Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/90

86 truths as are retained in the conscious memory of men and believed in as doctrines or moral codes, our very nervous systems have their own unconscious memory, and preserve idolatries and superstitions which have died out of the conscious memory. These are constantly tending to revert into consciousness. A good social system provides for periodic and harmless fits of atavism. Those are wise who, in holidays, throw off the social trammels of their own age and revert to an older mode of existence. If we live too constantly in the one thin stratum of convention which we call "present custom," we grow weary; the energy relaxes in spite of us; and then at last we fall involuntarily into some stratum of the past.

Books on Lunacy attribute mental disease to physical causes, which produce weakness of brain-tissue. It is quite true that, given an abnormal strain, the stronger tissues resist it most successfully. But why should we put continuous' strain upon ourselves, such continuity of strain being contrary to Nature? It is the nature of man to stand on his feet, not crawling; and to exert his mind to live in the present, not yielding to mere instinct. But it is also his nature both to return periodically to the physical position of the earth-worms, and to revert occasionally to the mental position of the savage. We do not wait to lie down till we have fallen from fatigue; we accustom ourselves and our children to relax and revert at regular intervals. Only the exceptionally weak take such indulgences as lying down during the day; but mentally and morally we act as if only the exceptionally weak need He down at all!

Could I give to each reader the fearful experience