XL 



THE CULT OF JOY 



IN these days of heavy hearts (1917) the publica- 

 tion of a book on joy does not seem very appro- 

 priate, yet what Professor Dearborn, of Cambridge, 

 Mass., has to tell us makes for the better ordering 

 of life. For he is one of those who have followed 

 the famous physiologist of Petrograd, Professor 

 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, in investigating the in- 

 fluence of the emotions on the health of the body. 

 That a good circulation is associated with cheerful- 

 ness is a familiar fact and how this organic jaunti- 

 ness sometimes jars on the tired and sorrowful! 

 But there is the converse proposition that cheer- 

 fulness makes for health. Organic harmony and 

 vigor are correlated with gladness; the problem 

 is whether the joy of the inner life has any real 

 effect on the organism's working power and staying 

 power. A merry heart goes all the day, a sad one 

 tires in a mile; but was not the merriness the 

 symptom of a constitutional indefatigability, and 

 the sadness a sign of fatigue-toxins already elabor- 

 ated? Dr. Dearborn seeks to prove that joy is a 

 vera causa, and it is interesting to inquire how he 

 does so. Needless to say, if joy be regarded as a 

 mere luminescence or epiphenomenon of the lively 



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