170 THK M;I;Y<HS SYSTKM AND ITS CONSKKVATION 



through being required on that day to evolve the most 

 elaborate dinner of the week. The natural consequence 

 of such restriction in sco])e for the emotional lift 1 is at 

 tirst loss of ambition and later of endurance also. 



A plea may lie entered here for singing. We Americans 

 arc too self-conscious to enter readily into this wholesome 

 pleasure. It would do us good to imitate the ( iermans and 

 make singing a common feature of our gatherings. Kven 

 singing by one's self may be beneficial. The advantages 

 derived are partly those of a general neuromuscular 

 exercise and in part connected with the very marked and 

 agreeable emotional reaction. People who sing, though 

 it may be quite badly, are apt to have attractive personal- 

 ities. A charming old minister who set the highest value 

 upon congregational singing once said that the Scripture 

 was drafted to include the least gifted individuals in the 

 injunction to "make a joyful noixc unto the Lord." 



Cannon has assembled many of the facts concerning 

 emotion in a novel and suggestive form. 1 After enumerat- 

 ing the autoiiomic manifestations, so largely his own dis- 

 coveries, he points out that the regional distribution of 

 these in the topography of the nervous system is distinct 

 and curious. The outflow of impulses accompanying the 

 major emotions is concent rated in the 1 horacico-lumbar or 

 so-called sympathetic division. This department contains 

 the libers which command the dilation of the pupil, the 

 secretion of sweat, the addition of adrenalin to the blood, 

 the development of goose-lloh. acceleration of the heart, 

 reduction of blood-flow in the digestive tract, and the in- 

 hibition of its activity. We have noted that these changes 

 prepare an animal for exertion. Kven those which seem 

 to have a negative character- as the anemia produced in 

 the alimentary canal may be indirectly helpful, since 

 they reinforce the circulation in the skeletal muscles. 



Now. there are autoiiomic paths which start from the 

 cranial region and which are, therefore, anterior to the 

 sympathetic. The responses to stimulation of these 

 American Journal of Psychology, I'M I \\v. 2."it>. 



