New Hampshire Statesman

"THE OVER-WORKED MIND,"

Looking into a late volume of the London Journal of Psychological Medicine, we were much struck by an article with this title, which is full of pregnant hints to literary men, and all whose way of life subjects them to the perils of overmuch brain work. The over-worked mind! What intense significance—what fearful warnings—what volumes of meaning in the phrase! In this age of steam travel and electric telegraphs, when intellectual enterprises, like all others, are "rushed" through with hot haste, the circumstances of almost every intellectual laborer are such as to stimulate the cerebral system into undue activity. As with bodily toil, so with mental; there is a point beyond which all hard-work is out of the capital stock of strength—it is true wear and tear, and the loss incurred must be speedily replaced, or disorder and disease will be the result. Festina lente—“hasten slowly”—here, as everywhere, will be the wise man's motto; the brain that is goaded to incessant and violent activity will not do the work of that more prudently treated. One of the fallacies by which men deceive themselves on this subject, is by not considering the brain as a material organ. Men have been so frightened by the bugbear of materialism, as to neglect the fact that, however spiritual the mind's essence, the instrument of thought, the machinery by which the mind acts, is corporeal, and subject to disease and decay, like the rest of the body.

Fearful, however, as it is to see the "fiery soul o'er informing its integument of clay'—the sword wearing out the scabbard—yet it is better to "wear out than to rust;" better the ship should be shivered on the rocks, or go down beneath the waters, than rot inglorious at the wharves. We die, at least on the battle field, our faces toward the stars! Moreover, the man whose friends deplore that he is killing himself, often bears that with him which would more ignobly kill him, if he did not throw himself impetuously into the intellectual struggle, and there, at least, withdraw his thoughts from "the Bluebeard chambers of his heart."

How often do persons throw themselves into the whirlpool of intellectual excitement as a relief from deep mental anguish? Beside, there is often times an enchantment, a witchery and fascination in literary labor, which renders cessation therefrom more distressing, perhaps, than even the results of over-work. When Sir Walter Scott was warned by his medical advisers, after his first attack of apoplexy, that if he continued working his brain, his malady must inevitably recur with redoubled severity, he replied: "As for bidding me not work, Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire, and say, Now don't boil.' * * * I foresee distinctly that if I were to be idle, I should go mad!"

One of the worst results of overworking the brain in an exclusive direction, is that it tends, when it does not absolutely break down that organ, to produce mental deformity. As the nursery maid who carries her burden with the right arm exclusively, is afflicted with spinal curvature, so the thinking man, who gives his intellectual energies to one subject or class of subjects, gets a twist in his brains. Hence the legion of one-idea men, who are possessed by their idea—not possessing it, as Victoria is queen of one empire. Those, therefore, who are chained to mental labor, and cannot give the brain repose, should try to vary their labors, which is another form of repose. "Intense and prolonged application to one subject is the root of all the mischief. As your body may be in activity during the whole of the day, if you vary the action sufficiently, so may the brain work all day at various occupations. Hold out a stick at arm's length for five minutes, and the muscles will be more fatigued than by an hour's rowing: the same principle holds good with the brain."