360 The Outline of Science 



sugar-content of the blood, increases the coagulability of the 

 blood and so on. In short, the whole body is prepared for a fight, 

 and all under the influence of what was to begin with a psychical 



event. 



"Good news, psychical if anything is, may set in motion a 

 series of vital processes, complex beyond the ken of the wisest. 

 What is true of digestion is true also of the circulation. Words- 

 worth was a better physiologist than he knew when he spoke of 

 his heart leaping up at the sight of the rainbow and filling with 

 pleasure at the recollection of the daffodils dancing by the lake- 

 side. There are facts which point to the conclusion that a glad- 

 some mind increases the efficiency of the nervous system. Good 

 tidings will invigorate the nagging energies of a band of explor- 

 ers; an unexpected visit will change a wearied homesick child, as 

 if by magic, into a dancing gladsome elf; a religious joy enables 

 men and women to transcend the limits of our frail humanity." 1 



Healthy-mindedness 



There is reason, then, to believe that emotion has its physical 

 accompaniment in tensions and movements throughout the body, 

 and in changes in the secretion of glands. There is a physiological 

 reverberation of joy. But there must be more than this. The 

 nervous system has a notable integrative or unifying function; it 

 makes for the harmony of the bodily life. This function it may 

 discharge the better if the psychical side is finding its due develop- 

 ment. Thus it is well known that aesthetic emotion delight in 

 the beautiful is very markedly a body-and-mind reaction, affect- 

 ing the whole creature as a unity. It is practically certain that 

 many people fail in health because they starve their higher senses 



and minds. 



We venture to go further, under the conviction that phy; 

 logy and psychology must join hands-as is suggested, indeed, 

 by the name of the new science of psychobiology. The physiologi- 



"Thomson, The Control of Life, 1921. 



