I wish that there might be formed in large cities an establishment, somewhat resembling those which charitable physicians and wise jurists have formed in Paris, to remedy the evils both of the body and of one’s fortunes; I mean councils for consolation, where an unfortunate, sure of his secret being kept and even of his incognito, might bring up the subject of his troubles. We have, it is true, confessors and preachers to whom the sublime function of offering consolation to the unfortunate seems to be reserved. But the confessors are not always at the disposition of their penitents. As for the preachers, their sermons serve more as nourishment for souls than as a remedy, for they do not preach against boredom, or unhappiness, or scruples, or melancholy, or vexation, or ever so many other evils which affect the soul. It is not easy to find in a timid and depressed personality the exact point about which he is grieving, and to pour balm into his wounds with the hand of the Samaritan. It is an art known only to sensitive and sympathetic souls. Oh! if only men who knew the science of grief could give unfortunate people the benefit of their experience and sympathy, many miserable souls would come to seek from them the consolation which they cannot get from preachers or all the books of philosophy in the world. Often, to comfort the troubles of men, all that is necessary is to find out from what they are suffering (_Etude de la Nature_, 1784).” Déjerine and Gauckler add:— “One could not express any better, or any more directly, what we never cease to maintain, however lacking in science it may seem at the first—namely, the real therapeutic action of kindness. Liberated morally, and having regained consciousness of self, and freed in addition from his functional manifestations by the appropriate processes ... the patient is cured. He is cured from his actual attack. But his mental foundation, his psychological constitution, still remains in the same condition which permitted him under emotional influences to become a neurasthenic. The rôle of the physician is, therefore, not ended. He must still build up his patient’s life, still practise prophylaxis, and get the patient into a condition where his character will be established.”[36] _Rational Treatment._ So far in this chapter we have been discussing what may be described as general methods of treatment, which do not _necessarily_ involve any attempt to probe into distinctive individual symptoms and to discover the real fundamental cause or causes of the trouble. The measures so far considered are empirical rather than rational. But they are the only methods of treatment discussed in most of the text-books.