622 THE CONTROL OF LIFE: 



of Petrograd, Prof. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who was 

 the first to demonstrate the influence of the emotions on 

 the health of the body ? That a good circulation is associated 

 with cheerfulness is a familiar fact, — and how this organic 

 jauntiness sometimes jars on the tired and sorrowful! But 

 there is the converse proposition that cheerfulness makes 

 for health. It was said of old time : " he that is of a merry 

 heart hath a continual feast ", and '^ a merry heart is the 

 life of the flesh ". Now, what the researches of Pavlov, 

 Cannon, Carlson, Crile, and others have done is to demon- 

 strate experimentally that pleasant emotions favour the 

 secretion of the digestive juices, the rhythmic movements 

 of the food-canal, and the absorption of the aliment. Con- 

 trariwise, unpleasant emotional disturbance and worry of 

 all sorts have been proved to have a retard ative influence 

 on the digestive processes. When the hungry man sees the 

 well-laid table his mouth waters, but every one knows that 

 a memory or an anticipation will also serve to move at 

 least the first link in the digestive chain. ^^ It is now well 

 known," says Professor Dearborn, ^' that no sense-experi- 

 ence is too remote from the innervations of digestion to be 

 taken into its associations, and serve as a stimulus of diges- 

 tive movements and secretions." Emotion may influence 

 the production of adrenalin by the core of the adrenal glands, 

 and a slight increase in this potent substance constricts the 

 smaller blood-vessels, raises the blood pressure, excites and 

 freshens the muscles, increases the sugar content of the 

 blood, and so on. From the non-mechanistic position which 

 we have defended in these lectures, it is of great interest 

 and importance that good news, psychical if anything is, 

 may set in motion a series of physico-chemical and vital 

 processes, complex beyond the ken of the wisest And the 



