THE CULT OF JOY 313 
persons with brittle arteries, as they so often are in 
advanced years, might lead to apoplexy, and the 
author follows Hack Tuke in referring to the alleged 
frequency of apoplexy in Philadelphia in the 
anxious winter of 1774-75, and in Italy in 1694-95, 
when, as the chronicler put it, “ all commerce was 
disturbed, and all the avenues of peace blocked up, 
so that the strongest heart could scarcely bear the 
thought of it.” As the siege of Paris aged many 
prematurely or otherwise marked them for the rest 
of their days, so is it in our Great War tragedy. 
Therefore, though joy be far from us, we may seek 
to conserve our efficiency by calm fortitude. We 
cannot go to the “‘ Dr. Merryman” of whom Burton 
wrote in his Anatomy of Melancholy, but we may 
seek out another whom he called “ Dr. Quiet.” 
The third line of evidence is more difficult to 
follow than the two others; it has to do with the 
influence of joy on the nervous system. In Sher- 
rington’s phrase, the supreme function of the 
nervous system is integrative—that is to say, it 
unifies and harmoniously controls the activities 
of thd body in relation to one another and to the 
environment. The question is, Can the gladsome 
mind increase the efficiency of this integration? 
It is well known that.good tidings will invigorate 
the flagging energies of a band of explorers; that 
an unexpected visit will change the wearied, home- 
sick child, as if by magic, into a dancing, gladsome 
elf; that a religious joy may make men and women 
transcend the ordinary limits of our frail humanity. 
