mood is related to the intestinal tract. And mood is the
background of the psychic life, upon which depends the direction
of our thoughts, cheerful or otherwise, the vigor of our will and
purpose. Mood itself arises in part from the influences that
stream into the muscles, joints, heart, lungs, liver, spleen,
kidneys, digestive tract and all the organs and tissues by way of
the afferent nerves (sympathetic and cerebro-spinal). Mood is
thus in part a reflection of the health and proper working of the
organism; it is the most important aspect of the
subconsciousness, and upon it rests the structure of character
and personality.

[1] What is called coarse is frequently crudely true. Thus, in
the streets, in the workshops, and where men untrammeled by
niceties engage in personalities the one who believes the other
to be a "crank" informs him in crude language that he has
intestinal stasis (to put the diagnosis in medical language) and
advises him accordingly to "take a pill."


This does not mean that only the healthy are cheerful, or that
the sick are discouraged. To affirm the dependence of mind upon
body is not to deny that one may build up faith, hope, courage,
through example and precept, or that one may not inherit a
cheerfulness and courage (or the reverse). "There are men," says
James, "who are born under a cloud." But exceptional individuals
aside, the mass of mankind generates its mood either in the
tissues of the body or in the circumstances of life.

Children, because they have not built up standards of thought,