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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 635 



would reanimate «s; but it happens that 

 in each patient the particular freak-ac- 

 tivity chosen is the only thing that does 

 reanimate; and therein lies the morbid 

 state. The way to treat such persons is 

 to discover to them more usual and useful 

 ways of throwing their stores of vital 

 energy into gear. 



Colonel Baird-Smith, needing to draw on 

 altogether extraordinary stores of energy, 

 found that brandy and opium were ways 

 of throwing them into gear. 



Such cases are humanly typical. We 

 are all to some degree oppressed, unfree. 

 We don't come to our own. It is there, 

 but we don't get at it. The threshold 

 must be made to shift. Then many of us 

 find that an excentric activity— a 'spree,' 

 say— relieves. There is no doubt that to 

 some men sprees and excesses of almost 

 any kind are medicinal, temporarily at any 

 rate, in spite of what the moralists and 

 doctors say. 



But when the normal tasks and stimula- 

 tions of life don 't put a man 's deeper levels 

 of energy on tap, and he requires distinctly 

 deleterious excitements, his constitution 

 verges on the abnormal. The normal open- 

 er of deeper and deeper levels of energy is 

 the will. The difficulty is to use it; to 

 make the effort which the word volition 

 implies. But if we do make it (or if a 

 god, though he were only the god Chance, 

 makes it through us), it will act dynamo- 

 genically on us for a month. It is notori- 

 ous that a single successful effort of moral 

 volition, such as saying 'no' to some habit- 

 ual temptation, or performing some cour- 

 ageous act, will launch a man on a higher 

 level of energy for days and weeks, vnll 

 give him a new range of power. 



The emotions and excitements due to 

 usual situations are the usual inciters of 

 the will. But these act discontinuously ; 

 and in the intervals the shallower levels of 



life tend to close in and shut us off. Ac- 

 cordingly the best practical knowers of the 

 human soul have invented the thing known 

 as methodical ascetic discipline to keep the 

 deeper levels constantly in reach. Begin- 

 ning with easy tasks, passing to harder 

 ones, and exercising day by day, it is, I 

 believe, admitted that disciples of asceti- 

 cism can reach very high levels of freedom 

 and power of will. 



Ignatius Loyola 's spiritual exercises must 

 have produced this result in innumerable 

 devotees. But the most venerable ascetic 

 system, and the one whose results have the 

 most voluminous experimental corroboration 

 is undoubtedly the Toga system in Hindo- 

 stan. From time immemorial, by Hatha 

 Toga, Eaja Toga, Karma Toga, or what- 

 ever code of practise it might be, Hindu 

 aspirants to perfection have trained them- 

 selves, month in and out, for years. The 

 result claimed, and certainly in many cases 

 accorded by impartial judges, is strength 

 of character, personal power, unshakability 

 of soul. But it is not easy to disentangle 

 fact from tradition in Hindu affairs. So I 

 am glad to have a European friend who has 

 submitted to Hatha Toga training, and 

 whose account of the results I am privi- 

 leged to quote. I think you will appre- 

 ciate the light it throws on the question of 

 our unused reservoirs of power. 



My friend is an extraordinarily gifted 

 man, both morally and intellectually, but 

 has an instable nervous system, and for 

 many years has lived in a circular process 

 of alternate lethargy and over-animation: 

 something like three weeks of extreme ac- 

 tivity, and then a week of prostration in 

 bed. An unpromising condition, which the 

 best specialists in Europe had failed to re- 

 lieve; so he tried Hatha Toga, partly out 

 of curiosity, and partly with a sort of des- 

 perate hope. What follows is a short ex- 



