. Most of 
 them are simply unfortunate habits. A few 
 stamp their possessors with a questionable 
 quality of genius that is mostly useless. In 
 the main they are misfortunes that anybody 
 would be glad to be rid of; as every one 
 would like to resemble the average man or 
 woman — wholesome, consistent, balanced 
 and stable. 
 
 The remedy is mostly with the individual 
 himself; others may help him to know, but 
 not to apply it. He must change himself, 
 if changed he becomes. The mechanism, 
 as already hinted, is the acquisition of a 
 new mental mood, a new emotion, that 
 becomes the ruling power in the life. And 
 a new emotion does rule, provided it is a 
 strong one, and the delight of its rule 
 endures. But to make it endure, the new 
 way must be practiced incessantly, till it 
 has become a fixed habit, and the old one is 
 
 39
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 abandoned; so that finally the new way is 
 automatic and the old automatism is indis- 
 tinct or lost. To accomplish this means 
 usually a long period of watchfulness and 
 struggle, although the metamorphosis may 
 be rather sudden. 
 
 There are many examples of egoism thus 
 changed. The whole course of a man's life 
 is often altered quickly and radically by 
 religious feeling. The process starts the 
 moment he feels that he is a sinner. He 
 excises the sin he knows of, whatever he 
 does with the others, and a revolution 
 occurs in his soul; he is a changed man, and 
 may so continue for life. A new human 
 love, an infatuation with a new doctrine, 
 even a fad founded on next to nothing or 
 nothing, may start as radical a change that 
 shall grow to be an automatism. Often the 
 personality of another is a potent force. 
 We need to have human examples to copy, 
 for we are born to be imitators and emula- 
 tors. A man learns he has a tangent that is 
 unlikable, and soon finds himself admiring 
 some personality that is free from this 
 defect, and has qualities that stand in sharp 
 contrast to it. This personality may become 
 his model and a mark for his emulation. 
 There was once a public speaker who spoke 
 
 40
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 always in haste, and was embarrassed, for- 
 getful and easily perturbed; always fearing 
 before he spoke that he would not do well, 
 and afterward that he had done poorly. He 
 was transformed on listening to one lecture 
 by Wendell Phillips, with its deliberate 
 method, its superb self-poise and air of 
 repose. He became deliberate, methodical 
 and imperturbable. Then he could think 
 logically, and even on his feet, and all his 
 .methods both in public and private, were 
 more or less colored by this acquisition. 
 The house might have fallen about his ears 
 and he would not have quivered. He had 
 adopted a new guide, was under the spell 
 of a new mood, and it had become the gov- 
 erning impulse of his life. 
 
 The sequence in the stages of the amelio- 
 ration is uniform and interesting. The first 
 step is the discovery of the fault; next 
 comes the knowledge that it is harmful and 
 hateful; and next the resolve that it shall 
 stop. To carry out this resolution it is a 
 great help to admire a superior man or 
 woman who is free from the fault. The 
 history of General Grant has helped count- 
 less men to habits of quiet persistency, 
 deliberation and silence. The final step of 
 all is the patient, persistent watchfulness 
 
 41
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 and work to create the new habit. It 
 is usually a long task, with a great re- 
 ward. 
 
 It is idle to say that conversion on the 
 religious side can remove all the correctable 
 defects and tangents that belong to us. It 
 often does abolish some that we have or 
 think we have. One may genuinely desire 
 to reform; have a spirit of true humility, 
 and try to see what his offenses are, and 
 succeed to some degree. But his judgment 
 is liable to be warped by his conceits and 
 self-depreciation. And, after his conver- 
 sion, he may still have a dozen egoistic 
 blemishes that hamper his career, and may 
 develop others through the sanctification he 
 thinks he has acquired. 
 
 Moreover a liberal minority of such people 
 accuse themselves of faults they never had, 
 and believe they are going straight to perdi- 
 tion unless they are somehow cleansed from 
 these imaginary spots. A part of the sins 
 they are guilty of are morbid introspection, 
 exaggeration of their own defects, and the 
 conceit of humility. Some of them suffer 
 for years from the pangs of conscience, and 
 practice self-castigation heroically, and a 
 few become actually insane. Such are some 
 of the casualties that come in the great strug- 
 
 42
 
 SOiME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 gle of life to attain the right standard in 
 thought and conduct. 
 
 The one aberrant trait that is helpful in 
 correcting others, and rarely harmful, is 
 extreme unselfishness. Providence seems 
 to have designed this as an antidote to 
 things that are worse. Its possessors, some 
 of them, have enough worldly wisdom to 
 keep themselves in bread; some, however, 
 give away all they have, and are left with 
 nothing but their unselfishness. They do 
 good, and help the rest of us to put away 
 some of our vanity and greed; they some- 
 times make us ashamed of our littleness, and 
 reveal to us how trifling some of our glitter- 
 ing possessions really are. Most valuable 
 of all, their very gentleness and fealty to 
 ideals may help us to see that a new mood 
 and a new ideal are possible even for us. 
 
 Is it true, then, that a man may change 
 his mood and cease from being troubled by 
 the things that have nagged him for years? 
 May a woman stop hating people whose 
 faces, voices and ways have been a night- 
 mare to her since she can remember? And 
 can a man stop short in his lifelong habit 
 of living on the sweet comfort of his own 
 self-measured superiority? A woman has, 
 for a quarter of a century, been persistent 
 
 43
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 and automatic in her efforts to conserve her 
 beauty, and has lived on the joy and fear of 
 it. Can she change now, and cease to care 
 for it, or care little? 
 
 All these things are possible, and may 
 become easy. The instant a man sees that 
 the things that have ruffled him are among 
 the inevitable attributes that have come to 
 certain people through the centuries, half 
 the obstacles are gone. If then he can learn 
 how foolish it is to bump his head against 
 a rock, and to consume energy over irrita- 
 tions that are avoidable, he will find the rest 
 of the task easy. He will learn not to be 
 nettled by the jokes that are planned to test 
 him — he will stop hating the jests, and 
 enjoy them with the jesters. Above all 
 other things, this kind of experience, like 
 the fraternity initiations and life at school, 
 will take the conceit out of a fellow, if any- 
 thing on earth can. 
 
 It is not a harder lesson for a man to 
 learn, that the noise of the children in the 
 back yard is music, instead of a thing made 
 to plague him. He would not growl at the 
 soughing of the wind through the trees, nor 
 the fitful swish of the rain against the win- 
 dow. He will be happy, and feel rested, 
 when he can be as calm at the dash of the 
 
 44
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 water if it comes from somebody's garden 
 hose. 
 
 When a woman learns that the people who 
 have crazed her grew as they are and are as 
 fixed in their ways as she is; that they are 
 a part of the inevitable variety of folk that 
 make a world; when she sees that the one 
 avoidable thing that has hastened her age 
 is her own carking; and that her jealous 
 enemy, if she has one, hopes her worry 
 may go on and deepen her wrinkles — then 
 she has found the power to spare herself, 
 and heap triumphant coals on the heads of 
 the spiteful. And the task is not hard when 
 undertaken with this insight. 
 
 A man in the night throes of insomnia, 
 chagrined at being awake, and fretting at 
 his annoyance, drives away sleep by his very 
 perturbation. Let him sincerely resolve 
 that he does not care to sleep, but enjoys 
 being awake, determine that he will stay 
 awake all night and think pleasant thoughts 
 or read a lazy book, and in ten minutes he 
 is fast asleep! He has made himself proof 
 against annoyance, and has demolished the 
 scarecrow of his slumber. 
 
 But these changes rarely or never come by 
 mental tension or by hammer-strokes. They 
 come, rather, by the gentle force of the 
 
 45
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 relaxation and tranquillity of a new philos- 
 ophy, and a new and enticing motive. The 
 instant the emotions change, and we bring 
 ourselves to enjoy the new ones truly, the 
 restfulness of the mood steals over us, and 
 we wonder that the old habits ever held us 
 so firmly. 
 
 The rule to cultivate tranquillity and 
 encourage new emotions, and be proof 
 against irritations, works well as to the 
 ordinary habits of life — the usual tangents of 
 the ego. But as to the melancholic tangent 
 it refuses to work, or works haltingly and 
 never well. The courage-maker is sick, per- 
 haps because the digestion is poor; and ser- 
 mons and good resolutions may do some- 
 thing, but cannot do much. It avails little 
 to say to a despondent man, or for him to 
 say to himself: "Brace up and have cour- 
 age!" You might, in most cases, as well 
 talk to the sea. The mill that makes the 
 cheerfulness is clogged, and refuses to work. 
 Some other help must be discovered; some 
 other way must be found. 
 
 Under the deepest despondency the human 
 mind has one power that may be taken 
 advantage of for this very state, namely, its 
 power to think for and advise others. A 
 man feels a deep sense of gloom that, to his 
 
 46
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 automatic thinking, is sure to be ended only 
 with death, and he is tempted to take his 
 life. Let him even try to do this, and be 
 interrupted in the act by another man, who 
 comes to ask advice for his melancholy, and 
 he will promptly give the second man the 
 good counsel he was himself about to vio- 
 late, namely, that the world only seems 
 dark, and that if he will wait patiently a 
 little while the clouds will pass away; that 
 they cannot be long-lived; and that it is the 
 worst recklessness to give way to a tempor- 
 ary feeling of gloom. 
 
 One step toward the salvation of the man 
 with the blues is to stop and think what 
 advice he would give another who should 
 come to him with the same complaint; then, 
 having got the advice clear in his mind, to 
 try to follow it himself. The effort in 
 behalf of the other will help him to save 
 himself. "What would I advise a despair- 
 ing soul?" is the interrogative formula that 
 every victim must learn by heart; must say 
 over a thousand times, and until, like the 
 jingle of a seductive rhyme, he cannot drive 
 it out of his head. It must come back to 
 him again and again, and come unbidden. 
 And its coming will not be a cause of grief 
 and deeper despondency, but will lighten 
 
 47
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 the load as it will offer the promise of relief. 
 For every time the man takes this rule 
 home to himself, and truly considers what 
 his advice would be, he then and there 
 begins to follow it, and lifts his head, if only 
 a little, to a new light. 
 
 And this rule is not hard, it does not belie 
 any of the facts of human nature, and it is 
 wholesome for everyday life in a thousand 
 ways. After all, it is nothing but a method 
 — an attempt to make people forget their 
 egoism and look at their own troubles 
 impersonally, a profitable thing for any one 
 to do, and most helpful to one in despair. 
 For if such an one looks at his prospects 
 through the spectacles of his sombre emo- 
 tions, he is lost; he is in a very dungeon of 
 gloom, without a ray of light. His only 
 safety is to take himself and his feelings for 
 the moment out of the problem; or, rather, 
 to lift himself up and away from his own 
 personality and emotions, and look down at 
 his interests in a speculative manner. And 
 if the gloom is great, almost the only way 
 for him to do this is, in complete sincerity, 
 to create the conditions in the interest of 
 another person, and to regard himself as 
 directing another and a hopeless soul. This 
 vicarious method makes the struggle of the 
 
 48 
 
 X
 
 SOME TANGENTS OF THE EGO 
 
 ascent easier. It introduces a vantage 
 ground, a resting place, like an intermediate 
 note, to enable one to step up with ease to 
 a tone that is higher and more certain. 
 
 Beyond this there is always left to us 
 another resource of some consequence, 
 namely, to look and act cheerful, and thereby 
 help to create an actual feeling of cheer- 
 fulness. Acts do in a measure evoke the 
 feelings that normally accompany them. 
 To act calmly helps to a mood of calmness; 
 so of courage and cheerfulness. 
 
 If one has the strength and self-control to 
 do this, he is sure to gain at least a little in 
 spirit, and begin to move out of his despond- 
 ency. It takes a superior sort of stoicism 
 to hold a man up to a rule of this kind, but 
 men have it and can cultivate it, and they 
 ought to cultivate it. For, as a force in life 
 and conduct, it is a saving quality of grace. 
 
 49
 
 The Mind for a Remedy
 
 The Mind for a Remedy 
 
 Man's mental state is responsible for many 
 of his sensations. An emotion can make 
 him happy or unhappy; it may cause him to 
 blush or blanch, to break out into perspira- 
 tion and to shake with fear; it may fill his 
 mouth with saliva or dry it in an instant and 
 it may suddenly stop his digestion. It is 
 said that intense emotion can turn the 
 hair gray in a few hours. It may cause a 
 sudden intense pain in the head or else- 
 where; may make the pulse irregular, and 
 the heart to beat with such violence as to 
 rupture a cerebral vessel; and it may cause 
 death by the sudden giving out of the few 
 remaining muscular fibres of a degenerate 
 heart. 
 
 On the other hand, an emotion may drive 
 away pain and discomfort, indigestion and 
 sleeplessness, and turn grief into joy, and 
 make a change in the governing impulse to 
 action that may continue through life. 
 
 Dislike or irritability may cause one to be 
 annoyed by trifles, and life to be nagged into 
 
 53
 
 ^ THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 a continuous torture. A contrary emotion 
 may beget good temper in the midst of all 
 the cumulative annoyances of life. Emo- 
 tion with an idiosyncrasy or a weakness 
 makes many of the forms of hysteria, as 
 cultivation of the right emotions may pre- 
 vent these symptoms. 
 
 Right emotions are sought always, and 
 probably by everybody. Everybody would 
 be happy if he could. If an emotion can 
 drive away pain and increase tranquillity,- 
 every one who knew about it would natu- 
 rally cultivate it. Nobody would willingly 
 seek mental states that give him pain and 
 indigestion, unhappiness and insomnia. 
 
 A thousand guide posts have directed 
 men to the emotions that promise peace and 
 freedom from suffering and discontent. 
 Many of these are religious; hundreds of 
 different shades of faith, and with all sorts 
 of inspiration and philosophy. The range 
 is wide, and all kinds of spirits and gods, 
 and one God and Jesus Christ, are invoked 
 in manifold variations; and people are told 
 that by embracing this or that particular 
 form they shall have some physical or 
 spiritual advantage not given to the rest of 
 the world. Some religions are urged upon 
 unbelievers for the purpose of spiritual 
 
 54
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 safety after death, with incidental advan- 
 tages in this life; others, like one of the lat- 
 est, are advocated because they promise to 
 rid the body of disease and bring happiness 
 and harmony here — with certainty of happi- 
 ness in the hereafter; and all because God 
 is good and God is everything. One 
 teaches that disease may be cured by 
 prayer; another, that disease is an imagi- 
 nary thing and that if you only understand it 
 does not exist, it does not; still another, 
 that the laying-on of hands or some weird 
 motions made over the patient will cure. 
 One cult says that the human mind has a 
 chemical quality and must learn to attract 
 the desirable thoughts and emotions, and to 
 repel those of an opposite sort, as chemical 
 elements do. One writes of the "majesty 
 of calmness," another, of the wonders and 
 the power of relaxing to give joy and 
 strength; and another has convinced a con- 
 siderable company that the great enemies 
 of the race and the potent makers of grief 
 and sickness are the emotions of anger and 
 worry. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the value of 
 these influences for relief to many people in 
 various states of physical and mental 
 trouble. They have by their own testimony 
 
 55
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 received help and strength from them. 
 There can be no doubt of this fact. If the 
 help has come through the imagination, that 
 is an explanation of the method and does 
 not impeach the claim. So the treatment 
 of the sick is not confined to medicines 
 alone; other influences are quite as valu- 
 able, even indispensable. People often do 
 get well of painful disorders, if not danger- 
 ous ones, by the influence of helpful emo- 
 tions. 
 
 Probably all of these influences have some 
 power, and for different classes of people 
 different values. Some of the measures are 
 applicable to one person, some to another, 
 depending on their respective idiosyncrasies. 
 That the measures apply at all, and do good 
 in some cases, is a lesson that scientific 
 medicine ought not to lose. It must be con° 
 fessed that in the main physicians have 
 almost wholly failed to use for any good 
 purpose these surprising influences. 
 
 The catalogue is a long one of the condi- 
 tions of body and mind in which these influ- 
 ences work. It includes a large series of 
 aches and pains, and of odd sensations like 
 numbness and tingling, sometimes called 
 paresthesia. It includes some faults of the 
 functions of the body that are usually sup- 
 
 56
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 posed to be wholly uninfluenced by mental 
 "states as, for example, many forms of bad 
 digestion, and irregular action of stomach 
 and intestines. It includes a wide range of 
 mental perturbations, as insomnia, worry, 
 anger, brain and nerv'e fatigue, disturbed 
 emotions, hysteria in numerous forms, and 
 all that combination of symptoms known as 
 neurasthenia. This word always means a 
 worn-out or run-down condition of the 
 mechanism of the brain surface (the gray 
 matter) that is engaged in mental attention, 
 in care taking, and in liking or disliking 
 people and things. Doubtless the brain 
 and spinal cord are always involved to- 
 gether in these cases, but the brain most. 
 The disorders are true psycho-neuroses, a 
 term that covers most forms of so-called 
 hysteria and neurasthenia. 
 
 The influences that I have named work for 
 benefit in various ways, first by arousing ex- 
 pectation of relief; then by reducing such 
 emotions as wear upon the nervous suscep- 
 tibility, as, for example, worry, anger, sus- 
 piciousness, fear, jealousy, pride in danger, 
 anxiety and sense of care and duty, and the 
 emotional states of diffidence, mental ten- 
 sion, and nervous touchiness. These bad 
 emotions are often overcome and displaced 
 
 57
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 by new and better ones, such as hope, faith, 
 love, aspiration, serenity, relaxation and 
 imperturbability. These help one to endure 
 without friction a flood of trouble and care 
 that otherwise would be unbearable. 
 
 How these measures may be practically 
 applied and the old emotions displaced by 
 the new; and whether to any degree mys- 
 tery or deception are justifiable in general, 
 and to be fostered for either party (the one 
 who needs the relief or the one who tries to 
 give it) are serious questions that deserve 
 the best study. 
 
 In some cases, and for some people it is 
 not a question of the need of mystery to 
 accomplish the required purpose, for that is 
 a fore-known certainty. Many people never 
 can be appealed to on a wholly rational 
 basis for any emotional effect; they cannot 
 use their own unmysterious powers for their 
 own relief. The only question is how far 
 scientific caretakers of the sick, who them- 
 selves are not deluded or wool-blind, shall 
 foster the idea of mystery and perhaps 
 supernatural power in dealing with invalids, 
 and just what their procedure and sequence 
 of action ought to be. 
 
 Our ambition always must be for an un- 
 worn-out thinking machine that is not too 
 
 58
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 emotional; this is the goal, and that gained, 
 all else is easy. How to reach it is a prob- 
 lem. In all cases of so called nervous pros- 
 tration the chief desideratum must be (after 
 or with restoration of bodily functions) to 
 rest the brain machinery that is tired; i. e., 
 change the trend of thought; give new 
 scenes and occupations and stop the regular 
 work. But this is not enough; we must 
 change the current emotions and induce 
 new thoughts not connected with the voca- 
 tion or the things that have worried and 
 worn out the endurance. This last measure 
 is the most potent of all influences, and is 
 usually possible of realization. Hope and 
 faith can take the place of despair and 
 doubt, suspicion and melancholy. Tran- 
 quillity and relaxation can come instead of 
 incessant tension, apprehension and exalted 
 alertness. Imperturbability may stand 
 instead of fret, irritability, diffidence and 
 fear; and benevolence and unselfishness, 
 instead of hate, envy and jealousy. The 
 difficulty is to know how to bring these 
 changes to people of all sorts of mental 
 peculiarities and crotchets, as well as, per- 
 haps, of moral perversity. When the trans- 
 formation begins we discover a new being. 
 A new birth in thought and freedom has 
 
 59
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 occurred. The change manifestly cannot 
 come to all people, only to most of them for 
 whom the best efforts are made by them- 
 selves or others. There are at least three 
 cardinal forces that start the process. They 
 are: 
 
 1. The power of the victim himself. 
 This is in the few instances where he knows 
 his failings and changes intelligently. He 
 knows he has overworked and resolves to 
 rest; he has fretted too much and has been 
 governed by ignoble purposes, and resolves 
 to change, and does it. Such people are 
 the greatest and grandest in all the world. 
 
 2. The help of others who know better 
 than the patient what his failings are and 
 who point the way in a rational manner. 
 These others are the friend, the doctor and 
 the priest, who can persuade and convince 
 without arousing that most irresistible of ob- 
 stacles—the notion that unpleasant advice is 
 unfriendly. 
 
 3. Some new influence brought into the 
 mind that can change the bad emotional 
 bent, as some mystery or mysticism, some 
 novelty or humbug, or a belief in the power 
 of something beyond himself on which the 
 patient leans or believes he leans. 
 
 These last, except when believers in a 
 
 60
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 wholesome religion urge a reliance on divine 
 power to help one to lift himself, are 
 usually brought to the patient by the 
 psychic, the quack, the believer in strange 
 things, the mesmerizer, the intentional fakir, 
 and the religious doctrinaire who is himself 
 deluded. And the doctrines strike people 
 in a thousand different ways, and find as 
 many shades of criticism, doubt, credulity 
 and blindness. 
 
 Probably the mystery cannot be dispensed 
 with for all people at all times. Some must 
 have it in one form or another, and it is not 
 true that any of them wish to be humbugged; 
 but they are susceptible to influences that 
 come in the guise of mystery and they can- 
 not help it, nor learn to help it much. And 
 the mystery is sure to come in one shape or 
 another to susceptible natures, for all time. 
 It has been so through the history of the 
 race and there is no ground to expect that it 
 will change greatly. Wonderful effects 
 from mysterious things, like secret nostrums 
 and occult influences, will continue to be 
 recorded hereafter as they have been hereto- 
 fore. 
 
 The fact that the disorders and patients 
 described have been the objects of charlatan- 
 ry so long, is no reason why we should not, 
 
 6i
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 in their behalf, resort to mental effects that 
 are possible for good, and that are founded 
 in the physiology of the brain and nervous 
 system. Indeed, the scandals of the past 
 are a sufficient reason, if there were no 
 other, for considering this subject in a dis- 
 passionate and scientific manner. But the 
 pathetic condition of a large class of nerv- 
 ous patients is another reason, and they 
 deserve the best thought and talent of stu- 
 dents in these very directions. 
 
 As to the cases and influences I have re- 
 ferred to; and to all cases of sickness that 
 are at all chronic, whatever may be their 
 degree of severity or their peculiarity, it is 
 clear that the doctor has certain very posi- 
 tive duties. As I conceive them, they are: 
 
 1. To see what brain and nerve powers 
 and functions have gone wrong or are out of 
 order, as shown by the mental and nervous 
 symptoms. 
 
 2. To discover what functions of the body 
 are wrong, that have been made so by men- 
 tal influences. 
 
 3. To study the personal qualities of indi- 
 vidual patients and see how each can be 
 affected in the best way by psychopathic 
 influences. 
 
 4. To apply, with care and discretion, 
 
 62
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 such measures as are found necessary for 
 each case. 
 
 The first of these duties it would seem 
 possible to do easily; yet it is not. Doctors 
 are much more inclined to prescribe drugs 
 or physical means for the supposed disease 
 that they guess to be the cause of the symp- 
 toms, than to even seek for some causation 
 in mental or emotional conditions. Indeed, 
 as we study the sick, we too often forget all 
 about the physiology of the nervous system, 
 and especially the relation of the more 
 voluntary to the more involuntary portions 
 of it. If we would only try to know what 
 powers and functions of the brain are going 
 wrong, we could, I believe, often prevent 
 insanity from occurring. And it is not 
 difficult when we study a patient carefully, 
 and have his confidence, to know whether 
 his emotional and mental life are right or 
 wrong, and if wrong what they need for cor- 
 rection. His insomnia is produced often by 
 some annoying emotions; his loss of mem- 
 ory by introspection and worry, perhaps 
 over imaginary bodily ills; his lightning 
 nervous response by overwork and wrong 
 emotional attitude toward his environment. 
 So of many other mental and bodily symp- 
 toms. The greatest art of the doctor is to 
 
 63
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 gain the confidence of the patient so that he 
 will reveal that part of his inner life which 
 he usually hides completely. 
 
 As to the second duty, to see if physical 
 functions are disturbed by mental forces, we 
 almost never think of it. It does not occur 
 to us that a pain could be so produced, or 
 indigestion or a coated tongue. And the 
 suggestion that one could have a hemorrhage 
 from the lungs or throat from the effect of 
 emotion seems preposterous. Yet I have 
 known beyond a peradventure of two or 
 three such cases. Many cases of indiges- 
 tion are made worse, if not produced, by 
 eating in a state of mental tension, or under 
 depressing emotions of the class that are 
 removable by other emotions invoked to dis- 
 place them. Dyspeptics are accused of 
 malingering because sometimes they can 
 eat with impunity articles and quantities of 
 food that usually cause them acute suffering. 
 The fact is that with the right emotions 
 digestion is better; with the usual ones it is 
 worse. A dinner with friends and good 
 feeling, and without cares or sense of haste, 
 is a very different thing from bolting a little 
 of even the best food under the pressure of 
 business worry. 
 
 That, with many persons, a pain is made 
 
 64
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 worse to their consciousness by their think- 
 ing and talking about it, and by their 
 friends magnifying it, is as notorious as it is 
 that the pain is often gone the moment they 
 can ignore it. Yet we rarely make the 
 smallest suggestion of mental influences in 
 this class of cases. We seldom ask our- 
 selves whether a pain is made worse by 
 thinking on it, and if we do, and find such 
 is the case, we usually scold the patient or 
 lose interest in him for this reason, when we 
 ought to have the more interest, and might 
 convince him of the mental element and 
 correct it. We could also enlist his friends 
 to help him forget the pain, which is 
 usually the reverse of what they do. In- 
 stead he usually gets a round of anodynes 
 which are never completely effective, while 
 his mind grows more and more alive to its 
 sufferings, until its emotional condition 
 becomes ripe for it to be carried away into 
 forgetfulness of the pain by any faith rem- 
 edy or mental legerdemain that may be 
 offered. The feeling of desperation has 
 been reached where the victim will grasp at 
 any straw of hope. A promise of positive 
 relief is the greatest boon of all, and that is 
 the offer of the new remedy. 
 
 That the cure is complete in so many 
 
 65
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 cases is proof that there are a great many 
 imaginary and functional sufferers. It is 
 proof also of what the doctor could do if he 
 would try. Serious organic diseases do not 
 get well by such influences, but they are a 
 minority of all the cases of sickness. That 
 as a rule there must be some lessening in the 
 intellectual grasp of the normal relation of 
 things, the usual sense of proportion, when a 
 person can give himself over to such faith in 
 mystery, does not help the matter nor 
 excuse us. Moreover there are exceptions 
 to this rule in the few strong minds to whom 
 some supposed novel phenomena seem inex- 
 plicable save on the theory of supernatural 
 power; and they ignore their logic as a thing 
 that has played them false. The claim made 
 by some writers that these people are verg- 
 ing toward true insanity is not correct, but 
 is, I presume, suggested by some of their 
 own fixed theories about mental action. 
 Fixed theories more than our logic are prone 
 to play us false. 
 
 The third consideration is the most im- 
 portant of all for any practical application 
 of psychopathic measures. People differ so 
 widely that the same course cannot be pur- 
 sued with all. It is true that most of the 
 patients who come to us in need of these 
 
 66
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 remedies ought to have the same, or nearly 
 the same, management. They have nearly 
 all had too many cares or concerns that have 
 worried them in one way or another. These 
 need to be cut down. They have exhausted 
 the power of mental attention with likes 
 and dislikes. Their irritability has become 
 phenomenal, and their nervous equilibrium 
 has reached the last limit of instability, and 
 so the explosions of hysteria and neuras- 
 thenia come easily. This function of the 
 brain requires rest, and the emotions need 
 especially the antidote of wholesome in- 
 difference long applied, and removed as far 
 as possible from the causes that usually set 
 them in motion. This means that neuras- 
 thenic men should get away from their busi- 
 ness cares that nag, and that women should 
 drop every social obligation and the 
 demands of dress, and even the care of their 
 own children for long periods, and get out 
 to nature and a little way back toward bar- 
 barism. 
 
 Many of them have worn down their 
 cerebral strength by anger and envy and jeal- 
 ousy, and need a new pasture of good fel- 
 lowship and peace with the world. To this 
 end their own families may need to be made 
 over, or be born again; for they have often 
 
 67
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 helped to accentuate every fault. Those 
 that have suffered long have suffered more 
 as the days have passed. Too much atten- 
 tion to the nerves that suffer has exalted 
 their capacity to cry out. All such ought to 
 be taken away from their sensations by some 
 powerful influence that can completely en- 
 gage the mind in hope and attention, and 
 give them rest. 
 
 Some there are whose power of objective 
 attention is always reduced save when in 
 absolute health. When sick, even trivially, 
 the subjective me is so exalted that they 
 magnify their symptoms incessantly, and 
 fence themselves off as by a wall from the 
 objective world. As long as they are a 
 particle sick nothing will help them but 
 some power that can arouse their faith and 
 interest to rise above their subjective trifles. 
 They can never be depended on very far, even 
 when well and able to forget their sensa- 
 tions and live an objective life of usefulness; 
 for any trifling disorder, fatigue or accident 
 unsettles them. They are unsafe to send on 
 long campaigns; some trifling sensation will 
 make them retreat in a hurry. They need 
 to be dealt with carefully, for they are 
 always lame on the slightest occasion. And 
 the word stoicism is not in their vocabulary. 
 
