ut the
body. Such glandular activity is an important physiological condition
of these higher levels of energy. In neurological terms, the increase
in energy consists in the flow of more nervous energy into the brain,
particularly into those areas where it is needed for certain kinds of
controlled thought and action. An abundance of nervous energy is very
advantageous, for, as has been intimated in a former chapter, nervous
energy is diffused and spread over all the pathways that are easily
permeable to its distribution. This results in the use of considerable
areas of brain surface, and knits up many associations, so that one
idea calls up many other ideas. This leads us to recognize the
psychological conditions of increased energy, which are, first, the
presence of more ideas, second, the more facile flow of ideas; the
whole accompanied by a state of marked pleasurableness. Pleasure is a
notable effect of increased energy. When work progresses rapidly and
satisfactorily, it is accomplished with great zest and a feeling almost
akin to exaltation. These conditions describe to some degree the
conditions when we are doing efficient work.

Since we are endowed with the energy requisite for such efficient work,
the obvious question is, why do we not more frequently use it? The
answer is to be found in the fact that we have formed the habit of
giving up before we create conditions of high efficiency. You will note
that the conditions require long-continued exertion and resolute
persistence. This is difficult, and we indulgently succumb to the first
symptoms of fatigue, before we have more than scratched the surface of
our real potentialities.

Because of the prominent place occupied by fatigue in thus being
responsible for our diminished output, we shall briefly consider its
place in study. Everyone who has studied will agree that fatigue is an
almost invariable attendant of continuous mental exertion. We shall lay
down the proposition at the start, however, that the awareness of
fatigue is not the same as the objective fatigue in the organs of the
body. Fatigue should be regarded as a twofold thing--a state of mind,
designated its subjective aspect, and a condition of various parts of
the body, designated its objective aspect. The former is observable by
introspection, the latter by analysis of bodily secretions and by
measurement of the diminution of work, entirely without reference to
the way the mind regards the work. F