WORRY. 105 



powering abstraction. Passion may produce a similar immunity from 

 pain, and give ability to endure even self-inflicted injury. The daily 

 experience of lunatic asylums will abundantly attest the truth of this 

 last assertion. 



How does all this bear upon the subject ? It seems rather to 

 strengthen the position assailed, by showing that " overwork " may 

 exhaust the reserves, thereby arresting the function, and possibly de- 

 stroying the integrity, of the mental organism ! That is undoubtedly 

 the surface view of the case, and it is the popular explanation of what 

 occurs. To controvert the received hypothesis is the object of the 

 present paper. The argument, opposed to the theory of work itself 

 exhausting the stock of energy, may be simply stated thus : the re- 

 serves, physical and mental, are too closely guarded to be invaded by 

 direct encroachment. Pain is not suspended by the persistent inflic- 

 tion of injury unless the mechanism of sensation is disabled or de- 

 stroyed. Hunger does not cease until starvation has assailed the seat 

 of nutrition. The sense of extreme weariness is not allayed by in- 

 creased activity, but the longing for rest may subside, because it has 

 been stifled by some overwhelming influence. The natural safeguards 

 are so well fitted for their task that neither body nor mind is exposed 

 to the peril of serious exhaustion so long as their functions are duly 

 performed. In brief, overwork is impossible so long as the effort 

 made is natural. When energy, of any kind, takes a morbid form of 

 action, some force outside itself must be reacting upon it injuriously ; 

 and the seat of the injury, so far as the sinister influence on energy is 

 concerned, will be found in close proximity to the sensation which 

 under normal conditions guards the reserve. The use of stimulants in 

 aid of work is, perhaps, one of the commonest forms of collateral influ- 

 ence suspending the warning sense of exhaustion. When the labori- 

 ous worker, overcome with fatigue, " rouses " himself with alcohol, cof- 

 fee, tea, or any other agent which may chance to suit him, he does not 

 add a unit of force to his stock of energy, he simply narcotizes the 

 sense of weariness, and, the guard being drugged, he appropriates the 

 reserve. In like manner, when the dreamer and night-watcher, worn 

 out by sleeplessness, employs opium, chloral, or some other poison to 

 produce the semblance of repose, he stupefies the consciousness of un- 

 rest, but, except in cases where it is only a habit of sleeplessness, which 

 has been contracted, and, being interrupted, may be broken by tempo- 

 rary recourse to a perilous artifice, the condition is unrelieved. Not 

 unfrequently the warning sense is stifled by the very intensity of the 

 motive power or impulse. Ambition, zeal, love, sometimes fear, will 

 cai-ry a man beyond the bounds set by nature. No matter what sus- 

 pends the functions of the guard set at the threshold of the reserve, if 

 the residual stock is touched, two consequences ensue waste and de- 

 preciation. It is important to recognize both of these evils. The for- 

 mer is generally perceived, the latter is commonly overlooked. The 



