tect him from disease in ways that were extreme
and ridiculous. All his toys were boiled, everything he ate or drank
was sterilized, and many other precautions were taken,--but along with
all the precautions, the parents were in constant fear; and it is not
unreasonable to feel that the reflection upon the child of the chronic
resistance to possible danger with which he was surrounded, had
something to do with the fact that the dreaded disease was finally
caught, and that, moreover, the child did not recover. If reasonably
healthy conditions had been insisted upon, and the parents had felt a
wholesome trust in the general order of things, it would have been
likely to make the child more vigorous, and would have tended to
increase his capacity for throwing off contagion.

Children are very sensitive, and it is not unusual to see a child
crying because its mother is out of humor, even though she may not have
spoken a cross word. It is not unusual to see a child contract its
little brain and body in response to the fears and contractions of its
parents, and such contraction keeps the child in a state in which it
may be more difficult to throw off disease.

If you hold your fist as tight as you can hold it for fifteen minutes,
the fatigue you will feel when it relaxes is a clear proof of the
energy you have been wasting. The waste of nervous energy would be much
increased if the fist were held tightly for hours; and if the waste is
so great in the useless tightening of a fist, it is still greater in
the extended and continuous contraction of brain and nerves in useless
fears; and the energy saved through dropping the fears and their
accompanying tension can bring in the same proportion a vigor unknown
before, and at the same time afford protection against the very things
we feared.

The fear of taking cold is so strong in many people that a draught of
fresh air becomes a bugaboo to their contracted, sensitive nerves.
Draughts are imagined as existing everywhere, and the contraction which
immediately follows the sensation of a draught is the best means of
preparing to catch a cold.

Fear of accident keeps one in a constant state of unnecessary terror.
To be willing that an accident should happen does not make it more
likely to happen, but it prevents our wasting energy by resistance, and
keeps us quiet and free, so that if an emergency of any kind arises, we
are prepared to act promptly and calmly for the best. If the am