be converted into a bracing and tonic
good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of
fear to one of fight; its sting so often departs and turns into a
relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about
and bear it cheerfully, that a man is simply bound in honor, with
reference to many of the facts that seem at first to disconcert his
peace, to adopt this way of escape. Refuse to admit their badness;
despise their power; ignore their presence; turn your attention the
other way; and so far as you yourself are concerned at any rate, though
the facts may still exist, their evil character exists no longer.
Since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them, it is
the ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.

The deliberate adoption of an optimistic turn of mind thus makes its
entrance into philosophy. And once in, it is hard to trace its lawful
bounds. Not only does the human instinct for happiness, bent on
self-protection by ignoring, keep working in its favor, but higher
inner ideals have weighty words to say. The attitude of unhappiness is
not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and
unworthy than the pining, puling, mumping mood, no matter by what
outward ills it may have been engendered? What is more injurious to
others? What less helpful as a way out of the difficulty? It but
fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it, and increases
the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to
reduce the sway of that mood; we ought to scout it in ourselves and
others, and never show it tolerance. But it is impossible to carry on
this discipline in the subjective sphere without zealously emphasizing
the brighter and minimizing the darker aspects of the objective sphere
of things at the same time. And thus our resolution not to indulge in
misery, beginning at a comparatively small point within ourselves, may
not stop until it has brought the entire frame of reality under a
systematic conception optimistic enough to be congenial with its needs.

In all this I say nothing of any mystical insight or persuasion that
the total frame of things absolutely must be good. Such mystical
persuasion plays an enormous part in the history of the religious
consciousness, and we must look at it later with some care. But we
need not go so far at present. More ordinary non-mystical conditions of
rapture suffice f