_A THIEF IN THE NIGHT._
Our life and progress may be aptly compared to the passage of
collections of particles through a fine sieve. The particles that will
not crumble are inevitably cast out, while those that succeed in passing
through it are rendered finer in the process. It would perhaps be apter
still to say, that we are passing continually through a series of
sieves, some coarse, some fine, and that the particles which survive the
ordeal, though refined in their passage, are perpetually losing
something they possessed before. Whether this be an advantage or a
disadvantage to them depends on the nature of that which is lost. Those
who survive the longest, in spite of constant paring and shaping,
fitting them for still finer passages, must have had their sieves
carefully graduated for them, each preceding sieve fitting them for the
next in order of progression.
Just as it is not the loudest things that have the most substance, so it
is not the largest things that contain the most power. We are told that
there is sufficient force holding together the particles composing a
single drop of water to make a whole flash of lightning. In the same
way, there may be more force concentrated in a small portion of the
nervous system than is diffused throughout all the rest of the body. And
our progress through the sieves may be a condensation of great forces
into our small compass. Leaving the matter of mere size of body out of
the question, one man of coarse organisation (A) may possess more
physical strength than a man of fine organisation (B). But B may rule
the world while A is a nonentity. B may, by means of his superior mental
capacity, subdue the powers of Nature to his will, and thus be master of
a force compared to which A’s physical strength is as a drop in the
ocean. B’s complex nervous system is the storehouse of a tremendous
energy.
Now, though we have been shaped in the past by sieves over which we have
had no control, we are nevertheless conscious of having acquired some
power of selecting and shaping the sieves of the future. Whether or no
our action in the matter is predetermined by the shape already given us,
the fact that we possess this power is indubitable.
In our age it would seem that we have arrived at a sieve that is either
exceptionally small or of an exceptional shape. Numbers of particles are
just now being rejected, not necessarily suddenly, but often subsequent
to unusually protracted, painful, and futile efforts at forcing a
passage through.
The question arises, Is this state of affairs inevitable? Have we not
power to graduate our sieves more effectually? And granting this power
of selection and modification, is it not possible that the sieve through
which we are endeavouring to force ourselves may be ill-shapen, and
calculated therefore to occasion needless destruction and deformity?
In some mode or other, we are all of us constantly considering this
problem. Pass through the sieves we must, if we would survive. The
process seems never-ending. We may be able to select or modify our
sieves, hurry our progress or retard it, but we can neither stand still
nor turn back. If we cannot or will not fit ourselves to the sieve, or
if mankind, by their combined action, cannot or will not fit the sieve
to us, then we must be cast out.
This casting out, if sudden, we term death; if slow, disease and death.
We have habituated ourselves to regard life and health as natural--death
and disease as unnatural if premature; but for our mode of thought in
the latter case there seems little justification. The process of
disintegration that we call disease is wholly natural. The result of two
opposing forces is the path of our planet in space; the result of two
opposing forces is our life. Let either force gain the ascendancy, and
our life goes, or begins to go.
Sooner or later, then, we must be rejected from a sieve. But our early
rejection and our late rejection are two very different matters. Our
sudden rejection or our slow rejection are two very different matters
also. Disintegration is always going on, but if we absorb sufficient
nutriment to repair the waste adequately, we are in health. If, owing to
disease of any part, the waste is more than we can repair, one of the
opposing forces has gained the ascendancy, and death has begun.
We justly regard this slow death in life as a most terrible fate: we
will do anything to avert it. To death itself we may be resigned; to
some it is an escape from suffering; by some it is regarded as the
entrance to a higher life. But all alike shrink from the prospect of
dragging out long years of pain and hopeless misery in the sick-room.
And just as we are becoming better acquainted with the causes and
prevention of disease in various forms, one form of it has recently
spread in our midst to an alarming extent, our ignorance of its nature
and origin rendering us powerless against its incursions.
Nervous prostration encounters us on all sides. It finds victims in all
classes of life. It has come amongst us like a thief in the night.
Disease, like any other adversary, finds out the most vulnerable part.