 68
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 Then those with an abnormal tendency 
 to psycho-neuroses (the hysterical constitu- 
 tion) are always troublesome, for their emo- 
 tional natures are powder magazines ready 
 to explode if they are only jostled. They 
 need the same dose of rest from their usual 
 emotions, and to have new and more whole- 
 some ones introduced into their lives. They 
 are constantly in the condition of a normal 
 person who has been nervously overworked; 
 their usual state is one of neurasthenia and 
 they should be so managed, and large nerv- 
 ous tasks should never be expected of them. 
 They require more nerve rest, and more pro- 
 tection by good emotions from bad ones 
 than their fellows, and they ought to be 
 spared the severer tests of common life. 
 They need to travel in protected paths all 
 their days. Moreover, many such need a 
 service that is rarely done for them, namely, 
 to be shown how they are constantly living 
 with emotions that, being of the wholesome 
 kind, are excessive in degree, or with those 
 that are altogether wrong. Standing in the 
 way of this service is a peculiar secretive- 
 ness as to their emotional lives, which 
 usually prevents their nearest friends from 
 ever sounding their depths. They them- 
 selves, least of all, know and can study 
 
 69
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 dispassionately their emotional lives, and 
 their own families and fellows, instead 
 of helping, usually aggravate their mental 
 warping. 
 
 To apply the right remedy in each case 
 successfully is impossible. The most we 
 should expect is partial success, for the 
 mental twists of the patients are so varied, 
 as well as the degrees of tact we can use, 
 that numerous misfits must occur. More- 
 over, it will be said that the prescriptions 
 are impossible; that cares and worries can- 
 not be laid aside; that one cannot forget his 
 personal griefs and mortifications or change 
 the emotional current of his life. But there 
 are thousands of people who have done this 
 very thing when absorbed with some new 
 thought or fad or faith; and some have been 
 able to do it by the power of their own com- 
 mon sense applied to themselves. They do 
 not put aside their cares and griefs so much 
 as they see the adjustment of them to the 
 rest of the universe, and discover what an 
 amount of needless worry is given to the 
 things of a day, and see how their journeys 
 are made easier by repressing certain emo- 
 tions and encouraging others. 
 
 Lack of wisdom on the part of the doctor 
 causes many failures. Tell a man that he 
 
 70
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 imagines half his ills, and he may refuse to 
 speak to you again. But tell him first that 
 the mind of everyone affects the body 
 always; then that he must be like other 
 people; then ask him seriously to think if it 
 is not possible for him to be dwelling too 
 much on his ailment— and you have perhaps 
 started him amicably in the right direction. 
 To a few it is safe to be blunt and severe, 
 and to tell them of the mental element in 
 their sickness, but it is rather a dangerous 
 experiment, so fixed are sufferers in the 
 reality of their woes. Any hint of auto-> 
 exaltation of woe or pain is generally taken 
 as proof of unfriendliness and lack of sym- 
 pathy. When such hints are taken agree- 
 ably the benefit is prompt. 
 
 Tell a man that his fret at being awake 
 keeps him from sleeping, and you have 
 hardly helped him at all. But show him 
 how an honest desire to keep awake all 
 night will put the mind into a mood of such 
 tranquillity that the spirit of sleep will come 
 without obstacle, and you have destroyed 
 his insomnia and transfigured his soul. Tell 
 a woman not to fret at the ways of others, 
 and you are talking to the sea, but show her 
 how these annoying ways are inevitably 
 born to some people, and that they are 
 
 71
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 ethnic curiosities to be amused at, and you 
 have done her a service. 
 
 It is easy to deal with the patient who is 
 so sensible that he can change his mental 
 tendencies. You have only to show him 
 that his emotional strain and his nervous 
 agitation are too great, and he becomes 
 tranquil and imperturbable. But such 
 people are the rarest exceptions to the rule. 
 More there are who are so constituted that 
 they must have some mystery or quality of 
 the unknowable to fix their faith on, in 
 order to have any mental benefit. It is 
 difficult to deal with these on the basis of 
 perfect candor. To be frank and unmyste- 
 rious is to fail to do them good. Your 
 advice is too common and simple. 
 
 Is deception justifiable in such cases? 
 The answer must be yes and no. The 
 minds of the sick are many times distinctly 
 abnormal, we cannot theoretically regard 
 them as ever quite normal; and they are not 
 capable of reasoning about their interests 
 exactly like themselves in health. But 
 many are at times more capable than the 
 average of well people, and it is a great 
 problem to deal with each of them. It is 
 never right to be unfair to the best interests 
 of the sick. But it is not unfair to leave 
 
 72
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 them in the dark as to the abstruse things 
 of cerebral physiology that no man under- 
 stands completely. The plan of trying to 
 explain everything to the patient has its 
 drawbacks. It is never done anyway, for 
 half the things the doctor tries to explain he 
 only partly understands himself, and it is 
 better for the patient's mind in most cases 
 to be either dealt with dogmatically (usually 
 involving a degree of laudable deception, 
 because the doctor pretends to know some- 
 thing he does not), or be left in some 
 admitted doubt and uncertainty. This 
 latter gives room for faith, which is whole- 
 some. 
 
 Where the psychological element is 
 strong I think we do wrong not to try to 
 create faith and hope that may help. 
 Whether this is done by the positiveness of 
 the doctor or by something else matters 
 little, as long as it is done. If religion can 
 make one happy and hopeful, it is one of 
 the natural rights of the sick man to have 
 it; and if something that stands for it can in 
 any way relieve cares and give rest of soul 
 (which means emotional rest), it must not 
 be withheld. No physician can justify his 
 neglect of pyschologic influences that give 
 hope, on the ground of his efforts to be 
 
 73
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 scientific, when he considers his own short- 
 comings in every sort of knowledge. 
 
 A patient who has perhaps suffered long 
 or who is impatient, asks for his doctor's 
 views about some one of the insubstantial 
 cults, and the doctor is troubled to know 
 what he shall reply that will comport with 
 his duty to be helpful to the sick, and not 
 strain his common sense or self-respect. 
 His temptation is to say that it is all non- 
 sense; that only weak-minded people take 
 it up; that any good effects from it are 
 imaginary; and that it tends toward mental 
 unbalancing. Each of these declarations 
 expresses a partial truth, yet they should 
 not be said to the patient. To say them 
 might constructively discredit a number of 
 other religious beliefs, some of which the 
 doctor himself may have great respect for. 
 Besides, they do not express the exact truth. 
 
 The time comes in the mental experience 
 of some people when they are tired of think- 
 ing (if they do think) and depending upon 
 the science of things that is the common 
 knowledge of the world. They seem to 
 need something novel that does not require 
 thinking, only believing. And oftentimes 
 the most unreasonable thing takes best; the 
 greater the jump from a basis of reason into 
 
 74
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 chaos, the easier it is for some people to 
 make it. Ought physicians wholly to dis- 
 courage such things because the concepts 
 believed are unscientific and absurd? This 
 seems natural, but we must remember that 
 the parts of all religions which people take 
 on faith are inexplicable by any of our 
 scientific formulas. Moreover nearly all 
 scientific men have had some religious be- 
 liefs no more justified on logical grounds 
 than the non-existence of matter, or some of 
 the equally absurd theories of our friends 
 whose sanity we are tempted to impeach. 
 And it is a psychologic fact that some- 
 how such unreasoning faith helps to tran- 
 quillity of soul, and tends rather to good 
 conduct among men, and this is one of the 
 several compensations. 
 
 Why not be entirely truthful as well as 
 candid with such inquiring people? We 
 might then say this, and say it kindly: If 
 you have reached a point where you must 
 have something more than you now possess 
 to pin your faith to, this new doctrine may 
 serve. If you are so constituted that you 
 cannot make a haven of mental rest along 
 the well-known laws of brain action but 
 must have something occult or mysterious 
 to lean upon, this new belief may help. If 
 
 75
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 you are ready to deny the laws of nature as 
 to your own body, while you rely on them 
 in your business and money-making, this 
 new thing is probably what you are looking 
 for. If you can put aside your scruples 
 about the common knowledge of all time, 
 and cease to stickle for it, and give yourself 
 unreasoningly to this new doctrine, it will 
 probably give you mental comfort. Then 
 the ridicule of the world of science that 
 insists on the existence of matter, as well 
 as that of the believers in the older religions 
 will, by its very boon of martyrdom, make 
 it easier for you to believe and bear it all 
 with sweet temper. 
 
 The cerebral wear and tear of our extreme 
 civilization leads to many cases of neuras- 
 thenia and general uselessness, and to many 
 sorts of hysteria and insanity. The medical 
 profession and all thoughtful people alike 
 ought to do something to lessen this for the 
 hampered people who go about their busi- 
 ness from day to day, and try to keep well, 
 or pretend they are well. This service may, 
 I believe, be done if we will study the sub- 
 ject with something of the enthusiasm with 
 which we have pursued the microbes, and 
 
 76
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 not ignore the influences that are wholly 
 mental. 
 
 It is evident that the remedy lies either 
 in the direction of lessening the load or in- 
 creasing the cerebral capacity to bear it. 
 There is small chance of increasing the 
 power; a thousand years hence this may 
 come to be done, perhaps by the process of 
 development and the survival of the fittest 
 through the centuries. At present the 
 power of mental endurance, other things 
 being equal, is substantially fixed for every 
 person. It may be increased by various 
 aids for brief periods only. As other things 
 are usually unequal it can generally be 
 more economically used than it is, and this, 
 for the better business of life, is tantamount 
 to increasing it somewhat. To lighten the 
 load should be our aim, for the load is too 
 heavy now, especially in the refined and 
 forceful society of America. 
 
 How to do this is the enigma. It is 
 easy to say we will begin by cultivating the 
 better emotions and reducing the wearing 
 ones, and by cutting down the needless bur- 
 dens. But we have religions and ethics and 
 philosophy, and through the centuries have 
 been taught to keep the good emotions and 
 discard the bad ones, and to put away
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 foolishness. And, notwithstanding all our 
 good precepts and some good examples, we 
 have got into the bad ways of the present 
 time. We must, evidently, be more specific 
 as well as more radical in our measures. If 
 any great good is done the remedies must be 
 fundamental, and far-reaching in their 
 effects; not a few must be influenced, but 
 many, or no improvement will come to the 
 community as a whole. But we ought to 
 help the few, if we cannot reach the multi- 
 tude. 
 
 A certain few cardinal things are appar- 
 ently necessary to be done in the care and 
 culture of the people, and they are mental 
 and moral mostly. 
 
 1. We must lessen the emotional atten- 
 tions to infants. These wear out the brain 
 energy and produce erethism that may last 
 through life. Almost any infant can, in 
 three months, be developed into an auto- 
 crat, attempting to rule his world; and many 
 of them have, before the end of their first 
 year, true neurasthenia resulting from these 
 influences. 
 
 2. As far as possible we ought to let the 
 children alone, and stop the common inces- 
 sant effort to entertain them. This effort 
 continues the harmful effects of too much 
 
 78
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 emotional attention in infancy. Let them 
 entertain themselves; this will develop 
 their minds and rest their emotions. We 
 ought to observe them, with their knowl- 
 edge, and talk about them in their presence 
 less. We do this now so much as to pro- 
 v^oke a series of most vicious emotions that 
 grow into bad life habits. Fairy tales and 
 fairy talk are unwholesome to most of 
 them. The average child already has too 
 much imagination; it is a beautiful thing 
 but it is not necessary to increase it. 
 
 Such rules for infants and children en- 
 counter many difficulties. Two motives 
 actuate parents and children alike. The 
 first is to see that the children are happy 
 and pleasing here and now. The reflex effect 
 on their elders is pleasant; we like a happy 
 child, and like to make a child happy. 
 Thus we and the child conspire to the same 
 end. The second motive is to make sure 
 that, if possible, the career of the child 
 shall be long and successful. Both emo- 
 tions are for the good of the rising life as we 
 understand it, the one for the now, and the 
 other for the future. Is it any wonder that 
 we should generally sacrifice the future for 
 the present? The child is incapable of fore- 
 going a present pleasure for a future good, 
 
 79
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 and the parents are too ready to agree not 
 to count this day's indulgence, even when 
 they know its ulterior effect is bad. A 
 mother carries her baby in her arms a long 
 time to get it to sleep because it likes to be 
 carried and refuses to go to sleep in its 
 bed. She says the child will not go to 
 sleep otherwise, but if she reflects she 
 knows this to be a tender-hearted fiction. 
 Her fault is lack of courage to break the 
 habit. As the child grows older and be- 
 gins to acquire ways that she fears may 
 make him inelegant or impolite she has no 
 hesitation in working for his future, and 
 she will drill him by the hour and worry 
 by the day about his manners (that at fifteen 
 he would spontaneously correct), and let 
 him go on with nervous injuries that will 
 last him through life. Parents are shocked 
 if their boys smoke cigarettes, but they have 
 allowed habits of the nervous system from 
 babyhood up that are even worse for the 
 future of a boy than smoking cigarettes in 
 his teens. Parents who have perpetually 
 entertained, coddled, and diverted their 
 children, who have jumped to their call as 
 to the command of a superior being, are by 
 logic and nature estopped from objecting to 
 cigarettes, coffee, wine or late hours, when 
 
 80
 
 THE MIND FOR A RExMEDY 
 
 the children pass into youth, and would still 
 gratify their desires for all sorts of stimulat- 
 ing amusements. None of these sins 
 against nature is so great as those that have 
 been earlier fostered and encouraged. In- 
 deed, had the earlier ones never been 
 committed, many of these later indulgences 
 would not be sought. The exaltation of 
 nerve centers, born of vicious excitement in 
 childhood and continued in years of habits, 
 cannot be ignored in later life. 
 
 Parents plead that their children ought to 
 be obedient and self-denying as to indul- 
 gences that harm, because they, the parents, 
 have been good to them in their infancy and 
 childhood, have made pleasures for them, 
 and denied them little or nothing of joy. 
 This is the very gist of the error. If the 
 emotional propensities of the children had 
 received as much tranquil rest as their 
 muscles, their brains would have grown 
 up with more normal demands and with 
 better resisting power. 
 
 3. We ought to stop making young ladies 
 and gentlemen out of children. To push 
 them into responsible social life, as early as 
 is the rule in the best social stratum, is to 
 develop emotions and cares, and subject 
 them to tests and temptations that ought to 
 
 81
 
 THE MIND FOR A REiMEDY 
 
 be postponed for years. And the only 
 justification we have for it is our and their 
 unwholesome pleasure in it all, and their 
 hoped-for escape from diffidence later. 
 The truth is that for many of them the diffi- 
 dence is an advantage, and ought to be en- 
 couraged rather than otherwise. 
 
 4. We ought to minify the emotional 
 struggles at school as far as possible. The 
 strife for supremacy, the fear of failure, the 
 envy and jealousy of others, constitute one 
 of the most wearing influences on the brains 
 of the young. Not all, by any means, but 
 many of the school children suffer in this 
 way. It is a duty to find out the ones being 
 most harmed, and protect their nervous 
 lives if possible. 
 
 5. An increase of the outdoor, athletic 
 life of the people as a whole would be one 
 of the greatest gains of all. Indoor life 
 keeps us below the par physiologic, and 
 to raise the standard of the system as a 
 whole of course helps the brain. 
 
 6. To reduce and repress the unhappy 
 emotions that are engendered by the strug- 
 gle to shine in society and in business, is 
 one of the most urgent needs, and hardest 
 services to render. These emotions are 
 envy, jealousy, fear of failure, and sense of 
 
 82
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 danger to our pride, all of which are wear- 
 ing and depressing. This is the school ex- 
 perience carried into adult life; and with all 
 its ramifications it does incalculable harm 
 to the cerebral resisting power. To reduce 
 the struggle itself as well as its bad emo- 
 tions is quite as important. This ardor to 
 do the duties that society and business seem 
 to impose on us (and beyond the getting of 
 bread) is a large part of the cause of the 
 nervous overwork among men and women. 
 When a woman has neurasthenia from so- 
 called nervous overdoing, the chances are 
 six in ten that the excess of work was done 
 in response to a demand of some sort of 
 social tyranny, and was thus by the highest 
 ethics unnecessary. The same truth obtains 
 with men only to a slightly less degree. 
 
 7. Less dress-parade in our lives is neces- 
 sary. Reduce the everlasting dressing of 
 our bodies, houses, tables and equipages! 
 It all becomes a bug-bear to the tired-out 
 brain, and it tires the brain. It is what 
 makes women feel like going crazy when 
 they think of packing their trunks for a trip 
 to a fashionable resort, and it makes some 
 of them really crazy. Such parade is a silly 
 demand that our conceit and envy make 
 upon us, to the worry of the tired brains, 
 
 83
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 and with the paltriest return in life's recom- 
 pense. 
 
 8. It is merely a truism to say that people 
 who are carrying mind and body loads that 
 are too heavy should have them lightened. 
 If the load is apparently necessary and free 
 from the vice of bad emotions, the rest is 
 as truly necessary. Rest and change are de- 
 manded. These influences shift the bear- 
 ings; take off the pressure from parts and 
 powers that are tired, and put into exercise 
 faculties that have been dormant, so that 
 the man as a whole is brought up, his brain 
 and body are refreshed, and mental wreck is 
 fought off. 
 
 The influences that I have condemned are 
 what in large measure make the apparently 
 inevitable revolutions of the wheel of Amer- 
 ican society. It is a spectacle that the old 
 world has furnished, only in a different 
 degree, again and again. Many eminent and 
 resourceful families eventually fall behind in 
 the greater world influences, while their 
 places are taken by people who have come 
 up from humbler beginnings. The rise to 
 power of these is due to the fact that they 
 have suffered less injury from the emotions 
 that grind and wear out the nerve force. 
 They have lived simpler lives nearer to 
 
 84
 
 THE MIND FOR A REMEDY 
 
 nature, and have been moved by ambitions 
 that are less carking and unwholesome. 
 
 This continual revolution of the wheel is 
 self-acting and wholly conservative for man- 
 kind. The race and company fit to com- 
 mand usually, in the long run, come up to 
 power. The lessening of grasp due to the 
 dissipations incident to the use of power — 
 the miscalled rewards of power — causes its 
 victims to drop behind in the struggle and 
 give place to those not handicapped by such 
 influences. And the wheel promises to go 
 on revolving as, and wherever, this de- 
 bauchery of resources occurs, and nobody 
 can deny that the struggle is fair, and the 
 verdict world-wise. 
 
 85
 
 The Etiology of Lying
 
 The Etiology of Lying 
 
 We all live to some degree in an atmos- 
 phere of the unreal. Some of us live most 
 of the time in such a realm. We love fic- 
 tion, tell stories, and build air castles with 
 something of the facility with which we 
 breathe and walk and eat. Children begin 
 to show this tendency just beyond babyhood, 
 and their elders accentuate it by inventing fic- 
 tions for them that develop as they are told. 
 The tendency, in some measure, creeps into 
 all the affairs of our daily lives. In mental 
 equation and view-point each man differs a 
 little from every other, and so they see and 
 tell things differently. Rarely do two seem 
 able to tell a thing in one and the same way. 
 Note the differing court testimony of a 
 dozen witnesses about an occurrence which 
 they have observed together. If they are 
 prevented from hearing each others' evi- 
 dence, probably no two will tell exactly the 
 same story. Inharmony, inaccuracy and 
 untruth are about us always. If the un- 
 truths happen to be specially offensive to 
 
 89
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 us, and if we use the Saxon speech, we are 
 apt to call some of them lies. 
 
 The propensity to get things wrong is so 
 common that we are forced to admit it as a 
 natural bent of human kind. It would be 
 harsh to say that all people have a propen- 
 sity for lying; inaccuracy, prevarication 
 and exaggeration are gentler terms and 
 quite as true. Yet it cannot be that most 
 of us prefer to be inaccurate or untruthful. 
 The conclusion is irresistible that, millions 
 of times, men lie without being able to help 
 it, even if they know it. And it is prob- 
 ably true that as to most of our errors we 
 never even discover them. 
 
 The varying statements of a given fact by 
 different people may often be set down to 
 dissimilar estimates of the same data. But 
 we cannot always justify this charitableness, 
 for some of the variations are nothing but 
 plain lying. Not even the mental warping 
 due to innate human selfishness will explain 
 some of the falsehoods about all sorts of 
 things. Many of them seem calculated to 
 help the one who tells them, but many 
 appear to be wholly undesigned and erratic. 
 These are the lies said to be made out of 
 whole cloth, and for which the truth would 
 any time do better. 
 
 90
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 Just a plain propensity for lying, prompted 
 or not by the emotions of hate, envy and 
 jealousy — all differing attributes of egoism 
 — may explain some of these instances. But 
 to charge them all to such mental or moral 
 qualities would be to condemn the race to a 
 deeper degradation than it ought to deserve, 
 and, I believe, deeper than it does deserve. 
 
 If we are normally prone to prevarication 
 and inaccuracy there must be some logical 
 explanation of it, or a part of it, in the con- 
 stitution of the human mind or in man's 
 environing influences or both together. And 
 that explanation we ought to find, if we can. 
 
 If it shall be found that many of our 
 offences are unavoidable, then, as to these 
 at least, the most opprobrious epithet flies 
 wide of us. They are foibles rather than 
 sins, and the word lying will have to be cur- 
 tailed in meaning. But it ought never to 
 cease to be applied to those cases of wilful 
 mis-statement begotten of selfishness or 
 jealousy or hate. Nor, as applied to these 
 acts, ought it. ever to be mollified in its 
 severity. They are so awful in their effects, 
 so wicked in their aims, and so inexcusable, 
 that they will continue lies in the most offen- 
 sive sense. But if some of our falsehoods are 
 found on trial to be unwitting, and hardly 
 
 91
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 preventable, their veniality is proven; and 
 they assume at once a new moral aspect, 
 and appeal to our sympathy. For then, 
 since we have been accused of the worst 
 offense unfairly, our good name may be the 
 more easily retrieved. The sympathy of 
 the world is always ardent for the culprit 
 who has been unjustly accused, and if he has 
 actually been convicted, the rush to the 
 rescue is impetuous. Sometimes it seems 
 to be a short cut to the heart of emotional 
 society for one to get himself unjustly in- 
 carcerated. Innocence behind bars or under 
 a cruel sentence is one of the most pathetic 
 objects in the universe. 
 
 If we shall find that many of the inac- 
 curacies ought either to be known by gentler 
 names than lying, or perhaps that there are 
 extenuating facts, the gain to the accused 
 will be immense. Vindication of the con- 
 demned is always a gracious act and a happy 
 one, unless it leads to worse offenses. But 
 if the condemnation has been unjust, the 
 gain for the accusers is also great; for it 
 prevents their errors from doing further 
 harm. The voluntary accusers of a crime 
 that has never been committed are worse off 
 morally than the actual culprits, and more to 
 be pitied. 
 
 92
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 Any fair study of the uttered falsehoods 
 of men must show that a large proportion 
 of them are unconscious. Unaware as we 
 are of the way they appear to others, most 
 of them are told in the belief that they 
 are true. The offenders are either uncon- 
 scious of what they say, or mean to say some- 
 thing entirely different, in its application to 
 life. 
 
 When we begin to analyze, and look for 
 the causes of falsehoods we find them largely 
 to consist of influences and conditions that 
 are very rarely thought of. One of the 
 commonest causes is the half-impressions or 
 the false impressions we get from the words, 
 looks and acts of others. Back of this men- 
 tal effect are several conditions that are as 
 plain as day. One of them is fright. This 
 often produces such agitation of the mind 
 as to make it unable to remember or re-state 
 with any degree of accuracy the simple 
 things that have been seen and heard. Hence 
 all sorts of fictions are told; and many of 
 them are catalogued as lies by the unchari- 
 table. Usually, in the fright, two emotions 
 are uppermost, the sense of danger and the 
 desire to escape; and the memory of events 
 and details is always more or less clouded 
 by these emotions. Under the circum- 
 
 93
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 stances it is impossible for the mind to have 
 thoughts apart from feelings, hence the 
 thoughts are all emotions, otherwise 
 thoughts with likes or dislikes; and this 
 mental state is inimical to accuracy. Truth, 
 exact statement, accurate memory, come 
 with mental calmness and self-containment. 
 These give an ability to take in impressions, 
 record them in the memory exactly, and tell 
 them with utter truthfulness. There is no 
 other way besides this whereby we can re- 
 ceive mental impressions and preserve them 
 accurately. 
 
 Another fruitful source of half-impressions 
 is mental embarrassment, diffidence and 
 self-consciousness. This state differs very 
 little in its effect from that of fright. The 
 thing that most impresses the mind is one's 
 own feelings, and what he sees or hears is 
 altogether secondary. One's sense of em- 
 barrassment amounts to a fear. The other 
 sensation that is uppermost is one of anxiety 
 to escape from the embarrassment. 
 
 You see a boy playing with other children 
 and hear him talk and shout like the rest. 
 You call him to you and ask him what his 
 name is, how old he is and where he 
 lives. He looks at you with a blank and 
 embarrassed gaze, colors a little, and is 
 
 94
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 dumb. He will not utter a word by any 
 amount of coaxing. If you scold him for 
 impoliteness and stupidity he may look a 
 trifle less at ease but he will not speak. If 
 you pinch him he will cry, perhaps, but not 
 answer your questions. If you keep him 
 with you for an hour and deal gently with 
 him he may find his tongue, and talk and 
 answer questions, but not otherwise. Now, 
 if you are thoughtless, or jump to a con- 
 clusion, you may say that the boy is dull, 
 stupid, or wilful; but he is none of these. 
 And he is a fair type of many adult people 
 who are subjects of much wonder and com- 
 ment. 
 
 A man who had once helped articulate a 
 human skeleton, described one day to a sim- 
 ple-minded servant girl the grim details of 
 the process. He told how the flesh had 
 been scraped from the bones, how these had 
 been soaked for days in a vat, and then 
 been bleached in the sun before being wired; 
 and all about the mechanism of the wiring. 
 The girl looked at him with a blank sort of 
 countenance as he talked, and, when he had 
 finished, she said, "Did the man live?" 
 Those who heard it thought her unspeakably 
 stupid, for she was incapable of asking the 
 question humorously. There seemed no 
 
 95
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 other possible explanation of her remark, 
 after she had listened to all the minutiae of 
 flesh and vat and bleaching and wires. 
 The verdict was a case of idiotic dulness. 
 But that was not the true explanation; the 
 bystanders failed to take into account the 
 complete absorption of the girl's attention 
 in the fact that she was being addressed 
 by a person of superior importance; and 
 that she was under a heavy burden of 
 embarrassment in consequence. She heard 
 the words spoken to her; yet not one 
 in twenty remained in her mind when he 
 had finished, and none of them gave her any 
 distinct, rational idea further than that a 
 man had had something done to his bones. 
 She could not possibly have told whether 
 he was dead or alive. While the man 
 was talking the embarrassment at the pres- 
 ence before her was decreasing a little, and 
 if he had talked for an hour the discomfort 
 would probably have sufficiently passed off 
 to enable her to take in and reason about 
 what he was saying. But long before this 
 second phase of her mental movement had 
 been reached, she was startled by the fact 
 that he had finished his narrative, and that 
 she was expected to make some response. 
 This exigency drove out of her mind any 
 
 96
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 conception she might have had, even in a 
 hazy way, of the story she had listened to. 
 The only ideas then left her from which to 
 frame a remark were: man, flesh and bones. 
 It is no wonder she asked a question that 
 implied the greatest stupidity; and one that 
 might have implied the greatest sense of 
 humor. Let any one who doubts that an 
 emotion can drive a thought or mood out of 
 mind, please to recall the last time he for- 
 got the familiar name of some friend on 
 attempting to introduce him to another. 
 Few adult people have escaped this experi- 
 ence. 
 
 These two examples illustrate how dififi- 
 dence may prevent the plainest words from 
 being heard and understood, and from pro- 
 ducing any mental response whatever, or any 
 that is accurate or adequate. But there are 
 many other circumstances that do the same 
 sort of mischief for mental impressions, and 
 to people of every age and of all shades of 
 mental capacity. The wise and learned 
 alike have experiences not psychologically 
 different from those of the boy and the 
 servant girl. 
 
 A young man came into the office of a 
 middle-aged lawyer and introduced himself 
 by a name that called up to the other a flood 
 
 97
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 of youthful memories. The young man re- 
 sembled his mother. He had her hair and 
 eyes; and his voice was gentle, as hers had 
 been in her youth. How strange and yet 
 how interesting, he thought, that her son 
 whom he had never seen before, should be 
 here asking for his professional advice! 
 How the looks and voice and ways of the 
 mother came back to him, and what he had 
 thought of her and said to her, and perhaps 
 what she had said to him! As these ideas 
 rushed through his mind he perceived sud- 
 denly, with a little mental shock, that the 
 young man had already told him several 
 details of the business that had brought him 
 there for advice. And he could only 
 vaguely remember the details. Then he 
 felt embarrassed lest he should appear to 
 the youth to be dull and inattentive. So he 
 gathered his wits, and paid strict attention 
 to the rest of the account; then adroitly 
 asked to have his mind refreshed about the 
 first statements; and by a series of questions 
 and hints covered up his bungling at the 
 beginning. If he had been as unsophisti- 
 cated and frank as the simple girl, he might 
 have made remarks that would have seemed 
 as stupid as hers did. 
 
