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 that egoism plays a large part in it, but some portion of it is due to the lack of observation that characterizes all people of timidity.
The mental idleness and the instability of mind that we have already considered render such people less inclined to consider with any degree of care those things which do not touch them directly.
At this stage, it is no longer possible for them to feign ignorance in order to avoid the trouble of thinking, and they are only touched, even by the most personal matters, to the extent that circumstances impose upon them the necessity of thinking or of acting with reference to the subject under consideration.