fi8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sion of the depressing emotions is far more hurtful than th'at of the 

 pleasurable. Grief, disappointment, or envy, when restrained from ex- 

 ternal display, lias a marked tendency to exert a very hurtful influ- 

 ence upon the nervous system of organic life, which governs the pro- 

 cesses of secretion and of repair." Now, if we take this doctrine along 

 with the other, which denies to man all power over the physiological 

 conditions of life, most men will infer that physiology is a far better 

 source of guidance than any considerations of right and wrong. If the 

 will has no power over the physiological conditions of life, while the 

 physiological conditions of life have great power over the will, natural- 

 ly we shall seek the guidance of the latter, and not try to find rules for 

 the guidance of the former. Here, for instance, is a new rule of the 

 physiological sort at once : " The suppression of all emotions, but espe- 

 cially of depressing emotions, is injurious." Therefore, in place of at- 

 tempting to repress and conquer selfish anger by an inward effort, one 

 ought, in deference to one's nervous physiology, to go and bang the 

 door of some empty room at least, or indulge in a flood of tears with 

 the women and children. Or, if envy one of the most depressing of 

 passions, as the exponent of the physiological rules for long life justly 

 remarks preys upon an ambitious or vain spirit, the depressing effect 

 ought, we suppose, to be guarded against by inventing some similar 

 safety-valve. If the sufferer rom that passion be literary or artistic, 

 an anonymous satire or bitter caricature would become a personal duty, 

 in order to avoid the injurious gnawing of a " depressing emotion." 

 If there be no access to literature and art, to secure a confidant to 

 whom backbiting speeches can be safely made, without danger of their 

 being retailed, would not seem so much an ignoble indulgence as a 

 medical precaution. Where is this doctrine, that the complete re- 

 straint of the " depressing emotions" is injurious to the nervous sys- 

 tem, to lead us to, in the absence of any code of right and wrong that 

 assumes the freedom of the will, and the power of obeying or infring- 

 ing a divine moral law ? It would suggest a perfectly new law of con- 

 duct, according to which we should shape our inward life, not with re- 

 lation to any spiritual ideal within us, but in relation to the expediency 

 of letting off dangerous physiological steam, by expressing whatever it 

 might be injurious to repress. Quilp's device of keeping a wooden effi- 

 gy, on which to let loose his evil passions, might become a serious sug- 

 gestion in this physiological school of ethics ; and what it might 

 lead to in the direction of physical passion it is not even tolerable to 

 contemplate. 



Certainly there is one tenet of the Physiological school of ethics 

 which is more and more frequently recommended to the world for its 

 acceptance, not only by the apostles of these doctrines, but by the 

 partisans of culture. Goethe was the first famous teacher who not 

 only taught, but systematically acted upon, the teaching that men 

 should deliberately turn away from all sources of disturbing emotion, 