 Every person of imagination has had ex- 
 
 98
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 periences of this kind. There is nothing 
 phenomenal about them. The mind can- 
 not take in and hold equally well all the im- 
 pressions that come to it; and it often hap- 
 pens that the thing or thought most vividly- 
 perceived by a person is not the one that 
 others expect him to grasp first and best. 
 So all shades of misunderstanding arise, all 
 kinds of misfits, warped accounts, and mis- 
 statements about things. People are ac- 
 cused of lying wittingly, when they have 
 simply misunderstood, or half understood 
 words. They are thought obstinate and 
 stupid, or impolite and rude, when they are 
 simply bashful, preoccupied or dreaming, 
 or misunderstand others as truly as they 
 themselves are misunderstood. 
 
 Another cause of wrong notions acquired 
 from the words of others is a common men- 
 tal habit of what may be called impetuous 
 impressionableness. When a statement is 
 begun we fly to a conclusion of what its end 
 is to be, before we hear a quarter of it. 
 We divine, or think we divine, and guess 
 ahead of the words as they are uttered; we 
 usually guess wrong, and remember our im- 
 pressions of what the statement was to be, 
 rather than what it was; then like simple- 
 tons go off and tell our impressions for the 
 
 99
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 truth. The result of this is too often a com- 
 plete subversion of the meaning of the state- 
 ment. 
 
 The condition of mind that leads to this 
 species of blunder is one of great mobility 
 and intense avidity of impression, but it re- 
 quires for its perfection also a peculiar 
 quality of egoism that gives one an exalted 
 sense of his own ability to divine and grasp 
 the meaning of the words of others before 
 they are half spoken. It requires a sense 
 of modesty to wait until the final word 
 before judging the trend of the story; and 
 modesty is so ungilded a virtue, and so 
 quiet, that we often lose sight of it, or keep 
 it hidden. To be able to get the drift of 
 the story just as it is begun, compliments 
 our conceit and magnifies our powers. And 
 it is not true that people with the habit of 
 jumping to conclusions generally know they 
 are conceited. They are like the old bishop 
 who is said to have replied to a cautious 
 criticism: "I am not conceited, sir; I am 
 simply conscious of my superiority." But 
 the fruit of the habit persists always, and it is 
 a tangle of misconceptions, mis-statements 
 and errors, into which its victims are for- 
 ever falling and dragging numerously their 
 friends and neighbors. 
 
 100
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 One of the most remarkable mental side- 
 tracks is that which results from previously 
 acquired notions of what we are to meet in 
 word or incident. If we have a positive and 
 fixed idea of the thing we are to see or hear, 
 ive are liable to find ourselves imagining 
 afterward that we have actually seen or 
 heard that thing, whether we have or not. 
 So strong is this tendency that it often robs 
 one of the power to gather knowledge from 
 sight and hearing with any degree of accu- 
 racy. Some men are so impressed with this 
 danger that they study to avoid it. Many a 
 time a consulting physician asks not to 
 be told the diagnosis already made of the 
 case he is to examine, lest it should disturb 
 the accuracy of his observation, or the inde- 
 pendence of his thought. 
 
 Once an intelligent layman was invited to 
 see an operation for the correction of 
 strabismus. He went believing that the 
 operation would consist in taking the eye 
 out of the patient's head, straightening it 
 and putting it back again, and he told me 
 months afterward his thought of what he had 
 observed. He said that the surgeon took 
 the eye out of the patient's head, straight- 
 ened it and put it back into its socket, and 
 that thereafter the patient could see straight. 
 
 lOI
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 In response to my categoric questions he as- 
 sured me that he stood within three feet of 
 the patient's head during the operation; that 
 there was a good light; that he saw all and 
 that he had good eyes; that nothing inter- 
 vened between himself and the patient, and 
 that the surgeon took the eye out of the 
 head, brought it far enough away for a 
 sheet of paper to have been passed between 
 it and the head, before it was returned to 
 its socket. He told me too that he was 
 sober at the time, and, he believed, per- 
 fectly sane. 
 
 Of course he saw nothing of the ridiculous 
 thing he described. He did observe this: 
 the surgeon with a forceps grasped the thin 
 white conjunctival membrane at the inner 
 side of the eye, pulled it forward, made a 
 slit in it with scissors, then passed through 
 the slit a minute blunt hook, with which he 
 caught up a tenuous muscle which he pulled 
 out as a loop over the hook. With scis- 
 sors he cut this half across to weaken it, 
 then returned it to its place, and the opera- 
 tion was over. But the man's fixed idea of 
 what he was to see was too much for him. 
 Probably the next day after the operation he 
 would have told a more truthful story. 
 But, little by little, the memory of what he 
 
 102
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 observed grew dim, and his preconceptions 
 grew stronger, till, months afterward, they 
 came to take the place in his mind of what 
 he had seen, and so he was ready to swear, 
 in all sincerity, to the fable that he told me. 
 We guess what may be meant by a 
 word or look, a sign or motion, and build up 
 a whole fabric of wrong meaning out of it. 
 We pick a word out of a sentence, and 
 surmise for it a meaning wholly unin- 
 tended; and we make or let it suggest an 
 erroneous ulterior intent. Go into the 
 wards of any hospital and of a hundred 
 patients lying in bed observe a surgeon ask 
 each one in succession to turn over on his 
 back, and you will see ninety-nine of them 
 turn on their faces, or commence to turn 
 before they discover their error. It is in- 
 variable, and after a patient is laughed at 
 for it he will sometimes forget and do it 
 again in response to the same question. 
 Why is it? How does it happen? I know 
 of no sufficient explanation but this: that 
 the patient has a flash impression that the 
 doctor wishes to examine his back. 
 "Back" is the only word that remains in 
 his mind as a moving force for his action. 
 He divines — the doctor has not told him — 
 that it is desired to examine his back an^ 
 
 103
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 he immediately, out of politeness, turns his 
 back uppermost. 
 
 You may make another request of a hun- 
 dred patients and not more than one will 
 appreciate it correctly, and be able to do, on 
 the first attempt, the simple maneuver you 
 ask for. The request is, "Please open your 
 mouth wide, and breathe through it natu- 
 rally." Three quarters of them will open the 
 mouth, take a deep breath and hold it. If 
 you tell them to let the breath out they will 
 do this, but close the mouth. It seems to 
 be impossible for even an intelligent person 
 to get the several ideas expressed by this 
 simple request, and act upon them accu- 
 rately. Is it any wonder, then, that in a 
 multitude of other ways we jump to con- 
 clusions from words and hints half under- 
 stood, and then state the conclusions as if 
 they were accurate? Is it any wonder that 
 many of these should be called fabrications, 
 or even lies? 
 
 In telling a thing, or giving an opinion on 
 any subject that your listener is interested 
 in, the chances are ten to one he will fail to 
 quote or understand you correctly, however 
 sincere he may be in trying. If he is wor- 
 ried about the matter, or has fears, he will 
 surely misunderstand what you say in spite 
 
 104
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 of your care in the selection of words. If 
 you say: "I suspect that the boiler you 
 are worried about has a broken flue," 
 he will, in two minutes, quote you back to 
 yourself with the words, "So you think a 
 flue is broken?" You may correct him and 
 say you suspect it is broken, and in one min- 
 ute more he will declare that you believe it 
 is broken. Say to a sick man that you do 
 not know what ails him, but suspect cancer, 
 and you are quoted at once as saying that 
 he has that disease. 
 
 Words misunderstood or half heard or 
 heard wrong, are a source of the saddest of 
 errors, and of some of the most lamentable 
 embarrassments of life. A lady went to see 
 her banker, who was also her friend, on a 
 matter of great moment. He found her 
 waiting in his outer office as he passed hur- 
 riedly through, and said a few words to her. 
 He spoke them in a slurring, mumbling 
 manner; the lady listened in a surprised, 
 ungrasping way. What he said to her was: 
 "I have an urgent letter to dictate, and shall 
 be glad to see you in a minute." What she 
 heard him say, or thought she did, was: 
 "I've enough bother to placate and don't 
 care to see you a minute"; and she walked 
 out of the bank in tears, and reported 
 
 105
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 abroad that he had both rebuffed and in- 
 sulted her. And all manner of severe 
 things were said of him by his neighbors 
 and enemies. It was so unlike him that 
 some went so far as to say that he must have 
 been intoxicated, even if it was before bank- 
 ing hours in the morning. 
 
 Then the meanings of common words, as 
 used by different people, vary so much that 
 to the speaker and the listener they often 
 stand for variant if not divergent things and 
 ideas, and so make confusion common. The 
 accurate transmission from mouth to mouth 
 depends on hearing distinctly, remembering 
 precisely, and holding the same meanings 
 of the words used. And no two people hold 
 identical meanings for all the words com- 
 mon to their vocabularies. They do not 
 usually vary much, but enough sometimes 
 to make men reach opposite notions on 
 many subjects. Many a quarrel leading to 
 an accusation of lying has had no better or 
 other basis than this; and good intentions 
 seem to be little protection against the mis- 
 fortune. Carefulness is some safeguard, and 
 it is encouraging to notice that there are 
 some people who measure their words when 
 telling of any vital matter, and take pains 
 to know that they are accurately understood. 
 
 lo6
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 In giving an account of what has hap- 
 pened or been said, we often bungle, and 
 betray a poor memory. We retain a few 
 words and ideas and the rest fade away into 
 hazy uncertainty. When we repeat, we use 
 the few facts and words we remember and 
 fill in the rest of the picture out of our 
 imagination, or our guesses as to how the 
 complete story must be. It is this filling in 
 that makes the commonest type of canards, 
 the awful whoppers of stories that grow as 
 they pass from mouth to mouth. Once it had 
 been announced that some gentlemen had 
 determined to build a hotel on a mountain. 
 It was thought to be a remarkable undertak- 
 ing, but the account was clear and distinct, 
 the names of the men well known, and it 
 seemed to be understood by the community. 
 A few days afterward another company of 
 gentlemen announced that they would 
 build a hotel at the foot of the mountain. 
 In a few days more the report was current 
 on the street that the mountain enterprise 
 had been abandoned — that it was because 
 it would be too expensive to build two 
 hotels, and it would be more economical to 
 use the lower site. No man of either com- 
 pany had given the slightest warrant for this 
 conclusion. It grew up in the popular 
 
 107
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 mind, not out of whole cloth, but out of the 
 guesses of well-intentioned people from the 
 little they knew of the two schemes. Some 
 of them guessed that it must be too expen- 
 sive to build two hotels, and that the second 
 scheme may have resulted from the aban- 
 donment of the first. The guess had not 
 reached the third noddle in its flight before 
 it had developed into a positive declaration, 
 on the best authority, that the mountain 
 scheme had been abandoned. 
 
 A gentleman in Chicago was asked by a 
 friend what would be done if his wife's 
 mother, two thousand miles away, should 
 fall sick. He replied that his wife would 
 go to her by the first train. Two days 
 afterward he was startled by another friend 
 who told of having heard that the mother 
 was very sick, and that the daughter had 
 actually started to go to her. He took 
 pains to find out how the story had grown, 
 and learned that his original statement 
 had (between the two friends referred to) 
 passed through the lips of just three peo- 
 ple, two women and one man, to come 
 back to him in this distorted shape. And 
 each one of the three was a person who had 
 a conscientious regard for the truth. 
 
 Things said in jest, with irony and hyper- 
 
 io8
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 bole, and understood literally, furnish a 
 never ending supply of errors of all sorts. 
 A mistake of any kind can grow out of an 
 ungrasped jest, and blunders swarm in this 
 manner. Once a woman held in her arms 
 her baby of a week, and discussed its pros- 
 pects with the family doctor. It was her 
 first baby, and while she was fond of it, she 
 was also fond of society and amusements. 
 She complained that she could not go to 
 any concerts or parties during the season, 
 for she could not afford a nurse for the baby 
 and would have to stay at home and tend it 
 herself. She looked sorrowful and discon- 
 solate and asked the doctor if he could sug- 
 gest any way out of the difficulty. The 
 doctor drew his face down and replied in a 
 discouraged tone that there was one way of 
 escape if she cared to take it. She bright- 
 ened and asked what it was, and he replied: 
 "You might kill the baby." Just then an- 
 other woman entered the room and the 
 invalid (too shallow to see the irony of the 
 suggestion) said to her, "What do you sup- 
 pose the doctor wants me to do with my 
 baby? He has advised me to kill it." 
 
 The first fictions of child life are a fruit- 
 ful source of error, and even falsehood. 
 The child is full of fancies and has a varied 
 
 109
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 imagination, especially about the things of 
 adult life, and soon learns to invent stories. 
 These are air castles that all bright children 
 indulge in, usually with the assistance of 
 their parents. There is a large literature of 
 fairy tales, and children are told made-up 
 stories to amuse thern. The result is to 
 increase their fancies and imagination. 
 At about ten to twelve years of age some 
 children, especially girls, are found telling 
 many of their fancies as if they were true. 
 Every observing person has known cases of 
 this kind. A little girl goes out on an 
 errand, or to visit, and presently comes back 
 to her mother with the most astounding 
 account of what she has seen, and v^hat she 
 has said and done, and the things said to 
 her. And the experience she tells of 
 always ministers in some way to her own 
 egoism and conceit. But the accounts are 
 almost pure fabrications. These cases are a 
 great grief to their friends who cannot 
 understand that the habit is not likely to 
 continue through life. As a matter of fact, 
 a year or two of this experience usually ends 
 by a swing of the pendulum in the opposite 
 direction, and the child becomes a most 
 insistent truth-teller. 
 
 This vice is no evidence of total depravity. 
 
 no
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 It is simply proof that an imaginative child 
 at a certain time of its life, when its fancies 
 are most active, is unable to draw a sharp 
 line between its fictions and the reality. It 
 was the misfortune of the child that it had 
 too much imagination; that it yielded to the 
 promptings of this too much, and that it 
 had not learned the lessons of accuracy. 
 But it comes to its senses later, discovers 
 how wrong it is to tell a fancy for the truth, 
 and, in many instances, becomes more reli- 
 able in its after years because it has had this 
 experience, and been shocked by it. 
 
 There is another emotional impulse that 
 leads many adults and more children into 
 manifold prevarications. It causes one to 
 vary his stories and accounts of things to suit 
 what seems to him, perhaps for the moment, 
 the best to please his hearers. In telling a 
 story, or giving an account of some event, it 
 is important to impress the listeners both 
 with the event and with the descriptive 
 powers of the person who tells it. There- 
 fore the account is embellished, enlarged, 
 colored in the most inviting manner, to suit 
 what, perhaps wrongly, is supposed to be 
 the desire or taste of those who listen. 
 
 We covet the pleasure that comes from 
 the compliments of others. If we tell a 
 
 III
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 good story we are more certain of the com- 
 pliments. To tell it truthfully might lessen 
 them. Then sometimes we vary the truth 
 to avoid censure. This is a most natural 
 impulse — yet the impulse of cowardice — the 
 desire to avoid a scene. Husbands are said 
 to resort to this finesse to placate their 
 wives; possibly wives have done it to 
 placate their husbands. And children do it 
 in the most natural manner; with many of 
 them it seems to come with the quality of 
 an instinct. 
 
 One of the most prolific sources of in- 
 accuracy is our weakness for the superlative 
 degree. Our imagination and our love of 
 the startling lead us to minify the minute 
 things, and magnify the large ones, so that 
 we reach a point vwhere it is next to impos- 
 sible to give the measure of anything out of 
 the average, or an average thing, exactly as 
 it is. And even our own repetitions of the 
 same thing often grow successively. We 
 find that the ciphers are added little by 
 little to the figures of our descriptions. We 
 start at tens. Before we know it we are tell- 
 ing it for hundreds. 
 
 Of all the foibles that beset us. no one is 
 more constant or irresistible than this. It 
 becomes a matter of intemperance like the 
 
 112
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 child's ardor for amusements; and it shows 
 that adult people are only children of a 
 larger size. A child is first satisfied with a 
 simple and temperate amusement; then tires 
 of it— ceases to be amused, and requires one 
 more exciting. That wears itself out and a 
 still more exciting one must be found, till 
 finally a condition of absolute frenzy may 
 be reached, where nothing satisfies. This 
 is the daily observation of childhood, not of 
 all children but of many of them. Psy- 
 chologically, w^e have the same experience 
 in our telling of things. To represent 
 them exactly as they are, small or large, 
 becomes tame and we tire of tame things. 
 We seek for new and more intense descrip- 
 tions, and so pass into fiction, and when our 
 fictions run against the nerves or the inter- 
 ests of other people, they are liable to brand 
 them with terms that are also superlative. 
 
 Bearing upon this general question, there 
 is another large influence that is usually 
 left wholly out of our reckoning, and yet 
 it is one that is ever present, and con- 
 trols more or less the life of every normal 
 person. This influence consists of the 
 numerous phases of life and character that 
 people unavoidably have to lead. I say 
 unavoidably, because both the proprieties of 
 
 113
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 life and the wholesome influences of the 
 normal mind compel this multiplied exist- 
 ence. In order to keep their places in 
 society to their own satisfaction, all people 
 must hide some part of their lives from 
 most of the world. They reveal different 
 phases to different companies. The com- 
 panies may be large or small, and they are 
 in the main segregated from each other by 
 sharp lines. The public in general, one's 
 personal intimates, the different elements 
 of one's family, his friend or father con- 
 fessor, his doctor, and even some casual 
 friend, are so many distinct entities that see 
 the man differently. To each he reveals 
 something of himself that is different from 
 what others see; some perceive qualities the 
 others never dream of, and the picture of the 
 man as seen by each is different from that 
 seen by the others. Nor does the man re- 
 veal the whole of himself to even all these 
 companies combined; some part of his life 
 he keeps to himself absolutely. No human 
 life is ever fully known or completely writ- 
 ten down. No man would be able to tell the 
 whole story of himself, even if he tried to. 
 
 Instinct and custom make it easy, when not 
 disturbed by unusual emotions, to keep 
 these different phases of life apart, and hold 
 
 114
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 them strictly for the respective audiences 
 that they are intended for. Some men 
 swear and use vile language with men, but 
 are always polite and clean spoken in the 
 presence of women; especially if these are 
 not their wives or sisters. And the discrim- 
 ination seems to be so effortless that it 
 must work with the ease of an automaton. 
 
 A cultivated and wealthy woman was for 
 many years a leader in society. Other 
 women imitated her and tried to get into 
 her set; yet an unexpected call on her one 
 day caught her swearing at one of her maids. 
 She did not swear in the presence of men, 
 not even of her coachman. 
 
 People of all qualities of intelligence and 
 character discriminate as to what they tell 
 people and what withhold. We agree that 
 the truth should not be spoken at all times 
 and to all people. Is it a constructive lie 
 to withhold a part of the truth? You are 
 not under oath to tell the truth at all times, 
 and you would not tell it if you were, and 
 the world does not accuse you if you refrain. 
 Even the loquacious, the excessively talk- 
 ative, find it easy to keep certain things to 
 themselves. 
 
 Your friend has always seemed wholly 
 frank with you about himself. You believe 
 
 115
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 you are his confidante in everything; but you 
 are mistaken. There are things in his 
 mind, emotions 'and life that you could not 
 get out of him with moral dynamite. Some 
 of them he will tell to another whom you 
 may regard as merely his chance friend, and 
 tell easily. 
 
 These ways are so deeply rooted in habit, 
 even instinct, that they are a part of the 
 mental life. They are undirected and 
 inevitable. Anyone who succeeds in wholly 
 preventing these habits, in smothering his 
 native secretiveness and discrimination as 
 to what shall be told and what withheld, is 
 called eccentric, instable or daft. He is 
 singled out from the mass of normal people 
 as a curiosity, and one to whom it is unsafe 
 to reveal your soul or even your daily 
 affairs. If you reveal them to him it will 
 be tantamount to immediate publication to 
 the world. 
 
 In view of these facts and circumstances, 
 is it any wonder that we sometimes find 
 difficulty in drawing sharp distinctions and 
 in keeping to the line of the terms of our 
 ethics? Our ethics are based on our under- 
 standing of right and wrong. Our defini- 
 tions of lying and truth telling are to some 
 degree natural and inevitable, but they are 
 
 ii6
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 largely man-made, and made because of the 
 requirements of social life. They are cer- 
 tainly good. Society could not exist with- 
 out them, and the attempt to find out the 
 basis of our falsehoods and to learn how we 
 step over the line, sometimes unavoidably, 
 sometimes avoidably, cannot be taken as an 
 effort to justify wrong. 
 
 In our conduct, as well as in our words, 
 we prevaricate and deceive from hour to 
 hour. We put the best we have forward as 
 a hint that we have nothing worse. Our 
 guests are taken into the parlor, and if it is 
 dusty we apologize as if this condition were 
 exceptional. We hide the kitchen from 
 them unless we are sure it is polished. We 
 imply that we are always polished and 
 spruce, when we know better. We hide our 
 tempers as much as we can, and try, before 
 the public, to act better than we really are, 
 — always better than our average. 
 
 This deception is laudable if it teaches us 
 to be better and cleaner; and perhaps even 
 if it does not make us better, it is justified 
 on the ground that it spares the world some 
 of the unpleasant things of life. But it 
 leads to the worst misfits in partnerships 
 and unions of people of all sorts. 
 
 We severely condemn others for verbal fic- 
 
 117
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 tions when we know we are introducing fic- 
 tions into our daily lives all the time. We 
 even go farther and usually try to justify 
 our own verbal fictions. For to each set of 
 people, each society and cult, there are cer- 
 tain subjects on which it is a question of the 
 highest honor to tell the exact truth, while 
 on others lying seems as easy as following 
 a natural law. Within a certain set, for 
 example, cheating at cards is a most heinous 
 offense; while cheating in a college exam- 
 ination is a good joke, and constructive 
 lying as to a college escapade is done as a 
 matter of honor. It all depends on whether 
 it is the individual or the class conscience 
 that is touched, for each may reverse the 
 falsehoods as well as the virtues of the 
 other. 
 
 Many people habitually, and as a general 
 course of conduct, act in an uncandid man- 
 ner. It is logical to trace the beginning of 
 such a habit to the momentary joy it some- 
 how gives to act thus. But uncandor does 
 not nakedly give even momentary joy. It 
 is pleasant only when apparently clothed 
 with power to protect some selfish interest; 
 otherwise, when it ministers to our egoism. 
 When the scales chance to fall from our eyes 
 we see that our uncandor is a varnished sort 
 
 Ii8
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 of lying which is always doing us harm, and 
 has no justification but cowardice and con- 
 ceit. The scales fall easily enough the 
 moment we learn of them — only this is 
 usually the tardiest of all our learning. The 
 temptation is insidious and strong to vary 
 from the truth for one's own temporary 
 gain; it is an untaught spontaneous trick of 
 many of us from childhood, and we do it as 
 naturally as we breathe. But it is a trick 
 that gets us more or less into trouble and 
 ought to be fought as original sin and essen- 
 tial wickedness. That, broadly speaking, 
 truth consists with the universe and pays 
 best in the end, nobody disputes. What, 
 in each of life's ever changing settings, the 
 paramount truth may be, is the one great 
 half-solved question of our existence. 
 
 If you examine the subject from all sides 
 and with all the facts available, you will, I 
 think, come to this conclusion inevitably, 
 that to tell the vertical truth always, even 
 within the proprieties, is one of the fine 
 arts. Probably few persons attain to it 
 absolutely, and still keep their force of char- 
 acter. Those who pretend to do it, and 
 always try hardest to do it, are like the man 
 who, in his attempts to stand up straight, 
 tips backward. In order to accomplish this 
 
 119
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 feat we would need to be mechanical, like 
 adding or voting machines which, by their 
 cogs and contrivances, are proof against 
 errors. But we can never transform our- 
 selves into such machines, and if we were 
 able to, the accomplishment would not be 
 wholly good; for it would shut out imagina- 
 tion, which is the talent that may be said to 
 move the world. 
 
 We cannot abolish imagination. As 
 long as we struggle and work we must 
 imagine first; we must picture the thing to 
 be striven for, before the striving, and the 
 pictures make the striving easier and life's 
 burdens lighter. Our ambitions for material 
 things, for human loves and for goodness, 
 are all pictures before they are ever — if ever 
 — realized; and we must imagine and strug- 
 gle through life, until the final picture. 
 Imagination makes beauty and joy, but it 
 makes inaccuracy and untruth also. It leads 
 us often to cross over the line of truth into the 
 domain of fiction that verges on falsehood, 
 and to many kinds of checkered conduct. 
 However we may strive, we cannot com- 
 pletely avoid this domain. We should 
 never forget that others, as well as our- 
 selves, fail to escape it, that most men 
 always have failed and always will fail. 
 
 120
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF LYING 
 
 Hence the failure is one that we must some- 
 time, and in some measure, condone. It is 
 a mean thing to try to justify our own pecca- 
 dillos on the ground that we share them 
 with good company or any company. The 
 right thing is to hold ourselves responsible, 
 while we try to excuse others, for this is the 
 only magnanimous course. It is the only 
 one capable of making the world better. 
 For it encourages that kind of charity we 
 are always short of; and lessens the unworthy 
 egoism of which we always have enough 
 and to spare. 
 
 121
 
 Man as An Air-Eatingf Animal
 
 Man as An Air-Eating Animal 
 
 Nature has for us a multitude of surprises. 
 The thing that we are not looking for is 
 often the thing we find. We expect to dis- 
 cover the thing that seems most obvious and 
 natural, that is most apparent. The tree 
 grows out of the ground, therefore the 
 ground produces it. Leaves grow on it for 
 some purpose of evident necessity to the 
 tree; but in just what way they are necessary 
 and what they do, and how, are questions 
 that only occasionally concern us. We see 
 plants grow and pile up, in their seeds, food 
 for our bodies, and are glad and fortunate; 
 but if we think on the subject without exact 
 information it is usually to imagine that 
 these food products come up out of the 
 earth totally, like the trees. 
 
 So we reach the thought that all ani- 
 mals as well as ourselves have come up out 
 of the earth wholly, either directly or in- 
 directly, as we seem to go back to the earth 
 finally and wholly. To say that man is an 
 
 125
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 air-eating animal, a sort of orchid on the 
 face of the earth, seems at first thought to 
 be quite absurd. But to a large degree this 
 is literally true, and the fact is fraught with 
 great interest. 
 
 No adequate conception of this thought is 
 possible except by an understanding of one 
 material substance, through which directly 
 or indirectly this mystery is largely wrought 
 out. That substance is starch; and its part 
 in the phenomena of animal and human life 
 is one of extreme importance. 
 
 The first impression that the word starch 
 makes upon the casual mind is of an insipid, 
 odorless, white, grocer's stuff, formed orig- 
 inally into little masses, almost as regular 
 in shape and as uniform in size as crystals 
 and at a distance looking much like them. 
 All know that it may be pulverized into a 
 white powder, and that it is made some- 
 times from grain, sometimes from potatoes, 
 and incidentally that when elaborated out 
 of corn it makes a passable pudding. The 
 mucilaginous material which results when 
 this substance is mixed with hot water is 
 also known as starch. This, because it 
 gives stiffness to a piece of cloth, has come 
 to be in our estimation of the moral qualities 
 of people, a sort of synonym for firmness 
 
 126
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 and stability in general. The word has 
 grown into use colloquially as a gentler ex- 
 pression for vigor and incisiveness, as "sand' ' 
 has come rather crudely to mean back-bone 
 and a larger courage. They are useful vul- 
 garisms, like snap and pluck, and their very 
 currency testifies to the popular admiration 
 for the attributes they signify. For at all 
 times, in sunshine and storm or peace or 
 war, next to unselfishness and generosity, the 
 quality that is most sure of the applause of 
 everybody is that expressed by the word 
 courage. 
 
 But starch has a larger meaning. It is 
 a substance perfectly definite in its chem- 
 ical composition, and is the most universal 
 food of man and animals. It is the food 
 of the man directly; indirectly, it is his 
 food received through the bodies of ani- 
 mals which he eats. The animals build 
 up their bodies to a large degree from the 
 starch which their fodder gives them. 
 Starch forms a part of all vegetable growth 
 and its elaboration is a large part of the 
 purpose of all vegetable life. It is found 
 pre-eminently in the leaves which are the 
 producing and digesting parts of all plants, 
 and here it is produced, with some sugar and 
 often with some gummy substance, to be 
 
 127
 
 V 
 
 \ 
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 distributed for the plant's life purposes. It 
 is even more deposited in the seeds which 
 furnish food for animals and people. Here 
 it constitutes a store of nutriment to be 
 used in the development of the new plants 
 in their growth, from the beginning of the 
 germination of the seeds; and it or some 
 chemical congener forms a proportion of the 
 substance of the woody fibre of all plants. 
 Among the greatest of nature's reservoirs of 
 starch are those in the roots, bulbs and 
 tubers of certain plants, where with more or 
 less sugar it retreats from the dangers 
 of winter and the environment above 
 ground. These reservoirs are drawn upon 
 by the plants and especially by the young 
 germinating ones in the spring time. The 
 sweet sap of the maple tree is one of many 
 examples of the stored-up sugar dissolved in 
 the water of the earth and forced up 
 beneath the bark of the tree in spring time, 
 forced up by the roots, for use in the growth 
 of the tree. 
 
