ieve it, we shall probably store up the idea until the next time
that chance conditions keep us awake. Then the autosuggestion "bobs
up," common sense is side-tracked, we toss and worry--and of course
stay awake. An autosuggestion often repeated becomes the strongest of
suggestions, successfully opposing most outside ideas that would
counteract it,--reason enough for seeing to it that our
autosuggestions are of the healthful variety.

At the base of every psycho-neurosis is an unhealthful suggestion.
This is never the ultimate cause. There are other forces at work. But
the suggestion is the material out of which those other forces weave
the neurosis. Suggestibility is one of the earmarks of nervousness. A
sensible and sturdy spirit, stable enough to maintain its equilibrium,
is a fairly good antidote to attack. "As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he."

WHY FEELINGS COUNT

=The Emotions Again.= It seems impossible to discuss any psychological
principle without finally coming back to the subject of emotions. It
truly seems that all roads lead to the instincts and to the emotions
which drive them. And so, as we follow the trail of suggestion, we
suddenly turn a corner and find ourselves back at our
starting-point--the emotional life. Like all other ideas, suggestions
get tied up with emotions to form complexes, of which the
driving-power is the emotion.

If we look into our emotional life, we find, besides the true
emotions, with which we have become familiar in Chapter III, a great
number of feelings or feeling-tones which color either pleasurably or
painfully our emotions and our ideas. On the one hand there are
pleasure, joy, exaltation, courage, cheer, confidence, satisfaction;
and on the other, pain, sorrow, depression, apprehension, gloom,
distrust, and dissatisfaction. Every complex which is laid away in
our subconscious is tinted, either slightly or intensely, with its
specific feeling-tone.

=Emotions--Tonic and Poisonous.= All this is most important because of
one vital fact; joyful emotions invigorate, and sorrowful emotions
depress; pleasurable emotions stimulate, and painful emotions burden;
satisfying emotions revitalize, and unsatisfying emotions sap the
strength. In other words, our bodies are made for courage, confidence,
and cheer. Any other atmosphere puts them out of their element,
handicapped by abnormal conditions for which they were never
fashioned. We were written in a major key, and whe