A MIND DISEASED 59 



the susceptible mind, it may eventually prove to be more useful in obvi- 

 ating and relieving the " mind diseased/' than almost any other simple 

 measure that can be thought of. 



Third, let us now consider another different yet quite as prolific 

 source of mental pain and its resulting invalidism, namely, that which 

 is to be found in the ever-insistent consciousness of misfit into the ever- 

 growing complexity and demands of the life of to-day, the necessarily 

 consequent failure to realize what has been legitimately expected and 

 striven for, and all the mental wear and tear which so necessarily fol- 

 lows or accrues. 



For instance, when a sensitive man actually finds himself buffeted 

 about in this world, with little or no ability to get anything like a sure 

 foothold, and can think of no definite prospect of final prosperity for 

 his encouragement, he naturally enough wears out his will-power as 

 well as his sense of well-being long before his time, and consequently 

 becomes the unresisting if not fully assenting prey to every depressing 

 and perplexing influence about him. Or, when a woman finds that all 

 her unique wealth of natural instincts and endowments promises to be 

 of little demand in this conventional world, and so must go from day 

 to day to tasks from which she derives little profit and no inspiration, 

 she also rapidly develops a mental and emotional pain and weakness — 

 a veritable soul-sickness — so deep and abiding, often, that the wonder 

 is that either she or so many of her sisters ever have the courage 

 requisite to go on and achieve so successfully as they do. Of course it 

 were easy to say that the needed refitting in many of these cases is prac- 

 tically impossible; or that, even ideally, it is altogether too elevated, 

 in any case, to be within ordinary application. Of course, too, every 

 step on the way to securing the necessary changes of attitude in the 

 individual's mind toward the real possibilities of his unusued or 

 wrongly used powers and toward full acceptation of suggested ideals, 

 or toward the determined devotion that sees success from the beginning, 

 no matter how far from the purposed end — every step of this long way 

 may only too generally prove, not only very arduous, but quite too dis- 

 couraging for weak and wavering humanity to progress therein, or to 

 succeed in the end. Yet could everybody as well as the sufferer him- 

 self once be led to see how such inappropriate fittings and placings and 

 consequent failures necessarily contribute to the development of mental 

 suffering and invalidism, and especially if they could once get an in- 

 formed, vivid view of the interfering, destroying character of every 

 such experience in its bearing upon ultimate success and happiness, not 

 alone of the individual sufferer, but of the entire community, in every 

 vital respect, there would undoubtedly result not only a prompt but 

 effectual uprising against the common ineptitude and neglect in this 

 respect. That such a true vision is widely needed is confirmed by the 



