y, a permanent
disturbance of the equilibrium between the components is brought
about, a neurosis, expression of an unsatisfied vegetative tension,
follows.

It has been hailed as a brand new discovery by those following the
latest in psychology that the subconscious and the unconscious
constitute a more essential component of the personality than the
conscious. As a matter of fact, common practice has recognized the
fact, if not the mechanism and its significance, for ages. It is not
what people say or do--it is how they say it: that is how the true
reactions of personality are recognized instinctively even by animals.
Tone and gesture (when not acted or posed) are accepted as symbols and
symptoms of states of the inmost sancta sanctorum that words and wit
never give entrance to, nay disguise and block. Tone and gesture as
revelations of the Inner-Me, the True-Me or Intra-Me if you will,
are so potent because they are direct expressions of the vegetative
apparatus. The curl of a lip, the flicker of an eye-lash, the twitch
of a shoulder are the overflow of energy cramped in the increased
intravisceral pressure, determined by increased outflow of endocrine
secretion. Wittingly or unwittingly we interpret the little signs as
messages from the deepest self, which they truly are.

NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS AND SHELL SHOCK

In civil life, the complex of symptoms Beard jumbled together as
neurasthenia, when associated with a loss of self-control, so that the
sufferer is incapacitated for the duties of everyday life, has become
the popular "nervous breakdown." A sanitarium appears to be one of the
necessary components of the condition. It is the last act, the climax
of "nerves."

During the War of 1914-1918, thousands of cases of functional
disorders of the nervous came to be grouped under "Shell Shock."
The psychic phenomena in the wake of concussion of the brain due to
explosives suggested the term, and its application to affections of
self-control, or dissociations of the personality, with paralysis,
blindness, speechlessness, loss of hearing and so on. The War neurosis
(including those arising in home service) is still a topical subject
because thousands of mentally disabled soldiers are alive.

In view of what has been said concerning the endocrine mechanism of
the instincts and the vegetative apparatus, it could be predicted that
a number of these nerve casualties of peace and war would be caused by
an upset of the equil