220 MAN --AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



emotional strain of a long engagement, often presents 

 such an appearance. The transformation that takes 

 place after marriage may be striking. Indigestion dis- 

 appears; the appetite returns; metabolism increases; 

 the cold, clammy, sticky, yellowish, pimply skin is re- 

 placed by a soft, pink, warm, velvety covering. 



Dentists affirm that under continued strong emotion 

 the character of the saliva changes, pyorrhea tends to 

 develop and teeth rapidly decay. That emotional 

 strain may cause the hair to turn gray prematurely 

 and to fall out is a common tradition, not unsupported 

 by fact. 



If emotion, particularly fear, causes such far-reaching 

 metabolic disturbances, why does it not produce even 

 more baleful consequences? Indeed, why has not 

 emotion wrecked the race? Is it because there are 

 now certain agencies at work in society, which hold 

 in check this harmful tendency, as immunity and 

 phagocytosis protect the organism against bacterial 

 menace, and as the custom of wearing clothes and 

 building houses is a protection from the dangers of 

 wind and cold and hostile strangers ? Has there been 

 evolved in man some counter-adaptation which pro- 

 vides a partial protection against self-destruction from 

 the too long retained motor adaptation which we 

 term "emotion"? 



Fear versus Faith 



In attempting to find an answer to these questions, 

 we are led to contemplate the fact that physical benefit 

 is derived from those factors in life, which solace and 

 reassure the mind, which "rejuvenate the spirit," 



