stay together, especially if the emotion be intense or the experience
is often repeated.

The word emotion means outgoing motion, discharging force. This force
is like live steam. An emotion is the driving part of an instinct. It
is the dynamic force, the electric current which supplies the power
for every thought and every action of a human life.

Man is not a passive creature. The words that describe him are not
passive words. Indeed, it is almost impossible to think about man at
all except in terms of desire, impulse, purpose, action, energy. There
are three things that may be done with energy: First, it may be
frittered away, allowed to leak, to escape. Secondly, it may be locked
up; this results usually in an explosion, a finding of destructive
outlets. Finally, it may be harnessed, controlled, used in beneficent
ways. Health and happiness depend upon which one of the three courses
is taken.


CHARACTER AND HEALTH

Evidently, it is highly important to have a working knowledge of these
emotions and instincts; important to know enough about them and their
purpose to handle them rightly if they do not spontaneously work
together for our best character and health. The problems of character
and the problems of health so overlap that it is impossible to write a
book about nervous disorders which does not at the same time deal with
the principles of character-formation. The laws and mechanisms which
govern the everyday life of the normal person are the same laws and
mechanisms which make the nervous person ill. As Boris Sidis puts it,