r
increased when several of the group said they, too, had sensed her
satisfaction with her moods.

Hard as it is to believe, we do choose our emotions. We like emotion
as we do salt in our food, and too often we choose it because
something in us likes the savor, and not because it leads to the
character or the conduct that we know to be good.

THE POWER OF CHOICE

Whether we believe it or not, and whether we like it or not, the fact
remains that we ourselves decide which of all the possible emotions we
shall choose, or we decide not to press the button for any emotion at
all.

To a very large extent man, if he knows how and really wishes, may
select the emotion which is suitable in that it leads to the right
conduct, has a beneficial effect on the body, adapts him to his social
environment, and makes him the kind of man he wants to be.

=The Test of Feeling.= The psychologist to-day has a sure test of
character. He says in substance: "Tell me what you feel and I will
tell you what you are. Tell me what things you love, what things you
fear, and what makes you angry and I will describe with a fair degree
of accuracy your character, your conduct, and a good deal about the
state of your physical health."

Since this test of emotion is fundamentally sound, it is not
surprising that the nervous man is in a state of distress.
Indigestion, fatigue, over-sensibility, sound like problems in
physiology, but we cannot go far in the discussion of any of them
without coming face to face with the emotions as the real factors in
the case. When we turn to the mental characteristics of nervous folk,
we even more quickly find ourselves in the midst of an emotional
disturbance. Worried, fearful, anxious, self-pitying, excitable, or
melancholy, the nervous person proves that whatever else a neurosis
may be, it is, in essence, a riot of the emotions.

There is small wonder that a riot at the heart of the empire should
lead to insurrection in every province of the personality. It is only
for the purpose of discussion that we can separate feeling from
thinking and doing. Every thought and every act has in it something of
all three elements. An emotion is not an isolated phenomenon; it is
bound up on the one hand with ideas and on the other with bodily
states and conduct. Whoever runs amuck in his emotions runs amuck in
his whole being. The nervous invalid with his exhausted and sensitive
body, his upset mind and irrational conduct