THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 



275 



acters of insanity. The phenomena of hysteria, faith 

 cure, openness to suggestion, subjective imagery, mys- 

 ticism, are not indications of spiritual 



Phenomena strength, but of decay and disintegration 



of hysteria. 



of the nerves. The ecstasy of unbal- 

 anced religious excitement and the stupor of a drunken 

 debauch may belong to the same category of mental phe- 

 nomena. Both point toward moral and spiritual decay. 

 There are no occult or " latent powers " of the mind ex- 

 cept those which have become useless in changed con- 

 ditions, or which belong to the process of disintegration. 

 If a man crosses his eyes and is thus enabled to see ob- 

 jects double, we do not regard him as having developed 

 a " latent power " of vision. He has simply destroyed 

 the normal co-ordination of such power. One does 

 not increase the strength of a rope by untwisting its 

 strands. The effectiveness of life depends upon the co- 

 ordination and co-operation of the parts of the nervous 

 system. Its strands must be kept together. To move 

 in a state of revery, " to live in two worlds at once," to 

 be unable to separate memory pictures from realities, 

 all these are forms of nervous disintegration. Every 

 phase of them can be found in the madhouse. The end 

 of such conditions is death. The healthy mind should 

 combat all tendencies toward disintegration. It can be 

 clean and strong only by being true. 



In like manner the influence of all drugs which affect 

 the nervous system must be in the direction of disinte- 

 gration. The healthy mind stands in 

 Effect of drugs. . , ... . , . T 



clear and normal relations with Nature. 



It feels pain as pain. It feels action as pleasure. The 

 drug which conceals pain or gives a false pleasure when 

 pleasure does not exist forces a lie upon the nervous 

 system. The drug which disposes to revery rather than 

 to work, which makes us feel well when we are not well, 