 Starch and its allied products of sugar of 
 various kinds, otherwise carbo-hydrates, 
 constitute about 56 per cent, of the best 
 arranged dietary of the human race; the 
 albuminoids, including the meat, milk and 
 eggs, only amount to a little over 22 per 
 
 128
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 cent, while the pure fats, both animal and 
 vegetable, are substantially i6 per cent. 
 The salts derived originally from the 
 earth are about 5 per cent. Thus only 
 a minor proportion of other foods besides 
 starch are really needed. The experi- 
 ence of the Chinese well shows in how 
 large a proportion starch may serve as a 
 food for the body. A small particle of 
 meat, especially fat meat, with a bowl of 
 starch makes the Chinaman's meal, and it is 
 a physiologic diet. He frequently adds a 
 little dried fruit or some fresh vegetable, 
 but if he could possess himself of a little 
 raw milk for one meal each day he might 
 even do without any of these. And yet we 
 occasionally hear an educated person seri- 
 ously inquire if there is really any nourish- 
 ment in a cracker, when he well knows the 
 cracker is made of wheat flour, and ought to 
 know that the major ingredient of the latter 
 is nothing but starch. 
 
 The composition of starch, the sugars and 
 the fats is the same, as to the chemical ele- 
 ments which compose them. They are all 
 made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. 
 The starch contains six parts of carbon, ten 
 of hydrogen and five of oxygen, and the 
 wide physical differences between sugar, 
 
 129
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 starch and fat, are due to slight variation in 
 the proportions of the elements named. 
 One of these substances is often changed to 
 another in the body by the chemical forces 
 of the physiologic laboratory. But the 
 change is in one direction only; starch 
 becomes sugar of several forms; sugar 
 makes fat; fat may make sugar, especially 
 in certain diseases, but neither sugar nor 
 fat is ever changed back into starch. 
 Starch once digested never becomes starch 
 again, but passes into various chemical sub- 
 stances that go to form the tissues of the 
 body, and that are used up in the functiona- 
 tion of the organs. 
 
 The first step toward the change of starch 
 into sugar in the human body occurs in the 
 mouth in eating. The stomach is not the 
 beginning of the human laboratory of diges- 
 tion. This process, as far as starch is con- 
 cerned, begins properly during the act of 
 mastication and in plain sight. The slightest 
 touch of the saliva to a cooked starch granule 
 instantly transforms it chemically, and pro- 
 duces the first step toward making grape 
 sugar, corn sugar, or glucose out of it. The 
 secretions of the intestines, of the liver per- 
 haps, and certainly of the pancreas further 
 carry on this change, a change that always 
 
 130
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 must occur before the starch can become 
 incorporated into the tissues. So the saliva 
 is a very important element in the nutrition 
 of the body. As a major part of our diet is 
 starch, if it can be mixed well with the 
 saliva before entering the stomach, a large 
 proportion of the digestion is accomplished 
 at once. Hence the importance of the 
 hygienic injunction to eat all starchy foods 
 slowly and to insalivate them well. Foods 
 of this kind in our common dietary are 
 bread, and all bread stuffs, potatoes, beans, 
 lentils and all mushes and the meals of 
 every kind. If the starch digestion is not 
 started in the mouth and well under way 
 before the food reaches the stomach, it 
 usually stops by the effect of the acids 
 nearly always present in that cavity (acids 
 being inimical to starch digestion), and 
 must wait till it passes out, perhaps an hour 
 afterward, into the intestines, where the 
 fluids are alkaline in reaction, and where if 
 at all the starch digestion is finished. 
 Probably if the injunction to insalivate the 
 starch-foods could be carefully observed by 
 all the people, the dyspepsia among them 
 would be reduced by at least a half. 
 
 Such in part is the story of the destruction 
 of starch in the laboratory of the animal 
 
 131
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 body and the upbuilding and sustenance of 
 the tissues by it. But a story of no less 
 interest is that of the laboratory wherein 
 starch is created; where it is built up out of 
 the elements of nature which are gathered 
 from two opposite sources for this purpose. 
 We have seen that there is starch in the 
 seeds, the roots, the stalks and the leaves of 
 plants. The proportion of it in these varies 
 greatly and varies in each at different stages 
 of the plant development. What is to-day 
 starch in the seeds or fruit may to-morrow 
 or next week become sugar by the chemistry 
 of nature in the process of growing and 
 ripening. In the grains the substance re- 
 mains starch; in certain fruits, as the banana, 
 it goes over into some form of sugar as the 
 fruit ripens. The starch may be developed 
 in the leaves to be transformed into sugar, 
 or some other and allied substance that, 
 being soluble, is carried in the plant circula- 
 tion back beneath the bark or into the roots 
 and bulbs to be preserved there for the 
 needs of the coming year. Something like 
 this, we are told, takes place in the ripened 
 uncut grass; much of the nutriment has 
 receded from the leaves and stalks, and gone 
 back to the roots for safe-keeping. The 
 immature grass is cut for hay while it holds 
 
 132
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 the greatest amount of nutriment in its 
 leaves, and when dried is better as fodder 
 for animals; so, immature corn-stalks cut 
 and dried are better than the older growth. 
 There is least starch in the mature stalks 
 and leaves, most in those which are cut 
 ■while in the activity of their growth. 
 
 But where do the elements, carbon, 
 hydrogen and oxygen come from to make 
 the enormous accumulations of starch that 
 we see in plants, especially in the fruits and 
 seeds? Where does the plant procure them, 
 and how is the union of them in this definite 
 proportion brought about? In seeking an 
 answer to this question, we discover that 
 carbon is the essential element of organic 
 chemistry and that it enters into the labora- 
 tory work of nature as nothing else does or 
 can. And we cannot take even the first step 
 in the study of plant chemistry without 
 finding that the only thing necessary besides 
 carbon (and the oxygen which is combined 
 with it as the plant gathers it) to make 
 starch, is water, and water is composed of 
 the two elements of hydrogen and oxygen. 
 The water comes from the earth and is 
 sucked up by the minute rootlets of plants; 
 it is carried, or rather pushed by the roots 
 upward beneath their bark to the leaves. 
 
 133
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 There it is united with the compound of car- 
 bon that is acquired from the atmosphere, 
 and is elaborated into starch. The purpose of 
 the leaves is to absorb carbon from the air 
 as well as to elaborate it into other chemical 
 substances. Carbon is never found pure in 
 the air but always in combination as car- 
 bonic acid gas or carbon dioxid, which is 
 composed of one part of carbon and two 
 parts of oxygen. And this is the substance 
 that is absorbed by the expanded leaf sur- 
 face, and is all essential in starch elabora- 
 tion. 
 
 This substance, so invaluable to plants, is 
 often one of the contaminations of the 
 atmospheric air for animal life. As it 
 comes largely from decomposition of various 
 organic substances and from the exhalations 
 of the lungs of animals and people, we fairly 
 conclude that other matters offensive to life 
 go with it and in similar proportion; so we 
 measure it to determine the degree of the 
 offensiveness of bad air for respiration. 
 Chemists have easy means of calculating the 
 amount of carbon dioxid in the atmos- 
 phere, but very poor ways of determining 
 the other contaminations. Where an 
 atmosphere contains four parts of carbonic 
 acid gas to ten thousand parts of air, it is 
 
 134
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 not a contamination since that is substan- 
 tially the proportion at the surface of the 
 earth at the present time. In our houses 
 and assembly rooms the proportion may be 
 three or four times as much, and is then a 
 contamination and detrimental to health. 
 To prevent this is one of the purposes of 
 ventilation. There is some reason to believe 
 that away back in the centuries, millions of 
 years ago, when plant life was at its most 
 astounding development, and when prob- 
 ably the coal and oil that we are now using 
 were produced, the proportion was very 
 much greater. Perhaps a million years 
 hence, instead of four parts there will be 
 three in each ten thousand parts of air. 
 When that time is reached it is only fair to 
 assume that vegetable life will have become 
 proportionately reduced. 
 
 The common conception of the usefulness 
 of the soil is that it furnishes all the ele- 
 ments necessary to the growth of a plant. 
 Nine people out of ten will tell you this. 
 As a matter of fact it furnishes very few ele- 
 ments; really only water and the mineral 
 salts which the plant demands. The one 
 essential principle besides, namely carbon, 
 is sucked in by the spread-out surfaces of 
 leaves. And this is Nature's sole purpose 
 
 135
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 in expanding so enormously the leaf-surface 
 of plants; it is to catch enough of the four 
 ten-thousandths of carbon dioxid in the air 
 to satisfy the needs and requirements of the 
 plant. If the proportion of carbon in the 
 air were greater the leaf-surfaces might, for 
 this chemistry, be less. Through the influ- 
 ence of sunlight and the green substance of 
 the leaves known as chlorophyl there is 
 elaborated in this marvelous leaf-structure, 
 and out of the three elements derived from 
 earth and air, the starch and sugar and allied 
 substances of the plant. And it is the air 
 that furnishes the only essential thing 
 besides water, and this is one of the facts 
 that reveal how it is that men and animals 
 live on air and water. 
 
 The leaves must be spread out not only to 
 catch the floating carbon, but the sunlight 
 as well, and the ingenuity of plants in this 
 particular suggests an intelligence that is 
 almost human. The plants gather together 
 for self-protection, but spread out their 
 leaves for the sunlight, and if they are so 
 close as to shut out the light too much they 
 become pale and puny like those growing 
 in cellars. For without the sun there is 
 little chlorophyl and little determining plant 
 digestion. The process does not go on at 
 
 136
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 night, or goes on very slowly; so the house- 
 plants fail to take up the carbonic acid gas 
 from the atmosphere during the night, while 
 they absorb it freely by day. And the day is 
 the time when their aid is least needed; at 
 night more people are in the house than by 
 day, and they are usually breathing an 
 atmosphere less fully replenished by ventila- 
 tion, and often made worse by lamps and 
 gas flames. Then is the time they most 
 need some help, any help, that will free and 
 protect them from the mephitic products of 
 the exhalations from their own bodies. 
 
 It is one of the apparent miracles of na- 
 ture that a soil can produce so enormous a 
 growth of vegetation as it does, such tons 
 of crops year after year, and with no appre- 
 ciable change in the soil itself. But it is 
 not miraculous, since, if the soil contains a 
 due proportion of the phosphates and nitrates 
 or allied salts and enough water, plant 
 growth is never restricted. The atmosphere 
 covers every soil, and its proportion of 
 carbonic acid gas varies little. This one 
 requisite nature surrounds the globe with 
 in an almost unvarying proportion. If the 
 supply is too much drawn upon at some 
 place, or there is cast into the atmosphere 
 by manufacturing establishments an enor- 
 
 137
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 mous supply of it, the normal diffusion of 
 this gas almost immediately makes the pro- 
 portion everywhere equal. 
 
 The only re-inforcement soils require 
 besides water is in the needful salts, hence 
 the only value of compost and other fertili- 
 zers is in the fact that they may restore these 
 substances to the earth. The great bulk of 
 all the piled-up vegetable matter, the crops 
 and all, comes from the air and the water, 
 and absolutely all the starch and sugar are 
 thus produced. Even the food tubers that 
 grow in the ground, like the potato, have 
 the same history; their starch is produced in 
 the same manner. The carbon has come 
 in originally from the leaves that have 
 absorbed it; has traveled in some soluble 
 form down into the earth and landed in the 
 beautiful starch masses in the tubers. 
 
 But starch is not the only element of 
 nature that man gets from the atmosphere 
 for the building up of his body. We have 
 seen that he must have nitrogenous food as 
 well as starch and fats. The nitrogenous 
 foods — the proteids as they are called — con- 
 tain, besides carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, 
 some nitrogen, sulphur and a few minerals, 
 the chief distinguishing thing being nitro- 
 gen. These foods include flesh, milk, eggs 
 
 138
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 and certain vegetables, as beans and peas, 
 although the vegetable foods, especially the 
 grains, contain a minor portion of nitrog- 
 enous material in addition to their starch. 
 The nitrogen comes from the earth in the 
 form of salts and is carried up by the roots 
 in solution in the water. The decay and 
 destruction of the bodies of plants and ani- 
 mals, and the excretions of the latter, re- 
 store nitrogen to the earth. But not all of 
 the earth nitrogen is derived in this way; 
 some of it, as we shall see, comes from the 
 air. 
 
 Among the most essential forms of salt 
 necessary for plant growth are those com- 
 posed in part of nitrogen, and when we are 
 told that the atmosphere is 80 percent, pure 
 nitrogen gas, and know that this substance 
 and its combinations are so essential to plant 
 life we wonder why it is that this gas does 
 not materially lend itself to this scheme of 
 plant upbuilding. But it refuses, as the 
 ocean of salt water refuses to quench the 
 thirst of a famishing man. Although the 
 plant may die or dwindle for want of 
 nitrogen, it never gets a particle of it 
 directly from the atmosphere which sur- 
 rounds it, although eight-tenths of the latter 
 consists of this substance. But the plants 
 
 139
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 have friends that wrest some of the nitrogen 
 gas from the air to replenish the earth, so 
 that the earth may in time replenish the 
 plants. These friends are certain microbes, 
 organisms which are microscopic in size, 
 that burrow in the earth and which have the 
 power of taking nitrogen from the air and 
 making it combine with earth minerals, 
 producing a chemical change by means of 
 which the rootlets of the plant may be sup- 
 plied with its requisite nitrogenous elements. 
 These organisms are called nitrifying mi- 
 crobes, and they are encouraged by wise 
 and thrifty farmers for their help to vege- 
 table growth. They grow and thrive about 
 the rootlets of certain plants, probably liv- 
 ing largely upon them, and in a myterious 
 way capture the atmospheric nitrogen for 
 the soil, so that the plants may suck it up 
 dissolved in water as they need it. The 
 plants that most encourage these microbes 
 are sometimes spoken of as nitrifying. 
 Their rootlets furnish a good food for the 
 micro-organisms. Swarms of minute nod- 
 ules grow on the roots of these plants, and 
 had long been a puzzle to scientists. Now 
 it is known that these little bulbous bodies 
 are the nesting places, the culture media, of 
 the microbes; a sort of pathologic growth, 
 
 140
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 like the warts on leaves that have been stung 
 by certain insects. But whether or not this 
 theory is correct, they do not seem to harm 
 the plant on whose rootlets they grow. 
 Maybe the increased amount of nitrogen 
 salts they insure, more than counteracts any 
 little injury they may do by violence to the 
 roots. Certain forms of clover, and plants 
 akin to it, belong to this class of nitrifying 
 growths, and their seed is sometimes sown 
 on poverty-stricken fields with no thought of 
 harvesting a crop of hay or seed, but solely 
 for the purpose of replenishing the soil. 
 When this crop of convenience has reached 
 a certain height it is destroyed and a profit- 
 able crop is started in its stead. 
 
 Farmers will therefore sow a field with 
 some fertilizing clover seed and grow a crop 
 to partial maturity and then, when the use- 
 ful microbes have done their full work, plow 
 it in so as to imbed in the soil every par- 
 ticle, not merely of the substance of the 
 plant, but of its useful parasites as well. 
 The soil is thereby enriched in nitrogen 
 compounds, the nitrifying microbes are pre- 
 served for future service, and a profitable 
 crop of grain or corn may then be raised 
 from it. 
 
 Thus we see that man's chief food is 
 
 141
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANIMAL 
 
 starch, and that this mostly makes his 
 body fuel, and directly or indirectly the 
 sugar and fats he eats, and the fat he 
 creates. This and the nitrogen compounds 
 that are quite as essential, come mostly 
 from the air. So he is an air-subsisting 
 animal, a very orchid with legs and powers 
 of locomotion. He despises carbon in the 
 air because it is an index of the possible 
 contamination of it. He thinks it poisons 
 him if he breathes very much of it, and yet 
 his very life depends upon it. Taken into 
 his stomach in the form of starch and sugar 
 and proteids it is elaborated into blood and 
 tissue and so the body lives and thrives. 
 Too much carbonic acid gas inhaled is cer- 
 tainly detrimental. Too little of it in the 
 air for the plants and for man would starve 
 the race. Combined with oxygen and 
 hydrogen in starch and sugar it is digested 
 in the body to make blood; and taken in 
 effervescing water it merely pleases the 
 stomach, but is never appropriated as food. 
 If the microbes were all suddenly taken 
 out of the world, vegetable life would be at 
 once greatly restricted, and it might lead to 
 the partial or complete destruction of the 
 race. For we are in many ways dependent 
 for our very existence on the spontaneous 
 
 142
 
 MAN AS AN AIR-EATING ANLMAL 
 
 efforts of little plants and animals that we 
 usually forget about, and generally despise. 
 The very clover whose roots encourage the 
 microbes (a vegetable product) to nitrify 
 the soil, and wh^h is invaluable for that 
 reason, would rapidly run out of existence 
 were it not for the bees which, in stealing 
 from its blossoms the material for their 
 honey, unwittingly and unconsciously fer- 
 tilize the flowers so that new seed may 
 grow. Insects are indispensable to the life 
 of a large part of the vegetable kingdom 
 and a part that man makes extremely use- 
 ful. We hate the microbes of tuberculosis 
 and. pus formation that kill off perhaps a 
 fifth of the race, and devote lives of endless 
 effort to circumvent and destroy them; yet 
 we depend on microbes to connive at the 
 creation of food for the whole race. We 
 hate insects as a rule; they sting and bite 
 and tantalize us; they carry malaria, yellow 
 fever, and many other diseases into our 
 blood; and we count that spot of earth 
 blessed that is free from those that annoy 
 us. But they are the unintentional and 
 indispensable allies of plant growth by 
 which we live. 
 
 143
 
 The Rewards of Taste
 
 The Rewards of Taste 
 
 We envy the man who can be happy in an 
 environment that we dislike or that dis- 
 tresses his neighbors. But his gift may be 
 more dulness than- a superior taste; when 
 we are sure it is the latter, we doubly envy 
 him. 
 
 To the farmer boy the goldenrod is a 
 weed; and the sunflower is an ugly thing, 
 only redeemed by the fact that its seeds are 
 useful for the chickens. Later in life he 
 sees the glory of each as a thing of beauty. 
 The boy finds musical pleasure in rollicking 
 crude tunes. When, years afterward, he 
 first hears the overture of a great opera by a 
 trained orchestra, it is a maze of sound to 
 him, but not superior music. After a while 
 he grows, and finds that he possesses a new 
 world of thought and pleasure. Then this 
 same music creates profound emotions within 
 him, and as the climax of the piece is 
 reached, his soul is lulled and elevated. 
 
 147
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 Why should the first few notes of the Pil- 
 grims' Chorus ever bring tears to the eyes of 
 the lovers of true music? Why should a great 
 audience of Americans instinctively rise as 
 one man, and be for the moment welded 
 into a oneness of spirit and purpose, the 
 moment the band strikes up the Star Span- 
 gled Banner? It is sentiment, you say; but 
 the music is its twin, and therein is the 
 essence of the fact. It is because men see 
 through the appearance of things to their 
 deeper import — their spiritual meaning. 
 The patriotic air instantly fires the mind 
 with the picture of all the history of the 
 nation and the struggles that made it, and 
 bound the people together in love and devo- 
 tion. A song of home has a similar mental 
 effect, especially on those away from 
 home. It is all due to a power of reading 
 through the music, the word or the hint, to 
 the idea, the history or the picture beyond. 
 This is refinement, which, in the broadest 
 sense, is a definition for taste. 
 
 The man who has this gift of seeing through 
 and beyond is a philosopher, as well as a 
 person of taste. He can do more than see 
 the essence of things; and this latter power 
 helps him to do more. One of the greatest 
 of his further achievements is his ability to 
 
 148
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 put behind him the petty annoyances from 
 things and phases of things that usually worry 
 people, and to find pleasure in what is left. 
 Even disaster does not disturb him. He can 
 make victory out of defeat. From the wreck 
 of plans and failure of purposes he alone can 
 gather all the salvage and be happy. His 
 years have given him perspective or he has 
 borrowed it of others; he can measure 
 things at their true worth; he knows what 
 to save and try to get joy out of, and what 
 is dross to be thrown away. Better still, he 
 knows how to throw away the dross, and 
 can do it quietly, completely and without 
 waste of energy. This is one of the great- 
 est achievements of life. 
 
 It is the clear vision of good sentiment 
 and taste that enables one to put away fret- 
 fulness, anger and chagrin; and this power 
 is one of the things most to be coveted. 
 The captious, hypercritical, jealous people 
 who are forever nagged by trifles and viola- 
 tions of taste as they see it, never know the 
 real meaning of the best taste. They are 
 charlatans in taste. They are shocked by 
 what they regard as the degenerate taste of 
 others; but it is their own inability to be 
 above annoyance by trifles that really 
 troubles them. They are the victims, not of 
 
 149
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 the crudeness of others, but of their own 
 poverty and weakness. They are at the 
 mercy of every sentimental wind that blows, 
 and yet they think they have poise. They 
 have, rather, the psycho-neurosis sometimes 
 called hyperesthesia, or hysteria. They are 
 ignorant of the great music of harmony and 
 know little beyond that of technic; the 
 bird songs at night jar their nerves, and the 
 sounds of waters keep them awake. Trees, 
 flowers and playing children are tame or 
 troublesome, and the stars, the moon, and 
 the sunrises and sunsets are old — they have 
 seen them too often and too much. Words, 
 thoughts, the rhythm of poetry and the 
 swing of rhyme have no pleasure for them, 
 because of some fancied flaw. They miss 
 half the pleasures of a wholesome life by 
 reason of their morbidness. 
 
 The best taste is the power to take and do 
 the thing that profits most; and the meaning 
 of profit has reference to both material needs 
 and mental pleasures. They are about 
 equally important; life is unsymmetrical or 
 impossible with either left out. Success 
 always means joy — as well as better food 
 and clothes. So good taste, when it leads 
 to success, is rewarded in a spiritual as well 
 as a material way. And the spiritual re- 
 
 150
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 ward is a sort of perpetual comfort; the 
 mental comfort of success is one that lasts — 
 it lasts for its own sake and for what suc- 
 cess offers that may be needed; it also con- 
 tributes to our egoistic enlargement, and that 
 is enjoyable, whether it is profitable or not. 
 
 Good taste, otherwise good selection, leads 
 us to do things not only for success, but 
 because they are pleasant to do. It seeks 
 out the things that profit, and lives on the 
 pleasures of them. It minifies the things 
 that offend; therefore, it must hate them. 
 But it stops short of its own harm in hating 
 them. 
 
 When the taste is distorted it often, to the 
 harm of the individual, condemns things that 
 are entitled to the highest consideration, 
 since they are needed for ultimate success 
 inhuman affairs. Taste that does this can- 
 not be well-balanced, and it is not laudable. 
 When a man who needs to economize, sells 
 for a trifle, a thing that is needful for 
 his business, solely because he hates the 
 appearance of it, he shows bad taste. For 
 he will pay twice as much for a similar 
 thing that pleases him and serves him no 
 better; and this is too great a price for the 
 satisfaction of his esthetic sentiment. He 
 has a pathologic exaltation of taste which 
 
 151
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 is a hindrance to him, and he pays dearly 
 for having it. 
 
 The best taste ignores the dirt, disfigure- 
 ments and annoyances it cannot help, and 
 that are unavoidably connected with life 
 and living. Moreover, it reflects that many 
 a thing called a nuisance is an essential part 
 of the environment that we must become 
 adjusted to, and ought for our peace of mind 
 to be satisfied with. These things are part 
 of the universe; we cannot expel them, but 
 may be proof against their rasping, and can 
 even get pleasure out of them if we will. 
 Who sees the world as from a height knows 
 that the noise of the elements and the tu- 
 mult of children are normal parts of it; as 
 the untidiness of men and children is also. 
 Many good women lose half the pleasure 
 of life because it is not natural for a healthy 
 child to keep itself and its clothes clean; 
 and it never occurs to them that their think- 
 ing it ought to be natural, may be comical 
 to others. Such people have lost, if they 
 ever had it, one of the largest elements of 
 good taste — one of the greatest gifts to man, 
 namely, a wholesome sense of proportion — 
 which is another name for common sense. 
 
 Lack of proportion comes of excessive 
 sensitiveness, a spirit of hyper-criticism or 
 
 152
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 nervous erethism, which, being interpreted, 
 means poor taste. Good taste represses 
 and minifies all these, and thereby helps to 
 bring us back to a better balance. 
 
 Taste, like truth, consists with the universe, 
 and one of its greatest functions is to keep 
 us adjusted to it. It leads us to try to 
 order our lives, and seek our pleasures in 
 accordance with law. Then we have least 
 to complain of and most to be thankful for; 
 our troubles are minified and our gains 
 enhanced. 
 
 In proportion to a man's adjustment to 
 the environment, to his harmony with law, 
 and to his sense of the measure of things, 
 will he see through the life conditions about 
 him — see the essence of things, and be com- 
 forted. This comfort is one of the rewards 
 of the taste that grows with the maturing of 
 the mind. And the mind often matures 
 slowly. As a rule, a man is incapable of 
 the highest mental pleasure before he is 
 forty; the limitations of his perspective as 
 well as his tastes have restricted it before 
 that time. After that age he looks back far- 
 ther and measures things better; he knows 
 better what to take and what to reject. 
 
 The man who has kept his spirit fresh, and 
 developed a wholesome because a balanced 
 
 153
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 taste, is supremely to be envied. His life 
 is happier than that of the average man 
 because of the greater joy-giving effect of 
 everything that touches him, and the beauty 
 he sees which others miss. Some others 
 may see beauty more intensely than he, 
 because of an exaltation of taste, but they 
 have, as a great load of counterpoise, more 
 aggravations than ever trouble him — annoy- 
 ances that he never knows of because his 
 optimistic serenity is proof against them. 
 
 This man has another advantage. He 
 sees more of the good in people, and so 
 is more likely to cultivate it in himself. 
 Nor does he fail to perceive the defects of 
 others; he knows them, but is unhurt by 
 them. He knows them so well that he can 
 see what part may be correctable, and what 
 part it is useless to waste strength over; and 
 so at least he is on a basis of common sense 
 in his efforts to help. He is able to segregate 
 that badness of humankind which is innate, 
 unav^oidable and connected with all life and 
 living, and which grows out of the selfish- 
 ness and conceit that the human race has so 
 far been unable to dispense with. Much of 
 it is as remediless as the unknowable is past 
 finding out. The world is strewn with the 
 wrecks of struggles to correct faults that are 
 
 154
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 so innate as never to be removable. When 
 in a few instances these are, by the greatest 
 exertion, repressed a trifle, their lessening 
 begets other faults as bad, if not worse. 
 
 Reformers need to have good judgment 
 and weigh all the circumstances and condi- 
 tions in estimating the good and bad, and 
 what to attack and what to let alone. Good 
 and bad are relative, not absolute terms, and 
 are largely meaningless apart from their 
 attendant circumstances. And the reform- 
 ers are often sadly short-sighted in measur- 
 ing circumstances. 
 
 An English author is said to have charged 
 that Americans are devoid of good taste; 
 and, doubtless they are, according to his 
 standard. But the fact that he thought we 
 have poor taste, while we think our taste is 
 good, reveals a principle in human estimates 
 that is interesting. He was a positive char- 
 acter, with fixed notions; he was also a most 
 fastidious man. And when we are under 
 the spell of fastidiousness we always have 
 this difificulty, that as other people reveal 
 qualities which are, in our experience, un- 
 usual, but do not antagonize our favorite 
 ideas or our particular weaknesses, they are 
 amusing; but if they antagonize us, and grate 
 on our tender points, they have bad taste. 
 
 155
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 A refined man holds his views of etiquette 
 and the proprieties with great tenacity, and 
 is very sensitive about them; his sensitive- 
 ness is proportionate to the intensity of his 
 opinions. But such views belong to the 
 field of esthetics rather than of principle; 
 they are more fastidious than vital. We 
 have the same difficulty with the English 
 that the author had with us. Some of their 
 exhibitions of taste are certainly bad. 
 
 If a man has such positive views about 
 non-vital things, that in his calculation they 
 are vital, it shows poor taste. For he is 
 then holding them equal to things which, in 
 the judgment of everybody, are matters of 
 principle, like religion, honor and patriot- 
 ism. When a man devotes himself to the 
 study or practice of art in any form he is 
 almost certain to become fastidious — for art 
 is non-essential in the greater arithmetic of 
 life; it is trifling when compared with the 
 needs of bread, clothes, warmth and shelter, 
 and safety from enemies. Our English 
 critic was an artist in a particular line, and 
 his estimates were sure to be colored a little 
 by his excessive development in one direc- 
 tion. For his art his taste was correct; it 
 gave him joy but it led him also into pain 
 and discomfort. 
 
 156
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 Our American taste fits our standards, 
 such as they are, and it may discredit the 
 acts and etiquette of other society and other 
 peoples. Woe be to our comfort if we let 
 our estimates weigh trifles as we do the con- 
 duct that tells for the weal and happiness of 
 mankind. The final balance, the aggregate 
 of the rewards of taste over its penalties, 
 will always depend on the fitness of the 
 taste. The dilettante taste, the exalted, 
 over-critical sense of the embellishments of 
 life, which forgets the things that make for 
 comfort, strength, good cheer and long life, 
 is sure to encounter many obstacles, and 
 often come to grief. If we honor a man for 
 his table manners more than we do for his 
 honesty, kindliness and industry, we shall 
 experience a frequent jar to our nerves, and 
 we ought not to be surprised at it. 
 
