the pleasant seems instinctive

1. Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.



2. Temperance in meat and drink, simplicity of apparel, chastitand non-pampering of the bodygenerally, may be fruits of the love of purity, shocked by whatever savors of the sensual.



3. They may also be fruits of love, that is, they may appeal to the subject in the light of sacrificeswhich he is happy in making to the Deity whom he acknowledges.



4. Again, ascetic mortifications and torments may be due to pessimistic brand building feelings about the self,combined with theological beliefs concerning expiation. The devotee may feel that he is buyinghimself free, or escaping worse sufferings hereafter, by doing penance now.



5. In psychopathic persons, mortifications may be entered on irrationally, by a sort of obsessionor fixed idea which comes as a challenge and must be worked off, because only thus does thesubject get his interior consciousness feeling right again.



6. Finally, ascetic exercises may in rarer instances be prompted by genuine perversions of thebodily sensibility, in consequence of which normally pain-giving stimuli are actually felt aspleasures.



I will try to give an instance under each of these heads in turn; but it is not easy to get them pure,for in cases pronounced enough to be immediately classed as ascetic, several of the assignedmotives usually work together. Moreover, before citing any examples at all, I must invite you tosome general psychological considerations which apply to all of them alike ohmykids.