Moreover, it is perfectly clear that if we adopt any of the usual views as to the relation between body and mind, not only disease, but health too is “inconceivable without some underlying physical basis.” Yet of the molecular or bio-chemical aspects of that basis we know practically nothing which would help us to understand even ordinary mental occurrences. So when a normal, physically healthy mother bursts into tears of joy on her son’s return from the front, is sleepless when she knows he is in the trenches, forgets some of her daily duties in perpetually thinking of him, is “on edge” and irritable when she has had no letter from France—though we may be perfectly justified in believing that there are molecular or bio-chemical nervous changes underlying her behaviour, we do not dream of invoking these as explanations of her condition, for of them we know little. Neither do we call her neurasthenic. We understand her condition in that we correctly refer it to the action of instinct and emotion. Its cause is clear to us, and if we attempted to treat it we should know beforehand that the best cure would be the restoration of her loved one, the next best, sympathetic help in facing her worries, the removal of unfounded fears and the production of a serener outlook on the future. In other words, the diagnosis, the tracing of causes, and the treatment would be entirely mental, with no reference whatever to the physical basis, the existence of which we obviously should not deny. Similarly, if a man is troubled by a great moral conflict which produces in him sleeplessness, irritability, abstraction and the rest, the physical basis of his emotional condition may be “materially” treated. His sleeplessness may be reduced by bromides, his irritability and depression by alcohol; but who, if he knew of the great mental conflict, would dare merely to prescribe these? And this, in the case of many of the psychoneuroses is the crux of the whole matter. The root of the trouble is mental conflict, the complete details of which can seldom be found on the surface of the complex of symptoms. To palliate them one by one is often to provoke new ones. The conflict is sometimes clearly apprehended by the patient, but even then is often jealously guarded from everyone else. Sometimes, however, it is not clearly conscious in all its details, even to him. This is especially the case, if as so often happens, he habitually shuns the thought of it. Faced with an inability to adapt himself to his circumstances, he instinctively relapses into a more childish way of meeting the situation—hence the tears, the irritability, the mental distraction and the rest. This phenomenon, we repeat, is not new. We all acknowledge its existence when we say that the “nervy patient behaves childishly,” though perhaps we do not realise what a true conception of the matter we are expressing.