624 THE CONTROL OF LIFE: 



will make men and women transcend the ordinary limits of 

 our frail humanity. How it comes about is not yet quite 

 clear; but somehow the oil of joy, as the Scriptures call 

 it, operates so as to make the limbs more supple and the 

 face to shine. Emotion has its physical accompaniment in 

 motions throughout the body, in changes in secretion and 

 circulation, and also in some other way whereby influences 

 from some emotional ' centre ' such, perhaps, as the optic 

 thalamus (the second great division of the brain) surge up 

 into the cerebral cortex, the seat of the higher mental proc- 

 esses, where joy and activity may be correlated. 



We have referred to recent work on the physiology of joy 

 simply as an illustration of the way in which science may 

 be utilised in the control of life — not merely as regards ex- 

 ercise, fresh air, diet, and so on, but in the subtler task 

 of developing the personality on what one may call direct 

 lines. 



The danger ahead is well known, that, just as the direct 

 pursuit of health is apt to engender hypochondria and vale- 

 tudinarianism, and just as the direct pursuit of happiness 

 is apt to defeat its own end, so the direct pursuit of joy 

 for the sake of the ^ joy-reward ' may prove consummately 

 futile. But it is possible to make a bogey of this risk. We 

 are not made of such friable material. 



Forced cheerfulness is, of course, a horror, but the per- 

 sistent will to be glad, if worthily satisfied with some of the 

 real joys of life, may soon become a habit that requires 

 no artificial stimulation. A conventional approach to l^ature 

 and Art is often rewarded much beyond its deserts, and 

 men who began by taking walks for duty's sake have often 

 become genuine enthusiasts for the open country. The pur- 

 suit of joy may be futile and the faking of it an abomina- 



