As a Matter of Course | Page 5

is allowed to be a limit rather than a guide. And there is
nothing that exorcises all such ghosts more truly than a free and open
intercourse with little children.
If we take this business of slipping over our various nerve-stones as a
matter of course, and not as a matter of sentiment, we get a powerful
result just as surely as we get powerful results in obedience to any other
practical laws.
In bygone generations men used to fight and kill one another for the
most trivial cause. As civilization increased, self-control was magnified
into a virtue, and the man who governed himself and allowed his
neighbor to escape unslain was regarded as a hero. Subsequently,
general slashing was found to be incompatible with a well-ordered
community, and forbearance in killing or scratching or any other
unseemly manner of attacking an enemy was taken as a matter of
course.
Nowadays we do not know how often this old desire to kill is repressed,
a brain-impression of hatred thereby intensified, and a nervous
irritation caused which has its effect upon the entire disposition. It
would hardly be feasible to return to the killing to save the irritation
that follows repression; civilization has taken us too far for that. But
civilization does not necessarily mean repression. There are many
refinements of barbarity in our civilization which might be dropped
now, as the coarser expressions of such states were dropped by our
ancestors to enable them to reach the present stage of knives and forks
and napkins. And inasmuch as we are farther on the way towards a true
civilization, our progress should be more rapid than that of our barbaric
grandfathers. An increasingly accelerated progress has proved possible
in scientific research and discovery; why not, then, in our practical
dealings with ourselves and one another?
Does it not seem likely that the various forms of nervous irritation,
excitement, or disease may result as much from the repressed savage
within us as from the complexity of civilization? The remedy is, not to
let the savage have his own way; with many of us, indeed, this would
be difficult, because of the generations of repression behind us. It is to
cast his skin, so to speak, and rise to another order of living.
Certainly repression is only apparent progress. No good physician

would allow it in bodily disease, and, on careful observation, the law
seems to hold good in other phases of life.
There must be a practical way by which these stones, these survivals of
barbaric times, may be stepped over and made finally to disappear.
The first necessity is to take the practical way, and not the sentimental.
Thus true sentiment is found, not lost.
The second is to follow daily, even hourly, the process of stepping over
until it comes to be indeed a matter of course. So, little by little, shall
we emerge from this mass of abnormal nervous irritation into what is
more truly life itself.
II.
PHYSICAL CARE.
REST, fresh air, exercise, and nourishment, enough of each in
proportion to the work done, are the material essentials to a healthy
physique. Indeed, so simple is the whole process of physical care, it
would seem absurd to write about it at all. The only excuse for such
writing is the constant disobedience to natural laws which has resulted
from the useless complexity of our civilization.
There is a current of physical order which, if one once gets into it, gives
an instinct as to what to do and what to leave undone, as true as the
instinct which leads a man to wash his hands when they need it, and to
wash them often enough so that they never remain soiled for any length
of time, simply because that state is uncomfortable to their owner. Soap
and water are not unpleasant to most of us in their process of cleansing;
we have to deny ourselves nothing through their use. To keep the
digestion in order, it is often necessary to deny ourselves certain
sensations of the palate which are pleasant at the time. So by a gradual
process of not denying we are swung out of the instinctive
nourishment-current, and life is complicated for us either by an amount
of thought as to what we should or should not eat, or by irritations
which arise from having eaten the wrong food. It is not uncommon to
find a mind taken up for some hours in wondering whether that last
piece of cake will digest. We can easily see how from this there might
be developed a nervous sensitiveness about eating which would prevent
the individual from eating even the food that is nourishing. This last is
a not unusual form of dyspepsia,--a dyspepsia which keeps itself alive
on the