Life in mind & conduct : studies of organic in human nature / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Maudsley, Henry, 1835-1918.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Life in mind & conduct : studies of organic in human nature / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    CHAP. XIII himself as an end, and of a world divinely created and ruled - for him and his uses, that he ceases not to puzzle his wits to find out why pain should be, to demonstrate that it serves wise purposes, and in further course piously to persuade himself that it is not the evil it seems, but somehow his good in the making. Nay, he is even capable in a stoical transport of the proud declaration or fatuous self-deception that pain is not pain. If instead of the tremendous postulate that the universe was created for him • he start with the modest acknowledg- ment that he is but a transient step in an endless flux of things, a brief phase of the becomings and unbecomings without beginning and without end, he may perceive and own that he being made for the whole and not the whole for him, it is a small thing whether he wails or joys, is sad or glad, so long as he goes on living and performs his ordained function for his brief span. The one thing which matters is that the pain be not too great to prevent him doing his work, yet sharp enough to make him do that. Though it be grievous from a self-conscious standpoint to suffer ills now that others may enjoy good in time to come, and in any case that the will of destiny may be accomplished, yet a stoical temper may steadily school itself to view the vast un- intelligible process of things from the standpoint of a negation of self, and so be subdued to resignation. After all is said, man has small right to complain of pain when he recollects and reflects on the incalculable amount, the ingenious varieties, and the excruciating qualities of pain which his inhumanity to his fellows and to other living creatures has wilfully devised and inflicted; why should he, the chief sinner, commiserate himself and alone claim the right to protest ? As pain is a constant accompaniment of the evolution and dissolution of things throughout animate nature, the same rule of life-devouring life thrilled with the same note of agony being in force from the bottom to the top of the scale, it would be a strange thing if man who inflicts most pain