 Our tastes differ in their rewards as they 
 do in their impediments. One of the most 
 picturesque among them is that for pets 
 among the lower animals, and especially 
 for small dogs. This is a passion that 
 belongs to women mainly, and it is probably 
 a fact that as this taste increases, that for 
 children grows less. 
 
 The taste for domestic animals begets 
 kindliness toward them which is always 
 
 157
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 commendable; and the poodle phase usually 
 goes with benevolence to all animals, and 
 a horror at seeing them injured or abused. 
 It indicates also a rather fastidious taste in 
 general, even if not a very cultivated or 
 educated one. 
 
 In an extreme degree it usually belongs 
 to people of considerable leisure; indeed 
 it seems to be, in the estimate of many, 
 rather inconsistent with serious occupa- 
 tion. It bespeaks a leisured class as the 
 carrying of the fan by men in China does. 
 Yet this taste gives comfort to those who 
 have it, if not to their neighbors, and it is 
 one that can be easily gratified. It is really 
 a childhood taste carried into adult life, for 
 nearly all children, especially all girls, like 
 little dogs — it is next to their love of dolls, 
 and is an expression of the mother instinct 
 that is so universal and so noble. One of 
 these two phases of the taste outgrows the 
 other as the child matures, and so the gov- 
 erning bent of the woman is established. If 
 the doll taste thrives the more, the grown-up 
 taste is for children and childhood; if the 
 dog taste waxes stronger, it becomes the 
 poodle propensity of adult womanhood. 
 
 The two shades of the taste are alike in 
 giving more or less pleasure; they probably 
 
 158
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 differ somewhat in the degree which they 
 bestow; and it can hardly be doubted that 
 the taste for children gives a greater aggre- 
 gate of enjoyment. But then it has disad- 
 vantages. It is expensive and often 
 troublesome; the dog taste costs less and is 
 less encumbering, and it can be indulged 
 without interfering with other pleasures. 
 This last is the true test of the rewards of 
 any taste — that they can be had with the 
 fewest drawbacks. The drawbacks curtail 
 the rewards. Tastes that bring joy with 
 few inconveniences are, other things being 
 equal, the ones to seek. But that other 
 things shall be equal is a vital condition. 
 
 Should people of a strong taste that gives 
 pleasure disparage those of a different pref- 
 erence? Must we insist that all shall find 
 profit in the thing that most profits us? 
 Some women who have joy in their children 
 have an unconcealed contempt for those of 
 the dog taste, and think they ought to be in 
 better business than acting as grooms, dress- 
 ing maids and chaperons for small dogs; 
 while the dog lovers commiserate the other 
 women for the giving of themselves soul 
 and body to their children, who often poorly 
 repay them for their devotion. 
 
 The love of childhood is, of course, infi- 
 
 159
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 nitely above the other in spiritual quality 
 and value to the race. But in the absence 
 of the higher one the love of a cat or dog 
 is not ignoble; it gives as genuine pleasure, 
 if of a lower order, and ought not to be 
 begrudged to those who have it, by others 
 more fortunate. Besides, it is relatively 
 harmless to the community; with the par- 
 rots eliminated, the pet animals are probably 
 less annoying to the neighbors than children 
 are. Nor are the two tastes wholly incon- 
 sistent; they are often indulged together, 
 the pet animals being enjoyed with the chil- 
 dren and by the children. The dog is the 
 companion and playmate of the child; and 
 the dog shows a measure of attachment, for- 
 giveness and constancy toward his human 
 friend, that often shames us for our con- 
 duct toward each other. 
 
 The taste for good literature is one of the 
 most satisfying; and, now that the public 
 has made such lavish provisions for its free 
 distribution, has become one of the most 
 inexpensive. No one in a town or city but 
 can read for the asking the best books of the 
 world. 
 
 The books most sought and read by the 
 people are works of fiction, and the charac- 
 ter of their pleasure in the stories they read 
 
 1 60
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 is a lesson in itself. It is, in large part, the 
 young-old passion of the race — the love 
 between the woman and the man — that 
 clothes the story with an interest which 
 never grows stale to people of any age or 
 condition. Any girl or woman, boy or man 
 can live over that story by going to the 
 public library and borrowing a love tale for 
 nothing. And many people do it. 
 
 We not only enjoy the fiction, but our 
 imagination, if not our discrimination, 
 clothes it with lessons that are the reflection 
 of our minds, and this process is a pleasure. 
 After we have read into a story several far- 
 reaching purposes of our own creation, it is 
 sometimes a little shock to us to have the 
 novelist himself say that the story was writ- 
 ten solely to amuse his readers and to sell 
 the book. 
 
 Similar tendencies appear with other prod- 
 ucts of art. We are likely to weave into 
 them motives beyond what the artist saw 
 and meant; as truly as we sometimes fail to 
 see all the purpose he says he has put into 
 them. It gives us pleasure to do these 
 things. We not only enjoy the novels and 
 the art, but we enjoy the consciousness of 
 our perspicacity. That we make mistakes 
 is of little moment; the average is perhaps 
 
 i6i
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 about correct. We read into the works 
 enough non-existent virtues to counterbal- 
 ance our unjust criticisms, and so a fair bal- 
 ance is struck. 
 
 Taste not only gets us into trouble, but it 
 often gets us out of it, and is a power for 
 growth and progress toward happiness. We 
 like cleanliness — clean things, clean clothes 
 and houses — and it takes the place (in the 
 fastidious mind) of money and fine clothes, 
 and even of fine food. If there is some 
 penalty in this there is great reward also. 
 The thought that she has clean clothes clear 
 down to a clean skin gives many a woman 
 such joy as riches alone could never bestow. 
 
 But some take their joy only in appearing 
 to be clean and neat. I once knew such a 
 woman; attractive in outward appearance 
 —a woman who talked much of the society 
 in which she had formerly moved. When 
 on an occasion the filth beneath her outer 
 clothing was discovered by one whose good 
 opinion she prized, she for a moment showed 
 a trifle of embarrassment — but only for a 
 moment. Her sense of the grandiose came 
 to her rescue promptly, and gave her a cheap 
 sort of solace; it drove the embarrassment 
 out of her mind, and she was serene. 
 
 Probably the greatest reward of taste in a 
 
 162
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 large way is shown when a new impulse or 
 an elevation in sentiment raises one's stand- 
 ards and enjoyment of life in many direc- 
 tions. Examples of this phenomenon are 
 common enough. A boy suddenly acquires 
 a liking for the good opinions of those 
 whom he greatly respects; that is, he has a 
 new taste, a new point of discrimination, a 
 new sense of choice. This leads him to 
 change, sometimes suddenly and without 
 his knowing it, his whole course of life, for 
 the purpose of ministering to the new taste. 
 
 When this occurs a new member of soci- 
 ety has suddenly appeared, and the world 
 is better for it. From living regardless 
 of others, and being selfish and egoistic, 
 he becomes a reformed being and lives 
 thereafter by a sort of altruistic egoism, to 
 his own infinitely more satisfying pleasure, 
 and to the lasting benefit of others. This 
 example is not far-fetched, but is typical of 
 a long list of slightly variant experiences 
 among all sorts of men, women and chil- 
 dren, especially children. 
 
 Hardly a finer example of the wonder- 
 fully reforming influence of a new taste, to 
 elevate and change the life of a human 
 being, could be found in all history, than 
 that described by Booker Washington in 
 
 163
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 his experiences with the cruder specimens 
 of colored children at Tuskegee. He long 
 sought for incentives to arouse these pupils 
 to a higher civilization. It was a slow and 
 difficult process; their uncivilized ways 
 were automatic, and had been ground into 
 them by generations of experience, and by 
 all the examples of their own people. But 
 they were teachable and obedient, and 
 would follow instructions as well as they 
 could, and so appear civilized. Only that 
 did not satisfy the great teacher and 
 reformer; there could be no essential increase 
 in civilization till they should come to love 
 it, and make it a part, not of their mimetic 
 conduct, but of their automatic lives. How 
 to create this was the problem, and numer- 
 ous expedients were tried in the effort to 
 start a desire for higher things. One desire, 
 even if it were a minor or trivial one, would 
 be a fulcrum to lift the personality to higher 
 levels. 
 
 Some of the efforts succeeded a little, 
 some much, some were apparently fruitless. 
 His joy was found if he could see any im- 
 provement in the upward direction. And 
 the taste he found most potent in arousing 
 a pupil to better things, and helping toward 
 other tastes that would elevate, was that 
 
 164
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 involved in the ownership and use of an 
 individual tooth-brush. If he could see a 
 child have a pride and satisfaction in own- 
 ing and using, and using exclusively, this 
 instrument of physical purity he felt certain 
 of the future of that child. For it was sure 
 to develop other tastes that would lead to 
 conduct helping to a life of more usefulness, 
 and therefore more happiness for the indi- 
 vidual. To be scrupulous about his own 
 tooth-brush meant a sense of ownership and 
 of personal purity. This would develop into 
 a widening sense of ownership and provi- 
 dence, and therefore of property — which is 
 one of the greatest needs of these handi- 
 capped people. More, it would by the same 
 growth lead to a lessening of the foolish 
 egotism and love of cheap display that are 
 normal to a large number of these people, 
 for such emotions are incompatible with the 
 growth of the other qualities. Spendthrifti- 
 ness and love of display are twin weak- 
 nesses, and must go down before the rising 
 strength of a true taste for economy, and 
 respect for self rather than respect for show. 
 And this is the exact way the problem 
 worked out practically, and always must 
 work out. 
 
 I once knew of a schoolboy who had come 
 
 165
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 to town from his home in the country, with 
 his language full of rural idioms and crudi- 
 ties, and with figures of extravagant speech. 
 He was struggling along with his studies as 
 such boys must, and with poor perception 
 of his shortcomings, when he attended a 
 teacher's convention held in the town, and 
 heard a college professor lecture. It is 
 immaterial what the subject of the lecture 
 was, it was the language that riveted the 
 boy's attention, and it was a revelation to 
 his mind. The words were simple and 
 terse, and chosen for fitness and perfect 
 accuracy. Their temperance and precision 
 were an inspiration to him. The result was 
 that the boy awoke to a sense of language 
 as an instrument of expression, that he had 
 not dreamed of before. He had been born 
 to a new taste, and it colored all his life 
 thereafter. 
 
 On this taste other tastes were built; he 
 could not admire precision and fitness in 
 language without desiring similar precision 
 in other things, or without loving the fact 
 and idea of precision. All this meant schol- 
 arship; and love of accuracy grew into a 
 taste for scientific truth; for science deals 
 with precise statements and ideas. And 
 taste in the speech of men grew into a better 
 
 i66
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 discrimination for the things about which 
 men write and speak. Thus from this sim- 
 ple incident dated the most far-reaching and 
 beneficial changes in a human life; whereby 
 it was illuminated by a refinement unpre- 
 dictable at the beginning, as it touched other 
 lives in numbers and ways that could not be 
 estimated. 
 
 Life is toil, but it ought not to be all toil. 
 Everybody needs something beyond the 
 drudgery of daily labor. Some recreation 
 is a necessity to the best work and the 
 largest usefulness and happiness. To know 
 how to relax and get relief of mind after toil 
 is almost as important as the toil itself; and 
 whoever can do it finds his labor easier and 
 more effective. His strength is greater, 
 and it lasts longer. 
 
 There are men who have never learned 
 how to do this; men of force and capacity; 
 men who are potent in the affairs of the 
 world; men who have made fortunes and 
 who have swayed thousands by their elo- 
 quence or their example, — yet, on going out 
 of business, or when displaced by some 
 accident from the tread-mill of their indus- 
 trial lives, these men are like lost sheep. 
 They have no resources but the routine of 
 business, no intellectual refuge but shop 
 
 167
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 and shop-talk; their fortunes even are almost 
 useless to them for any satisfying pleasure. 
 
 They may keep their bodies strong by 
 exercise and field sports — these have done 
 wonders for the health of many men and 
 women run down by too long or too 
 intense attention to business, or by house- 
 hold or social duties. Such outdoor diver- 
 sions are in every way to be commended, 
 for they mean exercise in ways unusual to 
 the daily routine, and mean fresh air and 
 sunshine and tan. They have prolonged 
 the lives and improved the mental balance 
 and temper of hundreds of people, and have 
 saved to the community many fold more of 
 value than they have cost. 
 
 But these helps are not enough. It is not 
 sufficient that a man has mental pleasure 
 in his golf while he is playing, or in think- 
 ing afterward of the good strokes he has 
 made, or in the anticipation of games to 
 come. The vacations to the country or the 
 sea for the summer, a perfect change in 
 occupation, and freedom for a few weeks 
 from the cares of business are always help- 
 ful, and in our division of labor and the 
 loading of every man with more or less 
 monotony in work, it is every one's natural 
 due to have such a vacation. Only such 
 
 i68
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 luxuries are not sufficient. They give pleas- 
 ure and bring strength; but their satisfaction 
 is like that from eating when hungry, or 
 resting when tired or sleeping after a day 
 of fatigue. It is like fresh air and sunshine 
 after hours of work in a shop or office with 
 a stuffy atmosphere. It is as delightful as 
 a drink of cool water to a famishing man, 
 but it is not in any high degree intellectual 
 or spiritual; it is in a necessary and marked 
 way physical, — and this only. 
 
 Every man needs some resource for rec- 
 reation that is intellectual and spiritual, and 
 that points the way to loftier things and a 
 wider sphere. It ought to be one that can 
 be enjoyed at any time, in the midst of 
 work, at the noon hour, after dinner by the 
 lamplight; anywhere and at any time when 
 there is a lull in the mental tension of the 
 day's duty or the day's stent. It may fill in 
 some of the gaps in the minutes that are 
 usually devoted to personalities, — the craze 
 for trifles of the doings of people, which 
 some of the journalism and literature of the 
 day encourage, and which the trivial tend- 
 encies of our minds cultivate. 
 
 This thing that ought to be interjected 
 into the life of a man for his rest and pleas- 
 ure is some side-issue for his mind, some 
 
 169
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 object of study or play, some fad even, to 
 be pursued as an avocation year after year. 
 It may run along with his regular vocation, 
 never hindering but rather helping the lat- 
 ter, never costing much, always pleasing — a 
 refuge from worry, and a relief from the 
 exasperating cares of his calling. It may 
 be art, music or literature; or systematic 
 kindness or helpfulness to others, or it may 
 be some of the sciences, or the collecting of 
 facts of history or objects of interest. What- 
 ever it is, it is elevating to the mind and 
 makes for higher rather than lower things 
 — and it has no drawbacks of regret, and 
 makes no remorse. Like the perfecting of 
 ourselves in an art or in some useful knowl- 
 edge, or like doing good without the hope 
 of a return of any kind, it leaves after it no 
 bad taste in the mouth and no sting in the 
 soul. 
 
 What the avocation shall be, how high 
 soever it shall rise, depends on the taste of 
 the individual. It will be as high as the 
 taste — no higher. And there is no finer 
 example of a richly earned reward of taste 
 than this. None other better shows how 
 well-directed and well-cultivated taste can 
 minister to the comfort of mind and body, 
 and contribute to a happy longevity. 
 
 170
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 Most men who have fads and avocations 
 take them up by accident; some chance 
 experience or observation starts their minds 
 in the new channel. Help may come from 
 the pursuit of them when begun in this way, 
 as truly as if they had been planned deliber- 
 ately, but it is not so certain to come, and 
 the elevation of the mind and spirit aver- 
 ages less. The greatest gain is assured 
 when the avocation is selected deliberately, 
 with a view to its refining influence as well 
 as to the pleasure its pursuit may give. 
 
 The best taste in the selection is rewarded 
 by the largest return. And the best will 
 usually keep the avocation a true side-issue, 
 and prevent it from swamping the resources 
 and interfering with the business of life, 
 unless perchance it gives promise of being 
 able to rise and become life's chief business. 
 There have been cases where an avoca- 
 tion was most disastrous to a career. It 
 spoiled the regular business and could give 
 the man nothing adequate in its place; and 
 its end was a life of bitterness and regret. 
 Such are the results of poor and uncontrol- 
 ling taste, — it is always a poor taste that fails 
 to govern the conduct and direct the life. 
 
 There are other exceptions to the rule, 
 where the avocation has grown to be the 
 
 171
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 vocation of life, and where fame and for- 
 tune have come to the man, and benefit to 
 the world. Huxley and Joseph Le Conte 
 started in life as surgeons. Numerous 
 authors and scientists who have made noble 
 additions to the common stock of knowl- 
 edge, began in other careers which were 
 dropped for the larger work. 
 
 It is the right of every man to have his 
 feelers constantly out for a vocation that is 
 more to his liking and that promises more 
 for his future. And if he can grope for a 
 new field by means of the profit of some 
 avocation, he is wise. With old-world 
 restrictions this is less possible; but here in 
 America such a course is not only possible 
 but altogether commendable. Many a man 
 has borne cheerfully the burden of a change- 
 less and never-ending task, because he had 
 such a refuge. It transfigured his life be- 
 cause it pleased and dignified him. And if 
 one can find through such a diversion a bet- 
 ter avenue for his major energy, and grow 
 into a vocation that is at once more con- 
 genial than the one he leaves, and profita- 
 ble enough to give him and his dependents 
 the comforts of life, he deserves universal 
 approval. 
 
 Many a housewife finds the drudgery of 
 
 172
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 her domestic life a good deal of a prison; 
 and her keepers are not always kindly. Per- 
 haps she has no companionships at home 
 that are mentally above her toil, or capable of 
 lifting her above it. What a blessing if she 
 can, by some'pursuit of thought, lift herself 
 into a better realm as she goes on with her 
 cares! Without such a pursuit she is sure 
 to waste her surplus energy, if she has any, 
 in trifles, personalities, regrets and chagrin. 
 But some study, or reading; some occasional 
 meeting with other women of like tastes, for 
 conference and comparison, may give her 
 a new and better mental realm to live in, 
 and take her out of prison and into the day. 
 Then her domestic life ceases to be a prison; 
 its duties are less irksome and are performed 
 with cheerfulness. 
 
 It is only by the gift of sentiment that the 
 hard grind of daily work can be relieved. 
 This and this alone can, within the walls of 
 a tread-mill, create a picture gallery or a 
 cathedral, and make a symphony seem real. 
 
 A farmer boy worked in the hay field in 
 the heat and sweat of the summer days. He 
 did the work that was before him; did it 
 faithfully and without grumbling. He did 
 it without bitterness or any protest of vanity. 
 But he was only half there; his spirit was off 
 
 173
 
 THE REWARDS OF TASTE 
 
 to the academy or the college that he had 
 never seen, and he was doing the grander 
 work of life that so far had only filled his 
 admiring imagination. Two results fol- 
 lowed; he had pleasure in the fancy that 
 was only second to the reality; and the pur- 
 suit of his taste brought him, in his matu- 
 rity, both knowledge and wealth. He came 
 to feel the uplifting and responsibility of 
 that power which he had day-dreamed about 
 while at work in the hay; and through the 
 far-reaching influence of the bye-pursuits, 
 begun in the midst of this boy's toil, he 
 came to the rewards of a larger career. 
 
 174
 
 The Psychology of the Corset
 
 The Psychology of the Corset 
 
 It is a rare mind that can habitually and 
 wholesomely regard human beings entirely 
 apart from the clothes they wear. Some 
 physiologists, philosophers and dreamers are 
 able to, but only they. Carlyle considered 
 the subject of clothes in a masterful and 
 unique essay; tried to conceive people both 
 clothed and naked, and in every sort of 
 psychologic relation, but it has not influ- 
 enced thought at large very much. 
 
 Throughout history the mental picture of 
 humanity has mostly represented it as 
 clothed. By nature utterly naked, to our 
 minds' eyes our clothes are as truly a part 
 of us as though they were fleeces of wool 
 grown upon our skins. We even dispute 
 as to whether it is right to consider the 
 human body in any other way, and some- 
 times fear our youth may go wrong if they 
 see the nude form in cold marble or bronze 
 or on harmless canvas. We occasionally 
 
 177
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 shut such things out of public places, and 
 fence the rising generation away from them. 
 
 The way in which the simple and pure- 
 minded folk in the country districts of Japan 
 have at times ignored the requirements of 
 clothes has startled, if not shocked, many 
 good souls of our civilization when they have 
 witnessed it for the first time. To the re- 
 flecting mind it shows what strenuous impor- 
 tance we attach — and usually without 
 knowing it — to the covering of the body. 
 Such shocks awaken us to the philosophic 
 as well as the hygienic relations of clothes. 
 
 Next to the general subject in interest is 
 the fact, at first seemingly unjustified by 
 reason, that the two sexes must always be 
 clothed differently. So rigid and pervad- 
 ing is this rule that we stop to gaze and 
 remark, if at any time custom permits iden- 
 tical garments to be worn by both. Yet they 
 belong to the same species of living things, 
 and have similar physical needs and dan- 
 gers. And surely their differing work and 
 functions in life cannot make so sweeping a 
 disparity in clothes necessary. There must 
 be some other reason, as there is for the 
 great amount of time and attention people 
 give to dress. 
 
 Garments, therefore, have great meaning 
 
 178
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 in many ways, and differing meanings; the 
 garments of each sex have. But it seems to 
 me that no other article worn by either sex 
 has a significance so peculiar and weighty 
 as that of the corset. It has an influence on 
 those who wear it and on the rest of man- 
 kind as well. It relates to the longevity and 
 mental traits of the wearers, and of the 
 generations of men that follow each other. 
 
 It is now exclusively an article of woman's 
 wear, although at times, in Europe, it has 
 been used by a few men. Its origin dates 
 back almost to the escape of the race from 
 barbarism, if not even farther, and it has 
 experienced numerous changes in form and 
 size, as fashions have changed. Formerly 
 it was a heavy and cumbersome affair, but 
 the inventions and mechanical skill of the 
 closing century have developed a lightness, 
 grace and cheapness never dreamed of by 
 the dames of an earlier time. 
 
 The desire of womankind to shape the 
 female figure according to standards of 
 beauty must have begun almost with the 
 savage. In the ruins of Palenque, in Mexico 
 (of which there is not a scrap of written his- 
 tory), was found in stone a bas-relief of 
 a woman with bandaged waist. Circular 
 and transverse folds and loops — strips of 
 
 179
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 cloth used to compress the form — are clearly 
 shown in the sculpture. 
 
 In the eastern archipelago, at discovery, 
 young women were found wearing a corset of 
 spirally arranged cones of rattan. They 
 wore this garment till their marriage. In 
 Java women eat clay to keep thin. In Cey- 
 lon there are books devoted to the subject 
 of how to train slender waists. Among 
 some of the authorities on the subject it is 
 held that the world-wide standard has been 
 a waist that can be clasped by the two 
 hands. Circassian ladies formerly wore — if 
 they do not still do it — corsets made of 
 morocco, and wore them by night as well as 
 by day. The Hindoos insist that woman's 
 waist should be slim. The Chinese, almost 
 alone, bind the feet and let the waist grow 
 as it will. 
 
 In the ruins of Egypt and Thebes no 
 corsets have been found figured, but in the 
 book of Isaiah (III, 24) occurs a declara- 
 tion that there shall be "instead of a stom- 
 acher a girding of sackcloth, and burning 
 instead of beauty." A stomacher is a rigid, 
 vertical stomach board, worn for a similar 
 purpose as a corset. Homer, 560 years 
 before Christ, refers to the cestus or girdle 
 of Venus, as worn by Juno to increase her 
 
 180
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 "personal attractions," Terence, the Ro- 
 man dramatist (i6o B. C), refers to ladies 
 who "saddle their backs and straightlace 
 their waists to make them well-shaped." 
 
 Strutt says Roman women wore a bandage 
 about the waist called strophium. Vari- 
 ous other names have been used at different 
 times to convey the same idea, as zone, 
 mitra, cestus, stays, bodice, busk and cor- 
 set. Before the conquest of Rome by the 
 Hunnish tribes ladies wore, so it is written, 
 "a kind of corset which they tightened very 
 considerably." After this period of human 
 history, the subject was buried from liter- 
 ature, as perhaps from human thought, for 
 many generations. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth wore a corset made of 
 nearly solid metal. So did Catherine de 
 Medici. Busks of wood, iron and ivory 
 were much worn before the end of the fif- 
 teenth century. Their effects were severe 
 and harmful. These old, rude affairs some- 
 times made deep excoriations of the skin. 
 Said an old writer: "What hell will not 
 women suffer, strained and lasted to the very 
 quick," "to make their forms thin as a Span- 
 iard's!" 
 
 But this iron and board cuirass disap- 
 peared at the time of the French revolution, 
 
 i8i
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 to be followed by the lighter articles of 
 these later days. In 1829, a Boston writer 
 says, women even wore corsets in bed all 
 night, and tightened them on lying down, 
 and again on rising in the morning. Serv- 
 ants often wore busks that prevented them 
 from bending over. 
 
 While fashion orders what in general the 
 corset shall be, the inventive skill of manu- 
 facturers to some extent leads or guides the 
 fashion. To consider all the forces that 
 influence fashions would involve an inquiry 
 far too broad for the present study. 
 
 The corset of to-day, as worn about the 
 waist between the outer and under clothing, 
 reaches from near the arm-pits to the hips 
 and below. It fits the form with various 
 degrees of snugness, depending on differing 
 circumstances that influence the wearer, but 
 it rarely fits loosely. The pressure which it 
 exerts on the body has been measured with 
 instruments of precision, and found to be on 
 an average slightly over six-tenths of a 
 pound to the square inch, or from twenty to 
 seventy pounds in the aggregate. The 
 average difference in the circumference of 
 the waist with and without the corset, is 
 about two and one-half inches; and the vital 
 capacity of the lungs as machines for 
 
 182
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 breathing is lessened by corset wearing, 
 about twenty per cent. 
 
 The corset is made to adjust itself to the 
 form at any degree of pressure, by lacing- 
 strings at the back. It has very distinct 
 physical effects upon the body, and on the 
 physiology of the wearer, as well as upon her 
 anatomy and form. First of all, it sustains 
 the body; it is an outside skeleton that the 
 wearers are apt to declare to be of great 
 assistance in maintaining the erect posture 
 comfortably; it is a convenience for the fit- 
 ting of garments about it, and for sustaining 
 the clothing of the lower extremities. If it 
 is worn rather loosely, it perhaps does not 
 interfere in any way with the ordinary 
 physiologic functions of the body; but, 
 drawn too firmly, as the fashion has some- 
 times required— or seemed to— it compresses 
 the waist and forces the ribs inward — the 
 lower ones especially — to such a degree as 
 to make severe pressure along a transverse 
 line of the liver. This creates a permanent 
 depression or shallow groove along the 
 upper (or front) surface of that organ, caus- 
 ing more or less degeneration of its tissue — 
 the scJmur Leber of the Germans. Above 
 and below this line the liver may appear 
 like two tumors. The organ thus changed 
 
 183
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 is harmed for functionation, and perma- 
 nently impairs the health of the individual. 
 
 Tight lacing also interferes with respira- 
 tion to some degree; it compels the breath- 
 ing to be done by the upper part of the chest 
 almost solely, for it is quite impossible to 
 contract the diaphragm and so force down- 
 ward the organs below it, as in abdominal 
 breathing, without causing discomfort in the 
 viscera of the upper abdomen by the violent 
 movement of them up and down. With a 
 narrowed waist the vertical excursion of 
 these organs in each act of ordinary breath- 
 ing is twice as great as with a normal waist. 
 If these movements are attempted the labor 
 of respiration is found to be so great, and 
 the churning of the squeezed liver and 
 stomach so uncomfortable, that no woman 
 would think of keeping it up as a habit. 
 The upper chest breathing is, under these 
 circumstances, so much easier and more 
 restful, that it is practiced automatically. 
 
 Tight lacing, too, interferes with the 
 action of the stomach, intestines and liver, 
 in the process of digestion; it often pro- 
 vokes palpitation of the heart, and forces 
 downward, to their harm and inconvenience, 
 the organs of the abdomen and pelvis. As 
 a consequence of these various disturbances 
 
 184
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 in people who wear the corset too tight, it 
 occasionally happens that faintness and 
 even swooning occur when the nervous sys- 
 tem is over-wrought and the body depressed 
 by some other condition of bad hygiene, as 
 breathing the air of a crowded room or audi- 
 torium, or eating too much or of indigesti- 
 ble foods. Waist pressure also, to some 
 degree, retards the return of the blood from 
 the lower extremities, and so conspires to 
 produce varicose veins (mostly below the 
 knees, but occasionally reaching to the 
 hips), a disease that is always uncomfortable 
 and tiring, and sometimes fraught with 
 serious consequences. 
 
 It should not be understood that these 
 profound symptoms are always or even 
 generally produced by the wearing of the 
 corset. They are sometimes so produced, 
 with the gravest injury to the wearer, and 
 the lives of some women — many in the 
 aggregate — are darkened by invalidism last- 
 ing through years, or are cut short by death, 
 owing to lesions started in this manner. 
 It is at the same time true that the corset 
 may be loosely worn through life by a 
 healthy woman of good vigor, with no seri- 
 ous injury to her health or longevity, or to 
 the health of her children. Such a woman, 
 
 185
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 so clothed, will usually outlive the average 
 man, and have fewer days of sickness. And 
 it is grossly untrue to say that the corset 
 thus worn by such a woman, is as harmful to 
 the wearer and her progeny as the foot-bind- 
 ing among Chinese women. Such a state- 
 ment could only be true of unhealthy and 
 unvigorous women, who require the best 
 hygiene as a constant condition of any 
 adequate career. 
 
