172 LIFE AND HABIT. 



It also follows that when we are ill, our cells being 

 in such or such a state of mind, and inclined to hold a 

 corresponding opinion with more or less unreasoning 

 violence, should not be puzzled more than they are 

 puzzled already, by being contradicted too suddenly; 

 for they will not be in a frame of mind which can 

 understand the position of an open opponent: they 

 should therefore either be let alone, if possible, without 

 notice other than dignified silence, till their spleen is 

 over, and till they have remembered themselves; or 

 they should be reasoned with as by one who agrees 

 with them, and who is anxious to see things as far as 

 possible from their own point of view. And this is 

 how experience teaches that we must deal with 

 monomaniacs, whom we simply infuriate by contradic- 

 tion, but whose delusion we can sometimes persuade 

 to hang itself if we but give it sufficient rope. All 

 which has its bearing upon politics, too, at much sacri- 

 fice, it may be, of political principles, but a politician 

 who cannot see principles where principle-mongers fail 

 to see them, is a dangerous person. 



I may say, in passing, that the reason why a small 

 wound heals, and leaves no scar, while a larger one 

 leaves a mark which is more or less permanent, may be 

 looked for in the fact that when the wound is only 

 small, the damaged cells are snubbed, so to speak, by 

 the vast majority of the unhurt cells in their own 

 neighbourhood. When the wound is more serious they 

 can stick to it, and bear each other out that they were 

 hurt. 



III. We should expect to find a predominance of 



