hing than the cultivation of that introspective habit of mind which is
perpetually occupied with self-analysis or self-examination, and which
is constantly and remorsefully dwelling upon past faults or upon the
morbid elements in our nature. In the morals which are called minor,
though they affect deeply the happiness of mankind, the importance of
the government of thought is not less apparent. The secret of good or
bad temper is our habitual tendency to dwell upon or to fly from the
irritating and the inevitable. Content or discontent, amiability or the
reverse, depend mainly upon the disposition of our minds to turn
specially to the good or to the evil sides of our own lot, to the merits
or to the defects of those about us. A power of turning our thoughts
from a given subject, though not the sole element in self-control, is at
least one of its most important ingredients.

This power of the will over the thoughts is one in which men differ
enormously. Thus--to take the most familiar instance--the capacity for
worry, with all the exaggerations and distortions of sentiment it
implies, is very evidently a constitutional thing, and where it exists
to a high degree neither reason nor will can effectually cure it. Such a
man may have the clearest possible intellectual perception of its
uselessness and its folly. Yet it will often banish sleep from his
pillow, follow him with an habitual depression in all the walks of life,
and make his measure of happiness much less than that of others who with
far less propitious circumstances are endued by nature with the gift of
lightly throwing off the past and looking forward with a sanguine and
cheerful spirit to the future. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the
different degrees of suffering the same trouble will produce in
different men, and it is probable that the happiness of a life depends
much less on the amount of pleasurable or painful things that are
encountered, than upon the turn of thought which dwells chiefly on one
or on the other. It is very evident that buoyancy of temperament is not
a thing that increases with civilisation or education. It is mainly
physical. It is greatly influenced by climate and by health, and where
no very clear explanation of this kind can be given it is a thing in
which different nations differ greatly. Few good observers will deny
that persistent and concentrated will is more common in Great Britain
than in Ireland, but that the gift of a buoya