There is a popular cry against introspection and an insistence that it is necessarily morbid, which works in direct opposition to true self-control.  Introspection for its own sake is self-centred and morbid, but we might as well assert that it is right to have dirty hands so long as we wear gloves, and that it is morbid to want to be sure that our hands are clean under our gloves, as to assert that introspection for the sake of our true spiritual freedom is morbid.  If I cannot look at my selfish motives, how am I going to get free from them?  It is my selfish motives that prevent true self-control.  It is my selfish motives that prompt me to the false control of repression, which is counterfeit and for the sake of appearances alone.  We must see these motives, recognize and turn away from them, in order to control ourselves interiorly into line with law.  We cannot possibly see them unless we look for them.  If we look into ourselves for the sake of freedom, for the sake of our greater power for use, for the sake of our true self-control, what can be more wholesome or what can lead us to a more healthy habit of looking out from ourselves into the lives and interests of others?  The farther we get established in motives that are truly unselfish, the sooner we shall get out of our own light, and the wider our horizon will be; and the wider our horizon, the greater our power for use.

There must, of course, be a certain period of self-consciousness in the process of finding our true self-control, but it is for the sake of an end which brings us more and more fully into a state of happy, quiet spontaneity.  If we are working carefully for true self-control we shall welcome an unexpected searchlight from another mind.  If the searchlight brings into prominence a bit of irritation that we did not know was there, so much the better.  How could we free ourselves from it without knowing that it was there?  But as soon as we discover it we can control and cast it off.  A healthy introspection is merely the use of a searchlight which every one who loves the truth has the privilege of using for the sake of his own growth and wilfulness, and circumstances often turn it full upon us, greatly to our advantage, if we do not wince but act upon the knowledge that it brings.  It is possible to acquire an introspective habit which is wholesome and true, and brings us every day a better sense of pro. portion and a clearer outlook.

With regard to the true control of the Pleasurable emotions, the same principle applies.

People often grow intensely excited in listening to music,—­letting their emotions run rampant and suffering in consequence a painful reaction of fatigue.  If they would learn to yield so that the music could pass over their nerves as it passes over the strings of a musical instrument, and then, with the new life and vigor derived from the enjoyment, would turn to some useful work, they would find a great expansion in the enjoyment of the music as well as a new pleasure in their work.