Spinoza, the Jewish philosopher, has spoken almost the last word on the uselessness of regret. He says: “One might perhaps expect gnawings of conscience and repentance to help to bring him on the right path, and might thereupon conclude (as everyone does conclude) that these affections are good things. Yet when we look at the matter closely, we shall find that not only are they not good, but on the contrary hurtful and evil passions. For it is manifest that we can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse.” It is an old Hebrew idea that we should repent in sackcloth and ashes, making ourselves miserable that we may make God happy. We forget that love cannot enjoy anyone’s misery. It were indeed a perverted mind, whether human or divine, that could derive pleasure from the discomfort or sorrow of another.
Plants grow better when the sunshine warms them, and human beings expand and develop under the sunshine of joyous reflection and effort. If you are losing sleep through dreary or hopeless regret, purge your mind of such folly, and, after a sound sleep, you will find that things look brighter.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule that sleep brings mental quiet, for some sorts of nervous sufferers are prone to depression in the morning, but it is not common among active, healthy persons. They, like well-nourished children, awake to find each day a fresh delight.
Dr. M. Allen Starr, the distinguished nerve specialist of New York, writes me that there are several explanations of the cause of such depression. He is of the opinion that those who are depressed from melancholia when they wake in the morning, are probably suffering from a toxic condition of the blood which originally produced the melancholia. This toxin, or poison, is resisted by the nervous system when it is well nourished, but has a greater effect when the nervous system is poorly nourished. He says that there is a general consensus of opinion that, during sleep, the blood vessels of the brain are contracted slightly so that the amount of blood going into the brain during sleep is less than during the waking hours. This was proved many years ago by Professor Mosso of Turin, by a series of experiments which are conclusive. When blood vessels are contracted, and less blood is going to an organ, the nutrition of that organ is less actively maintained. Hence, if a person has poison in the system, it is less restricted during sleep, has a greater opportunity to attack the nerve-cells, and thus to prevent the nutrition which is essential to the feeling of general comfort. That is the theory on which we physicians explain depression on awaking after sleep in melancholia. What is true of melancholia is probably true also of fatigue conditions and irregular conditions of health, many of which are dependent upon the existence in the blood of substances detrimental to health, either the products of indigestion or the poisons of disease. This theory explains the conditions in which a person not actively ill may awake from a sleep in a state of depression. (See Appendix A.)
Prof. Edward M. Weyer in reading the sheets of this book suggests another tentative explanation of depression upon waking: if we consider the nerve cell as stored with energy, then, if the store is maintained at normal, it is in a healthful state. The supply fluctuates somewhat during the day, but in the melancholic person it does not rise to normal even after good sleep: the less amount of carbonic acid gas eliminated during sleep leaves the system on waking at the mercy of that poisoned gas and of the chronically low nervous energy.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE LOVE THAT IS PEACE
Sweet gate of life, sweet type of death—