54 Heredity and Social Progress 



reductions, if they do occur there, would be 

 hard to locate. And yet the two are not 

 different in kind; moreover if they are both 

 antagonistic to growth, they might find expres- 

 sion by the same means. The emotions have 

 no organs ; the currents they excite move over 

 routes created for other ends, and if so, the 

 effects must also be such as other causes 

 create. It seems likely, therefore, that the 

 emotions would use the nerves as a means 

 of dispersion and then induce changes in 

 the parts affected like those that would hap- 

 pen if growth were retarded or the envelope 

 were weakened. The first effects of an emo- 

 tion, then, would be a reduction ending in 

 an expulsion of polar bodies and the reduc- 

 tion of the cells to a simple condition. Being 

 less somatic they are now capable of fresh 

 growth or of such changes as the new condi- 

 tions demand. Regeneration follows reduc- 

 tion, causing a fresh growth of the organism 

 in some new direction. This new growth is 

 determined by the forces then active, and it 

 is more or less, as a greater or smaller part 

 of the existing nutriment is set aside for this 



