The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread
knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical
discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the
agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness.
Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named
the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared
with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be
seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he
found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life
and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said
the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to
commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my
bowels moved well."

4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful,
dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the
bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded
our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary
functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work,
and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not
only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness.

5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes
two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general,
that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health
and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has
even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is
almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the
possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a
symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability