Joseph Mortimer Granville

“ Desultory occupation, mere play with objects of which the true interest is not appreciated, ruins a still larger number; while worry, that bane of brain-work and mental energy, counts its victims by tens of thousands, a holocaust of minds sacrificed to the demon of discord, the foe of happiness, of morality, of success. ”

“ Imagination is not active, but it remains just enough awake to supply the connecting links which give seeming continuity to those parts of the phantasmagoria which we chance to remember on recovering perfect self-consciousness, and which, being remembered, we call "dreams." No one remembers more than one dream, unless he has roused from sleep more than once. ”

“ The aim should be to give the mind a subject of thought with which it may engage its attention, and shut out the troublesome crowd of imaginings which obtrude the moment the head is laid on the pillow and the eyes are shut. ”

“ Meanwhile, he who would dream pleasantly in adult life must see to the material with which he stores his mind in youth; while, in the heyday of manhood, we are heaping together the material of dreams for old age. ”

“ The brain-worker gains credit for being lost in thought when he does not perceive some object which ought to impress him strongly through one or more of the senses; the farmer toiling over his fields, the hunting-man weary with his day's work, the soldier exhausted by the toil of the march, will sleep so far as one set of faculties, or one part or system of the organism, is concerned, while the others are not only active, but so controlled that the subject of this partial sleep may walk or ride or go through evolutions while his mind sleeps. ”

“ Dreams of the present, produced by lethargy or exhaustion of the faculty which collects and reproduces the pictures and records of memory, are generally distinguishable by their tumultuous or oppressive character. The faculty is, as it were, overburdened by the subjects it strives to manipulate. It can neither bring them fully and clearly before the consciousness, nor can it remove them at pleasure. The mind does not so much itself hold them as feel oppressed by their presence. ”

“ If it should be possible to ascertain why a mind previously healthy, and still apparently intact, breaks down instantly and thoroughly under a strain not exceptionally great, and, collapse having once occurred, recovery follows tardily and is rarely complete, it will probably be within the scope of common-sense to draw some practical conclusions as to the prevention, and it may be the cure, of what is in truth becoming a scourge of mental industry already almost decimating the ranks of the army of progress, in every field of intellectual enterprise at home and abroad. ”

“ As a matter of experience, a sense of weariness commonly precedes collapse from "overwork"; not mere bodily or nervous fatigue, but a more or less conscious distaste for the business in band, or perhaps for some other subject of thought or anxiety which obtrudes itself. It is the offensive or irritating burden that breaks the back. Thoroughly agreeable employment, however engrossing, stimulates the recuperative faculty while it taxes the strength, and the supply of nerve-force seldom falls short of the demand. ”

“ A certain degree of tension is indispensable to the easy and healthful discharge of mental functions. Like the national instrument of Scotland, the mind drones wofully and will discourse most dolorous music, unless an expansive and resilient force within supplies the basis of quickly responsive action. No good, great, or enduring work can be safely accomplished by brain-force without a reserve of strength sufficient to give buoyancy to the exercise, and, if I may so say, rhythm to the operations of the mind. ”

“ Their lot may be humiliating or pitiable, as their condition is due to neglect or misfortune; but our concern is with the multitude of strong and able-minded workers who fail at their task. These are the victims not of overwork but of worry, a foe more treacherous and merciless than all besides. The mind-cure for the malady to which "worry" gives rise, and from which so many suffer, is not idleness, or "rest," in the ordinary sense of that term, but orderly and persistent work. The work by which they have been injured has not been excessive, but bad of its kind and badly done. ”

“ There are, doubtless, especial states of the mind, or its organ, the brain, which may be loosely described as "sticky," and which create a strong tendency to dally with objects of thought, and hold impressions of the senses before the consciousness longer than is necessary, instead of putting them away promptly in the memory. We know how the clumsy-fingered or bewildered workman clutches his tools and hangs over his task instead of using each tool deftly, doing each stroke of work cleanly, and passing on to something else. ”

“ The use of stimulants in aid of work is, perhaps, one of the commonest forms of collateral influence suspending the warning sense of exhaustion. When the laborious worker, overcome with fatigue, "rouses" himself with alcohol, coffee, tea, or any other agent which may chance to suit him, he does not add a unit of force to his stock of energy, he simply narcotizes the sense of weariness, and, the guard being drugged, he appropriates the reserve. ”

“ The consciousness seems to be in a dreamy condition, while some slow and stupid exhibitor is unfolding a story or panorama lazily. The resulting feeling is one of simple fatigue from loss of rest, rather than the head-and heart-aching, as from worry and prolonged irritation, which follow on dreams of the present that have been produced in the ways already indicated. It may be set down as a rule, that dreams of the present are of graver import as clews to the mind-state than the other classes of dreams on which we must now bestow a few moments' attention. ”

“ The heat of the struggle is over, and the emotions are no longer as active as they were, so that self-consciousness comes to be increasingly a retrospect of experience. Dreaming only occasionally of the past may be the simple result of the association of ideas, the dream really consisting in a present recollection of records relating to the past: but I am now speaking of the habitual reproduction of long-past and possibly forgotten pictures and records of memory in dreams. Dreams of the future are, for the most part, anticipations arising out of the affairs of the present. ”

