BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 359 



powerful sermons. Some are so absorbed by their business 

 or anxiety that they give no heed to impressions that would 

 excite physical, and even painful sensations; while thus en- 

 gaged, they may feel neither hunger nor cold, and forget the 

 hour of their meals, ( 87, p. 46,) or their chilled flesh. 



827. These persons, however, are exceptions to the gen- 

 eral law. They had power of concentration sufficient to 

 withhold their attention from the causes of physical and 

 moral suffering. For the time, they forgot their painful sen- 

 sations, or resisted the absorbing influence of their distress, 

 and concentrated their nervous energies upon mental action. 

 They have extraordinary power or discipline of mind, or are 

 governed by an extraordinary motive to study or think amidst 

 such counteracting influences. Nevertheless, these men 

 bear a double burden one in the disturbing cause, and 

 the other in the intended labor of the brain ; and, though 

 they think and study much, they could do more, if their 

 minds were entirely free. 



828. It requires more mental discipline to study amidst 

 these counteracting or disturbing influences. It needs a 

 greater power of the will over the feelings to abstract the 

 attention from all that would excite agreeable or painful 

 sensations or emotions, and there are but few who possess 

 this power in full degree. Yet it is to some extent neces- 

 sary ; .for, though one can study better when the body is 

 perfectly easy, and the mind free from care, and the heart 

 from pain, yet this condition is not always attainable. 



829. Even the motive offered as an inducement for action 

 may become a disturbing cause, and absorb so much of the 

 energy of the brain as to prevent, in some degree, the very 

 effort it was designed to encourage. In this respect, both 

 the motive of fear and of misdirected hope are often injuri- 

 ous. When the iron rule prevails in school, the boy's con- 

 stant fear that he shall be caught idle, or that he shall fail in 

 his lessons, or some unexpected accident or unpremeditated 

 misdemeanor may happen and subject him to punishment, 



