*[Footnote: Russell (The Pima Indians, United States Bureau of Ethnology, 1908, p. 243) relates a tale told by the Indians to their children, in which an injured coyote was chasing some quails. “Finally the quails got tired,” according to the story, “but the coyote did not, for he was angry and did not feel fatigue.”] It would doubtless be incorrect to attempt to account for all the increased strength and tireless endurance, which may be experienced in periods of great excitement, on the basis of abundant supplies provided then for muscular contraction, and a special secretion for avoiding or abolishing the depressive influences of fatigue. Tremors, muscular twitchings, the assumption of characteristic attitudes, all indicate that there is an immensely augmented activity of the nervous system--an activity that discharges powerfully even into parts not directly concerned in struggle, as, for example, into the muscles of voice, causing peculiar cries or warning notes; into the muscles of the ears, drawing them back or causing them to stand erect, and into the small muscles about the lips, tightening them and revealing the teeth. The typical appearances of human beings, as well as lower animals, when in the grip of such deeply agitating emotions as fear and rage, are so well recognized as to constitute a primitive and common means of judging the nature of the experience through which the organism is passing. This “pattern” response of the nervous system to an emotion-provoking object or situation is probably capable of bringing into action a much greater number of neurones in the central nervous system than are likely to be concerned in even a supreme act of volition. The nervous impulses delivered to the muscles, furthermore, operate upon organs well supplied with energy-yielding material and well fortified by rapidly circulating blood and by secreted adrenin, against quick loss of power because of accumulating waste. Under such circumstances of excitement the performance of extraordinary feats of strength or endurance is natural enough.[*] *[Footnote: If individual neurones obey the law of either supreme action or inaction, the “all-or-none law,” the only means of securing a graded response is through variation of the _number_ of neurones engaged in action--the more, the greater the resulting manifestation of strength.] In connection with the conception that strong emotion has a dynamogenic value, it is of interest to note that on occasions when great demands are likely to be placed on the neuro-muscular system in the doing of unusual labors, emotional excitement is not uncommonly an accompaniment. In order to emphasize points in the argument developed thus far, I propose to cite some examples of the association of emotional excitement with remarkable exhibitions of power or resistance to fatigue. The Excitements and Energies of Competitive Sports