Menticulture; or, the A-B-C of True Living — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Germ Theory of Emotion

Fletcher's central metaphor is agricultural: evil passions are weeds that can be 'pulled out by the roots.' He insists that the task is easier than physical weeding because it is mental. The book repeatedly refers to 'germs' and 'roots,' a rhetorical strategy Fletcher admits is deliberately redundant to bring the concepts into contempt. He distinguishes between two root passions: anger (aggressive) and worry (cowardly). Under anger he lists envy, spite, impatience, prejudice; under worry, jealousy, fear, self-belittling, the blues. This binary classification simplifies the moral landscape into a manageable system, making the reader's self-diagnosis straightforward.

Evidence from Experience and Authority

Fletcher supports his theory with personal testimony and anecdotes from others. He recounts a friend who, after adopting Emancipation, lost his fear of thunderstorms following a lightning strike. Another convert reports losing stage fright. Fletcher also cites Thomson J. Hudson's Law of Psychic Phenomena as scientific backing for the mind's power over itself. He draws a parallel to the Keeley Cure for addiction, suggesting that if bichloride of gold can cure physical cravings, 'bichloride of common sense' can cure mental habits. A lengthy portrait of a master workman—a mechanic turned labor leader and philanthropist—serves as a model of Emancipation in action, described as bringing 'sunniest comfort' to others.

Practical Application and Social Vision

Fletcher's method is not merely personal but has social implications. He argues that an emancipated person carries 'a mind and heart free from prejudice,' which prevents others from provoking them. He gives the example of Pullman porters: he believes they were never discourteous to figures like Phillips Brooks or Edward Everett Hale, or if they were, the impertinence only excited pity. This suggests that Emancipation fosters a kind of invulnerability to offense. The book's structure—theory, personal experience, discussion, diagnosis, prescription, scraps of evidence—reflects a practical, almost clinical approach. Fletcher aims to make the reader a 'freeman' rather than a 'slave' to passions, a distinction he emphasizes in the chapter titles.

Fletcher's book is best approached as a period piece in the self-help and New Thought traditions, notable for its systematic germ theory of emotions and its earnest, repetitive style. Readers interested in the history of psychology or late-nineteenth-century American moral philosophy will find it a concise artifact. The text's brevity and clear structure make it easy to sample; its claims are best evaluated against the reader's own experience rather than as scientific fact.

Sometimes a book lingers not for its arguments but for its quiet faith in human betterment. Fletcher’s gentle insistence on naming our inner pests reminded me of another old text that approached a delicate subject with similar plainspoken care — Owen's Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question — Inside the Classic. Both feel like letters from a calmer century.