The Untroubled Mind

The Untroubled Mind, by
Herbert J. Hall

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Title: The Untroubled Mind
Author: Herbert J. Hall
Release Date: July 19, 2007 [EBook #22108]
Language: English
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THE
UNTROUBLED MIND

BY
HERBERT J. HALL, M.D.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HERBERT J. HALL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published May 1915

PREFACE
A very wise physician has said that "every illness has two parts--what it
is, and what the patient thinks about it." What the patient thinks about it
is often more important and more troublesome than the real disease.
What the patient thinks of life, what life means to him is also of great
importance and may be the bar that shuts out all real health and
happiness. The following pages are devoted to certain ideals of life
which I would like to give to my patients, the long-time patients who
have especially fallen to my lot.
They are not all here, the steps to health and happiness. The reader may
even be annoyed and baffled by my indirectness and unwillingness to
be specific. That I cannot help--it is a personal peculiarity; I cannot ask
any one to live by rule, because I do not believe that rules are binding
and final. There must be character behind the rule and then the rule is
unnecessary.

All that I have written has doubtless been presented before, in better
ways, by wiser men, but I believe that each writer may expect to find
his small public, his own particular public who can understand and
profit by his teachings, having partly or wholly failed with the others.
For that reason I am encouraged to write upon a subject usually
shunned by medical men, being assured of at least a small company of
friendly readers.
I am grateful to a number of friends and patients who have read the
manuscript of the following chapters. These reviewers have been frank
and kind and very helpful. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Richard C.
Cabot, who has given me much valuable assistance.

CONTENTS
I. THE UNTROUBLED MIND 1
II. RELIGIO MEDICI 10
III. THOUGHT AND WORK 20
IV. IDLENESS 30
V. RULES OF THE GAME 38
VI. THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT 50
VII. SELF-CONTROL 59
VIII. THE LIGHTER TOUCH 65
IX. REGRETS AND FOREBODINGS 73
X. THE VIRTUES 81
XI. THE CURE BY FAITH 88

I
THE UNTROUBLED MIND
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a
rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with
some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that
perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? MACBETH.
When a man tells me he never worries, I am inclined to think that he is
either deceiving himself or trying to deceive me. The great roots of
worry are conscience, fear, and regret. Undoubtedly we ought to be
conscientious and we ought to fear and regret evil. But if it is to be
better than an impediment and a harm, our worry must be largely
unconscious, and intuitive. The moment we become conscious of worry
we are undone. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we cannot leave
conscience to its own devices unless our lives are big enough and fine
enough to warrant such a course. The remedy for the mental unrest,
which is in itself an illness, lies not in an enlightened knowledge of the
harmfulness and ineffectiveness of worry, not even in the acquirement
of an unconscious conscience, but in the living of a life so full and
good that worry cannot find place in it. That idea of worry and
conscience, that definition of serenity, simplifies life immensely. To
overcome worry by substituting development and growth need never be
dull work. To know life in its farther reaches, life in its better
applications, is the final remedy--the great undertaking--it is life. We
must warn ourselves, not infrequently, that the larger life is to be
pursued for its own glorious self and not for the sake of peace. Peace
may come, a peace so sure that death itself cannot shake it, but we must
not expect all our affairs to run smoothly. As a matter of fact they may
run badly enough; we shall have our ups and downs,