the demands of society and the
establishment of useful outlets for his energy. This phase of the
subject will be discussed more fully in Chapter XVI.

=The Future Hope.= Much has been said about the cure of a neurosis.
There are enough people already in the maze of nervousness to warrant
the setting up of numerous signs reading, "This way out." But after
all, is not a blocking of the way in of vastly more importance? As it
is always easier to prevent than to cure, so it is easier to train
than to reform. If re-education is the cure, why is not education the
ounce of prevention which shall settle the problem for all time?

If the general public understood what "nerves" are, it is hardly
conceivable that there could be so many breakdowns as there are at
present. If a man's family and friends, to say nothing of himself,
understood what he is doing when he suddenly collapses and has to quit
work, it is not likely that he would choose that way out of his
difficulties.

Most important of all, when parents know that the foundation of
nervousness is laid in childhood, they will see to it that their
children are started right on the road to health. When fathers and
mothers realize that an over-strong bond between parents and children
is responsible for a large proportion of nervous troubles, most of
them will make sure that such exaggeration is not allowed to develop.

And, finally, when parents are freed from their "conspiracy of
silence" by a reverent attitude toward the whole of life, their very
saneness will impart to their children a wholesome respect for the
reproductive instinct. There will then be found in the next generation
fewer half-starved men and women carrying the burden of unnecessary
repressions and the pain of unsatisfied yearnings.

Not that such a day will usher in the millennium. We are not
suggesting a panacea for all the social ills. There is an inevitable
conflict between the instinctive urge of the life-force and the
demands of society, a conflict which makes men and women either finer
or baser, according to the way they handle it. What is claimed is that
the right kind of education--using the word in its largest, deepest
sense--will remove the most fruitful cause of nervousness by taking
away the extra burden of misconception and making it easier for people
to be "content with being moral."[47]

[Footnote 47: Frink: _Morbid Fears and Compulsions._]

CHAPTER IX

_In which we discover new