less
new enemies, who end by destroying him utterly.

He is first attacked by slowness of comprehension, the inevitable
consequence of that idleness that causes the cowardly to shun the
battle.

Rather than combat influences from without he allows them daily to
assume a more prominent and a more definite place in his thoughts.

His hatred of action says no to all initiative and he considers that he
has accomplished his whole duty toward society and toward himself when
he says: "What's the use of undertaking this or that? I haven't a chance
of succeeding and it is therefore idle to invite defeat!"

So quickly does the change work that his mind, from lack of proper
exercise, rapidly reaches the condition where it can not voluntarily
comprehend any but the most simple affairs and goes to pieces when
confronted with occasions that call for reflection or reasoning, which
he considers as the hardest kind of work.

It is hardly a matter for astonishment, therefore, that under these
conditions effeminacy should take possession of a soul that has become
the sport of all the weaknesses that are born of a desire to avoid
exertion.

We do not care to draw the picture of that case too often encountered in
which this moral defeat becomes changed into envy, the feeling of
bitterness against all men, the veritable hell of the man who has not
the power to make the effort that shall free him.

Mental instability is the inevitable consequence of this state of
affairs.

All brain-activity being regarded as a useless toil, the man of timidity
never understands the depth of the questions he has not the courage to
discuss. If he does talk of them, it is with a bias rendered all the
more prejudiced by the fact that, instead of expressing his ideas, he
takes refuge in fortifying his heresies with arguments of which the
smallest discussion would demonstrate the worthlessness.

This unwillingness to discuss conditions gives rise among people who are
deficient in poise to a special form of reasoning, which causes them to
summarize in the most hurried fashion even the gravest events, upon the
sole consideration that they are not asked to take part in them. If, by
any chance, they are forced to be actors in these events the least
little incident assumes for them the most formidable proportions.

It seems probable that this tendency to exaggerate everything with which
they come in contact is due solely to egoism. It is certain at any rate