Such an example as that of this General of the Jesuits will seem to most people a reversion to that mystical attitude of mind of the medieval period, when somehow or other people were able to stand ever so much more pain than any one in our time could possibly think of enduring. We hear of saints of the Middle Ages who inflicted what now seem hideous self-tortures on themselves and not only bore them bravely but went about life smiling and doing good to others while they were under the influence of them. It would seem quite impossible, however, for people of the modern time to get into any such state of mind. Our discoveries for the prevention of pain have made it unnecessary to stand much suffering, and as a result mankind would seem to have lost some if not most of the faculty of standing pain. So little of truth is there in any such thought that any number of the young men of the present generation between {122} twenty and thirty, that is, during the very years when mankind most resents pain and therefore reacts most to it, and by the same token feels it the most, have shown during this war that they possessed all the old-fashioned faculty of standing pain without a whimper and thinking of others while they did it. Lack of advertence always lessens pain and may even nullify it until it becomes exceedingly severe. In his little volume, "A Journey around My Room", Xavier de Maistre dwells particularly on the fact that his body, when his spirit was wandering, would occasionally pick up the fire tongs and burn itself before his _alter ego_ could rescue it. Concentration of attention on some subject that attracts may neutralize pain and make it utterly unnoticed until physical consequences develop. Undoubtedly dwelling on pain, anticipating it, noting the first sensations that occur, multiplies the painful feeling. The physical reasons for this are to be found in the increased blood supply consequent upon conscious attention to any part, which sensitizes the nerves of the area and the added number of nerve fibers that are at once put into association with the area by the act of concentration of the attention. These serve to render sensation {123} much more acute than it would otherwise be. It might seem impossible to control the attention, but this has been done over and over again, even in the midst of severe pain, until there is no doubt that it is quite possible. As for the increase of pain by deliberate attention, that is so familiar an experience that practically every one has had it at some time.