THE CULT OF JOY 313 



persons with brittle arteries, as they so often are in 

 advanced years, might lead to apoplexy, and the 

 author follows Hack Tuke in referring to the alleged 

 frequency of apoplexy in Philadelphia in the 

 anxious winter of 1774-75, and in Italy in 1694-95, 

 when, as the chronicler put it, " all commerce was 

 disturbed, and all the avenues of peace blocked up, 

 so that the strongest heart could scarcely bear the 

 thought of it." As the siege of Paris aged many 

 prematurely or otherwise marked them for the rest 

 of their days, so is it in our Great War tragedy. 

 Therefore, though joy be far from us, we may seek 

 to conserve our efficiency by calm fortitude. We 

 cannot go to the " Dr. Merryman "of whom Burton 

 wrote in his Anatomy of Melancholy, but we may 

 seek out another whom he called " Dr. Quiet." 



The third line of evidence is more difficult to 

 follow* than the two others; it has to do with the 

 influence of joy on the nervous system. In Sher- 

 rington's phrase, the supreme function of the 

 nervous system is integrative that is to say, it 

 unifies and harmoniously controls the activities 

 of thd body in relation to one another and to the 

 environment. The question is, Can the gladsome 

 mind increase the efficiency of this integration? 

 It is well known that good tidings will invigorate 

 the flagging energies of a band of explorers; that 

 an unexpected visit will change the wearied, home- 

 sick child, as if by magic, into a dancing, gladsome 

 elf; that a religious joy may make men and women 

 transcend the ordinary limits of our frail humanity. 