The most vulnerable part of our machinery is that about which we are
most ignorant. We are lamentably ignorant about our nervous systems; our
adversary, repulsed in other quarters, effects an entrance there. It is
far more difficult to expel him when once he has made his abode with us,
than to fortify the stronghold against him. Prevalent as this particular
form of disease is at the present moment, that is not the worst of the
evil. It is alarming and disheartening to be told that it is still on
the increase; but such is nevertheless the fact.
Professor Huxley very wisely says, that Nature gives us a blow and
leaves us to find out its meaning. More than that, she never stops
giving us blows until we have succeeded in doing so. It must be candidly
admitted that we are inexpressibly dull and require many very hard
knocks, and that when some one else is knocked and not ourselves, we are
apt to be extremely heartless.
It is only lately that the majority of non-medical people have become
conscious of possessing a nervous system at all. We still hear even
educated persons talk of their nerves as though they were something
spiritual--as though nervous disorder were not a physical disease. Such
inexcusable ignorance leads to shadowy, pernicious ideas about the
impossibility of curing the malady, or, supposing it to be regarded as
curable, to the adoption of cruel and fantastic methods of treatment. If
only we were forced to have all our remedies tried on ourselves before
trying them on others, patients would henceforth have a better time of
it. Unfortunately, many supposed remedies which are not unpleasant to
the healthy are torture to the diseased.
I regret to say, that I still come across people who regard nervous
prostration as sheer wickedness and obstinacy on the part of the
sufferer. Indeed, I have even heard the grace of God and a change of
heart talked about by excellent women as the only cure for cases that
had come under their notice. Far be it from me to underrate the power of
any good influence; but you have only to suggest that asthma shall be
treated by spiritual influence, and you will find that the good folks
regard you as a lunatic or as a profane person. Asthma being undoubtedly
a nervous disease, these distinctions are a little puzzling. I have even
heard of church-going being suggested as a remedy for nervous
excitability, regardless of the ventilation of the building, the length
of the sermon, and the tunefulness of the singing. Now, with all due
respect for church-going, I sometimes cannot help regretting that the
friends and advisers of the nervous do not believe in charms, like the
Neapolitans. If charms do no good, at all events they do no harm; and if
ignorant superstition must find vent, it is well if we can, at least,
render it innocuous.
The spiritual treatment of the diseased is nothing new; on the contrary,
it is hallowed by ancient custom. Anna of Saxony, the insane wife of
William the Silent, was shut up by her father in a miserable room, and
by his orders preached to daily, through a hole in the door, by a
minister of religion. But perhaps the poor lady suffered from insomnia!
Unfortunately the preaching proved ineffectual, for she died raving
mad.
An intelligent Italian gentleman, interested in the case of an English
friend suffering from nervous prostration, once endeavoured to console
him by saying that, in his opinion, it was only clever people who
suffered from nerves. Stupid people had the same things the matter with
them, he said, but they were too stupid to find it out. An original
notion, certainly. Unhappily, however true it may be that we lack the
wits to diagnose our ills, I know of many persons belonging to the
labouring classes who could scarcely be considered clever even by their
best friends, yet who are not only afflicted with the universal malady,
but are painfully conscious of the fact. Indeed, no rank or occupation
secures immunity from the visitations of our modern foe. In these days
of ready communication and rapid rise and fall of families, influences
affecting one part of the community quickly affect the whole. True,
certain conditions may be more fatal to fine organisations--to the
noblest and the best, to the most useful and the most intelligent--than
to the ill-developed; but of this more hereafter.
When I see people dropping out of the ranks one after another, each
probably having been confident that to him, at any rate, the disease
would never come, I am reminded of De Quincey’s “Klosterheim,” where
citizen after citizen was stolen away by the unseen foe. We understand
so little of the causes of these break-downs, that we will not be warned
in time; our partial but growing weakness is so gradual, that we become
accustomed to it, and think that nothing worse will befall us; and yet
the final collapse is often so sudden, that it at last comes upon us
unawares, and our total prostration is a surprise to ourselves. Perhaps
some shock or accident is blamed for the disaster, the long period of
weakness preceding it being ignored; or we fall a victim to some
well-known illness, and regard it as the judgment of Heaven, which we
were powerless to avoid, instead of telling ourselves that we might have
avoided it, and ought to have avoided it, by acting wisely in the first
instance, and fortifying ourselves against its inroads.