Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/67

Rh promise relief—a conviction that correspondingly adds to the peculiar kind of dejection and endangering, which, in turn, develops into a chronicity that may evade every attempt at remedy, later on.

From what we have discovered as to the origin and development and character of mental invalidism, then, it must again be readily recognized that it does not help this sort of individual much, if any better, simply or most elaborately to have said to him, even by the best qualified, "Oh, brace up; be a man!" or anything else of like sententious order; except, perhaps, as a "starter," when it is often undoubtedly invaluable, as is also the temporary good influence of many another similar command, or prayer, or treatment. In respect of this acknowledged initial good, however, it must always be remembered that the sufferer from a mind diseased does not, can not, thrive for very long on any sort of "starter" alone, even when it is given with best intention and high emphasis, and by those otherwise skillful; indeed, it frequently appears that the very effort to "brace up" or otherwise yield to the dominating spirit serves not to secure anything like the promised relief, but simply more firmly than ever to glue attention to the insistent distress, and to contribute immeasurably to its vividness and persistency. Nor does the heartiest promise of "better times" in the future often do much more; for in such cases the sufferer himself sees altogether too clearly how near to pretense or fabrication such a promise probably is, to be able even deceptively to draw comfort or strength or other kind of remedy from it. The fact is, this species of even most authoritative remedial platitudes do not so often touch the real "spot" as is supposed; and usually for the simple reason that the real "spot" is not even suspected by either the remedialist or the sufferer; while the reaction from ever so shrewd remedial adventuring, when it seems to promise the impossible or proves to be fallacious in the end, almost always contributes to a measurable increase of the original distress, or else to the development of some new form—" the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune "having been thus but refurbished and resharpened, rather than effectually blunted and broken, by the insufficiency of remedies and promises, which, being not properly supplemented by others appropriate to the subsequent needs, soon lose even their initial value.

Practically, it is also found in many cases, that it is just a similar kind of wrong management on the part of even those who have heretofore been the most intelligently and skillfully concerned, which has led sufferers from mental invalidism to respond so very frequently, and often so very satisfyingly to themselves, for a time, at any rate, to the offerings and importunities of "irregular" practitioners, and of irregular sects of almost every description. The "mind diseased," not getting expected, and perhaps promised, light through "instruments of