Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/202

182 ing to the mental organization of the individual. While, therefore, a person has no power, by the direct exercise of volition, to repress a blush or to stop the flow of tears, those who have acquired the mastery of their feelings can restrain every manifestation of passion and appear to be perfectly unmoved by events which would in others, less strong-willed, create great emotional disturbance. Thus two persons will view the dead body of a friend with very different outward evidences of feeling. The one throws himself upon the corpse and indulges in sobs and lamentations; the other stands rigidly by the side of his friend's remains without a tear in his eyes and with scarcely an expression of grief to be perceived in his words or actions. Yet, perhaps, he feels even more acutely than the other; the difference being, not in the strength of the emotion experienced, but in the ability to control its manifestation. A third person, also a friend of the deceased, might enter the room and by his levity and ill-timed speeches and conduct show that he experienced no emotion at all.

Man in his natural condition is almost always readily carried away by his emotions, and consequently in the early periods of civilization those who desired to acquire influence over their fellows, made use of means calculated to arouse the feelings to a high pitch. The African negro, or the Australian, grins with delight on being presented with a button, and howls with the pain excited by a cut finger. Other savage nations, however, are remarkable for their capability of restraining the evidences of emotion. Thus the North American Indian, before the race became degenerate, endured the severest tortures of his enemies without a groan, and walked to the stake with the air of a conqueror.

The ancients attached great importance to the development of the power of the will over emotional manifestations. And mankind have always held in high respect those who have endured good and evil fortune without showing undue elation or sorrow. No one can read without admiration the story of Epictetus, the philosopher and slave, who, when he was subjected to the torture by his master, quietly remarked: "You will break my leg;" and when the leg did break, said in the same calm tone, "I told you so." It has been said of Socrates that he had by constant discipline acquired such complete control over his emotions that he preserved the same countenance under all the vicissitudes of life. Giordano Bruno, when sentenced by the inquisition to be burned to death, replied proudly and calmly, "You experience more fear in giving me that sentence than I do in receiving it." And yet Bruno was young, fond of life and of the society of his friends.

Many diseases can definitely be traced to the influence of the emotions upon the bodily organs. The brain and nervous system seldom escape disorder in persons who allow their passions to obtain the ascendency over the other mental faculties. Insanity, paralysis, epilepsy, morbid alterations of character and disposition, an undue susceptibility to slight morbific influences, neuralgia, spinal disease, dyspepsia, and many other affections have their origin in emotional disturbance. After the recent trial of the President, several senators became ill, and at least two with cerebral and nervous diseases. While the trial lasted, the mental excitement they experienced sustained their strength, but as soon as the strain was taken off, the system gave way, and derangement of health resulted. That a greater number were not made to feel that the brain and nerves are not stone and iron, argues well for the senatorial nervous vigor.

With reference to dyspepsia in this relation, an experiment often performed by physiologists shows the influence of emotion over the secretion of