These bodily effects of the emotions, and many others, are in part due to certain chemical products formed in the body by the emotions. Medical men say that they are analogous to the venom of poisonous snakes, which is likewise secreted under the influence of fear and anger. The snake has a sac in which to store the venom; we have none, and it spreads through all the tissues in spite of efforts to eliminate it.
Prof. Elmer Gates, who has gone further than any other scientist into the investigation of emotions, says:
“It need not surprise any one that the emotions of sadness and pain and grief affect the bodily secretions and excretions, because every one must have observed that during these depressing emotions the respiration goes on at a slower rate, the circulation is retarded, digestion is impaired, the cheeks become pale, the eyes grow lustreless, and so forth.”
By various means and ingenious instruments, testing the “fatigue point,” the “reactionary period,” etc., Professor Gates determined that a person is capable of greater muscular, intellectual, and volitional activity under the influence of happy moods than under the influence of depressing emotions.
“The system makes an effort to eliminate the metabolic products of tissue-waste,” says Professor Gates, “and it is therefore not surprising that during acute grief tears are copiously excreted; that during sudden fear the bowels are moved and the kidneys are caused to act, and that during prolonged fear the body is covered with a cold perspiration; and that during anger the mouth tastes bitter—due largely to the increased elimination of sulpho-cyanates. The perspiration during fear is chemically different, and even smells different than during a happy mood.”
After pointing out the part elimination of poisons takes in bodily economy, Professor Gates continues:
“Now it can be shown in many ways that the elimination of waste products is retarded by the sad and painful emotions; nay, worse than that, these depressing emotions directly augment the amount of these poisons. Conversely, the pleasurable and happy emotions, during the time they are active, inhibit the poisonous effects of the depressing moods, and cause the bodily cells to create and store up vital energy and nutritive tissue products.
“Valuable advice may be deduced from these experiments; during sadness and grief an increased effort should be volitionally made to accelerate the respiration, perspiration, and kidney action, so as to excrete the poison more rapidly. Take your grief into the open air, work till you perspire; by bathing wash away the excreted eliminates of the skin several times daily; and above all, use all the expedients known to you—such as the drama, poetry, and the other fine arts, and direct volitional dirigation, to educe the happy and pleasurable emotions. Whatever tends to produce, prolong, or intensify the sad emotions is wrong, whether it be dress, drama, or what not. Happiness is a means rather than an end—it creates energy, promotes growth and nutrition, and prolongs life. The emotions and other feelings give us all there is of enjoyment in life, and their scientific study and rational training constitute an important step in the art of using the mind more skilfully and efficiently. By proper training the depressing emotions can be practically eliminated from life, and the good emotions rendered permanently dormant. All this is extremely optimistic.”
Nursing grief month after month, or year after year, as so many do, is a crime against oneself, and against all others with whom one comes in contact. It does absolutely no good to anybody, least of all to the grieving person, who certainly is no happier for it. The person dead or gone away can take no pleasure in the perpetual mourning, and everybody who lives with the mourner is depressed and injured by the pall of lugubriousness. Such mourning is only self-pity, a form of selfishness. Pleasure and comfort from a certain source may have gone out of your life, but why not live in the joyous memory of what was once enjoyed, rather than make yourself and many others miserable because you cannot have a constant supply of this same pleasure? What would you think of a tourist who came back from Switzerland weeping and mourning because he could not always remain in some beautiful valley and enjoy the loveliest view he had ever seen? You expect his eye to grow bright and his manner animated as he tells of the beauty he saw and the pleasure he felt.
“In this connection,” says Horace Fletcher, “the suggestion should be urged that separation—as in death—is unessential as compared with the privilege of having known a beloved one, and that appreciation and gratitude should always outweigh regret in relation to an inevitable change.
“The attitude toward the separation called death should be such as to induce the thought, and even the expression: ‘Pass on, beloved; enter into the better state which all the processes of nature teach are the result of every change; it will soon be my time to follow; my happiness at your preferment attend you; my love is blessed with that happiness; and what you have been to me remains, and will remain forever.’”
Anger has many forms and many causes, but, as Horace Fletcher has shown, it has its root in fear. One is angry because one fears bodily harm, or injury to material interests, or deprivation of some enjoyed blessing, or injury to reputation or friendship through something that some one has said or done. The self-confident, fearless, composed person does not get angry, though suffering all the trials and vexations that make another person “fly all to pieces” a dozen times a day. That common expression, by the way, exactly describe the effect of anger. One’s mental and physical harmony does “fly all to pieces,” and is a long time getting patched up again.
Self-control is of course the preventive of anger. Logic and deliberation in judging of incidents and their effect on one are conducive to self-control. A common excitant to anger is an epithet, the calling of a name. Think just what this is, and you must decide that it is silly to lose one’s temper over it. You are angry really because you are afraid somebody may believe the characterization is true. Were you absolutely sure of yourself and your reputation, the epithet would have no more effect than the barking of a dog, or a word in some foreign language that you did not understand. It has no real effect at all, only what you allow it to have in your own mind. It does not alter the facts in the case in the least. The wise attitude is that taken by Mirabeau, who, when speaking at Marseilles, was called “calumniator, liar, assassin, scoundrel.” He said, “I wait, gentlemen, till these amenities be exhausted.”
Anger because some one has done work wrong does not help matters any. It does not undo the mistake, or make the erring one not less likely to repeat the error than would a careful showing of what is wrong, and the proper method. Your own energy could be far more profitably spent than in a fit of temper.
Whatever the cause of anger, it will usually be found to be trivial. A proof is that quick-tempered people are always apologizing the next day, when the matter looks very different. Cultivate the habit of forming this “tomorrow” judgment to-day, and your angry explosions will be reduced to a minimum. Cultivate optimism in general, and particularly the love-thought, toward all people with whom you come in contact, and you will soon find it hard to be angry with any of them. Jealousy and hatred will disappear by the cultivation of the same attitude of mind. Whatever the killing emotion that you are allowing to destroy your happiness and shorten your life, the remedy can be found within yourself, in your own thinking and acting. Long ago Epictetus practised the remedy and said:
“Reckon the days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every day; now every third day; then every third and fourth day; and if you miss it so long as thirty days, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.”
Chapter VII.
Mastering Our Moods
A character is a man who knows what he wants; who does not allow his temper and moods to govern him, but acts on firm principles.—Treu.