330 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



troublesome to develop a resting habit, which should be 

 formed early if its full utility is to be appreciated. 



Furthermore, the difficulty is complicated by our habit 

 of damping down the signals which our rest-index gives us. 

 The extreme signal to rest, as Hilton pointed out, is pain. 

 That is the use of pain. But long before it comes to pain 

 we usually get many signals, which we show no little 

 ingenuity in ignoring. As on the steamers racing on the 

 American rivers, we manipulate the safety-valve so that its 

 whistle indicative of over-pressure may not annoy us. There 

 are many pleasant devices for damping down the rest- 

 signal which our nervous system is almost always ready to 

 give us for our good. 



A strenuous American is reported to have said : "I 

 have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my brain 

 which gives me little rest, and would wear out my body if 

 I did not happen to have the constitution of a buffalo/' 

 This is not exactly how a neurologist would express it, but 

 the idea is plain, and the confession indicates one of the 

 dangers of our civilisation, not of too much thinking, 

 there is little risk of that, but that one function of the 

 nervous system, which is to prompt to action, to excite, 

 should grow out of all proportion to another function, 

 which is to inhibit, to control, to quiet, to enforce rest. 

 Over-conscientiousness, or rather over-narrow conscientious- 

 ness, may lead to what the American called "a sort of 

 steam-engine in the brain, which gives little rest." Un- 

 fortunately for the individual, the busy American's " con- 

 stitution of a buffalo," which enabled him to endure, is not 

 so common as might be desired, partly perhaps because 

 previous generations have taken too little rest. 



A Scotch mining engineer, who had spent many years 

 of hard work in Spain, said that half of his toil was in com- 

 bating the over-restful habit of the Spaniard. As every one 



