Some emotions, that seem exaggerated at first thought, may be normal under the circumstances. For no one can know the whole background for emotional response in the life of another. After being long shut up in a darkened room, with bandaged eyes and aching head and sick body, the first visit to the bit of woods back of the house--when all the pains have gone--may bring almost delirious joy. The green of the foliage, the blue of the sky, the arousing tang of the air, the birds, the sense of freedom--all go to the head like new wine. The abandon of joy is a normal response under the circumstances, now. It would hardly be normal to one whose habit it is to visit this same bit of woods every day, to one who loved it, but for whom it had lost the force of newness. To the child, who has never in all his little life had a wish not gratified, the denial of a desired stick of candy is as great a calamity as is the loss of a fortune to the grown man. And the child reacts to feeling equally intense. These are normal reactions to stimuli--normal, under the circumstances. THE NORMAL MIND The normal mind reasons clearly with the best data at hand to results that will stand the test of conformity to reality; the normal mind uses reason and feeling, guided by reasonable attitude; in the normal mind _reason_ advises action and _will_ brings it about; in the normal mind _feeling_ proportionate to the circumstances accompanies every thought and every action. And in the well-balanced man or woman every function of the mind leads to action as its final end. But man only approximates the normal. The perfectly balanced man or woman is so rare as to be a marked person. The average intelligent individual only in general approximates this standard. He goes beyond it in spurts of untrammeled genius, to wrench lightning from the heavens, and to send his trains through the air; or he allows his feelings to dictate to his reason, and much of the time so exaggerates or depreciates the simple facts of life that the results of his reasoning no longer conform sufficiently to reality as to be thoroughly dependable. CHAPTER VII PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH