people are able to adjust themselves; why not all? The question,
"What makes people nervous?" then turns out to mean: What keeps people
from a satisfactory outlet for their love-instincts? What is it that
holds them back from satisfaction in direct expression, and prevents
indirect outlet in sublimation? Whatever does this must be the real
cause of "nerves."

THE CAUSES OF "NERVES"

=Plural, not Singular.= The first thing to learn about the cause is
that it is not a cause at all, but several causes. We are so well made
that it takes a combination of circumstances to upset our equilibrium.
In other words, a neurosis must be "over-determined." Heredity, faulty
education, emotional shock, physical fatigue, have each at various
times been blamed for a breakdown. As a matter of fact, it seems to
take a number of ingredients to make a neurosis,--a little unstable
inheritance plus a considerable amount of faulty upbringing, plus a
later series of emotional experiences bearing just the right
relationship to the earlier factors. Heredity, childhood reactions,
and later experiences, are the three legs on which a neurosis usually
stands. An occasional breakdown seems to stand on the single leg of
childhood experiences but in the majority of cases each of the three
factors contributes its quota to the final disaster.

=Born or Made?= It used to be thought that neurotics, like poets, were
born, not made. Heredity was considered wholly responsible, and there
seemed very little to do about it. But to-day the emphasis on heredity
is steadily giving way to stress on early environment. There are, no
doubt, such factors as a certain innate sensitiveness, a natural
suggestibility, an intensity of emotion, a little tendency to nervous
instability, which predispose a person to nerves, but unless the
inborn tendency is reinforced by the reactions and training of early
childhood, it is likely to die a natural death.

CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

=Early Reactions.= Freud found that a neurotic is made before he is
six years old. When by repeated explorations into the minds of his
patients, he made this important discovery, he at first believed that
the disturbing factor was always some single emotional experience or
shock in childhood,--usually of a sexual nature. But Freud and later
investigators have since found that the trouble is not so often a
single experience as a long series of exaggerated emotional reactions,
a too intense emotiona