38 Abnormal Ideas and Nervous Super-Excitability . 



out what capacities we possess, and then make the most of 

 them. A healthy and ennobHng purpose and the cultivation 

 of our faculties are some of the methods by which the evils of 

 nervous over-excitement may be avoided. 



2. The troubles which arise from or are associated with 

 materialistic teaching demand more detailed treatments By 

 materialistic teaching we understand those doctrines which aim 

 at, and result in the negation of religious behef, of religious 

 obligation, and of which the logical outcome is, " Let us eat, 

 drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." This teaching can 

 be traced back to a period of great antiquity. According to 

 Colebrooke, among the early Hindoos there were the material- 

 istic schools of the Tcharwakas and Lokayatikas ; among the 

 Greeks, those of Diceark, Messina, Leusippus and Epicurus, 

 while in Rome, Lucretius and Seneca were largely fol- 

 lowed. But while the gratification of the desires of 

 the materialist appear to lead to happiness, he finds it 

 but a phantom ever eluding his feverish grasp, transform- 

 ing them into wild and stormy passions, which not only 

 endanger health, but also make shipwreck of reason and life. 

 These varied and disastrous forms of nervous over-excitement 

 may be considered in detail. 



{a) The immediate desires arising from keen sensual emotions, 

 such as the love of wine, play, and women. The outcome of 

 excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures is, that it constitutes 

 one-third in the etiology or cause of lunacy, while the effects 

 of the nervous excitement, consequent upon the passion of 

 gaming, are only too well known. Emotional and intellectual 

 disorders which follow these excesses are sometimes induced by 

 seemingly trifling incidents. The degradation of art in 

 questionable public advertisements, the leading features in some 

 types of modern novels do not, to say the least, tend to 

 diminish the evils to which I refer. Of 472 observed cases of 

 mental disorders 173 could be traced to domestic sorrows 

 produced by these causes. 



{b) The immoderate desire for an exalted position. Two 



