. After being long shut up in a
darkened room, with bandaged eyes and aching head and sick body, the
first visit to the bit of woods back of the house--when all the pains
have gone--may bring almost delirious joy. The green of the foliage, the
blue of the sky, the arousing tang of the air, the birds, the sense of
freedom--all go to the head like new wine. The abandon of joy is a
normal response under the circumstances, now. It would hardly be normal
to one whose habit it is to visit this same bit of woods every day, to
one who loved it, but for whom it had lost the force of newness.

To the child, who has never in all his little life had a wish not
gratified, the denial of a desired stick of candy is as great a calamity
as is the loss of a fortune to the grown man. And the child reacts to
feeling equally intense. These are normal reactions to stimuli--normal,
under the circumstances.

THE NORMAL MIND

The normal mind reasons clearly with the best data at hand to results
that will stand the test of conformity to reality; the normal mind uses
reason and feeling, guided by reasonable attitude; in the normal mind
_reason_ advises action and _will_ brings it about; in the normal mind
_feeling_ proportionate to the circumstances accompanies every thought
and every action. And in the well-balanced man or woman every function
of the mind leads to action as its final end.

But man only approximates the normal. The perfectly balanced man or
woman is so rare as to be a marked person. The average intelligent
individual only in general approximates this standard. He goes beyond it
in spurts of untrammeled genius, to wrench lightning from the heavens,
and to send his trains through the air; or he allows his feelings to
dictate to his reason, and much of the time so exaggerates or
depreciates the simple facts of life that the results of his reasoning
no longer conform sufficiently to reality as to be thoroughly
dependable.

CHAPTER VII

PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH

In the use of its functions the mind manifests certain powers and
certain modes of expression which can act as powerful allies or as
damaging enemies of health. We speak of man as adaptable, but also as a
being of habits. We speak of him as "feeling" when we wish to express
the fact that his emotions influence his body. We expect of the average
man a certain amount of suggestibility. We say that he is tremendously
affected by his environment, which simply means