154 MAN --AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



tions, such as the secretions of the thyroid and the 

 adrenals, needed for physical combat, but not used 

 in emotion, apparently is injurious. 



As fear activates the body, so all emotions and psychic 

 states activate the body and exhaust energy in propor- 

 tion to the degree in which they represent the physical 

 activity attendant upon the phylogenetic forms of self- 

 defense. As fear recapitulates the ancestral act of 

 flight from an enemy, so rage or anger recapitulates 

 the act of attack and in like manner activates the 

 muscles that would be used were the physical fight 

 made. 



On the same hypothesis love becomes the representa- 

 tion of ancestral conjugation the activation of the 

 entire motor mechanism for copulation without action. 

 The phenomena attendant upon the emotion the 

 quickened pulse, the leaping heart, the accelerated 

 respiration, the sighing, the glowing eye, the crimson 

 cheek are all eloquent testimony to the activation 

 which may become a definite cause of serious physical 

 breakdown. In certain circumstances it is difficult 

 for even the experienced physician to determine whether 

 a patient exhibiting emaciation, indigestion, insomnia, 

 nervousness and cardiac irritability is suffering from 

 continuous worry during a prolonged and intense 

 struggle for existence or from unrequited love. The 

 profound transformation wrought in the entire person- 

 ality by the removal of the stimulus of worry is equiv- 

 alent to that wrought by the consummation of love in 

 marriage. 



As fear, anger and love express the motor acts of 

 flight, attack and conjugation, so the emotions of 



