Whether  slight  or  excessive,  transient  or  lasting,  laziness
mav  be  considered  as  much  a  mental  disease  as  a  fault  of  char-


130  PSYCHIC  TREATMENT

acter.  In  many  places  it  disappears  under  the  dynamophanic
action  of  encouragement,  or  of  a  strengthening  mental  repre-
sentation. In  other  cases  the  nucleus  of  real  fatigue  is  greater,
and  rest  of  more  or  less  duration  must  follow.  The  task  of
the  physician  or  the  educator,  when  he  has  to  do  with  such  a
condition  of  incapacity,  is  not  to  count  up  the  responsibilities,
and  distribute  blame  to  the  wrong-doers  and  indulgence  to
those  who  call  themselves  sick.  His  only  duty  is  to  analyze
with  care  the  physical  and  psychic  condition  of  the  subject,
to  discover  the  point  at  which  he  can  apply  the  lever  in  order
to  lift  him  into  a  state  of  activity.  To  give  birth  to  the  senti-
ments inspired  by  duty  and  to  excite  altruistic  feelings  is  to  do
a  useful  work,  both  in  those  conditions  which  the  public  con-
siders diseased  and  in  those  for  which  it  reserves  the  epithet
of  lazy.
