My father is a great motive-monger, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,–for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself. Our emotional responses to stress are perhaps the most revealing indications of our ability to function well. Well-being, or normality, is often defined by psychologist as just that—the ability to interact effectively with our environment. This includes the ability to adapt to new situations when habitual ways fail us. All the rules of morality are but maxims of prudence. Youth and learning to love, they are all convertible into terms of cash, and have their equivalents.

However, we all carry ancient, hard-wired instructions for dealing with potentially hostile environment. These early warning systems of possible threat from the wild are now mostly the inappropriate habitual responses of our limbic system, yet we still react to them with a sense of impending doom. People are so prejudiced and so used to humbug that for the most part they do not in the least know their own motives for what they do. Are we to countenance things and people we detest, merely because we are not belles and millionaires? That is a nice sort of morality.

The motives even of our best actions will not always bear examination. Increasingly, stress translates into anxiety. In fact, stress and anxiety in the modern World are almost synonymous. Anxiety is frozen fear—a fear we can do nothing to alleviate through immediate action. The aroused emotional brain floods the whole system with chemicals and we are stuck with an overload of, say, adrenalin, with no wooly mammoth to attack, but thoughtless car driver who speeds away out of our reach. We do not look in great cities for our best morality.

Is Heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his or her bed, tindering sheets and skin together? Some psychologist regard anxiety as an aspect of arousal. Thus some people respond to flying a glider with excitement, others only with a sense of terror and anxiety. Optimism suggests that we live in the best of all possible Worlds, with a tendency to expect the best and see the best in all things. By contrast, pessimism expects the worst and sees the worst in all things. Mercy was in that condition which appeals to a person’s humanity, and masculine pity, as well as to their affection. To use the homely words of Scripture, she was great with a child.

The pessimistic doctrine—that this World, is by its nature, corrupt and that our sojourn in it is a preparation for some other existence—is, of course, religious in its source. In fact, few of the major religions are at all optimistic about the present, so it is a real bonus that any of us remain optimistic at all. No doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does.

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. In neurological terms, the optimism, and these sense of meaning and well-being that accompanies it, is in part caused by a dampening of the activity of the amygdala in the limbic system. Pessimism, often associated with depression, anxiety, and low energy, is thought to occur when the neurotransmitters of the limbic system fail to check bursts of activity in the amygdala. There is a fine antiquated saying, “Keep your breath to cool your porridge,”—and I shall keep mine to swell my song. A forced, interior quietude, in the midst of great outward commotion, breeds moody people. People who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others have.

If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing. In the following assessment the optimistic person is seen as usually cheerful and joyous. He or she is highly satisfied with their existence, generally finds life rewarding and is obviously at peace with him- or herself and the World. In contrast, the pessimist is characteristically depressed, gloomy, and disappointed with his or her existence. All clouds are storm-laden, without any hint of a silver lining. Of all the pleasures of sense, that which captivates the soul most strongly is music. By its command over the passions, it commands the heart, while it silences reason by tis union with sentiment.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder. Pessimists usually have low self-esteem, believing that they are unattractive failures. Much of this has been clinically shown to be caused by being pessimistic about having a challenging life.  There is no moral truth, the weight of which can be felt without experience. A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. Can delicate minds be united to each other but by delicate observances?

Within the normal range of emotions these assessments are designed to cover (which does not include depressive illness), we often require more than a conscious jolt of energy to emerge from our self-induced and self-perpetuating attitude of mind. It is my rule never to make unnecessary mysteries, and never to set people suspecting me for what of a little seasonable candor on my part. Suffering minds will be partial to their own cause and merits. If the mind be not engaged, there is hardly any confinement sufficient for the body!