 There is one possible hygienic reason for 
 wearing the corset. It seems to be proven 
 that fewer women than men have pulmonary 
 consumption. In a majority of cases this 
 disease begins in the apex of one lung. 
 Why should not the apices of women's lungs 
 be as susceptible as those of men? The 
 upper chest breathing favored by corset 
 wearing has been offered as a tentative 
 answer to the question. Perhaps it is cor- 
 rect; but even if it is, this can only in a 
 small part atone for the injury the corset 
 has otherwise done the race. 
 
 But the physical effect of the corset, or 
 the abuse of it, has been often exploited and 
 much discussed, and there is little or noth- 
 ing new to be said about it. It is like any 
 other habit of the people that is begotten of 
 fashion — everything else in the life of the 
 
 1 86
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 individual becomes, somehow, adjusted to 
 it. The habits of womankind are not likely 
 to undergo any radical change in this par- 
 ticular, and no amount of preaching that 
 health missionaries may do will lead to any 
 great alteration or improvement in the 
 clothing of the race. The clothing will 
 change from time to time, and perhaps for 
 the physical benefit of the people, and the 
 corset will change with the rest; we can 
 even imagine it to be laid aside, and to go 
 out of use. But the changes will come 
 through example, and not from precept or 
 persuasion. The arguments for change will 
 be sociologic or psychologic, not hygienic. 
 The psychologic phase of the subject is the 
 most interesting one, and the one usually 
 neglected or forgotten. The very sugges- 
 tion that there can be such an aspect of it 
 v/ill seem absurd to many persons. But the 
 corset worn by the woman of modern society 
 enters into her mental life in the most 
 intimate way. She can no more get away 
 from this fact than she could dispense with 
 her lungs, or appear habitually on the street 
 smoking a pipe. And unnumbered genera- 
 tions in the past have witnessed a like ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Every voluntary act of human life has its 
 
 187
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 psychologic counterpart; we think the act 
 while, or before, we do it. But not always 
 to the same effect or in the same way. 
 Many of our daily acts are matters of habit; 
 if the habits are firmly fixed, their psycho- 
 logic counterpart is more of an automatic 
 nervous, than a mental, sort. Many of our 
 habits and customs come without our con- 
 sciousness — without our knowledge of how 
 or why. Some of them we plan and deter- 
 mine. Impelled by something to create 
 them, we start about it, and, little by little, 
 by our volition and the repetition of the 
 activities, they come into existence — the 
 habits are formed. This is education in a 
 broad way. But we stumble upon some of 
 them; they come unbidden; they grow up 
 by some unnoticed mental influence that is 
 undirected and spontaneous. In the first 
 case the psychologic counterpart precedes 
 consciously; in the second the habit comes 
 apparently first, and seems to develop the 
 other, but does not, and is really created by 
 it. 
 
 Mostly, our clothes are the result of cus- 
 tom — of fashion. We wear them because 
 others do, or have worn them, and we never 
 order the seasonal changes; they are 
 ordered for us by others, whom we, in the 
 
 1 88
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 main, are wholly ignorant of, by somebody 
 — anybody — who can, like a new self-consti- 
 tuted ruler, get control of the masses. They 
 are usually the shrewd and enterprising 
 manufacturers and wholesalers of goods and 
 clothes. We, the people, are as helpless in 
 the arrangement of the styles we wear (ex- 
 cept within comparatively narrow limits) as 
 we are of the air we breathe or the temper- 
 ature we endure. We are bidden, and near 
 or afar off, like docile children, we obey; 
 and, except the few who segregate them- 
 selves from the mass of people by their 
 oddity, we obey as well as we can. 
 
 Why we do certain things, especially 
 those that affect our personal weal and that 
 of the community, constitutes a most inter- 
 esting as well as a profitable study. But we 
 can never completely solve the problem; it 
 is so complex a task that we can only work 
 toward a solution. And the ultimate 
 genesis of fashions, and what they lead us 
 to do and refrain from, make no inconsider- 
 able part of the vast problem of our social 
 existence. 
 
 Our daily acts may be divided, crudely, 
 into those which concern the care and con- 
 dition of our bodies, and those that connect 
 us with others in the life and business of 
 
 189
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 the world. Yet these two divisions are 
 closely united to each other, and we can 
 never estimate either of them entirely apart 
 from the other. The nature and growth, the 
 care and carriage of our bodies have to do 
 first with our comfort mentally and phys- 
 ically, and therefore also with our relations 
 to the world; and clothes are a large factor 
 in the consummation. 
 
 Few things in the care of our bodies affect 
 our weal more than our customs as to 
 clothes. Clothes touch not merely the 
 physical self, but the social and ethical life 
 as truly. The foot-binding of the Chinese 
 is a striking example, but none will say that 
 the effect of the custom on the Chinese na- 
 tion is confined to the bodies of the women 
 whose feet are bound. It concerns as well 
 their social and political relations, and de- 
 termines, in many cases, their happiness or 
 misery for life — physical pain if their feet 
 are bound; social punishment if they are 
 not. Attempts to do away with the custom 
 have found their greatest obstacle in the 
 social ostracism that threatens any woman 
 who appears with normal feet. 
 
 The universal ambition is, of course, so to 
 manage the human body, so to clothe, feed, 
 groom and care for it, as to conserve its ex- 
 
 190
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 istence and comfort for the longest time. 
 In our efforts to do this we are guilty of 
 many foibles and some sins, and the offences 
 against the physical body sometimes tend, 
 apparently, to spiritual growth, as phys- 
 iologic care of the body may threaten 
 social degradation. We are different from 
 the Chinese; whether we are better than 
 they is a question. 
 
 A study of the corset is instructive, as a 
 study of the hats, shoes, gloves or collars of 
 men would be, or the regulations of cookery 
 and meal-times, or the kind of beds that 
 people sleep in. But the corset is more in- 
 structive than these, because it is a device 
 that touches more the psychologic life, and 
 makes and unmakes its wearer in more ways. 
 
 If we consider the garment from the stand- 
 point of its usefulness, we shall discover a 
 number of interesting truths. They obtain 
 with many other garments and ornaments, 
 but not with all of them. One of the car- 
 dinal reasons for the corset is that it adds to 
 beauty and grace of form. It is said that 
 fleshy women show their embonpoint less if 
 they wear a corset, which is a sufificient 
 reason for them. Then, many women insist 
 that convenience is a large consideration in 
 favor of the corset; their skirts, the bands 
 
 191
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 of which would otherwise annoy them, may 
 be hung from it. The waist of a gown can 
 be better fitted over it, and a well-fitting 
 waist is the starting point of a harmonious 
 costume. From it a skirt can be adjusted; 
 and sleeves and various neck and throat 
 decorations may be added — all of which 
 would be unavailing with a shabby looking 
 waist. Given one central and ideal element 
 of grace and beauty in a costume and every- 
 thing else may be made to harmonize. 
 
 But the most common reason a woman 
 offers for wearing a corset, when it is sug- 
 gested that she should lay it aside after 
 years of use, is that it is a means of support 
 for her body; that it is comforting to her 
 sensations; that if she lays it aside she has 
 a feeling of physical fatigue and lack of sup- 
 port that is almost unbearable. This argu- 
 ment is sound, without a question, for any 
 woman who has worn a corset for a year 
 probably finds that on laying it aside she 
 feels a want of support that is always dis- 
 agreeable and may be painful. Men as 
 well as women have testified to this fact. A 
 distinguished scientist of England many 
 years ago wore a corset for a few months, 
 and then discovered that it took him twice 
 as many months to get used to doing with- 
 
 192
 
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 out it. For long weeks he complained of a 
 sensation as though his body was not quite 
 strong enough to hold itself erect. 
 
 Fashion is the most potent reason for the 
 corset. That the fashion had its origin 
 largely in a desire for cosmetic effect, the 
 conservation of beauty and grace, is true 
 enough. But that is not what compels, 
 although it may encourage, the adoption of 
 this garment. It is the fact that others of 
 her set, or those she would emulate, wear it, 
 which compels nearly every girl to get her- 
 self into a corset at the earliest permissible 
 age. Fashion inflicts upon us many degrees 
 of slavery. The fashion once established 
 must be followed, even if it binds our bodies 
 or our feet, our throats or our hands. It 
 requires a large order of courage to resist, 
 even when the thing is harmful. And no 
 argument for health is so irresistible as to 
 be told that you look undressed or slouchy 
 without a particular garment or style. Such 
 a criticism is to many a soul as severe and 
 heart-breaking as an accusation of black sin. 
 
 There are many standards of beauty. The 
 shape of the corset, the artificial thing used 
 to encase the body, constitutes one standard. 
 The theory, of course, is that woman's form 
 ought to have that particular shape; that it 
 
 193
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 is the typical form and therefore ideal. The 
 woman who possesses that ideal form needs 
 no corset for beauty's sake. The corset is 
 a standard, and its shape should be — and 
 often is — based on that of the nude body 
 which artists and anatomists have, with a 
 fair measure of unanimity, agreed on as 
 nearest perfection. That form is a thing of 
 surpassing beauty, and no artificial covering 
 of it can ever enhance its charm of lines. 
 For its comfort, and that it should be hid- 
 den, clothes are required; but never for its 
 grace or beauty. 
 
 The corset is evolved from a desire to per- 
 petuate that form, and to give all an oppor- 
 tunity to simulate it. The woman who 
 lacks the ideal form naturally covets it. 
 To her it is a happy circumstance that she 
 may wrap herself in an artificial case, and 
 to the world actually display the charm she 
 covets. Most of us live and labor under the 
 load of some physical defect or asymmetry 
 we would be glad to be rid of, to the end 
 that we might more nearly approach the 
 ideal physical body. It is a hump or a 
 wart, or some angularity, or a vice of color 
 or of hair. So, failing as most of us do, in 
 the classical perfections, we take greedily to 
 measures that allow us to simulate them. 
 
 194
 
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 And could anything more happily accom- 
 plish this purpose than the corset? Once 
 within it, the form has (if the corset is cor- 
 rect) all the right curves and proportions, 
 and none of its own angles and imperfec- 
 tions. Of course, it we stop to reflect, we 
 know this is, as to a great number, quite 
 impossible; that inside the corset there often 
 must be ugliness, but it seems otherwise — and 
 frequently in our blundering day to seem is 
 the instinctive end. 
 
 By good dentistry we can help a little 
 toward the ideal; the razor may abolish an 
 untidy beard; and we may, by waves and 
 bangs cover up somewhat the defects we 
 think v/e wot of in our own appearance. 
 But hair-dye and beard-coloring are vulgar 
 aids at best. We cannot hide our big feet 
 and hands, nor straighten up our shoulders 
 or backs; and our walking gait cannot by any 
 possibility be hidden or much changed. 
 
 Skirts have fortunately restricted to the 
 masculine half of us the public announce- 
 ment of the deformity of bow-legs, and it is 
 no wonder that woman should be ready to 
 still further take advantage of her pos- 
 sibilities, and cover her body with the out- 
 ward evidence of perfect symmetry and 
 the ideal curves and proportions. 
 
 195
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 Women have better and more trustworthy- 
 taste as to the lines of beauty than men 
 have; they think of such things more than 
 men can, and inharmony rasps their nature 
 more. It is not strange then that they 
 should be avid to appear to have the curves 
 of the Venus that is the vision of us all. 
 Here is a part of her form hidden from the 
 world (save at fashionable functions); and 
 woman may create for it, for the average 
 sum of two dollars, the shape that is divine, 
 and that shall delicately hint its presence 
 through any and all drapery. She will do 
 it, and to blame her for it is hardly gener- 
 ous. 
 
 I know the fashion may fail her in these 
 efforts, and perchance her figure is such that 
 she cannot accomplish all she desires in 
 this way. But the impulse exists and per- 
 sists, and is, in part, the basis and unuttered 
 justification of the corset fashion. 
 
 It is true of all fashions that sooner or 
 later they show aberrations. By the 
 various whims and tendencies of the mind, 
 they acquire extremes and excesses. And 
 these often grow out of the human impulse 
 to imitate or exceed someone else, or out of 
 the misfortune of those who are physically 
 unable to follow the ideal of the fashion. 
 
 196
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 The corset is a means of hiding the propor- 
 tions of a fleshy woman. But her corset is 
 large, its size is still relatively great; there- 
 fore, large size becomes a positive misfor- 
 tune; there is a rising gratification in every 
 inch of reduction in the circumference. 
 The smaller corset, as compared to the 
 greater one, indicates a nearer approach to 
 the ideal form. Smallness therefore be- 
 comes desirable by comparison. The 
 woman who can wear a corset of the average 
 size is proud when she compares herself with 
 her larger neighbor. The latter, from her 
 standpoint, laments, while the slim woman 
 gently glories over both of them. Thus 
 with many people comeliness ceases to be, 
 and size becomes the only standard of com- 
 parison; and so a woman is not merely 
 proud to have a corset smaller than her 
 neighbor's, but she is proud to have one 
 considerably smaller than the average 
 diameter of woman's waist. It flatters us 
 just a little to be able to do a thing that 
 others cannot accomplish; and, to get into 
 a corset six inches in diameter, is an accom- 
 plishment that few women have. 
 
 Among women it is interesting to see how 
 the size of their waists is kept in mind and 
 memory by each other, and what an event it 
 
 197
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 is when one grows larger or smaller. They 
 remember these, as tall men keep account 
 of their height, and boys of their feats of 
 dexterity. A woman will sometimes re- 
 member to her eightieth year the size of her 
 own and others' waists during the third dec- 
 ade of their lives; and the records of 
 changes as they pass the mid-point in life, 
 are something both pathetic and amusing. 
 Once, while I read a book in a moving rail- 
 way train, there was a hum of conversation 
 among three women sitting opposite me. I 
 was suddenly startled to hear one of them 
 say with dramatic manner and intense 
 voice: "What do you think!" The others 
 waited, with wide-eyed expectancy, to hear 
 the fulmination that was to come. And 
 this is what it was: "Could you believe it, 
 that Mary Wonder's waist measures twenty- 
 four inches?" The dual exclamation of sur- 
 prise from the listeners clearly told that 
 they could not; and the satisfaction on the 
 face of the one who had spoken, showed the 
 egoistic joy that comes of having uttered a 
 momentous thing. She looked as happy 
 and self-sufficient as if she had created the 
 thing she told of. 
 
 We see the same out-cropping of human 
 nature in other directions; for example, as 
 
 198
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 to the size of shoes and of gloves, and the 
 cut of other garments. Nobody could for a 
 moment defend a very small foot as a thing 
 of beauty on a medium-sized person. The 
 narrow-shouldered people by padding give 
 themselves more nearly the appearance of 
 the average, and so there grows up a fash- 
 ion of broad shoulders, and the seeming 
 of them, which is by and by carried to such 
 extremes that finally, having developed 
 enormous excrescences, the fashion falls by 
 the weight of disgust which it creates in the 
 public mind. 
 
 I once knew a good woman who had a very 
 long, slim hand. She could not buy gloves 
 to fit her; if they were correct in length they 
 were slack about the fingers, but very com- 
 fortable; if they fitted firmly about the fin- 
 gers they were too short to reach to the 
 wrist. Did she wear the comfortable ones? 
 She wore the uncomfortable ones, that were 
 beautiful about the fingers and made them 
 look small and neat, notwithstanding a most 
 awkward fit about the wrists where they 
 could be more easily hidden. And I had a 
 friend who, as boy and man, suffered from 
 cold feet and chilblain for more than thirty 
 winters — and who had always sought for 
 means to keep his feet warm — before he 
 
 199
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 could evolve to the point of wearing loose 
 shoes and large overshoes. He had often 
 tried on such at the shoe stores, but each 
 time, as he looked down at the large size of 
 his clothed feet, his courage failed him, and 
 he bought the close-fitting things that tickled 
 his vanity or saved his humiliation, but tor- 
 tured his feet. In this manner he chose 
 physical rather than mental humiliation for 
 a third of a century, before he learned a bet- 
 ter lesson. Lately, the foot-ball fashion or 
 some other motive has led the true Ameri- 
 can boy to be rather proud of his large 
 shoes, showing another swing of the pendu- 
 lum. 
 
 The woman's form becomes so used to the 
 pressure of the corset that the wearer 
 acquires a new definition of tightness and 
 pressure. She will declare that her corset is 
 not tight, when to a man or a child it would 
 be, and neither the man nor the child would 
 willingly wear clothing about the waist that 
 would squeeze so much. And she is per- 
 fectly candid and consciously truthful in her 
 declarations. Once a beautiful young 
 woman was getting a trifle stout, and her 
 doctor quizzed her as to whether her corset 
 was not too tight. She declared that she 
 never wore it tight; that it was always loose 
 
 200
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 and gave her abundance of room, and, to 
 prove this, she said that when she took her 
 corset off and put her gown on without it, 
 she could easily bring the gown together 
 within two inches! It did not occur to her 
 that she had said anything funny until the 
 doctor burst into laughter. Thus the indi- 
 vidual standpoint comes to create for us new 
 meanings for words that are used to express 
 the common sense and common sensations 
 of mankind. Hence the manifold and 
 variant meanings of words as shown by the 
 dictionary. Words have a history, and this 
 illuminates the history of the social and per- 
 sonal life of the human race, and shows its 
 steady evolution. 
 
 Not every woman would have gone to the 
 extreme of this young person, but corset 
 wearers as a whole, have acquired a defini- 
 tion of their own to express the snugness of 
 the clothing about the trunk of the body. 
 They are not uncandid about it, as a rule, 
 and do not mean to be inaccurate, and do 
 not know that they are — if they are. Who 
 shall say that a definition of one-half the 
 race shall be discredited or degraded by 
 that of the other half? Lexicographers and 
 grammarians may pretend that definitions 
 are thus and so, and must be so maintained, 
 
 201
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 but they cannot maintain them; and they 
 are forced to record changes as the people 
 vary in their usages. And the growth and 
 evolution of the language come largely from 
 the impulsive and hap-hazard inventions of 
 the common people. 
 
 There is still another reason for the habit 
 of tight lacing, which has great philosophic 
 interest. It probably applies to only a few 
 women. To the exceptional woman it is 
 not for grace nor out of regard to the morbid 
 extreme of fashion blindly followed that she 
 tugs at her laces. It is rather to the end 
 that some particular woman or the imper- 
 sonal woman shall not have the chance of 
 saying that her waist has grown larger, or 
 is not smaller, than that of some other 
 woman, or than some standard of compari- 
 son. In the aggregate many women are 
 victims, and long-suffering ones, of the fool- 
 ish ideal betrayed by the hackneyed phrase 
 that begins with: "She shall never have it 
 to say." These expressions have a familiar 
 ring: "She shall never have it to say that I 
 asked favors of her," or, "that I complained 
 of my lot," or "that my house was untidy," 
 or "that my complexion was worse than 
 hers," or "that my children were dirty" — ■ 
 and so on, interminably. Women live and 
 
 202
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 die, and die early and in sorrow, worn out 
 by loyalty to this sort of a standard. It is 
 a common standard, and concerns itself 
 more with the non-essential, even trivial 
 things of life, than with the larger virtues of 
 character. Its application to the question 
 of the size of woman's waist is only one of 
 its hundreds of uses. It is often founded in 
 pique or ambition, in envy or jealousy; it 
 has existed for ages and probably will con- 
 tinue through our present phase of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Similarly interesting is the experience of 
 the masculine Sophomore, or of the com- 
 mon dude, with his tall collar in vogue in 
 this beginning of a new century. Ask him 
 why he wears the ugly, uncomfortable thing, 
 and, to avoid a confession of his enslave- 
 ment, he will tell you a little tale (which in 
 his heart he knows to be a mass of fibs) 
 about his uncomely neck and the necessity 
 of hiding it, and of the ease with which he 
 wears the collar. Since boys began to ex- 
 plain how they had to go a-fishing and 
 couldn't help it, or were positively pre- 
 vented from getting home early, there has 
 not been a more amusing variety of prevari- 
 cation. It is well that other persons do not 
 say such uncomplimentary things of the 
 
 203
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 boy's neck. If they did, he would discover 
 at once what manly curves and graceful di- 
 mensions it has; for the negligee attire of an 
 outing makes him stand before the glass in 
 expansive delight to see his form reflected 
 back to him, and the neck is no small part 
 of its admitted beauty. 
 
 Nobody can look at these aspects of life 
 in all their bearings without being convinced 
 that, for foolishness in the small things, as 
 well as the large ones, neither sex of our 
 august family can boast a monopoly, or 
 even claim any special superiority over the 
 other. 
 
 One of the most interesting phases of this 
 question of psychology is shown by the 
 various estimates we have of how other 
 people regard us, and the way we balance 
 our own estimates against theirs. The doc- 
 trine that we cannot see ourselves as others 
 do, is very old and altogether true. But 
 there are degrees of this disability; some- 
 times it is only partial, and we occasionally 
 succeed in stealing round quietly to a spot 
 near the point of vision of some other 
 people. Women, as a class, understand 
 fairly well how they regard each other's re- 
 lation to the corset. And a girl with an 
 extremely waspish waist is, I believe, 
 
 204
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 always regarded by most women with a 
 feeling of pity. But the sense of triumph 
 which the girl herself feels in her achieve- 
 ment over others of her sex, may wholly 
 smother her consciousness of what other 
 women think of her. And this is not sur- 
 prising. In a hundred ways we see the 
 egoistic feeling, the sense of self-importance 
 and conceit, covering up every other emo- 
 tion, and ignoring the feelings and interests 
 of others. The small boy with his toy gun 
 or his first trousers; the same boy, older, 
 with his first cigarette, and later with some 
 grown man's triumph, are only stages in the 
 same life, and show the truth equally, 
 
 I am told by many sensible women that 
 it is a common belief of the sex that small 
 waists are pleasing to men. And I have 
 had a man's curiosity to know how general 
 this belief is, for it seems to me next to im- 
 possible that the contrary sentiment, which 
 is practically universal among men of all 
 ages and shades of thought, should be mis- 
 understood by women. In forty years of 
 attentive observation of the talk of all sorts 
 of normal boys and men, I have never known 
 the diminutive size of a woman's waist to be 
 complimented by one of them. On the con- 
 trary, most uncomplimentary remarks are 
 
 205
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 often made by them about the pinched 
 midriffs of womankind. 
 
 We are apt to forget that the feminine 
 estimate of women is quite different from 
 the masculine, and vice versa. The ques- 
 tion of the hour-glass corset illustrates it. 
 Men never cease to wonder how women 
 can possibly admire a certain man; and 
 women query as much or more in a reverse 
 direction. 
 
 The differing points of view of the two 
 sexes is shown in nothing better than the 
 diverse ways men and women regard the 
 dressing of themselves for fun in the clothes 
 of the other. To women it is a great event, 
 to be amused and laughed at with the 
 greatest glee — often to the wonder of men. 
 To men it is very little of an event, rather a 
 passing curiosity, and is never treasured 
 afterward as anything striking. Even when 
 they, as college students, get up a comic 
 opera, and take all the women's parts, their 
 interest in this phase of the performance, 
 beyond a desire for success, is largely in 
 the pleasure it gives their feminine friends, 
 and the comradery with them incident to the 
 preparations. Would any set of normal 
 men present such a play to an exclusive 
 audience of men? But women do the re- 
 
 206
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 verse of this, and enjoy it. What is the 
 basis of the difference? Is it to some degree 
 the greater social restraints to adventure 
 that surround woman, or is it innate? 
 
 The mental pictures that are projected in 
 the minds of women and men on the sugges- 
 tion of the affairs of a formal wedding, are as 
 different as possible; and they cannot all be 
 due to the difference of meaning the wed- 
 ding has for the two sexes. For men, the 
 prospect of the finery, the flowers, the pow- 
 der, and the dressing of the bride and the 
 bridesmaids, is a matter to be endured for 
 the sake of the other sex, but always a trifle 
 fatiguing. To women these things are food 
 and drink, and the wedding procession is a 
 blazing joy. They are not dampened by the 
 slow and solemn tread of the bride with her 
 guards, each foot lifted carefully, slowly 
 projected forward, held in the air for a 
 moment, then put down with a motion that 
 no effort can quite free from the quality of a 
 jerk; the head thrown back the while, and 
 the face directed forward, with cheeks 
 blanched and shrunken, and the whole 
 aspect as though she had just come out of 
 a prison where she had been starved for a 
 week, and were marching to her execu- 
 tion. To men, this sometimes has the sug- 
 
 207
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 gestion of tragedy; but many women will 
 seek the best seats to see, even at the ex- 
 pense of courtesy, and crane their necks to 
 get a vision of the whole spectacle that shall 
 be complete, and will miss nothing, and re- 
 member long afterward the minutest details 
 of it all. 
 
 One effect of wearing good clothes, or 
 clothes that one likes, is to create a sense of 
 comfort and self-respect; which sensations 
 may be good if they are not mixed with a 
 feeling of pride and bumptiousness that is 
 illaudable. This fact is emphasized by the 
 converse experience of us all in the distract- 
 ing uneasiness with which we bear the feel- 
 ing that our clothes misfit us, or are untidy 
 or not appropriate to the occasion. We 
 cannot think or talk connectedly. The 
 greatest eloquence and the divinest music 
 alike fail to fix our attention, or wrest it 
 from the chagrin about the clothes that 
 cover us. Even a lovely face and gentle 
 words sometimes fail. 
 
 Years ago I had a friend who more than 
 once roused himself from the melancholy of 
 chronic invalidism by getting up from his 
 bed, putting on his best suit of clothes, and 
 going out for a walk. He said he always 
 felt a sense of uplifting from it that he could 
 
 208
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 never have in his common clothes. And I 
 know good men, who, after a day of taxing 
 business cares, go home and put on evening 
 dress before their dinner, and declare they 
 feel rested in consequence. The habit of 
 wearing better clothes on Sunday furnishes a 
 distinct portion of the benefits of the one 
 day of rest. It is a civilizing influence of 
 no mean sort. And its force is wholly 
 psychologic; it helps mentally to a higher 
 standard. Better clothes seem to go with 
 better demeanor, and so men behave better 
 in them, and think of higher things, as one 
 always, to some degree, grasps a mental 
 mood by assuming the physical attitude that 
 usually is linked with it. To force them- 
 selves to behave decently helps most people, 
 if only a little, to be decent. 
 
 Does not the corset help women, men- 
 tally, to the same end? I am sure I have 
 heard many a woman apologize for the un- 
 tidiness of her clothes, and say she was not 
 dressed, when she looked perfection in this 
 respect, and my intuitions prompted the sus- 
 picion that her only trouble was the lack of 
 a corset. The touch of this magic contriv- 
 ance gives her a feeling of being dressed and 
 proper, that relieves her of embarrassment. 
 To be sure, sometimes it leads women to 
 
 209
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORSET 
 
 rely on its lulling influence too much, and 
 to forget that they may have an untidy gown 
 or person. But I doubt that it ever makes 
 one more untidy than she would be without 
 it; and I should like to believe that it does, 
 by its subtle influence upon the mind and 
 life, make every woman who wears it a little 
 better, as well as a little happier, than she 
 otherwise could be. 
 
 It is unnatural to believe that the influ- 
 ence of this garment is lowering upon the 
 soul of the wearer, when its very object is 
 largely the realization of an ideal of beauty 
 whose normal issue is an elevation in spirit 
 and intention, and therefore better conduct. 
 
 210
 
 The Physical Basis of 
 Expertness
 
 Physical Basis of Expertness 
 
 Expertness is the ability to do difficult 
 things with unusual deftness and skill; or it 
 is unusual knowledge of some difficult sub- 
 ject. Then we call it learning. It is an 
 acquired power but people attain it in vary- 
 ing degrees and with different rates of prog- 
 ress. It is a power that is never manifestly 
 inborn; no expertness is discoverable in the 
 human subject at birth, except in crying, 
 and in the simplest acts necessary to take 
 and swallow food. Man must learn by slow 
 degrees to be adept and skilful and wise, if 
 he ever attains to such superiority. In the 
 lower animals we see the same quality to a 
 surprising degree, only it is nearly all in- 
 born, not acquired in the lifetime of the ani- 
 mal. Indeed, it is often questioned that 
 animals ever learn of themselves to do any 
 of the usual acts and functions that are 
 necessary for their existence. The bird is 
 never taught to build a nest, nor the bee to 
 
 213
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 gather the materials for honey or to make 
 honey-comb, nor the beaver to make a dam; 
 but these products of remarkable skill are 
 made without a previous model and wholly 
 without instruction. Moreover, they are 
 made the first time by each animal with a 
 perfection that is apparently never improved 
 upon. It is difficult to discover that any 
 subsequent work of this sort ever shows the 
 slightest improvement over the first, although 
 scientific investigation and measurements 
 have, I believe, shown that an increase of 
 skill does come in some cases of repeated 
 attempts of the animal in its peculiar tasks. 
 The bird's third nest may therefore be a 
 trifle better than its first. 
 
 This expertness in animals is called 
 instinct, but, as an expression of animal 
 function, it is without question the same 
 thing in essence as the skill that man 
 acquires through patient effort and repeated 
 trials. 
 
