Femina, A Work for Every Woman — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Femina, A Work for Every Woman
John Stuart Mill · en
She was the victim of the harrowing symptoms which her
mind conjured into shape, and an attempt to brush aside the disease,
with the flippant remark that “there was nothing the matter with her,”
would have been cruel, unscientific, and absurd. The ailment which she
thought she had, had as much an existence as though the most malignant
disease was destroying her life; for her imaginary disease was doing
the same thing, only in a different way.
Imagination is the most powerful function of the human brain.
Associated with thought, it constitutes the empire of the soul, which
recognizes neither time nor space. With it we are brought into
communion with everything that is grand and beautiful in nature.
Imagination is the architect of our souls; it continually creates and
projects into the beyond; it enlarges the sphere of our thought in
building up artificial structures for our pleasure and entertainment.
When it becomes perverted and abnormal from false impressions, either
through the nerves of internal sensation or through the nerves of
external sense, or, what quite often occurs, from morbid thoughts or
ideas received from others, it becomes equally potent in causing misery
and disease.
Expectation or attention influences, in a remarkable degree, the
bodily functions. There are a great many persons who keep themselves
in misery and disease by always thinking of their imaginary or real
sickness. I had a profitable experience some years ago in my own case,
which conclusively proved to my mind the aggravating tendency which
constant attention has on disease. I had contracted an ordinary catarrh
of the pharynx, or what is generally called a sore throat. At first I
did not mind it, but in the course of time, from continued exposure
in all kinds of inclement weather, at all hours of the day or night,
it fastened itself upon me so that it was at times very annoying by
its dryness and pain. I do not know of anything that I did not use,
but, after a trial of several years, I was convinced that the more I
looked at it and the more I treated it with sprays, gargles, etc., the
worse it became, so that one day I resolved to let it alone, and not
think about it. I took a teasponful of glycerine once in a while when
it became too dry. For years I have not looked at it, and for all I
know, it is perfectly well. I stopped bundling up my neck, used light
bedcovering, so as not to sweat, and by this simple method accomplished
what the very best selected drugs utterly failed to do.