If I had only sat up with him, &c. With such ideas vividly present
before the mind, there would arise, through the principle of associated
habit, the strongest tendency to energetic action of some kind.
As soon as the sufferer is fully conscious that nothing can be done,
despair or deep sorrow takes the place of frantic grief. The sufferer
sits motionless, or gently rocks to and fro; the circulation becomes
languid; respiration is almost forgotten, and deep sighs are drawn. All
this reacts on the brain, and prostration soon follows with collapsed
muscles and dulled eyes. As associated habit no longer prompts the
sufferer to action, he is urged by his friends to voluntary exertion,
and not to give way to silent, motionless grief. Exertion stimulates
the hear, and this reacts on the brain, and aids the mind to bear its
heavy load.
Pain, if severe, soon induces extreme depression or prostration; but it
is at first a stimulant and excites to action, as we see when we whip a
horse, and as is shown by the horrid tortures inflicted in foreign
lands on exhausted dray-bullocks, to rouse them to renewed exertion.
Fear again is the most depressing of all the emotions; and it soon
induces utter, helpless prostration, as if in consequence of, or in
association with, the most violent and prolonged attempts to escape
from the danger, though no such attempts have actually been made.
Nevertheless, even extreme fear often acts at first as a powerful
stimulant. A man or animal driven through terror to desperation, is
endowed with wonderful strength, and is notoriously dangerous in the
highest degree.
On the whole we may conclude that the principle of the direct action of
the sensorium on the body, due to the constitution of the nervous
system, and from the first independent of the will, has been highly
influential in determining many expressions. Good instances are
afforded by the trembling of the muscles, the sweating of the skin, the
modified secretions of the alimentary canal and glands, under various
emotions and sensations. But actions of this kind are often combined
with others, which follow from our first principle, namely, that
actions which have often been of direct or indirect service, under
certain states of the mind, in order to gratify or relieve certain
sensations, desires, &c., are still performed under analogous
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