RATIONALE UK THE PSYCHIC EFFECT APPETITE. 75 



from the purely physiological side, the process may be said to be a com- 

 plicated reflex act. Its complexity arises from this, that the ultimate 

 object is attained by the joint working of many separate organic 

 functions. The material to be digested- the food is only found 

 outside the organism in the surrounding world. It is acquired not 

 alone by the exercise of muscular force, but also by the intervention of 

 higher functions, such as judgment, will, desire. Hence the simulta- 

 neous excitation of the different sense organs, of sight, of hearing, of 

 smell and taste, is the first and strongest impulse towards the activity 

 of the gastric glands. This especially applies to the two latter senses, 

 since they are only excited when the food has already entered the 

 organism or at least has arrived very near it. It is by the establishment 

 of this passionate desire for eating that unerring and untiring nature 

 has linked the seeking and finding of food, with the commencement of 

 the work of digestion. That this factor, which we have now carefully 

 analysed, stands in closest connection with an everyday phenomenon of 

 human life, namely, appetite, may easily be predicated. This agency, 

 which is so important to life and so full of mystery to science, becomes 

 here at length incorporated into flesh and blood, transformed from a 

 subjective sensation into a concrete factor of the physiological labora- 

 tory. 



We are therefore justified in saying that the appetite is the first and 

 mightiest exciter of the secretory nerves of the stomach, a factor which 

 embodies in itself a something capable of impelling the empty stomach of 

 the dog in the sham feeding experiment, to secrete large quantities of the 

 strongest juice. A good appetite in eating is equivalent from the outset 

 to a vigorous secretion of the strongest juice ; where there is no appetite 

 this juice is also absent. To restore appetite to a man, means to secure 

 him a large stock of gastric juice wherewith to begin the digestion 

 of the meal. 



