dness; here as elsewhere the
neurotic simply exaggerates. Engrossed in his own mental conflicts and
physical symptoms, he is likely to find his interest withdrawing more
and more from other people and centering upon himself.

=Sublimation and Religion.= We do not need psychology to tell us that
engrossment in self is a disastrous condition. When the psycho-analyst
says that the life-force must be turned out, not in, he is approaching
from a new angle the truth as it is found in the gospel,--"Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and "thy neighbor as
thyself." Religion provides the love-object in the Creator; altruism
provides it in the "neighbor." Christianity and psychology agree that
as soon as love ceases to be an outgoing force, just so soon does the
individual become an incomplete and disrupted personality.[70]

[Footnote 70: For emphasis on religion as a means to sublimation, see
Freud, Putnam, Pfister, James, and DuBois.]

=Carlyle's Doctrine of Work.= "Produce! produce! produce!" Life for a
social being involves not only rich personal relationships, but
absorbing, creative work. No nervous person is cured until he is
willing to take and to keep a "man-size job." A good piece of work is
not only the sign of a cure; it is the final step without which no
cure is complete.

=Along Nature's Lines.= If the psychologist is asked what kind of task
this is to be, he answers that each person must decide for himself his
own life-work. An individual may not know why, but he does know that
there are certain things which he most likes to do. Sublimation is
more readily accomplished if his energy is directed toward self-chosen
interests. Parents or teachers or physicians who try to force another
person into any definite plan of action are making a grievous blunder.
Help may be given toward self-knowledge and the understanding of
general principles, but advice should never be specific.

Taken in the large, it is found that men and women choose different
ways of sublimation. Man and woman differ in the psychic components of
the sex-life even as they differ in the physical. Sublimation to be
successful must follow the lines laid down by nature. The urge of the
average man is toward construction, domination, mastery. The urge of
the average woman is toward mothering, protection, nurture. The
masculine characteristics find ready sublimation in a career; the man
builds bridges, digs canals, harnesses mountain st