We have seen that well-rationalized theories and preferences are not alien fungi on the personality, but an important expression of the essential trends of the personality. Thus theories are at least as indicative of the individual who espouses them as of the ostensible subjects of speculation. Pessimism, for example, is common in old age, when the sexual powers decline and the individual projects upon the world the sinfulness which he feels for wanting to indulge beyond his powers, and defy his inadequacy. The mechanism of this sort of thing stands out most clearly in extreme cases, such as R. R believed that the world was going from bad to worse and that wars and rumors of wars were devastating the earth. He spent so many hours over a plan to secure the peace of the world forevermore that he developed a confusion state. He would go out in a park, find a secluded spot and weep over the troubles of the world as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. One day in passing a market he saw some chickens in a coop without any water. The cruelty of this was more than he could bear, so he went home and went to bed. His ideas were that he had been chosen to work out the salvation of the world, and that he had been endowed with unusual, indeed supernatural, understanding of men’s motives, and special power to heal insanity. R elaborated a private form of religion. He said that he was worshiping the sun as God, as a symbol of Christ and truth (actually, of masculine virility). When it became necessary for him to commune with his spirit, he was in the habit of facing the sun and repeating a litany of his invention, which ran: To the sun, the heart of the world! It warmeth the earth with its loveliness. Glory to God! It riseth in the east, lighting the dark corners of ignorance and wickedness. Glory to God! It chaseth the darkness before it like the host of Syria before the children of Israel. Glory to God! It chaseth the darkness before it like the host of Syria before the children of Israel. Glory to God! etc., etc. He began to chant, and then assumed an exalted, heroic pose, with his arms and head thrown back. Presently he felt that a big storm was coming that would ruin the world. The world is like a giant serpent, a serpent asleep.