“ The victim of worry is ever on the verge of a catastrophe: if he escape, the marvel is not at his strength of intellect so much as his good fortune. Worry is disorder, however induced, and disorderly work is abhorred by the laws of nature, which leave it wholly without remedy. The energy employed in industry carried on under this condition is lavished in producing a small result, and speedily exhausted. The reserve comes into play very early in the task, and the faculty of recuperation is speedily arrested. ”

“ When rest is not followed by recovery, the recuperative faculty itself, an integral part of the intellectual organism, must be impaired or disabled. This is not unfrequently the case when the possessor of a worried and weakened brain in vain seeks refuge from the supposed effects of "overwork" in simple idleness. Something more than exhaustion has occurred, and rest alone will not cure the evil. The faculty of repair is not in a condition to restore the equilibrium between potential energy and kinetic force. ”

“ The effort to work becomes daily more laborious, the task of fixing the attention grows increasingly difficult, thoughts wander, memory fails, the reasoning power is enfeebled; prejudice—the shade of defunct emotion or some past persuasion—takes the place of judgment; physical nerve or brain disturbance may supervene, and the crash will then come suddenly, unexpected by on-lookers, perhaps unperceived by the sufferer himself. This is the history of "worry," or disorder produced by mental disquietude and distraction, occasionally by physical disease. ”

“ In that case, the severance between the higher and lower faculties will not be so great as when the incongruities of the dream are unchecked, and yet the pictures and thoughts present to the mind are especially clear and strong in their outline and coloring. Intensity without coherence is, as a rule, worse than an equal amount of vivid dreaming with more connectedness of thought. We now know something, though a very little, in truth, about dreaming, and we may pass to the consideration of our proper subject—dreams and the making of dreams. ”

“ Dreams are re-collections, in the strict sense of that word. The pictures which have been put away in the chambers of mental imagery, the thoughts which have been recorded, as all thoughts are recorded, by the molecules of the brain in the act of thinking, the impressions left by perceptions made by the organs of sense, and by conceptions originated by the faculties of mental sensation, impressions of feeling, together composing the records of experience, are brought out of their holes and corners, and, as it were, thrown crudely before the mind. ”

“ Meanwhile I fancy it is as the progeny of old nuclei that the physical bases of a revived memory are restored during general recovery in cases of the class before us. It seldom happens that the reeducating process needs to be very explicit or prolonged. Far less teaching than would have sufficed to implant the knowledge originally will cause it to reappear. In cases where the cells only are destroyed and their centers of vitality remain, it may even happen that the mere establishment of health will suffice to bring about complete restoration. ”

“ The argument, opposed to the theory of work itself exhausting the stock of energy, may be simply stated thus: the reserves, physical and mental, are too closely guarded to be invaded by direct encroachment. Pain is not suspended by the persistent infliction of injury unless the mechanism of sensation is disabled or destroyed. Hunger does not cease until starvation has assailed the seat of nutrition. The sense of extreme weariness is not allayed by increased activity, but the longing for rest may subside, because it has been stifled by some overwhelming influence. ”

“ Every part of the organism sleeps, and the totality of the sleep-state depends on the fact of all the important parts sleeping at the same time. If some remain awake—perhaps busy with an unfinished task, or setting about one which the will has foolishly imposed on one of the lower faculties before itself going to sleep, or, it may be, too worried to take natural rest—then the unrest of the busy or distressed faculty or faculties will render the sleep as a whole incomplete, and the repose of the actually sleeping faculties disturbed. ”

“ WHEN a strong and active mind breaks down suddenly, in the midst of business, it is worn out by worry rather than over-work. Brain-labor may be too severe, or ordinary exercise prolonged until it produces serious exhaustion; but the mere draining of resources, however inexpedient, is not disease, and seldom inflicts permanent injury. ”

“ He who makes it a rule through life—beginning early in youth—to take care that what he puts away in his mind and accumulates is, as far as may be possible, a treasure of pure and good materials, will do much toward making the dreams that haunt his sleep in the later years of life not only tolerable, but, so far as night-thoughts can subserve any useful or beneficial purpose, improving. ”

“ What is true of the physical is also true of the mental constitution; the residual force, the tension, the tonicity, of mind, form the basis of intellectual action. It is not necessary to discuss the relations of mind and matter; even if the mental being is no more than a formulated expression of the physical organism, the continuity is so complete that the same laws govern both. ”

“ For the purposes of the present argument it is sufficient to assert that, without a reserve of energy, healthy brain-work is impossible. Pain, hunger, anxiety, and a sense of mind-weariness, are the warning tokens of exhaustion extending to the reserves. When these indications are disregarded, or destroyed, as they may be, by stupefying drugs, an inordinate use of stimulants, a strong effort of the will, or the anæsthetic effect of excessive exhaustion, the consumption of energy goes on unobserved. ”

“ The natural safeguards are so well fitted for their task that neither body nor mind is exposed to the peril of serious exhaustion so long as their functions are duly performed. In brief, overwork is impossible so long as the effort made is natural. When energy, of any kind, takes a morbid form of action, some force outside itself must be reacting upon it injuriously; and the seat of the injury, so far as the sinister influence on energy is concerned, will be found in close proximity to the sensation which under normal conditions guards the reserve. ”

“ It is easy to see that a worse evil than simply using up his strength too rapidly has befallen him, but no one knows precisely what has happened. To cover the enigma, without solving it, "overwork" is taken to mean more than work over the normal, in quantity, quality, and time, but no attempt is made to determine how excess, in either or all of these particulars, can bring about the disability and decrepitude we bewail. ”