4© Abnormal Ideas and Nervous Super -Excitability. 



the drawing or ball room. The ideas, thus created in the 

 mind, and nourished by dalliance with theni, may become 

 unregulated, unrestrained, violent passions, while failure to 

 please may produce a reaction as dangerous in the opposite 

 direction. But in connection with the ball-room are circum- 

 stances to which serious troubles hereafter may be traced. The 

 costumes, not remarkable for their modesty, the intimate 

 association with the opposite sex, conversations of a trifling and 

 perhaps of a not very elevating nature — these, with the ante- 

 cedent excitement of preparation, are liable to produce troubles 

 of the nervous system, which terminate in disorders, such as 

 hysteria, indigestion and others of a more dangerous character. 

 Without for a moment condemning the emotions of true love 

 which form a lasting bond between man and wife, it is impera- 

 tively necessary to utter this warning voice against those 

 excitations which tend to degrade and to debase the noblest 

 feelings of humanity. 



{d) The immoderate desire of life. This desire is accom- 

 panied by a lack of vigorous mental power, and takes the form 

 of an intensified anxiety to preserve health, which frequently 

 develops into hypochondria. The man who spends his waking 

 moments in nervously watching the different parts of his 

 organism, anticipating some dreaded ill, soon transforms 

 imaginary ills into real ones. He produces the disease which 

 he dreads. Hence the evils arising trom the study of diseases 

 by an ill-balanced mind, and herein lies the explanation of the 

 fact that some medical students find their way into an asylum, 

 instead of into Merrion Square or Harley Street. There ie too, 

 the danger even to the robust mind, which arises from constant 

 association with the hypochondriacs. As M. Dubois says 

 " There is danger for predisposed minds ^in living near them." 

 The nervous troubles then which are associated with materi- 

 alistic teaching are those which arise, inter alia, from a mental 

 surrender to an immoderate desire for the objects to which I 

 have drawn attention. 



3. The troubles which arise from mystical teaching. Here 