 There is a strong economic reason why the 
 young of the lower animals should be born 
 with a ready-made skill to do the things 
 necessary for their own protection and perpet- 
 uation; and they never have instinctive skill 
 outside of this narrow field; there is no need 
 of it. The child of man, on the other 
 
 214
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 hand, is born under the safeguarding of the 
 intellectual prevision and support of the 
 race, and has no such necessity; so, beyond 
 the simple instincts to cry, and to suckle 
 and swallow, its expertness must all be 
 gained by effort, by observation, mimetism 
 and instruction. The effort that is neces- 
 sary to acquire expertness varies for the 
 different maneuvers and fields of knowledge 
 and varies with the individuals of the race; 
 some learn in one direction easily, others 
 in another; some never learn anything 
 easily. The general capacity to acquire 
 knov/ledge and skill varies among people as 
 much as they differ in their physical appear- 
 ance and characteristics. Some learn easily 
 to play a musical instrument with marvelous 
 skill; others master by slow degrees, and 
 never to perfection, the simplest necessary 
 acts of their daily lives. But what expert- 
 ness soever comes to an individual is a gift 
 never foreshadowed by powers that he has 
 at birth. That is a moment of life when 
 human beings are alike in their utter help- 
 lessness and ignorance. 
 
 But, after all, the skill of the birds and 
 the beavers must have been acquired. Each 
 of their generations has added but a trifle to 
 it, and manifold thousands of generations 
 
 215
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 must have been required to bring each order 
 of animals up to its present degree of ex- 
 pertness. It was in the inevitable course of 
 nature that it should have been so; the 
 varieties of animals that had most skill 
 could best resist the enemies about them 
 and so survive; those with less capacity- 
 would go to the wall and perish. Whether 
 from accident or creative design, animals 
 with growing skill would not only survive, 
 but by the forces or the accidents that 
 helped to produce it, their skill would tend 
 to grow and become adjusted more and 
 more nicely to their needs. 
 
 The wonder of the growth in expertness 
 among animals is that each generation of 
 them should be able to keep and hold a 
 large part of the trifle that it could attain by 
 itself, and to transmit this to its offspring 
 as an instinct; so that to-day we see many 
 species with skill that is not only marvel- 
 ous in its qualities, but apparently perfec- 
 tion. Man appears to have no such power 
 of storing up and transmitting skill in this 
 manner. His child is born devoid of it and 
 must learn it all anew. We shall see pres- 
 ently that something in a distant way akin 
 to this storing up of accumulated power and 
 expertness from generation to generation, 
 
 216
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 belongs to the human race, although the 
 fact is not at first apparent. 
 
 In the growth of the acquired expertness 
 of man, one and the same progressive 
 sequence of steps must occur with each indi- 
 vidual; and it is a course of repeated trials, 
 and efforts more or less patient. The sim- 
 ple and most necessary acts come first, like 
 standing and walking, and the use of the 
 hands from curiosity, and for the physical 
 needs from moment to moment. Then a 
 larger range of movements is learned; those 
 that are involved and interdependent, like 
 speech and handicraft, in which something 
 like skill begins to be revealed. Finally, 
 the race is differentiated by the appearance 
 of varying kinds and degrees of skill among 
 different individuals, and so there results 
 all the endless variations in capacity and 
 power. In the acquisition of ideas and 
 notions similar steps succeed each other as 
 in the learning of manual dexterity. 
 
 The conclusion is unavoidable, the mo- 
 ment the subject of expe;tness in man is 
 considered carefully, that at first it is all 
 mental, and that afterward a part of it 
 becomes manual. There is no such thing as 
 education of the hands and feet and tongue 
 alone; rather the brain learns how to control 
 
 217
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 the evolutions of the body through the 
 nervous machinery ; then the muscle skill 
 comes and the purely intellectual expertness 
 as well, and the one helps the other. 
 
 The first step in the building up of deft- 
 ness is a conscious or unconscious voluntary 
 act. The child puts one foot before the 
 other in his first effort at walking, in a 
 movement directed by his will and with the 
 exercise of all the judgment that he pos- 
 sesses. Delighted at his first step he finds 
 the next one easier, although he is obliged 
 to direct every step by his will power. But 
 in a little while, he is walking without a 
 thought of it, and is not consciously using 
 his will; mentally, he hardly knows he is 
 walking; and his mind is now given to some 
 thought or evolution or other volitional act 
 — perhaps with his hands, possibly in the 
 use of some tool or utensil, or in trying to 
 frame words or sing or whistle, in imitation 
 of somebody whom he likes to imitate. 
 Presently he reaches a point where he can 
 do all these new things without fixing his 
 attention specially on each step of them in 
 detail; if his mental attention is given to 
 them it is for the purpose of greater expert- 
 ness, and not for the due sequence of the 
 steps in the evolutions. 
 
 218
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 This new thing that has happened, we 
 call learning. The child has learned to walk; 
 to use its spoon and knife and fork; to 
 whittle, throw a ball, and to bat; then to 
 write his language, to play the piano and 
 do hundreds of other things as easily; and 
 to have many fixed ideas and opinions. 
 The thing that has occurred in his experi- 
 ence is this: the brain first directed each act 
 through the spinal cord and other nerve cen- 
 ters and cells connected with the brain, and 
 the nerves that control the muscles. Each 
 repetition made it easier, and required less 
 brain power and mental attention; each one 
 found the centers and cells below the brain 
 acting more independently of the brain, or, 
 to put it differently, acting in the same way 
 as before, but with less and less supervision 
 from above— till, finally, they executed the 
 several evolutions on the slightest hint from 
 the brain, so slight sometimes that the brain 
 was unaware, and could not remember that 
 the hint had been given. When this point 
 was reached the movements were largely 
 mechanical or automatic; the lower centers 
 in this mechanical sort of a way had come 
 to relieve the mind of the necessity of giv- 
 ing detailed attention to these acts. The 
 brain was, therefore, left free to give its best 
 
 219
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 power of attention and concentration to 
 other things. 
 
 The automatisms thus acquired endure for 
 long, change little, and are the habits that 
 characterize each individual — that make 
 each differ a little from every other human 
 being. They are the essential quality 
 wherewith all expertness of every kind and 
 degree is made. In the mechanism of these 
 automatisms the movements recur again and 
 again in the same order; each one is sug- 
 gested to the spinal or other nerve centers 
 by the one that preceded it, and it in turn 
 suggests the one to follow, and so on and 
 on interminably. A most complicated set 
 of involved movements, like a piano tune or 
 a song, is thus started by the mind, and then 
 seems to go on repeating itself in due order, 
 with the mind dreaming or thinking of other 
 things, and almost or quite unconscious — 
 in moments wholly so — of what the hands or 
 the voice are doing. When you repeat the 
 alphabet it is not the starting of the jingle 
 that determines that / shall follow k, but it 
 is the uttering of k and the letters imme- 
 diately preceding it that forces / to be 
 spoken after it. And it is just as impossible 
 that any other letter should take its place, 
 as it is certain that this one shall be spoken, 
 
 220
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 The mechanism consists of a chain of suc- 
 cessive suggestions that must occur in one 
 specific order and cannot happen in any- 
 other; they are interdependent, each link 
 gets inspiration from its predecessor, and 
 puts its successor in motion. 
 
 Another interesting fact, too often forgot- 
 ten, is that we finally come in a hundred 
 ways to depend on the automatism, the 
 mind's creation, to put the mind right and 
 to refresh the memory. Thus we invoke 
 the multiplication table to help out our 
 reasoning and save it labor. This table, so 
 to say,speaks itself and needs neither memory 
 nor reasoning; and it helps. Often we can- 
 not tell the exact relation of a particular let- 
 ter of the alphabet to other letters, till we 
 have started the automatism and let it run 
 on, down to the doutbful point, to enlighten 
 us. So it is with many rhymes that we 
 learn for the purpose of relieving the mem- 
 ory and mental attention. How many men 
 in a hundred who speak our English tongue 
 can tell the number of days in each of the 
 months picked out at random, without re- 
 peating the rhyme that begins with: 
 "Thirty days hath September, April, June^ 
 and November"? 
 
 Repetition makes automatism in thought 
 
 221
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 and action; automatisms are habits; and 
 these are indispensable necessities for the 
 relief of mental attention, and for the con- 
 servation of the powers of the brain for the 
 needs of our physical existence. They are 
 the scaffolding erected by the brain, and on 
 which it builds and rises to larger achieve- 
 ments. Without such aids the brain would 
 be ruined in attempting to do the feats that 
 it now accomplishes easily and without 
 harm. 
 
 Education consists in a congeries of use- 
 ful automatisms of brain and body. That 
 person is best educated who has the largest 
 number of correct and efficient ones, and 
 this, at bottom, is all there is of education. 
 Pick it to pieces; analyze it, dissect it, and 
 this is practically what and all you will find 
 it to consist in. Automatism shows in men- 
 tal acts, and even notions and opinions, as 
 truly as in muscular movements; appearing 
 thus, it is learning or education, pure and 
 simple. This may seem at first to be impos- 
 sible; opinions and thought appear so radi- 
 cally different from bodily movements. 
 And they are different, yet a little reflection 
 will show that they all fall into the same 
 category of automatic activities, and are in 
 ultimate analysis alike in making expert- 
 
 222
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 ness, and, if well ordered, in being expert- 
 ness. The phenomenal violinist is not a 
 whit more automatic than the judge on the 
 bench who decides instanter a lot of 
 intricate and momentous questions appar- 
 ently in the most off-hand manner, but cor- 
 rectly; or the captain of the ship, who, from 
 the bridge, decides equally delicate and im- 
 portant questions of navigation in the same 
 rapid manner. In each case the mental at- 
 tention and judgment help, but it is the 
 automatism of the nerve centers, which has 
 been built up by countless repetitions in 
 similar ways, that is the main reliance. 
 Something occurs in court that violates 
 judicial sense and usage, and the judge is 
 instantaneously arrayed against it, and rules 
 accordingly. He does this without taking 
 the trouble to reason about it — the perform- 
 ance is purely automatic. The ship's cap- 
 tain sees an unexpected danger ahead, and a 
 correct remedy comes to him as by instinct. 
 Long before he has time to reason about it, 
 he shouts his orders or makes his signals; 
 then he deliberates as to whether his instinc- 
 tive act was correct, and does it without 
 knowing that he is doing it. The violinist 
 well illustrates both the mental and muscular 
 automatisms. His bow and fingers in their 
 
 223
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 movements, and the cerebral association by 
 which one segment of the series of motions 
 suggests another that follows, show the 
 manual mechanism in a wonderful way. But 
 in the rush of action and sound he presses his 
 finger on a string a twentieth of an inch 
 from its proper place for the right tone, and 
 the slightest discord strikes his ear. Does 
 he stop to reason about the error? Rather, 
 his finger end finds its true place instantly 
 and automatically, and the only other men- 
 tal act that occurs in connection with it 
 may be a sense of chagrin afterward that it 
 has happened. 
 
 Not merely ideas and opinions become 
 automatic, but moral principles and the 
 general quality of conscience as well. And 
 if conscience, then, within limits, conduct 
 also. Severe as it may seem, this is a log- 
 ical conclusion from the premises, and in- 
 volves no violation of good reasoning; in 
 fact, there is no stopping-place short of it 
 after we once admit these elementary truths 
 in mental action; and the truths are as 
 axiomatic as any fact in human physiology. 
 But the conclusion is 7iot severe, it only 
 seems so, and it does not impeach either 
 conscience or conduct. It helps to explain 
 these in a rational way for our better 
 
 224
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 philosophy and comfort. Man makes use 
 of these automatisms through his will or 
 volition; his efficiency and power among 
 men depend upon the number and usefulness 
 of them; they are his expertness. He uses 
 his expertness to contribute to his needs and 
 further his purposes of various kinds; if his 
 expertness is of a high order, and varied, he 
 has, ipso facto, a great collection of the 
 working tools of life. He may neglect to 
 use them or use them unwisely, even fool- 
 ishly, but he has them, and he has also the 
 responsibility of having them, which he 
 cannot shift, even if he would. He must 
 answer, somewhere and somehow, for this 
 responsibility. 
 
 Not only do automatisms of the lower 
 spinal centers give the brain (or mind) free- 
 dom from details and thus increased power 
 for larger things and thinking; but they are 
 a refuge for the brain when, later in life, it 
 begins to flag from certain blood-vessel 
 changes that are incident to age. The 
 brain flags usually because its cortex re- 
 ceives a progressively reduced amount of 
 blood, a commodity that is indispensable to 
 alertness and initiative. It is then that the 
 brain reaches a stage where there is a grow- 
 ing disposition to be content with things as 
 
 225
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 they are; and a few hints and suggestions to 
 the lower nerve centers set up the necessary 
 automatic actions and keep them going, so 
 that there may be the seeming of a normal 
 condition, of fresh energy and the usual 
 cerebral activity. This conservative ar- 
 rangement is the more fortunate since the 
 blood-vessels of the brain are more prone 
 than those of the spinal cord to degenera- 
 tions that lessen the supply of blood to the 
 cells of the part. Perhaps it is a penalty 
 that we have to pay for the intense activity 
 of the brain in early life, that it is the organ 
 which first becomes obnoxious to degener- 
 ative changes that impair its efficiency. 
 
 Let us now go a step farther and see, if 
 we can, what happens in the brain in the 
 growth of automatisms; see what occurs 
 when we learn. 
 
 And first we encounter what appears to 
 be a law in the action of brain cells (the 
 minute bodies that are the functioning part 
 of the organ), which may be stated sub- 
 stantially as follows: that, primarily, brain 
 cells tend to repeat a particular act, rather 
 than do another and different one. A first 
 single evolution makes the repetition of it 
 easier than a new one; so each repetition of 
 a given act fixes more firmly the tendency of 
 
 226
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 the brain in that direction, and renders it 
 less likely that it will fail to be repeated 
 when there is any stimulus toward an evolu- 
 tion of that general character. The ten- 
 dency once firmly established and we have 
 a habit in cerebral function that requires 
 force to disturb or change. Hence brain 
 habits are produced most easily where none 
 have been formed before, and this, of 
 course, means the unploughed field of child- 
 hood, of the brain of youth, a fact that is 
 verified by all the experience of the world. 
 But to say there is a law of action of cells 
 is only one step toward a perfect explana- 
 tion. Why do the cells act in this rather 
 than in some other way? Their health and 
 vigor would naturally seem to be best 
 conserved by a variation in action; same- 
 ness of action in numerous directions means 
 monotony, and why not as a consequence 
 less vigor? It is logical to assume that 
 there must be something in the construc- 
 tion and arrangement of brain cells to ac- 
 count for their laws of function — rather, it is 
 fair to suppose the brain cells would, in 
 their development, come to be so arranged 
 and nourished, and acquire such powers as 
 would enable them to perform their best 
 functions in the economy. The anatomists 
 
 227
 
 , PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 have in late years conceived the relations 
 of brain cells in several successive ways. 
 One of them helps us to explain in a most 
 fascinating manner their peculiar action. 
 The cells are, many of them at least, 
 apparently separated by a minute space 
 from their neighbors — perhaps all are so 
 arranged. If this is true the cell im- 
 pulses must extend in a nuncial manner by 
 indirect continuity from one to another; 
 must plough their way perhaps through an 
 intercellular substance, to make paths for 
 themselves in some fashion that we can 
 probably never quite understand. If any- 
 thing even approaching this arrangement 
 really exists, it is not hard to see how paths 
 of communication would be made and so 
 habits of action formed. The way once 
 blazed through a wilderness is easier to find 
 than a new one, and a well-trodden path is 
 always enticing; a water channel once made 
 in the direction of least resistance entices 
 the water again to flow there by all the laws 
 that govern it. Or, if our fancy makes the 
 brain cells immovable and separated from 
 each other like scattered soldiers forbidden 
 to stir, who can only send messages from 
 one part of a field to another by shouting 
 them, man to man, we shall see how natu- 
 
 228
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 rally the carried word would seek a route 
 that had been traversed before. Into a 
 chain of signal stations, accustomed to 
 each other's signals, new stations would not 
 easily be taken nor the signals be sent 
 through a new channel, as long as the old 
 one serv^ed. 
 
 While the histology of the future may dis- 
 turb the obvious physical basis for such a 
 scheme as the one here suggested, some such 
 theory is likely to stand for a working basis 
 in our study of mental automatisms. 
 
 Of the automatisms there can be no ques- 
 tion, nor of the influences that produce 
 them. Some people automatize slowly, 
 others, rapidly; some require few, others 
 many, repetitions of thought and move- 
 ment to accomplish a fixation of either; and 
 all automatize in certain directions easier 
 than in others. Such differences are due to 
 personal variation and do not discredit but 
 rather prove the theory on which all expert- 
 ness must be explained. 
 
 Changing an automatism or displacing one 
 by another may cost more in effort than the 
 original one did. Habits are hard to break; 
 the older and more fixed they are, the 
 greater the difficulty. And the difficulty 
 grows, too, with the radicalness of the 
 
 229
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 change attempted; to introduce a wholly 
 nov^el automatism that runs counter to those 
 already long in existence is always hard; 
 but one acquisition may help another when 
 along lines that are not dissimilar. Chang- 
 ing one pen-stroke in writing may be dis- 
 tinctly helped by the habits already formed 
 as to all the combinations of pen move- 
 ments, when to change the character of all 
 of one's handwriting might be extremely 
 difificult. By attempting only one change 
 at a time and a slight one, the mental atten- 
 tion is concentrated upon that and cognate 
 habits may assist in producing it. So cor- 
 rect habits may help the formation of other 
 and desirable ones that are more or less re- 
 lated. But, of course, the most economical 
 method is to start right, and build up the 
 education of the mind in such a logical way 
 as to involve the necessity of the fewest 
 changes possible. To have to unlearn is 
 always a waste of energy, however it may 
 increase a sense of moderation as well as of 
 wisdom. And educators have not been the 
 least among the sinners in their treatment 
 of the young, for they have been too prone 
 to violate all proportion and cause children 
 to form useless habits, as well as useful ones 
 in an illogical manner. 
 
 230
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 Yet it is impossible to have the mental 
 automatisms of a child created in such 
 sequence as to have nothing to unlearn, 
 especially as to minor elements. The child 
 misconceives the meanings of most words at 
 first, and therefore must unlearn a good 
 deal. Novel words have for him too wide 
 or too narrow a meaning, and he must cor- 
 rect his first impressions and usages as time 
 goes on and his experience widens. The 
 same statement holds as to physical move- 
 ments; many errors in manual habits require 
 correction as expertness grows. So all 
 through life there is changing, lopping off 
 here and making additions there, in build- 
 ing our automatic character of expertness of 
 mind and body in every sort. It is more or 
 less of a constant metamorphosis, but each 
 automatism may help or be the basis of, or 
 the fulcrum for, further changes of a slight 
 degree. It is where the demand is for 
 wholly new ones, such as run squarely 
 counter to every phase of a completed autom- 
 atism, that the strain is severe and the loss 
 of energy and time probably greatest. Here 
 it is not a metamorpiiosis but a revolution in 
 habits that is required; yet, it is accom- 
 plished, in a way, if there is enough patience. 
 But it is not brought about by the complete 
 
 231
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 destruction of all the vestiges of the old 
 automatisms; new ones may be created that 
 will control for many years, but the old ones 
 are only laid aside, the paths are unused, 
 grown up with the weeds of neglect and per- 
 haps not trodden for decades, but the search- 
 ing brain can, any day, easily find them out. 
 Take a sexagenarian who learned farm 
 work when he was a boy, and who has not 
 done a stroke of it for forty years. Let him 
 some day grasp the plow handles and throw 
 the reins over his neck, and see what a per- 
 fect furrow he can turn! Or, take him to 
 the woods with an axe and see how adept 
 he is as a wood-chopper, after a genera- 
 tion's neglect of the exercise. The plow- 
 ing and wood-chopping were useful kinds of 
 skill, filled a creditable part of the man's 
 career and were stepping-stones to better 
 things in a life of honor. But there are 
 habits formed early in life that are neither 
 useful in themselves nor helpful toward 
 better ones for later usefulness, and their 
 creation is at best a waste of energy — always 
 to be deplored. 
 
 I have hinted at the possible loss in vigor 
 of brain cells by reason of the restriction in 
 function due to automatic action. The idea 
 gains some support from the normal avidity 
 
 232
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 for recreation shown by the more wholesome 
 people. And recreation and play consist in 
 activities that are radically different from 
 those most employed in our daily work- 
 lives. Denizens of the city go to the woods, 
 play golf, fish and hunt; and get away as far 
 as possible from all the cares and emotions 
 of the artificial and intense life of the town. 
 People from the country, the frontier and 
 the sea, seek the cities for novelty and 
 change. In each case the change brings 
 rest to the functions and forces that have 
 borne the work and the duty; and exercises 
 those that have been idle, and so the gen- 
 eral vigor is maintained. 
 
 And the power of the automatisms is not 
 lost, nor is their force abated, for after the 
 recreation is over, the rested cells, inured to 
 the automatic action, take up their work 
 with more vigor and certainty than before. 
 
 Tired out cells lose their reliability of 
 action even in the most automatic direc- 
 tions, and become fitful and uncertain. This 
 uncertainty of action is a sure sign of the 
 need of rest and recreation, which are the 
 basis, next to food, of the most remarkable 
 restorations of power. Our daily sleep does 
 this service for us to a slight degree, but we 
 often work beyond the power of sleep to 
 
 233
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 keep the cells up to par, and must seek other 
 and wider influences for restoration. 
 
 Man's place in nature is determined 
 largely by the character of his expertness, 
 and the way it is acquired. If it were all of 
 the instinctive variety, his capacities would 
 be few and narrow; he would have little 
 power to adjust himself to new conditions 
 and difficulties. In the midst of a struggle 
 for existence he would have little advantage 
 over the rest of the animal kingdom. If a 
 hundred generations were required to teach 
 man a new art, as is necessary for the ani- 
 mals, he would go to the wall in the general 
 contest. But in one generation he may 
 learn a hundred new arts that have never, in 
 all the existence of his race, been thought of 
 before, and so be able to conquer the world. 
 The little addition to its manual power, 
 which the animal caught in a single gener- 
 ation, was for its obvious and immediate 
 needs; while man reasons for another place 
 and another day, and does things that have 
 no obvious meaning for his immediate 
 needs, but are potent for ulterior power. 
 And it is the ulterior power that conquers — 
 that guards against accidents, and provides 
 resources. 
 
 But man has instinctive tendencies, if not 
 
 234
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 instinct, although he seems not to have 
 either. These tendencies crop out when it 
 is found that a developing child learns easier 
 than the average those acts that his ancestors 
 were adepts at. This is something, if not 
 much, and is the basis of the peculiar 
 powers of the so-called genius. The learn- 
 ing is sometimes so easy that it looks as 
 if the child had the knowledge untaught. 
 But this is not true; all the powers and ex- 
 pertness of man must be acquired from noth- 
 ing, through his long youth and pupilage of 
 at least a fifth of a century. And the time 
 is not wasted. It is filled with oppor- 
 tunities for development and change, for 
 new adaptations to the purposes of his exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Nor does the character of expertness, and 
 the somewhat mechanical explanation of 
 it, detract from the dignity of body and 
 soul. In the first place, it is not beneath 
 us to explain the mechanism, if we can, of 
 any even abstruse function or power that 
 we possess. It could not detract from the 
 glory of the human soul for us to dissect 
 it if we could, and know its uttermost 
 quality. There will forever be mystery 
 enough in the mind and body of man, in 
 spite of all our study and discoveries. 
 
 235
 
 PHYSICAL BASIS OF EXPERTNESS 
 
 To know the real quality of man's expert- 
 ness adds perceptibly to his dignity and 
 importance. For it shows that he is very 
 distinctly not a creature of a fixed rule, ex- 
 cept such a rule as he in part creates; nor 
 an automaton fated to live a fixed and pre- 
 determined life. Rather it reveals him as 
 possessing the greatest prerogative that can 
 belong to a conscious being — the ability to 
 measure, in some degree, the automatisms 
 he builds up for himself, and, within certain 
 limits, the power to direct and control them, 
 and so, in some measure, to be the arbiter 
 of his own career — the creator of his own 
 character. 
 
 236
 
 The Discordant Children
 
 The Discordant Children 
 
 Much of the world's philosophy of human 
 life is very old. It must be true, or it would 
 not have found acceptance so long. It has 
 been uttered by meditative minds through 
 the centuries, and always along the same 
 general lines. Each student has threshed it 
 over, and evolved an expression of it a little 
 different from that of the rest, and perhaps 
 somewhat original, but the essential prin- 
 ciples are the same. Plato and Aristotle 
 said it before the days of the Christ; and 
 since then Marcus Aurelius and Goethe and 
 Emerson, and many others, have told vari- 
 ously a similar story — each probably telling 
 it better than any other for the particular 
 time and for the people who were listening. 
 And there have been unnumbered silent 
 souls who have thought it all out for them- 
 selves and by themselves and alone. 
 
 This philosophy has guided society in its 
 evolution and development; it has made 
 society, and has itself been made by the 
 needs of society; and its work has been good. 
 
 239
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 It has always been rich in its recognition of 
 the meaning of childhood. Children are 
 the men and women of to-morrow, and the 
 hope of all time. Their proper care is the 
 most potent influence of society upon itself 
 and the human race. 
 
 Pre-eminently, the philosophy common to 
 the world applies to the obvious needs, 
 wants and defects of mankind for the par- 
 ticular day and generation. The hidden, 
 the recondite, have been left for the modern 
 student of sociology and political economy 
 to find out, and the discovery always comes 
 through laborious effort. We easily grasp 
 the palpable; maybe the hidden is more vital, 
 but that we are apt to slur over and neglect. 
 
 The axioms of the centuries have the same 
 ring in any language: In the long run virtue 
 and honesty pay best. The largest sum 
 total of happiness in the life of a soul is the 
 goal of its duty. Cultivate the industrial 
 faculties of a boy, and it will make a hardy 
 and forceful man of him. Truth is mighty, 
 and consists with the universe. — These and 
 similar doctrines are very old and altogether 
 true; and they are as wholesome for all men 
 as the morning sunshine. They are the 
 self-evident heritage of all time, and have 
 ceased to be remarkable. 
 
 240
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 But the old philosophers could not know 
 that a micro-organism breeding in the 
 human blood could weaken the body, and 
 so decimate a race and force it to the back- 
 ground in its struggle for national life; or 
 that insanity is not the possession of a devil, 
 but a manifestation of disease of the brain 
 that is to some degree preventable and 
 curable; or that a better selection of food 
 and better ventilation and sewerage could 
 lessen the death rate, and make a race, start- 
 ing in poverty and nothingness, to rise and 
 dominate the earth. 
 
 We understand and try to provide for the 
 every-day manifest needs of the average 
 children, and of men and women. Society 
 has devised or evolved rather elaborate 
 rules for many of these requirements. So 
 of the very evident defects — and the rules 
 for both classes work fairly well. We turn 
 easily to the study of the insane, the crim- 
 inal classes, the imbeciles, and the otherwise 
 defective. This later day has witnessed 
 great changes and improvement along these 
 lines, in the humanities, and for the rescue 
 and protection of the weak. 
 
 In the general education of the masses the 
 gain has been enormous. Better methods 
 have obtained, and so better results, and 
 
 241
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 more power and effectiveness in the work of 
 life. Education has become more easy and 
 interesting, more broad and practical. The 
 great body of normal mankind in enlight- 
 ened countries is to-day probably better off 
 in these particulars, as well as in general, 
 than ever before. 
 
 But there is a large class of people in 
 moral and mental twilight who do not belong 
 to the normal members of the race, to be 
 governed by the various rules which we de- 
 vise, and who are not so apparently of the 
 defective classes as to make it easy for us to 
 deal with them as such. They are not in- 
 sane or imbecile; nor are many of them true 
 degenerates; but they are not normal as 
 measured by the figures of average people, 
 and the rules for such cannot fairly be ap- 
 plied to them. They are wayward, erratic 
 and unmanageable; they are irascible and 
 discordant. Yet, because they are not 
 clearly of the defective classes we mostly 
 insist on forcing them, theoretically at least, 
 into the category of the strictly normal to 
 which all the rules for the majority are ap- 
 plicable. We are slow to discover and seem 
 reluctant to believe that there is a discordant 
 class. 
 
 It is one of our fads to believe that people 
 
 242
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 should be able to fit into the usual grooves; 
 that they are sufficiently alike to be amen- 
 able to the same moral and mental statutes. 
 And we fly to the conclusion that those who 
 do not readily fit the rules we make for the 
 race, can be made to fit them. Like 
 Procrustes of old, we would cut off the 
 metaphoric legs of those who are too long, 
 and stretch out those who are too short to 
 fit the special bed we have devised for them 
 all alike. In some sense and with some- 
 body we attempt this maneuver every day of 
 our lives. 
 
 We say a child needs such and such in- 
 fluences; and should be treated thus and so. 
 That is to say, the average child; but the 
 exceptions are legion. The usual calcula- 
 tion of what is necessary is easy, but it 
 ignores all the cases that vary from the com- 
 mon type; and good sense, as well as com- 
 mon fairness, requires that we should deal 
 with children on the basis of what they are, 
 rather than what we may calculate they 
 ought to be. 
 
