THE MORBID ''SENSE OF INJURY:' 599 



to be reversional. Tliis is in harmony with the ataric theory of 

 insanity. In the individual it is a delusion, and, like other delu- 

 sions, an attempt by the reason to explain a disordered feeling; in 

 this case a painful feeling, having its origin broadly in some im- 

 perfect adaptation of the organism. This attempt to explain a 

 feeling or sensation seems a human necessity. However wide of 

 the truth such explanations usually are, we seem forced to attempt 

 them. In the case of this painful feeling, with which we are here 

 concerned, we are either unwilling or unable to explain it in its 

 true way, and are prone to attribute it to malevolent agencies, 

 often personal — perhaps the " bogy-man " remnant of the child 

 and race. Such explanation is often an easy escape from truths 

 unwelcome to our ego — truths which, if recognized, would wound 

 pride or conscience beyond easy endurance. It requires a man 

 of rare courage and mental clarity to recognize his particular pain 

 from failure in adaptation as autogenetic, and to lay it to natural 

 and unflattering causes. We prefer, of the two, to accuse the 

 environment rather than the organism, especially when the organ- 

 ism happens to be our own. We take refuge in a grievance rather 

 than impugn the supremacy of our ego. Indeed, it seems to be 

 necessary for healthy subjective activity, so to speak, that a sort 

 of imperialism of the ego, however circumscribed, be maintained. 

 It is the condition sine qua non of the necessary measure of well- 

 being of the individual. It is most reluctantly relinquished, and 

 we constantly see the plainest truths immolated that it be retained. 

 Only in the great self-effacement of melancholia and in those rare 

 characters who recognize and bear complacently naked truths — 

 the WeltscJimerz of Goethe — is this well-being renounced. Even 

 those who are willing to father their own wounded ego still seek 

 the necessary approbation by reducing its future pretensions or 

 claims so that they may not be again pained by their failure to 

 achieve them. They unhitch their wagon from the star. Pro- 

 fessor James has illustrated this by a fraction showing that our 

 approbation is determined by our success divided by our preten- 



success 

 sions. Thus, -. = approbation (self-esteem). The quo- 

 pretensions 



tient may be increased by diminishing the pretensions or by in- 

 creasing the success. James's fraction is as applicable to the moral 

 conduct as to the intellectual side. 



When we look for the physical equivalent of the mental state 

 which evokes the " sense of injury " we fipd it in dynamic and 

 toxic states of the nervous system and their correlation. Certain 

 conditions of the individual or environment bring these into spe- 

 cial relief. Old age is one. The querulousness, the sense of abuse 