 Most children of moderate minds do fit 
 the ordinances of society. They can follow 
 the program made for the majority and can 
 do it easily, or without much friction, and 
 not collapse in doing it. They are adjusted 
 
 243
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 by nature to the routine which society has 
 mapped out as best for the family of man as 
 a whole. The routine is made for the 
 majority; and so is adjusted to their needs. 
 And the majority are like docile domestic 
 animals; they do not try to get out of the 
 traces or away from the reins and the hal- 
 ters provided for them. 
 
 But some do not and cannot fit the condi- 
 tions fixed for the majority. They do not 
 fall into the grooves of the average child, 
 and they cannot be forced into them suc- 
 cessfully. They are misfits, rebellious and 
 out of sympathy with their environment. 
 They make up the mass of the truant chil- 
 dren in the community, those whose parents 
 cannot keep them continuously located. 
 They often have a deeply grounded dislike 
 for their parents and can barely tolerate 
 them. They are off to the street and into 
 manifold kinds of mischief. Most of them 
 fib; some of them steal; they often approach 
 the border line of crime; sometimes they 
 step over it and are arrested. Their friends 
 bail them out and hush up their peccadillos; 
 they get into trouble again and run afoul of 
 the law, and are repeatedly taken into cus- 
 tody — some are sent to the reform school, 
 and later, some to the penitentiary. Many 
 
 244
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 of the milder examples run away from 
 home, travel, roam about for months or 
 years; the worst ones do the unnatural crimes, 
 even murder, that are the wonder of society 
 and despair of the economists. 
 
 These are the discordant children whose 
 music is inharmony and stridor. They rep- 
 resent every shade and variation of abnor- 
 mality within the range of the definition, 
 from a moderate degree of divergence to the 
 extremes of degeneracy. But as a working 
 basis for the study of them, they may be 
 divided into three classes. 
 
 The first class is the smallest one, and the 
 worst in degree of perversion. It is com- 
 posed of those who have congenital qualities 
 that make it impossible for them to live and 
 work harmoniously with their wholesome 
 fellows, or with the social conditions about 
 them. They are in constant rebellion 
 against these conditions and against the 
 rules of society which the majority find no 
 objection to. Some of them are degener- 
 ates; they have irregularly shaped heads 
 and bodies, and warped mental estimates. 
 They are not in harmony with anything; 
 they often run to intense passions of many 
 kinds, and these often lead to crime. At 
 first pleased with a set of novel conditions, 
 
 245
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 they soon tire of them and begin to rebel; and 
 they do this in any wholesome environment, 
 and they are substantially always in trouble. 
 A second class is made up of such as ap- 
 parently have the same sort of warping of 
 nature as the first; who rebel as vigorously 
 at times, but who in certain conditions and 
 surroundings — certain associations — are as 
 placid and harmonious as the most normal. 
 They are the balky horses of human life; 
 they kick and hold back and refuse to work 
 or play at certain times and under particular 
 circumstances, and all the whipping and 
 abuse possible cannot change them. They 
 pull well and are good tempered at other 
 times. We are always at a loss for the ex- 
 planation for all this — but the horses know a 
 part of the reason, only they cannot speak 
 and say. So the children know in part, but 
 they cannot tell correctly, even if they 
 would. They are often irritated by their 
 own families; rather, they are abnormally 
 irritable to their own, but they get on well 
 with strangers. If carried too far their 
 irascibility with their own people becomes 
 a form of lunacy. They are often truants; 
 they hate school and devise all sorts of 
 schemes to deceive and outwit those who 
 would help and control them. 
 
 246
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 Such children may easily be exasperated by 
 hateful conditions into committing suicide 
 or other crimes; yet under favorable influ- 
 ences they may become exemplary citizens. 
 They do not commit misdemeanors from a 
 sense of duty as the first class often seem to. 
 
 The first class are essentially lawless, and 
 go wrong almost unavoidably — they are 
 against the status quo and the government, 
 whatever these may be. The second are 
 rebellious only when the misfit with the 
 environment exists. Bring about a right 
 adjustment, and from raging furies these 
 children become gentle and docile. And a 
 right adjustment may usually be found; 
 there are conditions in which every member 
 of this class is fitted to live, and can live 
 with pleasure and without rebellion. Each 
 child yearns for and seeks those conditions; 
 it does not seek or wish for a life of discord; 
 it strives to find the lines where it can move 
 in peace — and it tries many experiments 
 and makes frequent blunders in the search, 
 but keeps on trying. 
 
 These two classes of children naturally 
 blend more or less into each other. The 
 second class is vastly the larger of the two; 
 the marked degenerates and those who are 
 always in rebellion are a small minority of 
 
 247
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 the whole. But the two classes have one 
 characteristic in common: their discordant 
 traits are, within limits, constant through 
 life; these may be changed somewhat by- 
 care and training (and those of the second 
 class change most), but they are never 
 wholly eradicated. 
 
 There is a third and a very large class of 
 discordant children, composed of those who 
 manifest the defects and perversity only 
 through a certain period, and often a rather 
 early period, of their lives. They grow or 
 evolve out of their friction and lawlessness 
 by the march of time. Each half decade 
 witnesses some change in their behavior 
 toward those who are associated with them, 
 especially in the direction of adjustment. 
 Sometimes a radical change occurs sud- 
 denly—and becomes permanent. Their 
 rebellion is usually greatest in the earlier 
 years, say up to the age of fifteen, after 
 which there is a decided change for the 
 better. One marked characteristic of many 
 of these — of all the classes for that matter — 
 is their disregard for the rights, conveniences 
 and feelings of others. This is a defect 
 that is founded in selfishness, as are most of 
 the discords of all the children under discus- 
 sion; as well as those of most men and 
 
 248
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 women. And selfishness does not end with 
 the fifteenth year, nor usually through life, 
 but it changes then, and thereafter conspires 
 more toward gaining the good opinions of 
 others; and this gives an altruistic shade to 
 it that is refreshing. The rowdy of a boy, 
 careless of himself and blind to the feelings 
 of others, suddenly becomes a gentleman, 
 and he does not know why or how. He 
 does many of the things that gentlemen do, 
 and drops his loud, loutish unkemptness 
 and becomes fit for the fondness of others, 
 which he grows to covet. To specify one 
 of the psychologic differences we might say 
 that he has become less brutally selfish, and 
 taken on more refinement of conceit — which 
 is only another form of selfishness. But 
 then he is more amenable to the behests of 
 society and more endurable to others; he is 
 less a barbarian. He has suddenly ceased 
 to be a problem for the publicists; he is an 
 attractive member of society and may re- 
 main so through life. From being himself 
 one of the unfortunates and a subject for the 
 solicitude of others, he suddenly becomes 
 one of those who study the unfortunates and 
 help them. 
 
 The different classes of erratic children 
 need different modes of treatment. They 
 
 249
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 cannot all be helped much, some can hardly 
 be helped at all; but most of them can be 
 improved somewhat if they are dealt with in 
 the right way. 
 
 Class number one offers the most serious 
 and the most nearly hopeless problem. 
 Their fixedness of morbid impulses, their 
 discords with everything about them, and 
 their proof against good influences that 
 strongly move other children, mostly take 
 them out of the reach of our efforts. But 
 the fact that many of them may be changed 
 a little, and a few greatly, should constrain 
 us to persist with limitless patience, in a 
 search for the influence that may help them. 
 
 Classes two and three can be helped very 
 much and easily if the right course is pur- 
 sued. There is no justification for the loss 
 of any of them; yet our bungling and hesi- 
 tation — due in part to the annoyance that 
 most such children give their parents and 
 friends, and the failure to understand them, 
 make most of our efforts in their behalf 
 rather nugatory. There is generally de- 
 voted to them a large amount of energy that 
 by its misdirection is almost thrown away; 
 the children grow up, worry along, experi- 
 ment with themselves in a fatuous way and 
 run amuck of the world; and end finally in 
 
 250
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 success or failure, as they may. They nearly 
 all (especially the third group) come out 
 right if let alone, and if allowed to evolve 
 with the smallest amount of interference. 
 Too much training does them harm, and 
 they usually receive too much. 
 
 What to do with the discordant children 
 is the paramount question. That they can- 
 not be dealt with like the average child is no 
 reason for ignoring them, or throwing their 
 claims aside as of no consequence. In deal- 
 ing with them we should, as far as we are con- 
 cerned, divest the problem of all fiction and 
 foolish notions, and consider it as we would 
 any other problem, deliberatively, and as far 
 from morbid emotion as possible. Least of 
 all should we regard the discordant child as 
 a disgrace to the family, to be spoken of 
 under the breath and to be shamed for his 
 perversity. His traits are innately no more 
 disgraceful than it is to dislike a certain 
 diet; and the fact that a child does not like 
 oat-meal and cheese is no reason why he 
 should not be nourished by other foods — • 
 these are not the only pabulum for the 
 human body, and it is even conceivable that 
 the child is right and that oat-meal and 
 cheese are not the best for him or for any of 
 us. The disgrace obtains only in a failure 
 
 251
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 to seek the right food for body and soul. 
 Neither should such a child be regarded as 
 an invalid, to be coddled and indulged like 
 a baby. These children have some of the 
 best energy of the world, which may be 
 extremely useful or very much of a nui- 
 sance to society, and they should early feel, 
 if they can feel, that they have large re- 
 sponsibilities in their own conduct. 
 
 How to select the right course of manage- 
 ment for each of them, varying as they do so 
 widely and so radically, is the most perplex- 
 ing of problems. We can never hope, with 
 the fallibility of our minds, to solve it per- 
 fectly for all the cases; but if we can see the 
 condition of a part of them ameliorated — 
 even a small part — we ought to have abun- 
 dant satisfaction. In our blundering efforts 
 and halting purposes we shall often apply 
 the wrong treatment and misuse the best 
 possible measures, and so cause them to 
 work wrong. But we can at least try, and 
 there are a few cardinal facts and principles 
 that, if we study and follow them, ought to 
 minify our errors and make our success at 
 least apparent. 
 
 The first great step to consider in the right 
 management of these children is in the 
 physical direction, or rather the medical 
 
 252
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 direction; as the foremost fact about many 
 of them is that their misfortunes are due to 
 the reflex effect on the nervous system of 
 some local physical irritation, or of some 
 wrong stimulation. The irritations are 
 alarmingly common, mostly curable, and 
 alone produce many of the cases; that is, 
 without them many of the worst ones would 
 be perfectly normal children. The irrita- 
 tions often start in early childhood and con- 
 tinue for many years, producing an incessant, 
 slow, sometimes exasperating sort of grind- 
 ing upon the nervous tolerance, that makes 
 the victim as far from what he otherwise 
 would be, as a maniac is from tranquil 
 sanity. And the saddest fact about it is 
 that after the irritation has existed for 
 several years the nervous equation and tem- 
 per of the child are changed for life; new 
 and bad nervous habits and vicious emotions 
 have been formed that will not stop even 
 after the original cause is gone. Hence the 
 rule should be invariable to remove the irri- 
 tations early, wherever and whatever they 
 may be. They mostly are discoverable, yet, 
 as to some of them, parents are apt to ignore 
 their existence, or even refuse to believe in 
 their possibility. 
 
 The physical irritations are of course not 
 
 253
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 all of the same measure of harmfulness. 
 Those that do not worry the nervous system 
 do little harm, but those that worry it do 
 injury always. The problem of the dis- 
 cordant children is the problem of the erratic 
 brain and nervous system; and undue ex- 
 citement of this system in childhood and 
 youth can never fail to do it the most posi- 
 tive harm. The damage, produced through 
 the months (other things being equal) is 
 probably always in the ratio of the irrita- 
 bility of the nerves of the part that is in- 
 volved — and in children these nerves are 
 often the nameless ones that are the very 
 quick of life. 
 
 For parents and caretakers of children to 
 say they are ignorant that such irritations 
 often exist, is to confess that they do not 
 observe the children growing up under their 
 very eyes, or that they are not on confiden- 
 tial terms with them, or have not the cour- 
 age to be frank with them as to the things 
 that most concern their feelings and affect 
 their lives. These confessions are lamen- 
 table, and have to be made for and by the 
 majority of parents; but none of them nor 
 all of them can excuse one for so great an 
 unfairness to a child. And of all the sins 
 in the category of unmeant wickedness few 
 
 254
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 can surpass that of a parent who bars his 
 child from coming to him with open frank- 
 ness as to the closest friend, about those 
 unfortunate if not reprehensible things that 
 are uppermost in his mind, because they 
 are uppermost to his nerves. The thing 
 most evident to the nerves is sure to be 
 uppermost in the mind; indeed, often, close 
 mental attention to much beside some en- 
 grossing nervous sensation is quite impos- 
 sible. You charge a child again and again 
 to remember his errands and the details of 
 what you tell him. But your words come 
 in at one ear and go out at the other; he is 
 absorbed with his sensations and his dis- 
 torted notions of their meaning, and he will 
 not heed and cannot remember. 
 
 That the proprieties of life should become 
 its pruderies, and lead us often to sins of 
 omission to the children, is the saddest 
 miscarriage of good purposes. When the 
 child comcj to you, or tries to, with a sliver 
 in his finger and you say, "Hush, hush, that 
 is not to be talked of; just look at the stars, 
 behold the trees and the flowers," you give 
 him precisely the comfort of a blow in the 
 face. The waves of the sea will not be still 
 at your bidding. And if you try to hide 
 from your child, and yourself ignore, a 
 
 255
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 quarter of his nature, and then permit his 
 nerves to remind him of that quarter per- 
 petually, you ought to expect to fail, as you 
 will fail. It is left for the older people, 
 who are farther removed from the spon- 
 taneity of nature, to say and believe, out of 
 a rhapsody of putative religious fervor, that 
 there is no sliver and no pain. The child 
 knows better, he sees through the decep- 
 tion and will have none of it. On one basis 
 only will he ignore the pain, namely, that 
 it is admitted to exist and to be unpleasant, 
 and that it may and must be borne, with 
 what stoicism he can command. 
 
 After the physical irritations, next in 
 degree of power to lower the tone of the 
 brain and nerves, stand the various stimula- 
 tions, whether by alcoholic or other poisons 
 of the brain like tea, coffee and tobacco, or 
 unwholesome emotions; and lack of tran- 
 quil rest and sleep. Children should live 
 by food only and without stimulants or emo- 
 tions beyond their years and be well nour- 
 ished constantly. Modern society is much 
 disposed to forget these truths, and slow to 
 learn that in violating them a child may 
 mortgage its future more effectually than a 
 man can by any means in his power. 
 
 On the moral side it is quite as important 
 
 256
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 to be candid and frank with the discordant 
 children — as, for that matter, with all chil- 
 dren. The self-respect of the individual 
 ought, if possible, to be conserved. No 
 ordinary man can do the best that is in him, 
 or anything approaching it, if he has the 
 sense of humiliation and of being belittled 
 and degraded. The larger and the more 
 self-poised the man the more he is insensible 
 to these emotions, and a few stoical philos- 
 ophers are able to ignore them entirely when 
 deeply engrossed with some purpose. But 
 children cannot do this, nor should we 
 expect them to — their egoism and self-con- 
 sciousness are far too great for that. 
 
 A child's sense of fairness is acute; and it 
 is too potent and valuable a quality to be 
 lost. Children, like men, do best when 
 dealt with fairly, candidly, and without 
 mystery or subterfuge. A great influence 
 over a boy is often lost by his discovering 
 that what he calls a trick has been practised 
 upon him. Boys hate tricks when they are 
 the victims, and their monitors are the 
 authors of them. A trick may be taken 
 in good part from a fellow, but never from 
 a teacher or parent. 
 
 A great gain is made if you can evoke in 
 the mind of a discordant child an interest in 
 
 257
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 something besides mischief, and resistance, 
 apparently for the fun of it, to the wishes 
 and purposes of others. And a little en- 
 couragement, and direction of some natural 
 bent of the child is often all that is needful. 
 His wholesome natural impulses, if he has 
 any, may often be used to re-create him. 
 
 A sense of responsibility has great moder- 
 ating value and it ought to be encouraged 
 even to the extent of many fads and whims. 
 To take up or have some useful aim (or 
 even a useless one if pursued with conti- 
 nuity) is to remove much of the boy's misfit 
 with his surroundings. The instant he is 
 permitted or encouraged to do something or 
 have something, and imagine himself of 
 some of the consequence of manhood, the 
 leaven has begun to work. 
 
 Parents often frown on some boy ambition 
 in play-work because it has no obvious con- 
 nection with the business of life, when it 
 has the greatest possible value in the ex- 
 panding of the boy himself. This latter is, 
 during boyhood, the paramount business of 
 life. Parents unable to see this, make the 
 boys unhappy in their collecting of stamps 
 or some less useful things, the training of 
 their dogs and the building of their boats 
 and machines, when these are the very 
 
 258
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 exercises that foreshadow and prepare for 
 the duties of mature years — these apparently 
 useless pursuits are the tentative homo- 
 logues of the larger things of the man's 
 career. 
 
 When the boy comes to take up the work 
 of life, or try to prepare for it, he has a 
 right to be consulted about the course to 
 pursue, and ought not, against strong dis- 
 likes, to be forced into an occupation that 
 his elders believe him fitted for. History is 
 replete with failures that have resulted from 
 this bad policy — the policy has not suc- 
 ceeded, but has increased the discord and 
 rebellion, and some of the failures are world- 
 famous. 
 
 It is absurd to force a boy to continue 
 long in a line of literary study when he 
 wishes to be a machinist. If he will take 
 up outdoor or shop work, and rebels against 
 the classics, he has a right to his way about 
 it, and society has the right to have him 
 have it. The chances are that he will 
 eagerly take up any practical study in 
 mechanical or manual lines that may be 
 offered him. But he should not be forced 
 to do even this; nor should any child be 
 given an elaborate education at the point of 
 the bayonet. I know that substantially the 
 
 259
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 contrary is the contention of the hour, but it 
 is a species of nonsense that has done a vast 
 amount of mischief. The right rule is to 
 give any child an education who desires it 
 and will work for it, and who will make it 
 tell for greater usefulness and happiness. 
 But if there is substantial reason to force 
 study and education on any one, it holds 
 for the discordant child; for intellectual 
 pursuits more than anything else may re- 
 move the discord. Only the scheme will 
 probably fail if he discovers that he is being 
 forced. All thought of compulsion disap- 
 pears however when the child shows, as he 
 usually does, strong avidity for such studies 
 as object-lesson work and manual training; 
 and botany, geology, and other sciences 
 when taken up practically and pursued in 
 the woods, the mountains or by the sea. No 
 caterpillar ever changed more in becoming 
 a butterfly than many boys who have hated 
 the restraint of the schoolroom and pure 
 book study, change when they are liberated 
 to this practical sort of schooling. It is like 
 going from dungeon bars to light and free- 
 dom. 
 
 It is wrong to ridicule a young person 
 because he tries several occupations before 
 finding the right one or the one he is satis- 
 
 260
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 fied with. It is his misfortune that he vac- 
 illates, rarely his fault, and it may require 
 numerous trials and tests before he is settled 
 into the right groove. Some are unable to 
 stay long in any one groove; they are always 
 looking for the right one for a permanency, 
 and never quite find it. Their fault is a 
 nervous one, sometimes a nervous disease 
 that they cannot avoid. They are nervous 
 and vacillating through life and cannot 
 help it. It seems to require such to make a 
 world — all cannot have the ideal stability 
 and sustained power. The newly discovered 
 disorder of hyperthyroidation explains 
 some, perhaps most, of these cases. If 
 most of them, then a sovereign remedy for it 
 would be the greatest possible benefaction 
 to the world, for it would radically change 
 the character of society. 
 
 If a child is discontented and rebellious it 
 is better to let him try different pursuits, 
 diversions and studies, in the hope of his 
 finding the one that can engage and tran- 
 quilize his mind. But he should be made to 
 feel his own large responsibility in the mat- 
 ter, and be spared the vicious influence of 
 thinking that everything must be done for 
 him, and that he need do nothing for him- 
 self. To set a boy up at great expense in 
 
 261
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 several successive kinds of business to be 
 failed in, as rich parents are wont to do, 
 often adds to his demoralization. Such 
 cases illustrate in a negative way some of 
 the advantages in being poor. 
 
 It is a great step forward when one of 
 these children comes to desire to win and 
 have the respect of worthy people. And 
 the entering wedge is often the act of mak- 
 ing him feel that such people have an inter- 
 est in him. If he is once touched in this 
 way he is saved indeed. 
 
 But the encouragement to this end is pre- 
 cisely the thing we are likely not to offer. 
 It is easier to pursue the method of vindic- 
 tive punishment, to lash and scold and snarl 
 at the wayward children, a method that too 
 often leads to a course of sustained resist- 
 ance that has a touch of the heroic. We 
 may not justify the resistance, but we can 
 hardly wonder at it, and are often reluc- 
 tantly compelled to admire it. 
 
 The late Superintendent Rowland, of Chi- 
 cago, was one day sitting in the office of a 
 school principal when an intelligent but 
 dogged looking boy entered the room with 
 a note from his teacher, telling of some 
 fresh disobedience, and saying that her 
 resources in controlling him were ex- 
 
 262
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 hausted. The principal turned to Rowland 
 in despair and recited (in the presence of 
 the boy) a long catalogue of punishments 
 that had been inflicted on him to compel 
 obedience and good conduct. He had been 
 suspended repeatedly, and expelled once or 
 twice and taken back again; his parents had 
 whipped him often, and the principal had 
 flogged him at their request; and he had 
 received sundry other refinements of humili- 
 ation and torture, including starvation, cold, 
 and a general withholding of the pleasures 
 of boy life. But, like an embodiment of 
 total depravity, he had grown worse rather 
 than better. Would Mr. Howland suggest 
 an expedient? Yes, he would, and it was to 
 leave the boy with him for half an hour. 
 
 Once alone with him Howland began 
 to ask questions about the boy's life, his 
 parents, brothers, sisters and friends; his 
 birthplace and residence; his nationality 
 and traditions; and about his games and 
 amusements. Then he told of the sports of 
 his own childhood, and discussed with the 
 boy the relative merits of the games at the 
 two periods; and finally about his own 
 studies, then the boy's studies, and the 
 experiences in learning, and the relative 
 merits of the different studies and their 
 
 263
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 value in after life. And the boy freely ex- 
 pressed his opinions. When the principal 
 returned Rowland said to the boy: "You 
 may go back to your room now. I shall be 
 glad to discuss these matters further with 
 you sometime." 
 
 In three months Rowland came again, 
 when the principal eagerly asked him what 
 he had done to the incorrigible boy when 
 left alone with him at his previous visit. 
 Re replied, "I did nothing. Why do you 
 ask?" "I ask because he has, from that 
 hour, been a changed being; he is the best 
 boy in the whole school." And so he was. 
 Re was a new soul born into the civilized 
 world, and all because, perhaps, for the first 
 time in his life, a man of his largest estima- 
 tion had actually talked with him for thirty 
 minutes, and had conferred with him as 
 though he had a mind and a soul, and was 
 worthy of consideration. The confidence 
 of a larger nature had touched him; he had 
 felt the tingle of it as a new responsibility, 
 and had risen to its level. Morally he had 
 grown a foot taller in that brief time. The 
 new birth to a better purpose, that befell 
 this boy, is what occurs in hundreds of the 
 undegenerate discordant children; occurs by 
 a single act or event, some unexpected, per- 
 
 264
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 haps momentary influence that happens for 
 the time to put a better impulse of the child 
 in control of him where a worse one had 
 governed, and the better element may then 
 guide him through life. This is the great 
 transformation to strive for with all these 
 unfortunate children. That such a sudden 
 alteration is possible, such a complete 
 change in the moral nature, and that the 
 new phase will often continue for life, is 
 one of the most amazing as well as encourag- 
 ing facts in human life and nature. 
 
 The correction and punishment of chil- 
 dren is always a bitter problem. There are 
 numerous kinds of punishment and several 
 effects on the child that are undesirable — a 
 few that are desirable. He is either re- 
 pentant and resolves to be good; or he finds 
 the smart makes the fun of the mischief un- 
 profitable; or he finds that the occupation 
 growing out of the discipline takes the place 
 of the roguery, and so he forgets the latter; 
 or he is ugly and mad to the core, and stays 
 so. 
 
 The thing most to be wished is, of course, 
 that he who is chastised shall be chastened, 
 be better and not worse for it, nor more em- 
 bittered in spirit. This is not likely to re- 
 sult if the sentence is vindictive, or given in 
 
 265
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 anger, or to conserve the injured dignity of 
 the older person, or on a strictly punitive 
 basis, i. e., so much offense, so much pun- 
 ishment. Given in either of these ways 
 punishment is likely to harm the child, and 
 sure to harm the giver of it. 
 
 The only safe and altogether wholesome 
 sort of punishment is that which, in a way, 
 suggests and controls itself; what some like 
 to call retributive punishment, because it 
 seems to grow naturally out of the offense, 
 as when a boy is made to pick up the 
 potatoes he has spilled; to work and pay 
 for the dishes he has broken. This kind of 
 treatment is free from the vice of minister- 
 ing to the egoism of the monitors as shown 
 in their anger, or conceit; the children 
 themselves, the best natural judges of 
 ethics, know this and are better for it. 
 Such punishment, if strictly speaking it is 
 punishment, which I doubt, is one of the 
 most helpful exercises for any child, and I 
 can see no reason why all children should 
 not in this manner be led daily to feel re- 
 sponsibility for their acts. 
 
 Finally, the discipline of the law is useful, 
 the hand of authority^for the neglect of 
 duty and the heedlessness that carries harm 
 to others, and for the misdemeanor. The 
 
 266
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 good effect of the truant laws in force in 
 certain American cities is perfectly appar- 
 ent. So far as can be learned they have 
 all been economical and beneficial to 
 society; they have lessened crime and been 
 good for all concerned. So too of the 
 curfew laws. They have greatly lessened 
 the small misdemeanors and perceptibly 
 decreased the larger ones. They are a pay- 
 ing investment to the community, and a 
 benefit to all the children they touch. 
 
 Now, schools have been organized for 
 truant children where the recalcitrants are 
 housed, fed, taught and made to work about 
 the affairs of their daily wants and needs. 
 And the good effect for nearly all of them is 
 prompt and enduring. After a variable 
 period they are all (except the true degener- 
 ates) sent back to their homes and common 
 schools, and make tradable and obedient 
 pupils. It is contact with the realities of 
 existence in a new way that works the meta- 
 morphosis; the object-lessons of study and 
 work for the needs of life, which create a 
 new interest and mental attention never 
 before thought of; and greatest of all, repeat- 
 ed gentle encounters with the inexorable- 
 ness of law. For the conditions of the cases 
 in hand nothing ever has, or probably ever 
 
 267
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 will, take the place of this last force. That 
 it should be despised by philosophers is 
 proof of one of the far-swings of the pendu- 
 lum of thought. 
 
 One of the greatest gains is that the chil- 
 dren are taught the force and meaning of 
 law, and that laws must sometimes be 
 obeyed. That the true basis of the law is 
 the good of society will come to them 
 later. Then the law,- executing itself by its 
 impersonal fiat, is free from the quality of 
 spite; and boys hate to be punished from 
 spite. Even if the sheriff— for the time the 
 personal hand of the law — is accused of 
 unnecessary severity, the boys are usually 
 ready to absolve the entity called the state 
 from any part in it. To them the state 
 stands, to some degree at least, in the atti- 
 tude of a force that is inevitable and without 
 malice. 
 
 The dish-water philosophy of non-resist- 
 ance, the abrogation of force, and final com- 
 plete resort to moral suasion, weaken some 
 phases of human character that are indis- 
 pensable to effective and determining force 
 in the world, for they belie such great facts 
 of the universe as the unavoidable struggle 
 for existence, the greed and pressure of in- 
 born selfishness, and the hard knocks most 
 
 268
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 children must sooner or later take, and per- 
 chance give. 
 
 Some current teaching seems ambitious to 
 make us believe that there is no turmoil in 
 life, no struggle, temptation or tragedy. 
 Many people do go through life and die with 
 none of the struggles, but they are few com- 
 pared to the whole population. All chil- 
 dren are liable some day to meet the 
 hardships and the storms, and when those 
 not steeled aright do have to face them, 
 they are thrown into consternation, and may 
 become embittered toward the world; and 
 they frequently blame their elders and 
 teachers who might have shown them the 
 realities and dangers of life. It is better to 
 be told the truth and to face the inevitable 
 than to be lulled into false hopes, and live 
 in an atmosphere of the unreal, to be finally 
 disillusioned with a shock. 
 
 It is beautiful to be able to rise into the 
 clouds of imagination, and float there in a 
 reverie of diversion; and to believe that all 
 of life is prearranged and ideal. But, for 
 the fateful, wholesome struggles of exist- 
 ence, it profits us mightily — and especially 
 the discordant ones among us — to remember 
 that we walk on the earth, which is bestrewn 
 with rocks that shall bruise our feet, and 
 
 269
 
 THE DISCORDANT CHILDREN 
 
 pitfalls that shall make us stumble; that the 
 toils of nature and the earning of bread are 
 wholesome for us, and must go on forever; 
 and that the truest joy as well as the most 
 wholesome lives are realized to us as we 
 find pleasure in work, and have contentment 
 in small gains and moderate successes. 
 
 270
 
 PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
 AND SONS COMPANY, AT THE 
 LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.
 
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